The Ice Maiden (14 page)

“My mom says you bleach your hair and had a boob job.”

Sunny's cheeks colored, as the little girls giggled.

“Mothers are always right,” Nazario commented, with a straight face.

“Sometimes they're mistaken,” Sunny murmured.

With the clay sea cows finished and in the oven, the tables were cleaned off and set. Somehow I wound up at the kiddy table, leaving Nazario and Sunny at the other. They didn't seem to eat much but they were talking quietly, a hopeful sign. I tried eavesdropping, but it was difficult with the kids all chattering. The only snatch of conversation I heard was Sunny saying, “You have to study the stone, let it speak to you and tell you what it wants to be.”

“Then you carve,” he said attentively.

“No, not yet. You do lots of drawings. Then you make clay models of the piece—much smaller, of course, but proportionate. After that, you do a plaster cast.”

Nazario nodded, impressed. “All that before you even start carving?”

Then Jonathan spilled his juice, the kids got noisy, and I heard no more. I'd warned him that all she'd talk about was work. How, I wondered, would he calculate the right moment to whip out a fistful of mug shots? And how would she react?

He and the kids were still there when I left.

I had a date with a dead man.

The viewing for Andre Coney was set for 7 to 9
P.M.
The Reverend Earl Wright and his demonstrators marched up and down the block, his voice chanting the loudest, as they waved signs that read
MURDER!
and
JUSTICE NOW!
Which came first, I wondered, the TV crews covering them or the protesters eager to perform for the camera?

The Liberty City funeral home resembled a large, comfortable, slightly rundown private residence, except for the wide gravel parking lot at the rear, the shiny black hearse at a side door, and the parade on the sidewalk out front. A funeral-home employee in a dark suit greeted visitors at the door, solemnly distributing leaflets memorializing the deceased. Andre Coney's black-and-white picture on the front seemed a bit informal for the occasion. He was grinning, clad in
T-shirt and jeans, the photo cropped in a way that hinted it had been a group picture and he'd apparently been holding a drink. The only other choice was probably a mug shot, I thought. His brief biography, printed inside, along with biblical verses, poems, and a list of relatives, made no mention of his accomplices.

“Andre faced many trials in life,” the bio stated. That was true. They left out his impressive string of arrests.

Lingering in the red-carpeted foyer, listening to piped-in organ music, I wondered what this fine send-off would cost Ida Sweeting and her family.

When it was my turn to sign the guest book, I pored over all the other names. Bingo! A Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Wells. Could that be Cubby, the boyhood friend Andre's aunt had mentioned?

I scanned the crowd of mourners for a possible candidate. Many wore black T-shirts bearing Coney's same slaphappy snapshot, his name, the dates of his birth and death, and the words
IN MEMORIAM
. Wayman Andrews from Channel 7 was trying his best to stir up some action among them at the back of the room.

Ida Sweeting, the dead man's aunt, was front and center in the first row, clutching her Bible as friends paid their respects. She grasped my hand and thanked me for coming, despite her daughter, who shot me daggers.

The star of the show lay in pious repose, hands folded over a small black Bible. Mourners kept saying how “good” he looked. It was true. His scars covered, Andre Coney did look good in his casket, probably better than he'd looked in years. All cleaned up, shaved, hair neatly trimmed, he was manicured and
well dressed in a new suit clearly bought for the occasion. His appearance had improved vastly since I first saw him.

I sidled up close when one of Andre's cousins cried out a greeting to “Cubby.”

The young man wore a suit, dress shirt, and subdued silk tie and had an attractive, vivacious young woman on his arm: the picture of someone who'd escaped the projects and prospered. Coney's sister and cousins welcomed him like a long-lost friend.

Keeping the couple in sight as I mingled, I saw him hug another young woman and introduce her to his companion.

Moments after they parted, I caught the second young woman's eye. “Wasn't that…?”

“Cubby Wells,” she said affably.

I asked about Ronald Stokes as we chatted. “I thought he, Andre, and Cubby were old buddies,” I said, “but I didn't see his name in the guest book.”

From her reaction, she knew him too.

“He'll probably be at the service tomorrow,” I said innocently.

“No.” She shook her head. “He won't. He's…away.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “He had some trouble years ago, so he's still…”

“Yes, he's…away,” she said softly.

Her name was Shelby Fountain, formerly Stokes, Mad Dog's sister. It didn't seem to make her proud.

“I'd like to meet you somewhere, so we can talk,” I said.

“Why would you want to talk to me?” When an
other mourner turned to stare she lowered her voice. “I hadn't seen Andre in years.”

“I'm trying to piece it all together,” I said. “You know, the whole picture. The history, all the things that happened back when Andre, your brother, and a few of their other buddies were teenagers.”

Her eyes widened.

“I hear they were a tough crowd,” I said.

Something in her face made my heart beat a little faster. Her hand flew to the silver cross on a chain around her neck. She knew what I was saying. We were on the same wavelength.

“People got hurt,” I said.

Her eyes darted nervously, as though uneasy at being seen with me.

“Let's talk somewhere in private,” I said. I reached for a business card, but she demurred. She didn't want to be seen accepting it.

“Take my number,” she said softly, “but don't let anyone see you write it down.” She recited the number softly, under her breath. Before I could repeat it, a man in a black T-shirt interrupted, scowled at me, and whisked her away.

I jotted down the number and then lingered until Cubby Wells and his companion said their goodbyes. They left first, me right behind them. He held the door open. “Aren't you Cubby Wells?”

He hesitated, but the young woman flashed a friendly smile.

“I was,” he said reluctantly.

“His childhood nickname,” she explained. “He hasn't used it for years.”

“It's Charles,” he said.

“My husband is
such
a stuffed shirt,” she said fondly. “I don't know why he minds so.” She held out her hand. “I'm Abby Wells.”

She taught fourth grade, she said, and he was a social worker who counseled troubled teens on probation.

“Cool,” I said casually. “Too bad Andre didn't have someone like you to turn to when he was that age. You guys were pretty wild back then, weren't you?”

He didn't answer as we three strolled back to the parking lot. The evening fell soft around us. The sun had set, leaving just a glimmer of orange above the horizon.

“Andre couldn't stay out of trouble,” I went on. “Mad Dog is doing time. How did you manage to rise above it all and become a success?”

He shrugged, face solemn.

His wife giggled and gave him an affectionate nudge. “Come on, sourpuss, answer the nice lady.”

“I don't know if you could call me successful,” he said tersely. “You don't get rich counseling kids in trouble.”

“You're not dead,” I said. “You're not in prison. You're a success.”

His wife frowned. “Charles, what has gotten into you this evening? Of course you're successful. We're a success. We do what we love. We're making a difference.” She turned to me. “We made that our mission statement when we got engaged, to make a difference.”

They had reached their car, a blue Buick Skylark.

“It's still early,” I said. “Can I buy you two a cup of coffee or a drink? It's important,” I added, as they hes
itated, “for the press to show the positive side, the good that can emerge from the same neighborhood where these things”—I jerked my head toward the protesters and the funeral home—“attract all the media attention.”

Wells shook his head, mumbling, “We've got to pick up the baby—”

“Oh, let's stop for coffee,” Abby persuaded. “The baby's fine. My mother doesn't expect us for hours. I thought I'd finally get to meet all his childhood friends,” she told me, “but he rushed me out of there like he's embarrassed to be seen with me.”

He denied it and apologized. The man didn't stand a chance. We met at a diner on Twenty-seventh Avenue and sat in a booth. He and I had coffee while Abby ordered a glass of milk and blueberry pie à la mode with vanilla ice cream. “I'm hungry all the time,” she whispered. “I'm not showing yet, but we're expecting another one.”

She was four months pregnant, she said. Their first child, a little girl, was three.

“Charles isn't really like this,” she told me, as he looked uncomfortable. “I think the death of this childhood friend is affecting him more than he admits.”

“We weren't all that close,” he protested. “I don't even know why we came tonight. I was just…” He shrugged, momentarily at a loss for words. “I was curious. I hadn't seen anybody from the old neighborhood for so long. I hadn't even seen Andre since I was fifteen.”

“But you and your buddies were tight then, weren't you?” I said.

Eyes troubled, he reached for his wife's hand. “Half a lifetime ago. I was the youngest in the group.”

“What happened? What made you break away from them?”

“My grandmother happened. My mother sent me up to Fort Lauderdale to live with her, right after the New Year. That's what saved me,” he said.

Apparently it was the only good thing his mother had ever done for him. The intent was not to save him, though that was the result. His move out of Miami and out of her life was a matter of convenience: hers. A troublesome teenager, running with a rough crowd, he was fatherless and she was a destitute crack addict with only drugs and death in her future.

“My grandmother took me to church, put me back in school, got on my case about studying. She saved me,” he repeated.

Eventually he won a college scholarship.

“That's why he loves what he does so much,” Abby said, licking ice cream off her lips. “He sees himself in these kids, their potential. He can set them on the right road, because he's been there, on his way down the wrong one himself.” They exchanged fond glances.

Yeah. Sure, I thought. I liked her. Under other circumstances I might have liked him too. But certain questions iced that possibility. Did he rape Sunny too? I wondered. Did he help beat Ricky? Did he jam the gun to the boy's head and pull the trigger?

“I always think, There but for the grace of God…” he mumbled. “I'm so lucky.”

I smiled, my heart a stone in my chest. He
was
lucky. He had it all: a career, a nice wife, and a family
he loved. The good things in life that Ricky Chance would never experience because he was doing the big dirt sleep.

“I regret my youthful mistakes,” Charles Wells was saying, “deeply.”

“I'm sure. Everybody makes mistakes,” I said. “It's just that some are a helluva lot bigger than others.”

He nodded, face somber. “I can't help but think that if Andre, Mad Dog, and his cousin, Stony, had the chance I had, their lives might have turned out different too.”

“Stony?”

He shifted uneasily in his seat, aware he had misspoken. “You know,” he muttered. “Parvin Stokes, Mad Dog's cousin.”

“What happened to him?”

“Got into a scrape.” He shrugged. “Some kinda fight over a stolen car. The judge said, ‘Since you like fighting so much, join the army or go to jail.' So he enlisted.”

How nice for the army, I thought.

“Won a medal in the Gulf War, a hero for a while. Then he got into another scrape, did some time, and got dishonorably discharged.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“He was there tonight. Didn't you see him? Saw you talking to his little cousin, Shelby. He was wearing a black T-shirt with Andre's picture.”

He was the glowering man who had whisked her away from me, I realized: suspect number four. Andre Coney, Ronald “Mad Dog” Stokes, Charles “Cubby” Wells, and Parvin “Stony” Stokes. Where was number
five? A little shudder rippled down my spine, as though someone were tap dancing on my grave.

“Who was the fifth guy you all ran with, just before you moved to Grandma's?”

He stared across the table at me, then shrugged.

Abby interrupted with another confession. “Not only am I always hungry, I'm always going to the little girls' room.” She excused herself.

“She's so nice,” I said, as we watched her depart. “You must worry about your youthful mistakes catching up to you.”

“Say what?”

“Say a crime with no statute of limitations, like murder. You remember that Christmas? The young couple?”

“Those were the darkest years of my life,” he said quietly, guilt written all over his face. “I was just a kid.” He swallowed. “I know that age is no excuse, that we all have to take responsibility for our actions. I'll regret some of the things that happened until my dying day. But I didn't kill anybody.”

“If you were there, you're as guilty as the shooter, even if you didn't pull the trigger.”

Agitated, he called for the check.

“Does your wife know?” I asked.

“Don't talk to her about this. Please. She's pregnant. I don't want her upset.”

“Maybe you should consider that and talk to the police,” I said. “They're investigating it again; this time they're putting it together. They know Andre was there, and Mad Dog. Maybe if you tell them what you know, you can make a deal.”

I reached for the check as it arrived, but he tore it out of my hand, sprang to his feet, then fumbled to pay at the cash register, intercepting Abby as she left the rest room. She turned to give me a bewildered wave as he hustled her out the door.

He was there, I thought. He's somebody else now, but he was a monster then. One of them.

I thought of his wife, their baby, and the troubled teens he counseled. If only his self-destructive crackhead whore of a mother had sent him to safety sooner. Those cruelest of words: If only.