The Way You Make Me Feel (8 page)

B
retta's funeral was held the following Tuesday in the large fieldstone church that Stevie, Bretta and Jessi and her family attended. Bretta had had many friends who had come to say their final farewells. The minister, a heavyset man with a round chocolate face and kind eyes, clasped Stevie's hand and she introduced him to Damien.

“I've been away for a death in my family or I'd have seen you before now. I heard about your amnesia. How are you coming along?”

“I was doing extraordinarily well until I got the news about Bretta. It's very hard.”

Tears choked her voice and Damien's hand tightened on her arm. The minister looked sad as he told her, “God has called one of his angels home. It is no more and no less than that. Lean on Him who loves you so.”

Jessi came up with the two-year-old Mia in her arms. “I knew you'd want to see her. I'll leave her in the nursery when the service begins. Children can be such a comfort at a time like this.” Stevie took the soft little body in her arms and squeezed her gently. Mia's tiny hand touched Stevie's face, patted it, then the child leaned in to her as Stevie's heart hurt with longing. Rip was right behind with Nick and they all hugged.

“I'm glad you have Damien now,” Jessi murmured and Stevie agreed. Then Jessi looked at her sharply. “You're sure you're up to this? You look a bit tense, as if you didn't sleep well. God knows I didn't.”

“I'm fine and I'll
be
fine. I want to do this for Bretta.”

The altar was banked with lilies and roses, Bretta's favorite flowers and urns of both maidenhair and broadleaf fern. It was all so lovely, Stevie thought; Bretta would have loved it. And thinking about her friend brought a vision of Bretta laughing, her head thrown back. People who knew joy the way Bretta knew it should never die. The world needed them too much.

People greeted Stevie, kissed her, hugged her, and many knew Damien from his community work and philanthropy. The organist was playing all Bretta's favorite hymns, and in a recording Stevie could hear the wonderful clear soprano that Bretta had never fully given a chance to shine.

Then they were seated and the minister's mellifluous voice began in prayer. “Lord, we are gathered today on a mournful mission—to say goodbye to a dearly beloved sister and friend who walked this earth for too short a time.” He spoke a little of Bretta's life and ended by praying, “I will not offer you a long prayer for her life was a prayer. This congregation and I ask only that you hold Bretta, keep her in the all-encompassing glory of your bosom where there is no pain, but only joy.”

Like his prayer, the minister's funeral oration was brief. He spoke of joy, not sadness, and of Bretta's gift to her world. Damien held Stevie's hand tightly as a few tears lay behind her eyelids. She heard a small sob and looked over to find Rip weeping, his young shoulders hunched. He sat on the other side of Jessi and Stevie leaned over and took his hand, held it tightly until the first spasm of grief had subsided. Rip was her godchild and was like her own. She was quite sure that her deep love for him as well as for Jessi, Nick and Mia was what had caused her to begin remembering.

She had never forgotten her parents nor her childhood. How strange it all was. And when would she remember the rest,
including that part she must not remember?
She realized then that her mind had drifted and she came sharply back to herself. People were going to the podium and talking about Bretta now.

Jessi rose, walked to the podium and faced the audience. In a choked voice, she began. “My sister was the salt of the earth, kind to a fault, loving, tender, kind. And I measure her life not by the short time she spent on earth, but by the unbounded love she gave and knew.”

Rip spoke with his teenage voice cracking. He talked about the precious gift his aunt had been and how she had never been too busy to help with his homework, how she had always had time to
listen.
In an attempt to be manful, he held back his tears, but at the end he came back to his seat with tears streaming down his face.

Others spoke of money freely given, advice and love proffered. Her nephew was not the only one Bretta had listened to and everyone wanted to testify.

The minister announced Stevie's song and with a quick squeeze of Damien's hand, she stood and walked to the front of the church. The organist began softly and her voice denied the shattering grief she felt and rose strong and clear with the hymn “Rock of Ages.” Oh, Bretta would have loved her singing that song, Stevie thought. It was her favorite hymn.

She was close to Bretta's bronze casket banked by red roses and covered by a blanket of white cattleya orchids. How beautiful it all was, and Bretta was a woman who loved beauty. Stevie sang all the verses and each word was a poem to a beloved sister and friend. Damien watched her with proud and concerned eyes, for he knew very well how close to the breaking point she was.

 

Outside the church near the corner, Detective Rollins sat with a deputy sheriff and watched people as they came to the church. It wasn't long before Keith Muncy and a flashily dressed woman drove up in a black Mercedes-Benz. He wore a plaid blazer and brown pants. Detective Rollins quickly got out of the squad car and walked up to the couple.

“You planning on attending the funeral?” he asked Keith.

“I don't know what business that is of yours,” Keith said. The woman flirted with the detective a bit.

The detective answered evenly, “The way the world runs these days, we in law enforcement have to make everything our business.”

Keith gripped the woman's arm and said, “Let's go, sugar.”

Detective Rollins's quick movement blocked his path. “I wouldn't go in if I were you. I don't think you've got too much to offer in the way of sympathy.”

“Who's gonna stop me?”

Detective Rollins sighed. “You're right. I can't stop you. Not legally. But if you go in that church, the sheriff and his deputies can and will make your life a living hell for a very long time. You're just getting out of prison. Why get sent back for defying your parole? Think about it, Muncy. Use what's said to be your very good brains.”

The compliment had the effect the threats didn't have. “Okay,” Keith mumbled. “You win this time.” He turned to the woman. “Let's leave this dump, angel.”

After Keith Muncy had left, Detective Rollins stood looking at the church. He could hear the organ music spilling out onto the morning air and he swore with everything he had that this was one case that was going to be solved, and soon. A few other cases got cold; this one was going to
stay
fire hot.

 

Inside the church Stevie finished singing and sat down. She felt oddly better now. Walking back to her seat she had scanned the audience and was relieved to find that Keith Muncy was not there. She wouldn't put it past him to cause a scene. He had made Bretta's life a torment and Stevie swore she would kill him if he dishonored her death.

The casket was not open because of the condition of Bretta's body. A large photo sat on top of the casket and it was one of her best. Eager and alive, she looked at them as if her life were forever. The long brown hair, the sparkling dark-brown eyes and the honey-colored skin were all the stuff of romantic dreams. Oh God, Stevie thought, if only the dead could come back to life. It was the same thing she had thought when her parents died.

Stevie felt so close to Damien, loved the warmth and comfort of his big body sitting beside her. He turned and looked at her gravely, then whispered, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, thinking that orange-red had been Bretta's favorite color. But neither Stevie nor Jessi could bear burying her in that color. She had lost her life while wearing that color. They had chosen to bury her in violet, her second favorite color.

Bretta had left them all a legacy of abiding love, Jessi thought. She could not remember a time when so many people had been so close. And Stevie thought: Bretta's life, a dream and a charm.

After the service they began the trek to the cemetery out in the country where Bretta would be buried. Stevie saw Detective Rollins pacing the sidewalk in front of the church. He moved aside respectfully to let the mourners pass. Stevie paused beside him.

“Thank God Keith Muncy didn't show up,” she said to him.

Detective Rollins shook his head. “Oh, he showed all right. I just convinced him that it would be in his best interests not to go in.”

Stevie looked at him gratefully and touched his shoulder. “Thank you,” she said, “so very much.”

 

Everything seemed light years away from Stevie's life as she stood at the graveside with many others. The minister had said the simple prayer and intoned “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” standard funeral fare. Now there was a difference. Stevie had selected roses and lilies from the hearse. She slowly threw them into the open grave one by one.

Then Damien handed her her guitar and she played a wordless tune that Bretta and she had composed together. It was a gay tune, full of fun and laughter, the way Bretta had been. After she had finished, the gathering was hushed and still and she stood, not wanting to leave her friend. Bretta's casket was being lowered and Stevie blew it a kiss and the damned tears that filled her heart hurt terribly.

The others were leaving the cemetery, but still Stevie lingered until Damien said gently, “We need to go, love. You need to get some rest.”

 

But rest was not to come for a while. Jessi asked Stevie to stop by Bretta's apartment with her. She wanted to check to make sure her sister hadn't left things that needed to be done. In the apartment with Dvorak's “Violin Concerto” on the CD player, Jessi turned to Stevie.

“She always loved that piece. Bretta had such catholic tastes. There was no music she didn't love. She didn't deserve the way she died.”

“No she didn't,” Stevie answered quietly.

Both women stood in the middle of Bretta's bedroom reluctant to undertake any task, weak with grief. Finally Jessi said, “I'm going to ask Damien if he wants something to drink or eat? Do you?”

Stevie shook her head. “I couldn't swallow anything just now.”

Alone, Stevie walked around aimlessly. It was Damien she thought of, too—how he called her “love” from time to time and how much it affected her. She knew that to him it was just a term, but to her it meant everything.

Jessi came back and went to the walk-in closet. Just inside, she found a small black case.

“I was with her when she bought this the week before last,” Jessi said. “She said it was for special purposes and she looked bothered. I wonder what it was for. Well, we can see.”

Jessi put the case on the bed and they saw that the combination lock was open. Unfastening the side bars, Jessi pulled the case open. Both women's eyes went wide with surprise. Packages of hundred-dollar bills lay neatly stacked.

“Oh my God,” Jessi gasped, “what…?”

Jessi and Stevie looked at each other. “What could this be for?” Stevie asked.

Jessi quickly riffled through one small stack, counting out to two thousand dollars. There were twenty-five stacks in all. “Fifty thousand dollars,” she said. “What could she have been planning to do with this?”

Stevie shook her head. “Bretta kept her own secrets. With her divorce she had plenty of money and she didn't always handle it wisely.”

“How I know! I'll take it with me and put it in the bank. I'm so tired now. I'll come back another time with you if you'll come. We'll look more closely, see if we can find something that will tell us what the money was for.”

Stevie nodded. “I'll come.”

When Nick arrived to pick up Jessi, they all left together. In Damien's car, Stevie told him about the money. “Bretta was a woman who dealt in checks if she had a business deal she wanted to close. I know she wanted to buy a poor woman's little house as an investment. Maybe the woman wanted cash.”

“Do you know the woman's name?”

“No I don't. She was going to fill me in and I was to go with her and talk with the woman again.”

Something about this disturbed Stevie greatly. Bretta didn't always act in her own best interests. She gambled sometimes. Had she run afoul of gamblers who had demanded cash?

“One thing I know,” Damien said evenly. “You can't worry yourself to death over this. You've got your own sorrows.”

Suddenly Stevie hugged herself. “What if the money was for whoever killed her? Bretta could be a tease. What if this person thought she was double-crossing him?”

“Or her?”

“No. Bretta's quarrels were always with men. She loved men, but she didn't always get along with them. I'm betting it's Keith. I don't begin to know how he fits in, but he's in there somewhere.”

S
tevie felt alive and ready when she performed the next Thursday at Club Insomnia. The club was filling up early as she sat in her dressing room, finishing her makeup. Damien had had a roomful of bouquets of roses and azaleas delivered and he stood nearby looking tentative. Their glances locked and a thrill shot through her.

“I'm gonna run out of thank-yous for you,” she said huskily. “I wish you were singing with me tonight.”

He half closed his eyes. “Later. I want to keep my eye on things. If everything's quiet, I'll join you in one song and I'll be kissing you every minute.”

She blushed as a wave of heat suffused her body, then said, “I want to thank you for holding back, not demanding what I'm still too hurt to give. How can one man be so understanding?”

“It's easy with you.”

Jessi came in. “Um-m, you look scrumptious, love. Go out there and knock 'em dead.” For a moment she couldn't talk before she said, “I got the last of Bretta's special things together today, things she said she wanted you to have if anything happened to her. I put them in the suitcase that had the money in it and I'm giving the money to the Nashville Home for Unwed Mothers. It was one of her favorite charities.”

Stevie felt tears well up in her then, tears that she had managed to fight back. “Thank you” was all she could say as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

Fighting her own tears, Jessi said, “She wanted you to have her engagement ring and her wedding band. Those are so valuable I put them in my safety deposit box and they're waiting for you. Other things were less valuable, but I've insured them all. They still cost plenty. You're dedicating tonight to Bretta?”

“I am and a whole lot of other nights after this.”

Jessi nodded, bent and hugged her. She smiled at Damien. “You don't know how glad I am that you're around.”

“Yeah, I'm glad to be around.” He was perversely happy that his business was slow at the moment, so he could devote a lot of time to Stevie. Had it not been, he realized now, he would have delegated responsibility; he intended to look after her.

Ron Miller came in, looked around him and whistled. “Mama, you're what the world is looking for tonight. And, man, these flowers…”

He saluted Damien and grinned. “If I ever make a million dollars, first thing I'm gonna do is marry Stevie.”

He laughed at his own joke, adding, “I may ask you to be best man.”

Damien laughed along with him. “The lady has a say in this.”

Ron's teasing made Stevie think about him. Bretta had often teased him about being shiftless. “All that talent going nowhere,” she'd say. “You're twenty-two, Ron, and what are you doing with your life? Get a move on, lad. You're rusting on the vine.”

“Wrong metaphor,” he'd always shoot back.

And she'd reply, “Whatever.”

Tonight Ron was backing her with his bass fiddle and he was good, as good as many far-better-known performers.

“Tonight's for Bretta,” she told him.

A haunted look crossed his face and he looked dead serious. “Poor little Bretta. I'm playing for her, too” was all he said.

Stevie applied blusher and brushed lipstick onto her lips, touched mascara to her long lashes. And Damien stood smiling at the lust he felt for her. She had always been so excited and exciting when she performed.

At a knock, Damien went to the door. Jake's loud, booming voice filled the room.

“I wanta speak to Stevie.” His bodyguard loomed large behind him.

“Stevie?” Damien spoke, asking her if she wanted to speak with Jake.

To herself Stevie grumbled about Jake's bad timing, but she squared her shoulders and told him, “I can spare you a few minutes. Make it brief.”

“Alone.” It was a command and she remembered she had long ago stopped heeding Jake's commands.

“No. Damien stays. I want him to hear whatever you have to say. Sit down if you want to. If it'll help you be more civilized.”

He sat. The bodyguard stood. Damien stood watch.

Jake lost no time. “My trial comes up in October. Now I hear you've regained some of your memory. Could be you'll have it all back by then. Likely. Now I don't know what the hell happened to you, but I know I had nothing to do with it. You have to testify. I know that. But your amnesia makes it possible for you to go real easy on me and be believed. When I had you, Stevie, I gave you everything you said you wanted. I was good to you. Now you be good to me. And you know I'll give you whatever you want. Nobody ever gets enough money and I'm offering you a cool million. Two if you want. It's worth that to me.”

Stevie didn't hesitate. She spoke with bitter memories of the manhandling he had inflicted on her, the vile names he'd called her, and thanks to him, would she ever feel again the way she ought to feel about her sexuality? He had shamed and degraded her and she had been afraid of him, but no more.

“No, Jake,” she said calmly. “I'll be taking an oath to tell the truth and I'm going to tell it. Please don't ask me again.”

Rage filmed Jake's features then, as much from having Damien witness his humiliation as at knowing that Stevie could hurt him bad on that witness stand if she got most of her memory back.

He got up stiffly. “Okay, but I'll be watching you.” His eyes were cold as ice and full of hate as Stevie wondered how so much threat could be packed into those few words.

When Jake and the bodyguard had left, Damien placed a hand on each of her shoulders and met her gaze in the mirror. She looked worried. “There's not a damned thing he can do,” he said.

“Except kill me or have me killed.”

“He's a clown, not a damned fool. The prosecutor's office is on his tail. The prosecutor is bragging to friends that he'll have Jake's head on a platter. No, he's toast, honey, and he knows it. He's going up.”

Damien squatted by Stevie's chair, inhaling her French lavender perfume. “You change when McGowan comes around. You fight the fear, but it's there and your memory must go haywire.”

She nodded. “Speaking of memory, I'm remembering more and more. As Jake talked to me, what I heard were voices from the past. His womanizing and telling me he didn't belong to me. Stomping his foot and grinding it as if he were doing that to me. There are few bad names he didn't call me. And I remember all that now. Damien, I've got to believe that soon I'll remember what happened that night I hit my head on that stone.”

When she spoke her voice got tense and haunted and without realizing it, she wrung her hands. “What happened that I feel I'll be killed if I remember?”

She was imploring him to answer a question he couldn't answer, though he'd give everything to be able to.

Damien's closeness was getting to her. She'd often dreamed in the past of singing her heart out, accepting the blessed applause of the crowds and then going home to make wildly erotic love to a man she loved. It had happened a couple of times when she'd first been married to Jake, but his mistreatment had stopped it from ever being satisfactory.

She smiled at Damien, a secret smile of yearning. “Time to go. I'll go behind that screen and get into my clothes. I'll ask you to zip me up.”

“Sure thing. Break a leg.” The old showbiz phrase for good luck. He thought he'd rather be unzipping her.

 

When Stevie came out, the crowd erupted into cheers, clapping and chanting, “Stevie! Stevie! We love you, baby.”

“And I love
you
.” Stevie paused onstage and with brimming eyes swept the room with outstretched arms. Her heart expanded with love and appreciation. She had in her ears gleaming wide gold hoops that had been a gift from Bretta, an orangered blouse of silk chiffon layers in memory of Bretta's red-orange jogging suit. And her black silk skirt represented Bretta's death. She wore her hair in the natural curly-kinky whorls Bretta had favored. She felt it in her bones. Tonight she would sing her heart out.

In a husky voice she told them, “You all know about my best friend Bretta Evans's murder. I'm dedicating tonight's songs to her memory. God, if only she could be here.”

A wave of sympathetic sighs permeated the air.

She launched then into a song written by her friend, Gina Campbell.

Her guitar moaned then with all the passion she felt and she knew she played to Damien as well as to Bretta. Damien who believed in passion as she had once felt free to believe in it. Damien who believed in
her
.

Cries of pure joy swept the crowd and they rattled and waved sheets of paper printed with the words of various songs Stevie would sing this night. Ron was at the top of his game. He drank too much and he seemed aimless, but his hands and his heart carried genius. He had been offered more than one gig with a name band and he'd refused and hung around Nashville. Lord knows for what.

“Hey, Stevie,” came from a man in the crowd. “What you been writing while you were away from us?”

Stevie laughed then and turned to Ron. She and Ron had been practicing afternoons at Club Insomnia. Now she told him, “Hit it for
‘I Love You When You Shake It Like That.'
”

Ron hit it with a vengeance and the crowd swayed and shook their shoulders crying, “Yeah, baby, yeah! Sing it, Mama!”

As much as they loved Stevie's country songs, they loved her rhythm and blues even more. And Stevie did them all. Country. Pop. Rhythm and blues. Hymns. She was multi-talented in music and she blessed it all with her gifts.

“Baby girl, you've come
home!
” a woman yelled, overcome with pleasure.

Ron wiped the sweat from his brow, grinned and saluted. Then he got up and bowed low to Stevie, grabbed her hand and kissed it. And standing in the back of the room Damien felt a mellow glow of pure pride settle on him and he wondered at what he was feeling. But a fear at least as deep as the fear Stevie crushed within her regarding Jake now crushed his heart. It was one thing to be hurt; entirely something else to be devastated. And death had stared him hard in the face when Honi had betrayed and left him.
No, he wasn't going there again. Not now; maybe not ever
.

Stevie rested a few minutes before she got up and circulated among the revelers. Hugs and kisses and congratulations on losing nothing was what she got from the crowd. Damien found himself wanting to hug and kiss her as they did and his groin hurt with wanting her.

Ben and Cina had ringside seats. Stevie had seen to that. They stood and she hugged them. Ben shook his head. “Singing good and looking better.”

Over near the bar Detective Rollins and his wife Eileen sat with their multicultural party—another older white couple, a Latino couple and a black couple. Stevie went to the table and greeted them. She had met Eileen before, but not the others. Now Detective Rollins introduced her.

“You're at your best tonight,” Eileen said, and her husband agreed. The others nodded their agreement.

“Thank you,” Stevie said simply. “Tonight I'm singing for Bretta.”

The people at the table nodded. There were few in Nashville who didn't know about the murder.