Of Blood and Sorrow (17 page)

He stopped then, not wanting to finish it, not needing to.

“My father didn’t give a shit about me. I disappointed him from the day I was born. My mom was the person who was important to me. She was the center of my life. My dad, well, I needed him, and he was never there, didn’t want to be.”

I thought about my own son then, and dread cut through me. When I glanced back, he was weeping.

My phone rang, and Troy Barnes jumped. His nerves were tight, and that worried me.

“It might be my boy. Can I answer it?” I asked his permission, trusting him because of what he’d said about his mama and because I had no other choice. He nodded that I could. It wasn’t Jamal but DeWayne. “I’ve got him” was all he said, and my eyes filled with tears of relief.

We drove for another ten minutes, the silence between us uneasy but not hostile.

“Troy?” I said his name gently, breaking the tension.

“Yeah.”

“How you doing back there?”

“Okay. I wasn’t going to hurt you, even if you didn’t help me,” he said.

“I know,” I said, like I believed him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What makes you think I know where your baby is?” I glanced at the rearview mirror, and his eyes met mine.

“My dad said he traced the number that flashed on his phone when Lilah’s sister called him Wednesday night. The call came from your house. The girl said she knew where the baby was and wanted us to have her. My dad said he’d bet his life that you knew where my daughter was.”

“He probably did,” I said.

“Yeah, he did.”

Another silence, easier this time.

“All I want is my kid, that’s all. I’ve never seen her. Just that picture Lilah sent me. Lilah’s dead, my dad is gone, there’s nobody else I can turn to. Will you help me get her back?”

I guess it was because God had smiled on me tonight. My son was safe, at least until Monday—and I owed Him a good deed for that. And maybe because that cute little baby with her pretty dimples had touched my heart. I knew I had to help this boy. I didn’t think he was the killer, but whoever had murdered those three people was still out there, and my son wouldn’t be safe until I knew who it was. I had to find out what Thelma Lee knew. I pulled over to the side of the road and took out my cell.

“You calling the cops,” Troy said, all the fight gone out of him.

“No. Thelma Lee Sweets, Lilah’s sister.”

“I just want to hold my baby once, and know she’s real. I can take anything after that. Do you think Thelma Lee still has her?”

“She might.”

It was going on nine. Late, but Thelma Lee was probably home by now. Where else did she have to go?

So Troy Barnes fixed the door to my car as best he could, then climbed into the passenger seat, and I drove fast to Jersey City to look for Thelma Lee “Trinity” Sweets and find out what she knew.

SIXTEEN

“W
HAT IS SHE LIKE, THELMA LEE
?” Troy Barnes asked on the way to Jersey City. He sounded worried, probably scared he’d run into another Lilah Love.

“She’s a teenager. Likes to call herself Trinity after that woman in the movie. Seems like a nice kid, but you can’t always tell about people. They’re hard to read sometimes.”

“You read me.”

“You? True-blue?” I quoted Maydell, which made him smile. After our rocky first encounter, the ride over had been almost pleasant. He did most of the talking—about things that he’d seen in the war and the guilt and anger that darkened his life. He wept again when he talked about his friends—the dead ones he’d left in pieces on the streets of Fallujah, and the ones who were barely making it now. The war had changed him forever, he said, and everyone said he would be better because of it, but he didn’t believe them. Mostly, though, he talked about his daughter, and what it had meant to him when Lilah sent him her picture. He described how he’d shown it to everybody in his squad and worn it pinned to his undershirt next to his heart. It had kept him alive, he said, just thinking about her and fantasizing about his life with her when he finally came home. He imagined her as a toddler, a schoolgirl, a teenager. He saw visions of her in her prom dress and on the way to her wedding. He knew the words he would say when he gave her away. Nothing else mattered but her. Nothing else in his life. Baby Dal was his link to the present and future, his tie with all that was good.

He suspected all along that Lilah wouldn’t stay with him, and when the letter came telling him she was leaving, it wasn’t a surprise. He asked me where I knew her from, and I told him the truth, that she’d been a good kid when I met her in Jamaica, but something had changed her, and I wasn’t sure what.

“Maybe she went through a war, too,” he said. “A personal one that she kept to herself.”

“Maybe she did,” I said.

He was quiet for a while, then said he had to try to understand who she was so he could explain her to their daughter one day, and I nodded that he should. People give the best part of themselves to their kids, I said, thinking about DeWayne Curtis and Jamal. And Lilah had given the best of herself to her child. When the time came to explain, he’d know what to say.

“Do you know why Thelma Lee took the baby?” he asked.

“She told me that Lilah wasn’t a good mother,” I said. He nodded as if he understood, then sighed like the weight of the world had fallen on him. “But the baby’s okay,” I added quickly to reassure him.

“You saw her, then?” he asked, eyes anxious.

“No, but Thelma Lee and her aunt seem to love her very much, and I’m sure they are taking the best care of her that they can.”

“Lilah tried to get money from my father. He offered to pay her, but she said it wasn’t enough. When we didn’t hear from her again, he hired you to find the baby. I’m sorry Lilah is dead, but I don’t know if I can forgive her like you said I should,” he said.

“Everything in life takes time,” I said, because everything did. It took me years to forgive my parents for their joke of a marriage, and I have never gotten over my mother’s cruelty. As for Johnny, my love for him has been unconditional even in death, but I am still angry. I wondered how much Jamal would need to forgive.

“Do you think my daughter is in any danger, from the person who killed my father?”

“I doubt it,” I said quickly, but I wasn’t as sure about Thelma Lee as I was of this man sitting beside me. There was still a trace of doubt. I didn’t think she’d hurt the baby, but she could have had it in for Lilah and Turk. As for Treyman Barnes, I couldn’t see her killing him like he had been killed. But there was enough of the cop in me to keep a few doubts simmering until everything was clear, and it was murky. I didn’t know the how, why, where, or when of it yet, and that worried me. I did know I needed to convince Thelma Lee to talk to the police with me on Monday morning. She had been at the murder scene before and after Turk Orlando was killed, and she probably knew more about the murder than she thought she did, which put her in danger. She was a minor, and Jake could look out for her interests, too. If she refused to come, that would tell me something, too.

We pulled up in front of Sweet Thing’s place around ten. The windows of Manhattan sparkled in the distance, and the full moon bathed the old house in flattering light, making it nearly the equal of its neighbors.

“She lives here?” Troy Barnes asked.

“Her aunt does.”

“Big place,” he said, getting out of the car.

“Let me go first. They know me.”

“No way! I’ve waited too long.”

He followed me onto the porch, the broken boards threatening to give way with each step. It was dark and took me a while to find the doorbell. I rang it once, then knocked as hard as I could. I had come full circle. It was hard to believe that it hadn’t been a week since my first visit here.

“It’s Tamara Hayle. I know you’re in there, Thelma Lee Sweets. Open the door. I need to talk to you. Now!”

A light went on in the second floor and a few moments later in the living room. Somebody fumbled with the lock, then Sweet Thing stood in front of me, babe in arms. The baby gurgled, and all eyes turned to her.

“Baby Dal?” I asked.

“I call her Dolly,” said Sweet Thing. “I don’t believe in calling a child after a food I ain’t et.”

The baby was dressed all in pink, possibly the only color her mother had bothered to buy, and grinned at me, then at her father as if she knew who he was. She had grown since the photo Lilah showed me in the office. She was plumper and prettier, but her face was still framed in that black halo that looked as soft as spun cotton. She giggled, dimples peeking out from chubby cheeks, and hid her head in Sweet Thing’s ample breast.

“This is Troy Barnes…Lily’s ex-husband. The child’s father,” I said, with a nod toward Troy. Sweet Thing glanced at me, then at Troy Barnes, and put her arm protectively around the child. “Who you say you were?”

“The baby’s father,” I said.

“I ain’t talking to you; I’m talking to him. Can’t he speak for himself? If he can’t speak for himself, he ain’t going to hold this baby,” she said, cutting her eyes at me.

“I’m Lilah’s husband. Ex-husband. Baby Dal’s father.”

“Lilah? We called her Lily, after my baby sister. You didn’t have nothing to do with naming this baby after that food, did you?” She pursed her lips in disgust.

“No,” he said. “But that’s her name, and it’s going to stay that way. Can I hold her?”

“I don’t know,” said Sweet Thing, eyes narrowed.

“Please, ma’am, I’ve never held my child.”

“How do I know you’re really her daddy? How do I know that?”

“He’s Treyman Barnes’s son,” I said, then thought better of it.

“You ain’t like your father, are you?” Contempt replaced the curiosity that had been in her eyes.

“No. I never was, but my father’s dead now,” Troy said, and Sweet Thing turned to me, her eyes hard.

“When did he die? I ain’t heard nothing about it.”

“Very recently,” I said.

“Somebody finally got him, huh?” she said. Her glance followed mine toward his son, and her face softened.

“I’m sorry for your loss, boy, I truly am,” she said, “but he did a lot of people no good. He may have been a good daddy, but he was a dishonest son of a bitch as far as I’m concerned.”

“He wasn’t a good daddy either,” Troy said. “But I loved him anyway.”

“If you can find some love in your heart for a man like that, then you must have a very big heart. Here, take your baby and love her with all you got.”

When Troy Barnes held his child for the first time, I knew that the look in his eyes would be with me forever—one of those memories I’d tuck away and summon whenever I needed to believe in good over evil, kindness over cruelty, or simply to smile. His eyes widened slightly as if in wonder, and then he closed them as he pulled her into his chest, rocking her back and forth as if he were in a special kind of ecstasy. I glanced at Sweet Thing and saw that there were tears in her eyes, too.

“Life do have a way of righting itself, don’t it?” she said, and I nodded that it did.

“So what you doing knocking at my door at this time of night, Tamara Hayle?” she said, turning to me. “Where’s my niece?”

“She isn’t here?”

“No.” She looked at me suspiciously. “Did you call to say you were coming? The phone ain’t rung since Jimson left for work, and he didn’t say nothing about nobody coming over. It’s not like him to forget; he writes everything down for me. My feet hurt something fierce, and I can’t be bothered getting to that damn phone.”

“No, I haven’t spoken to him. Is he around?” I should have known that he wasn’t. I was struck again by how spirited this woman was as long as Jimson Weed, her lover and protector, was nowhere in sight. She could clearly take care of herself, and this baby, if she needed to.

“He works nights. Night watchman over at a building downtown. He’ll be back in the morning.”

She shrugged as if puzzled. “Come on in,” she said, beckoning us into her home. Troy and I settled down on the couch in front of the TV. I thought about the first time I’d been here, the smell of burned toast and fried bacon coming from the kitchen, Jimson Weed hovering around Sweet Thing as if he owned her.

“Lily didn’t say much about you when she dropped Dolly off. Tell me about yourself, boy.” Sweet Thing turned to Troy.

“Not much to tell,” Troy said. The baby began to fret, and Sweet Thing went into the kitchen and brought back a bottle.

“I was in the service. Iraq war. Came home. Trying to get over that,” he said as the baby settled down. “What does she eat?”

“I got some formula from Costco day before yesterday. That will hold her for a while. Service, you say. What branch?”

“Army.”

“Just like my sweet Jimson, when I met him,” she said, her eyes clouding over with some emotion I couldn’t read. “He came back so tore up, so violent, it took all I had to cure him. Every bit of patience I had I spent on him.” She pulled a Marlboro out of the purple case on the coffee table, lit it, and inhaled hard. “Things never change, do they? That’s what Jimson says, and I believe he’s right.”

I nodded, recalling what he’d said to me the day I met him about shit never going nowhere, just coming back. I wondered how often he’d told her that.

“He was in Nam?” asked Troy, his interest perking up as he looked up from the baby, who had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

“That’s blood for you, ain’t it?” Sweet Thing gave him an approving grin. “That child ain’t seen you more than fifteen minutes, but she done fell asleep on your shoulder like she knew you all her life. She don’t do that for just anybody. The minute Jimson picks her up, she cries.”

“When did he go over?” asked Troy, still curious about Jimson Weed. His eyes had filled with compassion. I’d seen it before between men who had fought in Vietnam, and now young vets in this latest one. It was a bond they shared, men like Jimson Weed and Troy Barnes, and no one could know it unless they’d seen killing like they had. Unjust wars with no winner, my friend Annie would say. As if any war could ever be just.

“In ’65, part of that first big wave. Came back decorated, too. Decorated hero, they told him.”

“True-blue hero,” Troy said to me with a slight, sad smile.

“True-blue hero or whatever else you want it call it,” continued Sweet Thing. “But it didn’t mean squat. Jimson couldn’t find work, couldn’t find nobody to help him. He stopped telling folks he even fought. Threw them medals right in the trash. Didn’t mean nothing to him. Nothing did for the longest time.”

“I couldn’t find any meaning either. Not for a long time until now.”

“Love will do that,” Sweet Thing said.

“So how long have you-all been married?” The baby stirred slightly, then burped.

“Married? We ain’t married. He’s younger than me by ten years. I always did end up with young, good-looking men. You wouldn’t know it now, but I was a looker in my day. Always did like young men.”

I recalled Lilah’s words about young and old men, but thought it best to keep them to myself.

“He came into my life two days after my sister was killed. Lily’s mama. She was named Lily, too. He was my angel of light, that man, said it was his responsibility to take care of me, look after me, and he’s done it for all these years.”

“How did Lily die?” Troy asked.

“Murdered. In a den of sin. That’s what Jimson used to call it. A den of sin. Lily bought this house right before she died. Bought it in 1979. Saved hard and bought it. Bought it for her daughters. Money right out her flesh. I ain’t nothing but a tenant in it, as far as I’m concerned. I promised her I’d keep it safe for her kids, and their kids, too, so we’d always have some roots, always have a home. Right out her flesh, that’s what this place is.”

I glanced at Troy to see if he understood just how much flesh the house had cost his baby’s grandmother, but he didn’t take her literally. I recalled Basil’s words about Treyman Barnes.
A filthy business
he’d called Barnes’s youthful occupation. Funny when you thought about it: the “lofty” Barnes and “lowly” Sweets had more in common than one would think.

“She wanted to bring her daughters up nice, Lily did. Just like real little ladies,” Sweet Thing continued. “And I done the best I could. Thelma Lee was just a baby when she died, and Lily—Lilah, as you call her—was older. I used to take care of them while their mama was at work. This house belongs to them—to Thelma Lee and that baby since her mother is gone.

“We came up hard, me and Lily. People nowadays don’t know what tough times are. I didn’t do right by her. I just didn’t do right. I couldn’t in those days.

“Things that happened to me down there in Mississippi, I ain’t told nobody yet, don’t nobody have a right to know,” she said. Her eyes grew troubled, and sorrow shaded her face. I nodded because I understood. The Jim Crow South had been bad, but Mississippi was the worst. Black women raped, black men lynched, was as common as Mississippi mud, and nobody in power gave a damn. People ran from the South to save their lives. It wasn’t that much different up north, but you couldn’t be shot for not getting off the sidewalk to let a white man pass.