Dying in the Dark (24 page)

She looked at me blankly, wondering what I was up to, not sure how to react.

I smiled as if caught in some pleasant memory. “I remember them in high school, Clay and Celia. They were lovers then, did you know that? Did you know that your husband, the late great Clayton Donovan, was the first man she ever slept with, she told me so herself. She told me before you killed her that he was going to leave you, and they were going to go off together. Isn't that why you really killed her, Becky?”

“No!”

I smiled knowingly and went on. “They say you never forget the first man you have sex with, and Clayton was her first. Did you know that, Rebecca? That's why he was giving her money before he died. How stupid could you be, Rebecca. So they were going to run off together and raise their child together.”

It was coming off the top of my head, but there was just enough truth to make it sound convincing. I was sure now that Clayton Donovan was the
him
that Dawson had told me about yesterday. He was a big man with lots of respect who people admired. He hadn't been able to do anything else for her because he had died. I was sure
he'd broken it off, like he'd told his wife. Men like him don't leave a prissy, high-class wife for a Celia Jones, but she obviously didn't know that.

“Your Clayton had been seeing her off and on for years. That was the real reason he'd made sure Brent Liston spent all that time in jail.” I baited her, wondering what impact my words were having, but she just cocked her head to the side like a dog waiting to hear a master's whistle.

“He told me the truth before he died.”

“The truth about Celia?”

“The truth that he had been seeing her. He asked me to forgive him. He begged me to forgive him. But I caught it from her nasty, diseased thing.”

She was such a lady she couldn't bring herself to say the word she'd written in those letters. She sure could kill the girl, though, empty her gun into her “nasty, diseased thing.”

“How do you know he caught it from Celia?” I grinned, teasing her. She looked at me strangely, cocking her head to the side again.

“Because she was a whore.”

“Thou shalt not kill, Rebecca. You're a religious woman. How could you forget that?”

“She deserved to die for what she did to people who cared for her. Because she should feel God's wrath come down on her, and I could finally have some peace at last.”

You need to find some kind of final resolution, one that will give you peace at last.

She had said those words to me before. How could I have missed the meaning behind them?

“Did killing Annette bring you peace as well?” She gazed at me, as if she didn't know what I was talking about, and I trotted out the theory I had about the way I thought Drew Sampson had done it, spitting it out with utter conviction, as if I'd been sitting in the room. “So you came by on Thursday morning, and she offered you a drink because she liked to drink, and you knew that she would. You sent her back for something, anything that took her out of the room, and then you put the Seconals you'd mixed with some of your husband's liquor into her drink. Enough to send her into a coma, and you two sat talking about old times until she began to get dizzy, and here's what you said to her when it started to take effect. ‘Why don't you lie down, Annette? You might feel better. Let me put this pillow under your head, Annette, to make you comfortable. Try to go to sleep, Annette, and you'll feel better in the morning.’ “I spoke in a high falsetto imitating a phony woman's voice, and she watched me, her gun steady on me as I continued.

‘After she was out, you searched for the letters you knew she had because she had asked you about them, and before you left, you took her limp hand and made sure her fingerprints were on the gun, then put the gun and the drawing under her pillow.”

“How did you know?” she said in her small, tight voice.

I edged toward the pedestal near the chair, close to the urn with her husband's ashes. The light from the fire, rather than the sun's rays, drew my attention to the golden lid this time.

“You know something, Rebecca? There were half a dozen women your husband could have caught it from. Hell, he even made a drunken pass at me, at a party a couple years ago. I knew he was a tramp, your late great Honorable Clayton Donovan, so I turned him down. He
was one of the biggest cock hounds in the city. You talk about Celia being a whore. He was nothing but a whore, and he betrayed you every time he left your side.”

“No!” she said, and for a moment I thought I'd gone too far because she raised the gun slightly, narrowing her eyes. My heart jumped, and I cursed myself for pushing her.

And then the phone rang.

Once. Twice. Three times. We stood transfixed, both of us. She turned to look at it, wondering who would know to call at that moment, who could have broken the spell between us, and that was when I made my move, turning fast in one quick motion, grabbing the urn from the pedestal, hurling it to the floor with all my might. The sound it made when it hit was as loud as her scream as she swooped down to gather what lay at her feet.

“Clayton!” It was a wounded moan like an animal makes when it's been shot. She fell down in the mix of broken china and her husband's ashes, dropping the gun to her side, and I went for it fast, nearly tripping over the man's remains as I dove for it.

“No!” she screamed as she grabbed for the gun, and we fell on the floor together, my head banging hard against the edge of the dead man's chair. She got the gun, grabbing it from my hand, and I pounced on her, surprised by the smooth silk against my arm. I pulled back my fist and whammed it hard into her jaw, and she moaned, dropping the gun again. I scrambled to get it, grabbed it, and struggled to my feet.

“He's gone,” she whispered, with a look on her face I knew I would never forget.

“He's been gone.”

“You took the last I had of him.”

“Your choice, lady, not mine.”

She stood up, and began to walk toward me. My heart jumped.

“Shoot me!” she said. “Please shoot me. I have nothing else to live for. Nothing else. Shoot me.”

“Stop!” I stepped backward.

“Shoot me, damn you! I don't want to live anymore. Shoot me or I'll take that gun and shoot you and then myself. But I'll kill you first.”

“Step back,” I said.

She kept coming, her husband's ashes clinging like dust to her fancy black robe.

“Stop! Don't come any closer!” I didn't think I could shoot an unarmed woman; there was no way I could do it.

“Shoot me! Please, please shoot me!”

She was close enough now to get the gun. I took another step back, and she tried to grab it, her tiny hands grabbing and scratching my wrist.

And I thought about Celia lying there on that floor, her body filled with bullets, and Annette sipping that last drink with her trusted old friend. I thought about Jamal's laughter as we drove fast down the Parkway, about how much I loved him and how we were all each other had, and I knew at that moment that I'd be damned before I'd let this crazy woman make a motherless child out of my boy.

So I did what she asked.

EPILOGUE

W
hen all was said and done
—after the cops had gone, Rebecca's story told, and I was at home with my son—Jake dropped by to make sure I was all right.

“I really feel bad about the last time I saw you,” he said, as I poured the champagne he'd brought to celebrate my solving the case.

“You mean last week with what's her name?” I asked, and he smiled without comment. We laughed easily then, like we always did, and I wondered, not for the first time, if I should share my true feelings.

But something had changed between us, and I didn't know if we could get it back. I didn't want Jake to leave my life, but if he did there was no way to stop him. I could only hope he'd return. If you hold too tightly to your past, you'll destroy your future. That was one good lesson I learned from Rebecca Donovan.

Larry Walton called after Jake left. He'd heard about what happened, and realized his call to Rebecca that day may have saved my life. I thanked him for it, and when he asked me out, I said I'd go. Who knew what could come of it? A good meal, perhaps, and friendship if we were lucky.

I put Celia's locket in the place where I keep my precious things: Johnny's cuff links, Jamal's first gift, the paper dolls my grandma cut from newspaper.

“Catch you later, girl,” I whispered as I closed the drawer.

And I slept well that night, like a baby in her papa's arms. My son was safe, I had
two
good men who cared, a new car that was running fine, and I'd caught the person who murdered my “used-to-be-best-friend.” At least for now, all was right with the world.

DYING
in the
DARK

A CONVERSATION WITH
VALERIE WILSON WESLEY

A
CONVERSATION WITH VALERIE WILSON WESLEY

Q: Why did you create Tamara Hayle?

A: I wanted to create a detective—African American, female, single mom—who had not been seen in crime fiction. Increasingly, many women are raising children by themselves. As the mother of two daughters, I know how tough it is to raise a child, and it's especially difficult when you're doing it by yourself. I have great admiration for single moms. I wanted to give them their “props,” as the kids put it.

Q: Why did you choose Newark as a setting?

A: I love New Jersey, and I live near Newark, so it's easy to research settings and locations. My husband grew up in Newark and has a keen sense of the city's history, so I can write about it with a certain authenticity. Newark is a city of immigrants, like Chicago, New York, and Liverpool in the UK. But it has its own particular character. It is constantly reinventing itself which makes for interesting stories.

Q: Why after four years, did you write a new Tamara Hayle Mystery?

A: It was time! This is also the ten-year anniversary of the series.
When Death Comes Stealing,
my first mystery was published in 1994. I was getting quite a bit of e-mail from readers asking when the next installment, #7, was coming. Writing
Dying in the Dark
was like visiting an old friend who I haven't seen in a long time. Tamara is a bit older in this mystery, a bit sadder, and quite a bit wiser. She's accepting the reality that her son will soon be going off to college, and that she will be living alone. The proverbial “empty nest” is looming large. I think that readers will enjoy revisiting Tamara Hayle as much as I did.

Q: What do you want readers to take from your books?

A: Mysteries are basically morality plays in which good ultimately triumphs over evil. That's why so many readers love mysteries. They can count on the bad guys, or girls, getting what they deserve. Mysteries also offer readers an opportunity to see the world from someone else's perspective, to walk in another person's shoes. I hope that readers leave my books with a deeper sense of the issues that confront many African American communities: the impact of poverty, crime, and despair. My books are sold in Europe, and I occasionally get e-mails from Europeans, who are fascinated with certain aspects of life in Black America of which they weren't aware, such as the importance of skin color, social class, and family. But, of course, my main goal is for my readers to enjoy the books because they're
good reads
—exciting, interesting, and entertaining.

Q: Where do you get your ideas and your great titles?

A: I get ideas from everywhere. I'll be walking down the street and an idea will suddenly come to me. Writing is very magical. I get my titles from poems, spirituals, jazz songs, or old sayings.
Dying in the Dark
is a line from a poem by Langston Hughes. My titles offer me a chance to share my love of poetry, my memories, and a sense of spirituality with my readers. What more could a writer ask!

Q: Are you Tamara Hayle?

A: I wish I were as tough as she is, but I'd turn tail and run if one of the meanies she confronts ever turned up in my life. I've never been a police officer, never owned a gun, and certainly never shot anybody. But I do love Blue Mountain coffee, Sleepytime tea and barbecued ribs. Don't ask about Basil Dupre.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

VALERIE WILSON WESLEY has authored seven Tamara Hayle mysteries and the novels
Playing My Mother's Blues, Always True
to
You in My Fashion
and
Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do,
for which she received the 2000 award for excellence in adult fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA). Many of her novels have been Blackboard bestsellers and
When Death Comes Stealing
was nominated for a Shamus Award.

Ms. Wesley is also the author of several children's books. She is formerly the executive editor of
Essence
magazine. Ms. Wesley's fiction and nonfiction for both adults and children have appeared in many publications, including
Essence, Family Circle, TV Guide, Ms., Creative Classroom,
and
Weltwoche,
a Swiss weekly newspaper. She is also a 1993 recipient of the Griot Award from the New York chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists. Ms. Wesley is a graduate of Howard University and has master's degrees from both the Banks Street College of Education and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is married to noted screenwriter and playwright Richard Wesley and is the mother of two grown daughters.