Like Sheep Gone Astray (27 page)

“I know, Snap.” Eric nodded, although he didn't miss the two color-coded vials peeking out of the boy's pocket. He knew that Snap's mother, like many others in his development, was not at work, but at one of the abandoned row homes turned crack houses down the street. “Your mom's doing the best she can to take care of you two.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Snap's attention was diverted for a second as an Escalade with tinted windows booming with a heart-fibrillating bass came almost to a stop in front of them.

“That's Peetie and 'em.” One of the Infiniti boys shouted toward them. All eyes turned to study Snap.

“It's cool.” He nodded as the car picked up speed and turned a corner. Snap was rising in the ranks; Eric felt another piece of his heart breaking.

“So you think you'll make it with me to church tomorrow ?”

“I would, man, but I got some things I need to get done. Maybe next week.”

It was the same question every Saturday, the same response.

“Anyways”—Snap studied Eric with the eye of an experienced dealer—“you all right these days?”

“Yeah, why?” Eric knew questions from Snap were a rare order.

“I don't know, just been hearing things.” The youth took a sip of fruit punch from a plastic bottle before tossing it in a nearby gutter.

“Well, whatever you been hearing, I can tell you it ain't true.”

“What's going on, Mr. Johnson? Somebody messing with your rep?”

“Ain't nothing for you to worry about. CASH business, that's all.” Eric wanted to leave the conversation.

“Naw, man. You done looked out for me and my sister too much for me to let someone mess over you without at least looking into it. I got your back, Mr. Johnson.”

“Snap, I don't want—”

“Don't worry. You know why they call me Snap? 'Cause when I snap my fingers”—he snapped as he spoke—“things get done.”

Eric shook his head as he walked away. The unrest inside him intensified.

Anthony pulled to a stop in front of the Vital Records Department of Shepherd Hills just after eleven. He knew he was taking a chance. What government building was open on weekends? But he followed his gut, an urging telling him to go anyway, and got confirmation that God was leading him in the right direction before he even finished parallel parking in front of the one-story office building.

A woman dressed in sweat pants and tennis shoes came out of the building, a pencil tucked behind her ear. Her hair was pinned in an elaborate upsweep, and a pair of dangling stone earrings clanked with her every move. She sorted through some keys in her hand and was locking the glass front door as Anthony walked up to her.

“Excuse me, miss”—Anthony extended a hand to her—“do you work here?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She didn't bother to look up at him as she gave the door a final tug. “Office hours are Monday through Friday, eight-thirty
A.M.
to four
P.M.
If you need a copy of a marriage, birth, or death certificate, you need to fill out Form LL4W, check box three, and mail it along with a check or money order for twenty-five dollars and you'll receive what you want within ten to fifteen business days. Or you can come back during our office hours and pay fifty dollars and receive it in thirty minutes.”

She was walking away as she talked. Anthony followed, his head nodding the entire time.
Maybe she'll help if I offer her a hundred dollars. That satchel of money is still in the trunk.
Anthony rejected the thought as fast as it came. Jesus works over the table, not under.

“I understand, Ms.…”

“James. I am Mrs. Florence James, chief administrator and supervisor of the department, and I'm running late for my gym class.”

“I understand, Mrs. James, and I am not trying to inconvenience you. It's just that I have an urgent situation that you may be able to help me with. Please.”

Mrs. James looked at Anthony over the rims of her frosted, square-framed glasses. “I'm sorry, hon, but I'm not even supposed to be here right now. I just came this morning to finish some last-minute filing for an audit scheduled Monday.”

“All the more reason you can help me. Your files are in their best possible order, so pulling what I need shouldn't take more than a second. I don't even need a copy, I just want to look at it, and I'll still pay the fifty-dollar fee. I promise I won't take more than two minutes. Please.” Anthony's words sounded desperate but his demeanor was not.
Confidence,
he told himself.

She sighed as she unlocked the door to her SUV. “Write down your name, number, address, and what you need and I'll make your request the first I look at on Monday morning, after the audit. I'm sorry, but that's the best I can do.”

“Thank you for your help, Mrs. James.” Anthony quickly fished for a pen and paper and scribbled down his information. He held the car door open as she got in and closed it once she was comfortable.

Just as he was unlocking the door to his own vehicle, he heard a voice calling after him.

“Wait, Mr. Murdock, I might as well help you. My aerobics class is almost over anyway.” Mrs. James was out of her car, sliding another quarter into the parking meter.

Reggie and Terri rode in silence the entire trip to Cherisse's condo. When she got out of the car, she gave him a half-smile in response to his.

“I'll be waiting for your call, Mrs. Murdock.” Terri could almost feel the bass in his voice.

“Thank you, Reggie. For everything. You made both my evening and morning very enjoyable.”

“Hopefully, soon, we can add “night’] to that list. Forgive my forwardness, Terri. You have that effect on me.”

Terri rolled her eyes as she turned away. For such a smooth brother, he really had some corny lines. But as fine as he was,
as rich as he was,
that was a forgivable trait. Terri looked from her Lexus to Cherisse's balcony and back. The blinds on her windows were still drawn. For Cherisse that could mean anything, but for Terri, who had noticed the Denzel Washington look-alike checking Cherisse out before, during, and after the banquet, that could only mean one thing: Cherisse had some take-home from the dinner last night.

“At least one of us had more than appetizers,” she mumbled to herself as she sped out of the development. “It's been too long since I've had a full-course meal.”

Terri thought back to the “diet days,” as Cherisse called them, before she was married, when Anthony decided he could no longer ignore his convictions and the buffet she'd been indulging in suddenly had a Closed sign posted until their wedding night.

At the time Cherisse could not understand why Terri continued to stay with a man who was “starving” her to death. Truthfully, Terri could not explain it to herself, either. There was just something about his resolve that made him more irresistible. A man who valued her enough to decide to wait so she could have his best was a man worthy of hers. She'd jokingly told Cherisse later that once the Closed signed was turned over and the buffet was reopened, it became an all-you-can-eat affair that never left her feeling guilty or weighed down. The food was always fresh, with enough variety, spice, and flavor to keep her satisfied breakfast through dinner, snacks included.

Over the past few months, however, the buffet, for some inexplicable reason, had grown cold and stale. The pilot light in the kitchen stove had gone out and the burners weren't working. And now, Terri was convinced, the buffet had been opened to the general public.

Terri put her foot on the accelerator, nearly blind to the passing world around her. She just had one thought: Seeing the look on Anthony's face when she exposed him for who he was
right in front
of Pastor Green would be the sweetest, most filling dessert ever.

Chapter 12

N
ikki was just about to walk out the front door with Devin when her telephone rang. Dressed in a short denim skirt and calf-high black boots, she stood on her tiptoes trying to get a good glimpse of the caller ID over the kitchen counter.

“Now you decide to call,” she muttered. “Too late.” She was determined to make all of them pay for wasting her time, treating her as a convenient commodity and not as the crucial contributor she knew she was. It was time for every man who ignored her, or used her for all the wrong reasons; every woman who took from her, or added to the drama of her tumultuous life, to know that they'd picked the wrong person to play with.

“Y'all ain't just going to pick me up and put me down when you feel like it. Come on, Devin, let's go.” She slammed the door shut behind them, tripping over the corner of a straw welcome mat a neighbor had put too far out in the hallway.

“Oops.” She kicked it out of the way as she and her son descended the apartment stairwell to the busy boulevard in front of them.

“Hold my hand! Don't you run out into the street!” she screamed, grabbing Devin by the wrist. Within moments, they both were settling down on the wood bench where the number-fifty-seven bus was due to come in ten minutes.

She stuck her hand in the pink feathery handbag she was carrying. Good, the spare key Eric Johnson had given her was still in the side pocket. She was glad she never told
him
she had it, or he would have asked her to use it a long time ago.

“I'm a genius.” Nikki smiled to herself. As long as the bus came on time, she should be at the office of CASH within the hour.

“Thank you, Jesus.” Anthony could not stop praising Him as he walked down the darkened corridor to the room where marriage licenses were filed. Following Jesus with no hidden agendas was opening more doors than he could have ever opened on his own.

Florence James, the supervisor of the Vital Records Department of Shepherd Hills, escorted him through a musty hallway, switching on lights and unlocking doors as they walked.

“What's one of the last names on the marriage license you need, hon?”

“Murdock. Either Charles A. Murdock or Stephanie Ann Murdock.” His parents, both out of his life before he reached eighteen.

“They were both from Shepherd Hills County?” She tapped expertly on a computer keyboard. Hundreds of names followed by coded numbers scrolled down the screen.

“Yes.” Anthony remembered vividly the countless times his mother exclaimed how glad she was that her own mother had left the South well before she was born.

“I don't think I would have lasted in the country” was the one sentence he could remember her saying all the time, turning down any and all opportunities to go back and visit her family roots in Sharen, South Carolina. Because of her, he had never been to the birthplace of his mother's people. She had turned up her nose at anything southern, except the food. If it wasn't for Aunt Rosa's kitchen genius, Stephanie Ann probably would have turned against her as well.

“Sorry, hon, but I'm not getting any matches for a marriage license in those two names.”

Anthony wrinkled his forehead as he stepped closer to view the screen. “Is that all the Murdocks you have listed? Is there another index?”

Florence James looked at Anthony over her glasses as she spoke. “We upgraded our system a few years ago so that all of the licenses and certificates we have in storage are catalogued on this computer. We type in a name and access a code number that tells us exactly where the license is located in our archives. Our files are among the most comprehensive in the state. If a license is not listed in this system, then it does not exist.”

“Okay…”
Think, Anthony, think.

Mrs. James pecked at a few more keys. “Do you know either one of their Social Security numbers?”

“No, that's what I was hoping to get off the marriage license. I have very little information about my mother and absolutely none about my biological father.”

“I see. Do you know your mother's maiden name?”

It was the same as his Great-Aunt Rosa's. “Bergenson.”

She was quiet as she tapped again on the keys before slowly shaking her head. “No, sorry. I'm only showing a Stephanie Ann Bergenson with a Harold Cook, married in June of 1979.”

“Harold was my stepfather. They married when I was five.” Anthony shook his head as well. “My parents had to have been married at some point. I distinctly remember my mother having my last name, because I was upset that I was going to be the only person in the house with a different last name after their wedding.”

“I don't know what to tell you, Mr. Murdock.” Mrs. James turned off the computer, her eyes glancing at a wall clock. “The only thing that I can think of is maybe they got married somewhere else. We only keep records of marriages performed in this county.”

The church bell tolled twelve as Terri rounded the last curve toward the parking lot. She'd made a quick stop at home to change first before speeding back to where she'd last seen Anthony. The car hit the gravel lot with a skid and slammed to a stop. Neither Anthony's car nor Pastor Green's blue Buick LeSabre were there.

She cut the ignition, unsure of what to do next. It was quiet, except for a light wind that rattled some dead tree branches stacked at the edge of the lot.

Terri watched a rabbit hop across a patch of brown grass. It sniffed at a few wildflowers and then edged its way alongside the church, cutting across the main entrance and disappearing into a group of trees that bordered the church cemetery. The open front door of the main entrance caught Terri's eye.

“Somebody's here.” She decided to investigate.

The smell of fresh paint filled her nostrils as she stepped into the foyer. Drop cloths and plastic sheets lined the floor and the single pew that sat in the corridor near the stairway. She saw a couple of empty paint cans lined up against the unfinished wall. Pastor Green must have gone to get some more paint, she realized. Maybe Anthony was helping him. With that thought a long string of maybes crowded her mind, pushing out other thoughts, chipping away at the certainty that had been building alongside her anger.

Maybe Anthony really was here meeting with Pastor Green every time he said he was. Maybe she had misread his intentions, his actions. Maybe he was planning a good surprise for her and she was ahead of his timing. Maybe she was blowing things out of proportion. Maybe her doubts were unfounded. Maybe everything really was okay.