Settling Old Scores: BWWM Second Chance Romance (25 page)

They
pulled up to Willie's house. There was already a police squad there.
Tammy was there, also. The police answered the front door when Kevin
knocked. Sheila and Tammy were sitting on the living room couch
behind them. Sheila indicated to the officers that they were friends
and he let them in. Pat went right to Sheila and embraced her. Sheila
looked glad to see Pat. They sat down and started to talk. Tammy and
her worried nieces sat with Kevin. He put his arm around the youngest
one and pulled her onto his lap. Tammy had the other one on her lap.
They sat in silence for a little bit.

Then
Tammy said that Willie himself had called to tell them he was okay
and not to worry. He said he would be a little late for supper, but
beyond that he was fine. Kevin breathed a sigh of relief. The little
girls seemed to take their signals from Tammy and Kevin. They relaxed
a little and started to play a little with each other. The officer
told Sheila that they would go out to the squad car and watch the
house from there. This was their normal procedure when things like
this happened. They watched out for their fellow officers; and they
kept away reporters, gawkers, and troublemakers.

Kevin
asked Tammy about the fire and what it would mean for her. She said
in a way it was a blessing. They joked that she would be eligible for
unemployment now and that her application for benefits would be fun
to fill out. Kevin knew then that she would land on her feet. She
said she wanted to go to nursing school anyway and had saved almost
enough to pull it off.

Then,
Kevin asked Tammy if she knew Andre McCann. She scowled and said,
"All the girls hated him. He was so creepy, the way he stared at
us all the time. He was one of the managers there. One time, he
walked in on me when I was undressing and tried to get me to have sex
with him. I thought I was going to get raped until the bouncer came
in and distracted him enough for me to get away. I heard he got
beaten up yesterday. He didn't come to work. I know that. The other
manager said he wouldn't be in to work for at least three weeks."

Willie
pulled up in his car finally and had a word with the officers. The
girls saw their dad and ran out along with Sheila to see him. Kevin,
Patricia, and Tammy watched from the house. "My big brother sure
plays it cool" said Tammy with a look of marvel on her face.
They let the family have their private moment before emerging from
the house. Willie saw them and smiled. He embraced his sister.

"Thanks
for stopping by," he said, turning to face Pat and Kevin. Then,
he told them that there wasn't much of a story to the shooting. He
had brought the prisoner down the elevator in handcuffs. The
escorting deputy wasn't paying enough attention and Donnie grabbed
Willie's gun. He trained it on the escort. Willie whirled around in
time to see what was happening. He shoved Donny as hard as he could
into the concrete walls in the basement of the city jail. The escort
pulled his gun out and fired as Donny bounced off the wall still in
handcuffs with the gun in his hands.

"Everything
happened so fast. I didn't have time to do anything but react. Maybe
if I had wrapped him up instead of shoving him he would still be
alive," said Willie.

"Maybe
you would be dead instead of that man," said Sheila.

"She's
right, you know. Don't second guess yourself Willie," said Pat.

"There
is going to be an investigation. I am off duty as of now. I don't
know for how long. I am not the one that shot him, so I shouldn't be
in a great deal of trouble," said Willie.

"Do
you think anyone is going to come trying to get even with you"
asked Tammy.

"Shit
no girl! These guys don't have no friends that they have inspired any
love in. There ain't a thing to worry about," said Willie. With
that he picked up his girls and headed into the house. Pat and Kevin
said their goodbyes. Tammy waved to them. Sheila hugged them both.

On
the way home, they drove in silence. After a while, Pat said, "Well,
I don't suppose Donny's son is going to come after Willie with two
broken collarbones."

"Did
you hear Tammy talk about him? She said he was a creep and had tried
to force himself on her once," Kevin asked.

"I
did hear her say that. Maybe, more good will come out of this than we
know. If Janet knew what you did, she would personally want to reward
you,” said Pat.

"How
about you? You're the one I want to be personally rewarded by,"
said Kevin.

"I
just know she has a thing for you just like I do. As for personally
rewarding you, I am not so sure. Sometimes, your rage scares me. You
really do have to get control of that Kevin," she said.

"I
know I do. When it surfaces, it is definitely Old Testament style
anger. It has gotten better over time. Let’s just say I have a
ways to go. I need to continue the journey," said Kevin.

When
they walked into the apartment, Pat took a look at how Kevin had
cleaned it out. "Now, it's really starting to hit me. In another
few weeks, we are going to be moving on," she said.

"Yes,
we are going to blow this popsicle stand very soon. Our school days
are coming to a close," said Kevin.

Pat
set her stuff down. She called her mother to let her know she was
back and things were fine. They talked at length about the trip and
how she played. At some point, Hannah asked Pat if she had heard the
news about Donnie McCann. Pat told her mom that they had just come
from Willie's house and he was okay. Pat said the same thing Willie
had said that guys like the McCanns had more enemies than anything
else. Their arrests had emboldened people in most cases to fill the
void they were going to leave.

That
night, they listened to the news and found out that Sam McCann had
confessed to the murder of Sylvia Greenberg. He ratted out his
brother on the other deaths, including the embalmed fetal remains.
Kevin and Pat looked at each other dubiously. "I rather doubt
that he didn't have anything to do with those other bodies. His
attorney was all over the opportunity Donnie's death created. What a
scumbag he is," said Pat.

"Yeah,
I bet there are more skeletons in the closet literally than just
these bodies. If the sentence is too harsh, the attorney will say his
client was forced into confessing for fear of his life. His nephew
was assaulted, his garage was burned, his business was blown up, and
his brother killed by the police. I suppose he could make a
heart-rending appeal based on all that," said Kevin

"He
is still going to go away for a lengthy time. I bet Perkins feels
pretty good about all this. I can't imagine he is working all that
hard to find the perpetrator of all these other crimes, just as
nobody worked for years on finding out what happened to Sylvia
Greenberg. Until you had a conversation with Matt and crawled around
those old houses on English Avenue,” Pat concluded.

36.
The Proposal

Three
weeks later, early on a Sunday morning, Kevin and Pat stood in front
of Pat's house with Kevin's old pickup loaded with a few belongings.
Pat was saying goodbye to her mother. She was making a trip to Hilton
Head Island via Wilmington, North Carolina. Much had happened in the
ensuing three weeks. Pat had gotten her Doctorate, and a job playing
for the Houston Symphony starting January 2nd.

Sam
McCann had been sentenced and sent to state prison without parole for
twenty years. The judge he got did not mince words or dance the dance
Sam had hoped for. Sylvia's picture had been plastered all over the
paper for a few days. It was the one that showed a beautiful young
girl that anyone would have loved to have as a daughter. Perkins’
release of the picture may have swung more weight with the
authorities and public opinion than anyone realized.

Matt
was in a halfway house. He had even started working as casual labor
unloading groceries from incoming trucks into a food warehouse. The
labor was hard, but the money was paid in cash by the drivers, and
was remarkably good. Sometimes, if he got someone unloaded quickly
enough, he would collect a nice tip. He was good enough at it to have
the drivers start to seek him out when they came into town.

Kevin
had the old print he had of Sylvia, Marcy, and him standing in front
of the old grocery store blown up and framed. He had previously
called Marcy's grandmother, introduced himself and asked if he could
drop the picture off. After the sentencing, Perkins had revealed to
the Greenbergs some of the story of how it happened that Sylvia
Greenberg's case had been reopened and solved. Grandma said that
Marcy had been struggling lately with all the events that had
happened.

Kevin
and Pat approached the house and knocked on the door. Grandma
Greenberg was a spry old Jewish woman that spoke with a heavy accent
you couldn't help but love. She was sharp and full of energy. She
greeted them and called Marcie down out of her room. Marcy was
surprised to see Kevin standing in the living room of her house. "Mr.
Kelly, what are you doing here?" she asked in that sweet voice
that blew Kevin away every time he heard it.

Kevin
handed her the picture. "I wanted you to have this," he
said. She studied the somewhat grainy picture. "That's me, mom,
and you, isn't it? I don't really remember you, but I remember
running to the bottom of the stairs. Mom always told me not to go
further than the bottom of those stairs," she said smiling at
the picture.

"I
had that picture for years. When I first saw you in Mr. Sharpe's Math
Club, I asked him who you were. I told him you reminded me of someone
I knew years before. When he said the name Marcy Greenberg, the
connection was instant. You look and sound so much like her,"
said Kevin.

Kevin
continued, "The man that really cracked this open was a homeless
guy that saw some of what happened that night. We were having
breakfast one morning. I told him about the math club and how that
one student Marcy Greenberg reminded me of her mother. I asked him
out of the blue what he remembered about the riots. It turned out
that he remembered quite a bit."

Kevin
continued on, "Remember the good things about your mom. She was
kind to everyone. The man that remembered what happened that night;
especially remembered her giving him money and food to him when he
was at the low point of his life. It just might be that his life was
saved when he came forward to tell what he saw that night. She loved
you dearly, too. I can tell you that."

Marcie
and Grandma Greenberg thanked Kevin and Pat for the picture. Then
Kevin and Pat headed out. They were going to make a trip out of this
opportunity. They were not going to drive straight through or
anything close to that. They were going to stop in Chicago and
Wilmington for a day on the way down. They took turns driving and
chatted as they drove. Kevin quickly discovered that Pat was as
pleasant of a traveler as you could ever want. She only had three
needs.

You
just had to feed her when she was hungry. Let her go to the bathroom
when she said she needed to stop. The third requirement was to let
her sleep when she was tired. Kevin thought of the old saying about
babies that usually it's only three things that make them fussy. They
are wet, tired, or hungry. "You're my baby,” he teased
her.

When
they crossed into North Carolina, Pat started to get excited. She had
talked to her dad several times in the last three weeks. He called
her when he got the pictures, like Pat had asked. She called him when
she got her job offer. He called her after he had called Hannah the
first time. They had established some rapport, but still had much to
talk about.

Finally,
on the fourth day of the trip, they carefully followed the directions
Dwayne had given them and pulled up to his house. It was a small
little place on the south end of town. It looked to have been
meticulously cared for. They pulled in and Dwayne who must have been
waiting for them came outside. Kevin grabbed his camera and took
pictures as Pat met her dad for the first time. She stretched out her
hands and held his gently. They stood about 18 inches apart. They
looked each other over a little. They exchanged a few words, and then
they hugged and cried. Kevin was moved by the scene but kept taking
pictures. Finally, after about five minutes, both Pat and Dwayne
realized he was there too. Introductions were made.

"Mr.
Washington, I am so glad to meet you at last," said Kevin as he
shook his hand and looked him over.

"I
am glad to meet you too, Kevin. Damn, you talk like a Yankee. I just
told Pat she was way whiter than I thought she would be. Come to
think of it, I could say the same thing to you," he said with a
laugh. Kevin genuinely liked the man. He just seemed like a salt of
the earth type guy. He was tall and thin with the big calloused hands
of a working man. His voice was light and Kevin noticed right away
that Pat and he had similar cadences in their voices. You could
easily hear that she was his daughter.