Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (32 page)

“Because you are the director of this place, I will keep you abreast of the investigation,” he said. “But, you are not to become involved in it.”

When I didn't respond, he frowned and looked at the competent little officer standing more-or-less at attention. “Officer Morrison, you are,
again,
assigned to Ms. Bell. She may be a . . . material witness. Please, stay with her until further notice. And, she is never to be alone in this place.” He walked out of the room without looking my way.

If he says “this place” one more time, it's going to be
on.

By the time he made it to the stairwell, I had written the last five phone numbers on a yellow legal pad beside the phone on my desk and put the list in my jacket pocket. The message light was blinking; I had one message, left at 4:20 p.m.

I motioned Officer Shirley to the loveseat while I listened to the messages.

The caller, who sounded like a very young child, left no name or number, only a short message: “How does it feel to be losing other people's children?” I dropped the receiver and ran for the bathroom, with Officer Shirley closer than I liked anyone behind me. At this rate, I could be wearing Depends within a week.

I left the bathroom and headed for Taywanda's old office. I couldn't imagine what she or her departure had to do with either death, but it wouldn't hurt to check the office. And, it had occurred to me after talking to Lew about Taywanda that, at a distance, the dead woman resembled her, even to the full-length black leather coat. Maybe Janice had thought so, too. I'd ask her.

Sitting at the wrap-around-desk—one of the nicer hand-me-downs from a corporate contributor—I searched each drawer.

“If you're searching for evidence, I have to advise you to stop immediately. You might unintentionally destroy or compromise evidence, ma'am, I mean, Gloria.” Officer Shirley stood in the doorway knowing exactly what I was doing. My guess is, she didn't want to be in this office with me going through drawers when Lew returned. I'd try to make sure neither of us was.

The desk was wiped clean, but a little dusty now and empty, except a few office supplies—paper clips and pens mostly, and a pink message pad. I had picked up a pink slip from a message pad in the hallway the day
she'd resigned, and I was sure that the number on it would match one of the phone numbers on the pay phone record.

I am not good with numbers, that is, manipulating them, but I rarely forget ones that have or follow a pattern of any kind. The last four numbers on the pink slip were 2-4-1-2, and 24 is 12 times 2.

I found a match with the second number from the bottom of the list I'd copied. I dialed the number using my cell phone and after five rings got an answering machine. There was no mistaking the officious voice on the recorded message. It belonged to the B, Bernetta Bennett. I hung up.

I stood to leave the office, and my cell phone rang, displaying the B's number.

“Hello?” I said without disguising my voice or my hatred.

“Glo? Is that you?”

Lew's question was rhetorical, so I hung up without answering and cut off my cell phone.

The questioning was well under way when I walked past the lounge. Lew had not returned, but his orders were still in force.

“Yes, Miss, you do have to give your full name,” Officer Turner said to the elderly resident standing before him with her hands on her ample hips.

“No, sir, I don't. Them parents of that poor
JonBenet
child didn't have to give the police nothing but their high-priced lawyer's business card 'til they wanted to.” She removed her hands from her hips and stuck her arms out, wrists together. “So you gon' arrest me, now?” She didn't seem worried and wasn't playing for the crowd.

“No, Miss, I'm not. I'll just list you as Jane Doe,” he said, as he pressed a pencil against his pad so hard the lead broke.

“Oh no you won't! That's for dead folks with no name. My name's Annie Louise Jones, and I don't know a thing to tell you. I walked up when you drove up. Don't know her and ain't never seen her but once, God rest her young soul.”

“When did you see her before?”

“First and onliest time I ever saw her was today on the steps, dead.
That was the once.” She put her hands back on her hips and waited for another question.

Miss Annie Louise had warned me of the Gestapo tactics and clearly wasn't having any of it. Officer Turner's top lip quivered; his patience was probably wearing thin. And, he probably was finding that the women here knew the law and the D.C. Code better than some lawyers he'd encountered in court.

Native Washingtonians and transplants are news and politics junkies. So, even at A Woman's Place, the most popular daytime television shows—except perhaps for soap operas—are news and court TV.

I felt a little sorry for Officer Turner when he returned to the lounge with Etta Jenkins, a former elementary school teacher who had lost her husband, two children, and, she said, her cat in a DWI accident and “just couldn't deal with family stuff and other people's kids after that.” She was sharper than a tack and loved word games. They, or at least she, would have fun.

It was clear that most of the women assembled were not particularly frightened. I was afraid for them and for myself, but many had lived in cars and in rat-infested abandoned buildings and had seen people after the blunt-force trauma of a bullet and in violent psychotic rages. And, they had often been the objects of other people's rage—ordinary people who did not like being reminded of their existence.

I needed an Advil or some other legal painkiller, so I asked Officer Shirley to get my purse. It was hanging on the chair in my office. I did not intend to go back into that office. She hesitated, but I assured her that I would be fine. Two officers were stationed in front of the building to protect the crime scene, and two were inside.

Officer Shirley headed upstairs, and I turned toward the kitchen to make tea, perhaps not a good choice, considering my bladder problem. The back of the building was dark and empty. I bumped into a side table in the hallway just past the lounge, so I turned on the light in the dining room-turned health center every Tuesday. The center contained no drugs, OTC or prescription; the physician's assistant brought them with her. I could have waited for Officer Shirley, but the building has been searched,
sort of, and I could be sipping tea in the four or five minutes that it would take for her to return, if I microwaved the water.

My hand hit the kitchen light switch just as the outline of someone crouched in the corner beside the refrigerator came into focus.
If the crouching figure is the murderer,
I thought,
I hope he or she is still going the blunt force route.
In the instant that the light came on and immediately blew, I saw someone racing forward, with something in her hand, shaking her head.

By the time it registered that the person was Janice and I heard, “Please help me, please,” I'd already turned to run toward Washington's finest. I hesitated for just a moment, thinking she might be hurt or in danger. She grabbed my arm and yanked hard enough to spin me around to face her.

She pointed a gun at my forehead.

Officer Shirley would be looking for me soon, but she probably wouldn't start in this stuffy little pantry, where Janice and I stood facing each other—her back to the door, mine to canned goods. The only break in the darkness came from a flashlight Janice cut on and placed on a shoulder-level shelf, near her. My eyes were locked on the gun. The air was heavy with powdery stuff, and I hoped for a good strong sneeze.

Nothing that Janice had said since directing me into the pantry and locking the door from the inside had seemed unbelievable, especially the part about the B befriending her and then using her. Although Janice said she did not intend to hurt me, just didn't know where to turn, she also did not put the gun down. While I wanted to be on her side, it is difficult to maintain compassion for a person pointing a presumably loaded gun at your head.

“I know Bernetta is involved in these murders,” I said. “But, how are you involved?”

“I been hiding in here since they found Arlene and the police came. When you came by, I was trying to leave. Gloria, I didn't kill anybody,” she said in a shaky version of her sad voice. “People are getting killed. And
I been in trouble before. I can't get caught with a gun with my fingerprints all over it.”

“I don't think either woman was shot, and you'd be a lot more convincing without that gun pointed at me,” I said.

She didn't even seem to hear me.

“And today when I saw Arlene on the steps, I thought . . .”

“You thought she was Taywanda.” At least one part of the puzzle was becoming clearer. “You almost knocked me down to get to her.”

“Bernetta said they'd hurt her if I didn't keep quiet . . . I had to protect her, 'specially after I did so bad by her before. They scared her into leaving.” She leaned against the wall and cried, but she still kept that gun pointed at me, now considerably lower than my head.

Someone else must hear her wailing.

“Taywanda is your daughter, isn't she?” I said. The question was rhetorical.

“Bernetta knew, said she wouldn't hurt her if I helped them with keys and stuff. No killing, never. You lost a child, maybe she ain't dead, but she's lost to you, so I thought you'd understand.”

“Janice, put the gun down. Bernetta . . . or somebody forced you to do whatever you've done to protect your daughter, but I know you haven't killed anyone, so this can be fixed.”

“They said I'm a accomplice and Taywanda, too, because we knew something was going to happen when they sent Taywanda threat'ning notes. I didn't know anything about anybody getting killed.” Janice was talking fast, for her, but was calmer.

I wanted to know the details but could wait until the gun was down.

“If you haven't hurt anybody, Lt. Davis will try to help you and Taywanda, too.” The gun was still in her hand, but it wasn't really pointed at me until I mentioned Taywanda.

“You can't bring Taywanda into this. She didn't know anything but to leave or get hurt . . . her and her real mother . . . the one that raised her. Bernetta promised not to tell even when Taywanda wouldn't help . . . I don't want her to know.” She'd begun to ramble.

“Know what?”

“That I'm her mother, a woman like me . . . 'specially now. I just don't want her to get hurt or get in trouble.”

“Trust me, Janice. If you've told the truth, I'll help you, and Taywanda will not get hurt. I trusted you and gave you a job and responsibility, when no one else would. Trust me, now.”

Janice leaned off of the wall and tried to smile. “I bought this gun from a boy all the way up Ridge Road. I don't even know if it works. I haven't used it. I never used a gun,” she said as if the thought of her doing so were crazy.

She put the gun on the shelf by the flickering flashlight and whispered, “I didn't kill anybody, but I let those girls get killed, didn't I?”

We talked for a few minutes without the gun between us.

She was just a mother trying to protect her child, and I did understand.

Officers Shirley and Turner were outside the pantry door with guns drawn when Janice and I emerged, me first.

Officer Turner grabbed Janice, threw her against the wall, and handcuffed her, while Officer Shirley kept a gun trained on her. I had intended to omit the gun from my reporting of events. When they asked for it, I went back into the pantry and retrieved it from a huge canister of generic Cheerios.

I promised Janice that I would come to the precinct as soon as possible, but I had something else to do first, with any luck before Lew returned and got protective. Janice would be okay. The “go easy” order was still in force.

The door to the left of the pantry led to the basement. I used the key that Janice gave me to unlock the door; she didn't have the padlock on. Even with the lights on, the basement was dim, so I took two flashlights from a junk drawer before heading down. On the narrow unlit stairwell, I used the high-beam MegaLite to light the way down and to warn anything that crawled that people were coming down. Officer Shirley put her gun in the
shoulder holster under her vest and took the pinpoint flashlight. She warned me again about tampering with evidence but was not about to leave me alone again. She could come along or not; I didn't care.

Before going to the basement, I had checked the storage log that Janice kept. It listed a canary yellow backpack belonging to Melba Johnson that was placed in Resident Storage Area 4 the previous day. If she left anything behind that might help to find her killer, it would probably be in her backpack. She had nothing else.

Janice and a few of the other women had recently reorganized the basement to store more residents' belongs. Except for a few randomly placed stacks of bricks donated for a small renovation project, everything was in a bin or a partitioned cubicle, and typed 8
¹
⁄
2
x 11-inch signs hung from partitions, indicating what they contained. Unfortunately, I didn't know the new layout.