Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (4 page)

He didn't have far to go. Mick O'Malley was in the lounge, his solid two hundred pounds of muscle planted between two men, Zach Garfield and Ruby's friend, Johnny.

She was there in a chair.

“You killed her, you nigger bastard!”

Zach Garfield was standing with his back pressed to the wall, his eyes dark and wide against skin that looked chalky. “I didn't. God, I told you I didn't!”

Mick O'Malley's hand held Johnny back, as he tried to rush at Zach.

“I saw how you were looking at her when we got on the train!” Johnny said, his fists clenched, his face red.

Walter Lee pulled his gaze from the men and looked down at the woman slumped sideways in the armchair. She was still beautiful. But she wasn't laughing anymore. A knife—a large kitchen knife—was sticking out of her chest.

Help us, Jesus, Walter Lee thought.

“Talk fast,” Mick O'Malley said to Zach.

“I told him what happened,” Zach said, his voice shaking. “I heard a noise, and I came to see what it was. And I found her like that.”

“You're lying!” Johnny said.

“We'll hold him for the police,” Mick O'Malley said. “Until we get to Chicago. I'll not have a lynch mob on my train.”

His words were as much for the passengers that had began to crowd into the room as for Johnny. They were mumbling. Staring from Ruby dead there in the chair to Zach with his back against the wall.

“I'm going to lock him up in the storeroom in the kitchen,” O'Malley told the passengers. “I'll put a guard on the door.” Then, to Walter Lee, “This man here . . .” he gestured with a nod at Johnny. “Pulled the emergency brake to signal for help. We'll be back under way in a few minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” Walter Lee said.

He turned to the passengers behind him. “Ladies and gentlemen, we . . . there's nothing you can do here. If you would please go back to your rooms—”

“Don't you be telling us where to go, nigger,” a man's voice said from the crowd.

“Then
I'll
tell you,” Mick O'Malley said. “Get back to your rooms and stay there.”

They went back with curses from the men and wails of fear from the women. Walter Lee thought he heard the preacher asking the Lord's assistance.

He'd be willing to bet that they all were locking their doors and would keep them locked until the next station. They wouldn't be ringing for their colored porter tonight.

And that was good because he had some thinking to do.

Walter Lee wondered in passing what instructions Mick O'Malley would give to the kitchen crew. Would he lock them up somewhere too, to make sure none of them tried to let Zach free? Or would he trust them?

Hard to tell what O'Malley was thinking right now. He'd left Walter Lee in charge of his car. But by the time they got to Chicago, all the colored men who were in the vicinity might have gotten named in Ruby's death. And, however, it came out for the rest of them, Zach was in a world of trouble right now.

Walter Lee went back to the men's washroom and began to collect the shoes that had been scattered across the floor when the train came to a stop. Whatever happened, the passengers were going to want their shoes back and polished in the morning. He could think while he shined.

When he knocked on Dwight Kent's door, Walter Lee was prepared to have the young man look at him suspicious. Instead, Dwight opened the door, smiled, and made a sweeping gesture of his arm for Walter Lee to enter. “I was hoping you'd come,” he said, shutting the door.

Now, Walter Lee was the one feeling suspicious. Not that he had been sure this was the best idea he'd ever had, even before he knocked. “Why is that, sir?”

Dwight Kent nodded. “We need to confer don't we? About the suspects. I've been watching them, and you've been watching them, and if we put our heads together—”

“So you don't think Zach did it?” Walter Lee said.

“I asked myself why he would kill her.” Dwight looked up toward the
ceiling. “Unless, of course, he was tying to rape her, and ended up killing her when she fought back. But from what I could see, there wasn't much of a struggle. And you would think she would have screamed loud enough for somebody to hear if she was being attacked . . . unless he stopped her from screaming . . . but he didn't have any bite marks that I could see . . . and, anyway, that stuff about colored men lusting after white women all the time . . .” he stopped talking and looked at Walter Lee. “But you've already thought all this through, haven't you? Not that you probably had to think about it as much as I did.”

“No, I didn't have to think about it long,” Walter Lee said.

“So you've come to confer, haven't you?” Dwight smiled. “That must mean you don't think I did it. Well, I don't think you did either.”

“Thank you, sir,” Walter Lee said. “But what I need . . . if you wouldn't mind . . . is to have another look at those drawings you were doing—”

Dwight nodded. “I thought of that too. She reacted to one of them when she was flipping back through the pad. But I couldn't see which one it was, could you?”

“No, sir. But I thought if we looked at them—”

They spent the next half hour looking and trying to see what it was that had made Ruby say, “There's something about . . .”

“She must have meant something that reminded her of something,” Walter Lee said.

“Or something that wasn't right about one of the sketches,” Dwight said from his lounging position in the other chair.

“But all your drawings aren't quite right, sir,” Walter Lee said. “I mean they—”

“They're caricatures,” Dwight said. “And, sometimes, I can be a little mean.”

Walter Lee nodded. “Yes, sir, like with the preacher and the major.”

Dwight held up the pad. “But I did flatter our middle-aged spinster.”

“Yes, sir, you made the schoolteacher look pretty. Except she looks like she—”

“Well, she'd probably like to.”

“Uh-huh, sir. But we aren't getting anywhere with—” Walter Lee closed his eyes. He'd had a thought and lost it. He tried to find it again, to grasp what it was.

“What?” Dwight said. “You've got something haven't you?”

Walter Lee pointed at the sketch. “Her hair,” he said. “David, the widow's little boy, said her hair smelled funny.”

“Maybe he meant it didn't smell as nice as his mother's.”

“Yes, sir, maybe. But have you ever been in one of those beauty parlors. I don't know if they're the same for white women as for black. But when you walk in there, it smells . . . like hair frying and chemical smells, like in the labs they have in high schools. Women put stuff on their hair to straighten it or to change the color. What if, the schoolteacher—”

“Had dyed her hair that dull brown?”

“Yes, sir. And put on glasses. And that ugly brown dress. What if she wanted to look like a spinster schoolteacher?”

“When she's really something else? What? A spy left over from the war?”

“Or somebody Ruby . . . Miss Ruby . . . might have recognized if she looked like she usually did.”

“But if she was someone Ruby knew, even with her hair dyed and glasses—”

“But what if she didn't know her that well, sir? What if she was just someone she would have seen in passing somewhere else?”

“You've got something in mind, haven't you?”

“Yes, sir, but I don't know . . . it was just when the major had his cramp . . . and the way the schoolteacher made a beeline away from Miss Peaches when she saw her and—”

“Miss who?”

Walter Lee shook his head. “I'm just thinking this through, sir. But what if . . .”

When he was done, Dwight laughed. “That's some theory. And you haven't really identified the motive.”

“The motive? You mean why, sir? Well, I don't know about that. I'm just trying to think how some of these things might tie together. 'Course it could have been one of the others. The major acts kind of strange. Still got the shakes. And the preacher was watching her.” Walter Lee shook his head. “I'm just saying suppose, sir.”

Dwight nodded. “So now we have to figure out how to test your theory.”

“Yes, sir, and that could be trouble. Especially if I'm wrong.” Walter Lee rubbed at his chin. “And I'm wondering whether I should say anything to the conductor. But I'm feeling kind of uneasy, because he ain't come to speak to me about this.”

“Better leave him out of it then.” Dwight grinned, “But I'm in.”

“Yes, sir,” Walter Lee said, and kept to himself his opinion that Dwight didn't have a whole lot to lose. He was playing a game. But his help was welcome.

The train would be coming into Union Station in less than an hour. The conductor had instructed Walter Lee—still without saying much about what had happened—to do his best to make things as normal as possible for the sleeping-car passengers. Bring their shined shoes and breakfast to their rooms if they didn't care to go to the dining room and be served. Keep them as content as possible until the police could board the train to take Zach away. They'd be wanting to question the passengers too, so there would be some delay in getting people off.

But Walter Lee knew time was running out. If the police thought Zach did it, the passengers would be questioned only about what they might have seen or heard. And then they would be gone.

If he was going to do it, it would have to be now.

Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the schoolteacher's door. She hadn't come out of her room to go to the dining car or rung for service. She might still be sleeping, but he doubted it.

When she opened the door, she was dressed in another ugly dress, this one with a little jacket. Her hair was in that bun.

“I need to speak to you, ma'am,” Walter Lee said.

“Yes?” she said.

“Inside, please, ma'am. This . . . you wouldn't be wanting anyone else to hear this.”

She looked at him, her eyes calm behind the glasses. Then she stepped back. Walter Lee stepped into her room.

It was not unusual for him to be in a passenger's room. He made their beds. He cleaned up after them. They seem to think nothing at all of being half-dressed in front of him, both the men and the women.

But this was different. He was trying to hold the upper hand here. And it could go bad wrong. He glanced toward the door that he had left slightly ajar.

“Ma'am, I know,” he said.

“You know what?”

“I know you killed her.”

She stared at him. “If this is a joke—”

“No, ma'am. I know you killed her, and I can prove it.”

“How can you prove something that—”

“Miss Peaches, ma'am. You were scared Miss Peaches was going to recognize you.”

“I don't know what you—”

“She works as an orderly at the hospital, ma'am. Dressed like a man during the week. And she would have known you were one of the nurses from the hospital. If she'd seen you, she would have known you were dressed up for something too—”

“I don't know what you—” Her eyes glinted behind her glasses. “I had no reason to kill that young woman—”

“Not that much younger than you, ma'am. I bet you look a whole lot younger when you're dressed like—”

“Get out of here,” she said. “I don't wish to continue this ridiculous—”

“We don't have to, ma'am. I'll just go tell them—the conductor and the police when they come on board—and let them ask you about it. Check up on you.”

Walter Lee turned toward the door. He heard the screech she gave,
before she landed on him from behind. She jabbed at him with something sharp. He twisted around and saw the scissors in her hand. He held up his arm in front of his face as she came at him again. He shoved her away, as she stabbed at him. But she came back, shrieking, jabbing with the scissors. He was down on the floor, flailing his arms to try to keep her away.

He heard voices on the other side of the door. They were tying to open it, but he was against it.

He could feel the blood in his eyes. He caught his breath and rose up, shoving her away. She came after him again.

But now, they were inside, pulling her away. She was still screaming like a wild thing.

Walter slumped back against the wall.

They held her—Dwight and the conductor, Mick O'Malley—until she settled down. She whimpered. “I sat by his bedside willing him to live, and he did . . . but all he wanted was her. She came, and she looked at him, and there was revulsion in her eyes, and he saw it. And I could feel the pain he felt. And I tried to comfort him. But she was all he wanted. When she stopped coming, stopped pretending, he let himself die. Because of her.” Her head hung down, her hair falling around her face. “She said he drove her away. But she didn't love him. I did. I did . . . even broken and scarred . . . I loved him.”