The Way of the Wicked (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 2) (10 page)

Lord, give me strength,
Cooper prayed as she climbed into Brenda’s car.

Brenda rolled down the windows, cranked up the radio, and began to bob her head from side to side as she belted out hip-hop lyrics.

“Hope you don’t mind if I smoke!” she shouted as they paused at a four-way stop. Before Cooper had a chance to respond, Brenda popped the fat stump of a partially smoked cigar into her mouth, ignited the end with her car’s lighter, and then shoved the gas pedal to the floor. Blue smoke billowed out from the muffler as the Caddy shot through the intersection.

Brenda shot past Richmond’s minor-league baseball stadium while Cooper clung to the door handle. “Where are we going?”

“First stop is Highland Park,” Brenda said. “Bet you don’t get over to this part of town much, do you?”

Cooper shook her head. There weren’t many office buildings where they were headed.

After passing by a dozen run-down houses, Brenda parked in front of a tiny bungalow with a cracked cement path and chipping paint. Brenda let Cooper take the weekend food box while she carried the black cooler.

At the front door, Brenda pounded on the metal security bars and hollered, “Mrs. Donaldson! It’s Door-2-Door! We brought your lunch!”

Brenda lowered the cooler to the porch and frowned at the piles of brown leaves and coupons scattered around the frayed welcome mat.

“How often is a client’s yard or house cleaned?” Cooper asked softly.

Kicking a crooked stick away from the threshold, Brenda clucked her tongue. “Not often enough, honey. Folks only have so much time to give.”

As the two women gazed at the layer of flaking paint over the wood siding, the door opened several inches and the wizened visage of Mrs. Donaldson peered at them from behind smudged glass.

“I’m Brenda!” Brenda held up the cooler for the client to see. “And this is Cooper. She’s got your weekend box, ma’am.”

Wordlessly, the old woman unlocked a bolt, removed the chain with shaky, age-spotted hands, and then backed away from the door. Brenda opened it slowly and gestured for Cooper to go in ahead of her.

The home was so dark that Cooper could barely tell which way to turn, so she simply scooted to the right and allowed Brenda to enter and take charge.

“You watchin’
I Love Lucy
?” Brenda cackled. “Lord, that is one funny redhead. I always liked Fred the best, myself. Now, let’s get your lunch heated.” Brenda prattled on while Mrs. Donaldson shuffled behind her, mumbling something unintelligible. Cooper admired Brenda’s calm, noting that her mentor acted as though she was an old friend of Mrs. Donaldson and had just dropped by to say a quick hello.

In the dingy kitchen, Cooper couldn’t help but notice the stained and cracked linoleum, the peeling wallpaper of white daisies on a field of blue, or the threadbare curtain covering the tiny window above the rust-rimmed sink. The refrigerator made churning noises as though it had been worked beyond its abilities and the stovetop was covered with a pile of dishes crusted with old food. Several flies buzzed around the fractured ceiling light.

Cooper glanced from the flies to the dishes to Mrs. Donaldson’s lined and weary face. “Brenda? Do we have time for me to clean those dishes?” she whispered.

Brenda swiveled her massive head around toward the stove. “Ew!” she squealed and then wagged a finger at the old woman standing meekly beside her. “You need to let those soak in the sink, ma’am, if you don’t feel like cleanin’ them. You gonna get bugs! Now come sit down in front of the TV and eat. We’ll tidy up for you real quick before we go.”

While Brenda served their client, Cooper began scrubbing at the dishes with a tattered sponge that disintegrated piece by piece as the friction of Cooper’s efforts wore it to a nub. Using her fingernails instead, Cooper chipped at the food under scalding water. Her hands quickly became red and raw, but she paid no heed to her discomfort.

“We ain’t really got time for this, sugar,” Brenda scolded when she returned to the kitchen, but she rubbed vigorously at several dishes with Mrs. Donaldson’s only dish towel until the chipped plates gleamed in the weak light.

After the dishes were laid out on the countertop to dry, Brenda asked Mrs. Donaldson if she needed anything else. The old woman looked up at her from her faded green recliner and shook her head, as if she knew she’d already received all she could expect from the pair of women standing before her.

“All right, then. Don’t forget to lock up after us, ya hear?” Brenda smiled and suddenly they were back in the car, heading for the next stop. “You okay over there?” she asked Cooper as she gunned the Caddy’s engine beneath a traffic light that had just changed from yellow to red. “You’re awful quiet.”

“I’m fine,” Cooper mumbled, unable to keep from dwelling on the state of the old woman’s house.

“I know what your mind’s fixin’ on, but that’s what poor looks like, honey,” Brenda said cheerfully. “Most of our clients are scrapin’ by on ten grand a year. Now, we’ve got some like this next lady in Ginter Park, who pays for meals because she don’t wanna cook no more and she ain’t got anybody to cook for her. They’re not all poor, but at least half of them are livin’ just like Mrs. Donaldson. Some worse.”

Cooper followed Brenda into four more houses. After Mrs. Donaldson, they made a delivery to Mrs. Gates. Mrs. Gates had a tidy, light-filled home right near the park and hobbled to her front door using a walker. She barked orders at them the entire time and seemed keenly disappointed when they had to leave. “But aren’t you going to water my plants?” she called after them as they trotted back to Brenda’s car.

Next, they visited a brother and sister living in a small home a few blocks away from Mrs. Gates, and after that they delivered to a Mr. Sears, who was partially deaf and smelled like he was in desperate need of a bath. Even though they still had one stop to go, Cooper felt totally spent.

“Don’t forget the famous Mr. Crosby!” Brenda chirped. “Wonder what he’ll be wearin’ today?” She wiggled her black eyebrows suggestively.

Mr. Crosby’s house wasn’t much larger than Mrs. Donaldson’s. Like hers, Mr. Crosby’s home had been painted white many years ago. By now it had lost at least half of its outer layer of paint and was stained with mold. A chain-link fence surrounded the property and patches of parched grass intermingled with loose dirt served as the front lawn. The house had two windows flanked by blue shutters so shrouded in cobwebs that they blended into the rest of the house.

“A little early for Halloween, eh?” Brenda giggled and removed the mail from Mr. Crosby’s mailbox. She jabbed at the illuminated doorbell with a plum-colored nail and then shouted, “It’s Door-2-Door, so you’d best be puttin’ on some clothes, Mr. Crosby!”

Cooper picked up a newspaper from the top step and waited for Mr. Crosby to appear.

No one answered the bell. Brenda rang again and then asked Cooper to peer in the front window. “You see him?” she asked, and Cooper shook her head.

“Damn,” Brenda muttered. “We’re supposed to call Lali when nobody answers, but Mr. Crosby does this from time to time. I’m gonna go in. You can stay out here if you want.”

Without waiting for Cooper to reply, Brenda pushed Mr. Crosby’s door open and then gasped. “Sweet Jesus!” she cried and then lunged, her arms outstretched, toward a shriveled old man sitting upright and immobile in a brown leather chair. She pressed her fingertips against his throat and exhaled in relief. “He’s alive. He’s got a pulse and he’s breathin’.” She took a step back and examined Mr. Crosby with her eyes.

“Could he be asleep?” Cooper asked as she watched the rise and fall of the man’s bare chest. Mr. Crosby wore a filthy red-and-white-striped robe, a pair of ratty underwear, and black ankle socks riddled with holes. She detected the scent of urine rising from the chair.

“Looks more like a skinny bear hybernatin’ than an old man takin’ a nap.” Brenda was still panting with fright. After fanning her dewy face for a moment, she prodded Mr. Crosby’s arm with her hand and spoke his name loudly into his right ear. “Go wet a cloth in the kitchen, Cooper. We may need to shock him outta this daze.”

Cooper hustled into the kitchen, which bore a sad resemblance to Mrs. Donaldson’s. Seeing no paper towels or wash rags in sight, she filled half of a plastic tumbler with water and brought it back to the front room. Brenda eyed the glass, shrugged, and then splattered the contents into Mr. Crosby’s face. He jerked awake with a start, but only opened his eyes for a second before squeezing them shut again. It was as if the dim light was too bright and he couldn’t bear to look at it.

“He was yellow,” he muttered. “Didn’t deserve no honor. Yellow, yellow, yellow.” Mr. Crosby’s head swiveled from side to side in agitation. He gripped the arms of his chair until the blue veins on his hands seemed to swell like a flooded river. “You can’t have it. It’s our secret! He was yellow, but it’s
our
secret!”

“Mr. Crosby,” Brenda said his name firmly in an attempt to fully wake him.

“It’s our secret.” He moved his head faster now, whipping it from side to side in a frenzy. “Yellow, yellow,
YELLOW!
”

Brenda leaned over the old man’s thin frame. “Mr. Crosby!”

“Whatdoyawant!” he shouted in return and opened his eyes wide. His gaze focused on the Door-2-Door sticker over Brenda’s large left breast and recognition washed over his pallid features, replaced almost instantly by irritation.

“Did you spill somethin’ on me?” he demanded angrily. Brenda stood up, squared her shoulders, put her hands on her expansive hips, and pursed her lips. “You looked like you was a goner for a minute, but we fixed you up all right. Now, how about some lunch?”

That perked him up. “Yeah, I’m starvin’. Feel like I haven’t eaten for a week. But there’d better be no corn in there. Somebody brought me corn in July.” Mr. Crosby craned his neck in order to peek into the black cooler.

“There’s nothing yellow on your tray,” Brenda assured him calmly. “Now, are you feelin’ okay or should I call somebody?”

Mr. Crosby looked confused. “What day is it?”

Brenda and Cooper exchanged nervous glances. “Saturday, sir,” Cooper replied and handed Mr. Crosby the newspaper she’d removed from the front stoop. He anxiously turned the pages until he had reached the section containing the comics and crossword puzzle.

“Blank,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Last thing I remember, I was sittin’ here doin’ the puzzle. Now you’re tellin’ me it’s a day later?”

“What time do you usually do the crossword?” Cooper asked and pushed a folding tray table closer to him.

Mr. Crosby scrutinized her carefully, as if searching for any hint of the dreaded color yellow. Satisfied that she wasn’t wearing any, he accepted a fork from Brenda and began to shovel mashed potatoes into his mouth. “I only get the paper when the neighbor lady is done with it,” he told Cooper after several greedy swallows. “She’s got a son who buys her stuff. Guess she feels sorry for me with my boy bein’ in jail and all.”

He stabbed a green gelatin square and pushed it into his mouth. “She spends most of the mornin’ drinkin’ that fancy coffee that comes outta a bag. Wish I had some coffee,” he grumbled crossly. “I don’t get the paper ’til she’s done, but at least she never does the puzzles.”

Cooper stared at Friday’s newspaper, which had fallen from Mr. Crosby’s lap and landed in a loose pile next to his chair. “So you were probably working the puzzle about this time of the morning?”

Mr. Crosby paused in order to sip some iced tea. “Yeah. I was waitin’ on
you
folks. That’s the last thing I recall. I was waitin’ for my lunch. Next thing I know I wake up to find it’s a whole different day.” Suddenly, he shoved the tray away from him. “And I gotta go!”

Brenda helped the old man stand. As he hastened away with an awkward, shuffling gait, Brenda winced. “I think he’s gone in that chair already. Good thing this cushion’s covered with plastic.” She sighed. “I’m gonna see if there’s any cleanin’ supplies in that sorry mess of a kitchen.”

After Brenda left, Cooper examined a black-and-white photograph of a young man standing in front of the barracks at Virginia Military Institute’s campus. She was so absorbed by the image of the handsome soldier that she didn’t hear Mr. Crosby reenter the room.

“It’s
gone!
” he wailed and Cooper spun around to see that his wrinkled face was streaked with tears. “Gone, I tell you!”

Cooper took his arm and led him to an upholstered wing chair. He sank down into the floral material and covered his face with his hands. He made pitiable sounds that sounded like a mewling cat.

“What’s gone, Mr. Crosby?” Cooper prodded gently. “Is something missing from your house?”

“Now everyone will know,” Mr. Crosby moaned. “Yellow, yellow, YELLOW! Someone stole our secret. Someone was in my bedroom. I can tell.” The hands covering his face quivered and he began to weep. His shoulders shook and he whimpered, “It’s gone. It’s gone,” over and over.

Eventually, he fell silent and no matter what questions Brenda or Cooper asked, he wouldn’t speak another word. Brenda wiped off Mr. Crosby’s plastic-covered leather chair, put him in a clean T-shirt, and washed his face as tenderly as a mother would clean her own child’s. All the while, Mr. Crosby gazed unseeing at a football game on the television screen.

Back in the Caddy, Brenda was clearly worried. “I’ve never seen him like that. He hasn’t got any memory problems—somethin’ must have happened to him yesterday.”

“And I’m going to try to find out what,” Cooper declared angrily. “I don’t think he just lost track of time, Brenda. He seemed too lethargic and too confused to have just been taking a long nap. And now he believes something’s missing. Something that’s obviously very important to him. I overheard Lali say that items were stolen from several of our clients’ homes this summer. It looks like the thefts are still going on.”

Brenda stared at Cooper in shock, even though the traffic light had turned green. When the car behind them laid on the horn, Brenda waved at them and managed to drive on. “You mean to tell me that the thief is one of us? A
volunteer
is messin’ with these folks?”