When Did We Lose Harriet? (9 page)

Ricky’s address, however, was a dilapidated green and white unit at the back with an old washer in the side yard and no flowers or bushes whatsoever. “You were wise not to come out here alone,” Lewis said, as he switched off the engine. “From what I hear, Rick’s a great believer in the state motto.”

“Which is?”

“We dare to defend our rights.”

Violence overwhelms the mouth of
the wicked.
Proverbs 10:6

Ricky Dodd had about a hundred words in his total vocabulary, sixty of them vulgar. What they added up to was, “Anything’s happened to Harriet, it ain’t my business.”

He folded his arms across his bare torso, arched his back, flicked back greasy white hair that fell almost to his shoulders, and dared anyone to disagree.

Behind him, framed by a filthy doorjamb, stood a girl who looked like she might die from anemia before we finished talking.

“How long has it been since you saw Harriet?” Lewis pressed mildly. I admired the way Lewis kept his temper, especially since Ricky’s vocabulary was also rich in racial slurs.

Ricky turned to the girl for confirmation. “How long’s it been, Bev, six weeks?”

“Two months, more like. School wasn’t out yet.”

“Yeah. Harriet’s school,” he added, to let us know he had no part in it. None of us would have remotely imagined he had.

“She said she had a letter from her mama back in May,” Bev contributed timidly.

“Yeah,” Ricky interrupted. “Maybe Harriet split to join her.”

“Her mother?” Lewis was skeptical. “I thought her mother was dead.”

“Naanh, she just split.” Again Ricky flipped his hair. I suspected he practiced that in front of a mirror. My son Ridd went through a stage of practicing tossing his hair—back when Ridd still had hair.

“Where was the letter from?” I asked.

“I dunno. Never read it.” As if he could.

It had taken him that long to think of the obvious question. “Why do you care what happened to Harriet, anyhow? She in trouble?”

“Of course not.” Lewis acted like he was about to leave, then turned and asked casually, “She didn’t happen to mention getting a large sum of money, did she?”

Unfortunately, at the very same time, I said, “I’ve found something of hers and wanted to return it.”

Ricky could at least add two and two. He whipped around to me. “You found money? Where?”

“At the teen center,” I admitted uncomfortably. “Hidden.”

When he narrowed his eyes, he looked just like a weasel. “Harriet got a pile from her Granny, old Lady Lawson. Left Harriet everything she had.” He snickered. “Put her aunt’s nose out of joint, I can tell you that.”

I’d presumed it was Dee who’d sold her mother’s house. Dee hadn’t corrected that impression, so I couldn’t help showing my surprise. Ricky preened like a peacock, knowing something I didn’t. Then he demanded, “What’d you do with that money? Harriet was gonna give some of
it to me. If you got it—” He came a step forward. Without thinking, I backed up. He followed.

Lewis caught my elbow protectively. “She hasn’t got it with her, and if I catch you bothering Harriet for money, dude, I’ll have the law on you.”

Ricky whirled and hit his jaw so hard I was surprised it didn’t crack. Caught off guard, Lewis stumbled and fell. Ricky crowed brutally. “You and who else?”

Josheba froze, but I hadn’t raised two boys for nothing. “Behave, both of you! Ricky, go on back inside. Lewis, go to the car. We’ve asked what we came for.”

“Got more than you came for.” Ricky looked like he might even strike me!

“Ricky!” the girl squealed from the door. “Stop it! You could get in real bad trouble.”

He gave her a glare that would have had me packing my bags if I’d been her, but he must have decided she had a point. Giving Lewis one quick kick in the back, he stomped up his front steps, shoved the girl aside, and slammed the screened door behind him.

Lewis climbed to his feet, nursing his jaw and holding his back, and limped to the car.

“Just a minute!” I called before Beverly could disappear. “Josheba, do you have paper and a pen?” I sure did miss my pocketbook. I’d need to get one as soon as Jake—

I wasn’t up to thinking about Jake right then. Quickly I took the pen and a grocery receipt Josheba handed me, and wrote down my name, Jake’s name, and his phone number. I held them up to the girl, who stood lumpishly on the top step. “I’m staying at my brother’s while he’s in the hospital. This is his phone number. Please call me if you hear from Harriet.”

She took the paper without a word. Ricky, already lolling on the couch watching television, called, “Fat chance.”

Fat chance he’d hear? Or fat chance he’d call me if he did?

[She] who brings trouble on [her]
family will inherit only wind.
Proverbs 11:29

“I probably asked for that,” Lewis admitted as he started the engine, “but that doesn’t make me feel any better. Did we learn a blessed thing?”

I felt as dismal as he sounded. “Not a thing.”

“Learned not to mess with mean white boys.” Josheba leaned up from the backseat and lightly touched his jaw. “Does it hurt real bad?”

Lewis worked it back and forth. “No more than if I’d been hit by a ten-ton truck.”

“Come by my place,” she offered. “My mama taught me a poultice that’ll take your pain right out.”

“Don’t have time,” Lewis mumbled. “I got a date.”

“Me too,” Josheba said tartly. “A hot date. I was just being nice.”

I looked around in surprise. Josheba winked and held one finger to her lips.

During the next few minutes, several thoughts jumbled around in my brain. If Harriet had inherited her grandmother’s house, then surely she’d gotten more from the sale than three thousand dollars. Where was the rest? In the bank, probably—but how had Harriet gotten out the three thousand? Fifteen-year-olds can’t withdraw money from a bank. Dee must have gotten it for her—but for what? I should have told Dee I’d found the money—except she might not be as worried if she thought Harriet had money to live on. I knew I was more worried thinking she didn’t. “Where could that girl be?” I asked the others. “Surely a child can’t completely disappear.”

Lewis had just pulled onto the Southern bypass, a busy strip of fast-food places and chain motels that utterly lives up to its name: it bypasses every blessed thing that’s nice about the South. “See all this?” he waved his hand out his window. “Busy, anonymous, and just like every other city in America. It’s easy to get lost in that, and for a lot of kids, it looks better than what they’ve left behind. Harriet, for instance, gets to choose between living with a snotty cheerleader cousin, or living with Ricky and putting up with who-knows-what.”

“Paying his bills, if she has any money,” Josheba suggested behind me.

Lewis nodded. “Or going on the streets to pay them if she doesn’t.”

“Surely not!” I’ve seen a lot in my time, but what he’d just said made me sick.

He shrugged. “In my business you see brothers selling sisters, Mac, much less foster brothers selling kids they don’t give two bits for. I’m not saying Ricky did put Harriet on the streets, but he would’ve tried in a blinkin’ second if he needed bread.”

“Why doesn’t somebody do something?” I demanded.

“Why don’t you do something?” Lewis darted through traffic, picking up speed as if driven by anger. “You got any vacant beds in your house?”

“Yes, since our boys are grown.” I sure missed Glenna’s air conditioner. The wind whipped my cheeks like a fat kiss from an unwelcome lover.

“Why don’t you fill them up with neglected children? Then get out there and do something about parents who’re too busy to notice what their kids are up to, or schools so bogged down in security and policies they don’t have time to teach, or media people whose only interest in kids is how much they can be made to buy.”

“You forgot the government who gives kids college loans instead of scholarships,” Josheba added sourly, “and banks who practically beg them to take credit cards they don’t know how to manage. Seems like everybody is out to screw kids these days.” She got so caught up in what she was saying that she came right up against the back of my seat and gripped it with both hands. I could feel her breath on my neck. “I talked to a kid yesterday who’s twenty-four years old, up to his neck in college loans, and already maxed out on four credit cards. He won’t be out of debt when his own kids are ready for college.”

“Preach it, sister!” Lewis said cheerfully.

Josheba flounced back into her seat. “I didn’t mean to get carried away, but you pushed my button. But we shouldn’t fuss at Mac, Lewis. She’s the one who started looking for Harriet in the first place.”

Lewis looked over and gave me a smile of apology. “Yeah. And in spite of what I just said, don’t get too worked up about her, okay? Whatever she’s up to, I don’t think she’s in any trouble. That girl can take care of herself.”

Josheba had been thinking, too. “Maybe she did go to her mother. Did her auntie mention the mother at all, Mac?”

I told them what Nora and Julie had said.

Josheba shook her head. “Unlikely she’d have wanted a grown daughter around if she’s working the streets, unless she got sick or something.”

Lewis went back to what he’d been saying before. “Harriet’s feisty. I’m willing to bet she’s struck out on her own—headed down to Mobile or up to Birmingham.”

“She had a brochure from an acting school in Atlanta,” I told them.

Lewis snorted. “Harriet onstage? Well, if she paid them any money, that is a tragic waste.”

“She might make a great actress, with the right coaching,” Josheba disagreed. “Maybe that’s what the money was for.”

“The brochure said the cost of the summer session was two thousand dollars plus living expenses,” I informed her, “if paid in full before the session started.”

“When does the session start?” Josheba asked. Lewis didn’t seem a bit interested.

“It already did, in June sometime. It would be half over by now.”

“We could call and see if she went.”

“I’ll do that when I get home,” I promised.

“She wouldn’t have gone without the money,” Lewis pointed out.

“Don’t be a spoilsport,” Josheba chided. “At least Mac is planning to do something.”

“I’m planning to do something, too,” he told her. “I’m planning to sit down with Harriet’s friends tomorrow and see if they know anything. Mac, would you rather I took you back to the hospital, or home?”

“Home, please.” I could do a lot of thinking in a cool shower. Maybe before Glenna returned, I could even call the police and light a fire under them about finding Jake’s car.

“Why don’t you drop us both by the center?” Josheba suggested. “I’ve got to pick up my car, and I can take Mac home. She stays not far from me.”

I voted for that—especially since we’d be trading up to Josheba’s air conditioning.

As Lewis let us out, Kateisha was swinging down the street licking something from her palm. Lewis called out
his window, “Kateisha, you tell Dré we still got room on the basketball team.”

“Dré ain’t studyin’ basketball,” she told him bluntly. “Ain’t studying nothin’ that’s good for him.” She poured purple powder into her palm from a paper packet and licked it, waiting, while we got out. As soon as Lewis drove away, she ignored me completely and glowered at Josheba. “You Mr. Henly’s girlfriend?”

“No
way,”
Josheba assured her. “I already got a boyfriend. Lewis, Mac, and I were just checking out something.”

“We were looking for Harriet,” I explained.

“You and me both,” Kateisha said emphatically. “When you finds her, tell her I wants those CDs back I let her borrer. They was my brother Dré’s, and he’s gettin’ ugly.” She pursed her lips, then said frankly, “It ain’t really Dré gettin’ ugly, it’s Z-dog.” She licked some more of the powder from her palm. “CDs was Z-dog’s to start with.”

“What’s a Z-dog?” I asked.

“Z-dog ain’t a what, he’s a who. He’s Dré’s homie.”

I was no wiser than before, but at least, thanks to my grandchildren, I knew Kateisha was referring to compact disks instead of certificates of deposit. “Why don’t you give me the names of the CDs, and I’ll ask her aunt to look for them. Josheba, do you have more paper and a pen?”

Kateisha wiped her hand on the seat of her red shorts and scrawled several names. They sounded more like nonsense than musicians, but I stuck the list in my pocket.

“Let’s go,” Josheba commanded, getting into her car and putting down all the windows. “It’s so humid I feel like we’re breathing clouds.”

Before I got in the car too, however, I just had to ask once more. “Kateisha, are you sure you don’t have
any
idea where Harriet could be?”

Kateisha stuck out her lip and grew sullen. “I don’t know and I don’t care. I ain’t studyin’ Harriet. She ain’t
my
fr’en’ anymore. Like I said this mornin’, Harriet ain’t come ‘round here since school let out, and
I don’t carer
!” She swung off down the street with her nose in the air and her whale spout bobbing. At the corner, she turned and yelled, “Maybe Miz Scott has seen her. You could ast her.” She turned the corner before we could ask who she meant.

“I’ll catch her with the car,” Josheba said, starting the engine. Just then I saw something red turn into our street from an intersection two blocks away. I gasped and pointed. “That looks like Jake’s car! Can you catch it?”

“I can try.” Josheba’s Honda spurted ahead. As we got closer, I saw an Auburn sticker in the right place. I also saw somebody in the backseat look back, then lean forward. At the next corner, the Buick turned right on two wheels.

“Follow them!” I cried.

“Hold on!” Josheba wrenched her wheel to the right, and I hung onto her side door for dear life.

We followed for several blocks, faster than I would ever have dared drive in that neighborhood. Small children on tricycles and women on sidewalks passed in a blur. But the other driver knew his way better than Josheba. We never got close enough to see the driver, and wound up at a corner with several choices of streets and no sign of the Buick.

“You did a great job of trying to catch them,” I told Josheba.

She was breathing hard and shaking so much she had to drop her hands from the wheel to her lap. “Mac, what would we have done with them if I had?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, ashamed. I hadn’t thought that far. Once again, I’d acted impulsively without thinking of the consequences—which was what had gotten me in this whole mess in the first place. “You really are nice to put up with me,” I told her ruefully.

“Well, one thing about being around you, Mac,” Josheba said as she put the car back into gear. “Life is never dull. What’re you planning to do next?”

“Give the acting school a call as soon as I get home,” I planned as I spoke, “then if they don’t know anything, maybe after Jake’s surgery I’ll try to talk with Eunice Crawley, Harriet’s mother’s sister. If she doesn’t know anything, I’ll ask Lewis to find out from Kateisha who this Mrs. Scott is.”

“Tell me, Mac, why are you going to all this trouble for a girl you don’t even know?”

“Well, I’d like to think it’s because of the Bible story about a lost sheep—”

Josheba raised one hand to stop me. “Don’t give me Bible stories. My daddy was a preacher, of the twice-on-Sunday-and-once-in-the-middle-of-the-week variety. I had enough Bible stories growing up to last a lifetime. Never did him
or
me a bit of good. Killed him, and turned me off religion for life. The way I see it, you are either a very nice lady, or you’re just plain nosy. That’s all there is to it.”

“Just plain nosy, then,” I admitted, “and so dad-blamed sure I can finish things up if I talk to just one more person.”

When we pulled into Glenna’s driveway, I asked automatically, “Will you come in?”

Josheba shook her head. “I’ve got a big paper due tomorrow, so I’m heading for the library.”

“Hot date?” I teased.

She laughed. “Lewis Henly thinks he’s God’s gift to women. I couldn’t let him believe he’s the only one with a social life. But don’t you tell Morse. He’d flat-out kill me.”

I started to get out, then paused. “Can you imagine a single reason why Harriet should have left all that money behind, Josheba? I am increasingly worried about that child.”

“You and me both,” Josheba said soberly, “but it looks like we’re the only ones.”