Cold Blood (53 page)

Edith opened some beer, handing Juda a frothing glass.

“You able to stay awhile?”

“Maybe, all depends. I got to be on hand for Mrs. Caley, she was took bad last night again, but she’s got the resilience of a wild bronco, that woman. I see her so bad, so bad, Edith, but she picks herself up again.”

Juda sipped her beer. Edith drew out a chair and sat opposite her sister.

“You know there is always a place here for you.”

“I should sure as hell hope so, Edith, because I’ve been paying for this house since I can recall!”

Suddenly there was the muffled sound of the telephone, hidden in a drawer, and Edith looked at Juda in confusion.

“It’s the telephone, I’ll get it. I dunno who can be callingyou’re the only one knows we got a number.”

Edith opened the drawer and lifted out the telephone, which was still ringing.

“It’s Fryer, maybe, he got the number.”

338 She picked up the receiver gingerly.

“Hello?”

There was the sound of bleeps and static.

“Who is this, please?”

Edith said nervously, always afraid that one day the telephone company would call.

“Mama? I’m on a cell phone,”

came Raoul’s voice. Edith had to sit down, her body breaking out in a sweat.

“Where are you, boy? Where are you?”

Raoul laughed and said he was calling her from his automobile.

“I want to come home, Mama, but I ain’t coming if I’m gonna get a whoppin’ or you start hexing me. I know I done wrong, I know that, but I wanna come home see mah little sister crowned, Mama.”

Edith passed the receiver to Juda.

“It’s Raoul, you deal with him, I am havin’ nothing to do with that thievin’, no-good boy.”

Juda grabbed the phone.

“He’s speakin’ from a phone in a car,”

Edith explained.

“An’ I know whose money bought that phone,”

said }uda, her face turning red with fury.

“This is Juda, you hearing me, Raoul Corbello? You get that snake ass of yours back here, and you bring me mah moneyyou got mah money?”

“I have, Aunt Juda, minus a few dollars, but I ain’t comin’ back if you’re fixin’ to do bad things to me. It was a madness that took over me, and I will return all I got left. All I want to do is be with my family and get your forgiveness and see my sister crowned.”

“You all drugged up, boy?”

“Hell, no, Aunt Juda, I’m clean, I don’t do drugs no more, not since they made me do somethin’ as wicked as to steal from you, my own flesh and blood.”

Juda pursed her lips.

“You got a free and easy grease tongue, boy, but you come on home. You bring me my money, and maybe we’ll sort this out real amicable, no whippin’, but so help me God, if you disappear, then I’ll set the devil hisself on you.”

“I’ll be home soon, Aunt Juda, ‘bye now.”

Juda slammed the phone down. She would have liked to have told him that she personally would whip him until he bled, but she wanted her life’s savings back first.

Edith prepared herself for an onslaught about Raoul, but before it came there was a holler from Ruby that they should come and see her. Juda heaved herself up on her feet, and Edith reached out and caught her hand.

“She’s changed, Juda, it happened so quick. You’ll see, you won’t hardly know the little girl you last saw running around.”

Juda drained her beer and carefully put the glass down.

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“She’s a good girl, Edith?”

Edith nodded, and linked her arm through Juda’s.

“She looks just like we used to, Juda.”

Juda held on to her sister’s arm. She spoke softly, not wanting Jesse and Willy to hear. The pair of them, dressed in their best suits like choirboys, were afraid to so much as take a Coke from the fridge without permission. Fryer’s thrashing had instituted good behavior, for a while anyway.

“How much like us, Edith?”

Juda asked.

Edith stared into Juda’s eyes.

“In every way. I didn’t think so, but she helped me today and there was something there, I felt it.”

Edith pushed open the door, Juda just behind her, and both of them felt for each other’s hands because of the emotion of seeing Ruby. Even the bad-tempered old dressmaker was close to tears, pressing against the far wall, smiling with pride.

Ruby turned slowly to face her mother and aunt. There was only one lamp lit and its radiance surrounded Ruby like a faint halo, the dress so richly embroidered in golden thread that it seemed to glow. The skin-tight bodice displayed the girl’s slim waist perfectly, while the neckline, surrounded by exquisite garlands of embroidery, revealed the smooth brown skin of her bosom and throat. The cut, though, was modest, and the long blue sleeves were full-length, fastened with a dozen tiny golden buttons between elbow and cuff. At Ruby’s hips, the dress was gathered at the back in an effect that could have been worn only by a girl who was as slender as a gazelle, reminiscent of an old-fashioned bustle and train, the skirt almost filling the floor space of the room. f

“Look, Mama, look.”

Ruby smiled, lifting me hem at the front to show the dress’s silk lining and net underskirts, then her own delicate ankle and high golden shoe. She swished her skirts and the embroidery danced and sparkled like the gold of sunlight on water. Edith wiped a tear from her eye.

“There’s a mantle too,”

Ruby cried, beckoning to the dressmaker, who unfolded a blue silk cloak, lined with the same golden silk, and fastened it on Ruby’s shoulders with two scalloped golden clasps while Ruby reached behind her head and skillfully wound her long dark hair into a sleek knot.

“Here, girl, put these on before your headdress,”

said the dressmaker, unfastening the gold hoops that hung on her own ears.

“Just try how they look with your hair.”

Ruby slipped the rings through her ears, her eyes cast modestly down.

“Oh, my, my, my,”

whispered Juda.

“You approve, Aunt Juda?”

Ruby asked softly, and only then did she lift her eyes, the color of night, to meet her aunt’s, and they were eyes that held secrets, that would see into nightmares and dreams.

Juda whispered, almost in awe of her niece,

“Oh, I approve, I approve. Now you are ready to be a real queen, Ruby. You got a light inside your eyes now, child, you feel it glowing? Don’t you abuse that now, honey, never abuse it, for it’s very precious.”

And then it was gone: the dressmaker fastened the headdress of tall ostrich plumes on Ruby’s head and she was the laughing, posing, teenage Queen of the Carnival again. But Juda knew what she had seen, and looked at her sister, and they did not need to exchange a wordboth knew that the sight was precious, just as they knew it would exhaust and weigh the young girl down. But they would be there when the darkness felt as if it was dragging her into oblivion, just as their mama had been, and their grandmama and great-grandmama.

Lorraine sat at the cheap veneered table in her hotel room, updating their information. There had been a note from Rosie and Rooney to say they had gone out to dinner, telling her the name of the restaurant and how to get there. There was also the number of an AA meeting, and a special note, underlined, from Rosie saying that if Lorraine had any sense she would go. Despite the suggestion that she should join them at the restaurant, the note made Lorraine feel excluded, and guilty about the fact that she had been drinking all day, but moderately, so that she was sure that even someone who knew her as well as Rosie could not have detected it. She hid the bottles she had boughtwith so many beds to choose from, there were plenty of mattresses under which they could be stashed before ordering some more cans of Coke, a hamburger and fries.

She finished her notes, making sure they were all neat and intelligible. Nothing must give her away, nobody must have any inkling that she was drinking again; she didn’t even admit it to herself.

It was late, after midnight, and Fryer Jones rocked in his chair, looking from Juda to Edith, a half-smile on his face. Sometimes he’d forget which sister he’d married, and he couldn’t be absolutely certain it wasn’t both of them. He’d had them both on numerous occasions, which was the reason Eddie Corbello had taken off, and he was unsure which of Edith’s kids were in fact his. He wasn’t all that sure if he was actually divorced from Juda. He wasn’t about to break their good-humored drinking session, as

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once again they refilled their glasses. Now they drank to the most powerful queen of voodoo, IMarie Laveau, w3iose light was still shining nowT in Ruby Corbello’s eyes. As the wine took hold, they determined in slurred voices that no one would ever destroy the past that belonged to their people. Juda and Edith touched glasses for yet another toast as Fryer got to his feet; he’d had enough.

“Good night, y’all. Watch over that little tinderbox Ruby, an’ if she gets into trouble you call me. You two witches may not appreciate this, but I play a major part in this family.”

He walked do\vn the alleyway between the small crumbling houses, looking forward to playing some moisic, the way he always looked forward to it. He reckoned he had covered all his tracks, and Ruby and the boys, be they his or not, were safe. Soon he’d have his old cracked lips around the most kissable thing on earth, his trombone.

Lorraine plowed on through her notebook, checking back on information and jotting dates and names into a new book, and it was after twelve when she fell into bed. There had been n o calls from Robert Caley, but she had told the desk to tell him she was not in her room. She was to be woken at seven in the morning, and a message relayed to Rosie and Rooney that she wanted a breakfast meeting at seventhirty.

Lorraine was so exhausted she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, but she was awake before the wake-up call, already showered and changed. She checked her notes once more beflfc; heading down to the dining room. She had taken only a small slug of vIBka from the bottle, and had then performed her usual rou tine, emptying out some of the Coke and then topping the can up. Nothing in her manner, she was sure, could give her away.

Rooney and Rosie were already seated, even though it was only seventwenty-five.

“Morning, thanks for making it so early, we got to get moving.”

“That’s what we’re here for, standing by, ready and waiting, boss,”

Rooney said, pouring her coffee.

Lorraine put down her can of Coke and opened her notebook, not even bothering with small talk.

“Okay, did you find that grisgris necklace of Nick’s in his hotel room?”

Nope, not in his room,”

Rooney replied, and Lorraine chewed her pen tip.

“You sure he had it on when he went out?”

“No, I never saw him leave, but he had it on earlier in the day. In fact,

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he hadn’t taken it off since Fryer Jones gave it to him.”

She made a note and then looked at him.

“Newspaperyou got written confirmation it was dated February fifteenth last year?”

Rooney nodded and pulled the folded copy of the page from his pocket.

“Means the doll was given to Tilda on that date or maybe the day after. Reason being, if someone was wrapping up something, they wouldn’t use the fresh morning papers, but maybe the previous day’s was lying around? So we more or less know when Tilda was given the doll.”

“Mmm,”

Lorraine said, sipping her coffee. She flipped her notebook closed and picked up the menu, then tossed it aside. She had no appetite for anything but the can of Coke, and reached out for it again. Rosie looked quickly at Rooney, and then at the can. She interrupted as Lorraine began to outline the developments of the previous day in matter-offact fashion.

“What did you just say, Tilda Brown was screwing Robert Caley?”

“Yes, well, she wrote it in her diary, may have been lies, but if he paid off Ruby Corbello, I doubt it. There must be some element of guilt, and more reason for Anna Louise to get so heated about seeing him kissing her, maybe she found out. I dunno, but I was wrong about the bear, she’d had it for months, so Ruby said, and it doesn’t matter now anyway. I doubt the diary will still be intact.”

Rooney squinted at the menu, and looked at Rosie.

“Maybe you order? Nothing too fattening.”

Rosie nodded and signaled to the waitress, who took their order for more coffee and fresh fruit.

“You not eating?”

Rosie said, turning to Lorraine as the waitress moved off.

“Nope, nothing for me, coffee’s fine.”

Lorraine’s foot kept kicking at the table. She listed on her fingers what she had discovered about Elizabeth Caley, and about Juda’s involvement, breaking for quick sips of coffee and Coke before she continued.

“Ruby Corbello, Juda or Edith made that doll. Maybe even Fryer Jones? But one of them did, I’m sure of it. That doll was made to scare the pants off Tilda Brown. But Tilda didn’t kill herself when she first got it, so what made her wait so many months and why didn’t she destroy it?”

Rooney poured himself more coffee. ‘You think Anna Louise gave her the doll?”

Lorraine snapped.

“Yes, obviously. Question is how and when she got it, and when did she take it to Tilda?”

Rooney scratched his head.

“I go for the evening she disappeared,

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mayb^ thought she’d be back in the hotel before dinner, and something happ&’i^d to her either at Tilda Brown’s or on her way back from there.”

“Y”ŤŁah, right,”

agreed Lorraine,

“I’ve been over and over what I said to Tilda on the afternoon I interviewed her and I still can’t think that anything I said would have made her kill herself, or anything she said to me that gives me any insight. The only thing I said to her was that if Anna Louisas had been having sex with her father, then that might have been a reasons for her disappearance. Since then I’ve discovered that it wasn’t Anna ILouise having a relationship with Caley but Tilda, so maybe knowing th .^t I would talk to Caley, she might have been scared it would all come out about them and hanged herself. Plus the fact I had the photo of Anna ILouise at the Viper Room and she was scared that would all come out as -well, because in her suicide note she wrote something like ‘God forgive mt e.’”