Eyes of the Innocent: A Mystery (18 page)

*   *   *

I must have been smiling as they jabbered, because Sweet Thang interrupted my inner monologue with a question:

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “I’m just glad you girls are having fun.”

“Oh, we’ve been having a blast,” Sweet Thang assured me. “It was just so lucky I came over when I did because it was Bertie’s turn to host mah-jongg, but she was short a player and I was able to step in.”

“I thought about canceling the game, what with everything going on,” Bertie said. “But then I thought it’d be nice to have something to take my mind off things.”

My only comment was to Sweet Thang: “You know how to play mah-jongg?”

“My Gram Gram taught me.”

“Taught her good, too,” Bertie cackled. “She whupped a bunch of old ladies.”

“I just got lucky,” Sweet Thang corrected her.

“Five times in a row!” Bertie cackled and lightly slapped the table.

She sipped her coffee. Sweet Thang crossed her legs. I was still standing, still feeling like I didn’t belong.

“So,” I said, “how long have you lived here?”

“Too long,” Bertie replied. “You wouldn’t believe it, but this was still a pretty nice place when I moved in here. Now?” She shook her head. “It’s shameful what this place has become. Every time I hear they want to knock it down, I cheer. They just can’t seem to get around to it.”

She was finished on that subject and we lapsed into silence. I heard the oven tick and creak as the gas turned on. The volumeless television was on a local all-news station that, at this time of day, repeated the same loop every half hour. I suddenly felt the urge to leave. I didn’t know what Sweet Thang had managed to create with Bertie Harris, whether it would help our story or not, but I felt like an intruder. It was time to do what I came to do and make my exit.

“Oh, by the way, Lauren, here’s your bracelet,” I said, pulling it from my pocket and handing it to her.

“Oh, my goodness, thank you!” Sweet Thang said, fingering the oh-so-cute sombrero from the Puerto Vallarta trip. “I was so worried, I even called my dad. I’m going to text him right now and tell him I got it back.”

And then Daddy would tell Brodie, who would stop his Jack Russell terrier impersonation on Szanto, who would undoubtedly be grateful.

“Where did you find it?” she asked, fingers flying.

“Atalittlepawnshop,” I replied quickly, hoping Bertie wouldn’t pick up on it.

But she did.

“
You
pawned your bracelet?” Bertie asked.

Sweet Thang tossed me a pleading glance, but I lobbed it right back. I didn’t know what she had and hadn’t told Bertie Harris about her thieving daughter, and it wasn’t my place to do so. This was Sweet Thang’s deal.

“Akilah stole it from me,” she said, finally.

Bertie sighed and set down her coffee cup so she could rub her temples. She closed her eyes.

“You let her stay with you and she stole your bracelet,” she said, shaking her head, forcing out a sigh. “You were a good Christian and she was a thief in the night. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. She stole your bracelet.”

“She didn’t mean to…” Sweet Thang started. “I’m sure she felt like she didn’t have a choice. She needed the money.”

“No,” Bertie said immediately, forcefully. “Don’t make no excuses for that girl. I been making excuses for her all her life and look where it got us. Akilah has always been a … a difficult girl. Lord knows I’ve tried with her.”

Bertie let loose another sigh, this time with a bit of a groan mixed in.

“I took her to church, I made her do her homework, I taught her to have respect. Respect! It was just like I did with my other children, and they all ended up successful. They all got out.

“Her older sister went to college,” Bertie continued, shaking her head and counting her children on her fingers as she went. “One of her older brothers went to the army. The other got himself a good job, a union job. But Akilah, she…”

“You did the best you could,” Sweet Thang said, patting her on the hand and looking at her with those tell-me-more eyes. And the thing was, she really wanted to know. Other reporters got away with faking that sometimes. But that was the essence of Sweet Thang’s gift as a reporter. She didn’t have to fake it. Deep down, she really did care.

“Akilah had a different father from the other children,” Bertie said. “We split when she was young, but she still had too much of her father in her. She was always a wild child, always doing her own thing. You couldn’t talk no sense into her. I gave her all the mothering I could and it still wasn’t enough.”

“She told us she was an orphan, that her mother died when she was young,” I said.

“I bet there were times she wished I did,” Bertie said. “But I’m still here.”

Bertie started sniffling. Sweet Thang retrieved a box of Kleenex. It was like interviewing Akilah all over again—it had that same kind of confessional feel, and there were once again sopping tissues involved. I could only hope this time we weren’t being served a steaming load of something that belonged in a cow pasture.

“She got pregnant for the first time when she was sixteen. I mean, I was raising a daughter in the projects, what did I expect?” Bertie said. “I told my pastor I didn’t want to have nothing to do with that child or its mother, but he told me I had to forgive her and so I did. And then that baby died. And it just about broke my heart.”

So, at least that much of what Akilah had told us was true, after all. Bertie blew her nose.

“Then she started fooling around with that damn married man,” she said, putting her hand across her heart like it was about to give. “We got a saying, Mr. Ross: ‘Ain’t nothing dumber than love.’ And let me tell you, there wasn’t nothing dumber than Akilah and that married man together.”

She was done blowing her nose for a moment. She was getting angry now.

“I just couldn’t take it after that. He got her pregnant”—she said the word with special disdain—“then he got her pregnant again. He had a wife and children, a whole other family, and he kept Akilah on the side, like a whore of Babylon. And she kept having his kids. I just couldn’t understand how that man’s wife could put up with that monkey business.

“But he’s a politician,” she finished, shaking her head as if that explained everything.

“Really?” I asked, suddenly more than a little intrigued. “What’s his name?”

“Oh, he’s … oh, now, what’s that fool’s name? It’s…” She tapped her head, like it would make it come to her.

“Well, I’ll be!” she said, pointing to the television. “That’s the man right there.”

I looked at the screen, whose forty-two inches were filled by a Missing Persons poster depicting Wendell A. Byers Jr.

Primo was no stranger to bribery, having used it expertly through the years to nourish his home-rehabbing business. When you were talking about home inspectors or appraisers, it was relatively simple. Offer a man a week’s salary for something that took him only a few seconds and cost him nothing—something like signing his name to a piece of paper or changing a few figures here or there—and chances are he was going to do it.

For those few who had crises of conscience, Primo made it clear there were painful consequences for not accepting a small gratuity in exchange for a little cooperation. Coercion and persuasion. Stick and carrot. It was a powerful combination, one that allowed a man to rationalize his moral weakness. Primo had yet to find a working man who failed to take him up on his offer.

With politicians, however, it was a different deal. It was a game of finesse, not brute force. These were powerful people, after all. They were not easily threatened.

There was one thing that made it easier for Primo, however. Under New Jersey law, what he and most people would consider a bribe was actually legal. It was called a campaign contribution.

Sure, there were caps on how much one could donate. But those were circumvented easily enough—with all the donors and all the candidates, it was nearly impossible for any law enforcement agency to check where a donation was really coming from. The state’s campaign finance laws, intended to be a moat guarding the castle of electoral credibility, were little more than a puddle.

The real difficulty, Primo quickly realized, came in discovering which politicians could be bought for a sizable campaign contribution, and which ones would thank you for your generosity and then lose your phone number as soon as you asked for a favor.

There was some expensive trial and error. And it involved some ass-kissing and attending events Primo didn’t particularly care to attend, simply to gain access to the key people. But ultimately Primo had discovered the effort was worthwhile. Because once you got the right person on your side, you could make government do virtually anything for you.

It was all about influence—or, rather, the perception of influence. From a statutory standpoint, an elected leader actually had very little authority over government. Only a few positions within a municipal or state government were political appointments, people who could be hired and fired at the whim of an elected leader. The majority were civil service positions. Firing them was an arduous process.

That might seem to make them difficult to influence. But the thing Primo discovered was that most civil servants didn’t truly understand how government worked. And they were paranoid about losing their jobs. So when an important person—or, again, someone they perceived as being important—told them to do something, they usually did it without question, no matter what the statutes might have to say on the subject.

Studies have shown it repeatedly: Human beings are programmed to accept leadership, totalitarian or otherwise. Even in America—land of the free, home of the brave, the country that created the notion of rugged individualism—most people will follow orders they believe are coming from above.

So for Primo, the whole game was about finding someone willing to use his influence to make government work the way Primo wanted it to. He took his time and wasted some donations to find that person.

But, finally, Primo came across a city councilman who seemed willing to do just about anything for cash.

CHAPTER 5

So Akilah Harris was Windy Byers’s slam muffin. And Windy was Akilah’s baby daddy. And now Windy was missing, Akilah was on the run, and the kids were dead, none of which could possibly be coincidence.

But how, exactly, did it all relate? I gazed at the TV screen, bewildered. Windy Byers stared back at me with his ridiculous pencil mustache and his fat face—but precious few answers. My mind began toying with the possibilities.

Scenario No. 1: Akilah and Windy, the star-crossed lovers, decided to run off together but didn’t feel like dragging the kids along. Hence the fire. But that didn’t work. One, it made them unimaginable monsters. And while Akilah was a liar and Windy was a dimwit, they just didn’t seem like they had that much evil in them. Besides, why would Akilah keep returning to the house if that was the case? And why would she have slept at Sweet Thang’s place if she really just wanted to run off with her boyfriend?

No, Windy and Akilah didn’t seem to be in cahoots on this one. If anything, it was possible they were both being victimized—after all, there was blood in the foyer of Windy’s place, while Akilah’s house had been made to double as a barbecue pit. But by whom? Who would want to hurt both of them?

Of course. Scenario No. 2: Rhonda Byers, the councilman’s churchgoing wife, learned of her husband’s affair, then parted company with her sanity. She torched the love shack with the bastard children still inside, then sliced up her husband. Now she was reporting him missing in the hopes no one would ever suspect a member of the Ladies’ Fellowship Group could go on a homicide spree.

I held up Scenario No. 2 for a moment or two, turned it around a few times so I could look at all sides. And yes, it worked. I thought about her demeanor at that press conference, so self-assured, so preternaturally composed, so unruffled. Shouldn’t she have been a little more distraught? Isn’t that what everyone did for the six o’clock news?

I’m not saying I would put Scenario No. 2 in the newspaper yet—I still had a lot to prove before I reached that point. But the jealous wife was certainly a dangerous animal, capable of all kinds of nasty. Especially if the wife in question was packed in as tight a box as Rhonda Byers, with her proper suits and her toe-pinching shoes. It tended to make the explosion that much more spectacular when it all came unwrapped.

It would also explain why Akilah was making herself such an elusive figure and would lend some sense to her rant on the fire escape. After all, you’re not paranoid if people really
are
out to get you.

I pulled my attention away from the television and turned toward Bertie Harris and her pile of sodden Kleenex. Bertie didn’t necessarily have all the answers—it didn’t sound like she and her daughter were too close anymore—but she at least had some of them.

“Mrs. Harris, would you mind if I sat down?” I said.

She pointed toward an empty chair. “You can call me Bertie, you know.”

I sat. Sweet Thang smiled at me, like she was proud I was now a member of the Call Me Bertie Club. I took off my jacket and draped it around the chair, then sat down.

“I know this is painful to talk about, but it may help me figure out who killed your grandchildren,” I said. “Can you tell me about Akilah and that man you just saw on the screen, Windy Byers?”

“Byers!” she said. “That’s the fool’s name, Windy Byers. Of course! Lord. You think he had something to do with those poor children?”

“I don’t know what to think right now,” I said. “You have heard he’s missing, yes?”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t come home Sunday night. His wife called the police Monday morning. That’s why his face was on the TV just now. The cops are calling it a suspicious disappearance. A police source told me they found blood in the house. I think he may be in trouble.”