Hanging on a String (12 page)

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Authors: Janette M. Louard

BOOK: Hanging on a String
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Marcus ushered me to a booth in the corner, and he helped me into the seat before he sat down across from me, facing me across a yellow Formica table. “I'm sorry, Jasmine.”
A waitress appeared at our table. She looked as worn and battle weary as her surroundings, but her voice was kind. “What can I get you, sweetie?”
I shook my head. “I don't want anything,” I replied, my eyes fastened on the sugar dispenser sitting on the table.
“I'll have a coffee, ma'am,” said Marcus Claremont. “Black with no sugar.”
The waitress disappeared, and Marcus Claremont began talking. “Jasmine, I know you've suffered a loss. Your secretary tells me you were very close with Mr. Henry.”
“What happened?” I asked when I finally got my voice back.
“He was found in Central Park late last night. Apparently, he overdosed, but we've got to get an official report from the coroner. They found his drug paraphernalia nearby.”
“Somebody killed him,” I said. I was certain of this, as certain as I was that night followed day. “Lamarr would never go back on drugs.”
“People have been known to have relapses,” Marcus Claremont said gently.
“Not Lamarr,” I said.
“Jasmine, there's more stuff I need to tell you.”
I looked over at him, but I didn't say anything.
“We found a slip of paper with three names in Lamarr's jacket pocket. Two of the names were crossed out, the names of Chester Jackson and Lamarr Henry. There was one more name on the paper. Your name.”
I wanted to yell at him, “Lamarr is dead. Who cares about a damn piece of paper with my name on it?” Instead, I kept on staring at the sugar dispenser.
“There's more. Underneath your name, someone wrote ‘one more to go.' Jasmine, there's no easy way to put this, but is there anyone who would want to harm you?”
“I'm a lawyer,” I replied, without mirth. “People hate me for a living.”
“Well, if you think of anyone ...” His voice trailed off, and he looked out of the window of the diner.
Tears stung my eyes as I fought a losing battle not to cry in front of this man. How could Lamarr be dead? “This is crazy.”
“I want you to be careful, Jasmine. Chester had your business card in his pocket when he was found.”
I stood up. I had heard enough. “I'm not going to talk to you about this. There's no one out there that's going to hurt me.”
“Jasmine, two people on the list are dead. I'm going to do everything possible to see that the third person on the list stays very much alive, but I am going to need you to help me with this.”
I shook my head. “I can't help you, Detective. I don't know anything. You ask me if I have enemies? I'm sure I have enemies. Can I give you a list? I wouldn't know where to begin.”
“This is a bad time.” His words were surprisingly gentle, and that was what released the tight coil inside of me. I started crying as I stood there. Lamarr was dead and Marcus was asking me to make out a list of my enemies.
I sat back down and laid my head on the table while my grief overwhelmed me. Marcus didn't say anything. He didn't offer consolation, advice. Instead, he was silent. After some time, I felt a tissue being placed in my hand, and then another and another, until finally I heard him say, still in that gentle voice, “I've run out of tissues, Jasmine.”
I wish I could have replied that I had run out of tears, but that wasn't the case. I wiped my eyes. “I can't help you, Marcus. I don't know anything.”
“Tell you what. How about if I give you a drive home?”
I shook my head. “That won't be necessary. I can get a taxi.”
“Just think of me as a faster and safer taxicab service, one that can run through red lights with the aid of a trusty siren.”
I used one of the crumpled tissues and wiped my eyes. I needed to get back home, to crawl back into my bed and pull the covers over my head. The thought of home became irresistible in its appeal.
“Okay,” I said, “but no more questions.”
“I'll be so quiet, you'll forget I'm sitting next to you.”
Marcus Claremont was as good as his word. He got me from downtown Brooklyn to Harlem in less than half an hour, without uttering one word. Only when he pulled up in front of my house did he ask, “Is there anyone I can call?”
I shook my head. I just wanted to be alone.
Sharif was sitting on the stoop. The thought that Sharif should be in school and not sitting on the stoop flitted in and out of my mind.
“Jasmine, what's wrong?” he asked.
“I lost a friend,” I said. “A very good friend.”
He shook his head. “That's messed up,” he said. “I'm sorry.”
I opened my pocketbook and fumbled for my keys, but Sharif jumped up and opened the front door for me. He followed me downstairs, without saying anything. When we got to my apartment, I thanked him.
“Let me stay with you, Jasmine. You shouldn't be alone.”
I gave him a quick hug. “I'll be alright. If I need you, I'll call you.”
“Hey,” said Sharif. “I'll be upstairs. All you have to do is holler.”
 
The telephone was ringing, and there was someone banging on my door. I ignored both of the intrusions. I don't know how long I had lain on my bed, with the covers pulled over my head, listening to Stevie Wonder's CD
Songs in the Key of Life.
I had fallen asleep with the song “Isn't She Lovely,” one of my favorites, playing in my head, as well as images of Lamarr and Chester, their faces frozen in a grotesque death mask. The steady ring of the telephone had jarred me from a dreamless sleep.
I had turned off the answering machine. I stopped counting the number of rings when I got to fifteen.
They'll take the hint soon enough,
I thought, but the telephone kept on ringing. It would stop for a few minutes; then the calls would start anew. There is a desperate, insistent sound to a telephone one has decided not to answer.
Competing for my attention was the sound of someone knocking on my door. The knocking was growing more insistent, and I could hear muffled voices from behind the door.
“Go away!” I called out.
“Jasmine, open this door!” I heard my mother's voice. “I'm here with Dahlia and Thea. We're worried sick about you!”
“I'm fine,” I called out, not even ashamed to lie. “Just leave me alone.”
That statement was greeted with a cessation of the door knocking and the sound of muffled voices discussing something.
Then my mother spoke again. “We'll go away if you just let us in to make sure you're okay.”
Dahlia chimed in. “We won't stay. But if you don't let us in, we won't leave.”
“Let us in, Jasmine,” said Thea. “We're worried about you.”
Emotional blackmail. There were no better masters of this art than Dahlia and my mother. There were also no women more stubborn on God's green earth, and I knew they would, true to their word, stay at my door, banging away, if I didn't let them in.
“Jasmine,” said my mother, her voice sounding at once stern and loving, “I can easily get the key from your landlord. I've done it before.”
I got out of my bed and walked the short distance from my bedroom to the front door of my apartment. I didn't even bother to make myself presentable. If they wanted a quick look-see, then that was fine with me. I wasn't in mortal danger. I just wanted to be left alone. Hopefully, both Dahlia and my mother would understand this was what I needed and would, after a blessedly short visit, go back to their homes to worry about someone else.
I opened the door, and almost immediately, Dahlia was in my arms. Holding me tightly, she started to cry. No words passed between us; instead, she held on to me as if I were a lifeline, and she cried.
Dahlia is an emotional person. Everyone who knows Dahlia knows it doesn't take much to make her cry. She cries at commercials, old movies, the sight of stray dogs, and anything dealing with abused or neglected children, from posters to talk show subjects. Dahlia is a veritable pool of tears. Still, her tears and the love from which they flowed touched me.
I looked at my mother and Thea over Dahlia's shoulder. They both look sick with worry. “I'm okay, Mom,” I lied. “Really.”
“A Detective Claremont called me,” my mother told me. “He was very concerned about you.”
I wondered how Marcus had managed to track my mother down.
“I'm so glad he called me.” My mother stepped inside my apartment.
My sister followed her into my apartment. “Jasmine, the cavalry's here,” she said as she held my hand.
11
I awoke the next morning to a crowded bed. My mother and Dahlia had apparently decided to spend the night with me, and at some point they had crawled into bed. Thea had fallen asleep on my couch. Usually, I'm a light sleeper, often awakened by creaking night noises in my apartment. The fact that I slept soundly, despite being sandwiched between two women, one of whom, Dahlia, had the reputation of being a blanket hog and a violent sleeper, spoke volumes about my grief and my fatigue.
I tried to get out of bed as carefully as possible so as not to awaken the other occupants, but I needn't have bothered. Both my mother and Dahlia were down for the count. I looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was just past eight o'clock.
Good,
I thought. If I hurried, I could reach B&J by nine o'clock, in time to face Raymond before the office got too busy. There were several questions I needed answered, and I was sure Raymond had the answer to at least a few of those questions.
I knew Lamarr had not suddenly fallen off the wagon and started doing heroin again. His peace of mind, not to mention his new life, had meant too much to him. I knew how difficult it had been for him to break free of his habit. I knew what that habit had cost him, the loss of all self-respect. I knew he had become too strong a man to want to walk down that road again. Someone had placed a needle full of poison in his arm and killed him. And I was going to find out who that person was.
I didn't doubt for a minute there was some connection between Chester's death and Lamarr's overdose. Lamarr had known something, something he was afraid to tell me, about Chester's death. His words came back to me, with clarity.
You need to be aware of the undercurrents running around here, my sister. Believe me, they are strong.
I didn't know what undercurrents had found their way into B&J, but I was sure Raymond would know. There were few things about B&J, his pride and his joy, Raymond did not know. He made it his business to keep his hands on the pulse of his firm. Whatever “undercurrents” Lamarr was referring to would probably be already well known to Raymond. In any event, I intended to find out.
I walked out into my living room and found the couch was occupied by my father, who was awake. He was sitting, reading the
New York Times.
In his hand was a cup of tea.
“Hi, Daddy.” I shouldn't have been surprised to see him. There was no crisis in my life that my parents felt was too great or too small for them to get involved in. Some of my friends would say my parents interfered in my life too much, and I am sure they had a good point. But I knew everything that my parents did was done out of love. Besides, whenever I told them to back off, on those rare occasions, they would respect my wishes. Grudging respect, but respect nonetheless.
“Thea went back to the apartment to take care of Reese,” my dad told me. “Care to join me, pumpkin?”
No matter how old I got, no matter that I now had grey hairs, and I had lived alone and paid my own taxes for longer than I cared to acknowledge, I was still a pumpkin to my father. I walked over and sat next to him, planting a kiss on his cheek.
“Can't join you, Dad. I've got some things that need tending to first thing this morning.”
He looked at me and nodded his head as if he understood exactly what I was referring to. We have always had a bond, my father and I, which some find unnatural. We often finish each other's sentences, and we can communicate with each other without speaking. Sometimes, when I have a problem, a problem that is presenting me with too much difficulty to either solve or face, I'll get a phone call from my father, with the solution to the problem.
“I'm sorry about Lamarr,” said my father. “He was a fine man. A very fine man.”
I felt the tears sting my eyes again, but I was determined not to cry. I wasn't going to give in to grief again. Not this morning. There was time enough to grieve about Lamarr. I would have an eternity for that. Right now I needed to find out what happened to my friend. That was where my energies had to lie.
“Here,” said my father, handing me his steaming cup of tea. “Drink this. It's ginger tea. Nothing like ginger tea to fortify the soul.”
I took a sip of my father's ginger tea, and I don't know if it was the tea or my father's reassuring arm, which was draped around my shoulder, but I felt better by the time I got off the couch. We didn't talk long. I had a lot to do. But those few minutes I spent with my father helped strengthen me for what I knew was a difficult day ahead.
By the time I left my apartment, dressed in my dark blue suit with matching pumps and a cream silk blouse, my spirits had not lifted. There was no way that I would feel better so soon after Lamarr's death. But I felt renewed, and I was determined to face Raymond and whomever else I had to face to get answers.
 
Raymond was not a man who was inclined to give anyone answers on demand.
“What exactly do you want to know, Jasmine?” he asked in a tone that let me know he did not suffer fools gladly.
Raymond had greeted me with concern when I walked into his office at nine fifteen that morning. He knew how close Lamarr and I had been. I saw the sadness I felt reflected in Raymond's eyes as he talked about Lamarr. Lamarr's death had hit him hard. Not only had he liked Lamarr, but Lamarr had been one of the few people working for him whom Raymond respected. But Raymond's sadness and sympathy quickly gave way to anger once my questions started.
“I want to know what is going on in this firm that would cause two employees of B&J to end up dead,” I said.
“Just what are you insinuating, Jasmine?” asked Raymond evenly, his eyes never leaving mine.
“I'm not insinuating anything,” I said, refusing to back down. “I'm asking you, what's going on around here? Both Lamarr and Chester are dead. They worked at your firm. That's a strange coincidence, Raymond.”
“Jasmine, Chester was murdered,” replied Raymond. “There's no evidence Lamarr was murdered. He died of a drug overdose. As much as I liked Lamarr, it's not unheard of for an addict to slip up and start taking that stuff again.”
I got up from my seat and walked over to Raymond's desk and stood in front of him. He looked up at me as if I had suddenly taken leave of all of my senses. Leaning forward across the desk so our faces were only inches apart, I said, “Raymond, you are lying.”
“Back off, Jasmine.”
Where moments before I had seen anger in Raymond's eyes, what I clearly saw now was fear. One of the reasons that I am known as a good litigator is I know how to read people's emotions, and I know how to use those emotions to get the information that I need. I decided right there that the only way I was going to get any information out of Raymond was to capitalize on that fear. Looking back, I wonder if I knew then what the consequences of my actions would be. But, I suspect, it wouldn't have mattered. I was past the point of caring about anything else except finding out who had murdered Lamarr. For as sure I was standing in Raymond's office, I knew someone had taken my friend's life.
“I'm going to the police,” I said.
I watched as the fear I saw in Raymond's eyes grew.
“Jasmine, please.”
I would have backed down, but the thought of Lamarr kept me going. Whatever problem Raymond was facing, he could get help. Lamarr was past the point of getting help from anyone. The only thing left was to set things right so his legacy would not be one of a heroin addict who gave in to a song of death. I didn't want my friend to be remembered that way. I wanted the truth to come out, and I knew no one else was going to fight for the reputation of an ex-junkie. I didn't fool myself that I was fighting for justice. Eight years practicing law had taught me justice was an ever-changing and elusive thing. But I knew what reputation had meant to Lamarr. I knew what respect had meant to him. I knew how hard he had fought to stay clean. I couldn't give Lamarr back his life, but I could damn well try to give him back his reputation.
“Raymond, I can't let this go.” I tried to reason with him. “Whatever this thing is, it cost Lamarr his life. You're asking me to do the impossible.”
“Jasmine, if you keep digging, the dirt you find might be the dirt that brings this firm down.”
The firm. Always the firm. I understood Raymond's obsession with his firm. Raymond had no life other than B&J. But I also understood for the first time that I had begun to buy into this obsession. The fear of losing a job, especially a well-paying job, had been my driving force. I had bought into the “without this job, I am nothing” syndrome. Hook. Line. And you know the rest. Lamarr's death had a profound effect on me, an effect I was not sure I realized at that point, but I did know for the first time in eight years, there was something more important in my life than the almighty quest to win cases, make money, and attain partnership.
“I'm sorry, Raymond,” I said. “But right now the firm has to take second priority. Are you going to talk to me, or am I going to have to go to the police? I think Lamarr was murdered.”
“You have no proof.”
“No,” I replied, “but you and I both know I'll find the proof.”
Raymond sank back in his seat. Capitulation. Usually, this was a time of triumph for me. I had faced my opponent, and I had won. Yet victory wasn't sweet for me this morning. It was a necessary meal, but it didn't taste good. I went back to my seat and sat down.
Raymond was silent for a few minutes. He sat staring at his hands. I waited. I knew he would talk, but he had to wrestle with some demons first. I just hoped the wrestling wouldn't take too long.
“Lamarr knew some things about Chester,” said Raymond. “Knew some things that might have gotten him killed.”
“What did he know?”
“He knew Chester was collecting information on people.”
I could see I was going to have to drag this out of Raymond. He was going to give me the information, but I was going to have to work for it.
“What sort of information?”
“Any dirt Chester could find on someone. Chester had a file on a whole bunch of folk. Clients. Lawyers in this firm. Even judges. He was keeping score.”
I knew it was bad to curse the dead, but just when I thought there was no lower point to which Chester could have gone, he would surprise me and go just a little bit lower.
“Lamarr knew about it,” said Raymond. “He came to me about two weeks ago to warn me. Chester had some information about me that would ... ultimately destroy this firm if it came to light.”
The questions came fast and furious in my head. I had to fight to keep it together. There was so much I wanted an explanation for. I took a deep breath and started with my first question.
“What dirt did Chester have on you?”
Raymond looked at his hands again and said, “Are you sure you want to know this?”
I nodded my head. “Quite sure.”
“He knew I killed a man.”
Once again, I felt the air slowly leave the room. My heart was beating fast and in irregular beats, and my palms started to sweat. I was about to get bad news, and even as I tried to prepare myself for what Raymond was going to say, I knew, without any doubt in my mind, that whatever Raymond said would forever change our relationship.
Raymond took a deep breath and released it through his nose. Then he took another breath. Released it. Then he said, “I went to prison, Jasmine. A long time ago. I killed a man.”
I did not understand the words. I heard him, but I did not understand the words. I thought to myself,
Did Raymond just tell me he is an ex-con who served time in prison for killing a man?
“Chester's secretary told Lamarr about it. Apparently, she had been spending extracurricular time with Chester, and at some point he dumped her. Well, you can guess the rest. Hell hath no fury like the secretary who gave up her life for you on the promise that one day she would be Mrs. Chester Jackson, but you up and marry someone else, and I guess the moral of the story is don't cross a woman.”
“Raymond,” I said when I finally found my voice again, “you were in jail?”
He shook his head. “Prison, Jasmine. Four years. For manslaughter. I killed a man. A bad man, but that didn't matter to the judge. I was sentenced to ten years, but I got out in four. Good behavior. It was another lifetime, Jasmine. I was another person.”
“Why didn't you tell me, Raymond?”
“Because I didn't want you to look at me the way you're looking at me now.”
“What happened?”
“A long time ago,” replied Raymond, “there was a boy who grew up hard in a town in Florida—Ocala. This boy, he was raised by his mother. His father had been in prison for armed robbery and God knows what else by the time he was born. His mother went from man to man and job to job until her luck finally ran out in the form of a mean son of a bitch. This mean son of a bitch beat the boy's mother almost daily. Broke her nose. Her ribs. Her jaw. Her left hand. Took her money. Did everything a man could do to hurt a woman. Kept women and didn't even try to hide these women. The boy's mother would kick him out, but he would always come back, and she would always take him in. One day, when the boy became a man, or at least big enough to do what he had been praying to do, which was to protect his mother, the boy took a gun and shot this man. Kept on shooting him until he was sure that the son of a bitch would never hurt his mother again.

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