Hot Flash (4 page)

“Thanks for showing up,” I said. “I've testified in hundreds of cases before with no problem, but this guy, Boone, he freaks me out.”

“What are partners for?” he shot back, automatically. Then he got heated. “No way is the son of a bitch getting off this time. He's outta here for good if I have any say.”

“Well, you don't have any say. But thanks for helping me say my part.”

“I wouldn't be so sure.”

“Wouldn't be so sure about what?”

“You have a lot more testifying to do before this thing is over. Stay focused.”

“Laughton, I've been testifying for fifteen years. I can handle whatever they throw at me. I'll say it again, I got this.”

“Yeah, but by your own admission, you've never been up against a Jesse Boone.”

He closed the door and thumped the car roof, a signal to take off. As I backed out and then straightened the wheel, I checked the rearview mirror and watched Laughton walk back to the doorway that led to the elevator. As I began to turn the corner to enter the down ramp, I looked in the rearview again and saw a man move out of the shadows and approach Laughton. Laughton looked in my direction, grabbed the guy's arm, and pushed him against the wall. I stopped in the entrance of the down ramp, got out, and ran back the few hundred yards to them.

“Laughton!” I yelled. He had the guy pinned up against a column and was punching him in the face full-force. I caught his arm on about the third or fourth punch, which lessened the blow, but didn't stop it.

“M, get outta here.” Spit flew from his mouth as he talked. His face contorted, almost frightening me.

“What the hell's wrong with you? You can't beat this guy. And for what?”

“Get the fuck outta here. You don't know—”

“So, tell me.” He yanked his arm from my grip and backed off.

I recognized the man as Wade Taylor, Laughton's dead ex-wife's husband.

“Are you all right?” I asked Taylor. I kept an eye toward Laughton, expecting him to charge in again. Taylor nodded and wiped the spit and blood from his mouth with the back of his shirtsleeve. I leaned in some as he stumbled forward. Taylor looked to Laughton like he needed his permission to leave. Laughton breathed like a bull and paced back and forth. Five, six steps, turn.

A car approached and stopped behind mine, which blocked the way down the ramp. The driver leaned on his horn.

“Go ahead,” Laughton told me.

I stayed put.

“I'm good now.” He waved me on. “Go.”

I hustled to my car, looking over my shoulder every few steps to make sure Laughton kept his fists from Wade's face. I got in and continued down the garage ramp, furious at Laughton. “Unbelievable. He just blew whatever case we might have built against Taylor if Taylor killed his wife.”

That he might have beaten Wade to death the way he was going was unbelievable, as well. Laughton never lost control. His smooth operator demeanor confounded the brass and pissed off the rednecked Mother Hubbards who were unappreciative of minority representation in the firearms division to begin with.

As I exited the garage, my cell phone rang. Nareece. I had blown her off since the morning and still did not want to talk. She and I rode a collision course around Travis, the end undoubtedly being a major crash. My gut told me there was more to Nareece's sudden desire to confess all to Travis than she had shared.

“You didn't call back,” she whined.

“I've been in court all day.” I heard her husband, John, in the background reprimanding the twins for something. “The Twofer Detective Agency must be on another one of their crime-solving capers,” I said, laughing lightly, not sure how Nareece would take it.

“They've taken over my third floor,” she said. “You shouldn't be the least bit flattered that they want to be like you.” Her voice intensified. “You should be horrified and steering them in another direction. It's always murder and mayhem and bad guys and never pink and dolls and dressing up.”

“Crap,” I mumbled. I had missed the turn onto I-95. I drove down a block and made a U-turn to get on the highway.

“I'm sorry if I messed up your day.”

“I wasn't talking to you. I missed my turn. I'm glad you called,” I lied.

“Muriel. I went out today and did some errands. When I got home I felt something, like someone had been in the house.”

“You're always paranoid around this time of year. You just told me that this morning.” I waited a moment, then thought better of negating her feelings altogether. “Did you lock the door when you left?”

“I always do,” she whispered, her voice strained. “I called John. I thought maybe he came home for lunch, but he didn't. Then I found an envelope on the table by the telephone, you know, the table in the foyer. It's addressed to Carmella Ann Mabley.”

I pulled onto the breakdown lane and stopped.

“Muriel? Are you there?”

“Yeah, I'm here. Did you open it?”

“No. I can't. I don't want to know . . .”

“Open it, Reece. Whatever it is, it can't hurt you. What's done is done. There's nothing else anyone can take from you.”

“If they know about my life now, there's plenty they can take.”

“Then all the more reason you need to open the envelope so we know what we're dealing with.”

“You come. We'll open the envelope together,” she whimpered like a little girl. “I can't, I don't want to open it by myself.”

“Okay, I'll be there. Calm down. You don't want to upset the girls and John.” I heard her blow her nose. The splashy, wet sound grossed me out. “I'll come this weekend,” I said. My muscles tensed, bringing on the sweats again. I rolled the windows down and took a few deep breaths. I felt myself getting worked up with resentment. “Look. Sit tight and we'll talk more later.”

I clicked off and pulled into oncoming traffic, causing a flurry of beeping horns, and sped toward the Harbison Avenue exit. I pulled up to the KFC/Taco Bell drive-up window across from the Fifteenth and Second district station and asked for a cup of ice, dumped a few cubes down the front of my blouse, and rubbed one against my cheeks. The woman at the window reacted as though I had three heads and six tits. Her destiny revealed and she did not have a clue.

I considered calling Dulcey, then brushed it away. Better to learn the contents of the envelope before getting girlfriend shook up over what might be nothing. That name, Carmella Ann Mabley, had not visited either of our lips for twenty years. Nareece often blew things out of proportion, and most of the time was incapable of rational thought. It seemed a trip to Boston was the only way to sort this out, whatever this was.

I arrived home to find every light in the house on. I drove up to the gate and saw Travis in the kitchen window chugging down a glass of something. He waved and disappeared from view. By the time I pulled the car in and was at the door fumbling for my keys, Travis whipped the door open.

“Hey, Moms. What's good?” he said and was on me doling out hugs like a mama bear. All squished up, lifted up, and unable to hug back without access to my arms, I reveled in the love. He put me down and backed into the doorway.

He bowed and gestured for me to enter—the queen, come home to her palace. The door from the driveway led down a hallway to a finished room, off of which was a stairway leading up to the kitchen. Travis slammed the door and rushed ahead of me down the hall and up the stairs. He paused at the top of the stairs. He flashed me a wide grin, pecked my cheek, and stepped aside from the doorway, allowing me entry to the kitchen. In simultaneous motion, he slid two fingers under the straps of my briefcase and purse straps and lifted them from my shoulder, then pulled a counter stool out for me.

The kitchen space is long and narrow so the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining room was cut down to counter level and ran three-quarters of the kitchen length to the entryway. It was a Laughton project.

I settled in the stool and marveled at the sight of my son as he took a wineglass from the cabinet and set it before me, then held a bottle of Massaya's Classic White, draped over his forearm for my approval, like a sommelier. He proceeded to uncork the goods.

Two years old had become ten years, now nineteen years old, and still I could not remember its passing, as much as it seemed a blur anyway. He pulled out the stool next to me and sat down. Then he filled my glass one-quarter full with wine.

“How's school going? 'Bout time for midterm grades, right?” I took a sip of wine.

“I don't get midterm grades. I mean, unless I'm doing bad. You haven't gotten any notices, I'm taking care of business. Only students who are failing get midterm grades, notices, whatever.”

“Well, I haven't gotten any notices.”

“Exactly.”

“You know what happens if you don't take care of business.”

“No. What?”

“Don't mess with me, boy.”

He hesitated, then asked, “Laughton working on any new projects up in here?”

“I told you not to mess with me, boy,” I said, punching him in his shoulder.

“I got your boy, alright.”

“Sorry. Don't mess with me, man.” I waited for whatever was coming, but not for long.

“Some of the guys are cruisin' up to New York this weekend. We're going to stay at Sam's aunt's place in Queens. Sam's moms is driving us. You know Sam's moms. She's a sociology professor at Chestnut Hill College. We're gonna catch Patrice in
Rent
, an off-off-Broadway number.”

“Who's Patrice?”

“Sam's sister. Girl is a sexy . . .” The sudden remembrance that he was talking to his mother, not one of his boys, brightened his face. I gave him my sideways look, the one I inherited from Mom that had immobilized me whenever I had carried a moment too far.

“I'm saying she's dope. You know she went to New York after high school. Her moms was pissed that she skipped college. Moms is cool with it now, though, cuz girlfriend is doing it.”

“Shareen.”

“What?”

“Sam's mother's name. Nice lady.” I took a sip and savored the crisp semisweet flavor of melons, citrus, and dried herbs that made Massaya's Classic White one of my favorites. For a moment, I closed my eyes and went away.

“She says the same about you, then goes into how you helped her father beat some kinda altercation with the po po. Heard it a hundred times at least, but she never gives us the scoop, just that you helped her out, end of story.” Travis pulled a box of Carr's water crackers from the cupboard and Brie from the fridge.

I smiled. “Some things are better left where they lie.”

“You aren't going to fill me in? That's cold, Ma.” He stood beside me at the counter and methodically placed water crackers in a circle on a saucer and slices of cheese in the center, then set the saucer in front of me. I scooped up a cracker as he slid into the stool across the counter from me.

“Police business, end of story.”

I remembered Shareen's father had been stopped while driving erratically down I-95. Police found an unregistered. 38 pistol under the car seat. I called in a few favors, kept him out of jail.

“Good explanation at ten. I'm a man now.” He punched his chest once with both fists, King Kong–like, groaned, and fell forward ending with his head on the counter.

I patted his tousled hair. “A haircut and a shave would do you good.”

“Yeah,” he said, sitting up, “So can I go?”

He badgered me until I agreed, then left to hang out with his friends.

My muscles resisted the hot water. I got out of the shower as strained as I entered, my fingertips wrinkled and mushy. I wiped the mirror and studied my reflection. “He'll be fine. 'Bout time you gave the boy some room to move,” I said out loud. Poor Travis had endured my overprotective antics all of his life without protest, mostly. He was nineteen and a freshman in college and I still treated him like he was fourteen.

Nareece needed overprotective; Travis, not so much. A hint of anxiety fluttered through my chest at the thought of her and the letter. I forced it back. There was not a thing I could do about it until the weekend. I shuddered at the thought of having to drive to Massachusetts for what was probably nothing. Nareece lives in Milton to be exact, a pretty wealthy suburb of Boston. It would be good to see the twins and John. It would be good to see Nareece, too. I sighed at the image in the mirror. It had been a year since I visited.

The ring of the phone gave me escape from my guilt. I rushed to the bedside and checked the caller ID, then flopped down on the bed.