I'm Glad I Did (23 page)

He took the records without a word and placed them next to his record player. Then he walked over and kissed me. I'm not sure how much time passed, but eventually his stomach rumbled. “I think that's an impolite way of saying it's dinnertime,” he murmured.

We both giggled, and he pulled away. As we ate, he flipped on the television set so we could catch the news with Walter Cronkite. The big story was something they were calling “the Great Train Robbery” in Britain. Apparently, a group of bandits made off with a pile of mailbags stuffed with more than two million pounds in banknotes.

“And you think our relatives are bad,” I cracked. “How much did those guys steal in dollars, do you think?”

“About four million,” Luke answered. He sighed. “At
least they have an exact number. With my dad, it's all guesswork. But I wouldn't be surprised if they turned out to be petty crooks compared to him.”

When the program cut to a commercial, he turned the knob and flipped to the next channel. There was a flash of static, and we both froze. A grave anchorman, a little younger than Walter Cronkite, was talking with a picture of Lincoln Brown displayed behind him.

We held our breath as he spoke.

“… esteemed academic, one of only two Negro professors at NYU, and the brother of the late singer Sweet Dulcie Brown. He was rushed to NYU Medical Center after an apparent suicide attempt. According to the police, he was found by a colleague who became concerned when Professor Brown did not show up for a meeting. Professor Brown survived and is expected to recover completely. Sadly, our next story …”

Luke turned down the sound and gaped at me. I shook my head.

“What the hell is going on?” he wondered aloud. “Was he punishing himself for killing Dulcie before someone else did?”

“Maybe Bernie is off the hook,” I said. I hoped so, even though a part of me wished Lincoln Brown was innocent, too.

“First thing tomorrow, I'm going to that hospital to find out,” Luke said. He put down his pizza and reached for my hand. “You with me, Watson?”

“You don't even need to ask, Mr. Holmes,” I responded, squeezing back.

• • •

ANOTHER NIGHT HOME AT
the stroke of eleven, another endless day at work avoiding Bobby and Rona. I thought six o'clock would never arrive. When it did, Luke and I went straight to the hospital from the Brill Building. When we told the freckled redheaded nurse in charge that we wanted to see Professor Brown, she dashed all of the anticipation that had built over the past twenty-four hours with four words.

“Only family is allowed.”

“I'm his nephew,” Luke told her.

I studied her as she processed this response, watched the narrowing of the eyes that said,
You don't look like a Negro
. But Luke had foreseen this possibility. He pulled out his birth certificate, the real one. She took a look, then picked up the phone.

“Mr. Brown,” she said, “your nephew is here to see you. May I send him in?”

There was a moment as she listened. Then she turned to us.

“He says he doesn't have a nephew.”

“May I speak to him?” Luke deftly plucked the phone from her hands before she could protest. “I
am
your nephew, Mr. Brown,” he said into the mouthpiece. “We've actually spoken before, and I have proof with me that I'm Dulcie's son.”

He handed the phone back to the nurse. She listened for a moment, nodded, and hung up. “Room fifty-nine,” she announced, and went back to guarding the floor.

I knew I shouldn't have been surprised, but I still was
taken aback at how vulnerable Professor Brown looked when we entered his room. Of course, lying in a hospital bed in pajamas while hooked up to IV tubes could do that to a person. He squinted at us, his shadow-rimmed eyes flashing between us as if trying to remember where he'd seen us before.

“We interviewed you for our high school, sort of,” I told him.

“Tell me about the
sort of
part,” he said with a weak smile.

“I'm your nephew,” Luke said softly. “My dad never told me the truth about who my mother was, but I discovered it in Dulcie's memoir, and then I found my real birth certificate.”

He stepped forward and handed it to Professor Brown, who scanned it and then gave it back to him with a dismissive sniff. “My crazy little sister had an affair with her manager. I'm not really surprised. Dulcie had a unique way of complicating her life.”

“It wasn't just an affair, Dr. Brown; they loved each other,” Luke said. “I think they would have gotten married if they could have.”

Professor Brown returned Luke's stare. “Why didn't you tell me who you were when you first came to see me for the interview?”

“I wasn't ready. The only proof I had was in my mother's memoir. I wasn't about to reveal that to anyone.”

Professor Brown took in the information. His tired eyes remained focused on Luke. “So how does it feel becoming a Negro at your age?” His voice hardened. “You know even
if you're half white, even if you look white, even if you think of yourself as white, the world will always see you as a colored man. You know that, don't you? Once they know about your mother, you're a colored man.”

“I know, and I'm trying to make that a part of me,” Luke answered in an even tone. He edged closer to me. “My friend JJ here knew your sister and worked with her recently. Dulcie sang on a demonstration record of a song that we wrote together. JJ was going to have dinner with her the night she died.”

Professor Brown shifted his gaze toward me. “So if you weren't writing a story for your school paper, what can you tell me about my sister that I don't know?”

“I don't believe she killed herself,” I said softly. “I believe someone pushed or threw her out that window. Please excuse me for asking this question, Professor, but can you tell us where you were on the night your sister died?”

“Delivering a lecture to four hundred students,” Professor Brown stated irritably, pulling himself up to a sitting position. “But I need you to tell me something. I need to know what Dulcie said about me in her memoir.” He turned to Luke. “And I want to know if you intend to submit it to a publisher.”

Luke seemed baffled. “We've never even thought about that. It's incomplete, and we have no way of knowing what Dulcie would have wanted, so I don't believe that we'll submit it for publication. At least that's the way I feel now. She didn't disclose anything about you, Professor Brown. She just talked about how wonderful you were as a big brother.”

Professor Brown closed his eyes for a moment. “You
know, the lecture I gave that night was on ethics.” He drew in a breath. “You will understand the irony of that when I tell you something I've been hiding for a very long time. To tell you the truth, I was afraid Dulcie might have revealed it in her book. I was so filled with shame. That's why … this happened. I thought I couldn't face the world another day.”

I took a step toward his bed. “Dulcie did write that you had done something wrong. But she believed that it was up to you to reveal it or keep it hidden forever. She loved you too much to ever hurt you.”

Professor Brown blinked several times and reached for a Kleenex. “I was the one who hurt myself and her. My senior year, I was the star quarterback, role model, hero. But I got involved with a girl. I neglected my schoolwork after I'd been awarded an athletic scholarship. All I had to do was pass my senior classes to keep it, but I was failing chemistry. I needed an A on the final to pass and hold on to my future. So my best friend and I hid in school until after it was closed. We jimmied the lock on the chem teacher's desk and made a copy of the test. I got to keep my scholarship. He got to graduate. It was just one class, just one transgression, but it stayed with me. It was wrong, and I knew it when I did it. It went against everything I believed in. It made me feel that I never deserved what I accomplished.”

He paused and dabbed his eyes again, then took a sip of water. My pulse quickened. I was sure that the story was about to take a much darker turn—that he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant or hurt his friend in some way to keep him quiet about what they'd done.

“Throughout my college career and beyond I knew I was a fraud and a cheat,” he continued. “Dulcie found out when my best friend boasted about it to her. That's when she lost respect for me. He went to an early grave, so I knew that my secret was safe with him … but Dulcie carried it with her ever since. I didn't blame her. I'd been her idol, and I let her down. I've hated myself since that day. Finally I decided I just wanted peace, so …” He lifted his shoulders. “But I'm still here.”

“I'm glad you are,” Luke said.

“So am I,” I added. “You saved Dulcie's life when she was a child. You gave her the love and support she wouldn't have survived without.”

He cleared his throat. “That was my best time,” he managed, his voice shaking. “I've done a lot of soul-searching since Dulcie's death. I've decided I'm going back home. I'm going to try and teach at our high school. Make up for what I've done by giving back.”

Luke nodded, his green eyes soft. “If that's your decision, I really admire it. May I come and visit you?” he asked. He drew close to the bed.

“Of course you can,” Professor Brown breathed. “You're blood, my man.” He reached out and clasped Luke's hand.

Without saying a word, I stepped back into the hallway to give them a moment alone. My brain was spinning. Cheating on a test? Yes, that was a bad thing to do, but it wasn't murder. It wasn't ripping off Dulcie for the money she'd rightly earned either. He'd been a kid. Kids do dumb things all the time. My brother and I were living proof of that.

“Why are you smiling?” Luke asked as he joined me a minute later.

“Because he couldn't have killed her, for one thing,” I whispered as we hurried toward the elevator. “He was giving a lecture that night. Besides, it sounds like this was a grudge that Dulcie could have let go.”

“I know where you're coming from,” Luke answered. He pressed the
DOWN
button. “I feel that way, too. But look at it from Dulcie's perspective. He was her role model. Then he betrayed that trust. Even worse, he built an entire life and image around integrity, proving that he was a different kind of Negro … that he was a Negro who was above reproach. But the truth is, he was a liar like every other man she knew.” He looked out the window at the busy New York street below. “For her, that made him the worst kind of man. I get it.”

I looped my arm in his as the elevator doors opened. I knew that Luke was beginning to see himself as Dulcie's blood, as a Negro and a man himself. I wondered if it would affect the way he felt about me. I wondered if the world would ever change in the way it looked at mixed-race couples. My parents had friends who moved to Canada to escape the prejudice they faced here in the so-called cosmopolitan city of New York. They were never accepted. Could we be?

“I won't lose you after we get to the bottom of this, will I, Luke?” I asked as the doors closed behind us and we were alone. “When the world knows who you are will you still be here with me?”

Instead of answering, he turned and kissed me on the lips.

The days that followed were the beginning of change. James Meredith became the first Negro to graduate from the University of Mississippi. The NAACP youth council began sit-ins at lunch counters in Oklahoma City. And in New York City, Detective Frank McGrath arrested Bernie Rubin for the murder of Dulcie Brown.

Uncle Bernie's arrest was all but inevitable after Marla turned in the broken necklace. Even though the evidence was circumstantial—as Luke rightly pointed out—Janny said they would continue to fish around until they scared him enough so that he would say something incriminating. He was booked at 8
A.M
. on a Tuesday, so Janny allowed me to accompany her when she headed downtown to bail him out. I called Rona to tell her that I might be a little late for work owing to a family emergency. At least I wasn't lying.

On the way down, I told Janny everything I knew again, including what the Puerto Rican woman had heard before Dulcie went out the window. Apparently there was a chance
I'd have to come forth with that information, but I didn't have to do it yet. Our main objective was to get Bernie out of McGrath's clutches. Janny had already spoken to the district attorney, who told her that he intended to present Bernie's case to a grand jury for a formal indictment. And he'd definitely be indicted. For as long as I can remember, I had heard from my mom that in the criminal justice system you could indict a ham sandwich. I figured it was probably true for pastrami as well. Bernie was more the pastrami type.

Thanks to Janny's connections and Bernie's cash, he was released on bail. Then we headed back to our apartment. Juana brought out coffee and danishes, which she always did in a crisis. Bernie made it very clear that he didn't want to go back to his place. He didn't want Marla to be a part of the conversation. He filled us in on the fact that she'd actually told him about finding the necklace, just as I had asked her to. The trouble was, she had told him after she had gone to McGrath. She hadn't given him a chance to defend himself as she'd promised me. Then he'd flipped out. The two of them had a real screamer. He hadn't seen her since. And now …