No Time to Die (9 page)

Tad’s voice was tight with frustration.

“He had been in Bellevue, Mali. Alcoholic ward. He was in restraints with that pink elephant kicking his ass the whole time. Before, during, and after Marie’s murder. They cut him loose this morning and the stakeout collared him when he got home. He was sober and cried like a baby when we told ’im …”

“Bellevue?”

“Yeah. We had to cut him loose. He’s not the one. So he had to walk.”

Tad probably said “good-bye” or “so long” or something but I couldn’t hear it. A roar had packed the space between the phone and my ear and I lay back on the bed.

Sometime later, a minute perhaps, Dad and Alvin were in the room, bending over me. Alvin shook me and Dad was squeezing my hands. Alvin’s face was misshapen by fright.

“What happened? You were screamin’. What … what’s the matter?”

I stared at them. I didn’t know. I couldn’t answer.

I sent flowers but did not attend Marie’s funeral. After Claudine, this was just too much for me. Two days after, I went back to the Lido. The mood was different when I stepped in, although the crowd was the same. The four retirees were at their usual table, nursing bottles of beer and bent in silent concentration over a chessboard. When I walked in, they tipped their caps but the gesture was perfunctory, polite, and their eyes had lost whatever was there when they had glanced at Marie.

Despite the hum of the air conditioner, the atmosphere seemed close, made more melancholy by Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia” flowing in a current of remorse from the jukebox.

I took a seat near the front and waited as Betty poured a gin and tonic for a customer seated at the other end. Then she moved toward me and rested her arms on the bar. “How you doin’, Mali?”

Before I could answer, she shook her head. “Girl, ain’t this some terrible stuff happenin’? Marie. I can’t believe that girl is gone.”

I nodded, and although it was only three o’clock, too early in the day to be drinking, ordered an Absolut on the rocks. “I wanted to go to the service,” I said, “but after Claudine, I just couldn’t handle it.”

“Don’t feel bad.” She reached over and touched my arm. “I know how it is. Too much get dumped on you at one time, you don’t know whether to face it or fold. Life’s a bitch sometimes. But I can say this: she had a big, beautiful sendoff. All her coworkers were there. And Clyde sent a blanket of roses. A blanket. And oh, did he cry! You know how they say some love is strong enough to move heaven and earth? Well, Clyde was strong enough to move earth, but heaven had the last word. Now see, he had eyes for her for years and he was the one she shoulda hooked up with in the first place. Not that low-down James. Now, just as she and Clyde was about to get together, she gets killed. That was no time to die. Girl hardly had a chance to live.”

I lifted my glass and thought of Claudine, who was just getting her life back together. It was no time for her to die either.

“And as for James, he didn’t even show. Probably too embarrassed at the way he came off at the party. Man is a complete fool. How she put up with him longer than one day is beyond me. I always say a woman can do bad by herself.”

I didn’t mention that one jug too many of Gypsy Rose had James laid up in a fog at Bellevue. Instead I said, “Has he been in here since she—”

“Hell no. Not after the way he mouthed off, he better not show his face in this place.”

She leaned over the bar, lowering her voice. “And I’ll tell you this, Mali. I heard through the vine—one of his drinkin’ buddies was in here the other night—he was sayin’ that James is goin’ ’round blamin’ you for
interfering in his business. Said you turned Claudine against him and that’s why she left.”

“What?”

“And that ain’t all. Said he saw you talkin’ to Marie the night of the party and you musta told her somethin’ about him. So you watch your back, girl. He is sneaky and he’s crazy. Bad combination.”

Two men came in and she moved away to take their order. Aretha Franklin’s burning voice filtered from the jukebox now, a praise song for feeling like a natural woman. When the tribute ended, I listened in the short silence to the tap of the chess pieces at the retirees’ table and wondered what their days would be like without the presence of Marie, or someone like her, whose young and easy smile helped make them forget the injury of growing old.

“Where does James live now?” I asked when Betty returned to perch on a stool near the register. The two men had bought her a brandy and she brought the small glass to her mouth before she spoke.

“Last place I heard was a rooming house on 136th Street, couple doors off Malcolm X Boulevard, but he’s probably long gone from there now. You ain’t goin’ lookin’ for him, are you?”

“Not particularly, but it’s always good to know where the enemy is hiding.”

 … And also to find out why he’s spreading these lies. I had never interfered between him and Claudine. I’d never mentioned a thing, especially about the incident on her wedding day. I was willing to let sleeping dogs lie, but this lying dog has to be straightened out.

“Well,” Betty sighed, “I’m hoping that they catch whoever did this. I mean I heard she wasn’t even robbed. Just murdered. Nothing was taken from the apartment.”

“That’s strange,” I said, waiting to hear what else might be on the vine. If anything was there, Betty would know, but she only shrugged and finished her drink. I finished mine and paid my check but she pushed the money back at me as I rose from the stool.

“Listen, Mali.” She leaned over now. “You be cool. Watch your back. Your dad’ll be no more good if something happens to you. He already lost one daughter. This ain’t no time for you to die. You still got your sister’s kid to raise.”

“You ’re right, Betty. I’ll remember.”

It was a little after four, and the afternoon sky was a cloudless pale blue. I went across the street and joined the waiting line outside Georgie’s Bakery and bought a dozen of the donuts that folks would mug you for. Then I walked toward Malcolm X Boulevard, again passing the chorus of African hair braiders with their flowing colors and accents, calling to the sisters to visit their salon.

At 127th Street I called Tad. “How about a walk down near the lake?”

“Baby, you sound out of it. You all right?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “I just … need to talk.”

He was there in ten minutes, and twenty minutes later we were strolling down 110th Street heading for the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Central Park lake, devouring the donuts. But instead of the quiet talk I’d planned, I found myself trying to figure different angles, arguing.

“James is schizoid,” I said. “He’s not particularly bright but he’s cunning. Who’s to say he didn’t slip out or talk his way out of the hospital and make it back before bed check? Who’s to say he wasn’t faking when
he went in there in the first place? Two women involved with the same man and killed the same way? It can’t be anyone else but James.”

“No ifs, ands, or buts, Mali. James is not it. You can’t pin a rap on someone just because you hate his guts.”

“Too bad,” I said, wondering how he’d react if he knew how James felt about me. When James had walked away in front of the Lido, he said he would see me again, and sooner or later I knew he was going to keep his promise.

We continued to walk. The pale blue disappeared in the shadows of early evening and the sky turned almost crimson, bathing the walkers, runners, skaters, and cyclists in a singular red cast. As we approached the park, the lake, resembling a large jewel, beckoned us. I wanted to gaze at the water and recall some calming mantra that would help me sort through my feelings.

But Tad stopped suddenly and turned to face me. “Listen, Mali. You’re angry and don’t know where to direct it. I—”

“Well, what did you expect?” I cried. “Of course I’m angry. I’m damn mad and—”

“And you’re not gonna take it anymore. Right? So here’s what we’re gonna do.” He took my arm and we walked past the Duke Ellington monument at the Fifth Avenue circle. The huge piano appeared to float above the elongated arms of the Muses and cast a crisscross of shadow lines on the sidewalk. Inside the park, all the benches were filled, so we sat on the grass at the edge of the lake.

“You’ve got to make an effort,” he said quietly. “An effort to be objective. Get over the idea that it was James. I know what he did to Claudine. He did terrible things but he did not kill her.”

“How do you know? How can you be so damn sure?”

My high voice caused people sitting nearby to glance at us. Tad looked out across the lake and let a minute pass. “Lack of evidence,” he finally said. “It’s just not there, Mali. That’s what you have to go by, not your emotion. No matter how much you dislike him, feelings don’t count in a court of law.”

I remained quiet but inside I was boiling with an anger I knew was irrational.

“Let’s look at this from another angle,” he said. “There was no money, jewelry, or other property taken, so it wasn’t robbery. The guy is probably a psycho, just as you said, but there were no prints or semen to trace. So maybe we should focus on what might have triggered him.

“Claudine and Marie were killed on Thursdays—like the women in the Bronx. It wasn’t a copycat because the Bronx details were never publicized. So it’s most likely the same person.

“What is it that happens on Thursdays? Or Wednesday nights for that matter? Is the moon full? Is there an electrical storm? Does he run out of medication at that particular time? And the ten-block radius in the Bronx. Was it random or was there something within those blocks that the women might have had in common? Did he live or work there or did he prowl the area looking for likely victims? What’s driving him?”

I thought of John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Son of Sam, Jeffrey Dahmer, and a chill went through me. “You think we have a serial killer loose in Harlem?”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Anything’s possible, though we don’t get many black serial killers.”

“What about Atlanta in the seventies and eighties?”

“They only convicted Williams for one of those murders and I have my doubts about that one.”

He fell silent again and gazed out at the lake. Across the water, children were launching small sailboats, guiding them by remote control. Their laughter wafted toward us as some of the boats collided. A few minutes passed before Tad spoke: “In any event, Mali, from now on, I’m gonna do this investigation solo. You’re still grieving and it’s making you crazy.”

“What do you mean by solo,” I asked, ignoring everything else he’d said.

“Just what I said. It’d be better if you weren’t so involved. You’re too close to this … this …”

I gazed hard at the toy boats and the children. I thought of Claudine and Marie and the life that had been taken from them. They’d had no chance to feel the love of their own child, no chance to watch it grow and sail toy boats.

Despite Tad’s argument, I still believed James did it, had taken all of this from Claudine and Marie, and I intended to find him, with or without help.

Tad was still searching for the right word and I didn’t wait for him to find it. I got to my feet and walked out of the park without a backward glance.

I strolled uptown, and by the time I’d walked past the Lenox Lounge near 125th Street, I’d made up my mind to look for James. He was sneaky and crazy. He’d come up on Marie from behind to beat her. And I knew all too well what he’d done to Claudine. Now they were dead. I intended to let him know that if he was looking for me, he was looking for trouble and I was ready to meet him face-to-face.

Between Malcolm X and Powell Boulevards, 136th Street was lined with three-story row houses—brick, lime, and brownstone—and anchored by the Countee Cullen Library near Malcolm X and a community center near Powell. Most of the houses were occupied and many others were sealed. One had been abandoned for so long a tree was growing inside. Others had been converted into funeral establishments, small churches, and rooming houses.

A long time ago, my mother had said, “Learn to look at the bells. Five bells or more in a three-story house usually means its a rooming house. Not always, but most of the time.”