Queens Noir (41 page)

I was tripping.

"Help? A little help?" A thin, thin, thin woman with a
red cap pulled so low that she had to raise her chin to look
at me blocked my path. "Ice-e?" She extended a cart toward
me with a brutal shove. A regulation grocery cart, sealed in duct tape, enclosed with a plastic lid, a cardboard cut-out of
brightly colored ice creams taped to its sides.

"Whoa," I muttered, gripping the cart to keep from being run down. A plastic wheel jumped the rim of my sneaker,
leaving a marked trail.

"Ice-e?" the woman repeated sternly.

I hadn't noticed the man next to her. The old cat was just
squatting there on the balls of his feet, arms extended at awkward angles from where they rested on each knee. In front of
him stood a stack of newspapers and, atop the stack, a neat
pile of quarters. I recognized the paper, a freebie like mine, but
here on the street it cost a quarter.

I slapped some coins in his palm and snatched up a copy.
The lead caught my eye:

Jamaica, Queens-A young man recently found hanging
in his bedroom has been identified as Edwin Stuckey, age
twenty-two. Family members say the list of suspects is numerous and have sealed off the scene of the crime-the
home-until further notice. The police have no comment.

The Crusading Home of Deliverance was located in a sprawling Victorian residence. It wouldn't have been recognizable as
a church were it not for the small cardboard sign and handmade cross posted in a none-too-clean bay window. I checked
Detective Spurlock's directions several times before rapping
on the front door.

I'd tried to contact Janette after seeing the brief article
about her brother in the competition, but she wasn't taking
my calls. So what was I doing? Seems I needed to know what
happened to Edwin Stuckey after all.

"Are you here for evening service?" A smiling elderly woman dressed in white opened the door. I could see behind
her into a drab parlor containing metal folding chairs, a podium, and what looked like a small organ.

"No, ma'am," I said. "I'm here to see Reverend Pine."

Did I have an appointment? she inquired, continuing to
smile.

I admitted I didn't but assured her it was important, that I
was here about Edwin Stuckey.

"Edwin. Yes." She bowed her head. "We are still mourning
his loss, but happy for his deliverance."

"Yes, well ... Reverend Pine?"

I followed the woman into the room and took a seat in the
back row. The room was large and half-filled, all its occupants
black, conversing in hushed voices.

"Son?" A slim, natty man dressed in a three-piece suit
charged toward me with his hand extended. "I'm the Reverend Pine, and I welcome you to our sanctuary." He shook my
hand with an intense vigor before adjusting his chunky glasses
and straightening his tie. "We can speak briefly in my office.
I've got service in an hour and I must prepare." He cleared his
throat. "You understand."

I studied the hallway he led me down. On either side of
the wall were photographs of the reverend with parishioners
and community dignitaries. His office, lined with two bookcases of theological texts, contained more of the same.

Reverend Pine took a seat behind his desk. "You're here
for Edwin?"

"Yes, sir." I shifted in my seat. "I'm a reporter for the-"

"Weekly Item. I know." He smiled wryly.

I peered up at him sharply.

"I keep myself informed, son." He laughed and adjusted
himself in his seat. "See, my congregation is this here commu nity, and we are all interested in Edwin's well-being. We even
trust that you are interested in his well-being."

I was suddenly growing wary of this man and his glib talk
of dead Edwin's well-being.

"Look, I don't know what kind of shop you're running
here-"

"There's no need to be disrespectful." Reverend Pine
pinned me with his gaze. "What do you want to know? Edwin Stuckey saw a flyer for our church revival last summer,
showed up at our doors, and we welcomed him."

"So why does his family think he was murdered? Why did
his sister give the names of members of your congregation to
the police?"

Pine shrugged nonchalantly. "Why? You best ask Edwin's
sister, Janette, yourself. Before he came to its, Edwin had no
friends. He had no interests. He had no hope. He was very
depressed. We tried to comfort him."

"He killed himself."

"No, he didn't." Pine took off his glasses and rubbed his
temples. "There's a problem in our society, son, that I'm sure
you're familiar with. Loss of hope."

I stared at the man, attentive despite myself.

"Let me be clear here." He held up his hands in a defensive gesture. "I do not advocate suicide. I did not encourage
Edwin Stuckey to kill himself. I pray for his soul every day. But
Edwin and his family are the reason I do what I do: People do
lose hope and not all of them regain it. And not all of them
can accept when hopelessness claims one of their own."

"Look, Reverend Pine, that's a nice sermon and all, but
I'm just here for the facts," I said.

He opened his arms. "Sadly, those are they."

To my everlasting surprise, I sat through all three hours of
Reverend Pine's service. It was motivating, it was uplifting, it
was hopeful. The tears, the tambourines, the shouting. Most
importantly, though, it did not compel me to commit suicide.
It made me want to get on with my life.

When the door of Deliverance closed behind me and I
stepped onto the cracked sidewalk beyond its front stairway, I
decided to phone Janette one final time. I watched a group of
middle school girls skip double-dutch further down the street.
The clothesline they were using for a jump rope slapped the
pavement fiercely and their chants rippled down the block:
`All, all, all in together, any kind of weather ..."

The father answered, said Janette was out. "Mr. Stuckey,
this is Douglass, the reporter," I began.

"Yes?" His voice rose to an expectant pitch. `Any progress?"

"See the teacher looking out the window. Dong, dong, the firebell ..." The girls picked up their volume, feet racing the
rope.

On the line I let out a sigh, and I heard Mr. Stuckey deflating in the silence. "Unfortunately, sir, I am no longer able
to pursue this story." Across the street, a dude carrying a basketball tinder one arm shouted after a car rolling past on a
wave of bass line.

"That boy who did that to himself was not my son, he was
someone else. Somebody did something, or said something
that-" Stuckey cleared his throat. "Someone should be held
responsible."

I hesitated, then snapped my phone shut.

"How many ringers can you take? One, two, three, four ..."
The girls ticked off their chant behind me.

JILLIAN ABBOTT'S short stories have won awards in the
United States and Australia. She is a reporter at the Queens
Chronicle and her writing has appeared in the Washington Post,
the New York Daily News, the Writer Magazine, and many
other publications. She's currently at work on a new mystery
series as well as her second Morgan Blake thriller. She lives
in Queens.

MEGAN ABBOTT is the Edgar Award-nominated author
of Queenpin, The Song Is You, and Die a Little, as well as the
nonfiction study, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in
Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir. She lives in Forest Hills,
Queens.