Sweet Violet and a Time for Love (7 page)

At the moment.

I snapped the case of the watch shut, wrapped it up in a piece of the old newspaper I pulled from the lining, and tucked it back into its secret compartment inside the old black purse.

Now, I really felt compelled to get it back to that woman, Frankie Jean, Sweet Violet. That pocket watch looked expensive and personal. She appeared to have few belongings, but she had that watch. It meant something, I was sure of it.

I was finishing up in the bathroom, trying to figure out my next move to return the woman's belongings, when Leon's voice roared and echoed through the condo.

“Sienna, turn on the TV. Channel twelve. Now!”

I'd never heard him yell like that. Ever. In two seconds, I was out of the bathroom and headed toward the living room television where Leon stood, the remote from our bedroom TV still in his hands.

“Can you please explain this to me?” The roar was gone. In its place, a defeated whisper.

I looked at the screen and gasped. I still had the purse with the pocket watch in my hands as I joined Leon in our living room. The bedroom television's remote was in his hand and he kept pounding on the volume button to no avail.

Wrong remote.

The television was on mute but the images on the screen spoke loud and clear making the headline underneath almost unnecessary: WORKER FOUND SHOT TO DEATH IN FRONT OF HOMELESS SHELTER.

Leon was a former cop. He'd probably seen a million and one unfortunate scenes like this one, so I knew his agitation was not over the story. I followed where his hand pointed and gasped.

And I groaned inside.

How do I even begin to explain?
Especially since he just lectured me on the way I spent my time and how I ranked my priorities. Especially since he hadn't wanted me anywhere near the patient I'd treated the night before.

Harmless old homeless woman. That's what I'd told him when he expressed concern that I'd had her in my car.

The TV shot was focused on the yellow tape that surrounded the employee entrance of A New Beginning House. I noted for the first time that a single flat black shoe lay sideways on the ground by the doorway, white chalk outlining it.

The shoe was not Leon's concern, I knew. What had his attention was something—rather, someone—in the periphery: a woman in a black-and-white dress walking down the sidewalk away from the tragic scene.

I looked down at the black-and-white dress I had on, knowing there was no way to pretend that woman was someone else.

“Sienna.” He glared at me. “Can you please tell me why you were at a murder scene this morning? Never mind the fact that I thought you were at home resting since you are ill. Never mind the fact that I thought you weren't going to get involved in any more of this. What were you doing there?” His voice was a high-pitched whisper and I realized he was trying his best not to yell.

“I just wanted to return that patient's belongings. I had no idea that the shelter had turned into a crime scene.” I looked down at the purse in my hands. Leon's eyes followed mine.

He rubbed his temples, sighed. “I thought you only had a bag with a housecoat in it. Where did that purse come from? Why do you keep getting involved in these things?”

“It's just a purse. Calm down. Nobody's getting involved in anything. I tried to return the bag. The woman wasn't there. A young girl, a pregnant young girl, heard me asking around for her and gave me the purse to keep with the rest of her belongings.” The word “pregnant” rolled off my tongue and my heart skipped two beats and I started panting.

We both looked down at the purse in my hand.

Leon reached for it. “I'm throwing this away once and for all.”

“Wait.” I swiped it out of his reach. “A gold pocket watch is hidden in the lining. I don't feel right about throwing away something that may have sentimental value to somebody else.”

“Sentimental value? It's probably broken and forgotten.” He snatched the bag out of my hand and found the watch in mere seconds. He pulled it out, examined it for a moment, and let it dangle from his fingers. “Like I said, broken and forgotten.” He stuffed it back into the purse and headed toward the kitchen trashcan.

“Wait, it looks expensive. It might really mean something to her.”

“To who?” He spun around to face me, the whisper now gone. A full-blown yell now took its place. “Who exactly is this woman that you want to spend
our
time together looking for? What is her name, Sienna? Her address? Where is she right now? What are you going to do? Spend today, our one day of the week together, walking the streets of Baltimore looking for her? Are you going to go back to that shelter where a worker was killed and interrupt the investigation to see if anyone is missing a pocket watch?”

“Leon, I never said I was going anywhere today.”

“Exactly. You didn't say today. But you're going.” The yell was gone, but his eyes still looked aflame. “You can't figure out when to spend time with me. You can't make it through a church service for us to worship together. You can't get in the bed and let me care for you while you're sick. But you can find time in your schedule to go looking for a woman whose name and mental state you really don't know, just to give her back some purse she probably found in a trashcan. It's a broken and forgotten pocket watch.” His bottom lip trembled and I realized a single tear had found its way out of my eyelid.

We'd never fought before.

Well, at least since we'd been married.

“You have a problem, Sienna.” Leon shook his head, turned back toward the trashcan. “I don't know what it is, but you do have a problem.”

“No, we have a problem.” I let out a slight chuckle, trying to lighten the air between us.

The chuckle didn't come out right.

“I mean, you and I.” I tried to explain what didn't even make sense to me at the moment. “It's no longer me. It's no longer just me. It's ‘we.' So if you think I have a problem, then it's really ‘we.' Oneness. We have a problem, right?” I knew my smile was goofy and my words didn't make sense. It was easier to be silly than to take ownership of an issue.

“You know what?” Leon turned to me one final time. “Just take the purse. Do what you want with it. I'm going back to church. I don't have time for jokes and games and search and rescues. It's fitting that the pocket watch is broken. Our quality time together is just like that watch: broken and forgotten.”

“I don't think you're right about the watch or our time, and I'm going to prove it to you.”

“I'm sure you will, Sienna. You are always trying to prove that you're right. I mean, you're even about to write a whole book about it, how your gut feelings and instincts are always right. Have you ever considered that just once, maybe just one time, you are wrong?” He asked the question but didn't wait for an answer as he pressed the bag back into my arms and then marched back to our bedroom.

I could hear him rummaging through his dresser drawer, flinging things through his closet as he pieced his church outfit back together again. He emerged a few minutes later dressed once again in his black suit and black-and-white paisley tie.

“You always match my Sunday outfit.” I tried again to ease the tension. “Just realized that last Sunday we both had on blue and the week before that we both had on shades of pale green.”

“Glad you noticed. I'll be at the early afternoon service and then I'm heading to my shop to prep for tomorrow morning.”

He left.

No kiss good-bye.

First time that happened.

“What have I done?” I looked down at the purse in my hand and then ran to the bathroom once again. I felt sick to my stomach, a little hurt in the heart, and uncertain about what to do next.

No, I was certain about one thing. I was going to find that woman and be rid of her stuff out of my life once and for all.

Leon was right. I did have a problem; but it was not about “being right.” Rather, I struggled with “letting go.”

“Thank you for your testimony. You may step down now and we will adjourn for lunch.” The judge pounded his gavel and the courtroom came alive, making the last few hours of quiet but brutal, repetitive testimony seem like a distant dream.

You think you know what dreams are? Humph, you don't even know what sleep is. You livin' life with your eyes closed, thinking you're awake.
Sweet Violet's raspy voice jarred my consciousness, her words to me as clear and as puzzling as they had been some weeks ago when we met in the War Memorial Plaza, the grassy area in front of city hall. We'd had several conversations like this over the months. My mind had been occupied with dissecting distant memories for most of the time I'd been up on the witness stand.

“Sienna, let's grab lunch while we can.” Leon pulled me close to him as I pressed my way through the courtroom. Joe Koletsky, a young attorney who served as Alisa Billy's assistant, did his best to try to shield me from the throng of reporters and gawkers with smartphone cameras who swamped me from every side.

And Leon actually thought we were going to be able to eat in peace?

If the killer had stopped at Sister Marta, or even the second victim, there would probably be far less interest in this case; but the last victim had been too high profile for the media not to notice. His picture had been plastered to every news story about the trial, much like his image had already been plastered to billboards and press releases in Baltimore over the decades. Add to these facts that I, a recent media darling after last year's terror attack, was the key witness, and the current camera frenzy was inevitable.

“I have a place for us to eat,” Leon whispered in my ear, as if reading my thoughts. “It's quiet. We'll be alone.”

The three of us, Leon, Joe, and I, continued to press through the sea of reporters, microphones, and flashes, through the hallways of the courthouse, out the front entrance, and down the marble steps. I noted a car waiting at the bottom.

I also noted Roman standing by a light post across the street. He stood out in the crowd as he was the only one standing still and the only one looking off in another direction. His hands were deep in his pockets and an Orioles baseball cap was pushed down low over his eyes.

“Wait.” I grabbed Leon's wrist and he pulled his head closer to me. “I need to talk to Roman,” I whispered.

“No. It's just going to upset you.”

I felt his hand tug mine a little harder as we headed down the steps toward the waiting car.

“Leon, wait.”

“No. Sienna. This day is trying enough. This isn't the time. Roman is a grown man, twenty-one, old enough to make his own choices. You can't change that. Can't change his mind. Can't change him. Even if you could, this is not the day to try. Let's go get lunch. I made reservations.”

We were at the car, a black sedan, and I recognized the driver. One of Leon's old partners from when he served with the Baltimore police department, Mike Grant. They'd been hanging out more lately.

“Come on, let's get out of here.” Leon kept his hold on my hand firm as he opened the back door and gently nudged me, doing his best to get me out of the view of the swarm of cameras and reporters.

I felt like I was in a dream.

But my son was across the street.

“I'm going to talk to Roman. Now.” I pushed Leon's hand off of mine and then considered that I may have spoken too loudly. The last thing I needed was for the news outlets and social media platforms to get wind of my family business in the midst of this courtroom spectacle.

“Sienna.” Leon's voice was barely a whisper, but might as well have been a yell.

There was a time in my life that I never could imagine Leon yelling, but as of late, I'd known his yells too well.

“He is leaving tonight. His plane leaves tonight. I can't let him take off like this.” I turned toward the crosswalk intending to cross the street to get to my waiting son.

But Roman had just hailed a cab.

I had taken only two steps away from the car when it happened.

He hadn't just been looking away, I realized. He had been flagging down a ride.

Roman didn't want to talk to me.

Leon was right. Roman was a grown man making his own decisions. And right now, he'd decided that he didn't want to talk to me. The weight of that realization pressed down on me more than the eight-month-old baby sagging down my forty-year-old belly.

I was supposed to have a fortieth birthday party in January. Roman had promised to plan it, take care of all the details. Was even going to send me on a cruise and had taken pride in being able to pay the hefty bill himself, despite my own newfound fortune.

But the party, the cruise didn't happen. All plans went out of the window during his Christmas break.

The dinner that turned disastrous.

“Sienna, you need to eat before court resumes; eat and sit somewhere comfortable.” His eyes were on my stomach.

His child.

My child was now a man and he was about to get into a taxicab, on his way to a flight to another life that left in just a few hours.

The new life inside of me gave a hard kick to my ribs and I realized I only had about forty-five minutes left to eat with no idea where Leon had made reservations.

“Okay, I'm ready. Let's go.” I turned back to Leon, took his extended hand and sat down next to him in the back of his old friend Mike's car.

Joe Koletsky shut the door for us and walked off, disappearing into the crowd. He was a quiet man who always dressed impeccably in a black suit. His suits matched his black hair, which he kept parted and gelled down.

“Next stop, my dining room.” Mike Grant smiled and winked at me in the rearview mirror, and I had a sudden memory of why I'd always felt ambivalent about hanging around him.

“I thought you made reservations, Leon.” I didn't even bother whispering now as we sped up Calvert Street. Mike drove like there were lights and sirens going off on his car although we were in his personal vehicle. We were already three blocks away from the chaos.

“We do have reservations. Just had to be creative about it. Mike and Shavona have lunch waiting for both of us. All three of us.” He gave a half nod, half smile at my belly. “We don't have much time and I'm trying to give you some kind of peace and privacy.”

Peace and privacy?

With Mike and Shavona?

Peace and privacy were the last two words that came to mind when Mike and Shavona Grant were any part of the sentence. I would have said so with my eyes—I'd become an expert with the nonverbal talk since my wedding date—but after our quick spat over my insistence to talk to my son, I decided to let this one go.

I was hungry, and, from the kicking going on inside of me, so was the other person in our party of three.

This was not how I pictured this pregnancy going. I sighed, as Mike pulled his car up in front of a large row home facing Patterson Park. Court case, chaos, continual spats with Leon, Roman leaving, and the nagging feeling that I was missing something important.

That woman's words held as much potency as her wretched breath. How I had managed to sit next to her the few times I caught her downtown in the War Memorial Plaza would forever remain a mystery.

Lord, I hope Sweet Violet had nothing to do with this series of deaths for which I'm serving as a witness.
It was a silent prayer, but one I found myself praying weekly. Actually, now daily, since I hadn't seen her in a while.

She couldn't be involved, I assured myself. I'd gone over everything with Leon: my suspicions, my questions, everything. He used to be a cop, and he'd helped me sort out other nagging mysteries in the past. I trusted his judgment, and he already judged her harmless.

A little reckless, a lot annoying, but harmless, nonetheless.

Maybe I would feel better if I knew her story; but there was no time to dig, and to what end? Time was precious, Leon had told me months ago. I could still see him in his green pajamas that Sunday morning when I first tried to return Sweet Violet's belongings to no avail.

The Sunday I found that pocket watch.

5:11. The time forever frozen on its gold face.

That morning. Forever the turning point in our still-growing marriage.

Time.

I guessed that's what was bothering me, the timing of it all. The murders, the questions, and Sweet Violet's random appearances all began around the same time.

“You're going to love this, Sienna.” Mike was talking to me, I realized. I also realized that I was out of the car and walking into the luxurious remodel that was the Grant's three-story row home. He was living pretty well to be a public servant. I noted the high-end everything that was their living and dining areas.

“Leon filled us in about your potato craving, so Shavona and I made a potato feast for you to enjoy before you head back to the courthouse.” Mike pointed to a large spread laid out on a table that took up most of their expansive dining room. Theirs was a house for entertaining: holiday meals, cookouts, Saturday night parties. “We've got homemade waffle fries, red bliss potato salad, scalloped potatoes with smoked turkey sausage, and, of course, Shavona's garlic and cheddar mashed potatoes.”

“Okay.” I plastered a smile onto my face, though everything in my stomach turned at the menu. I'd told Leon that I had cravings for lemons and Cocoa Puffs. Where did potatoes come from? Even Leon looked slightly confused. We both looked at each other and shared a secret smile.

Regardless of everything that was happening around us and between us, we still understood each other.

“Ooh, there she is.” I heard the squeal even before she entered the room. “Girl, look at you, still looking good, well, considering.” Shavona Grant grabbed me from behind, spun me around to face her and swirled her hands all over my stomach, top to bottom, side to side as she spoke. I decided to let the invasion of her hands slide, but I could not ignore her scent.

For reasons unknown to me, the woman always smelled of pizza. Perfume? Body wash? Couldn't figure it out. The few times we'd met had been at our husbands' social outings: a fishing trip two weeks after Leon and I married; a bowling night in January; a couples night out with some of Leon's other old police buddies. We'd barely talked to each other outside of those meet-ups, and when we did have conversations, we swapped stories mostly about pregnancy and raising kids.

They had none, but I knew they were trying, and had been trying for nearly a decade. “In God's time,” was how she started and ended every conversation when the topic came up.

“Girl, I've been watching you on TV, and I must say you sure have been handling yourself well with that smart-mouthed lawyer. I would have slapped her right across the eyebrows by now. Let's say grace.” Shavona sat next to me at the table and had already started piling a plate high with all manner of potatoes. She passed the plate to me then bowed her head. Leon and Mike sat across from us, and although they had been engaged in a lively discussion about the Baltimore Ravens, Mike immediately bowed his head when Shavona's head lowered.

“Father, thank you for friends, food, and fellowship. As our dear friends face the ongoing difficulties that are disrupting their lives, I ask that this meal give nourishment and strength, and our home and lives give necessary support and love.”

I had my eyes closed for the beginning of Shavona's prayer, but opened them at the word “friends.” These were Leon's people, his old work buddy and his work buddy's wife. I knew that Leon was close to Mike, and that he'd known Shavona for years, but I didn't know them that well. I saw them as Leon's acquaintances. I guess that's why the word “friends” jumped out at me. I barely knew them personally.

“Amen.” Mike opened his eyes just before she ended the prayer and looked directly at me.

And winked.

Two winks in the past twenty minutes.

I was not comfortable with this at all. Or was I just reading too much into his eye movement?

“Let's eat, Sienna, and then get back to the courthouse. I think, at least I hope, they are all finished questioning you. Alisa Billy said you might just have to hang around for a few more days.” Leon spoke between munches of fries. “They think the case will be over by Friday, and then we are off to Florida.”

“That's right, your anniversary trip!” Shavona squealed again. “I'm glad you two will be celebrating, but I don't know about you flying all over the country in your state, Sienna. I don't want my godbaby born on no airplane. You are in the news enough already, girlfriend.”

Had I missed a conversation? Again, I barely knew these people.

“Don't worry, Shavona,” Leon replied. “Sienna's doctor has promised to grant Sienna permission to fly as long as it's four weeks before her due date. If we are still sitting in that courtroom after next week, I'm going to be delivering your godbaby midair myself because we are going on our trip.”

Godbaby. There went that word again. Really, had there been a conversation I wasn't privy to?

Roman didn't have godparents. He was born at a stage in my life when I was on a mission to prove myself completely independent and capable of making it apart from Roman's father, my first husband. Our marriage was pretty much over before Roman was even born and I could not let my wounds show.

Truth was, outside of my family and the shaky bonds to which we clung, I hadn't had much in the way of friendships to even pronounce anyone “godmother” or “godfather.” Ava Diggs, my life and career coach and mentor had been my best friend for years, and she was a lot older than my own mother. She entered my life when I was struggling to get through graduate school and stayed around to offer me my first real job at her foster care agency and then cheered me on as I started my private practice. Roman still had his baby fat and high voice when she entered our lives. She was a friend, but our friendship had been built on my needs and her advice. The older he grew, the stronger I became, the less Ava and I talked. With the media frenzy and the baby preparations, I realized that I had not checked in with her in a while.