Tangled Roots (15 page)

Now we’re getting to it. “How so?”

“Oh, the usual stuff. I constantly have to explain things to her that she’s too young to know about. I remember our first date when I took her to a Sidney Poitier film festival. She’d never even heard of him. Her favorite actor is Will Smith. I’m a jazz lover and she likes hip-hop. She spends a lot of time surfing and shopping online. I barely know how to turn our computer on. It was hard for us to find some common ground but we managed to do it.”

“Sounds like Nicole and I have a lot in common. Maybe I could get together with her for coffee and girl talk sometime?”

“I’m sure Nicole would love to meet you, Kendra. But now’s just not a good time.”

He sounded a little exasperated and I was afraid I’d blown it. “Oh, I understand. Whenever it’s best for her. I couldn’t help but notice the pictures on your desk. Is that your wife in the picture with you and Inez?” I asked, gesturing to the picture of him and the two young women with braids.

“Yes, this is Nicole,” he said, picking up the picture. “This was a happier time,” he said softly.

“I heard that Nicole and Inez used to be best friends. This must be very hard for her.”

“It’s hard for both of us. Inez never understood about Nicole and me. I couldn’t blame her. I had hoped she’d come around but she never did. She couldn’t understand how I could get married again so soon after her mother died. But Jeanne had been sick for so long and was in such pain that it was a blessing when she passed. She wasn’t herself during the final year of her life. She was gone long before she actually died. I really needed someone and it turned out to be Nicole.” He placed the picture facedown on the desk and stared moodily at his desktop.

“Did Nicole and Inez ever make up?”

“No, they avoided each other like the plague. I think she blamed Nicole even more than me. She thought Nicole purposefully went after me when her mother got sick. But it’s not true. There was no big seduction staged by either of us. It just happened.”

“Sometimes people have a hard time seeing their parents as human beings with needs of their own,” I said.

“You’re very insightful, Kendra,” he said.

Our eyes met again and I decided it was time to go. “Well, it’s getting late and I have work tomorrow. I appreciate you talking to me. It really helped a lot.” I stood up and started to put on my coat when Rollins came up behind me and eased the coat up onto my shoulders. He put his arms around me, embracing me from behind.

“Anytime you want to talk to me about anything, you feel free to stop by, you hear?” I felt the warm featherlight touch of his lips against my neck before he let me go.

“I will,” was all I could manage to get out before I quickly left.

I was in a strange mood as I drove home. I could still smell Morris Rollins’s cologne and feel his lips against my neck. Damn him! Thoughts of Carl popped into my head, making me feel guilty and confused. But there was one thing that was crystal clear: Morris Rollins didn’t want me to talk to Nicole. Why? I was positive it wasn’t because she was sick and overcome with grief and I was also sure it wasn’t because he was sizing me up as a potential lover and didn’t want me to be friends with his wife. I bet his first wife must have known and interacted with the female church members he had fooled around with. And, if Nicole had something to do with Inez’s death, I couldn’t imagine him shielding her, either. If I were Morris Rollins, and my wife had been involved in my daughter’s death, I’d serve her up to the police on a silver platter. No, there was something else at work.

I was fairly certain it was Nicole the health food store owner had seen going around the back of the shop the night Inez was murdered. I couldn’t imagine why she would go to see Inez since, as Rollins put it, they avoided each other like the plague, but she must have been there and seen something that put her life in jeopardy. Maybe Nicole witnessed Vaughn kill Inez. Or even worse, maybe Nicole saw Shanda kill Inez and Rollins was trying to protect his family from scandal. Either way, I had to talk to Nicole. Whatever she had seen, she had to tell the police so Timmy could be cleared and Olivia could have her surgery.

B & S Hair Design and Nail Sculpture was on my way home and I happened to glance in the window as I drove by. There was a light on in the shop. It was after ten o’clock and I was surprised that someone was in the shop so late. I stopped and parked my car. I peered through the window and was surprised to see Aretha Marshall’s auburn-bobbed head bent over a box. I knocked on the window and she jumped and looked around wildly, like an animal that was being hunted. I waved and gestured for her to let me in. I could tell she didn’t want to and I really couldn’t blame her. She unlocked the door and let me in. She looked awful. She was dressed in a dingy white turtleneck sweater and faded jeans. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and the dark circles under her eyes made it look like she had two black eyes. She kept tugging at the neck of her sweater and I saw a flash of the vivid bruise the scarf had left around her neck.

“Girl, I am so sorry about what happened. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll live,” she said sarcastically. I followed her back to her station. She was apparently packing up.

“Did you quit?” I asked, gesturing towards the boxes.

“I was leaving, anyway. I got hired as a stylist at a day spa in Dayton. That’s where I’m from originally. I wasn’t ’sposed to start ’til next month but I’m leaving before I get my ass killed.”

“I feel so bad about what happened. I had no idea he’d be there that night. I —”

“Don’t worry,” she said, cutting me off. “It ain’t your fault. I been known to run my mouth when I get a coupla drinks in me. I shoulda known better,” she said, shaking her head sadly.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“Unfortunately. I remember going out to my car. I had my keys in my hand and someone grabbed me from behind. He kept pulling whatever he had ’round my neck tighter and tighter. I couldn’t breathe. Kept telling me I had a big mouth and I needed to learn how to keep it shut. Next thing I remember is being in the ambulance. I never even saw the muthafucka. I didn’t even have time to grab my gun. It happened that fast.”

“So you couldn’t even tell the police for certain who it was who attacked you?”

“Nope, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. I’m sorry, girlfriend, I loved Inez to pieces but I can’t help you with this. I’m not trying to end up dead behind someone else’s shit.”

I wasn’t about to ask her to risk her life again. So I thanked her and left.

I arrived at my duplex barely remembering the drive home. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings or I might have heard the person who rushed up behind me, grabbed me by my hair, and slammed me onto the hood of my car. I felt all the air go out of my lungs and couldn’t catch my breath to scream. My head was being pulled back so hard my neck felt like it would snap. I felt hot breath in my ear and smelled familiar, lemony-scented cologne. I tried to twist around to see him but he had me pinned on top of my car and his handful of my hair made me wince with pain when I tried to turn my head.

“You wanna end up like your friend did the other night don’t you, bitch?” I finally found my voice and opened my mouth to scream but only managed a loud whimper before he let go of my hair and clamped his hand over my mouth.

“See, I can’t stand bitches who can’t mind their business and run their mouths about shit that don’t concern them. ’Cause that’s the kinda shit that gets you killed, understand?” He pulled me up by the back of my coat and spun me around to face him. I was still pinned between him and my car. I couldn’t even knee him in the balls. His face was so close to mine that I could see the pores in his nose and smell the liquor on his breath. He was drunk and his green eyes looked wild and crazy under the streetlights. He definitely looked capable of hacking someone to pieces. I was about to wet my pants. For a split second, I thought about trying to reason with him. But I decided it would be the equivalent of trying to talk a hungry lion out of eating me.

When I didn’t answer, he shook me like a rag doll. “I said, do you understand?” My head snapped backwards and, remembering back to my tussle over my leather coat, I purposefully threw my head forward, causing my forehead to butt him hard in the mouth. He grunted and his hands flew to his mouth. I shoved him away from me and he overbalanced and fell. I turned to run but he grabbed at my leg. I pulled free, stumbled, and almost fell.

“Bitch! I’m gonna kill you! Look what you did!” he shrieked at me. I turned and saw that his mouth was bloody and he spit out what looked like teeth. Uh-oh. I messed up pretty boy’s grill and he wasn’t taking it well at all. He lunged at me and I closed my eyes. That’s when a sound similar to the blast of a cannon sounded from behind us, stopping Vaughn in his tracks. I turned to see my seventy-two-year-old landlady, Mrs. Carson, standing on her porch, dressed in her striped housedress and faded terry cloth slippers, with a shotgun cradled against her shoulder and aimed straight at Vaughn Castle.

“That first bullet was a warning, boy. The second one is for you. I already done called the police so get yo ass outta here before I put a bullet in it!”

Vaughn looked like he wasn’t about to be punked by a little old lady but when the neighbors started coming out on their porches to see what the commotion was, he turned and ran down the street to where his Escalade was parked and we all watched as he drove off, tires squealing.

“You okay?” asked Mrs. Carson, who had come down off the porch to where I was standing by my car. She’d left her shotgun on the porch. I’d heard her say on numerous occasions that she had one but had never really believed her. I was glad to be wrong.

I nodded my head, still not able to speak, and let her lead me into her house where she fixed us both a glass of homemade peach wine.

“Did you really call the police?” I asked after a few sips of the sickeningly sweet wine. We were sitting at Mrs. Carson’s kitchen table and her cat Mahalia stared down haughtily at us from her perch on top of the refrigerator.

“Nope. Just said it to scare him. You gonna have one hell of a hickey on your forehead, missy.”

I felt the tender spot where my head had connected with Vaughn’s mouth. It was sore and a little swollen. I was happy the skin wasn’t broken or I’d probably have to be treated for rabies.

Mrs. Carson was strangely silent. I was expecting her to grill me about what was going on and then follow up with a lecture but instead we sipped our wine silently. She seemed to be avoiding eye contact with me.

“Please don’t tell Mama,” I pleaded. Dealing with my grandmother on top of everything else wasn’t something I needed.

“Don’t worry. My lips are sealed,” she assured me. Now I knew something wasn’t right. Even though I begged her not to tell, I never expected her to agree. Mama and Mrs. Carson are best friends and tell each other everything. Keeping something from Mama, especially if it was about me, went against the natural order of things.

“Okay, what’s up? You haven’t asked me what’s going on. I didn’t get a lecture. Now, you aren’t even going to tell Mama I was attacked? Why are you acting so strange? You’re not sick, are you?”

“Nope. Just tired and ready to go to bed.” She got up from the table and started rooting through a drawer by the sink. When she found what she was looking for she slid it across the table at me and I had to catch it quickly before it fell on the floor.

It was a Swiss Army knife that looked like it had never been used. The blade was still quite sharp and very shiny.

“What’s this for?” I turned it over in my palm

“Well, what do you think it’s for, Kendra? It’s for protection. I’d give you my shotgun but I might need it. ’Specially if that fool comes back here to start some mess with me.” She drained her wineglass and took my half-empty one and put them in the sink. “And you need to go to the police first thing in the morning and report what happened tonight. I’ll back you up but I can’t deal with no police tonight. Stevie’s here.”

That explained everything. Stevie is Mrs. Carson’s son and the Carson family fuckup. He’s almost fifty, has never had a job, and is in and out of jail due to his nasty little habit of taking things that don’t belong to him. He’s well-known to the Willow police department, and if they found out he was staying with his mother, they’d probably search her house and find a multitude of stolen property. Mrs. Carson has four other hardworking and law-abiding children, but sticky-fingered Stevie is the apple of her eye and she won’t hear a word against him. I listened closely and could hear the television on in her basement accompanied by loud snoring. Poor guy. Stealing must be very tiring.

I looked down at the knife she’d just given me and looked at her questioningly. She visibly puffed up. “It ain’t stolen, Kendra. Now go on home before somethin’ else happens. And you better go down to that police station tomorrow or I
will
tell Estelle.”

I wasn’t planning on going to the police until after I talked to Nicole Rollins. Then I would go to Harmon and Mercer and tell them everything. But I wasn’t about to tell Mrs. Carson this. Instead, I hugged her, thanked her for the knife and for saving my hide, and headed for my own apartment. I had a late dinner of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and was in my nightshirt, all ready for bed, when I heard movement outside my door. I figured it was probably Mahalia lurking around looking for mice but I grabbed the Swiss Army knife just in case it was Vaughn Castle, back to seek revenge for his jack-o’-lantern smile. I pressed my ear to the door and listened. I didn’t hear anything so I flung the door open, startling the tall dark figure standing on my landing and causing me to drop the knife on my visitor’s foot, making a small hole in the toe of his expensive cross trainers.

“Kendra, what the hell?” It was Carl, and he was a sight for sore eyes in a black nylon warm-up suit, smelling of Obsession for men. Instead of answering him, I leapt on him, wrapping my legs around his waist and kissing him passionately. He responded enthusiastically, kicked the door shut, and carried me into the bedroom where we made up for lost time several times and in numerous positions throughout the night.