Malawi's Sisters

by Melanie S. Hatter

  Bet sat on the edge of the chair and stared at the floor.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Walker, please accept my condolences on your loss.” Malcolm was aware these words were likely ones the sheriff had said more times than he could probably count, but they fell flat on Malcolm’s ears.

  “You said it was just a shoulder injury,” he said. “When you called the house, you said she’d been shot in the shoulder, not the chest.”

  “Yes. That was the information I had received at the time. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.” He cleared his throat. “We have interviewed the owner of the home where Miss Walker was shot.” Bet groaned and shifted in her seat. The sheriff continued. “The owner, Jeffrey Davies, said Miss Walker was snooping around his home just before two in the morning. He thought she was an intruder and shot in self-defense.”

  Malcolm stared at the sheriff, not comprehending the man’s words. He didn’t like his use of the word snooping. After a moment of silence, he leaned forward. “That doesn’t make sense. What was threatening about my daughter? She’s one-hundred-and-twenty-five pounds at most.”

  “Well, now, that’s what Mr. Davies is saying.”

  The sheriff watched Malcolm who felt the thump of his heart in his throat and a headache beginning at his temples. “Who is this man, Davies?”

  Again, the sheriff cleared his throat. “He’s been living in Lake Worth all his life, a good hard-working man with no arrest record. He has no reason to lie.”

  “I’m not saying he’s lying. It just doesn’t make sense to me why he would be threatened by my daughter. Why would he shoot her?”

  “What you have to understand, sir, is that Mr. Davies heard the door handle rattle and heard tapping on the front window.”

  Malcolm’s dislike for the sheriff rose with the hairs on his neck and he resented the man’s use of the word, sir, like he was patronizing Malcolm.

  “Folks don’t do that sort of thing in the middle of the night. Not in these parts. Mr. Davies was simply watching television when he heard suspicious activity outside his door.”

  Malcolm’s breathing shortened as his anger expanded. “Suspicious activity? Since when was knocking on someone’s door suspicious?” He shook his head. “Do we know why she was there?”

  “Well, sir, that’s what we’re trying to figure out. We’re investigating and will let you know what we find.” The phone rang and the sheriff rested his hand on the receiver. “I need to take this.” He picked up and asked the caller to hold on.

  The sheriff stood up but Malcolm remained seated. “What was she shot with?”

  “I’ll make sure you get a copy of the report once it’s completed.”

  “This Mr. Davies. Is he a white man?”

  “What difference does his race make, Mr. Walker?”

  “I want to know.”

  “It’s irrelevant.”

  “Not to me. Is he white?”

  “As it happens, yes, he’s white, but that’s—”

  Malcolm stood up. “Has he been arrested?”

  “Well, no, sir. He was well within his rights.”

  Malcolm leaned toward the sheriff, who also rose to meet his stare. “I want him arrested.”

  “Mr. Walker, I don’t know how they do things in the nation’s capital, but down here, we don’t go arresting people for activity that’s within the law. I’m sure you’re aware of our Stand Your Ground Law—”

  “I am well aware of it, Sheriff. But I’m having a hard time understanding why this man felt threatened by a young, unarmed woman. Now, you will arrest this man or I swear to God, I will call the U.S. Attorney’s office to investigate this as a hate crime.” Malcolm paused then said, “And it’s Judge Walker.”

  Sheriff Wheeler’s tongue created a momentary lump in his cheek and his lips pressed together. “Like I said, Judge Walker, we are continuing to investigate and if we see cause to make an arrest, we will. Now, if you don’t mind.” He sat back in his chair and began to speak into the phone, turning his back to the door.

  6

  Just home from the grocery store, Kenya refilled the shelves—frozen items first into the freezer, canned items on the lazy Susan, fresh vegetables and snacks in the pantry. She wanted to get this done before the kids got home from their respective play-dates. When the house-phone started ringing, she almost didn’t answer, fearing a telemarketer. But the call was from her father, his voice soft and strained put her on alert. “Daddy, what’s wrong?” A rush of sensations hurtled through her body, a tightening in her chest, her windpipe constricting, eyes blinking rapidly. “Daddy?”

  “She didn’t make it, Sweetheart. Your sister didn’t make it.”

  Kenya contemplated what her father was telling her. “I don’t understand,” she said finally.

  The line was silent and then she heard him clear his throat. “Sweetheart, Malawi is gone. She didn’t survive . . .” His voice broke and the line again went quiet. Kenya’s heart bumped in her throat. She clutched at her collarbone.

  “But Mama said it was just a shoulder injury.”

  “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. She was shot twice. This man, he . . . she was in surgery, but didn’t . . .” Kenya realized her father was crying and she froze, gripping the phone to her ear, her other hand fixed to her neck. Her sister had been shot twice. Finally, he said, “I’ll have to call you back. When I can talk about what happened. I love you. I need to call Ghana. Take care of each other, okay.”

  “Is Mama okay?”

  “Not really. She’s . . . Look, I’ll call you back, okay? I love you, Sweetheart.”

  “Love you, too, Daddy,” she said, but he had already hung up.

  She sat on the edge of the couch and stared at the rug. Specks of dirt were scattered here and there. Everyone took off their shoes at the door. No dirt should be on the sitting room rug. She jumped up and dragged the vacuum cleaner from the closet, plugged it into the wall and violently shoved it back and forth across the rug, the noise reverberating through her head and tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Her cell phone vibrated and her father’s face brightened up the screen. Ghana had snapped the picture, catching him laughing at something she had said. His eyes, almost closed with laughter. She grabbed the phone. “Hi, Dad! Everything okay?”

  “Ghan-Ghan, Sweetheart,” he said softly into her ear and the hairs rose all over her body, a surge of energy shooting up her spine. He didn’t have to say anything more. She knew. Her sister was gone.

  “Oh my god! Daddy! Please. No no no.” She wanted to know what happened, yet didn’t want to know. Ryan stepped out of the kitchenette where he was making quesadillas for a late lunch and sat next to her, mouthing, “What happened?”

  Ghana listened to her father stammer on. “She was in surgery, but . . . Your mother . . . she’s a wreck.” He paused. “I . . . I just wanted you to know. I called Kenya already. I’ll explain everything later. Listen to me now. You two need to take care of each other. You hear me, Ghan-Ghan? You take care of each other. You hear me?”

  “Yes. Yes, I hear you.” Ghana was shaking, her arms and hands twitching uncontrollably.

  “Okay, I gotta go. I love you, Sweetheart.”

  As soon as the phone went silent, she screamed at a pitch that hurt her throat. Ryan wrapped his arms around her, squeezing and she fought him but he held on until her body flopped in his arms like a soft toy. “She’s gone.” Her voice was hoarse and she pressed her face into Ryan’s arm. “Li’l Sis. She’s gone.”

  Moments later, her big sister’s face appeared on her phone. Kenya: her only sister now. Despite her father’s insistence, she couldn’t bear to talk to her. Not yet. Ghana turned the phone over and curled back into Ryan’s arms. He rocked her gently and she clung tighter not letting him move away.

  7

  Malcolm picked up the USA Today from the floor outside his hotel room door. It wasn’t likely there was any news about Malawi there, so he took the elevator down and got a local paper from the mini market
in the reception area. The lobby was bright, people were smiling, the weather was sunny outside. The clerk wished him a nice day. A nice day. He didn’t respond, merely took the newspaper and left. Today was far from a nice day.

  A story was on the lower right of the front page, “Palm Beach Resident Shoots Intruder.” Malcolm began to seethe. How dare they say she was an intruder. As he headed back to his room, tension grew in his jaw and he rubbed at a headache beginning a slow beat on his temples. He was breathless when he closed the door behind him and sat down at the desk, adjusting his glasses on his nose and spreading the paper before him. Bet lay motionless in the bed, having taken three or four sleep aids the night before. Malcolm was glad for this reprieve from her tears and moaning.

  A 27-year-old teacher from West Palm Beach was shot and killed in the early hours of Sunday morning by Jeffrey Davies, a long-time resident of Lake Worth, according to a police report. Malawi Walker, a math teacher at the West Palm Beach High School, was shot in the chest and shoulder on the 6000 block of Orange Drive. She died at Palm Beach County Hospital shortly before 8 A.M. on Sunday.

  Good God, she died before we even got on the plane. Malcolm took a breath.

  Davies said he heard noises outside his home at about 2 A.M. Someone rattled the door handle and knocked at the front window. “I thought someone was breaking in. We’ve had a rash of break-ins around here these past few weeks, and I wasn’t about to let it happen to me,” he said in a telephone interview. “I didn’t mean to shoot no woman.”

  Walker’s car was located half a block from Davies’ home on Orange Drive, according to the police report. It appeared she had swerved and hit a light pole. The police report indicates that Walker’s blood alcohol level was 0.5 and the accident was likely the result of intoxication.

  “Bullshit!” Malcolm brought his fist down on the newspaper. “No way in hell my daughter’s blood alcohol was that high.” He read the last line of the story: No arrest has been made. “That bastard will pay for murdering my daughter.”

  He grabbed the car keys and paused before opening the door. Turned and sat on the bed beside Bet. “Honey? Honey, you awake?” Bet moaned and her body shifted under the blanket but her eyes remained closed. “I’m just going to run a quick errand.” He ran his fingers over her short hair, the gray reappearing at the roots. “I’ll be back soon.”

  He drove to the medical examiner’s office, and paced back and forth in the small waiting room for the coroner. A stocky Asian man in a white coat approached him with his hand extended. “I’m Gene Kim. How can I help you?”

  Malcolm gave a short firm handshake, then held the newspaper up and pointed at the story. “Tell me this is not accurate.”

  Gene Kim squinted at the story, politely asking to take the paper from Malcolm’s hand. “May I?” Malcolm waited while the coroner read the piece. “Um, I don’t think that is correct. We did find alcohol in her system, but I don’t believe she was this intoxicated.”

  “Can I see the report?”

  “You’re the judge from D.C., right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come this way.”

  Gene Kim led Malcolm down a long corridor with bright fluorescent lighting. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said as they walked, their shoes tapping just out of sync on the vinyl floor. Malcolm felt flustered and said nothing, but appreciated the man’s words. At the end of the corridor he turned left into an equally bright office. Kim flipped through a pile of folders and pulled one out with WALKER, MALAWI marked on it. He slipped out a typed page and glanced over it before saying, “Yes, I thought so. They made a mistake. It should say point zero-five. A considerable difference and below the legal limit here in Florida.”

  “What did he use?”

  “The weapon? A four-ten gauge shotgun. What we call a backpacker. Hit her once in the right shoulder and once in the chest, just right of the sternum.”

  Malcolm winced and tried not to picture his daughter stumbling backwards, hitting the ground and struggling to breathe. She would have been in shock, he thought. He reached for the desk and gripped the edge of it.

  “Do you want some water?”

  Malcolm shook his head. “Can I get a copy of the report?”

  Gene Kim handed him the typed page. “You can have this one. It’s preliminary. The official report will be finalized later.”

  Malcolm folded it in half then a quarter. After a moment, he thanked the coroner for his help and headed back down the long bright corridor.

  In the hotel room he called the newspaper and asked for the journalist who wrote the story. “I want a correction,” he said. Ready to do battle, he was surprised at the amicable response from the reporter—a man, young-sounding—who apologized profusely and pointed out that the change had already been made online and a correction would appear in next day’s newspaper. Malcolm hadn’t thought about the online stratosphere and hoped the story hadn’t gone beyond the local community. He didn’t want his daughter all over the news.

  He called the sheriff’s office and talked to a deputy, having been told the sheriff was unavailable. The deputy told him that Jeffrey Davies had not yet been arrested.

  Malcolm stared at the wall, considered all the people he had yet to call, and then dialed his colleague, Joe Willis, who probably had already heard the news from Malcolm’s assistant, Cynthia. Joe could help recommend a Florida lawyer who could file a lawsuit against this man Davies.

  8

  Kenya studied the ceiling, a white expanse, gray in the dim light of the early morning, so calm and peaceful, not reflecting the turmoil that ensued every day below it. Sidney had stared at her for a long time when she told him Malawi was dead, and he cried as if she had been his sister. He’s such a fake. Kenya took a deep breath. The therapist said to breathe when those angry feelings flared, and she could feel the anger rising again in her throat. He had tried to kiss her, comfort her and she’d held her breath as his arms enfolded her. Her body had been numb. The bewilderment on Charlene’s and Junior’s faces. The flow of tears choking Kenya so that all she could do was clutch her children to her body.

  She and Malawi had never been especially close, not as close as Malawi had been to Ghana. But she should have called more often and made an effort to spend time with her. Malawi had been such a spoiled child that it riled Kenya to see her father smothering the little girl in a way he had never done with Kenya. Jealousy clouded Kenya for most of Malawi’s life, and now the guilt coiled through her body like another set of veins.

  Sidney stirred next to her, and she wondered when she’d feel okay with him again. He had cheated on her twice that she knew for sure. The first time was several years ago with an employee who eventually left the company. He promised then he would never stray again. But he had. Awhile back, a flashing icon caught her eye as she passed by his laptop, sitting open on the dining-room table for anyone to see. She wasn’t sure now why she had stopped—she’d never been in the habit of checking his laptop and phone—but the blinking had caught her attention. A bright yellow chat box winking at her, revealing a conversation between him and a woman, identified as AfricanQueen. The words were explicit and sexual; the woman ended by saying, “cant wait to c u again.” Again. Kenya read and reread the text as the blood drained to her feet, and whatever food had been in her stomach began to curdle. She’d hoped it was a joke. When he came back from the bathroom, she was still standing by the laptop and he stopped a few feet from her. “Baby,” he’d said, his body softening, his feet moving cautiously toward her. He knew. “It’s not what you think,” he’d said. “It’s just sexual banter to pass the time when I’m away. It’s nothing.”

  Without a word she walked away unable to express the rising rage, wondering why he needed to talk sex with some other woman, yet knowing the answer.

  He’d promised to stop, but recently she’d found a pair of silk panties in his suitcase from a business trip to Miami. Clearly, the online banter had evolved into a real-life repartee. The
humiliation strangled her and she demanded he move out to give her time to think things through. He’d spent two weeks with his brother in Falls Church and called her every day. They met for lunch one day to talk and he confessed that he had, in fact, slept with the woman, this “AfricanQueen,” a woman he said he’d met in an airport; they’d slept together twice. Just twice, he said. Just.

  “I disrespected you and our union,” he’d said, his eyes filling with tears. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly,” he said. “Please don’t let this stupid mistake end what we have,” he said. “Please take me back.” He said. He said. He had kept saying all these words that made Kenya weary. But she forgave him. Again. The uncertainty of her decision still gnawed at her bones.

  Kenya slid out of bed. She unwrapped her hair and pulled it back in a ponytail, dressed in her active wear, tied her sneakers firmly, and headed out.

  In the weeks since her discovery, he had been trying, but in all honesty, the thrill of sex with him had faded after the children were born. And now, his infidelity had caused her to dry up completely. He rubbed between her legs as if a genie would appear, rushing her through the motions. She used to moan to make him think she enjoyed what he was doing, but the last time, she practically held her breath until it was over. All she could think about was how he had kissed and touched this AfricanQueen—what a ridiculous name—if he’d prodded and rubbed with the same urgency or if he’d taken his time the way he used to do when they were first married.

  Outside, she walked briskly at first, feeling the warm air on her skin. Another hot day in store. She preferred springtime over summer, but though it was early June, blossoms still held on to their trees, and the azaleas and rhododendrons offered beautiful splashes of color as she picked up speed and ran through the neighborhood. Manicured lawns. Expensive vehicles behind two-car garages. No sidewalks. She ran faster and faster along the road until she stopped, doubled over, breathless. This was the life she assumed would be hers, the life she deserved, but what did anyone deserve? Not death. Not death at twenty-seven by some maniac. Kenya fought back tears. Not here. Not on the street where anyone might see. She adjusted her ponytail, stretched her hamstrings and her calves then took off, heading back home.