Widow

by Martha Miller

  The house was one of those post-WWII Cape Cods. Living room and kitchen in the front, a hall to a bedroom and a bath, and from the hall would be the stairs to an attic or a space converted to bedrooms. Sharon Hart, a white friend from junior high, had lived in one. Bertha’d always gone to her house; Sharon wasn’t allowed to come to the little bungalow that Bertha shared with Grandma, which still seemed unreasonable after all these years. Why was she thinking about Sharon Hart when she was practically standing on the spot where Toni was shot? Maybe some things were too damn big to take in all at once. Bertha hated that if anyone was going to further investigate Toni’s death, it would have to be her—it wasn’t fair. Already her attention was retreating into the past because the pain from her loss was agonizing.

  She stepped down off the porch and, following Toni’s alleged path, made her way to the side yard. In the moonlight, a single full-grown tree with limbs going out wide clutched at the vacant sky. A few stubborn leaves clung to its branches. And as she walked, wet leaves clung to her hiking boots. Her heart pounded, covering the usual night sounds. A streetlight a couple of houses down provided some indirect light and long shadows. The alley ran in back of the lot, behind an old one-car garage that leaned slightly to the left. Farther back was fenced, but a gate hung precariously on a single hinge. Toni must have seen all of this as she rounded the corner. If the perps were headed for the gate, Toni must have been close behind. She could have nailed at least one of them. Were her ribs exploding in pain from the shot to her vest? Did Fred Cook call to her and she turned around? That was the theory. Or had she been ambushed? Had Fred Cook set her up? If so, why? It didn’t make sense.

  “Hey, Mister, you wanna party?”

  Bertha spun around. Being mistaken for a man didn’t bother her. It happened a lot, even more when she was younger. She was tall and her shoulders were broad. Twenty years ago, she’d started wearing her hair short—about an inch long all over. Since then she was ten pounds heavier, one inch shorter, and had so much gray hair that salt-and-pepper would be a gross understatement.

  “How ’bout a party?” the hooker repeated.

  “No, thanks.”

  “You a woman?”

  Bertha took a couple of steps toward her. “Last time I checked.”

  Without missing a beat, the hooker said, “Been a slow night. This damn rain. Party with me and I’ll do whatever you want.”

  Bertha wasn’t after sex, but she thought this woman might have information. If this was her territory, then she could have been out that night. “How much?”

  “Y’all a cop?”

  “I can assure you I am not.”

  “Hundred.”

  Bertha dug in her pocket, as if there were hope, and produced a soft gold cigarette case that sometimes served as a wallet. She counted a ten, three ones, and some change. Well, beneath everything were her driver’s license and a debit card. “All I have is thirteen dollars.”

  “Sis, you gotta meet me halfway.”

  “You take Visa?”

  The hooker turned to leave.

  “I’m a judge,” Bertha called out. “Thirteen dollars, community service, and probation next time I see you in my courtroom.”

  “Do you have something that says you’re a judge?”

  Bertha shook her head.

  “How ’bout acquittal?”

  “Now you got to meet me halfway.”

  “I don’t know.” The hooker hesitated. “How I know I can trust you?”

  “You don’t. But I have nothing else to trade. I only want to ask some questions.” Bertha closed the distance between them. The woman was pretty in a worn-out way. Her skin was ebony. She wore a short spandex top that showed her midriff and highlighted her small breasts, tight cutoff jeans, and antacid-pink spiked heels. Her blond wig was so long it sprayed on her dark shoulders. “You must be cold,” Bertha said. “We can talk in the car.”

  They settled themselves inside the Jeep, and the scent of soft, spicy cologne filled the air. Bertha gave the woman the thirteen dollars. “What’s your name?”

  “What you want it to be?”

  Okay, Bertha thought, she’s seen Pretty Woman. “The one on your birth certificate.”

  “These questions you want to ask, they gonna be about me?”

  “No. They’re about something that happened here last September.”

  “The shooting? What about it?”

  “Were you near here that night?”

  “I was.”

  Bertha’s anticipation was palpable. “Tell me what you heard and saw.”

  “Lots of gunfire. Later a butt load of flashing red and blue lights.”

  “Did anything seem unusual to you?”

  “You mean besides a policewoman dead and her partner wounded? That’s unusual, even around here. But it did take a long time for the paramedics to come.”

  “Define a long time. Fifteen minutes?”

  “Twice that long, at least. I think everybody, including me, thought someone else called 911.”

  Bertha imagined Toni bleeding out, waiting for help to come. She shivered. “Who lives in this house?” Bertha nodded toward the dark structure.

  The hooker shrugged. “Nobody far as I know.”

  “No one?”

  “That house been empty a year or more. An old woman died—natural causes. Family tried to sell it. She owed more than they could get, so they let the bank take it. After that nothing much happened. Folks in the neighborhood just use it for what they want.”

  “For example?”

  “You know. Kids up to no good. Drug dealers. I’ve heard a working girl took tricks there. But there’s no electricity and no water that I know of.”

  Bertha remembered a time when this had been her life, a time when the housing projects were so dangerous that even a cab driver wouldn’t go into them, but it was like home to her. Her addiction had been something mechanical—like one of those logical patterns in geometry. She did what she had to, to feed its craving, and although it left her alone for several hours to do as she needed or as she wished, all she could think of was the next craving. She relentlessly chased that feeling she’d had the first few times she’d smoked crack, but in the end, it all came down to scoring and using. Toni had never known that side of her. That chapter had ended over fifteen years ago.

  Bertha sat in silence, still counting off her regrets. She’d memorized them, alphabetized them. With a mixture of instinct and knowing, she told herself to focus. Back to the house. If it had been empty, who’d called in the DV report? Who came out the door shooting? The whole thing was screwy. The Lexus went by again, slowly. The Pretty Woman slid down in the seat. Bertha said, “Who’s that?”

  “Sugar, ya don’t wanna know.”

  The world became darker. Low clouds blocked the stars and the moon. In the corner of her eye, Bertha saw something move. A shadow came up on her left side, and then a bright light hit her face. A male voice said, “Open the window.”

  If it weren’t for the flashlight, she would have tried to start the car and take off. But in her world the flashlight meant safety. Bertha turned the key, and as the dashboard lights came on, she pressed the button for the automatic window. Shading her eyes, she said, “Get that damn flashlight out of my eyes.”

  “Judge Brannon?”

  Blinking, Bertha saw maroon spots swimming before her eyes. Gradually the silhouette of a slender uniformed cop—probably the new beat cop—appeared. He was young, but his eyes looked worn, like the color of weathered wood. “Yes. I’m Brannon.”

  He used his flashlight to tip the bill of his hat and said, “Ma’am.” Then he looked past her to the hooker. “How you, Ms. Johnson?”

  Ms. Johnson flashed a wide smile. Then she sat back in the seat and left Bertha to deal with the situation.

  “Can I help you, Officer?”

  He shook his head. “You know this is a bad end of town, don’t you?”

  “I was born a long time before you or y
our parents. I not only know what this neighborhood is now, I know what it used to be.”

  “I see.” The officer stammered. “Well, a cop was killed here a couple of months ago.”

  “I know.”

  The uniform stood so his head was higher than the Wrangler’s window. He backed up a couple of steps. “You two be safe.”

  Without answering, Bertha hit the button and the window silently closed. She stared straight ahead and watched as a police car pulled from behind her and rolled down the street, and then she turned the key and the car went dark. She closed her eyes and imagined the headlines: Judge of the circuit court arrested for soliciting a prostitute.

  “What was it?” Ms. Johnson asked.

  “What was what?”

  “This neighborhood. What’d it used to be?”

  “Used to be a Lutheran Seminary over on Seventh. This area was housing for seminary students. Mostly young families rented these little houses. They were nice places back then. When the seminary moved and they leveled the housing projects, this all went to hell.”

  “Too bad.”

  “That they left? Yeah. Too bad.”

  “I need to get going.” Ms. Johnson reached for the door handle.

  “Wait.”

  The hooker turned toward her and waited.

  “Can you think of anything else?”

  “Not really.”

  “Anything, no matter how small.”

  Pointing to a cluster of overgrown bushes, Ms. Johnson said, “I was over there. Couldn’t see the side yard. I was scared to come out once the shooting stopped. Squad car was sitting ’bout where we’re idling. The windows were closed. I could hear the radio, but not what it said. That was the only sound for a while.”

  Bertha tried to imagine the scene. “Was anyone else around?”

  “That’s what I’m getting at,” Ms. Johnson said. “I’m not positive, but I think one of those guys come back. I couldn’t see nothing till he come over to the male cop. He knelt and talked to him. He took hold the officer’s radio thing, you know on his shoulder, and ripped it off his shirt and threw it. Then the guy stood, pulled out his cell phone, and left the way he came. The officer, that’s Cook, isn’t it?”

  Bertha nodded. “Fred Cook.”

  “He was moaning and crying to beat all. He’s a little fuck. But dangerous people don’t always look that way.”

  “Fred Cook, dangerous? Dangerous how?”

  The hooker shrugged her thin shoulders. “I don’t have nothing but that guy coming back to base it on. But seems to me something’s wrong with that—like he knew Cook.”

  “It’s not unusual for police to know the bad guys.” Bertha was rationalizing. “So do you think the guy who came back called the shooting in?”

  “No.” Ms. Johnson lowered her voice. “I finally called it in. It took a while for me to realize no one had done that much.”

  Bertha laid her forehead on the cool steering wheel. The conversation was only marginally better than death by fire ants. But she told herself these were things she needed to know, no matter how painful.

  The hooker touched her arm. “You gonna be all right, Judge?”

  Bertha nodded. “See you in court, Ms. Johnson.”

  The blond, black hooker in the pink pumps opened the car door and, as an afterthought, said over her shoulder, “Name’s January.”

  Chapter Ten

  Bertha came in that night exhausted. Norman Bates was nowhere to be seen, so she put food and water out for him and scooped the litter box. She decided if the food wasn’t touched by morning, she’d have to call the fire department or some kind of animal-removal organization to get him unstuck from the ducts beneath the floor.

  Her stomach released a demonic growl. The only thing she’d eaten all day was blueberry pancakes, but for once in her life she was too tired to deal with food. She poured a glass of chocolate milk and carried it to her bedroom with the last of the Little Debbie Snack Cakes the day before. She took off her clothes and, without showering, put on her sleeping T-shirt and crawled in bed. She woke with a snack cake in her hair at three in the morning, then showered, washed her hair, and climbed back in bed, her hair still wet.

  On Sunday she slept late. In fact, she didn’t get out of bed until after noon. She made coffee and took the Sunday paper into the family room. Before the NFL game started, she ordered a pizza and a two-liter bottle of soda. She missed kickoff because it was delivered fairly quickly. She ate and drank soda with the newspaper spread out around her. Before the game ended, she nodded off. Dark had fallen when she woke again; tired and lonely, she fixed her eyes on Toni’s rocking chair and said, “Where are you? I need you. What in the hell did you get mixed up in that got you killed?” Bertha waited a few minutes, and then she ate the remaining pizza for dinner and turned off the TV.

  The next morning she hit the snooze alarm several times before she gave up, fell out of bed, and staggered to the bathroom. It was one of those mornings when she felt she was riding through life on a fourth-class ticket or steerage on a ship. She blinked at the image floating in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy, and her mouth tasted like roadkill. A cool washcloth, the electric toothbrush, and eye drops got her to feeling halfway human.

  In the kitchen, she found most of the cat food had been eaten. She microwaved coffee from the day before and carried it around with her while she put herself through her dreaded routine of getting ready to face the world. She heated more coffee and dug in the back of a cabinet. The Little Debbie Snack Cakes were still where she’d hidden them from Toni, who’d objected to them and switched Bertha over to Weight Watchers Snack Cakes. While the carrot-cake flavor hadn’t been bad, they were small and no substitute for the real McCoy. She found two boxes, one half empty and the other unopened. The cakes were probably stale—with a “sell by” date of June a year ago. Rather than dig out a couple of cakes, Bertha filled her travel mug with coffee and picked up both boxes.

  “Meow.”

  Bertha looked over her shoulder. It sounded like the cat was in the room with her. “Kitty. Kitty,” she called out.

  “Meow.”

  The sound was coming from beneath the kitchen floor. Bertha set everything down and went to the junk drawer. Swearing under her breath, she pulled out a screwdriver and knelt to open the kitchen air vent. She didn’t reach in this time but called to him. “Kitty-kitty.” And as nicely as she could, she added, “Come on, you beast. Time to come out.” She didn’t have time to play games, and leaving the vent open, she grabbed her things and left.

  Traffic always seemed worse on Monday mornings. At a rest stop on I-55, she reached for a snack cake and ripped it open. With her first bite of chocolate the sugar rushed through her system. Although the car was warm, she felt a chill of pleasure. Little Debbie’s were Bertha’s oxycodone. After the second cake, she reached for the cold, half-empty cup of microwaved coffee and drained it.

  Still carrying one box of snack cakes, Bertha took the elevator from the parking garage to her sixth-floor office. Alvin caught up with her in the hall. “How are things going with your new cat?”

  “He’s stuck in the heat ducts that run beneath the floors.”

  “Stuck?”

  “Well, not really stuck. He seems to come out for food at night.”

  “How the hell did he get into the heat duct?”

  “Long story.” Bertha tossed the box of Little Debbie’s on her desk.

  “That your lunch?”

  “Breakfast.”

  “They look kind of old and dry. I could get you a bagel or something from the cart downstairs.”

  Bertha shook her head no.

  Alvin tried again. “The box is dusty.”

  “You made coffee yet?”

  “Yeah.” Alvin snapped his fingers. “I think one of the recorders brought banana bread this morning.”

  “Just bring me some black coffee. I’m going to eat all this chocolate whether you approve or not.”

  “I
thought Toni weaned you off those things a long time ago.”

  Bertha squinted and frowned. She didn’t want to have this fight again. “Cut me some slack, will ya?”

  “But—”

  “I saved some in case of emergencies. Almost forgot I had them.”

  “What emergency? Is this some suicide plan? Death by stale chocolate?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Do I have to get the coffee myself?”

  Alvin left her and returned a minute later with coffee in a large black cup that said Overruled on the side and a piece of banana bread. “In case you change your mind,” he said as he set them next to the Little Debbie’s.

  Bertha sighed. A few minutes later she put on her robe and left all of it untouched. Her head hurt and her hands trembled. She walked into the courtroom and eyed the group of weekend arrests. The bailiff called court in session.

  *

  Bertha rarely left work as soon as court ended, but that day she left the second the clock hit three p.m. Still in the thick mist of a chocolate hangover, she bought a bottle of water and a package of Tums from the cart downstairs. At home she took an ice bag from the freezer and lay down on the couch, between the sections of the Sunday paper, with the bag draped across her forehead. She wasn’t sure if she’d dozed off when the doorbell rang. No one she knew ever came to the front door, and she was tempted to ignore it.

  The last time she’d answered the door in the middle of the afternoon, it had been Jehovah’s Witnesses who talked to her for over five minutes about miracles and told her to read her bible. Then a guy giving away security equipment had almost made his way into the house despite the fact that she told him she already had a security system. When she couldn’t find a way to end the conversation politely, Bertha told him that Killer, her Rottweiler, had to be kenneled before he could come in. Shutting the door in his face, she’d locked it. These two had come on the same day. She considered getting one of those recordings of a huge dog barking and growling, but a few days later Doree had come home from summer camp and the whole thing slipped her mind.