by Angela Henry
“Cherisse, are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly but looked far from it. She looked bleary-eyed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry to bother you. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just needed to talk to you.”
“No. No. I’ve been up for a while. Come on in.” She stepped aside so I could enter.
I walked in and immediately noticed how cold it was in the house. Her air conditioner must have been turned up full blast. I could feel the chill bumps pop up on my bare arms and legs. Cherisse flopped down on the black leather couch where she must have been lying when she heard the wind chime. The house was dark, the only light coming from the front window, and it smelled faintly of garlic.
I’d only ever been to Cherisse’s house once before and that had been to study for a history test back in high school. I remembered Cherisse and me sitting in the kitchen quizzing each other on the places, dates, and prominent figures of the French Revolution, while her parents sat watching TV in the living room. They seemed really happy to have me over. Her mother served us cookies, chips, and cream soda and would periodically poke her head through the kitchen door to see if we needed anything, her father made corny jokes that I could tell really embarrassed her. It never occurred to me at the time that they must have thought that Cherisse had finally found a friend.
Cherisse and I weren’t friends. I had been mad at my best friend, Lynette, who was busy being in love with the guy who would eventually become her first husband. When she had bailed on our plans to study for the test together, so she could sneak off and see her boyfriend, I’d impulsively asked Cherisse if she wanted to study together. I had been trying to prove that I didn’t need Lynette, and possibly piss her off in the process. In short, I had used Cherisse. I had had a nice enough time at her house, despite witnessing a hellacious fight between her parents and her sister, Serena, who had come home glassy-eyed and reeking of marijuana. But I had no intentions of ever going back. By the next day, Lynette and I were cool again, and my study session with Cherisse was forgotten. Thinking about that long ago visit embarrassed me. In retrospect, maybe I wasn’t a whole lot different from Audrey Grant and her crew.
I sat down at the other end of the couch, and Cherisse watched me through hooded eyes. The coffee table in front on the couch was littered with wadded up tissue. I noticed a prescription bottle of nasal spray and a box of Kleenex sitting on the table next to a glass of iced tea.
“Are you sure this is a good time? I can come back later if you don’t feel well.” She shook her head no.
“It’s just my allergies acting up. My doctor put me on some new medicine and it’s not working worth a damn. The only thing it does is knock me out. I just took some about twenty minutes ago, so whatever you need to talk to me about you need to make it quick.” She pulled another tissue from the pocket of her robe and blew her nose again.
“Well, first off I wanted to let you know that I wasn’t laughing at you the other night at dinner. Dennis—”
“Is going to get what he has coming to him,” said Cherisse, interrupting me. She was looking grim and determined and I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not.
“Huh?”
“He’s such an asshole.” She shrugged sleepily. “People like him always get what they deserve eventually, and that’s a fact. Trust me. He will be getting what he deserves.”
“What about Ms. Flack? Do you think she got what she deserved?” She looked at me like she could barely keep her eyes open.
“Ms. Flack? Well, yeah. I guess so. Why?” she asked before lapsing into a sudden sneezing fit. I realized I needed to make this quick.
“I think someone killed Ms. Flack. I don’t think her death was an accident.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Cherisse were you being blackmailed?” That at least seemed to wake her up a little. She pulled herself up to a semi-sitting position.
“How did you—?” she began before I held up my hand cutting her off.
“Just answer the question, please. Were you being blackmailed?”
“Yeah,” she said in a small voice. “Were you?”
I explained my theory about Ms. Flack’s need for money and about Audrey Grant’s confession that she was being blackmailed. Cherisse looked like she might cry.
“I trusted that bitch. Are you sure she’s the one who was behind it all?” I just nodded.
“You paid, right?” I asked. She nodded.
“She knew all about why I left the job I got right after high school. That’s why she helped me get that job with Julian. She knew about me having an affair with my boss. He’s married. I ran into her at the post office one day last year right after I quit my job when I finally realized he would never leave his wife. I was upset and she asked me what was wrong. I only told her because I needed someone to talk to. I don’t have many friends.” She looked down at her lap. I felt guilty again.
I knew Cherisse used to be a legal secretary with the DA’s office. If she’d had an affair with one of the DA’s she worked for, it could ruin his career, not to mention his marriage. For Cherisse to have paid a blackmailer must mean she was still in love with her boss and didn’t want to cause him any pain. It also blew my theory about Ms. Flack not knowing what everyone’s secrets were. If she knew about Cherisse’s married lover, then she must have also known about what the rest of the reunion committee’s secrets were. But, why try and blackmail me? What did she think she had on me?
“And you never knew it was her?”
“I thought it was someone I used to work with at the DA’s office. The person who called me said there was a videotape of my boss and me making love in his office and if I didn’t pay, they’d give it to the media, and his wife. I had no idea it was her. I swear.” She had another sneezing fit and reached for the box of Kleenex. It was empty and she started to push herself up from the couch.
“You just lie still. I’ll get you some more tissues. Where are they?”
“Bathroom.” She pointed down the hallway.
I headed down the hall and quickly located the tiny bathroom. There was an unopened box of tissues sitting on the back of the pink toilet on top of a crocheted doily. I grabbed it and accidentally knocked a wicker basket that was sitting on the counter by the sink onto the floor, spilling the contents everywhere.
“What was that?” Cherisse called out from the living room.
“Nothing. Be right there,” I replied and quickly started picking up the contents of the basket.
I got down on all fours and picked up a couple of tubes of lipstick, a bottle of foundation in a color called ginger snap, a cheap bangle bracelet with flaking gold vermeille, a black plastic hair clip, tweezers, a nail file, a bottle of magic magenta nail polish, and something that stopped me in my tracks: a sterling silver compact with the initials “I F” engraved on the lid. It was Ms. Flack’s compact. The one I’d seen her using in the car the very last time I talked to her on the day she died. What the hell was Cherisse doing with it?
I took the compact and headed back into the living room, forgetting to bring the box of tissue with me.
“Where did you get this?” I asked as I stood over her. All I got was a loud snore as a response. She was fast asleep.
“Cherisse.” I tried to shake her awake. “Cherisse, wake up. This is important.” But she was down for the count, and not even tossing a handful of water in her face could wake her up.
It was getting late, I put the compact in my purse and planned to ask her about it when I saw her after class later that evening.
Chapter Sixteen
I WENT HOME AND quickly changed into a slim grey skirt and a cream-colored, short-sleeved cotton blouse for my meeting with Clair Easton. I rummaged around in my dresser until I found a pair of sheer black hose that didn’t have a run in them. I hunted under my bed for some decent dress shoes, finally locating a pair of low-heeled black pumps. After surveying my appearance, and deciding I looked a li
ttle washed out, I added a touch of plum lipstick. As an afterthought, I put on a pair of glasses that I thought made me look business-like and left for my appointment.
Clair lived on Scotch Pine Drive in a large Tudor-style home that looked liked it had been plucked out of medieval England. The house was white and heavily decorated with half timbers of exposed brown beams. About a dozen tall narrow windows covered the front of the house giving, multiple views of the street. The front lawn was large and a lush green. As I headed up the brick paved driveway, I could see a Hispanic man, wearing the uniform of a landscaping company called Diaz Lawn & Landscape, trimming the large bushes that flanked the front door. Everything in the yard was varying shades of green, and there were no flowers that I could see anywhere on the property. That told me that Clair Easton must not be a fan of anything as frivolous as flowers, or she was too cheap to have them planted. The man trimming the bushes nodded and smiled at me as I rang the doorbell. I could hear the fast click of approaching heels and seconds later the door swung open and I looked up at a tall, masculine-looking woman with short reddish hair and pale green eyes. She looked to be in her late fifties, though her plaid polyester skirt and high-necked ruffled blouse made her look like an old lady.
“Ms. Easton? I’m Wendy Burger.” I held out my hand, willing it not to tremble.
“Do you have some identification, Ms. Burger? One can’t be too careful these days,” she said primly, looking me up and down.
Crap. I didn’t have any ID that identified me as anyone other than Kendra Clayton. I nodded and smiled dumbly as I reached into my purse praying for either a distraction, or that Clair Easton was blind as a bat and wouldn’t be able to see that my name didn’t match my license. I was toying with the idea of running back to my car and taking off when I got the distraction. While Clair Easton stared at me impatiently as I fumbled through my purse, we heard a loud cry that made us both jump. We turned to see the man who was trimming the bushes clutching his forearm as blood flowed from between his fingers. Ms. Easton shoved me aside as she rushed to his aid.
“The kitchen’s down the hall. Run and get me the first aid kit. It’s in the cabinet under the sink.”
I ran inside the dark foyer, and my eyes had to adjust to the gloom before I saw the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen. Along the way, I couldn’t help but notice how outdated the house was. There may have been no flowers in the yard, but the walls were covered in the ugliest green and blue flowered wallpaper that I’d ever seen. There was thick beige shag carpet on the floor of the hallway that opened into a large kitchen with cracked yellow linoleum on the floor. The appliances looked like props from a seventies sitcom as did a red vinyl dinette set that looked like the chairs were missing some stuffing. I looked under the rust-stained porcelain sink and located a banged-up white metal box, with paint flaking from the red cross painted on top, and ran it outside to Ms. Easton.
“It’s not as bad as it looks, Miss Easton,” claimed the man in heavily accented English. He’d taken off his shirt and had it wrapped around his arm, but blood had seeped through. Clair Easton wasn’t listening, however. She was too busy rummaging through an assortment of old dried-out Band-aids and bandages and a roll of formerly white and no longer sterile-looking gauze, trying to find something to cover the gash.
“Nonsense, Mr. Diaz. I’ll have your arm all bandaged in no time. Now hold still,” she commanded, pulling the bloody shirt from his arm and tossing it at me. I cursed softly as some drops of blood from the shirt spattered my blouse and smeared the waistband of my skirt. Today was just not a good day for my clothes.
Clair Easton was a big woman, not fat, just bigger than poor Mr. Diaz. She grabbed him firmly by the arm with one hand and pulled him close to bind his wound. Mr. Diaz and I looked at each other in horror. No telling what kind of bacteria would be introduced into his wound if she insisted on using gauze that looked like it had last been used to wrap mummies in ancient Egypt. I opened my mouth to protest when she stopped abruptly.
“Oh, good,” she said, leaning down over his arm to get a better look. “It looks like it’s stopped bleeding.” She snapped her fingers at me, which I assumed meant she wanted the shirt back. I tossed it to Mr. Diaz instead. He caught it and took off running to his van.
“Oh, wait,” I called out when I noticed he’d left his hedge clippers behind. I grabbed the clippers and waved them. But Mr. Diaz had already pulled off.
“I hope he’s going to the hospital. Blood loss is a dangerous thing,” she said, heading back in the house. I was hot on her heels.
“How did he cut himself?” I followed her inside the house and propped the clippers by the door.
“Said he laid his hedge trimmers on top of the bush he was working on to wipe sweat from his eyes and they slid off and gashed his arm. Everyone is so careless these days.” She made a disgusted clucking sound with her tongue as she closed the door behind us. Much to my relief, she seemed to have forgotten that I never showed her my ID.
I followed her into a large dimly lit living room, sparsely furnished with cheap, lumpy brown furniture. Thankfully the walls were minus the wallpaper from the hallway, but the same beige shag covered the floor. I’d bet money there were beautiful hardwood floors underneath all that horrible shag carpet. The room’s only saving grace was a large arched brick fireplace that dominated almost half of one wall. It reminded me of the fireplaces I’d seen in pictures of hunting lodges. And just like in a hunting lodge, there was a large moose head hanging over the mantle staring at us with dull and dusty glass eyes. There was also a golden retriever, curled up with its head near its tail, on the floor next to the fireplace. I reached down to pet the dog but snatched my hand away when my fingers encountered stiff, hard fur. The dog was stuffed. My hostess laughed heartily.
“That’s Jeeves. He was such a good dog. Weren’t you, boy,” she said in exaggerated baby talk as she gazed lovingly at the preserved pooch. “He died last weekend. I loved him so much I just couldn’t bear to part with him. I just got him back from the taxidermist this morning. It was a super rush job and worth every penny. He did a wonderful job, wouldn’t you agree?”
All I could do was nod and smile and wonder how badly the taxidermist had ripped this poor woman off since the dog’s fur felt like the bristles on a hair brush.
“When I die I hope we’ll be laid to rest together,” she said matter-of-factly. She reached down and plucked a piece of lint from Jeeves’s forever-glossy coat.
“That’s…so…nice,” I said and decided then and there to make this a quick visit. Poor Jeeves. I’m sure he didn’t plan on spending his afterlife collecting dust and sniffing his own butt for all eternity.
“Please have a seat.” Claire Easton gestured towards the lumpy couch. I sat and she took a seat across from me in a lopsided recliner. “Can I get you anything to drink? A soda perhaps?” I could tell by her eager-to-please demeanor that she must not get much company.
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” I said quickly. Thinking back on the state of that first aid kit, I didn’t want to speculate on how long past the sell-by date any beverages she had would be.
“I guess we can start then,” she said, settling into her chair.
“Do you mind if I tape this conversation,” I asked, pulling a small tape recorder I sometimes used in class from my purse. She eyed it for a moment and blinked rapidly a few times before slowly nodding her head in agreement. I switched on the recorder and sat it on the coffee table between us.
“Okay. Please state your name for the record,” I told her, mimicking what I’d seen during interrogation scenes on Law & Order. I had no idea if there even was a Stock Regulatory Commission of Ohio, but I was fairly certain that if there was one, they didn’t interrogate people. But ignorance is bliss, right?
She sat up straight in her chair, like the tape recorder could see her, and said, “Clair Lenore Easton.”
“All right, Ms. Easton. Can you please tell me how long Gerald Tate has be
en your financial consultant?”
“Two years. He first became my consultant when he worked for Wiley and Richards. When he left to join Wheatley Financial, I followed him,” she replied without hesitation. She apparently didn’t know that Gerald had been forced to resign from his last job for stealing from his clients.
“And when did you notice inaccuracies with your account?”
“About a month ago. I had a one hundred fifty thousand dollar annuity that Gerald sold me last year. I know I have this big fancy house, but the money in that annuity was all the cash I had in the world,” she said her voice quavering for a second.
“Was? Is it all gone?”
“Not all of it. I still have almost one hundred thousand dollars. But over fifty thousand dollars is missing from that annuity, and I didn’t spend it. And to make matters worse, now I’m going to owe taxes and surcharges on that money.” She slapped her thigh indignantly.
“And how does Ger…ah Mr. Tate explain this missing money?”
“He had the nerve to insist that I authorized the use of that money for some high risk investments that didn’t pan out. He’s trying to make it seem like I’m just mad because I lost my money and I’m trying to blame him.”
“Wouldn’t you have had to authorize the use of that money with a form or signature or something? Were you shown documented proof that you authorized him to invest that money?”
She stared at me hard and cocked her head to the side. “You don’t seem to know much about policies and procedures for someone who works for the Stock Regulatory Commission, young lady. Are you new?”
“Yes, I am. Does it show?” I asked, laughing nervously. “This is the first inquiry they’ve let me head up on my own.”
“Well,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “I guess you have to start somewhere. How did you hear about my case?” She looked slightly confused.
