Death, Deceit & Some Smooth Jazz

by Claudia Mair Burney

  “Umm-hmm.”

  She went over to the sink and got busy readying a plate for me, in between turning crab cakes sizzling in the cast-iron skillet.

  Jazz smirked. “You think you can save some room for a cup of coffee? I’ll put it in one of Mom’s mugs.”

  “Only if that’s to go,” I said with a wink.

  Jazz smiled. “Ma, Bell’s trying to heist your pottery.”

  “Don’t listen to Mr. Snitch, Mom,” I said, laughing. “He offered up one of those mugs like a prize. I think he’s trying to win favors from me.”

  She hooted. “Well, honey, take the mug and give ’em those favors.”

  “Jazz! Your mother is as naughty as your dad.”

  “You ain’t seen naughty yet,” Jazz said, winking. “These two…”

  Jazz’s mother placed a hand on her chest and assumed an expression of such haunting piety that she could have been a statue in a Catholic church. “Jazz Christopher Brown!”

  JazzChristopher ?

  She laughed. “You know I’m deeply holy. You mustn’t say things that will mislead our dear sister Bell.”

  Jack sidled up behind her. “You’re something that starts with anH, all right, but it ain’t ‘holy,’ baby.” He smacked her butt, and got a pot holder upside the head. She giggled, and he pulled her into a snuggle. They nuzzled each other’s neck and sighed contently.

  Jazz came over and pulled up a chair by me. “Sickening, aren’t they?”

  “I think they’re sweet.”

  He swung an arm behind my chair and leaned in to whisper, “They give a brotha all kinds of ideas about growing old with somebody. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded. “Too bad we’re not seeing each other.”

  Jazz frowned.

  “So move your arm,” I said. He’d get no slack from me.

  He complied, looking salty at my rebuke.

  Jack sat down with us, scooting his chair close to the table so he could lean his elbows on it. “Let’s get started.” He looked at me. “This is old hat for us, baby. Why don’t you kick us off today?”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin, Dad.”

  “Start with your most burning question.”

  Did your son kill Kate? Because if he did, I’m going to have to take back that whole thing about marrying him and giving him many sons.

  “Okay, Dad. My burning question is, who’d benefit from Kate’s death?”

  He leaned in and narrowed an eye. “Is that really your burning question, baby?”

  “Uh.”

  “I think your question might be, is Jazz a murdering nutjob? Go ahead and ask it.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He put his hand over mine. “Ask it, baby.”

  “Is Jazz a murdering nutjob?” I shrugged and tried to laugh it off.

  Jack gave my hand a squeeze. “You’re asking the wrong person. Why don’t you ask Jazzy?”

  I turned to Jazz. He kicked out his legs and crossed them. His arms followed suit. We stared at each other. Neither of us said a word.

  He kept his gaze steady on me but spoke to his father. “We had this conversation.”

  “But she didn’t ask you, did she?”

  Jazz didn’t respond, just kept looking at me with those delicious brown eyes. “Don’t put her on the spot, Dad.”

  “She came here on her own. That says something.”

  Jazz smoothed his hands over his pants. “I don’t think anything I say right now would matter.”

  I looked away, hoping their discussion would get me off the hook.

  Addie brought a steaming plate of corn, fried okra, and crab cakes to the table. She paused before she set it in front of me. “I’m not a police officer or a psychologist, sweetie. I’m just a woman. But if the man I love was accused of something as ugly as this, no matter what I believed, I’d have to ask him.”

  Jazz sputtered, “Ma! Who said Bell is in love with me?” His defensive posture dissipated as he bolted upright.

  She glowered at him. “Don’t be stupid, boy. Of course she’s in love with you.” Her glare made a grown man——a big, tough cop——wither. Shoot, she made me wither, too. Ma Brown would say Addie Lee was readin’ my mail.

  She put the plate of food in front of me. Nothing like a heaping plate of soul food to make a girl forget her troubles. Jazz apparently knew this. But before I could pick up my fork——

  “Just ask me,” he yelled. “Maybe we can get on with trying to figure this thing out.”

  I looked at him. Still mute. Crab cakes had splintered my focus.

  He got louder. “Ask me, for crying out loud.”

  I got a little loud myself. “Didn’t I ask you at my apartment?”

  “No, you didn’t. Not once.”

  “Well, doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “Look, if you don’t want to participate, why don’t you just leave?”

  “You can’t put me out. This isn’t your house.”

  Jazz looked to his parents.

  “It isn’t your house,” Addie said calmly, pulling up a chair. “Besides, I like her.”

  Jack chimed in, “Me, too. Keep fighting. You’re probably close to a breakthrough. I think it was your turn, Bell. Nice and loud, now.”

  “Gladly!” I shot lasers out of my eyes at Jazz. “As I said,Lieutenant Brown, the fact that I didn’t ask should tell you something.”

  “Yeah,Dr. Brown. It tells me you’re too scared to ask.”

  That was it. I jumped up from my seat. “I’m not scared of you. Maybe I just don’t happen to believe you’re guilty.”

  He stood, too, and darn it if he wasn’t a whole head taller than me. “Then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to ask, should it?”

  I stood on the chair, stealing a peek at Addie to see if that was okay. She nodded to spur on the taller me. “Fine. I’ll ask, if that will satisfy you.” But I remained silent.

  “Today, Bell.”

  “Fine! Are you a…” I stopped. Wasn’t “Are you a murdering nutjob?”Jack’s question?

  We glared at each other, me still standing on the chair. What wasmy burning question? Certainly “How well do I know you?” was near the top. But the burning, won’t-let-me-rest question that I had to know? I had to ask it in my own words. A simple question, really, yet so hard for me to ask.

  Jazz spoke softly. “Come on, Bell. Ask me so we can get past this part.”

  Suddenly, sadness nearly toppled me over. I didn’t want to put up a brave front anymore. I gazed at my hands and then at Jazz. He looked even sadder than I felt. I said, “Do I really know you? It’s only been a little over three months since I laid eyes on you for the first time. And one of those months you were gone from my life.”

  “We can spend a lifetime getting to know each other. I gave you all I could of me in those months.” He held his hands out in a helpless gesture. “I gave you all I got.”

  Jack came to his son’s defense. “He really did, Bell. Listen, I asked Addie to marry me after we’d known each other a month. What do your instincts tell you about him?”

  My attention went to the loving couple. Addie nudged him. “Let them finish, Jack.”

  I turned back to Jazz, climbed off the chair, and sat down. He sat, too. “Did you beat her?” I asked.

  Jazz looked surprised. “You got questioned already?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Maguire?”

  “And Archie. IAD.”

  Jazz slammed his hand on the table and muttered an expletive. “That’s just great. Bobbyand Archie tag-teaming you. Both of them hate me.” He paused. “Did they tell you I beat her, or did they say they’d gotten calls that she said I’d beaten her? There’s a difference.”

  Archie hadn’t said Jazz had beaten Kate. He’d said that was whatshe said. The difference cheered me. “But you told me yourself she made you mad enough to want to hurt her.”

  “That doesn’t mean I beat her——or killed her. Bell,you
make me mad enough to want to hurt you.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “I saw you put a gun to a man’s head——a man you were mad enough to kill. How do I know I can trustyou ?”

  My mind went right back to my apartment, that awful day in September when I’d confronted Gabriel, the man who’d nearly beaten me to death——the man I’d thought might have raped me while I was unconscious. I had wanted to kill him. Everything within me had screamed for me to pull the trigger. Jazz’s voice had talked me away from the edge of that precipice. Would I have shot Gabriel? EvenI didn’t know. I gathered all my courage and whispered, “Did you kill Kate, Jazz?”

  “It was my fault.”

  If I hadn’t been seated, I’d have dropped to the ground as if he’d killedme. I wobbled like a Weeble again, quite a feat sitting in a chair. “What?”

  He touched my knee. “What I mean is I didn’t strangle her to death, but I left her alone and vulnerable. I didn’t protect her. As far as I’m concerned, she’s dead because of me. I killed her.”

  Jack marched over to his son and smacked him across the back of the head. “You big idiot. This isn’t the time to play nobleman. Haven’t I taught you anything about women? Bell wants you to assure her that you aren’t responsible for a heinous crime. You’re supposed to tell her you didn’t kill Kate, and that’s all. Now try that again. Starting with the question it took us four days to drag out of Bell.”

  The tension drained right out of me when Jack Brown gave me one of those Jazz look-alike smiles. “Sorry,” Jack said. “He rolled off the couch when he was a baby. Ain’t been right since. We work with him. Let him try that one more time.”

  I tried to suppress my laughter. I looked Jazz right in his eyes, my confidence blooming like a flowering tree. “Did you kill Kate, Jazz?”

  “No. I did not. But I should have protected——”

  Jack groaned. “Please tell me you didn’t say all that when they interrogated you! Addie, I told you that boy ain’t got good sense. Could you tell him to just say no?”

  Addie gave Jazz a real head-rockin’, don’t-give-me-no-smack sistah-girl look. “C’mon, now, baby boy. I didn’t raise no fool. Just like the Reagan administration told you when you were a teenager. Just sayno. ”

  He smiled for his mama. “No.” He slanted his smile Bellward. “No, Bell. I did not kill Kate.” His eyes searched mine, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen more honest eyes in my life.

  Iwanted to believe him.

  “But I should have been——”

  His parents said in unison, “Shut up!”

  Addie got up from her seat, went over to Jazz, and rubbed his shoulders from behind. She placed a motherly kiss on his cheek. “You didn’t strangle her, and you aren’t going to jail for whoever did. I know you feel like you’re responsible, but you left her so she would be safe. What happened after that is not your fault. Now let me grab a plate for you, baby.” He got another smooch. Why didn’t my mother kiss me like that?

  chapter nine

  AFTER WE’D STUFFEDourselves on crab cakes, Jack ushered us into the living room, practically forcing Jazz and me onto the love seat, while he and Addie stretched out on the sofa. Actually, it was Addie who stretched out, lazily resting her head in Jack’s lap and her feet on the armrest. Jack propped his feet on the coffee table. “Okay, kiddos,” he announced. “It’s time to brainstorm. Here are the rules, Bell. Everybody has to give input. No theory is too crazy, and no question”——he shot me a look——“now that we’ve got the important stuff out of the way, is out of line.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “And don’t freak if we say something that sounds inappropriate. Cops use humor and other weird stuff to deal with the intensity of the issues in front of us.”

  “Health-care professionals do the same,” I said. “Coroners, too. People in high-stress jobs tend to make light of things in a way outsiders could see as cruel.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “Glad you understand.”

  “Where do we start?” I asked, leaning forward, eager to let my brain begin what it loved to do: solve puzzles of the human mind.

  “We start with dissecting the crime scene. Since you were the only person here who got a gander at it, you need to tell us what you saw.”

  We all knew I shouldn’t be talking about this with them, but as far as I was concerned, all was fair in love and war, and this was both. I took a deep breath and mentally transported myself back to the scene. I wanted them to see everything just as I’d seen it. “I got there and noticed there was no sign of forced entry. In fact, Maguire told me later that Jazz’s door was wide open when the police arrived.”

  That raised eyebrows on all the other Browns in the room.

  “Right by the door, there were two puddles. One was most likely water. Next to it, one of Mom’s pottery mugs——your Starry Night one, Jazz——was broken. The other puddle was urine. I think Kate was strangled right by the door.”

  “My mug was broken?” Jazz asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “So you were just checkin’ me out when you asked for it the second time?”

  “What do you expect?” I said. I smiled, hoping that would ease the sting of my distrusting him. To judge from his somber expression, it didn’t.

  “Go on,” Jack said.

  “The way Jazz has the loft set up, I could see the bed from the doorway. All those candles were lit. Which reminds me: Jazz, how often do you light those candles?”

  “That’s the thing. I haven’t lit them since…uh…in fact, I’d gotten new ones because the old ones reminded me of…”

  He didn’t finish his thought, thank God!

  “When did you buy the new ones?” I asked.

  “A week ago.”

  “Why?”

  “I felt hopeful.”

  “About what?”

  “Not about Kate!” was his terse reply.

  Jack cleared his throat. I turned my attention to him. “What?”

  “You may not want to continue that line of questioning,” Jack said.

  “I thought you said nothing was off limits.”

  Jack Brown’s face transformed as he did a spot-on Jack Nicholson imitation. “You can’t handle the truth.”

  Addie chimed in with a chuckle. “Baby, why don’t you go back to the crime scene and away from that bed. Take it from us, Jazz’s hopes are not something you want to talk about at this moment. There will be plenty of time for that when this mess is cleared up. We promise you.”

  “But the candles. I had a thought about——”

  “Forget the candles,” Jazz said.

  “Fine. Kate was in the bed with the candles I can’t mention, leaning against the wrought-iron headboard. She’d been covered with a sheet. Her clothes were in a neat pile by the bed. She had on a tailored white man’s shirt——the kind that Jazz wears when he’s not wearing sexy cashmere turtlenecks with his jeans.” I winked at him. He tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. I’d made that little comment to break the tension in my neck and shoulders that remembering the crime scene was causing. “Her face was beet red, and her eyes and tongue…”

  “You don’t have to describe that, baby,” Jack assured me. “We know what a strangled vic looks like.” Addie rewarded his kindness with a hand squeeze.

  I sat up straighter. No matter how I shifted my position on the comfy sofa, nothing would make what I’d say next comfortable. “Here’s the thing, everybody. She was posed.”

  Jazz’s brow furrowed. He frowned. “What do you mean, she was posed?”

  “I mean someone placed her body in a sexually suggestive position postmortem.”

  Jazz looked horrified, as I’d suspected he would. “Posed!” he said. “Who the——”

  Addie asked, “Was there any evidence of a struggle besides at the door?”

  “No. His place was neat as a monk’s cell; he hadn’t even opened the Chinese takeout.”He couldn’t have known s
he was coming if he had dinner for one. If he never took off his suit. If the candles were for…

  “I had just gotten home and set it on the countertop. I had enough time to get my coat in the closet. The woman was practically lying in wait”——he forced an exhale from his lungs——“for her own death. Poor Kate.” Jazz appeared deeply disturbed by what I’d said about Kate being posed.

  We all sat quietly for a few moments. Jazz got up from the love seat. “I need a beer. Anybody else want anything?”

  “I’ll take a Corona, son,” Jack said. Addie didn’t ask for anything.

  “You can refill my coffee,” I said. “My mug is on the kitchen table.”

  Jazz went into the kitchen. I suspected he needed to excuse himself because no matter how much he may have disliked Kate, he certainly didn’t want her dead. I looked after him, wishing I could help.

  “He’ll be okay,” Jack said, “as soon as we get this figured out.” He took a deep breath and started in on me again. “Is there anything else we need to know, baby?”

  “Maguire told me that it was Kate who’d called the police. She told them Jazz had beat her up.” I waited for a reaction. Neither he nor Addie looked like they thought this was unusual. Either they were used to Jazz beating up women, or they knew she was lying. “The police responded to the call, saw his door open, went in, and found her dead.”

  “Freaky,” Jack said.

  Addie nodded.

  “Okay, Bell,” Jack said. “What is yoursecond burning question after, Did Jazz do this?”

  “I want to know who would benefit from Kate’s death.”

  “Good girl. Spoken like a true detective.”

  Jazz ambled back into the room, two Coronas in one hand and a steaming cup of joe in the other. He set my mug on the coffee table in front of me, then handed his dad a Corona before plopping back down on the love seat beside me. He took a long swig.

  “Jazz, give her a kiss,” Jack said.