Death, Deceit & Some Smooth Jazz

by Claudia Mair Burney

  chapter eleven

  IHAD TO GO IN.

  It was, after all,my office. I paid the rent there. Clients came and paid good money to talk to me.I am an adult! I can buy a bottle of wine without getting carded. Shoot. I’m more than an adult. I’m thirty-five years old. In some people’s minds, I’m middle-aged. If you ask me on a bad day, I’m pushing old age.

  Still, I didn’t want to go into my overpriced little office on State Street. I approached the door tentatively. Surely they were lying in wait——the purple-wearing, red-hatted ninja twins. One of them, a former blonde and now a stylishly white-haired curmudgeon, was my secretary, Maggie Harold. Her vicious best friend, Sasha, was my mother.

  I didn’t mind Maggie so much. The petite fireball at least belonged in my office. I kept her on because her exemplary skills in typing, filing, answering phones, handling clients, and well, handling me, offset her generally ill-tempered deportment. Most days, when I walked in the door, she’d give me a full wardrobe-and-hair evaluation——usually negative——but after the first cup of coffee, she’d have me settled in to her well-oiled machine.

  I worked with mentally ill people. While most were your garden-variety mild neurotics, or even healthy people in need of a little guidance, I did have a few truly sick clients. I needed Maggie’s pit-bull office-management style as sure as I needed theDSM-IV.

  However, I didnot need my mother at the office. I could just see her. She’d surely be atmy desk, inmy big, yummy purple Italian-leather chair I’d just purchased as one of many belated birthday gifts to myself. I called it the throne.

  Ma would pounce on me like a tiger. After all, I hadn’t called her for two days, when I knew she’d be worried sick.Lord, have mercy!

  I turned the door latch. Unlocked. Maggie, at least, was in there. I said a prayer for mercy and forgiveness, took a deep breath, and went in.

  I didn’t see them until they were on me——suddenly attacking on both flanks. Maggie gathered an impressive portion of the crew collar on my itty-bitty black sweater into her fist. My ear wilted in my mother’s kung fu grip. I don’t know how that woman got such perfect aim. She hadn’t taken ahold of my lobe like that since I was in the ninth grade and she found out I’d let Elvin Curtis French-kiss me behind our dogwood tree in the backyard.

  “Maaaaaaa!” I howled.

  She talked in a staccato rhythm. “Amanda. Bell. Brown. What. Do. You. Think. You. Are.” And, with a harder tug, “Doing?” Her last word came out with the force and authority of the Last Trump.

  At least Maggie released me, though she wiped her hands together as if she’d soiled herself by touching my sweater. Maggie posed little threat in the presence of Sasha, who I believed had been military-trained to destroy me.

  “I’m trying to start my workday, Ma.”

  “What is that you’re wearing?”

  “Huh?”

  “What are you wearing, you little narrow-tailed yellow heifer?”

  Uh-oh. Only the worst infractions made my mother refer to me as a bovine. While the name was common in my teenage years, I didn’t get “heifer” much now. I quickly moved to the psychologist part of my brain and analyzed what she’d said. First: “little narrow-tailed”? To her, a little narrow tail was a diminutive rear end, the kind belonging to a child. She believed I had acted childishly. And she’d pulled the color card. A “yellow heifer” was so much worse than a plain old heifer. Name-calling notwithstanding, a sobering reality hit me harder than her ear twisting.I’ve scared my mother to death.

  I thought addressing what she’d said about my skin color would be the least troublesome subject to broach and possibly delay “the talk,” on steroids——at least until I could get to my desk. “Mama, I think I’m more the color of a square of Brach’s caramel, not a true yellow, really. Someone told me I’m a nice shade of peanut butter.”

  “I don’t care what color you are. What do you have on?”

  She reallydidn’t care what color I was. Nor did she care——much——that I’d come to work in less than business-casual attire. She knew my jeans, cowboy boots, and practically sprayed-on sweater meant a fine man was on my radar. “Did you spend the night with amurderer ?”

  Not a good question. She wanted to know if I’d spent the night with Jazz, who was supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. If I said no, I had not spent the night with a murderer, she’d say I was lying to her. On the other hand, if I said yes, she’d kill me. Really, she’d take my life, just as she’d given it to me. Not for having a sleepover with a person she believed killed someone, but because she’d be convinced we had shared a bed, and God knew we hadn’t.

  “Answer me,” she shrieked. “Did you sleep with asociopath ?”

  Bad question again. If dozing in an upright position in close proximity to another sleeping person is “sleeping with” him, then I was guilty as charged. However, if she wanted to know whether Jazz and I knew each other in the biblical sense, well, absolutely not. Not to mention Jazz was not a sociopath. Still, her hand crawled like a tarantula up my earlobe to the cartilage at the tip, which really hurts when someone——even if she’s sixty-seven years old——grabs it.

  “Mommy…” I whimpered.

  “Answer me!” she roared.

  “But you asked me two different questions. First you asked if I’d spent the night with a murderer, and then you asked if I’d slept with a sociopath. Which one do you want me to answer?”

  “Both!”

  I hoped to high heaven none of my clients were milling about in the reception area. “Maggie? My clients——”

  “Nobody is here,” she said, utterly lacking in compassion. “I canceled all your clients for today and Friday.”

  “You canceled my clients? Why?”

  “Because your mother and I are going to kick your butt, Amanda Bell. You will need time to recover, heifer.” She said this as matter-of-factly as she would say “You have a noon lunch appointment.”

  I stared at her, unbelieving. Maggie had on a pair of lavender wool slacks and a matching sweater. She’d pulled her hair into an elegant chignon. Delicate amethyst and diamond earrings hung in her lobes, which my mother hadn’t assaulted like she did one of mine. Hearing this sweet-looking, elegant woman calling me names and threatening to kick my butt, and knowing she’d ambushed my business, was just wrong.

  My mother, resplendent in a fuchsia knit dress with fabulous drape, continued her torture. “I want to know where you’ve been and why you’ve come to work looking like a video hoochie.”

  “Wait just a minute, Ma!”

  “Don’t interrupt me. Were you with him?”

  I didn’t care how she phrased it. I didn’t want to answer her question. She progressed to what my great-grandmother would call “smacking me upside the head.”

  “Ouch! Ma, don’t hit me! I just went to talk to his parents. He happened to be there. I hadn’t had any sleep, and he insisted that I stay in the guest room. His parents were home the whole time. That’s it.”

  She glared at me. So did Maggie.

  “Can I get to my office now?” I asked.

  My mother didn’t respond, and I took that moment to zoom past her at breakneck speed to my office. I’d hoped to escape any additional assaults and sit quietly at my desk, healing. She wouldn’t beat down a sistah who was sitting innocently at her desk, would she?

  Ma followed. I sat in my purple chair, eyeing her warily. She lowered herself onto my couch. Yes, I have a couch. It works for me. Clients seem to enjoy it as they recount their joys and pains, but I’ve also been known to have a nap there now and then.

  Ma regarded me for a moment before establishing some normalcy between us. She began, as Maggie would, with a clothing evaluation. Part two. Without fail, she’d start with…

  “I’ve never cared for you in black.”

  “Thanks, Ma.”

  “The boots look cheap.”

  “They are cheap, Ma. The real ones are a hundred doll
ars more than your mortgage. These are Blahnik-inspired.”

  She threw her head back with a snort. “Without the style and excellent craftsmanship.”

  We sat quietly for a while, and I knew from her troubled expression that her concern had gone beyond my shoe budget. She crossed her legs, still amazing after sixty, and looked away from me. “I didn’t know what had happened to you, so I called the police.” Her voice broke, as did my heart when I heard it.

  “Mama, I wouldn’t do anything to purposely hurt you. I got caught up in all of this and just wasn’t thinking straight. I should have called you.”

  “You’re going to kill me. I need my nitroglycerin.” She fanned herself for emphasis. “You shouldn’t make an old lady exert herself that way.”

  First of all, I had not asked my mother to attack me. Second of all, my mother’s heart was healthier than mine. She did aerobics at a chichi gym in downtown Detroit frequented by local celebrities, was twenty-five pounds lighter than I, was a perfect size four, and had me convinced that she was an immortal. But all I managed to eke out was “You don’t take nitro, Ma.”

  “Well, I’ll need to now.” She swept her mid-shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair behind her shoulder in a nervous gesture. And speaking of hair: “You look like Don King,” she said.

  “Ma, I had a cowboy hat on.”

  “Which should have prevented your hair from sticking up like you’ve been electrocuted. Can’t you get a perm, Bell?”

  More silence between us.

  “How is Addie holding up?”

  “She’s doing fine, considering.” I shifted in my chair and inclined toward my mother, hoping to gain her empathy. “She and Jack don’t believe Jazz had anything to do with Kate’s murder.”

  “Of course they don’t. He’s their son.”

  “But Mama, Jack is a retired cop with a praiseworthy record. Don’t you think he would choose justice over Jazz?”

  “If you were in trouble, I’d take you on the lam, and we’d live out our days in Brazil getting sun.” She thought for a moment. “You’d have to wear a big straw hat and sunscreen, though. If you get too much sun, you’ll start to look older than you already do.”

  Thanks…

  “Jack wouldn’t take Jazz on the…” I didn’t want to resort to dialogue from old movies on the Turner Classic Movies network, like her, but I couldn’t think of anything better. “He wouldn’t take him on the lam.”

  “You don’t know that. You’re not a parent.”

  Just a friendly reminder of my barrenness.

  I couldn’t argue with her. Nothing I had to say would make her feel better anyway. I sulked, my desk a barrier between us that felt as big as the Grand Canyon, until she made a brave effort to cross it. “I don’t like to interfere with your personal life, but I want you to stop seeing him.”

  No, she didn’t like to interfere with my personal life. Sheloved to interfere with my personal life. Still, I had never seen my strong, beautiful mother afraid, and I’d seen her almost everything. She had appeared unfazed even when she and my father divorced after she had been out of the workforce for twenty years. Breast cancer? She’d beaten it like eggs for an omelet——and we never once saw her cry or feel sorry for herself. I got up from my purple throne and went to her. She scooted over on the couch to accommodate me.

  Suddenly, my head felt too big for my shoulders. Fatigue and tension weighed on my neck. My ear still hurt. “He doesn’t want to see me, Ma. He doesn’t think it’s safe. You don’t have to worry about me being with Jazz.”

  She looked surprised. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  She harrumphed. “I almost respect him for that.”

  I lay my head on her shoulder. “I slept for thirteen hours, and I still feel tired.”

  She wrapped her arms around me. “When you were just a little thing, I used to sing you ‘All the Pretty Little Horses.’ Do you remember that?”

  I smiled. “I remember. And you’d rock me. You used to do that until I was way too old for it.”

  Ma laughed. “Yes, you were nine years old the last time I sang it to you. You’d been outside playing and came inside and announced I didn’t need to sing to you anymore.” She rubbed my arm. “You said, ‘I’m mature now.’”

  I chuckled. “No way I said that.”

  “That’s exactly what you said. It tickled me at the time, but later, when you ran back outside to play Barbies with yourmature little girlfriends, I cried.”

  “Really, Ma?”

  “You were my baby. Nobody wants to lose her baby. Do you understand what I’m telling you, ladybug?”

  “Yes, Mama.” She hadn’t called me “ladybug” since I “matured.” I nestled closer to her, and she squeezed me. We sat like that for a long time, Maggie not once interrupting us. When the quiet——pregnant with questions she wanted to ask and answers I’d hesitate to give——threatened to engulf us, she began to hum and finally sing:

  Hush-a-bye don’t you cry

  Go to sleep-y little baby

  When you wake, you shall have

  All the pretty little horses.

  If she thought I was being immature, it didn’t bother me at all.

  chapter twelve

  UNFORTUNATELY,warm and fuzzy moments with my mother did not last. Shortly after her lullaby, she resumed tormenting me on the topics about which mothers torment daughters who have disappointed them. After spending a month with her in the half hour that followed, I prayed for respite. God answered my prayer just before noon, when Ma opted to go to lunch with Maggie. The dish they’d devour would be me, for sure. I didn’t mind. I decided to redeem some of the time I’d lost by paying Christine Webber a surprise visit.

  I arrived in Royal Oak, hoping she’d be home, not knowing if I was burning very expensive gas in vain. Kalaya had let me know that Kate’s funeral would be at eleven o’clock the following morning. I hoped to catch Christine at home with a network of friends and family who could help her through this tragedy.

  Christine and Kate’s house was a small, neat A-frame on a quiet street close enough to walk to downtown——primo real estate at a premium price. SUVs filled the driveway and spilled into the street. I got out of the Love Bug and made my way to the porch. The lace curtains that dressed the open windows made it easy to see the bustle of activity inside. A multigenerational group of people——mostly women——milled about, holding drinks and plates of food. I knocked on the door, saying a quick prayer for help that started with something likeLord, I know Jazz wouldn’t like this, but …and waited to see if help would come.

  A short, thin white woman of about fifty, with spiky white hair and Tammy Faye Bakker mascara, opened the door. She had on a white faux-fur miniskirt that truly would have made my mother need nitroglycerin tablets, especially having seen it on a woman this age. A red long-sleeved cashmere T-shirt with a skull on the front and black-and-white stripes on the arms topped the skirt. Outrageous electric-blue platform-heel boots, circa ’73, completed the ensemble. I smiled at the woman and gave her a few thousand dance-to-your-own-drummer points.

  “Are you here for Chrissy?” she said warmly.

  Thank God for fur-skirt lady. “I’m with the Washtenaw County Jail,” I said, as if that had any relevance whatsoever to the case. “I just have a few questions for her.”

  Fur-skirt lady’s face fell. Apparently, Chris had been questioned, and her friend didn’t look like she appreciated the implications that came with that. She probably also wondered what in the world Washtenaw County had to do with the case.

  I briefly touched her elbow. “I’m not a police officer. I’m a forensic psychologist. I’m just doing a brief psychological autopsy. I only want to know what Kate’s last days were like. I’d really like to help the police find who killed Christine’s partner.”

  This seemed to appease her a bit. She moved to the side, allowed me to enter, and pointed through the crowd. “She’s over there by the futon.”

  “T
hank you.” I realized my social graces were lacking. “I’m sorry. I’m Amanda.”

  “Tori,” she said.

  “Do you think you could discreetly let her know I need to speak with her?”

  “Sure.”

  Fur skirt meandered her way through the mourners, and I followed her to where Christine sat in the center of a sofa, flanked by two women and a man draped lazily on the sofa’s arm.

  All I could think wasWow. Christine was stunning. She had the regal presence of Maya Angelou. Snatches of a Maya poem,Phenomenal Woman, came to mind:Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. / I’m not cute or built to suit a model’s fashion size.

  No, I wouldn’t call her cute, but she had the formidable presence of a queen. Long jet-black dreadlocks flowed down her neck. She was dressed like Addie Lee, in an amazing silk caftan with an African-inspired print. Bone bracelets crept up her arms. Unlike Addie, she had muscle tone——I could see that even through the caftan. Her arms resembled a boxer’s. Jazz must not have been kidding when he’d said she could rumble.Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. And with the size of her hands, that would be some sting. She had a definite edge about her, ghetto toughness, like she’d seen too many bad things in life and had grown a hard shell around her soft center. I’d seen this in other women cops——though not all——and in women who’d lived on the streets for a long time.

  Tori whispered something in Christine’s ear, and Christine looked up at me. She sized me up in that way I’d seen only cops do. She stood and gestured with her head toward a hallway. I went with her, all eyes in the room following us for about two seconds before their attention went back to the people in the room who were far more interesting than me.

  She opened a bedroom door; coats were piled high on the bed. The room was decidedly feminine, with Laura Ashley florals, tastefully done. A soft shade of lavender colored the walls, matching the lavender-and-lilac flower print on the bedspread. Chris pushed the coats to the side and made a place for me to sit. “Sorry I don’t have any place else to take you. As you can see, the house is full.” Her voice sounded both melodic and authoritative, a smoky, Jazz singer’s alto. She could have been an old-school African-American actress like Cicely Tyson. I wondered how a woman like this ended up being a cop; what tragedy——if any——had driven her to the job? She eyed me warily. “I didn’t expect this many people. Kate’s family took over all the funeral arrangements, and I’m”——she sighed deeply——“just here with my sistahs, trying to make my way through this…” Whatever else she would have said, she swallowed. She regarded me with the cool detachment of a person who needed to keep her hurt at a minimum. “Tori said you’re from the Washtenaw County Jail. What do you have to do with Kate’s murder?”