by Chassie West
“I’m leaving,” I said, wrestling with the lining of the coat’s sleeve, which had turned inside out. “I am not a perp you’re grilling and don’t have to prove anything to you or anybody else. How dare you suggest—”
His fingers locked around my left wrist. He might be a skinny little man, but he was a skinny little man with a black belt. He’d kicked butts a lot bigger than mine during his years on the force. In other words, I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Chill,” he said, holding me until I released the inside-out sleeve. “Just calm down, okay? Look, I’m sorry, it’s just that . . .” He hesitated, seemingly at a loss.
“It’s just that what? By the way, grab me again and you’ll get the business end of this shrimp fork. Jesus, Eddie, I don’t get it. You’ve known me almost ten years. How could you believe that kind of shit about me?”
He sat back, brow lined with a confused frown. “I wouldn’t have, if the ones I heard it from weren’t guys I consider reliable.”
“In other words, brother cops? Who?” I demanded. “The law says I’m entitled to confront my accusers. I may just shoot them while I’m at it.”
Eddie waved me off. “No reason you’d know them. But they know Duck—”
“As does eighty percent of the population of the District,” I interrupted.
“Yeah, but these guys were at Jensen’s wedding where you and Duck were toasted as the next in line to get hitched. You caught the bouquet. There was plenty of time for them to lock onto your face and remember you as the Duck’s lady, know what I mean?”
“So?”
“They’ve been undercover at the Shaker for a couple of weeks, setting up a sting. Evidently hookers aren’t the only thing on the menu there. And seeing you—” I scowled, and he held up a hand. “Sorry. Seeing someone they thought was you . . . And not that they thought you were on the market, but it’s not the kind of scene they’d expect Duck’s intended to be in. So they passed the info along to me on the Q.T. They like Duck, knew we were best buddies and that I’d know how to handle it.”
“God,” I snarled, “I’d forgotten what pure bliss it is being a member of the good ol’ boys’ club.”
He squirmed, which I, not feeling particularly charitable, enjoyed immensely. “Look, Leigh, I said I’m sorry. I’ll get back with those guys, make sure they know it wasn’t you. I admit, it didn’t feel right. But I got to thinking about how long my boy has been absolutely nuts about you, and every time I turned around, the wedding was being postponed. I didn’t want him to get hurt.”
“Better me than him, huh?”
He took a breath, then nodded. “Yeah. If those guys were wrong, better you than him.”
“And especially, especially,” I repeated for emphasis, “if they were right. Well, I must say you sure as hell know how to ruin a girl’s appetite.”
I sat and stewed for a minute, reminding myself that I might have known Duck for nine years, but Eddie had known him going on twenty. They’d grown up together, had gone to the same D.C. schools and college, had gone through the Academy together. They were as close as brothers. So as hot as I was, I couldn’t fault Eddie. He loved Duck, had proved it more than once, and had just done it again.
“Okay. Everybody makes mistakes,” I said, “but don’t think I’m gonna forget this.”
He smiled, his first. “In other words, I owe you. Tell you what, I’ll pay for lunch.”
“Got news for you, buddy. You were going to pay for it anyhow. I’m unemployed, remember? Now, let’s eat. The wedding outfit can wait, but if I leave here soon enough, I might be able to get to the travel agent’s to pick up our tickets to Hawaii. So. How’s the new baby?” A change of subject might get us back on a more familiar footing.
We settled into a far more comfortable rhythm as he brought me up to date on the chaos surrounding the arrival of his fifth child, since his wife went into labor at Tyson’s Corner, a monster shopping mall in Northern Virginia. But the hurt still simmered as I demolished my seafood, plus dessert, the first I’d had in weeks to ensure that I’d fit into the two-piece peau de soie waiting to be picked up at the Bridal Bower. Somehow we made it through the whole meal without the Silver Shaker coming up again.
But I had to wonder who this look-alike might be. Another relative? I’d already met one who could pass for my sister, but knew she’d been at a conference for librarians in Atlanta last weekend. Besides, the Silver Shaker just wasn’t her kind of scene. Still, there was a host of distant cousins I had yet to meet. The possibility that one of them might look like me and be a slut to boot did not fill me with familial warmth.
Eddie eyed me curiously as he pressed the remaining crumbs of his German chocolate cake onto his fork. “You’ve been kinda twitchy ever since you sat down. Got an itch between your shoulder blades or something?”
“Think it’s the label in the neck of this sweater,” I said. “I keep forgetting to cut it off.” Then it occurred to me that I’d been bothered by an itch back there for some time.
Leaning sideways, I peered out, scanning the other diners. The office party was just breaking up, more than a few of them none too steady on their feet as they made their way to the door. Most of the other tables were now empty, the remaining few representing the last gasp of the lunch hour. No one met my gaze or paid the slightest attention to me. Yet the itch persisted. There was no mistake. I felt watched, threatened.
Suddenly, I couldn’t sit still a minute longer. I had to get out of here. “Thanks for lunch, Eddie, but I’ve got to pick up those tickets before it gets too late.”
He signaled for the waiter and paid the tab, then leaned in to me and grabbed my hand. “Leigh, are we okay? Seriously. We still friends?”
“Don’t be dumb,” I said, surprised that he had to ask. “Of course we are. If you’d gone to Duck first, it would be a different story. But you didn’t, and I appreciate it. So let’s forget it, okay?”
He draped an arm around my shoulder as we left, perhaps to prove to himself that we were still buddies, and we parted outside the restaurant. I watched him as he headed for his car with a confident stride. He was probably the most diminutive cop on the police force, but with none of the small-man swagger and bravado. He was loyal to a fault, I’d give him that, and was damned glad he was Duck’s best friend.
Out on the street, Mother Nature had changed her mind about the snow and, apparently, about winter altogether. In the time it had taken us to eat, the temperature had jumped a good ten degrees, almost too warm for my heavy coat. It had also turned into too pleasant a day to go the three long blocks to my car when the travel agency was perhaps a ten-minute stroll in the opposite direction, the Bridal Bower a couple of blocks beyond that. By the time I got the car off the lot and maneuvered the one-way streets driving, I could probably be in and out of Margie’s with the tickets in my pocket. And my bum knee, which could sometimes make a trek of any distance feel like a marathon, had been quiet all week. I unbuttoned the coat, decision made. I’d hoof it and eliminate two things off my to- do list.
I headed northwest on Connecticut, setting off at a comfortable pace, which was just as well. Speed walking would be out of the question. Christmas shoppers were out in full force but seemed to be in no hurry to get wherever they were going. I checked my watch, convinced myself I could still make it with time to spare, and relaxed.
I was waiting for the “Walk” signal at Rhode Island Avenue when I felt that annoying prickle at the nape of my neck again. Tightening my hold on my purse, I glanced at the people nearest me. In front of me a pair of teens in school uniforms erupted into squeals about some boy too gorgeous to live. To my left an elderly couple, arms linked, chatted in a language I couldn’t identify if you’d paid me. On my right a mother tried to explain the concept of gift giving to a toddler clearly defiant about sharing whatever he carried in his small shopping bag. I couldn’t figure out what had set off my internal alarm.
The light changed, and I hurried across ahead of ever
yone else, feeling a little foolish. But the prickle wouldn’t go away. Was I being tailed? I needed a window, one clear enough to check the reflection of those around me without being obvious about it.
I passed a restaurant, its diners too snug up against the glass for my comfort, and finally settled on a dress shop with a solitary headless mannequin, its gown a-glitter with sequins and not a price tag in sight. I took census as the uniformed teens, the elderly couple, and the young woman towing the toddler went past me. I hadn’t locked onto the others behind them quite as well, but they all kept going with no sign they had even noticed me. Of more importance, they neither hesitated, went into any of the businesses in the next block, nor stopped to gaze in any windows to wait for me. If it was someone on the other side of the street, I’d never be able to pinpoint them. The walkways were simply too crowded.
Checking the direction from which I’d come probably wasted another couple of minutes. One lone female at the corner dropped a package and smiled in gratitude when a middle-aged gentleman picked it up for her. She crossed when the light changed and turned left onto the side street. He strode past me without a glance. Then came an elderly man pushing a baby carriage full of socks and pantyhose. Weird but not my business and nothing to worry about. Everyone else kept going as well.
Suddenly I was completely alone on this block and felt as if I were in the cross-hairs of a rifle. It was crazy, irrational. But I couldn’t ignore it any longer. The tickets at the travel agency and the wedding outfit would have to wait. I turned and practically sprinted back the way I’d come. I was thoroughly spooked. But why?
2
BY THE TIME I FOUND A PARKING SPACE around the corner from my apartment building, I’d almost talked myself into believing that my uneasiness had to be related to this latest change in the wedding plans. Duck might not agree to it. He was becoming fed up with the delays and had said more than once, “Much more of this and we’re eloping, babe.” I’d call him first thing. Well, second, after I’d gotten rid of the boots. My feet were killing me.
I found a parking space on the side street and on my way to my building kept an eye out for the Reverend Mrs. Hansberry, a recent fixture on our corners. A pail dangling from her arm, she was collecting for presents for needy children in her neighborhood. Pure unadulterated guilt at having more than enough to keep body and soul together had kept me dropping loose change in the pail whenever I saw her. Relieved that she was nowhere in sight, I jogged to the door of my apartment building and lost no time crossing the lobby.
Our Christmas tree was up, being decorated by the residents’ special events committee and their extended families, from the looks of it. I was in no mood to help. I smiled, waved, and thanked heaven I wouldn’t have to wait on the elevator. It opened immediately.
I stepped off on the fifth floor to be greeted by the sight of a denim-clad rear end: Cholly, our apartment maintenance man, on his hands and knees in front of the door of the apartment I’d vacated some weeks ago, his backside twitching from side to side as he scrubbed a square foot of carpeting. He and his wife, Neva, our building manager, and now the proud residents of 502, had had no qualms about taking ownership after I’d jumped ship. In the first place, Neva, of Amazonian proportions, was great with child, and their former first-floor apartment had only one bedroom. The room I’d used as a den would be perfect for the new baby. In the second place, it would take more than the memory of the corpse I’d found in my kitchen to spook Neva.
“Hell, I didn’t know him,” she said. “Had no business being in here anyways. The nerve, using our—I mean, your—kitchen to light up marijuana like he was in his own personal smoking lounge or something. Glad it did him in.” She was still in a snit over the fact that he had managed to sneak into the building without her seeing him.
Her first-floor unit had been ideal for keeping an eye on the front door and lobby, and for the most part she’d been a gatekeeper extraordinaire. It was the only thing she regretted about moving; she couldn’t monitor the comings and goings from up here. Word was she was pestering the management company for a closed-circuit camera outside the front entrance and a monitor to be installed in their new apartment. It would never happen, but I had to give her credit for trying.
Cholly, peering back over his shoulder at me, sat on his haunches and scowled. “Hey, Miz Warren. Sometimes I think I oughta go into the carpet cleaning business.”
Someone’s dog, no doubt with encouragement, had left a deposit at his door a couple of weeks before. Neva, unable to see her feet and anything else under her protruding midsection, had come out of the apartment and stepped four-square in the pile, leaving it well and truly ground into the nap of the carpet. The odor had been an intermittent problem ever since. And as there were at least nine tenants among the dog-walking set, Cholly had more than a few suspects to choose from.
“Any luck finding the miscreant?” I asked him.
A full set of wrinkles furrowed his brow, denoting confusion. “Miscreant? Never heard of that breed. Besides, most of the dogs in this building are mutts, ’cept for Miz Grady’s Shih Tzu. Good name for that little bugger. Couldn’t have been him, though. Miz Grady gave him to her daughter way before Halloween. But this here ain’t—”
Neva chose that moment to open the door, probably to find out who her husband was talking to. Cholly was no prize but he was her prize, and she watched him like a hawk. Truly an odd couple, Neva hovered around the six-foot mark and flirted with three hundred pounds, fifty more than her nonpregnant state, and Cholly, short and squat, resembled a walnut-hued Danny DeVito with a perpetually puzzled expression. I shuddered to think what their baby would look like.
“Hey, Miz Warren,” Neva greeted me. Then, glaring down at him, she propped her fists on her hips and sniffed audibly. “I can still smell it. Told you that cheap cleaning stuff was no good. Swear to God, if I ever find out who did this . . .”
“Cholly,” I said, “whatever you’re using, it’s made things worse. The odor’s stronger now than when I left this morning.”
“That’s ’cause it’s fresh,” Neva said, scowling. “Somebody did it again, only this time it’s cat shit. And this time Cholly stepped in it, not me.”
“In my new Nikes, too,” he grumbled. “Probably ruined ’em.”
“Cat?” That made no sense. The only cat in the building was a memory, a sweet eighteen-year-old tabby who’d been put to sleep during the summer. “Did Bill get a new one?”
“No. He ain’t got over putting down Whiskers yet.” Neva patted her stomach absentmindedly. “Somebody did this on purpose. Can you imagine? Raiding a litter box and leaving it here just to be mean. That’s another reason we need one of them closed-circuit cameras. We gotta nip this in the bud.”
“Bud, my foot.” Cholly stood up. “This here done bloomed and died. I’d figure one of Miz Harley’s grandkids did it, ’cept they’re allergic to cats. Dogs too. Can’t think of anybody else ornery enough to pull something like this twice.”
To be honest, I couldn’t either. Granted, Cholly and Neva, as representatives of management and sticklers for the rules when it suited them, could be a pain in the rear on occasion, but they took their positions seriously and looked after the property as if it was their own. Neva especially knew her business along with everyone else’s, a fact some tenants found annoying. I wondered if perhaps she might have poked her nose too far into someone’s affairs, because this latest trick was an especially nasty one. Exposure to cat feces could put her pregnancy at risk if she came into direct contact with it. I wasn’t sure she knew it.
“Well, that’s that then,” she said, arms akimbo again. “Management ain’t gonna like it, but we gotta get the whole carpet replaced.”
“The sooner the better,” I said. “Until they do, put our welcome mat over it. It won’t help the smell, but it’s better than nothing. You didn’t handle the stuff yourself, did you, Neva?”
“And risk getting that there toxoplasmosis?” she asked,
surprising me. “No way. In fact, maybe I ought to wear one of those mask things until we get the new carpeting. And the welcome mat’s a good idea. You sure Miz Holloway won’t mind?”
“Positive,” I said, making a mental note to buy one to replace Janeece’s, since it was her property I was being so generous with. I nudged it across to Cholly, who positioned it in front of their door.
“Looks nice,” he pronounced. “Thanks, Miz Warren. By the way, we signed for a couple of deliveries for you.”
“Sure did.” Neva hurried back into the apartment and returned with two large boxes. “Must be wedding presents. One from Bloomingdale’s. Don’t know about the other. They ain’t heavy, just bulky,” she said, placing them in my arms. “Got mail for you too.” She disappeared and came back with several envelopes and my Essence magazine.
Since my hands were full, she tucked them under my arm, then prodded the sole of her husband’s shoe with a wide, bunny-slippered toe. “Get on in here. I need a back rub before you go caulk the tub in two-ten.”
Cholly brightened. Clearly either rubbing or caulking was a chore he enjoyed. “Thanks for letting us use this mat, Miz Warren. Uh, gotta go.” He tipped the brim of his Pep Boys cap and backed into the apartment with a sheepish grin. I heard Neva giggle and suppressed a surge of envy as he shut the door.
The realization stunned me. Envy? Of Cholly and Neva, for God’s sake? The intensity of it not only rattled me, it showed me what bad shape I was in.
I unlocked the door of 503, kicked it shut behind me, and collapsed onto the futon, letting the boxes, mail, and my purse land wherever they happened to. Still swaddled in my coat, I pried my boots off and reached for the phone to call Duck, then hesitated. I had to work my way through an explanation for what I’d experienced out in the hall.
For a second or two back there, I’d have changed places with Cholly and Neva, make what they had mine. Not that I wanted the apartment back; the corpse in the kitchen had soured the place for me in more ways than one. And I didn’t particularly envy them the impending birth of their baby. Granted, Duck and I wanted children, and my biological clock seemed to tick louder every month, but we both knew we’d need some time to get used to being mister and missus before taking that big step. What I coveted was Cholly and Neva’s stability, their permanence. They were man and wife, their relationship set in concrete, to all appearances happy despite their constant squabbling. They had jobs they loved. And a home.
