If I Should Die

by Grace F. Edwards

  Critical Praise for IF I SHOULD DIE:

  “One of the most outstanding books of this—or any—year. If I Should Die reaches far beyond the typical mystery genre.”

  —Mystery News

  “With style, and her wise and elegant sleuth, Grace Edwards captures the mood and bittersweet flavor of contemporary Harlem.”

  —Valerie Wilson Wesley, author of Where Evil Sleeps

  “A working-class neighborhood in Harlem is brought vividly to life in Edwards’ hard-hitting second novel … a vibrant, varied backdrop for this gritty tale and its sharp-edged, appealing heroine.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A gripping, raw, and suspenseful introduction to a resourceful heroine and the world she lives in.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Edwards’ warm and companionable narrative voice … is a welcome addition to a genre where voice counts for a lot.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Vibrant … A sharp-edged yet appealing heroine ornaments a gripping tale.”

  —Booknews from The Poisoned Pen

  “[Grace Edwards] does have the knack, that insidious ability to keep you turning pages in spite of yourself.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “A worthy black heroine and a captivating storyline … Charming.”

  —Washington City Paper

  Also by Grace Edwards

  In the Shadow of the Peacock

  If I Should Die

  A Toast Before Dying

  No Time to Die

  This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

  IF I SHOULD DIE

  A Bantam Book / Published by arrangement with Doubleday

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Doubleday hardcover edition published May 1997

  Bantam paperback edition / March 1998

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1997 by Grace F. Edwards.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-50229.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Doubleday.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-77903-8

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  To Perri Edwards

  and the members of the

  Harlem Writers Guild

  acknowledgments

  Special thanks to William H. Banks, Jr., the director of the Harlem Writers Guild, as well as the workshop participants. I thank Donis Ford for her long-distance patience and expertise. And Earl Hunt, Allen Judge, John Harris, M.D., Theodora DuBuisson Lopez, Walter Dean Myers, William Ponder, and Clarinda Wilkins and Martin Brown for their much-needed assistance.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  About the Author

  chapter one

  Wait a minute, Ruffin. Owners have some rights too, you know, so be patient …”

  The dog was in danger of breaking my wrist so I untangled the leash and moved away from the stoop and toward the curb. The sky was slate gray for April—not my favorite color—and the temperature could have used a little juicing up also. Just a few minutes outdoors and already my feet felt as if I had stepped in a bucket of ice.

  … Maybe I just oughtta walk the dog and go back in the house. Let that boy come home in the rain without his jacket. That would teach him a lesson, but then, I’d probably be up all night nursing his cough.

  … Just like an eleven-year-old, never wants to hear anything that resembles advice. Told him the weather wasn’t going to warm up anytime soon but did he listen? Now I had to call him at rehearsal to wait there until I bring his coat.

  … Well, I get a chance to walk the dog again, or trot beside him if he decides to slow down. Sometimes I can’t figure out who’s walking whom …

  … I shouldn’t complain. Alvin’s adjusted to the group. He likes the singing, and the nightmares are not nearly as bad as they used to be …

  I lingered for a minute and gazed down the block, a row of three- and four-story brownstones with iron filigree balconies and narrow, French-curtained windows. They called it Strivers Row because of the black professionals who owned property on the block.

  I was born here thirty-one years ago, and as far as I could remember, the houses had remained unchanged through the years. Now the gray and brown facades took on a silken sheen from the mist that hung in the air.

  The branches of the trees were still bare, but several gardens showed signs of life. From Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard to Frederick Douglass Boulevard, behind old iron railings layers of forsythia, shaped into rounded hedges, had bloomed into brilliant yellow almost overnight.

  They looked warm and inviting and hinted at spring but I was still cold. I pulled my hat down and jacket collar up and steered Ruffin toward Powell Boulevard, listening to the light tip-tip of his paws on the wet pavement. The delicate sound was deceptive for a Great Dane.

  The rain had driven all but a few hardy souls from the street, which was fine. It was Saturday afternoon and the wet weather meant fewer children to watch out for and Ruffin wouldn’t have to be reined in quite so tightly.

  On the avenue, we passed the old Renaissance Casino dance hall near 138th Street, which had been boarded up for years. Under its weather-worn marquee, the long-haulers who regularly drove up from Georgia and South Carolina were already set up and selling their produce despite the rain. We usually bought smoked hams, pig tails, collards, yams, and jars of honey here, and in another month or so, we’d buy string beans, corn, and watermelon fresher and cheaper than the local stores but, still, it was depressing to look at the faded marquee overhead.

  Lately, I had begun to feel differently. When David Dinkins and Charles Rangel arranged to have Abyssinian Baptist Church buy the hall, my depression lifted. “That grand old ballroom will be renovated, it’s going to reopen,” I said. “Harlem’s coming back.”

  My father had raised one eyebrow and smiled. “My dear gi
rl, Harlem never left. It can go through a million changes and never change. Harlem,” he said, “is a state of mind, an essence. It’s not defined by one building. Of course it helps to see that place open and functioning again, and I tip my hat to those guys who tapped the mortgage, but they gotta get the deed in the hands; gotta get title to the place.”

  “What if they don’t?”

  “Well if a general loses a fort doesn’t mean he’s lost the war. It means he has to revise his battle plans.”

  Listening to him was like opening a history book, only better sometimes. “You’re just kids,” he used to say to my sister and me, “but I’m gonna show you anyway so you’ll know where all the old neighborhood dance halls, nightclubs, and after-hours spots used to be. And why everybody, not just from downtown, but from around the world, wanted to visit at least once. This is history, and since you’re Harlem babies, I want you to know it.”

  And he had walked us, two little girls, into the past, pointing out the Club Baby Grand on 125th Street where Willie and Ray, the deejays, had broadcast their rhythm and blues; the old Cotton Club, where the black chorus girls couldn’t be any darker than the cream in the white gangster-owner’s coffee. The Savoy, “Home of Happy Feet”; Minton’s Playhouse, the serious jazz hangout. And Jock’s Place, Smalls’ Paradise, and the Red Rooster. That was just for starters.

  My father, Jeffrey Anderson, teaches music. When he was younger, he had spent weekends rolling his bass fiddle from one club to another and then into one of the after-hours spots to greet the dawn.

  He had jammed with the best jazz men in town, out of town, and those just passing through town, and spoke of the politicians and movie stars he had met in the clubs: George Raft had once lit his cigarette with a solid gold lighter. Adam Clayton Powell, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Willie Mays had shaken his hand. He had small-talked with big-time gangsters and had been tipped a whole week’s salary by a numbers baron just for a solo. And more times than he cared to think about, he had gotten out of a joint just minutes before it was raided by the cops.

  “Folks scramblin’ for the door like they was rushin’ off the Titanic,” he said. “Those were hot places and some hot times, man.”

  Those times and all of those places gone, but somebody said that was progress. My sister is also gone—dead two years—and I wonder who else could point out the exact spot on Lenox Avenue where the Golden Gate Ballroom and the Savoy and the Club Sudan once stood. Dad misses those old times, but he still has his students, more than he can make time for. And I have Alvin, my sister’s son, and am showing him these places, the same way Dad showed me.

  Ruffin continued to pull on the leash, as if he knew exactly where we were going.

  … I’m glad I called that boy to let him know we’re coming. Especially today. Sometimes he takes a different route even though I tell him not to …

  I cut through 138th Street, a block much like my own with old brownstones, small front gardens, and bare-limbed trees lining the curb. The street was deserted now because of the rain.

  Midway into the block, I saw Ruffin’s ears perk up. Then I heard the commotion. A car had halted several yards away and a struggle was taking place near the car’s rear door. The cries, high-pitched and frightened, moved through the driving rain.

  “Lemme go! Naw! Lemme … go!”

  Instinct, a dangerous and sometimes necessary thing, took hold, and before I knew it, I was running forward, forgetting I was no longer on the force, no longer carrying a weapon, and had only Ruffin trotting beside me.

  Through the downpour, the cries came at me. Desperate. This was not the crying of a stubborn child, but a terrified one.

  Habit got the better hand and I opened my mouth.

  “Police! Don’t move!” My voice seemed to float somewhere outside of me. I hadn’t shouted those words in two years, but to hell with that now. I yelled again and unclipped Ruffin’s leash from his collar, tapped him on his side, and yelled once more.

  “Get ’im, Ruffin!” hoping that whoever was trying to harm that kid would appreciate the size of a Great Dane and have sense enough to get away from the scene while he still had legs.

  Ruffin’s bark should have been enough. He looked like a young colt as he leaped away, covering the distance to the car in less than a second.

  I heard a muffled shout and a light pinging sound. A hand shoved the child away from the car and the door slammed shut. The automobile, a black, late-model Cadillac, accelerated and turned screeching onto Seventh Avenue.

  I caught sight of “HO” on the plate before it disappeared in the rain.

  The child, ten or eleven years old, sat sprawled on the curb in a daze, his hand bleeding and his jeans and jacket rain-soaked. Ruffin paced the ground beside him, quiet now, then trotted over to the middle of the street where a man lay, motionless.

  I knelt beside the man, took a closer look, and pressed my hands to my mouth. My friend Erskin Harding, the tour director of the Uptown Children’s Chorus, lay in the rain-soaked street, his eyes wide, seeing nothing.

  chapter two

  Yellow tape cordoned off the scene, and the uniformed officers kept the crowd back. The detectives sent someone to get the child’s mother while the EMS workers examined the boy and bandaged his hand.

  I remained near the yellow tape, watching the forensic unit snap several rolls of film. I held tightly to Ruffin’s collar, concentrating on the photographer because that was easier than trying to absorb the reality of the body lying there in the street.

  Erskin was in his early thirties, perhaps even younger. And handsome. He had long curling lashes and a trace of mustache and I remembered his smile, especially after a concert when the applause was still ringing in his ears. His shirt and tie, pale gray, were spoiled now by the bloodstains. I looked at his loafers—one still on and the other about ten feet away near the curb—and idly wondered why a shoe always came off when the spirit leaves.

  When the car had sped away, it looked as if it had been a hit-and-run. But then, when I had knelt down and pressed lightly under Erskin’s throat, the pulse was no longer there and I saw the small round hole over his left eyebrow, neat and effective.

  When I had finally found my voice, it brought out neighbors from both ends of the block.

  I remained near the tape, feeling the crowd move around in a ritual of activity. The detectives looked busy and the uniformed cops looked anxious, though the crowd was still small. The rain was coming down hard one minute, then slacked off, as if a giant hand had discovered a faucet and couldn’t decide what to do with it. My jacket was soaked through and droplets were easing under my collar. It was time to leave. Just then I felt, rather than saw, someone approach, and turned to face my old nemesis from the precinct.

  “Mali, I understand you were—”

  “Miss Anderson, sir.”

  I stared hard into the blue eyes of Sergeant Cotter as I corrected him, letting him know that I was no longer under his command and I was still not taking any foolishness from him or anyone else. A pinkish color flared above his collar as if the air had suddenly been cut off and I knew, word for word, what he was calling me under his breath.

  Words that would remain unspoken because the weight of one lawsuit against the NYPD was heavy enough.

  I was exactly his height, five feet nine, and did not have to look up or down, but directly at him, staring straight into his eyes, knowing that most people found it easier, after a minute or so, to look away from me. Folks sometimes had trouble matching pale gray eyes with dark brown skin.

  When I was growing up, older folks frowned and came right to the point: “Where you get them eyes, girl?”

  I was well mannered then and held my tongue. Now I say, “Got ’em from the same place you got yours.” And my eyes are more prominent since having my hair cut close, finally giving up what Dad had tactfully called my “Angela Davis do.”

  At fifteen, caught up in the remembered rapture of Huey, Rap Brown, and Eldridge, I had taken
Angela as my heroine and my father had stared in amazement at my sky-high afro.

  “Where are you going with all that hair?”

  “To join the movement …”

  Mom had moved to lock the door and Dad called our neighbor, a practicing psychiatrist. Luckily, he was available and agreed to see me in exchange for music lessons for his twin sons.

  “Two lessons for one session?” my father had protested.

  “Mali is a difficult case,” Dr. Thomas had said.

  Some say I’m still difficult and I still wear my hair in its natural state—allowing no wigs, weaves, or waves—but now it’s cut so close that Dad says he can read my thoughts.

  With less hair to frame the face, the eyes were … well, to be frank, sometimes I scared myself. Especially on a morning when I’d woken up hung over and staggered to the bathroom unprepared for the sight in the mirror.

  I continued to stare at Sergeant Cotter, waiting for him to speak.

  “Look,” he said, averting his eyes and sidestepping the issue of Miss, Mrs., or Ms. by not calling my name at all, “I understand you were on the scene when this occurred.”

  “No.”

  Silence. If he wanted more information, he would have to pull it out of me, syllable by syllable.

  “But you witnessed the incident?”

  “Which incident, sir?”

  “Was there more than one? We have a body here with a bullet in it. I have no time for games.”

  “Neither have I. I wasn’t sure which incident you were referring to—the murder of that man or the attempted kidnap of the child.”

  I hadn’t meant to refer to Erskin as “that man” but the anger I felt toward Cotter—an old and corrosive anger—outweighed my grief. He had protected the cop who had gotten me fired. What little information I now had would go to the detectives eventually assigned to the case, not to this man.

  Cotter stared and his expression told me that he could have wrung my neck and would have smiled as I gasped my last breath.

  I turned away from him and saw that more people were gathering despite the rain. Umbrellas grazed against each other and I tried to listen, hoping to hear a reason for another senseless death. Instead, the predictable comments drifted back and forth: