“What time did Tamora pick her up from your place?”
“About ten. Ten fifteen. Like always.”
“So, the time all this took place was the same? No deviations?”
A slight hesitation. “That’s what I said.”
“The store is across the street. Why didn’t she pick up the milk before she retrieved the child?”
Maxine shifted her weight. “I don’t know. You gotta ask her.”
“Who did she leave the child with when she went to the store?”
“Not me. That’s for sure.”
“She left the little one alone?”
Maxine studied the mug of cold coffee. “I . . . suppose so.”
“Did she do that often?”
Maxine set the cup down, folded her arms across her chest, and didn’t answer.
Jonelle waited. So did Maxine, with lips pressed tight.
“Going back to the boyfriend,” Jonelle said, breaking the silence first. “Do you know who he is?”
“Of course.”
Of course? “What’s his name?”
“Jelani. Jelani Hill.”
“How well do you know him?”
Maxine sat back against the sofa cushions. “About as well as everybody else that lives here. He works maintenance,” she spit out the word, “if you can call it that, in this building.”
Jonelle’s mouth gaped open. “You mean the young man I’ve seen around here? He and Tamora are dating?”
A satisfied look crossed Maxine’s face. “Suppose so.”
“How long have they been together?” Wait until she saw him again. Jonelle hated when people lied to her.
“Don’t know for sure. Wasn’t too long after she got rid of that other one though.” Maxine’s eyes studied a spot on the ceiling. “Maybe two, three months. Something like that.”
Jonelle wrote the name Jelani Hill on her notepad, underlining it three times. “Do you know the name of the boyfriend before Jelani?”
Maxine straightened her shift before answering. “Only know his first name. Reggie.”
“That short for Reginald?”
Maxine glared at Jonelle as though she’d sprouted another nose.
“Never mind. What about the biological father? I understand he called the cops.” That information was in Langford’s notes, but she wanted to know how much of Tamora’s private life Maxine was privy to.
“Sure do. Sometimes he’d stop by my place and pick up Lark if . . . well, if Tamora was going out on a date. Or something. His name’s Vaughn. Vaughn Hanson. Nice young man. Got a good job and everything.” Maxine picked up the pastry and nibbled. “Don’t know why these girls don’t stick with a sure thing these days,” she said, crumbs falling onto her shift.
Jonelle fought the urge to hand the woman a napkin. “Did you ever hear any arguing coming from her apartment? Not only the night the child was abducted but any night? Did you see or hear any fighting?”
Maxine regarded Jonelle again. “You mean from Vaughn? Nope.”
“What about Jelani Hill?”
“No. Guy might be dumb as dirt, but he ain’t violent. Least not that I know of. The only thing . . .” The arrogance displayed seconds ago was replaced by worry lines across her dark face.
“What else? Something bothers you about the relationship.” Jonelle tried to keep the eagerness out of her voice.
As if noticing bits of pastry for the first time, Maxine brushed crumbs off of her dress. “Some of the kids don’t like him.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “He stares at ’em a little too long, tells raunchy jokes. Things like that.”
“Anything else bother you about him?”
The worry lines deepened in Maxine’s face. “That plus the fact Tamora had him look after Lark a few times when I ’specially asked her not to.”
CHAPTER 6
She finally stopped crying for her mother. I calmed her a little by telling her that her mama got an important new job and had to go on a trip for a little while. We played her favorite games, and I promised to buy her a book about butterflies and try to find some butterfly toys. Butterflies are her favorite. I told her she’d talk to her mommy soon, although I have no idea if that’s true or not.
She kept running to the window, looking for her mommy. I told her for the millionth time that her mommy had to go out of town and that she missed her and would see her soon. That promise, along with the mind-numbing sameness of playing with her favorite bunny toy and putting oversized pieces in her butterfly puzzle calmed her down.
I’m getting nervous. I’m tired of watching her around the clock. They warned me not to let her look out the window again. What if someone notices? Damn it all.
Okay, what’s next? So I’ve done what I’m supposed to do to keep her happy. But how long will that last?
It’s a beautiful day today. I wanna go out but they warned me against it. The major news channels haven’t picked up the story, so no pictures. Maybe I’ll risk it and take her to the zoo. She’ll love it . . . what kid doesn’t? Afterwards we’ll go someplace for lunch, and I’ll get her some ice cream. We’ll share. That should put her mind at ease . . . for a while at least. Mine too.
We had a good time at the zoo. But. Is it my imagination or are people giving me strange looks? Does what I’ve done show on my face? In the way I walk? The fact that we don’t look that much alike?
Got a phone call today about some busybody woman going around asking questions. Told to keep my eyes and ears open on that one. Could turn into a problem somebody’ll have to take care of.
Guess I’ll go to the store tomorrow, pick up some frozen dinners and get ice cream.
Chocolate ice cream. That’s her favorite.
CHAPTER 7
Although ticked off Jelani lied to her, before going in search of the maintenance man, Jonelle walked up and down the seventh floor hallway, knocking on doors. Most residents didn’t answer, so she slotted her business card between the door and jamb. She reached out to insert her card in the door of the last apartment when a young African American man with fair skin and scraggly beard opened it. His unfocused eyes either meant she woke him up or his breakfast consisted of something other than cereal. After a few minutes of trying to get him to understand why she was asking about Tamora and her child, in the end all she got was his name—Randy—and all he said was that he hadn’t heard or seen anything, and that maybe she should ask that “nosey old lady down the hall.”
A quick trip down to the sixth floor yielded pretty much the same result. Since she’d run out of business cards, Jonelle boarded the elevator to go in search of the deceitful Jelani. She found him when the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor. His eyes widened in alarm at the sight of her. He stepped back.
Jonelle pressed the “open door” button. “Just the man I’m looking for. Come on in.”
“I got work to do.”
“So do I, but I’m sure we can find the time to chat a little.”
The elevator’s warning buzzer sounded.
“Better come in unless you want to fix this thing as well.”
He slipped in and crammed his thin frame next to the control panel.
“So,” she said. “I’ve been talking to a few of the residents.”
He grunted.
“I heard you and Tamora are dating.” She stared at the side of his face.
“So?”
“So that’s a helluva lot different from what you told me before.”
The doors opened on the main floor, and he hurried out, Jonelle matching him stride for stride.
They passed the manager’s office, and Jonelle noted the closed door. At the end of the hall the red emergency exit sign glowed. He stopped as if confused about what to do next.
He turned and faced her. The concern displayed earlier in his eyes vanished, replaced by a hard stare. He clenched and unclenched his hands. She backed away a few feet.
“Listen,” she said, raising both
hands, palms out as if in surrender. “I’m working for Tamora’s attorney to try and prove her alibi, so it’s beyond me why you won’t cooperate. Don’t you care anything about her or that little girl?”
He paused as if weighing the pros and cons of her question. “I gotta vacuum and everythin’s downstairs,” he said. “We can talk there for a little bit.” Jelani reversed course, took a left at the first opening, and at the end of a short corridor, went through an exit door. His footsteps clanked down metal stairs covered with cracked gray paint. Jonelle followed, skirting several stains of indeterminate origin. When they reached the bottom, Jelani shoved the door and let it swing behind him. Jonelle stopped it from closing with one hand.
They passed an empty laundry room, reverberating with the sound of dryers thunka thunka-ing round and round, the smell of hot air-heated clothes filling the hall. He continued past a closed door marked “Storage” and entered an opening. Inside the cramped space sat a battered metal desk, lopsided chair, and several containers of cleaning solvent. Various tools, mops, brooms, and filthy cloths were strewn haphazardly about. Without saying a word, he grabbed one of two old, dusty industrial-sized vacuum cleaners jammed next to several buckets and hauled it to the middle of the room.
That done, Jelani sat in the chair, which creaked under his slight frame. With no place else to sit, she perched on the edge of the desk. At first glance the young man looked as if a strong wind could blow him over. His clothes hung on him, and not because of the current style. His face, devoid of facial hair, regarded her with suspicion. Closer study revealed arms as sinewy as a tightly coiled rope. A tattoo of a wilted rose, with what looked like petals falling, decorated his right bicep.
“Tell me about your relationship with Tamora.”
He picked up a set of pliers, opening and closing them over and over.
She waited.
“She ignored me at first,” he said, staring at the tool in his hand. “Figured I was the help and didn’t need to pay me no mind. But I kept speakin’ to her every time we met, and she slowly warmed up. Started saying ‘hello’ first, stuff like that.”
“This is a good-sized building. There must be a lot of single women living here. What attracted you to her?”
“She’s real fine for one thing and built better than most. Those tits are . . . uh, never mind. ’Course there’s lotsa good lookin’ ladies, but . . . I dunno. Maybe it’s the way she struts around like she’s gonna be somebody.”
“So the fact she had a kid didn’t bother you?”
“Why should it? Wasn’t mine.”
Odd. So far everyone Jonelle talked to said more about Tamora than expressing concern about Lark.
“She ever tell you about her ambitions?”
“Said she wants to plan parties with her sister.”
Jonelle made a mental note. The woman had goals. “She ever say how she intended on doing that?”
“Nah. But I guess she figures that since she likes to party all the time, that gives her all the experience she needs.”
Uh-oh. “What do you mean by, ‘all the time’?”
Jelani’s eyes traveled up and down Jonelle’s body. “I’m guessing you don’t hang out a lot. That right?”
Her face warmed. “This is about Tamora.”
He chuckled. “Right. We’d go out sometimes. And sometimes she wanted to hang by herself. Said she was doing research.” He snorted.
“Who watched Lark while she partied?”
He hesitated. His tongue rolled over thin lips, a gesture Jonelle found somewhat disgusting. “Um, Miss Maxine I guess. Sometimes she got that snooty sister of hers to babysit the kid.” He fiddled with the pliers again.
“I heard you also watched the child. That true?”
“Who told you that? Never mind. I can guess. What of it?”
“I also heard you said rude things to some of the kids in this building.”
He dropped the pliers on the desk. “I never . . .” He squinted. “You got somethin’ to say, say it.”
She eased off the desk. “Why offer to babysit your girlfriend’s child while she partied without you? Didn’t you feel she was taking advantage?”
Jelani turned his head away from her. “She had a way . . . what I mean is, you knew she was usin’ you, but somehow you didn’t care. Whatever she wanted you to do, you did it. When she asked me to watch Lark, I said okay.” He shrugged. “Kid wasn’t a problem. Stayed pretty quiet. Played with her stuffed bunny, watched those stupid kiddie shows.”
“Did you see Lark the night she was abducted?”
“No!”
“Okay, okay. No need to get upset.”
“Look, lady. I already told the cops all I know. I wasn’t nowhere near that apartment. Plus I got me an alibi.”
“Which is?”
“None of your business.”
Silence stretched for several seconds.
“Tell me this, then. Why do you think Tamora left Lark alone? I mean, if Maxine’s right across the hall and you were willing—”
“Told you I wasn’t there!”
“—to watch her, then why was Lark left by herself?”
“Tamora ain’t perfect, okay?” he said through clenched teeth. “I mean, the kid’s so freakin’ quiet, it’s like she ain’t there half the time. So, if Tamora had to run out for a little while, she, um, left the kid by herself.”
Jonelle’s stomach tightened. “How many people know this?”
“Pretty much everybody who knows her.” He stood. “I’m done talkin’. I got work to do.”
“One more thing. Are you and Tamora still dating?”
His eyes flicked all around the cramped space. “Naw. She told me she and this guy at work hit it off. So . . .”
“Did that bother you?”
“Kinda, at first. But, hey, no biggie.” Jelani maneuvered the vacuum in front of him.
“How long ago did you two split up?”
“’Bout a week or so.” He stomped past Jonelle, leaving her alone among the caretaker’s stuff.
She counted to ten, looked both ways down the hall, and, confident Jelani wasn’t lurking about, proceeded to search the space.
The brown metal desk had two drawers on the right and two on the left. She opened the top right drawer and pored through mounds of paper. “Work Request” forms indicated which apartment needed what repaired, replaced, or installed. She flipped through several, searching for Tamora’s name, and found a few. One request wanted a leaky faucet repaired, another a clogged toilet. Yet another notice demanded the screen on one of the windows be secured as “my child likes to sit next to the window, and I’m afraid she might fall.”
Most of the papers had a large check mark across the top. A quick search of other drawers revealed blank forms, several three-subject notebooks, adult magazines, and a half-eaten box of Krispy Kreme’s.
She peered into the hallway once more then headed to the locker in the far corner. A combination lock hung on the handle. She flipped it against the door a few times and pulled, but it still held. Damn. She fiddled with her handcuff and pistol necklace. Did Jelani lock it because he didn’t want the residents poking through his things, or did he have something to hide?
Voices in the hallway, faint at first, grew louder and then stopped altogether. Jonelle poked her head around the doorframe and found the corridor empty. Figuring most buildings had more than one exit, she left the opposite way. Rotting food and waste assaulted her nostrils when she hurried past the trash room. She turned back.
Apartment buildings this size provided trash chutes on each floor for residents to dispose of their waste. Could a small child fit down a chute? She entered the room and gagged, the stench forcing her back into the hall. After several deep breaths she returned. Breathing through her mouth, she walked up to the chute opening into a large trash bin on wheels, approximately five feet high. Lined against one wall were several empty bins. One full bin stood next to a filthy, narrow corridor. Jonelle rushed
out, grabbed a broom and an empty bucket from the maintenance room, and hurried back.
She turned the empty bucket over and placed it next to the full bin ready to be wheeled outside. Standing on top, she shifted her weight in an attempt to steady the bucket. Using the broom handle, she poked around inside, hunting for something she prayed she wouldn’t find.
And she didn’t.
With sweat pouring down her face she turned back to the container under the chute. A small four-year-old child could easily fit through the opening, but could the body slide all the way down or would she get stuck? “Wonder how often these things are cleaned?” Her nose answered, not often enough.
With the broom in one hand, Jonelle positioned the bucket next to the half-full bin. She stood on it, jabbing around like a woman possessed, and leaned too far over. The bucket gave way under her, toppling her inside the container.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
She tried to stand but her feet slipped on the garbage bags and uncovered waste. She struggled to get upright, slipped, and fell again and again. Finally she wiped her soiled hands on her skirt, pressed them against the pimply sides of the bin, dug her fingers in the plastic, and, with feet thrashing about for purchase, reached up, grabbed the top, and lifted herself upright. She stood on several garbage bags, and, straining hard, pulled herself up, straddling the top edge. After catching her breath, she dropped down.
Covered in foul looking stains and smelling as though she’d bathed in fish heads, rotten eggs, and soiled diapers, Jonelle entered the hall. At the far end she encountered another exit sign and another set of stairs. She slowly ascended to the main level and peeked through the door.
No sign of anyone.
She hustled toward the lobby, noting the manager’s closed door.
Disgusted and nauseated from the odor radiating from her body, Jonelle used her elbows to push open the entrance doors.
“Hey, detective lady.”
Laser focused on how much she needed cleaning before getting inside her Jeep, Jonelle didn’t notice three figures approaching.
She stopped and allowed the three kids she’d seen earlier to catch up.
“Hey,” said Grayson. “You stink.”
Five Minutes Page 4
