Too Black for Heaven

by Keene, Day

  Sheriff Early finished his phone conversation, made a few notes on the pad in front of him and looked back at Dona. “Is your story still the same, Miss Santos?”

  “It is.”

  “You didn’t kill Blair Sterling?”

  “No.”

  “You realize your story doesn’t jibe with the statement made by Sterling just before he died?”

  “So you told me during the preliminary interrogation.”

  County Attorney Yarnell rested one thigh on the desk. “You seem familiar with police terminology, Miss Santos.”

  Dona looked up at him. “I was engaged to a lieutenant of detectives in Chicago.”

  “Were engaged?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why did you break your engagement?”

  Dona brushed a wisp of hair that was bothering her away from her forehead. Her cheeks felt feverish. “I don’t see how that concerns this incident.”

  Sheriff Early said, “A good many things concern a homicide, Miss Santos.” He motioned to a deputy holding a clipboard. “Read Sterling’s statement to Miss Santos, Tom.”

  The deputy cleared his throat. “All of it?”

  “Just that part about the actual shooting.”

  The deputy cleared his throat again and read the paper on his clipboard. ‘After bein’ intimate with her in the cottage, with her consent and active cooperation, instead of agreein’ to accept the fee of fifty dollars, the girl who calls herself Dona Santos demanded that I give her five hundred dollars or she would go to the sheriff’s office and claim I raped her.’”

  “That’s a lie,” Dona cried.

  “Please, Miss Santos,” Sheriff Early said.

  The deputy continued, “‘Naturally, I refused. On my refusal, she became very angry an’ dressed an’ walked out to her car, claimin’ she was goin’ to make trouble fo’ me. I dressed and followed her tryin’ to persuade her from makin’ a fool of herself. We stood beside her car, arguin’ fo’ some time. Then I lost my temper an’ told her to do whatever she damn pleased an’ started back toward the cottage. As I did, I heard three pistol reports an’ felt a sharp pain in my back. I turned and saw her holdin’ a revolver she’d taken from her bag.’” The deputy looked up from the clipboard. “You want me to go on, sheriff?”

  “That’s enough for now,” Early said. “Did Mr. Sterling seem delirious when he dictated this statement?”

  The deputy shook his head. “No, sir. He did not. He was in considerable pain but I’d say his mind was clear.”

  Sheriff Early looked back at Dona. “Would you care to change your story, Miss Santos?”

  Dona sat with her hands clenched in her lap. The smoke-choked room faded out and she was back in frenzied mental flight. Even dying, Blair Sterling had remained in character. He had lied deliberately, maliciously, undoubtedly amused.

  If she claimed him for her father and attempted to prove he had tried to force unnatural relations on her, even if they thought she’d shot him, the coroner’s jury would acquit her. But in saving herself she would bring about the one thing she was trying to avoid. “No, I would not. The statement as read to me is a he.”

  “Why should he say ‘the girl who calls herself Dona Santos?’”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Sheriff Early sighed. “Okay. For the record. And you take this down, Tom.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you state your name, Miss?”

  “Dona Santos.”

  “Where is your permanent home?”

  “In Chicago.”

  “State the address.”

  “Five-forty-six Lake Shore Drive.”

  “How long have you been in Blairville?”

  Dona counted on her fingers. “This is the fourth night.”

  “When did you first meet Blair Sterling?”

  “The afternoon after the night I arrived.”

  “Where?”

  “At his house.”

  “Why did you go there?”

  “To ask the rental price of the cottage on Loon Lake.”

  “You just picked the Sterling cottage at random?”

  “No. A Judge Harris had a colored boy named Beau Jackson show me several places. Two of them were on the river, and the one on Loon Lake.”

  “You’d met Blair Sterling before?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Still, you were intimate with him that same night for a fee of fifty dollars?”

  “No, sir. I was never intimate with him.”

  “That doesn’t jibe with the forepart of Sterling’s statement. He told my deputies you were the hottest little chippie he’d come across for some time. Pardon me, Miss, those were his words. And he’d been glad to pay you fifty dollars on four separate occasions since your arrival in Blairville.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “You don’t prostitute yourself?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’ve never been arrested on charges of prostitution or soliciting?”

  “No, sir.”

  Sheriff Early took a package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “You don’t need to take this down, Tom. This is off the record.” He offered the package of cigarettes to Dona. “Cigarette?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You don’t smoke?”

  “Yes. I just don’t care for one right now.”

  The sheriff put a cigarette in his mouth and lighted it. “With your permission, Miss Santos. Frankly, I don’t know what to think. I have no wish to embarrass you. I consider myself a fair judge of character and the one time I met you in Chief Simpson’s office, I was quite impressed. On the other hand, a dying man’s statement is not only admissible in a court of law, it’s as good as if he swore it on the Bible. Had Blair Sterling any reason to low-rate your character?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “He wanted me to be intimate with him and I wouldn’t.”

  One of the deputies in the office drawled, “We all know how Blair was that way. He’s been wrestlin’ everythin’ in skirts ever since he found out about girls.”

  Sheriff Early said, sharply, “Watch your language, Eli.”

  “I’m sorry,” the deputy apologized. “I spoke out afore I thought.”

  County Attorney Yarnell took up the questioning. “Dona Santos is your right name?”

  “It is.”

  “And Estrella Santos is your mother?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If I seem to be asking personal questions, I’ve a reason. How much would you say your mother earns in a year?”

  “Last year, with the royalties from her records and a dozen TV guest appearances, she paid taxes on nearly three hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Your mother is generous with you, Miss Santos?”

  “Very generous.”

  “She gave you that expensive Cadillac you drive?”

  “As an engagement present.”

  “This the engagement that was broken?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I suppose you have charge accounts in the stores where you buy your clothes?”

  “I have.”

  “How about pocket money?”

  “I’ve only to ask for any amount I want.”

  “In other words, you’re under no financial compulsion to commercialize your body.” Yarnell was sitting with one hip on Early’s desk. He stood up. “It beats me.”

  Sheriff Early said, “Let’s get back to the record.” He nodded to the man taking the interrogation notes in short hand. “Suppose, Miss Santos, you tell us in your own words just what did happen in the cottage.”

  Dona thought carefully before she spoke. One word could trip her. “Well, during the afternoon, that was yesterday afternoon, I made up my mind to return to Chicago.”

  “Despite the fact that you’d paid a month’s rent on the lake cottage?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What made you change
your mind about staying?”

  “No particular reason. A whim.”

  “Go on.”

  “I returned to the cottage and found Mr. Sterling there.”

  “Inside the cottage?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In what condition?”

  “He’d been drinking heavily.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I asked him to leave. Instead, he became amorous.” Dona stayed as close to the truth as possible. “He said I excited him.”

  “He offered you money to stay with him?”

  “No.”

  “Go on.”

  “I was frightened so I walked out to my car.”

  “Leaving your packed clothes in the cottage?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go on.”

  “But before I could get in my car he caught up with me and became very obnoxious.”

  “In what way?”

  “He kissed me and pawed me, and attempted to take me by force.”

  The deputy who’d spoken before said, “The son-of-a-bitch. An’ I won’t apologize.”

  Early asked, “And then?”

  “Before he could harm me there were three shots and he coughed and released me. He was in bad shape, but he managed to get back into the cottage to call you.”

  “That checks,” another deputy said. “Blair was shot by the car. He bled all the way up the stairs. An’ he was a lyin’ near the phone by the time Tom an’ I got there.”

  Yarnell asked, “Who fired these three shots, Miss Santos?”

  “I don’t know. It was too dark to see.”

  Yarnell was skeptical. “With the gun held less than six inches from Sterling’s back?”

  “I was hysterical and crying. I do remember that the flashes seemed so close I felt I could reach out and touch them. Then whoever it was ran away and I heard or thought I heard a splash in the lake.”

  “You’re positive of this?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “There’s no truth in his signed statement? You didn’t shoot Sterling?”

  “No.”

  “But you were carrying a gun when you came to Blairville. At least you applied, through Jack Ames, for permission to carry one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Isn’t it a bit unusual for a young girl to carry a gun?”

  “I don’t know. I felt I needed it for protection.”

  “From whom?”

  “Anyone who attempted to molest me.”

  “On your trip down here from Chicago and during your stay in Blairville, did anyone but Blair Sterling attempt to molest you?”

  “No, sir.”

  Sheriff Early nodded to a deputy. “Bring that gun over here, Sam.”

  One of the men got up from where he was sitting and laid a thirty-two caliber revolver on Sheriff Early’s desk. The sheriff asked, “Is this your gun, Miss Santos?”

  “It looks like it,” Dona admitted.

  “It’s your gun,” Early said. “The serial number checks with the permit Jack Ames got for you. The first of my boys to set up a portable trouble light spotted it in the water a half-dozen feet from shore.”

  “I told you I heard a splash.”

  “But you didn’t throw it into the lake?”

  “No, sir.”

  “When did you see it last?”

  “This morning.”

  “Where?”

  “It was under my pillow when I left the cottage.”

  “You left the cottage unlocked?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Hattie was cleaning the place.”

  “Hattie who?”

  “I don’t know her last name. She’s one of the maids from the big house.”

  Deputy Sheriff Ransom said, “That would be the youngest Elfers girl. That pretty little high yellow who wears them silver ear bobs. They’s been talk in Pepper Town that she’s been wagglin’ her hips at Blair since she’s been ol’ enough to waggle. Least she’s worked out there ever since.”

  Sheriff Early indicated two of his deputies. “You, Bruce and Gordon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Find the Elfers girl and bring her in. And while we’re at it, Eli, you and Fred pick up Beau Jackson. I can’t see Beau shooting a man in the back but he wasn’t any too happy ‘bout the way Blair treated him in the square yesterday.”

  The four men left the office. Yarnell left with them to reappear in the doorway a moment later to report, “Jack Ames and Kelly of the Courier are outside raising hell. The man on the door wants to know if he should let them in.”

  “How much do they know?” Early asked.

  “Just that Sterling’s been shot and you’re questioning Miss Santos.”

  “Good. Let’s leave it like that for now. Miss Santos is entitled to consult a lawyer. But we’re also entitled to hold her incommunicado until we finish our preliminary investigation. Tell Jack he can see her the first thing in the morning. As for Kelly, until we know just where we stand, the less publicity given this affair the better.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you,” Yarnell said.

  He left the office a second time and Early returned his attention to Dona. “Now I’m not trying to frighten you, Miss Santos. But you understand this is a serious matter, that if the coroner’s jury should choose to disbelieve your story and accept Blair Sterling’s dying statement, the jurors will surely find he came to death at your hands and will recommend that you be indicted. The grand jury will then vote a true bill and you’ll be held without bail right here in the county jail until the Fall term of court, at which time you’ll be charged with and tried for the murder of Blair Sterling.”

  The wisp of hair escaped its pin. Dona tried to repin and couldn’t. The ends of her fingers felt numb. Her forehead was as flushed as her cheeks. “I understand.”

  “Do you wish me to notify your mother?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to change your story?”

  “No.”

  Sheriff Early stood up. “That’s all the questions for tonight, then. Take her back to the detention cell, Ransom. But before you lock her in, have Gleason run a paraffin test on her hands. Then get Doctor Nelson out of bed and tell him to come right down and bring his nurse with him. I want to know if ever and how recently Miss Santos has had relations with a man.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  WHAT WAS left of the night was hot and morning was long in coming. Shortly before daybreak it rained, great iridescent plumes of water that shook themselves against the wire mesh of the window of the cell and formed shallow silver lakes on the courthouse lawn.

  Dona spent most of the night sitting cross-legged on the thin mattress of the bunk bed lighting one cigarette from another until she exhausted the package in her purse. When her cigarettes were gone she just stared into the corridor. Her throat was raw. Her head ached. Her eyes burned in their sockets.

  From time to time the deputy in charge passed down the narrow corridor. During the forepart of the night, every time she heard his footsteps approaching Dona tried to make herself small and invisible, then realized she was being foolish.

  The man had no intention of forcing his attentions on her. Since she’d been in the South no one, except Blair Sterling, had tried to molest her. She’d met with nothing but courtesy and kindness.

  Her fevered mind wound through strange channels. No one knew she was colored. If the worst happened on that score, if there was even a suspicion she was ‘passing,’ she could get Jack Ames to testify that she was white. It wasn’t true. It was an old wives’ tale mumbled over a voodoo pot that a southern white man could tell. And if she hadn’t been trying to test that wives’ tale, Jack Ames would never have happened to her. She would never have taken him into her bed. Jack knew where she was and had tried to get in to help her. Sheriff Early promised Jack he could see her the first thing in the morning. The knowledge was comforting. It m
ade her feel less alone.

  After the rain ended, the night man stopped in front of her cell. “You get any water in here, Miss Santos?”

  Dona glanced at the cement floor. “A little.”

  “I’ll get a mop,” he said.

  He returned with a dry mop and a pail and mopped the cell floor in front of the window. “Cain’t sleep, eh?”

  “No.”

  The deputy’s drawl was somehow narcotic. “A thing like this is a strain. But don’t you worry, Miss. It’ll come out all right. You’ll see. Sterlin’ was purely no good. Us boys is all fo’ you. An’ fo’ whatever consolation it may be, I chanced to glance at Doctor Nelson’s report an’ it proves Sterlin’ a bald-faced liar.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” Dona said.

  The deputy was middle-aged, with grown girls of his own. He set the pail and mop in the hall and studied Dona with fatherly eyes. “You look a mite flushed to me. Your head ache?”

  “Yes, a little.”

  “I’ll git you a couple of aspirins. An’ seein’ you cain’t sleep, how ‘bout a cup o’ coffee? I got a pot boilin’ back in the office.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Milk an’ sugar? All I got is canned milk.”

  “Canned milk will be fine.”

  He brought her two aspirin tablets, a glass of water and a large mug of steaming coffee and locked the cell door behind him. She slipped off her shoes and sat with her feet tucked under her, sipping at the strong coffee, listening to the snores of the girl across the corridor.

  “You got no call t’ worry,” the girl had told her. “Not so long you white.”

  The coffee was hot and tasted good. When she’d drained the mug, Dona stretched out on the bunk and closed her eyes to rest them.

  The courthouse was awake and had been awake for some hours when Dona woke up. There was a rattling of keys in locks and the scrape of shoes on cement. She could hear male voices down the corridor and, outside the barred window, someone was hammering on metal. She sat up with an effort and looked through the wire mesh. The courthouse square was bright with morning. She could see part of the carousel and, in the center of a group of admiring children, a mechanic in grease-stained overalls was pounding on one of the steel rods that made the battered horses rise and lower as the carousel revolved.