When Did We Lose Harriet?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “Did Harriet ever talk about money?”

  Kateisha hesitated, then nodded. “Her granny lef’ her some. I don’t know how much, but Harriet was alius talking about what she was going to do when she turned twenty-one.” Her voice grew mournful. “Now she won’t get to do it.”

  “I want to try and find out who did this to Harriet, Kateisha,” I told her, “but I need your help. Harriet’s aunt said she left their house on Saturday, June first, but she wasn’t found dead until the tenth. Do you have any idea where she was staying?”

  “I know where she was staying up to Tuesday,” she boasted—adding, “but I can’t tell.”

  “Why not?”

  “I promised Harriet.”

  “Harriet’s dead, Kateisha,” Josheba reminded her.

  “She might still be listening,” Kateisha said mulishly. “I don’t want her hanging around my bed at night.”

  She’s hanging around mine instead, I thought. Instead of saying it, I played a hunch. “Let me guess, and you just nod or shake your head. Was she staying here?”

  Kateisha hesitated, then nodded.

  “Did somebody—your brother, maybe—take her back to her house for clothes a few times?”

  She nodded, stopped, shook her head, stopped, started to nod again, then sighed. “I didn’t make no promises about that. Dré and Z-dog, his homie, borrored my uncle’s car ‘n took her back onct, Sunday mornin’.”

  “How long did she stay here?”

  Kateisha started to balk, then relented. “Saturday ‘til Tuesday. Mama didn’t like it much—she don’t trust white people—but she say I can sleep on the floor and give Harriet my bed if I want to. When Harriet left without saying thank-you, Mama’s so mad she say she never take in a white chile again. We didn’t know she was…passed on.”

  “She left on Tuesday?” I wanted to hear her version of that day. “Tell me about Tuesday. What did Harriet do?”

  Kateisha’s tongue darted out of her mouth and moved back and forth while she thought. “She met Miz Scott…that’s her trusty…and then she went down to the center to keep the telephone some. I had to go to clinic, so she say she see me down to the club.”

  “Did you see her?”

  Kateisha nodded. “Sitting at the desk like God A’mighty, taking down messages and actin’ like she own the place.”

  “Where was Mr. Henly?” Josheba asked.

  “Runnin’ things and givin’ Biscuit instructions about what to do all day.”

  “Then what happened?”

  The girl would not be hurried. “Nothing. She got a few calls and wrote down messages, then Mr. Crane—hey, that’s your bro!”

  I nodded.

  “Well, he come, but she still hung out in the lounge, readin’. I was mad, ‘cause I was wantin’ her to come back to the gym. Mr. Henly was formin’ a volleyball team that afternoon, and we needed practice bad. Nex’ thing I know, Harriet’s lef ‘thout so much as a word. Just walked out, and never come back.” She sounded as glum as she had the day we met.

  “And you had no idea why?” I pressed her.

  Kateisha grunted. “Know what Twaniba say, if you can believe her. She say Harriet bragged she was goin’ to meet her mama.”

  “Her mama?” I echoed. “Are you sure?”

  Kateisha shrugged. “That’s what Twaniba say. Say her mama call and say, ‘Come meet me.’ I thought that’s funny, ‘cause Harriet didn’t have no mother. ‘You mean her auntie,’ I told Twaniba. But old Twaniba got stubborn and say Harriet say she goin’ meet her mama.” Kateisha’s lip trembled. “Looks like she met her Maker, instead.”

  That kept us all quiet for a minute.

  Finally, I had to ask, “Did Twaniba say anything else Harriet did?”

  Kateisha thought, then her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Harriet made Twaniba take your bro on a tour of the center when his time was almost up, whiles she kept the phones. Twaniba was real put out, ‘cause she don’t like to stir if she don’t have to.”

  “Who else was in the room at the time?”

  “Nobody. Soon’s they got back, Harriet left.” Kateisha heaved a huge sigh. “Here I been thinkin’ she’s with her mama or somethin’, and I been put out with her for leavin’ without sayin’ good-bye, ‘n’…” Her lip quivered, and huge tears rolled down her cheeks. “If I’da known, I’da gone with her.” No friend could say more than that.

  I bent down and laid one hand lightly on her broad heaving shoulder. Josheba patted her knee. While she sobbed, I considered what she had told us.

  This was the first we had heard of a call. After the call, Harriet borrowed bus fare to go “meet my mother.” Did Myrna Lawson indeed call, then lie in wait to kill her? Did someone know Myrna had called, and kill Harriet before she got to her mother? Or did someone else call and pretend to be Myrna?

  Whoever called, Harriet had not trusted her completely. Before she left, she got everyone else out of the room and carefully hid a book containing three thousand dollars.

  At last Kateisha raised a tear-stained face. “I tole you all I know. What you know?”

  “Not much more than you do,” I confessed. “We know her aunt found clothes missing two or three times, like Harriet had come by for them, but nobody remembers seeing her after Tuesday. We know Harriet planned to go to an acting school in Atlanta—”

  “For real?” Kateisha sniffed and wiped her nose on one bare forearm.

  “For real. She and Mrs. Scott took the money out of the bank that morning to pay the tuition. But she never left Montgomery.”

  Kateisha didn’t want to dwell on that. “What else you all know?”

  “We know Harriet’s mother did come to town, but not until this week, and she was shot the day after she arrived.”

  “Her, too?” Kateisha was dumbfounded. “Who offed her?”

  “I…Ricky was seen running away from the house, and they found his girlfriend’s gun nearby. It had killed her, so they arrested him—”

  “Harriet took that gun,” Kateisha reminded me. “She’d never of given it back. Never! She wouldn’t shoot her mama, either. Not if she knew it was her.”

  “Well, Ricky was arrested for the shooting, but somebody bailed him out. Now he’s disappeared. The police don’t know where he is.”

  Kateisha tossed her head proudly. “I know where he is. Leastways, I know where he’s gonna be Sunday mornin’.”

  Josheba clearly didn’t believe her. “How do you know that?”

  Kateisha stuck her nose in the air. “‘Cause he and Dré do some business together.”

  “What kind of business?” I asked before I thought.

  She waved one hand. “You don’t want to know. But Ricky was over to our house last night, ‘n’ I heard him and Dré makin’ plans.” She cast a furtive look around. When she spoke, her voice was low. “They havin’ a meetin’ down to the teen center six-thirty Sunday mornin’.”

  “I thought it was closed until one on Sundays,” Josheba objected.

  “It is. That’s why they meetin’ then.”

  “How will they get in?” I asked.

  “Biscuit’s made a key. Said it was the safest place in town at that hour. Mr. Henly’s not an early riser. What’s the matter with you?” she suddenly asked someone behind me.

  I turned and saw a young man racing up the cracked walk. “Gotta meet somebody, and I forgot somethin.’” He hurried breathlessly inside, slamming the torn screened door behind him.

  “That’s my brother Dré,” Kateisha said with offhand pride.

  I had seen him clearly. A little older than Kateisha and far thinner, he wore running shoes and a gold watch that both looked far too expensive to belong to this house. But that wasn’t what made me take a couple of steps after him. It was his face. He was the boy who spoke to me in the library, the day Jake’s car was stolen.

  Josheba stood and started purposefully down the walk. “We got to be goin’, Kateisha. See you later.”

  Good manners left me
no choice but to say a quick good-bye and follow, but as I slammed the car door, I protested, “That boy was one of the ones in the library last week. His friend stole my pocketbook, and probably Jake’s car! I should at least speak to him.”

  “I recognized him,” Josheba answered grimly. “Let the police talk to him, Mac. I just want to get the heck out of here.”

  I left messages for Carter all afternoon, but he didn’t call back until we were eating. “Sorry, but we’ve been real busy,” he apologized. “I saw that mechanic, though, and he told me what he told you—looks like those two vehicles hit one another. If you want to take Mr. Sykes to court to recover repair costs, I think he’d swear to it.”

  Trying to speak softly enough that Jake couldn’t hear, I murmured, “That’s great, but I was calling about something else.”

  “Speak up. I can’t hear you. What did you say?”

  “I’ve found the friend of the boy who stole Jake’s car and snatched my purse. At least, they were reading magazines in the library together.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. His name is André, Dré for short. I don’t know his last name. But here’s the address.”

  “Wahoo!” A crow of delight floated over the line. I could hear the scratch of Carter’s pen writing it down.

  “He may not be there right now,” I cautioned. “He came dashing in saying he’d forgotten something and had to meet somebody somewhere. Kateisha, his sister, may know where he is, but Carter, please—don’t let Kateisha know it was me who turned him in.”

  Not until we’d hung up did I remember I hadn’t told him about the Sunday morning meeting. By the time I looked up the number and called back, Carter had already left.

  Twenty-Seven

  Remove the dross from the silver,

  and out comes material for the

  silversmith. Proverbs 25:4

  Glenna and Jake slept late Friday morning. I could hear two sets of gentle snores, and pictured them cozily nested—enjoying the comfort of being reunited with a dear and familiar weight on the other side of the bed. I was getting ready for some of that myself.

  I tiptoed to the kitchen and made coffee. In the backyard, sunlight again played through the hackberries. They make Jake’s backyard a shady delight on sunny days, but a treacherous place to be in a storm. Glenna once told me that hackberries have no staying power. Just like some people.

  I was standing admiring the hackberries and inhaling coffee fumes from my mug when the phone rang. I grabbed it before it could waken the happy sleepers.

  “It looks like you were right, Miss MacLaren.” I knew it was Carter, even if he didn’t say so. “That girl was Harriet, all right. Dee Sykes identified her from the picture, and when we asked about any identifying marks, said she’d broken her arm when she was six. That showed up in the autopsy, but we hadn’t asked about it the first time, since the other family was so sure. We checked with them again, and their daughter never broke hers. As you can well imagine, that’s got things pretty stirred up down here. I knew you’d want to know.”

  “I’m glad to know, Carter, even if I’m not glad. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Sure do. Also, we picked up the boy you mentioned, and got more than we expected. Remember I told you we’ve had a series of petty break-ins? When we printed him, he’s one of the perpetrators. They’ve been stealing—”

  “Old coins!” I finished for him. “I should have known. They were reading up on the subject in the library. Did you get the other one?”

  “No, Dré won’t tell us who or where he is. And there’s something else. Something you aren’t going to like. A witness to one of the break-ins got a good look at the getaway car. They’d muddied the tag, but—”

  “Oh, no!” I sat down, suddenly weighing a ton. “Jake’s?”

  “Afraid so. We’ll need to bring it downtown and go over it. Tell him, will you?”

  “You’re asking the condemned woman to sharpen her own guillotine, you know.”

  Glenna got to the kitchen before Jake. When I told her what Carter had said, she said, “I think you’re making more of this than you have to. You were doing Jake a favor—”

  “Who was doing Jake a favor?” Jake himself stood in the doorway, pink and rumpled from sleep. He tied the belt of his robe a bit tighter and sat down.

  Southern women are experts at diversion. “It’s nothing, honey.” Glenna patted his hand. “What kind of cereal do you want? I bought several new ones I think you’ll like.”

  Grumpily he looked over the selection she set out. “Grass and hay,” he muttered, pouring himself out a bowlful and digging in. Before he was half done, though, he gave me a sharp look. “Okay. Tell me what this favor is you were doing me.”

  “I told you. I took your place at the center.” I poured myself another cup of coffee.

  “And?” His face was getting pink.

  “Don’t worry about it, honey,” Glenna told him sharply.

  I sighed. “He’s going to find out sometime. It might as well be now. Okay, Jake, it was like this. And if you have another heart attack over it, I’ll never forgive either one of us. Keep that in mind.”

  I started backwards: “Your car—

  “My car!” He yelped. He turned to Glenna. “Did you let her…I never let her drive my car. You know that!”

  “Well, I did,” I told him shortly, “and you might as well get used to that fact, because that’s the least of it. Sit there and keep your shirt on until I finish.”

  “Where is my car?” he demanded. “I want the dad-burned truth.”

  I propped my chin with two fists and leaned over so my face was close to his. “You want the truth, brother? Here it is. Your car is at the mechanic’s getting the dents out from when somebody rammed me. That was right after we’d gotten it back and put on new tires from when it got stolen. I’ll get you a new radio and a paint job later. But while it was stolen, it got used in some robberies, so now the police need it a while. They’ll bring it back once they’ve gone over it. Is that enough to put you back in the hospital?”

  He glowered at me. I glowered right back. My face felt as red as his looked. Maybe we’d both have heart attacks. They could give us a double room.

  “Don’t forget, honey,” Glenna said, laying a hand on his shoulder, “MacLaren got into this mess trying to help you, taking your place at the center.”

  Jake hitched up his bathrobe and scowled ferociously. “She didn’t have to use my car.”

  I’d had about all I was willing to stand. “If that car is more valuable to you than your life, go ahead and have another heart attack and get it over with!”

  Jake glared at me, breathing hard, but after a minute he nodded. “Hate to admit it, Clara, but you’re right for once. One of the orderlies told me I could stay calm if I’d just remember two things: don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s mostly all small stuff.” He swallowed hard. “I’m glad you’re okay. And the car? Well, it’s just a car.” We all knew how hard that was for him to say.

  To give him a minute to regain himself, Glenna said quietly to me, “I forgot to tell you, Clara. I spoke with Wylie Fergusson from the bank when he came to see Jake yesterday. He told me privately that William’s store is barely making it. The bank gave William a loan on June fourth, but if things don’t change, William could lose everything.”

  In case you’re wondering why a banker would confide that sort of thing to my sister-in-law, you may not know that when Glenna’s daddy died, he left her half that bank.

  Glenna took a sip of coffee and sighed. “Poor Lou Ella.”

  “Poor William,” I added. “And poor Dee and Julie. Their nail-polish bills alone would put a lesser man in the poor house.”

  Carter came over on his lunch hour. When I had a minute alone with him, I asked, “Carter, could you show me where they found Harriet?”

  “Sure, Miss MacLaren, but why on earth do you want to go poking around up there? There won’t be anything
there after all this time.”

  “I know,” I admitted, “but I don’t think I’ll ever sleep easy until I’ve at least seen it. What I imagine has got to be worse, and if that sounds odd—”

  “My daddy says an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”

  “Is your daddy a psychologist?”

  “No, ma’am. He works at the zoo.”

  That afternoon I drove Glenna’s Ford past a white gazebo, pulled over the crest of a hill dotted with tombstones, and drove around behind. I parked and got out. It was a beautiful spot, but the mosquitoes had it to themselves. I fanned several away as I looked around.

  This, the oldest part of Oakwood Cemetery, covered a large gentle hill with towering cedars dripping moss—which was surprising in itself. Montgomery is generally north of the Spanish moss line. Back in 1817, the cemetery would have been on the outskirts of town. Today it is surrounded by city, yet retains the same sense of separateness and peace. A little one-lane, the only road, winds over the top, is cut into the hill about halfway down at the back, and curves back around the crest toward the gate. Where it had been cut out, the hillside is reinforced with stone walls.

  On the back lower side of the hill, my car and I were both hidden from view unless somebody happened to be in the newer cemetery on an adjoining hill. Today, nobody was.

  Tombstones only marched halfway downhill on the lower side of the road. Beyond them, grassy lawn rolled toward what looked like a stream with a small bridge across it.

  “Hank Williams is buried on top of a hill in the new part of the cemetery,” Carter had told me, “and the police station is sort of between the two, just beyond the gully. Call me when you leave home. I’ll look out for you and come up when you get there.”

  I walked along the road a short way, swatting mosquitoes. Only when I turned to retrace my steps could I see the police station and a smattering of cars, hidden by ivy and kudzu from where I had parked. Carter waved and loped toward me.