Under the cover of darkness, Jasmine once again sat in their home office. Her lie was ready if Hosea found her—she was looking for her ticket for Texas.
But her real objective was to get online and send Jerome another e-mail, even though she’d sent him one this morning. She was desperate for results.
She signed onto the e-mail account, and her mouth opened wide. Jerome Viceroy had beaten her to the computer.
Dear, dear Mariah, so you’re fifteen and shy. You sound so sweet and I want to meet you, too. Don’t worry about being shy. Where do you live?
That was all there was, but for Jasmine, that was enough. Why would a grown man tell a fifteen-year-old that he wanted to meet her? Why would he ask where she lived?
It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to let her know that this eight-term councilman was a fool! He was either a pedophile or a man heading that way.
This was bigger than anything she’d expected. But trapping Jerome didn’t make her happy; it made her sick, thinking about what this man may have done before. Still, she had to move forward. This e-mail alone was not enough.
Her stomach twisted when she pressed her fingers against the keys:
I stay on Morningside.
Then she stopped. Isn’t that what teenagers did? Just answered the question?
She pressed Send, hoping that he would respond again, ask Mariah more questions. Establish a dialogue. Send lots of e-mails that would prove that he was headed for a permanent address deep in the bowels of hell—and at the same time give her the ammunition she needed to keep all of her secrets safe.
THIRTY-EIGHT
“JASMINE.”
She jumped and slapped closed the cover of her laptop.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Roxie sauntered into Jasmine’s office. “I wanted to check your calendar—just found out there’s a first ladies conference coming up that would be great for you to attend.”
“When is it?” Jasmine asked, though her eyes were still on her computer. She couldn’t wait to get back to what she’d been reading.
“Not until August.” Roxie tilted her head. “Maybe we could go together.”
“That would be great!”
It was the way she’d responded, so excitedly, that made Roxie frown. “Are you all right?”
She grinned as wide as she could, hoping Roxie would get the hint and leave. “Fine. Are you on your way out?”
Roxie paused. “I guess I am now.”
“Great!” Jasmine’s grin was growing wider and faker by the second. “Has Mrs. Whittingham left?”
Roxie shook her head. “No, but Pastor Wyatt and Enid are gone.”
Now she was interested. “I didn’t even know they were here.”
“They were in and out in two minutes. They said they were taking a trip.”
Jasmine almost wanted to invite Roxie to sit down now. Have her tell everything. “I didn’t know they were going away. Did they say where?”
Roxie shook her head. “Nope. Just heard them tell Mrs. Whittingham that they’d be gone until next Friday.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t surprised. Of course the Wyatts would leave town; they’d sent that letter, and now were getting the heck out of Dodge. Cowards!
“Okay,” Jasmine said. “Well, I guess I’ll see you on Monday. Can you close my door on your way out?”
The way Roxie looked at her, Jasmine was sure the woman was ready to give up, tell her to find another armor bearer. But after a moment, the shadow faded from her face and Roxie smiled. “See you on Monday,” was all she said before she strutted out the door.
Jasmine waited a couple of beats before she slowly reopened her computer. And read Jerome’s e-mail again.
Hi Mariah. You live on Morningside. That’s close. We should get together. Want me to take you to lunch?
This man really was a fool! And she was going to take him down—whether he was the blackmailer or not.
Typing quickly, she responded: whn do u wnt 2 get 2gether? ths s xcitng. cnt w8!
Now that Jerome was taken care of, she could focus on Pastor Wyatt. Jerome was a pedophile. Could Pastor Wyatt be a murderer?
She’d had a strong feeling the truth was waiting for her in Hogeye Creek, Georgia.
THIRTY-NINE
THE TIRES KICKED UP EVEN more dirt when Jasmine eased the Jaguar into a right turn onto Owl’s Head. She edged the car along the side of the half-paved, half-dirt road, then slowed to a stop. Glancing once again at the map the man at the one-pump gas station gave her, she sighed. Had he told her to make a right on Owl’s Head, then go down to where the old oak tree was across from Finley’s candy store, or was she supposed to make a left?
She couldn’t remember. And she couldn’t tell a thing from this map. She tossed the flimsy paper onto the floor. Not even the GPS system could help—the satellite signal had long ago deserted her, about 150 miles outside of Atlanta, right when she sped past the sign that said, WELCOME TO HOGEYE CREEK, GEORGIA, HOME OF HICKORY HOGS.
Jasmine peered through the windshield at the gray wooden shack in front of her and wondered if it made any sense to knock on that door. She wasn’t sure what to do as her eyes scanned the rest of the street.
The man at the gas station had told her that Owl’s Head was the main street in this town, but she hadn’t seen a soul. Twenty-five hundred people lived here—where were they?
She revved up the engine and eased the car forward, passing Greenlee’s Thrift Shop with a CLOSED sign in the window. The next building looked sturdier than most she’d seen—it was brick, though it was still as small as the others. She searched for a sign, then saw WILSON’S DEPARTMENT STORE on a card tucked in the lower corner of the front window.
Still inching forward, she slowed the car in front of the next shack. She wasn’t sure if there was anyone inside, but the $2.00 FRIED EGGS & GRITS sign in the window and the few pickup trucks parked in the dirt lot on the side led her to believe there were folks here who’d be able to help.
Pulling up beside a pickup with lumber stacked high in its bed, she slipped out of her car, then struggled to keep the heels of her three-inch Gucci pumps from sinking into the dirt path. She peeked through the glass pane but couldn’t see too much through the shaded window; as she got closer, though, she could hear chatter and clatter. Relieved, she pulled open the door and stepped inside to the smell of all kinds of food frying.
The bell above the door jingled, but that was the last sound she heard. Every eye inside the café turned to her, and that was when the world stopped. Mouths stopped moving, heads stopped bobbing, hands stopped feeding—Jasmine was sure that, in the seconds of that quiet, not even an eye blinked.
Only the jukebox continued to play some country ditty as if it was the only thing in the place that didn’t realize the world had been invaded by an alien.
Then, movement—from a pale-skinned, thin-lipped, candy-stripe-apron-wearing woman, who ambled toward her. Her gray hair was twisted into two pigtails that sat high on the sides and bounced in rhythm to her steps.
“Can I help ya, gal?”
Jasmine’s eyebrows shot up, she crossed her arms, snaked her neck; but before she said a word, her mind told her to take another quick scan of the place.
As she looked into the eyes of the plaid-flannel-shirt-wearing men with wrinkled red necks and bushy eyebrows, and women who were as thick and as mean-looking as the men, she would have bet all her designer clothes that every single person in this place had voted for George W. Bush—twice. And if she wanted to get out of Hogeye Creek alive, she’d better keep her northern attitude to herself.
“I’m looking for Church of the Solid Rock,” she said in the most polite voice that she could find.
“That’s on the colored side of town,” the woman drawled.
Colored?
The woman grabbed a pencil from behind her ear and used it as a pointer. “Go on down to where the old oak tree is across from Finley’s store,” she said in her southern tw
ang, “then turn there, and about a half mile down you’ll run right into it. You’ll see all the colored people.”
Jasmine wanted to ask her who she was calling gal and who she was calling colored and which way should she turn if she ever found that old oak tree.
But all she did was smile her thank-you, swivel, and walk as fast as she could out the door and down the wobbly steps. Then she tried to maneuver her spiked heels through the dirt once again.
She could feel the eyes on her, staring from the window. No doubt half of the restaurant had gotten up to watch the colored city gal. So she gave them a show, let the wheels of her Jaguar skid through the dirt and kick up a trail of dust.
But once she hit the road, she sighed deeply. How was she supposed to find an old oak tree? She had no idea what an old oak looked like. And what was she doing down here, deep in the South with people who still used 1920s vernacular to refer to her? What did she expect to find anyway?
“This was a silly trip,” she whispered, but she still kept moving. Still kept looking for the oak tree. And still kept hoping that there would be something in Hogeye Creek, Georgia, that she could take back with her to New York City.
She couldn’t believe she found it. Finally, after maneuvering through the maze of all of those no-name roads, Jasmine had found the tree and Finley’s, and now, rising in front of her, atop a small hill, was the Church of the Solid Rock. It was a tiny timber structure with a huge cross on the roof that looked too heavy for the wooden planks to hold.
Jasmine eased into the graveled lot, filled with ten-year-old sedans and beat-up pickup trucks. She slipped her car next to an old green Cadillac.
It wasn’t until she flipped down the visor to check her makeup in the mirror that she saw them—a band of kids behind her. Not that many, but too many to count. Boys and girls. Tweens and teens. All staring at her through the rear window. She kept her eyes on them as she freshened her lipstick, then tucked her compact back in her purse.
The children had not moved; they stood, staring with wide eyes. Until she stepped out of the car. Then together they sang a chorus of “oohs,” and “aahhs,” as she secured the lock with the remote.
“Hello,” she said to all of them.
Not one responded, but their eyes stayed on her—same as the people in the diner—looking at her like she didn’t belong in Hogeye Creek, Georgia.
But the moment she stepped away, their chatter began.
One boy said, “She must be a movie star!”
A girl responded, “Nah, I ain’t never seen her on TV; she’s just rich.”
With a smile, Jasmine tossed her hair over her shoulder and continued to move as if she really was somebody.
But then she heard, “I wonder how much we can get for those tires.”
Jasmine whipped around, her eyes searching the small crowd. It wasn’t hard to find the big-headed, afro-wearing teen who’d said that. Everyone else was looking straight at him while his eyes were focused on the ground.
Moving back, Jasmine grabbed the boy by his arm.
“Ouch!” he squealed as the others watched, their mouths now open as wide as their eyes.
Jasmine dragged him several feet away so that no one would hear the threat she was about to make on his life. But then she had another thought. With a final pinch, she released the boy and whispered, “Do you want to stay alive and make twenty dollars?”
He stopped rubbing his arm where she’d assaulted him and grinned. “Twenty dollars. What I gotta do?”
Grabbing a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet, she said, “Keep your grubby hands off my car and make sure your friends”—she motioned toward the group, still watching them—“stay away from it, too.”
He nodded and then snatched the money from her.
With a final glare at the boy and then an even more ominous glance at his friends, Jasmine made her way to the church.
The harmony and the heat hit her the moment she opened the door. Someone was rocking that old organ as the pastor pranced across the altar.
Jasmine waved the gold-toothed, white-gloved usher away as she stood against the wall, searching. Her eyes scanned what appeared to be the only room in the whole building for the perfect person to sit next to. Jasmine already knew who she wanted—a woman, not a man. One older, not younger. Someone who looked like she’d put in her time and her tithes at Church of the Solid Rock.
The back of her sleeveless silk sheath was already sticking to her skin when she finally squeezed in between two gray-haired women. The moment her butt hit the bench, it began to ache. And not only that, she was burning up. Drowning in black people body heat. There was nothing like it.
There were about sixty worshippers in the pews, but their heat, mixed with the outdoor eighty-degree temperature, topped off with the four opened windows as the only form of ventilation in the church, made Jasmine feel as if she was sitting at the steps of hell.
But she sat and sighed and wiggled in between the two women, who were making it worse by recirculating the scorching air. They were waving their cardboard fans from the Hogeye Creek Memorial Funeral Home right in her face.
And then there was the preacher, making his own contribution to her misery. Jasmine didn’t even know his name, but the man was whooping and hollering and hopping behind that pulpit, seemingly oblivious to people who were falling out (probably from heatstroke) and being carried from the sanctuary by those white-gloved ushers.
I should’ve waited outside, Jasmine thought. She inhaled a deep breath and choked on the hot air. She coughed. And coughed. And coughed.
“You all right, sugah?” the woman on her left asked.
It took her a moment to nod and breathe again. Lesson learned—she wouldn’t take another deep breath inside this brick oven that was masquerading as a sanctuary.
“Here, drink some of this.” The lady pulled a plastic bottle of water from her purse.
Jasmine frowned at first. She didn’t know this woman. Didn’t know what was really in the bottle. But still, she grabbed it. And took a swig of the water that was the same temperature as the room. But at least it was wet.
“Thank you,” she breathed, feeling a bit of relief.
“You’re welcome, sugah.” The woman tucked the bottle back into her bag and said, “You ain’t from ’round these parts, are you?”
“No, ma’am,” Jasmine whispered.
“I knew it. I know everything that goes on in this town.” She glanced at Jasmine sideways. “Who’s your people?”
Jasmine shook her head slightly. “I don’t want to talk through the service.” She pointed to the preacher, as if she didn’t want to be rude. She hadn’t come all this way to do any talking. All she wanted to do was listen.
“Oh, okay.” The woman nodded. But that didn’t stop her.
“Hmph. Hmph. Hmph. Would you take a look at that one there?” the woman said.
Jasmine’s glance followed the woman’s pointed finger to a lady leaning back into two ushers’ arms. Another two stood at her side as they struggled to carry the heavy burden outside.
The woman said, “That’s Willie Mae. She pass out like that every week. Just trying to get attention. I guess she think one day one of them mens is going to marry her.” Then, as if she hadn’t missed a word the preacher said, the woman waved her handkerchief in the air and yelled out, “You better preach, Pastor!”
A few minutes later, she was back. “Um-hmm. Now that one,” Jasmine’s pew partner pointed to another woman being carried away, “she ain’t fakin’. She’s pregnant, though she ain’t told nobody yet, ’cause she don’t know which one of them mens is the real daddy.”
Jasmine leaned back and looked at the slender woman next to her who, with her cinnamon skin and hazel eyes, was surely dangerous back in her day. Even now, Jasmine was certain that the sixty-something-year-old could still turn the heads of males ten years younger—if the men were blind—and couldn’t see that beehive hairdo (same as Enid’s) that sat atop her head lo
oking like some kind of bird refuge.
“Now that one there,” the woman offered again, “she’s a fast one. Only fifteen…”
The 4ll kept on coming. Every time the preacher gave a scripture, Jasmine’s new friend gave up some more information. And Jasmine smiled and nodded and listened. She found out who was sleeping with whom, who was about to get a divorce, and her friend even pointed out the three biggest gossips in town.
“Yup,” she said. “You can’t tell any of them a thing. Unless you want your business all over Hogeye Creek by morning!” She shook her head. “Ain’t nothin’ but a sin and a shame the way people talk about other people.” The woman folded her hands in her lap and began to rock to the rhythm of the preacher’s singsong sermon.
Then the woman said, “You see those girls over there?”
Jasmine nodded as she glanced at the twins sitting across the aisle. They couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, but they were stiffly still as if they’d been trained well.
“They think Pastor is just their pastor.” She paused. Gave Jasmine a small, sly smile. “But they need to be calling him ‘Daddy.’”
Jasmine nodded as if she was telling the woman that she understood. But what she understood even more was the gift she’d received by sitting next to the town crier!
With her hand, Jasmine began to fan herself. But it wasn’t just the heat. She was ready to go and take this woman somewhere so they could talk. Well…so that the woman could talk. All Jasmine planned to do was listen to every word her new best friend had to say.
Even though she’d left the church almost an hour ago, the heat was just as stifling in this four-room house. Now it was an electric fan that recycled the hot air, offering not a bit of relief. But her new friend came to her aid, and Jasmine almost fainted with gratitude when Mrs. Evans handed her a frosted mug filled to the brim with cool lemonade.
“Thank you so much.” Jasmine grabbed the glass and took a gulp. She moaned with delight as the drink took a bit of the edge off the heat. “This is wonderful.”
Lady Jasmine Page 21
