The Butcher's Daughter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  How can they lose me, too?

  Melody closes the door.

  She can’t bear to see them suffer, but she can’t tell them that she’s certain Martina is alive out on Barrow. Maybe one day, but she’d promised Cyril she wouldn’t confide in her mother.

  At the end of the hall, she retreats into her own room.

  Nothing has changed since she last woke up here, on her wedding day. In fact, little has changed since she’d left for college back in 1964. Same Beatles posters; same snapshots stuck into the mirror frame along with programs from a decade of musical performances. Her favorite albums are stacked beside the record player. Travis had talked her out of transporting them to their new place.

  “We don’t have room for all that stuff, and it’s not like housewives lounge around listening to music all day,” he’d said, and kissed her before she could protest.

  The comment hadn’t thrilled her, but kissing him certainly had, back then. Now her stomach churns at the thought of it, of him.

  She sits on the bed, with its lilac-sprigged bedspread that matches the curtains, accented by pastel lavender walls.

  “Pink for Ellie, purple for Melly . . .”

  Honeybee, doting on her precious, pretty pair of color-coded daughters.

  Honeybee, red-eyed at Melody’s bedside in the surgical recovery room.

  “I’m so sorry. I know this is unbearable, but your life will go on. It will. I promise. And I’ll be right by your side, darling.”

  “What do you mean? Why is everyone so sorry?”

  Her mother faltered. “Doc Krebbs said he told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “Oh, Melody . . .” Honeybee had wept as she’d delivered news that would have destroyed any other young woman after having her newborn firstborn abducted from her arms.

  Melody had listened, dry-eyed. Her pregnancy had traumatized and jeopardized so many lives, but her heart no longer ached.

  She leans back and closes her eyes, thinking of Cyril and Martina waiting for her on Barrow as she drifts off.

  Someone knocks. “Melody?”

  She sighs. “Yes, Mother?”

  “Duke Mason and Scotty Jackson are here, and they’re insisting on talking to you.”

  The Bronx

  Greg wasn’t in school the Monday morning after Gypsy saw him in the drugstore. Nor was he there Tuesday, or Wednesday.

  Gypsy speculated that his grandmother really had died, and that she’d hallucinated seeing him sharing an egg cream with Carol-Ann Saturday night.

  When he finally showed up yesterday morning, he was on crutches.

  “Broke my ankle playing baseball over the weekend,” he explained, wincing as he shifted his weight and reached for a book on the top shelf of his locker.

  She couldn’t possibly ask him, in that moment, if he’d also gone out with his ex-girlfriend over the weekend. So she just helped him with his books and listened as he grumbled about having to sit out the rest of the season. He didn’t comment on the new spring shift she’d bought with the money Oran had given her. It was yellow, his favorite color, but he barely looked at her before his friends came along and he hobbled off to class.

  The rest of the week passed uneventfully, and he didn’t ask her out for Friday or Saturday.

  Only because he could barely walk, she told herself. And she certainly didn’t see him talking to Carol-Ann. Every time their paths crossed, he was glum and appeared to be in pain.

  This week brought more of the same, with the prospect of another dateless weekend for Gypsy. Greg wasn’t even in last period this afternoon, having left school early for a doctor’s appointment he hadn’t mentioned to her.

  Which means nothing, Gypsy assures herself, shuffling toward the exit after the last bell. Rounding the corner, she collides with a senior guy barreling from the opposite direction. She manages to keep her balance, but her books go flying. A binder snaps open as it falls, scattering paper like a ticker tape parade.

  “Sorry,” the guy says, and keeps going.

  The corridor is crowded with students heading for propped open doors, and a breeze scatters Gypsy’s notes beneath their trampling feet. No one offers to help as she bends to gather the papers. Hearing a wolf whistle, she sees Greg’s friends Vinnie and Ricky leaning against the trophy case behind her, leering.

  “Great legs,” Ricky comments.

  “Nice ass, too,” Vinnie says.

  Gypsy’s temper flares. She stoops again in an awkward pose, holding her short hem against her bare legs as they chatter on.

  “Wonder why Martinez dumped her?”

  “Because Carol-Ann’s got great legs and a nice ass, too, and she’s not—”

  “What are you talking about?” Gypsy is upright again, and furious.

  “Yeah, but this chick has great legs, a nice ass, and supersonic hearing.”

  They snicker.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Connie appears, wedging herself under Ricky’s lanky arm and fixing Gypsy with a stare.

  “We were just talking about Greg and Linda’s breakup.”

  “Breakup?”

  For an illogical moment, Gypsy believes she’s going to set them straight. But Connie says, “You can’t break up if you weren’t going steady.”

  Vinnie grins, tapping his temple. “She’s smart, this one.”

  “She’s an idiot,” Gypsy snaps, hand trembling as she reaches for a sheet of paper covered in her own handwriting and a grimy shoe print.

  Her reaction is, predictably, fuel for their commentary.

  She hears Connie saying something about having to cover for Carol-Ann Saturday night. “She’s telling her parents we’re having a slumber party at my house.”

  “More like a slumber party for two at Greg’s,” Ricky says, and they laugh.

  They don’t know what they’re talking about. Don’t listen to them.

  She swoops the rest of her notes into her binder and escapes into pale spring sunlight that radiates no warmth. In the miniscule garden patch across the street, someone has trampled the pink tulip buds she’d seen this morning. Shredded petals are strewn amid broken stems, cruel footprints stamped in the dirt. Gypsy imagines the little old lady huddled inside, weeping.

  She, too, wants to weep, clutching her ruined notebook to her chest as she walks on home, Carol-Ann’s voice taunting her . . . with the truth.

  “He’s just using you, you know.”

  Well, she’s not going to cry about it, that’s for damned sure. She’s stronger than that, better than that, smarter than that. Smarter than anyone.

  She has to study hard and get a scholarship to a good college, like Mr. Dixon said. Then she can live the kind of life where no one bullies you for what you don’t have, and who you aren’t.

  She sits on the floor, opens her binder, and begins laying the pages of notes out before her, putting them back in order.

  Mixed in, she finds a newspaper clipping. She assumes she’d scooped it up by accident, but then sees that it’s the meaningless news clipping she’d cut out on that awful Sunday after Greg betrayed her.

  Fergus Ferguson . . .

  Again, the name stirs a memory, but it wriggles away like an exposed earthworm burrowing deeper into the soil.

  She rereads the article. Greenwich village . . . bartender . . . murder . . . robbery . . .

  This time, she notices a detail that hadn’t meant anything before.

  The contents of the pub’s cash drawer had been stolen, along with the antique gold watch Fergus Ferguson had worn every day of his life.

  “I sure am glad to see you looking like the picture of health,” Duke Mason says, seated across the dining room table from Melody.

  “I’m feeling much better, thank you kindly.”

  “A miraculous recovery from the brink of death. We wanted to talk to you at the hospital, but Doc Krebbs said you were too ill.” Scotty Jackson emphasizes the last word as if it’s in quotation marks.

  Honeybee bris
tles, flanking Melody like a bodyguard or defense attorney. “She had a life-threatening condition and major surgery!”

  Duke nods. “That’s what Doc Krebbs said. Real protective of his patients.”

  “As he should be. He delivered Melody and her sister into this world.”

  “Same with my daughter, and I reckon he was there when Scotty was born as well.”

  “Sure was.”

  Raelene pours coffee and offers a plate of store-bought cookies. No pineapple upside down cake for these unwelcome visitors. After she retreats to the kitchen, Scotty says, “We’d like to update y’all on the kidnapping case.”

  “Has there been a development?”

  “Not per se, Mrs. Abernathy, but we’ve been following up on a few leads.”

  He looks at Duke, who bites into a Lorna Doone with a nod for Scotty to continue.

  “We haven’t been able to track down your Negro nurse, but Rodney Lee Midget did give us some information before he left for Georgia.”

  “Georgia!”

  “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Hunter. Basic training at Fort Benning. I guess y’all didn’t know Rodney Lee was drafted?”

  “We didn’t know,” Honeybee says. “But we wish him well, don’t we, Melody?”

  She ignores the question, asking Scotty, “Are you sure about this?”

  “Saw him off on the bus last Monday morning. Whole mess of local boys were headed to basic training that day. Duke was there, too, saying goodbye to his daughter’s husband.”

  “Fiancé,” Duke amends. “Debbie’s been carrying on ever since he got that draft notice. She fell apart down there by the bus and got him started, too. Well, soon as I saw that, me being a World War Two veteran, I took him aside and I said, ‘Son, you’d better pull yourself together. When this country calls you to serve, you don’t cry.’ And he wasn’t the only one.” He shrugs. “Oh, well. This war’ll make ’em into men real fast.”

  “If it doesn’t kill ’em first,” Scotty mutters.

  “Y’all might want to remember that Travis is over there,” Honeybee announces pointedly, protectively. As if in this moment, with all that’s going on, her fragile daughter might be undone by the reminder that soldiers die.

  “Oh, I know, ma’am. Travis Hunter is one of my closest friends in this world. I was there to see him off last spring with all y’all, remember?”

  Melody nods, recalling the throng of well-wishers watching Travis and several other draftees climb onto that bus a year ago. If Rodney Lee had done the same thing last Monday, then he’s in the army for real. It isn’t just a ruse to skip town.

  “What information did Rodney Lee have, Scotty?” she asks, arms folded across her saggy stomach.

  “I thought you were tryin’ to smother her . . .”

  “First off, ma’am, under the circumstances, you should call me Officer Jackson.”

  She offers a clenched, “Sorry. Officer Jackson. You were saying?”

  “When Rodney Lee was leaving the hospital after delivering milk the night the baby was stolen, he saw a gang of Negro women sitting in a car out front of the hospital.”

  “A gang?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Said they were suspicious looking.”

  “Mercy!” Honeybee looks as though she might faint.

  “Suspicious looking . . . how?” Melody asks.

  “Well, now, let me think on that.” Scotty stares at her for a moment longer than necessary before turning to Duke. “Maybe he said suspicious acting?”

  “Could be.” Duke helps himself to another cookie. “I didn’t talk to him myself. You took down the report.”

  “I don’t have it here, but as I recall now, Rodney Lee said they were suspicious acting. He went right over to the car and asked the women what they were up to. They did not take kindly to that.”

  “Did they threaten him?” Honeybee asks.

  “Mother! Why would they threaten him?”

  “Scotty said they were sinister.”

  “What Scotty said was that they were Negro, and it sounds like he—both of you—then jumped to the conclusion that—”

  “It’s Officer Jackson, if y’all can just call me by my proper name?”

  “Only right,” Duke agrees, brushing crumbs from his mustache. “Out’a respect.”

  Honeybee apologizes.

  Melody does not. “What happened after Rodney Lee confronted this . . . gang, you said, Officer Jackson?”

  “They claimed they were at the hospital to visit a sick friend, but see, that can’t be right, because I did some investigating and there were only a couple of colored patients that night, and none of ’em had any visitors, and . . . why are you shaking your head, Melody?”

  “Shouldn’t you be calling me Mrs. Hunter? Out of respect, and all. Only right.”

  Scotty flashes a tight smile. “Sorry, I just got a little worked up there, thinking about these professional baby thieves parked right there brazen as you please, fixin’ to make their move.”

  “Professional baby thieves!” Honeybee echoes in alarm.

  “You look awfully thoughtful, there, Mrs. Hunter,” Scotty comments. “I know this is hard for you, but at least we know you weren’t the one who—”

  Duke cuts him off, clearing his throat loudly. “Now, Officer Jackson, no one ever said this little lady had anything to do with her baby’s disappearance.”

  “No, but when I asked Doc Krebbs if a woman who’s just given birth might be capable of . . . you know, doing something she didn’t mean to do, well, he did admit it’s possible.”

  “That he did, Scotty. That he did.”

  “That sure would make your troubles disappear in a jiffy.”

  Had Rodney Lee planted that scenario with the police?

  “’Course, Doc Krebbs was speaking hypothetically,” Duke points out. “Wanted to make sure we knew he didn’t believe someone like Mrs. Hunter would do such a thing—living right here all her life, a banker’s daughter from such a respectable local family, married to a fine fellow serving his country.” He allows that to sit for a moment. “We’re glad we don’t have any reason to pursue that because of what Rodney Lee saw.”

  Message received, loud and clear.

  We’re throwing you a lifeline, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll take it.

  Melody can tell Scotty doesn’t believe in her innocence, sitting there rubbing his chin.

  Neither does Duke, going on about a kidnapping ring that’s been working up and down the East Coast, stealing babies from hospitals.

  “Now, I don’t know about it myself, but Scotty here says he’s heard tell. Isn’t that right, Sc—Officer Jackson?”

  He nods. “Been seein’ it in the newspapers and whatnot. Remember that big FBI investigation a few years back, lookin’ for the baby who was kidnapped from that hospital in Chicago? Turned up alive a few years later? His mother handed him to a Black woman who said she was a nurse, too.”

  “Four years to the day Martina disappeared, wasn’t it?”

  “It was, Duke. It was. That’s why it was in the newspapers again.”

  “About a ring of Black baby thieves?” Melody asks, hands clasped tightly under the table.

  “About that one case, but there were others.”

  She nods, piecing it together in a way that almost makes sense. Rodney Lee, or more likely Scotty, could have stumbled across an article marking the anniversary of that 1964 Chicago kidnapping. It sounds conveniently similar to the scenario Melody had described.

  “Is the FBI working on the case?” Honeybee asks, wringing her hands, her voice bordering on shrill.

  “There’s no evidence of interstate travel at this point,” Scotty says. “And the Supreme Court ruled in that case just a few weeks ago that kidnapping isn’t a capital offense.”

  “That’s a fact,” Duke agrees.

  Maybe so, but there’s another reason they don’t want the FBI getting involved in this.

  They believe Melody is guilty of harming h
er baby.

  They’re doing what they think is right, to avoid the shame and scandal that would accompany such a heinous crime. Or, if not to save Melody herself, then to spare her parents and in-laws, pillars in their beloved community, and yes, above all, to spare her fine husband.

  Travis, Scotty Jackson’s close friend, the dutiful soldier who hadn’t gone weeping off to war.

  The scenario seems far-fetched, and maybe it would be, beyond this small Southern town. But Melody has lived here all her life. She knows how things are and always will be here, and in a thousand other small Southern towns. That’s why she and Cyril have to get away.

  Duke Mason pushes back his chair and snags one more cookie for the road. “We’d best go on our way. But rest assured, Mrs. Hunter, Mrs. Abernathy, that we’re going to do everything in our power to find that baby girl.”

  No, you aren’t. For you, and for me, this case is as good as closed.

  Harlem

  “Hush now,” Marceline tells the bundle in the basket when she spots a familiar figure rounding the corner onto Lexington Avenue. “There’s your new mama comin’.”

  It isn’t her first glimpse of her niece since she’d arrived in New York City. So far, she hasn’t let Bettina see her, but every time she spots Bettina, her heart clenches.

  That young woman works so hard, always looks so weary.

  Today, as every weekday, she’s wearing the black housekeeper’s uniform with a white apron, and a frilly white band in her dark hair. She works for a wealthy family that lives fifty blocks south of here, headed home to change and probably gobble a quick supper before she goes to her other job, as a token booth clerk at the 116th Street subway station. Calvin has already returned from his day job and departed for his night job, from bus driver to busboy.

  As Bettina approaches the alleyway, Marceline steps into her path. Her niece gasps, instinctively clutching her black vinyl pocketbook. Then her eyes widen with recognition, and she gasps again.

  “Hello, child.”

  “Auntie . . . ?”

  Marceline nods, noticing how very much the younger woman looks like Florence. Oh, how she misses Florence. She was always the most levelheaded of the sisters, the peacemaker, the one who could cook and sew even better than their mama. She’d been a good wife to a fine man who’d died young. Now her daughter is a good wife to a fine man, and God willing, they’ll live to a ripe old age . . . as parents.