When the man was gone, Oscar’s face converted back to the angry look. He instantly focused on Danny. “What the hell are you doing in my house again?” asked Oscar.
“This woman is from the FBI,” said Virginia quickly.
That made Oscar stop short. He looked at Janis with unmistakable fear in his eyes and absently took a swallow of his drink.
“What’s this about?” asked Oscar.
Danny saw his chance. Both of them were upset and off-balance. He had to shock them, upset them with a piece of information before they could get together and form a wall of resistance.
“We know about what you’re doing with the Castle,” said Danny. “It took us a while to put it together, but after Olittah Reese died, it all made sense. There’s a new version of the group operating in Detroit. We believe the killer’s victims are being selected from this group.”
“Castle?” asked Oscar. “That’s preposterous. The organization was divisive to black people and died out years ago….”
Oscar continued his speech denying Danny’s statement, but Danny barely heard it. He was focusing on Virginia, who had not said a word. She was looking down at her feet.
“Ms. Stallworth,” Danny cut in. “You want to deny it, too?”
“And I’d think carefully about your campaign before you answer,” said Janis.
Virginia looked at the officers with guilt in her eyes. She steadied herself on the edge of her husband’s desk. Her eyes dropped again, and she glanced at the hardwood floor as she spoke.
“We didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she began.
“Virginia?…” said Oscar, shock and worry in his voice.
“Let her finish,” said Danny.
“She doesn’t have to talk to you!” snapped Oscar.
“Then we’ll arrest her,” said Danny. “Right here, right now. I’ll take her out in handcuffs past her guests out there.”
“He’s not kidding,” said Janis. “Whatever it is you know, ma’am, it’s better to tell us now, voluntarily.”
Virginia gave her husband a reassuring look then continued. “We started the group about three years ago. I was talking with the Bakers about their ancestors, who are white, black, and part Asian. We realized that black people are all lumped together without regard for their actual background. We found it dehumanizing. The Bakers and I were the first to join. Then Dr. Vance, Raymer Farrell, the Trentons, Olittah, and the Collinses.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Oscar. He sat on the edge of his desk.
“And they all had to be fair-skinned to be in the group, right?” asked Danny.
“No,” said Virginia. “That was the old way. In the new group we were all multi-ethnic.”
“But were there any dark-skinned members in the group?” asked Danny.
“No,” said Virginia. “But that wasn’t by design.”
“That’s not much different,” said Janis. “It’s still a color bias.”
“You think so?” said Virginia. “The country is going to be completely multi-ethnic in the next fifty years. There will be no more racism or discrimination, and all the garbage people fight about will be moot. Then we can go about the business of living, Detectives.” She made this last statment like a politician giving a speech.
“I need to know all the names of the people in the group,” said Danny. “They’ll need protection.”
“They already know,” said Virginia. “After Olittah died, we all panicked. Everyone hired guards.”
“Where are yours?” asked Danny.
“I have my family to protect me,” said Virginia.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” asked Oscar. He was clearly angry and embarrassed by his wife.
“I knew you’d disapprove,” said Virginia.
“You’re damned right I do!” bellowed Oscar. “You just won’t give it up, will you? Haven’t our people suffered enough from this nonsense? Haven’t we?”
Oscar seemed to be angry with her, but Danny couldn’t tell if he was faking or not. Oscar glared at his wife with an emotion beyond embarrassment or even anger.
“It was just a social group,” said Virginia. “We met, we talked, we shared, that’s all.”
“Then why is someone killing your people?” asked Danny. “Why are three of them dead for just talking and sharing?”
“I don’t know,” said Virginia. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“How did New Nubia fit in?” asked Janis. “Was it part of the group?”
“The Bakers started it,” said Virginia. “They promised that they would use the profits from the company to help my campaign and expand the group.”
“Expand?” asked Danny. “You mean start more chapters of the Castle?”
“No,” said Virginia. “We wanted to get the NOAA to accept more kinds of people, all minorities, not just blacks. That’s what my candidacy is all about. But yes, the company was important to us. We needed that money.”
“Did the Castle get New Nubia investors to join the group?” asked Janis.
“Yes,” said Virginia. “But why does that make a difference?”
“Maybe a disgruntled investor is taking revenge,” said Danny. “And that means he’d have to know about the group. Who knew, Ms. Stallworth?”
“Just us,” said Virginia. “We kept our secret well. As you can see, even my own husband didn’t know.”
“Mr. Baker had a friend who knew,” said Danny. “He told this friend, so I can assume that Olittah Reese did, too, and maybe some of the other people. Someone knew and he or she is our killer.”
There was silence at this. Virginia looked stunned and afraid. Danny guessed that it never occurred to her that her select group was corrupt. She was a woman who needed standards for people, but based them on artificial criteria. Of course secrets get told. People have loose lips. But not her people. They were supposed to be better than that, he thought.
“What have you done?” Oscar asked his wife. He had a look of guilt on his face that was frightening to Danny. “What have you done?”
“Something you want to say?” asked Danny.
“No,” said Oscar. “We’re finished talking.”
“I want that list of names,” said Danny.
Virginia went to her husband’s desk, wrote out the list, and then handed it to Danny:
JOHN AND LENORA BAKER OLITTAH REESE
RAYMER FARRELL
DR. HENRY VANCE
JIM AND KELLY TRENTON QUINTEN AND SANDRA COLLINS
“Any of these people here today?” asked Danny.
“No,” said Virginia. “This party is for out-of-town delegates.”
“You forgot to put down your name,” said Danny.
“You already know that,” said Virginia.
Danny jotted her name down anyway, and this seemed to annoy Virginia. He hadn’t found his killer yet, but he felt as if he were closing in. He had to interview the other members on the list as soon as possible.
“Mr. Baker was afraid of something,” said Danny. “He told a friend that your group was afraid. ‘Fear stalks the Castle,’ is what he said. Do you know anything about that?”
“Someone sent him a threatening letter because of New Nubia,” said Virginia, “but it had nothing to do with our group. He was mistaken.”
“Hard to make that conclusion now that he’s dead,” said Janis.
Danny had a sudden wave of revulsion for Virginia. He thought about Vinny’s sister Renitta, and her self-righteous racism. He thought about all the stories of pain and hurt he’d heard from his friends relating to color, and he thought about how underneath all his trouble with Vinny, there was an unstated question of whether they were not right for each other because of their races. The connection between the perception of color and the reaction to it was a frightening mystery. The foreboding nature of darkness and the purity of lightness were things that became ingrained in people, stamped on their minds and hearts. But it seemed that someone’s grasp of this phenomenon had tu
rned his heart to murder.
Danny and Janis left the Stallworth house as Virginia and Oscar walked out to the party to polite applause. They smiled and looked adoringly at each other like the President and the First Lady when they made public appearances.
Danny was wondering how they could look so loving and secure with each other after what they had just revealed. But he was more concerned about the people on the list and which of them might be the next victim.
28
SAVING GRACES
Bellva looked at the graveyard with fear and excitement in her heart. The sun felt warm against the back of her neck, but a cool breeze blew in her face from the cemetery. For a second, she felt caught between two worlds, the heat of hell, and the coolness of heaven. Ironic that the heavenly feeling came from a place of death, she thought.
The wind from the graveyard smelled of flowers and cut grass, not the smell of death that she’d read about so much. In fact, she didn’t really know what death smelled like. Was it putrid and thick like old blood or was it sharp, piercing, and suffocating like fear? She imagined it was the latter for that was what she faced each day, the fear and uncertainty of life in the street with nothing but her addiction to move her from one place to the next.
Bellva had managed to fool the two detectives who’d picked her up, even though she had been coming down from a high. The black one was not hard. He’d looked at her with the familiar sense of sorrow and disgust that she was used to. But the white one, the one who sounded like a black man, had been trying to get inside her head, to know what made her tick. He looked inside her and that was scary as hell. He suspected something and that was not good.
Ever since the cops had told her that John Baker was dead, she’d been running hard and fast. Running because she knew why he was dead and because she had a good idea who had killed him. John had told her about the scam he was running, the money he was stealing, and from whom. She had been his confessor. She didn’t understand what the Internet company was, or how he’d taken the investors, but she did know they were pissed about it.
John Baker had been much more than the occasional boyfriend she’d told the cops he was. They were lovers, friends, and more like father and daughter than she wanted to believe.
She stood outside the gates of the burial ground on the far east side. She wondered if she would be here one day soon, tucked into the cold ground, looking up into the darkness of eternity. Not if she took care of her business, she thought. John Baker had left something and she planned to get it. But she was a frail, weak, drug-dependent woman who was out of money and almost out of time. She turned away from the gate as the attendant rode by on a golf cart, his tools rattling noisily. She walked away from the graveyard and decided she needed to eat.
Bellva walked up to Eight Mile and strutted until she flagged down a fat white man in a Toyota. They pulled onto a side street and ten minutes later she had her lunch money. She stuffed the cash in her bra away from the money she’d saved for drugs. As desperate as she was, she still obeyed the first rule: never use your drug money to eat.
Bellva went into a Taco Bell and ordered a combination meal. She ate thinking about how she could get to what John Baker had left behind. She was convinced that he’d told her about it so she could have it when he was gone.
She barely tasted the food as she forced her mind to focus on a solution to her dilemma. The food was warm, thick, and salty. It tasted neither good nor bad. It was what she did to keep going between highs. Food was like a battery in her car. Heroin was the fuel.
A greasy-looking man in a shirt with the telephone company logo on it walked by her table and winked at her. She still had it, she thought. She was still pretty enough to get a man’s attention. But for how long? she thought. How long before she was like her friend Lilly, tired and dead-looking? And what would happen to her when the men stopped looking?
If she could just get to what was in the cemetery, she would never have to worry about getting high again. She would have all the drugs she wanted.
She saw herself floating, dressed in fine clothes, high on the best shit on the planet. It would be a good life, filled with an addict’s dream to be endlessly fucked up.
Then in her tortured brain a plan emerged. It stepped from behind her dreams and the ever-present need for drugs, and she saw it. She could make it happen, she could get to John Baker’s treasure.
If she had a partner.
Bellva finished her meal and got on a bus, riding east. Eventually she jumped off and walked a few more blocks. She turned down the street she was looking for. Her heart was pumping and she was feeling the need for a hit again. But she held it off. It didn’t happen often, but there were some things that were more important than getting high.
Bellva stopped short as she got halfway up the block from the house she was looking for. There were men all around it, and she’d been on the street long enough to see that they were armed.
A man in a puffy jacket walked to her quickly. She froze, knowing that any sudden movement might be interpreted as offensive. Her life in the street had taught her a great many things, chief of which was to never challenge someone unless you were ready to back it up. Bellva waited as the man moved toward her. She smiled feebly as if this would calm him. But he kept coming at her with the same mean expression on his face.
The man in the puffy coat got to her and looked her up and down. His face was young but hard-looking, and above his right eye there was a wound that was still healing. Without saying a word, he reached inside his coat and pulled a gun. After he was sure she saw it, he cocked it and pointed it at her face.
Danny had been sitting outside his father’s house for over an hour. He’d started to go in more than once but lost his nerve. He had officers out to warn all of the people on the Stallworth list, and for the first time, he felt that he could do what he had come here to do.
Danny was thinking that maybe he didn’t need the knowledge that was in his father’s head, maybe there were some things better left unknown in this world. His mother was gone and nothing would ever change that. Nothing he could say or do would bring back that half of him that had fallen down those stairs with her, or give him the chance to tell her all of the things he’d never said.
His hand shook as he realized that he was holding the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had turned white from the force of his grip. He let it go and watched the blood flow back into them, turning them pink.
A police cruiser rolled slowly down the street. It stopped by a house, then kept going, passing Danny. Inside, there were two uniformed officers who eyed him suspiciously.
Danny watched the cruiser for a moment. He remembered the first time he saw his father in his policeman’s uniform and how proud he felt when he knew what it stood for. He saw him marching under the morning sun into the elementary school with the young boy he used to be. Robert Cavanaugh was the symbol of what it meant to be in law enforcement, bold, unerring, and strong. The thought of what those things meant to him filled his heart and he started to move. Danny had always known that his father was a better cop than he was, but perhaps he was a better son.
Danny got out of the car and went to the door of the house. He knocked only once before his father answered. Robert saw his son and didn’t say a word. He looked at him for a moment then he just walked away from the open door.
Danny came inside and saw that the house was messier than the last time he’d been there. He followed his father into the kitchen, where it seemed he lived these days.
“Got some food if you want it,” said Robert.
“No thanks,” said Danny.
The two men sat and just looked at each other as Robert finished off a sandwich he was eating. In that moment Danny realized that he never talked much to his father, that all the things they needed to say had been said. Theirs had always been a quiet connection, one that had made both men comfortable.
“I came about Ma,” said Danny.
Robert looke
d up from his plate with a start then he looked back down. “What about her?”
“I know.”
Robert didn’t say anything. He finished the sandwich, then started on a beer he had on the table.
“And what is it that you think you know?” asked Robert. He sounded official, as if the part of him that was a cop had suddenly awakened.
“I’m not in the mood to play games,” said Danny. “I saw the report you and Dr. Lester fudged. I know she didn’t die from the fall she took in this house.”
Robert put down his beer and stared at his son. His green eyes were fierce from within the wrinkles on his face. This was the Robert Cavanaugh of old, Danny thought, the man who could walk through fire and stop the rain with a glance.
“You sure you want to come in here, in my house, and do this?” asked Robert in a voice that was as mean as it was strong. “You sure you want to challenge me, accuse me about this?”
“I’m here,” said Danny. He could not back down when his father got like this. If he did, his father would bury him under a mountain of strength and paternal guilt. Most men have to challenge their father one day of their lives. He never thought his time would be about the death of his mother, but he had to do it. Fate had left him with this and he was not about to walk away from it. “I’m not leaving until I get the truth.”
“Truth?” Robert laughed bitterly, a sad sick thing that was more like a rasp. “Is that what you want? Everybody thinks they want to know the truth until they hear it. You think it’s some kinda medicine that’ll cure all the shit that makes you sick, until you realize what the truth really is.”
Danny just stared at him, unwilling to give an inch. Inside, he was dying. Everything he knew as a cop told him that his father was hiding some terribleness. And no matter how bad it was, he had to know it.
“What is it?” asked Danny. “What is the truth to you?”
“It’s pain,” said Robert without hesitation. “It’s the hard, fucked-up reality of what we all really are, what we really feel and do to each other…”
Color of Justice Page 21
