“Cuz I was wearin’ your watch, remember?”
“Put on your shoes and coat,” my mother said to me. “Dewey, you, too.”
“How come?” I asked.
“Cuz you’re witnesses. You could be the last people who saw this girl before she disappeared.”
I frowned; something in my stomach clenched. “Where are you takin’ us? We ain’t goin’ to jail or nothin’ like that, is we?”
My mother shook her head, giving Uncle Henry as much of a half smile as she could in her state. “Of course not. You’re coming with me to see Mr. and Mrs. Yates. They’re gonna wanna talk to you. Then we’re gonna go to Main Street and you’re gonna explain exactly where you saw her and what she said and everything else.”
I thought I’d already explained it pretty thoroughly, but I didn’t mind doing it again. It made it seem like Dewey and me were kind of special now that we were witnesses and all. We put on our shoes while my mother went into the bedroom and changed into her uniform. She came out wearing her gun and everything.
The Yates lived in the same area as Luther Willard King. In fact, I had ridden my bike past their house the last time I brought Luther Willard the ten dollars from my mother for not mowing our lawn. I remembered back to the first time I made that trip. Back to those two girls practically naked playing in the dirt in front of the house and how I’d heard Luther Willard’s father wheezing and coughing in the back, as close near death as a rat in a gator swamp. We drove slowly up Oakdale Road, my mother checking the house numbers. Six older black kids rode past my side of the car on bikes. They all smiled with big white grins.
The Yates didn’t live in a rundown shotgun house like Luther Willard King, but their place wasn’t a whole lot nicer than the Kings’, either. It was cramped and gray. I couldn’t tell if it once was painted or if that was the color it was supposed to be. They had a bit more lawn in the front, but it was patchy and mostly moss, especially around the concrete steps that led up to the screen door. At least the house’s roof wasn’t caved in. The garage, separated from the house, wasn’t quite so lucky.
“That thing’s gonna fall over right onto that car,” I said as we parked at the end of the drive. “But by the looks of that car, I doubt anybody’ll notice afterward.”
Dewey laughed.
With a sigh, my mother shut off the engine and turned to me. “What’s wrong with you? Why do you say stupid things like that?”
Dewey stopped laughing.
“Like what?” I asked. “Look at that car. I doubt it even runs without at least three or four of them black kids pushing it.” Dewey laughed again. I thought I was being honest. Normally my mother valued honesty. Today, apparently, things were different. Right away, I knew I’d made a mistake.
Her face actually grew red and I could tell she was really mad. Dewey shut up again. I even flinched, thinking she might swat me one. “What? What’d I do?” I asked.
“That is the most racist thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth. I have a mind to go home and make you suck on a bar of Ivory soap.”
“For what? What part of what I said was racist?” I looked back at Dewey, but he just shrugged.
“All of it, Abe. First off, where do you get off criticizin’ other people’s houses? You’re lucky you have one to live in. You could very well have grown up far poorer than them.”
“Like the Kings?” I asked. “Have you seen Luther Willard’s place? It makes this one look like the Grand Hyatt down in Satsuma.”
“You interrupted me, Abe; I wasn’t finished. And you interrupted with yet another near racist comment. But we hadn’t gotten to your worst one. The one about them boys pushin’ that car around.”
I sighed. “I guess I don’t understand racism.”
“I guess you should learn.”
“How?” I asked.
“Well, there’s two ways. The easy one and the hard one. I’d advise the easy one: Just figure it out for yourself, and when in doubt, keep quiet.”
“What’s the hard one?”
“Having some of them black kids give you a little reminder whenever you say something offensive. I don’t reckon they’d have much understandin’ for a little no-account white boy like yourself.”
Narrowing my eyes, I studied my mother, trying to tell if she was kidding or not. I couldn’t be sure, so I decided to err on the safe side and go with trying to figure things out the easy way.
Mr. Yates answered the door and invited us into the front room, which he referred to as the parlor. A tall, thin man, he wore an unbuttoned yellow shirt over a white T-shirt and brown pants. His chin was stubbly, as though he hadn’t shaved in a couple days. He directed us to a flowered couch with worn cushions that sat in front of the window.
I ran my toe over the green shag carpet, trying not to notice Mrs. Yates crying. She was sitting in a mustard-colored chair in the corner by the fireplace, holding a hankie to her cheek, wiping back tears as she tried to talk about Tiffany Michelle. Mrs. Yates wasn’t a thin women. She was short and stout, but carried herself with much grace. Her bright brown eyes gleamed behind her tears.
Mr. Yates brought in a pot of coffee and four mugs. I couldn’t figure out why there were four, given there was only three adults in the room, but it turned out Mr. Yates didn’t drink coffee. The extra two were for Dewey and me. I looked to my mother, but she shook her head. “It’ll stunt your growth. And trust me, you two need every inch you can get.”
Mr. Yates laughed at this, even though I could tell it was a forced laugh. He wasn’t crying, but he was obviously just as upset about his daughter as his wife was.
My mom told them how Dewey and me had seen Tiffany on Main Street with the ice cream cone. They listened to me tell it a few minutes. I told them Tiffany was very pretty in her pink dress and yellow bow and that she looked like a postcard. This seemed to make them happy.
Dewey kept completely silent the whole time. It was certainly a change from his regular behavior.
“You don’t think she’s been taken like Mary Ann Dailey?” Mrs. Yates asked my mother. Mr. Yates, squatting beside her chair, put his hand up on her leg.
My mother sighed. I knew she didn’t like the insinuation being made by someone else that Mary Ann Dailey had been nabbed by someone. My mother had come to this conclusion on her own very early on, but for some reason she took exception with anyone else having the same opinion. This time, she managed to keep her thoughts hidden away. I was glad of that. I think everyone in Alvin had resolved themselves to the fact that Mary Ann hadn’t just wandered off and would turn up walking aimlessly down Main Street any moment. Even the kids at school knew most likely someone was responsible for her disappearance.
“She’s been gone barely three hours,” my mother said. “Normally we don’t even consider people missing until forty-eight, so right now I wouldn’t worry too much. She could be lost, she could have gotten distracted, she could be out with friends. At this point, there are still many possibilities. I wouldn’t be too worried.”
“Our Tiffany always goes where she says she’s going,” Mr. Yates said. “And she’s never late comin’ home.”
I thought of Carry and looked over at my mother, but she was intently listening to the Yateses, nodding and taking notes. “Well, we’re gonna go check Main Street where Abe and his friend here saw your daughter and ask around and see if anybody else saw her. I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything out.”
Tears welled in Mrs. Yates’s eyes. “Please bring my baby home.”
I felt my mother grow tense and she hesitated. Her breath caught in her throat. “I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
We drove up Main Street to Igloo’s, where me and Dewey told Tiffany Michelle about the possum. After questioning everyone in the local stores and finding nobody who remembered seeing the girl, my mother made me go over the whole thing again, twice. Both times I made a big deal out of the roadkill she runned over still being there.
“Okay, Abe?” she said.
“I’m not so interested in the dead possum. Concentrate on the parts of the story involving Tiffany.”
I tried explaining that the roadkill was the whole reason we were talking to Tiffany Michelle in the first place, but she didn’t seem to care. I showed her where Tiffany had walked, and told her what she had said and how we rode past her with no hands and said, “Bye.”
“You was showin’ off for a girl?” my mother asked.
My eyes widened. “No.”
My mother looked to Dewey. He was looking at his feet.
“Yes,” she said. “You were. You were doing tricks, trying to impress Tiffany Michelle Yates.”
I glanced away, wondering out loud: “Was that racist?”
My mother smiled slightly, shaking her head. “You really are clueless. Good thing you’re cute. No, Abe, that was completely not racist. Just surprisin’, is all. Didn’t think you and Dewey noticed girls.”
I considered this as we got back into the car. “I didn’t, neither.”
Dewey continued being unusually quiet.
My mother radioed Officer Chris Jackson at the station and told him about Tiffany Michelle Yates. She told him it was too early to tell if this had anything to do with Mary Ann Dailey. Then she said she was dropping me and Dewey at home and going to have a quick bite before coming in. “That is, providin’ my daughter’s back from her field trip to Satsuma.”
I noticed the clock on her dash read 5:11. Carry should’ve walked in the door eleven minutes ago, but Uncle Henry hadn’t called my mother’s car phone, so I wondered if maybe she hadn’t.
“Oh, and, Chris,” my mother said, “one last thing. What do you think about the idea of a curfew?”
He thought it wasn’t a bad idea and they ended up deciding that, until Mary Ann Dailey and Tiffany Michelle Yates were found, everyone younger than eighteen had to be off the streets by seven o’clock.
“Get Montgomery to clear it with the mayor,” my mother said. “Then get the local television and radios to put it out. And I think you’d do well to suggest they consider canceling the Harvest Fair.” The Alvin Harvest Fair was probably the biggest event our town had all year. I couldn’t believe my mother was considering canceling it. I couldn’t believe she even had the ability to cancel it.
“You’re canceling the fair?” I asked after she finished talking. Even Dewey found that surprising.
“Well, puttin’ it on hold for now,” she said. “We just can’t have something like the fair going on when there’s potentially people taking young girls; it’s just too risky.”
“I think a lot of people might be upset to hear there’ll be no fair this year,” I said.
“Well, those people should be more upset that there’s little girls missing,” my mother said.
I thought that over and decided it made sense. Then I asked, “What good’s a seven o’clock curfew if Tiffany Michelle went missing at two o’clock in the afternoon?”
My mother picked at her teeth as she drove. I thought she either didn’t hear me or was ignoring my question, but it turned out she was thinking it over. “It doesn’t really do much good at all, I suspect,” she finally replied. “But sometimes it’s not about trying to keep kids safe. Sometimes it’s about sending out a message.”
She checked the clock on the dash. “And it’s nearly quarter past five, so if your sister isn’t home when we get there, the curfew won’t do her much good either, because she’ll be grounded forever.”
CHAPTER 10
Apparently Carry would be grounded forever. She wasn’t home yet. It was half past five and she had promised to be back from Satsuma inside the door (as my mom specified) by five.
Uncle Henry made his “world famous” jambalaya for dinner that night. I don’t think it was famous outside of my mother, Carry, me, and maybe Dewey, but he claimed it was. He claimed lots of things. Growing up, I always assumed everything he said was true, but now that I had started questioning things, I was beginning to see a lot of it was likely him just pulling my leg or seeing how far he could go in making me believe things.
My mother was only home for a quick bite. With Tiffany Michelle Yates missing, she now had two girls to look for. Well, maybe three, counting her own daughter.
“I’m gonna wring her neck,” my mother said as she began cleaning up the pots Uncle Henry used to cook with. “I cannot believe that girl’s not home. I’m gonna kill her.”
She was talking like she was mad, but I could hear more worry than anger in her voice. Real worry. Uncle Henry heard it too, I could tell. He kept saying to her that Carry was fine and that she was probably just waiting for a bus or testing out her limits by a half hour here or there.
“I’ll show her limits,” my mother said. I was thinking tonight would’ve been a better day for her to cook on account of it would’ve given her something to do. As it was, she just sort of followed Uncle Henry aimlessly around the kitchen.
“Why don’t you go sit down and relax?” he asked.
“Because I don’t relax.”
He nodded. “You think about all the bad things in the world. You need to fix that.”
“Hank, my daughter is missing.”
Uncle Henry stopped stirring at the stove, turned, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “No, Leah, she is not. Your daughter is late. It’s important that you distinguish the two in your head. Find somethin’ to do while I finish up here.”
She began shaking her head when Dewey offered help. “You could show me your gun!” he said.
I could see she was about to tell him no when Uncle Henry said, “That’s a good idea, Leah. Show the boys your gun. Give them a lesson in weapon safety.”
As she considered this, I saw it flash across her face: She was going to give in. Dewey saw it, too. His face lit up like a lightnin’ bug. “Okay, fine,” my mother said. “But we’re learning gun safety, not how to shoot up a liquor store gangland style.”
“Really?” asked Dewey, his grin widening into a broad smile. “I used to have an air rifle, but I ain’t never held a real gun before. Is yours like them ones in the movies?” I saw excitement glimmer in his green eyes. This even filled me with anticipation. My mother rarely liked to discuss that aspect of her job, especially not specifics about her gun, and never had she given any sort of actual demonstration of how it worked.
My mother kept her gun in the drawer beside her bed. It had a device on the end called a gunlock that stuck down the barrel, making it impossible to shoot unless you had the key. “You have to unlock it like that every time?” Dewey asked. “Doesn’t that take a long while if you’re chasing someone?”
I rolled my eyes. “She just keeps it like that at home.”
With a nod, my mother added, “So as I don’t accidentally take it out and shoot Carry.”
We were sitting on the edge of my mother’s bed, with her closest to the drawer and Dewey in the middle. “Well, that’s not exactly the reason,” she said. “It’s just safer if it’s locked.”
“Can’t you just hide the bullets?” Dewey asked.
“Oh, I do that, too,” she said. “You can’t be too safe when it comes to guns.”
“What kind of gun is it?” Dewey asked.
“It’s a Smith and Wesson,” my mother answered. “Thirty-six caliber.”
“What does thirty-six caliber mean?” Dewey asked. I realized he asked a lot of questions sometimes. Obviously, we had left the unusually quiet version of Dewey behind somewhere on Main Street.
“It’s the size of bullets it takes.”
“Where are the bullets?” Dewey asked.
“That’s a secret,” she said.
“How big are they?” Dewey asked.
She held her fingers apart maybe the size of a quarter. “About that long. You sure are interested in guns, Dewey. Hopefully that’ll evolve into a career in law enforcement and not slide the other direction.” My mother finished unlocking the gun and handed it across Dewey’s lap to me. I looked at her eagerly. She nodde
d. “Go ahead, Abe. Hold it.”
My eyes widened as I took it in my hand. I stretched out my arm and pointed it at the closet beside the bed. She pushed my arm, swinging it in the other direction, back toward the door. I looked at her, puzzled. “Why does it matter if there’s no bullets?”
“You just don’t take chances.”
I didn’t see what sort of chance you could take without bullets. “Can I pull the trigger?”
“You could try, but first you need to click this.” She showed me something just above the handle. “It’s the safety. When it’s on, you can’t shoot. It’s another way to avoid accidents.”
“Wow, there’s lots of them. Ways to stop accidents, I mean.”
She shook her head. “No, there’s not nearly enough.”
I pretended to take some shots at the hallway through the open bedroom door. The gun felt solid in my hand, the grip comfortable. “It’s not very heavy,” I said.
“It’s a lot heavier when it’s loaded.”
“Can I have a turn?” Dewey asked.
“Sure,” my mother said. Then to me: “First, click on the safety, then pass it to him handle first. Always facing away from people.”
I did. Dewey took it, immediately clicked off the safety, turned his hand sideways, and started shooting at the door with the barrel pointing slightly downward, making kapow! sounds with each pull of the trigger.
My mother reached across and grabbed the gun. “Stop,” she said, turning it right way up. “First, we don’t shoot sideways. Gangsters, drug dealers, and other bad guys shoot sideways. Second, you don’t just fire off shots like you’re in Scarface. You carefully aim and make sure every time you pull that trigger you’ve thought through exactly what you’re doing. Remember you might be killing people. Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. And, unfortunately, most people with guns have no idea what they’re doing.”
“Who’s Scarface?” Dewey asked. He carefully lined up and took two shots, still making the kapow! sound.
Dream With Little Angels Page 9
