Tangled Roots

by Angela Henry

  I rode around on the bus for two hours, too afraid to get off for fear the police would be waiting for me. Bus fumes and being wedged between two cleanliness-challenged people were making me sick to my stomach. I finally decided to get off at the library after a wild-eyed woman started hissing at me. She was wearing a matted, full-length fur coat buttoned up to her chin, high-topped tennis shoes, and smelled strongly of cough syrup and cat piss. When I asked her what her problem was, she accused me of fucking her boyfriend Woody. No amount of denials on my part convinced her that Woody and I weren’t getting it on regularly behind her back. When I tried to tell her I didn’t even know anyone named Woody, she pulled a ragged stuffed Woody Woodpecker doll out of her enormous handbag, threw it at me, then proceeded to laugh maniacally just like the cartoon woodpecker. As I hurriedly stepped off the bus into the cold fresh air, I could hear her accusing some other poor innocent soul of fucking Woody.

  The library was fairly crowded for that time of the morning, but I was able to find a comfortable leather chair near the magazines and newspapers. I grabbed a copy of the newspaper from the stand. Vaughn Castle’s murder was front-page news. The article didn’t tell me anything that I hadn’t already heard on the news. My stomach growled loudly and I rummaged around in my purse for the remainder of the miniature Hershey bars I’d stolen from Rollins’s office. Disappointed at not being able to find any more chocolate, I pulled out the file I’d also stolen from the office. Realizing I had nothing but time and was in the perfect place to get more info on Rollins’s deceased children, I headed over to the periodicals desk.

  “May I help you?” asked the bored-looking male librarian sporting a mullet and a shaggy mustache with crumbs from his breakfast nesting in it.

  “I need to look up some info on three accidental deaths. How would I go about doing that?”

  “First off, do you know the names of the deceased, and the dates and places where the deaths occurred?” he asked, looking quite reenergized, like he’d been waiting all morning for someone to ask him a question.

  “Yes, I have the names. One of the deaths occurred here in town, one in Springfield, and the other in Detroit, Michigan,” I said, flipping through the file folder.

  “Well, we have the Willow News-Gazette and the Springfield News-Sun on microfilm as far back as the 1890s. But we stopped getting the Detroit Free Press about five years ago when we had to cut our periodicals budget,” he whispered like he’d just spilled a state secret. “You might be able to find that info on the Internet but we won’t be getting Internet access until next year. You might try over at the college.”

  I really didn’t need to know any more about Ricky Maynard’s death. I’d already gotten all the info I needed from Timmy, Vaughn, and Ricky’s death certificate. It was the deaths of Gina Parks and Joseph Porter that most interested me. I gave the librarian the dates and waited while he pulled two rolls of microfilm from a large drawer. He set me up on a microfilm reader then rushed off to help another patron.

  I looked for info on Gina Parks’s death first and finally found the headline TEEN DIES OF BEE STING AT CHURCH PICNIC at the end of the roll of microfilm. I printed it out and read it:

  A sixteen-year-old is believed to have died from an allergic reaction to a bee sting during a church picnic at College Park. Gina Parks was taken to Willow Memorial Hospital after being discovered unconscious in her mother’s car and was pronounced dead on arrival. Parks’s mother, Christian romance writer Melvina Carmichael, claims her daughter had numerous allergies and wasn’t always diligent about carrying her EpiPen with her. Parks was a student at Springmont High School, where she was a standout on the girls’ basketball team. Funeral services are pending.

  I noticed the article didn’t mention how they knew she’d been stung by a bee. If she had other allergies, then any one of them could have killed her. I searched the entire roll of microfilm but never found any further info on Gina’s death other than her obit, which stated that she was an only child survived by her mother. I loaded the other roll of microfilm. I didn’t have to hunt very long for the article on Joseph Porter’s death, MISSING MAN’S BODY FOUND IN RESERVOIR:

  The body of eighteen-year-old Willow resident Joseph Porter was found in Clarence J. Brown Reservoir. Porter was reported missing during an outing with his church on Saturday, July 12th. His grandmother, Rosalie Porter, reported him missing when he didn’t return home after the annual Holy Cross Church barbecue. He was last seen by a member of the church, who claimed Porter said he was going for a swim. According to his grandmother, Porter didn’t know how to swim and only went to the picnic to help with the barbecuing. Porter was an aspiring chef who was a freshman culinary student at Akron University. The investigation of Porter’s death is on hold, pending the outcome of his autopsy results.

  I searched further and found another article about Porter’s death a month later, titled DROWNING DEATH RULED AN ACCIDENT.

  The death of eighteen-year-old Willow resident Joseph Porter, whose body was found in Clarence J. Brown Reservoir, has been ruled an accident. Porter, who went missing during a church barbecue, drowned while swimming in the reservoir. His clothes were found in his car, and according to the Clark County medical examiner, his autopsy results are consistent with an accidental drowning. The investigation into Porter’s death turned up no evidence of foul play.

  Two suspicious deaths during Holy Cross Church outings seemed more than a little fishy to me. The fact that they were both illegitimate children of Morris Rollins, and he benefited greatly from the deaths of all three of his children, left me feeling sick to my stomach. Either Rollins was the unluckiest father alive or he had caused the deaths of his own children for the insurance money. But, in spite of my suspicions, I still couldn’t figure out why Inez’s death had been faked and why he would risk trying to claim the life insurance. I printed out both articles on Joseph Porter and went to the reference department. I found a copy of the Willow phone book and located addresses for Melvina Carmichael and Rosalie Porter. I’d bought a daily bus pass so I figured I might as well get my money’s worth.

  Rosalie Porter lived about six blocks from the library on Farley Street. Farley wasn’t exactly one of Willow’s better neighborhoods. It was a mix of empty buildings and old homes that ranged from abandoned and falling down to merely run-down and in need of repair. The bus let me off at what I hoped was about a block from Rosalie Porter’s address. I walked down the street slowly, looking at the addresses on each house. I knew I probably looked like a confused tourist lost in the wrong part of town. But I didn’t see anyone I could ask. A stray dog peered menacingly at me from underneath a rusted-out abandoned car, making me happy I’d worn my tennis shoes in case I needed to run. My ankle was still smarting from jumping off the roof, so I hoped running would not be required. I could hear loud arguing coming from one house and saw a toddler with a snot-encrusted nose and wearing a dirty winter coat playing on the sagging porch of another house. I hurried down the street looking for the Porter house, which turned out to be the last one on the block, cursing my nosiness and questioning what in the world I was trying to accomplish. I started to turn back but the next bus wasn’t for another half hour so I had no choice but to make the most of my impulsiveness.

  Rosalie Porter’s house was one of the better-kept houses on the block but was still in desperate need of a paint job. Long strips of brown paint had fallen off of the two-story house, revealing the former color to have been white. I could hear the faint sound of a television as I walked up the creaking front steps. Before I had a chance to knock on the front door, it flew open and an elderly black woman in a tight, black, lint-covered sweat suit with fat pink curlers in her sparse white hair leaned out the door and stuck her hand in the mailbox. We both jumped at the unexpected meeting. The woman quickly recovered and peered at me suspiciously.

  “Thought you was the mailman with my check. You ’bout gave me a heart attack,” she said, looking me up and down.

 
; “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I’m looking for Rosalie Porter. Is she home?”

  “Rosy’s dead. Died last year. I’m her sister, Pearl Strong,” she said, coming out onto the porch. I noticed she wasn’t wearing anything on her feet but threadbare socks and wondered how she could stand the cold.

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you, ma’am.” I turned to go, relieved that I could get out of the depressing neighborhood, but Pearl didn’t seem to want me to leave.

  “No need to rush off, young lady. Don’t get many visitors these days. Come on in here,” she said, opening the door wide and stepping aside so I could come in.

  It was stiflingly hot inside the house and it smelled, not unpleasantly, of fried food. Pearl ushered me through a dark, dusty living room, filled with plastic-covered furniture from the seventies that looked frozen in time and reminded me of insects trapped in amber, into an even hotter but much brighter kitchen. She gestured for me to sit at the lopsided kitchen table that was being propped up under one leg by a phone book to keep it level. I sat and took off my coat, hoping I wasn’t being rude but too overheated to care.

  “You had lunch yet, Miss, ah —”

  “Clayton. Kendra Clayton, ma’am, and no, I’m not hungry. But thank you, anyway,” I said, trying hard to ignore the simmering pot on the stove that smelled suspiciously like chili.

  “Clayton, huh? Can’t say I know any Claytons.” She started to say more but my stomach let out a loud, incriminating growl. I was embarrassed to death and smiled at Pearl sheepishly.

  To her credit she didn’t say a word and silently dished up a large bowl of the chili and set it in front of me along with a sleeve of saltine crackers and a glass of milk. I dug in. The chili was delicious and I was pleased to note that she put spaghetti in hers just like Mama did.

  “So, why you lookin’ for Rosy?” she finally asked me after I’d eaten about half my bowl of chili.

  I wiped my mouth slowly so I could think before answering her. “I’m a graduate student in psychology at Kingford and I’m doing my dissertation on the stages of grief. I’m especially interested in people who’ve lost loved ones in accidents. I read about Mrs. Porter’s grandson Joseph in the newspaper while doing my research and wondered if she’d be interested in talking to me.”

  Pearl’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head sadly. I felt awful. The woman had welcomed me into her home and fed me to boot, and here I was lying to her and bringing up bad memories.

  “I’m sorry. I should go. I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said, getting up from the table.

  “You didn’t upset me, young lady. Sit down. I wasn’t cryin’ ’cause I’m sad. I ain’t sad ’bout JP no mo’. I’m mad as hell, though.” Her rigid body language and tightly crossed arms told me she was quite angry.

  “Anger is one of the stages of grief. It’s understandable that you’d be angry,” I said, remembering my Psychology 101 class at Ohio State.

  “Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that but I do know JP didn’t die of no accident.”

  I felt my curiosity kick into overdrive and decided to press my luck a bit further. “Denial is also a stage of grief —”

  Pearl threw up her hand angrily, cutting me off. “Didn’t I tell you I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no stages of grief? I do know that my nephew couldn’t swim. Rosy took him down to the Y for lessons when he was five. Couldn’t never get him to even put a toe in that water. She give up after a couple a lessons. He never did learn. Now, I ask you, why in the world would he go swimmin’?”

  “I read in the paper that they found his clothes in his car.”

  “I don’t care what them police say they found. My nephew couldn’t swim, you hear me?” Pearl stood up and grabbed my empty milk glass and chili bowl. She refilled my glass and set it hard down in front of me. Milk splashed on the table. Then she opened up the fridge again and pulled out a large plastic bowl and got a clean bowl from the cabinet. She dished me up a large helping of banana pudding. It was made my favorite way with thick slices of banana, lots of vanilla wafers, and topped with a mountain of whipped cream. It was ice-cold and almost made me forget what we’d been talking about.

  “The paper said Joseph told someone he was going for a swim.”

  “Some ole heifer who couldn’t half see or hear who was helpin’ out with the cookin’, too. It wasn’t JP told her he was goin’ swimmin’. It was some other boy. But she said Reverend Rollins was the one told her it was JP. But she half senile. I don’t believe he said it at all.”

  “So, what do you think happened to your nephew?” I asked after a few bites of the heavenly pudding.

  “I think somebody musta held him under that water on purpose. That’s what I think,” Pearl said so quietly and calmly that I stopped eating.

  “You think he was murdered? Why? Who would want to kill your nephew?”

  “Hard to be tellin’. Maybe he seen somethin’ he shouldn’t a seen. Maybe he was someplace he shouldn’t a been. All I know is my nephew couldn’t swim. And they say they found him as nekked as the day he was born and he had bruises on his head and shoulders. So I’m ’sposed to believe that he decided to take off all his clothes and jump in that water? I ain’t buyin’ that mess for a minute.”

  An awkward silence had cropped up as I sat contemplating what Pearl had just told me. Even though Morris Rollins had benefited from his son’s death, I still had a hard time envisioning him drowning anyone. But everything Pearl had just told me made sense. Why would someone who couldn’t swim decide to take off their clothes and go swimming? Unless —

  “I know what you thinkin’ and you can just stop right there. JP didn’t commit no suicide, either,” Pearl said, reading my mind and slightly freaking me out.

  “I didn’t say he did,” I replied quickly.

  “Didn’t need to. Saw it all over yo face, girly girl.”

  Pearl got up from the table again and disappeared into the living room. She came back a few minutes later with an ancient, red plastic family album that was cracked and almost falling apart. It had been taped in numerous places with duct tape. She pushed aside the dishes on the table and sat the album in front of me, pulling her chair up next to mine. Her mood brightened considerably as she opened the album.

  “Here JP is. Musta been ’bout two in this picture,” she said, gesturing towards a picture of a grinning toddler dressed in a little blue suit with a bow tie.

  “He was a cutie,” I said, gazing past Pearl at my half-finished bowl of pudding.

  “Yes, he was. Wasn’t never any trouble. Always smilin’.” Pearl flipped a few more pages until she got to another picture of a solemn Joseph, who looked about five, with an older woman who resembled Pearl.

  “This was Rosy and JP on the first day of kindergarten. He was so scared. Rosy had a hell of a time gettin’ him to let go a her hand,” she said, chuckling softly.

  She showed me numerous other pictures: Joseph singing in the choir; performing in the school play; playing drums in his high school marching bad. I was even shocked to see a picture of him with Morris Rollins. Rollins had his arm around a teenaged Joseph who was smiling and looking quite carefree.

  “Is Joseph’s mother dead, too?” I asked, casually reaching for my pudding bowl.

  “May as well be, far as I’m concerned.”

  I remained silent, hoping she would fill me in. After a minute of waiting and watching her expectantly, she shrugged her shoulders and turned the album to a picture of a slim, caramel-skinned young woman dressed in the green-and-gold choir robe of Holy Cross Church. Her long hair was pulled back from her face with a headband. She posed like a woman who knew the camera loved her.

  “Here’s Carla. Always was a wild one. Rosy tried and tried with that girl but she was high-minded. Nothin’ Rosy ever did for her or gave her was enough. Always gimme, gimme, gimme. Wasn’t never satisfied. Now, Carla was a pretty girl, and stacked. But, lord, she was lazy. Never worked a day in her life. Kept herself a man, usually a mar
ried one, to buy her whatever she wanted. Didn’t care what they looked like or how old they was just as long as they had money to spend. Managed to get herself knocked up the summer after she graduated from high school. She never did take care a JP. Rosy raised him at first, then I came here to live when my husband died and we raised him together. Then, when he was about two, Carla took off. Said she was gonna go to Chicago to find herself a job and send for JP. Never came back. Rosy thought the girl was dead. Then when JP was twelve we found out she had got to Chicago and found herself a rich husband, a doctor. She never even told him she had a son. Only reason we knew what happened to her was ’cause someone at church saw her shopping in Chicago and came back and told us. We even went to Chicago and tracked her behind down. She didn’t wanna see us. Said she had a new life and a new family. Rosy was heartbroken. We never saw her again.”

  “Does she even know her mother and son are dead?”

  “Rosy sent her a letter about JP and she never even showed up to the funeral. I didn’t bother lettin’ her know ’bout Rosy.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said sincerely. “So, what about Joseph’s father? Is he still alive?” I asked as casually as I could manage. But Pearl was starting to smell a rat.