The Best Possible Angle

by Lloyd Johnson

  “So you killed her?”

  “Hell no! I went over there to beat her up! All right? I was mad that she ruined my life, so I went over there to get in that ass!”

  Kendrick grimaced.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I was gonna put my hands on her, yeah, but ain’t no way I would’ve done that to her. That kind of thing ain’t my style.”

  Lenox gulped his raw throat. “Everything started when I brought Sabathany with me to try and convince Ashley to take me back. But it did not go well. When we left, Sabathany wanted me to take her back to the penthouse, but my mind was on confronting Paris. She had no idea I was gonna go over to the apartment. When we got there, I told her to wait in the car because I needed to go in for a few minutes. I promised her I would take her home when I came back.”

  “Does Sabathany know?”

  “She knew something was wrong when I came back out. I told her when we got back to the penthouse.”

  “And no one thought to call? You couldn’t call my family?”

  “That’s the thing. Sabathany told me she was over there the night before. She said it was to get Paris to help change your mind about how you were treating her. But, when I told Sabathany that we should call you, she got weird. She said no, that you and your family would figure it out soon enough. That didn’t make sense to me unless she had something to do with the murder.”

  “Yeah, but what reason would she have for killing her?”

  “I don’t know, man. She said things got a little outta hand. When I asked what that meant, she gave me some lame-ass excuse. I must’ve been asking the wrong kind of questions, because next thing I know, she’s moving to a hotel.”

  Kendrick climbed off the bed to take in all of what Lenox had told him. Despite the look of sincere bewilderment on Lenox’s face, none of what he had said made sense, leaving Kendrick with a sense of both Lenox’s and Sabathany’s guilt.

  Pausing in the doorway, he turned around to see Lenox still struggling to breathe. “Get your ass out of my bed and come into the living room,” he said over his shoulder.

  Lenox followed slowly behind, like a wounded puppy following its owner. He was wearing a pair of Kendrick’s pajamas. He was embarrassed by the cluttered state of the apartment, recounting every lazy moment he could have taken to straighten up but did not.

  Kendrick fumed, taking in the extent of disarray, and Lenox’s appropriation of his clothes. “I guess you thought you were going to come in here and just take over, huh?”

  Lenox had no response.

  “When’s the last time you saw Paris.”

  “Last I saw her, she was driving off laughing.”

  “Did she threaten to go to the police before or after you saw her?”

  “She called to tell me she was doing it all—confronting my wife and going to the cops. Said she was getting back at me and at you for turning your back on her.”

  “I got another question for you.”

  Lenox’s face expressed annoyance.

  “Relax, you’re doing so well.”

  Lenox broke into nervous movement, picking up items around the apartment. He knew the gesture looked empty, but it was better than meeting Kendrick’s judging glance. “I don’t know any more than you do about who might’ve killed her, Kenny,” he said. “Swear to God.”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to ask you. I want to know why you stole $50,000 from me.”

  “I mean, you always said how you’d do right by me when you started making money. But, it seemed like every time you came home, you were acting grander and grander. Hell, you even treat me like I’m some peon, not like the cat you’ve known for the last fifteen years. I figured you’d get so high and mighty that you wouldn’t make good on your promise. That’s why I told you that bullshit about Ashley so you’d have to give it to me.”

  Kendrick wanted to beat Lenox within an inch of his life for that nonsense of an answer. “And once again you didn’t trust our friendship enough to be straight with me. So, not only were you smashing my sister, and trying to force her to have a sex change on my dime, but you sold me some crap to get into my pockets? And to top it all off, you let Sabathany convince you not to tell anyone Paris was laying up dead in her apartment? Anything else I should know?”

  “The operation was her idea.”

  “Man, shut your lying ass up!”

  “Dude, I ain’t lyin’!” An unexpected jolt of emotion brought Lenox to his knees. He cried soft and muffled sobs, like someone crying into a pillow. Lenox held his head up, ensuring that Kendrick saw the grief on his face and throughout his entire affect.

  Unmoved, Kendrick said, “From where I’m standing, I see two people who were the last to see my sister. At this point, neither one of you are looking too great.”

  Lenox picked himself up from the floor, offended by the suggestion. “How are you gonna say that to me? You’ve been knowing me since we were fifteen. You know I wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “No, I don’t know that. Just like I didn’t know that after all those years of listening to you go on and on about Pam Grier, come to find out, you prefer your women with something extra. You sort of left that out about yourself.”

  “Your sister is dead and you wanna do this now?”

  “All you had to do was be honest. My sister was the most courageous person I knew because she lived her life honestly. And yeah, it was difficult for her being bullied in school while she was transitioning, and being separated from her family, people who were supposed to have her back. But you chose the easy way out—the coward’s way. Admit it, you wanted your cake and to eat it too.”

  “Man, come on! You know where we come from! You mean to tell me you would’ve been down if I told you that Paris and I were hooking up? You would’ve been okay with that?”

  Kendrick moved about the room to avoid answering the question. Lenox knew the answer, and Kendrick knew that Lenox knew.

  “Man, you can’t even look me in the eyes and tell me. Now, who’s being a coward?” Lenox said.

  Kendrick went to the kitchen island and took the penthouse key from Lenox’s small key ring. “You won’t be needing this. And you’re going to return the money you took from me.”

  The finality of it all made Lenox’s jaw drop. But if there was any doubt to the meaning of Kendrick’s actions, it died when Kendrick said, “My family needs me right now. I better not find you here when I get back.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  December 3, 2013,

  Sabathany dreamed colorfully of Guadalajara, Mexico the previous evening. Something had manifested itself within her; it told her that San Diego was no longer the place to hide. She visited Guadalajara with her high school Spanish class, so it helped that she had a serviceable command of the language. She found its beaches to be some of the most beautiful she had seen. Now was her chance to enjoy them as an adult, while she basked in the sun with a tropical drink in hand, waiting for her mother’s murder investigation to go cold.

  Sabathany awoke to flurries, but by mid-morning that dusting transformed into heavy, wet snow. She was uneasy, worried about the potential difficulty in getting out of Minnesota without becoming stuck.

  Tammy came out of her room, fully dressed and unsure of which of Sabathany’s many faces had surfaced to greet her in the morning.

  “I didn’t expect you’d be up this early,” Sabathany said.

  “Good morning,” Tammy said, eyeing the impressive spread of breakfast foods on the dining room table. Lifting the silver lids revealed a plate of still warm, fluffy buttermilk pancakes adorned with fresh berries, and another plate of apple-wood smoked bacon. Without looking at any of the other plates she piled the bacon onto her plate of pancakes and poured a ramekin of maple syrup over the entire mass of food.

  Sabathany watched Tammy tear through the food. Clearing her throat, she said, “Boy, you’re hungry this morning.”

  “Can’t help it. This is so good,” Tammy said after the last bit
of strip bacon disappeared into her mouth.

  “I didn’t know what you’d like to eat. I’m glad it isn’t going to waste.”

  “Now, you know good and well you didn’t order all this for me,” Tammy said.

  Ignoring the dig, Sabathany asked, “Did you sleep okay?”

  Tammy nodded with overstuffed cheeks.

  Sabathany turned away from Tammy’s shameless gorging, and picked through her fruit plate, opting for the luscious pineapple. She stopped chewing when a picture of Paris Black flashed across the screen from a local morning news program. The cops had a lead, thanks to the killer’s sloppiness. Never had fingerprints been found at any of the crime scenes until now. Sabathany smiled as an information hotline number scrolled on the bottom of the TV screen. She crossed over to the desk and found a small note pad bearing the hotel’s name. She jotted down the number before forgetting it.

  Sabathany continued watching the news, waiting to hear of any improvement in weather and driving conditions. When the commercials came around, she looked back at Tammy. Though she hated to admit it, a pilgrimage across the country all alone would drive her crazy. Tammy already displayed a shift in attitude toward her. That alone warned Sabathany to proceed with some level of caution. Maybe if she wrote a check right then Tammy would lighten up a bit, which made it easier to control her later, she thought.

  Without saying anything, Sabathany went into her bedroom. Shortly after, she re-entered the living room, holding her checkbook and a pen. Standing over Tammy as she ate, Sabathany filled out a blank check with a dramatic sweep, wanting Tammy to be aware of the gesture. Tammy was unimpressed and continued enjoying her pancakes.

  “Here,” Sabathany said, watching the check flutter to the table. She hoped it would not land on the splotches of maple syrup left on the plate.

  Having eaten enough, Tammy pushed the plate away. “Thank you,” she said.

  By 1:30, Tammy gathered their luggage by the door and called the front desk to send a bellhop up for assistance. The angry Tammy who met Sabathany in the hotel bar the previous evening shifted into the more biddable friend Sabathany had grown to know and use at her will. With the check in her hands, she was forgiving and ready to move forward.

  A broad shouldered and modelesque bellhop showed up at the door. He helped Tammy place the luggage on a rolling cart.

  “Here, this is for you.” Sabathany handed him a tip. “Tammy, you two go on ahead, I’ll be down in a little bit.”

  “I was thinking the best way to do this is to pull the car around front. You think you’ll be down in enough time before they start waving me away?”

  “Oh, sure. Shouldn’t take me long at all.”

  Dealing with Sabathany for so long, Tammy knew that “a little bit” in Sabathany’s world meant something else.

  Sabathany headed for the desk and picked up the room telephone and dialed the hotline number.

  “This is Det. VanDrunen,” a voice answered.

  “I’m sorry, did I call the hotline?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Did you have information regarding the Paris Black homicide?”

  “Yes, I do. Write this name down…Lenox Hunter.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The public toilet was repugnant, making Tammy rethink how badly she needed to use it. The acrid smell of piss violated her nasal cavity. She did what she could to avoid touching the splattered toilet seat with her ass, though precariously balancing herself between the wall and rusty sink was difficult. Her arms vibrated as she held herself up, careful not to slide across the tile floor which was slick from snow and urine. A florescent light flickering noisily above caught smeared boogers and obscenities on the wall.

  “Who’s got time to write this mess?” Tammy wondered out loud, attempting to shake the last of her tinkle. When she finished, she felt accomplished for not having fallen onto the squalor. The almost empty liquid soap was gunky. She filled it half-way with water, then squeezed diluted soap onto her palms, failing to lather the way she wanted.

  “Better than nothing,” she said, emerging from the restroom, gulping fresh air. She walked to the front of the service station, returning the key to the teenage male attendant sitting behind the Plexiglas partition. He was pimply-faced and bored, amusing himself by texting on his phone.

  “You might want to get someone in there to clean that bathroom. It’s disgusting,” Tammy said. She picked a couple of chocolate bars and passed them through the slot along with the bathroom key.

  The boy looked up from his texting and gruffly scanned the candy bars.

  “Oh excuse me, you must have something more important to do,” Tammy said, but the comment seemed to float over the boy’s head.

  Sabathany was awake when Tammy returned to the car. She was attempting to read the road map.

  “You don’t need that. I’m using the GPS,” Tammy said as though she was a genius for doing so.

  “Now you tell me,” Sabathany said.

  “If you bothered to stay awake you might’ve seen me using it.”

  Sabathany lowered the crinkled mess of paper. She glared in Tammy’s general direction without making eye contact. “How long have we been on the road?”

  “Four hours.”

  “Are we still in Minnesota?”

  “Yep. We should be in South Dakota in a couple of hours.”

  “That long?” Sabathany shabbily refolded the map and stuffed it back inside the glove compartment. Eyeing the candy bars, she took one without asking permission.

  Tammy scratched a thin patch of frost from the lower inside corner of the windshield with her fingernails. “I figured once we crossed the state line we could stop somewhere to eat.”

  “Yes, please,” Sabathany said, munching the candy bar.

  “Bet you wish you ate something besides that plate of fruit, huh?”

  “Just drive.”

  “Don’t go back to sleep because you’re up next.”

  The women flipped through one weak signaled radio station after the next. Finally, Sabathany played music from her smart phone.

  Tammy turned the volume down and asked, “Did you really do it?”

  Sabathany blinked, stunned by the abruptness of the question. “Did I do what?” she responded, stalling for time to think of her answer. It was too late to act as though she had not heard it.

  “Did you kill your mama?”

  “Don’t ask questions you can’t handle the answer to.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I couldn’t handle it. Okay, you want me to tell you what I know?”

  “What do you think you know?” A million butterflies fluttered in her gut.

  “I know that you’ve been given a raw deal all your life. I know Lola has disrespected you for most of it.”

  Relieved that Tammy was on her side, Sabathany let out a sigh. Her fluttering stomach began to subside, followed by relaxation of the muscles throughout her body. “Biggest lesson I’ve learned is that you’re not going to cross the finish line with everyone you start with. Lola proved that she wanted no part of me. So, yeah, I finally got to the point where I thought if she’s going to basically kill herself, then I’ll put her out of her misery.”

  A sign decorated with faces from Mount Rushmore appeared suddenly, welcoming the women to South Dakota—a pleasant surprise because it hardly seemed like two hours had passed.

  Tammy took the first exit, which led them into a small town that looked like a movie studio backlot. At the end of the road was a restaurant called, “Happy’s Chow Cabin.”

  “You hungry?” Tammy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Doesn’t look like a fine dining joint.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “You sure? I can hop back on the freeway.”

  “I said it’s fine,” Sabathany repeated.

  “All right.” She turned into the full parking lot. Tammy unbuckled her belt and moved to open her door when Sabathany stopped her with a gentle grab of her arm. Tammy looked down at Saba
thany’s grasp, offended by the violation of space.

  “Hold on just a sec. You weren’t planning on telling anyone about what we talked about, right?”

  “Right,” Tammy said, deciding a simple answer was better than a long declaration of loyalty.

  Sabathany looked unconvinced.

  Tammy smiled. “Girl, I won’t say anything. As far as I’m concerned, you did what you had to do.”

  The two women went inside the restaurant. “Helloooooo, and welcome to Happeeeee’s Chow Cabin! Eat up,” the deer head mounted above said in a low, almost intoxicated sounding voice. Then it chuckled.

  A group of restaurant employees were congregated at the hostess stand. Each had the hardened face of toilers.

  The eldest of the pack was a plump woman. Her big teased hair, stiff from hairspray, looked like a throwback to 1987; her eyes were frosty blue and her pale pink lips shimmered. She sized up the African-American women, the only two she had seen in the flesh in all her years alive. She smiled the kind of smile that said she was not prejudiced. “Just two of you?”

  “Yes, please,” Sabathany said.

  “Follow me,” the woman instructed the ladies.

  The restaurant fell to a hush as they were led to their table. They encountered a medley of facial expressions from the other patrons as they moved through the dining room. Some were merely curious, while others were stern, borderline hostile. Sabathany focused on the fire blazing in the fireplace, and then the log cabin motif of old-style rifles, pots, pans and plates hanging along the stained, eastern white cedar walls.

  The ladies were seated in a small booth, tucked in the rear of the restaurant. The benches creaked as they sat down.

  “I thought I’d let you ladies know that we’re out of fried chicken,” the hostess said, handing them each a menu. There was an assumption in how she said it. “Amber will be your server tonight.”

  Sabathany and Tammy exchanged a look between them.

  “Oh, so because we’re black we want fried chicken?” Tammy whispered.

  “She doesn’t know any better. I mean, look at her,” Sabathany said, opening her menu.