She couldn’t manage more than a nod. Once more, he’d implied that her concern for Tonya couldn’t equal his, because he was her father. Listlessly, she settled into the car. He buckled her seat belt and caressed the side of her face until she looked at him. Then, without a word, he leaned to her, took her into his arms, and held her.
“She’ll be all right, Justine. We don’t know that it’s serious, so let’s try not to worry.”
She tensed when Duncan turned into Primrose Street. “That car. That red car in front of the house. It’s the man who confronted me in the post office that day, and this isn’t the first time he’s been parked out there.”
Duncan stopped the car and unbuckled his seat belt.
“What are you doing?”
“If I drive up there, he’ll see me. I want the number of his license plate. Stay here.”
Minutes later, he got back in the car. “You’ve seen him parked in front of our house before, and you didn’t mention it to me?”
“When I would have told you, you had to finish a story and turn it in the next morning. I didn’t want to distract you. Mattie told me she’d seen him out there several times.”
“Next time you notice something this important, tell me even if I’m on my way to interview the President of the United States.”
He drove into the garage and closed the door behind them. “We’ll go in through the back. I don’t want him to see you, or me, for that matter.”
“Y’all leave Tonya in Frederick?” Mattie asked as they entered the house through the breakfast room, where she was dusting furniture.
Justine didn’t pause, but let Duncan do the explaining. She went into her room, closed the door, and headed for the bathroom. Alone at last, she braced herself against the wall with the palms of her hand, and she prayed for Tonya and for the strength to deal with whatever she had to face. She heard the explosion seconds before he knocked, ran from the bathroom, and jerked open the bedroom door.
“Duncan, what was that?”
“I…I don’t know.” He grabbed her hand. “Whatever it was, I want you right with me.”
He ran down the stairs with her and into the breakfast room. “Are you all right?” he asked Mattie.
Her eyes were round saucers of fright. “Whatever in the name of the Lord was that?”
“You two stay right here while I check out the place.”
Duncan stepped out of the front door and let his gaze sweep his property. He clenched and unclenched his fists as anger seethed in him at the sight of his prized crabapple tree split with what had to have been a Molotov cocktail. He walked over to the tree, examined the burns, and went back into the house. So the goons were still trying to intimidate him—or were they after Justine? He telephoned the police, went into the breakfast room, and told the two women what he’d found.
“It’s probably a one-time thing, but I want the two of you to stay away from the front windows until I get to the bottom of this stupidity.”
He phoned the hospital, learned that Tonya’s condition hadn’t changed, and called his source in the Municipal Building. “Can you check plate number LRP897 on a red 1988 Oldsmobile?”
Within minutes, he had the information he wanted, hung up, and checked it with the names Justine had given him of women she’d counseled against accepting abuse from their mates. Bingo! Elsa Modeen and Cage Modeen. With such an unusual last name, it couldn’t be a coincidence. If Justine could pick Cage Modeen out in a police line-up, they’d be rid of the pest. He went downstairs and asked her.
“I sure can. I’d even recognize his voice.”
“Me, too,” Mattie said. “I probably seen him more times than Justine. He been to this door at least three times axin for her. ’Course I always told him she don’t live here. Looks like he didn’t believe me.”
“He won’t be back here again soon, because I’m going to press for his indictment as a stalker.”
His nerves stood on end when the phone—the number of which he’d given hospital authorities—rang in his office, and he took the stairs three steps at a time. “Banks.”
“Duncan, this is Banks. How’s Tonya?”
He wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “The same when I called an hour ago. They’re running some tests, so we ought to know something in a day or so. Try not to worry; it’s all I can do to keep Justine from losing it. So you tied Wayne up?”
“For your information, the gentleman asked my hand in marriage.”
He laughed, and it felt so good to let it out. “Sure he did. Poor guy was a goner from the minute I introduced you to him.”
“Duncan, I think I’m going to capitulate and pay Miss Mary a visit. Why couldn’t he have some other mother?”
“If I could answer that, I’d be the Solomon of our times. I’m happy for you, kiddo. Wayne is a good man.”
“Thanks. Are you and Justine going to get it together? Too bad your vacation got torpedoed, but there’ll be other times. Mama and I like her, Duncan.”
“Yes, I know that, but don’t lean on me. We’re a long way from anything definite. I’ll keep you posted on Tonya’s condition. And don’t worry, Wayne’s mother has mellowed since Adam and Melissa gave her a grandchild. She thinks Melissa can do no wrong.”
“You serious? She once knocked herself out cold when she ran into an iron post trying to avoid meeting Melissa.”
“That’s in the past, evidently. I promise you’ll like her.”
He hung up, and his cell phone rang. “Hello.”
“Say, Pops, this is Mitch. We having landlord trouble. I told the guy’s secretary that Rags still don’t get around too good, but she said he can’t have two kids living alone in his building. I told her our mother is just off right now, but she won’t listen to reason.”
She’d been “off” for sixteen months. “Don’t leave the building; he can’t put two minors on the street. I’ll get back to you.”
Frustrated and angry, he slammed out of his office and almost knocked Justine to the floor. “What’s the matter?” she asked, after he’d helped her regain her equilibrium.
He walked with her back into his office. “The poor get poorer,” he began, and relayed Mitch’s story. She asked him where the boys lived and, when he told her, her eyes widened and a scowl shadowed her face.
“You know something?” he asked.
Her shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. “You can find in that area the genesis of just about every problem in this city. Something has to be done.”
He studied her for a long time, thinking that every day, a little more of the real Justine emerged. He’d be angry about it, if what came out was less attractive. He observed her wan expression and didn’t like what he saw; indeed, he couldn’t understand it. She wasn’t a woman to cave in at the first sign of trouble, yet Tonya’s illness seemed to have sucked the wind out of her.
“Yeah, something ought to be done,” he said after a long while. “And I’m tired of putting Band-Aids on a sore as big as this town. Stay put, you two. I’m going down to police headquarters.”
He filed the charges against Cage Modeen, against whom two others—one of wife beating—were pending and, on an impulse, decided to go to the hospital. Tonya’s slothful greeting didn’t lighten the weight on his heart. He remained with her for an hour, but she paid little attention to him. He didn’t know how he got out of her room. As he passed the newsstand leaving the hospital, he bought a copy of The Maryland Journal and was reminded that it carried his story of Baltimore slumlords and Hugh Pickford. He’d have no choice but to show it to Justine.
When he got home, he made sure that nothing untoward had happened in his absence, went to his office, and read his story. He could take pride in what he had accomplished with that piece, but he didn’t expect Justine to smile at him after she read it. No point in postponing the inevitable. He knocked on her bedroom door.
“Duncan. May I see you for a second?”
He scrutinized her face for evidenc
e that she was coping with their mutual problems, because he was about to hand her another one.
“My story on slumlords is in here, and before you indict me, ask yourself how you would have reacted and what you would have done if you’d been wearing my shoes.”
She looked from him to the paper he gave her, and he didn’t have to be told that, after what he’d said, she’d rather not read it. Her face expressed as much apprehension as he’d ever seen mirrored on anyone. He wanted to step into that room, take her in his arms, and love her, lose himself in her until she rocked him into oblivion.
“See you later,” he managed, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and went back to his office.
How naive she’d been, telling Duncan that her godfather could help him, when he was the man whom Duncan hunted. Yes. Hunted. A man Duncan had hated for almost thirty years. She’d heard her aunts talk about “the trouble Hugh got into” by running a red light, supposedly hitting a pedestrian, and not stopping to help. And they would invariably add: “Child, it doesn’t hurt to have influence, and Hugh has more than his share.” All those years and all the hurt her godfather must have suffered knowing he wasn’t guilty and, for thirty years, Duncan had let him sweat it out. Her conscience reminded her that her godfather had put a family out in the cold for a debt the repayment of which would have amounted to an infinitesimal fraction of his vast wealth. She read again the last two sentences of that incredible piece of writing.
“Hugh Pickford may not have known that his buildings were in such a state of disrepair as to endanger the lives of his tenants, but he is guilty of disinterest, of not caring enough to oversee his criminal managers. A man who doesn’t check his property or his employees for eight years doesn’t care.”
He was expecting some comment from her, but she didn’t feel like talking to him. For most of her life, Hugh Pickford had been the one person to whom she’d been able to turn for affection, comfort, and understanding, and the man she loved had stood between her beloved godfather and the respect he craved. He’d told her many times that, because of that incident, he needn’t consider running for public office.
She put her hands to her face, closed her eyes, and tried to put herself in Duncan’s place. He’d been a teenager, but he knew what was right and what was wrong. In his article and in his court testimony, he hadn’t tried to exculpate himself and had said that he’d erred. She telephoned her godfather.
“I just read Duncan Banks’s story in The Maryland Journal,” she told him. “I’m sorry. And to think that I gave him your phone number believing you could help him with his story.”
“Tell you the truth, I didn’t remember any of that stuff he told in court; it all happened such a long time ago. I believed him, though, because I’d had a Marshall dispossess tenants plenty of times if they didn’t pay up. I’m pretty much ashamed of it, ’cause I didn’t need the money. I don’t hold it against him, though; this time, if he had kept his mouth shut, I’d have gone to jail for a good long spell. He didn’t have to point the finger at Kilgore and my other crooked managers after they pocketed my money and falsified accounts instead of keeping up my buildings, and lied on me in court. I thought I was in for it. Half the people on that jury looked as though they lived in a tenement.”
She couldn’t believe that he expressed no anger, and she couldn’t help wondering when he’d changed from the swaggering, romantic figure she’d adored from childhood.
She hung up, went to her dresser, picked up her comb and put it down. The image of Justine Taylor Montgomery stared at her from the mirror—the haggard way she’d often looked when nightmares of Kenneth and his horrid end had plagued her nightly and wouldn’t let her sleep. How long had it been since she’d last known interminable despair? Not since she’d first held her child or made love with Duncan or realized how much he cared. How can you judge him? her conscience needled. Is he worse than you? You deliberately deceived him. You held him in your body, told him you loved him, while you skillfully misled him. His sin was the act of a troubled adolescent. You are thirty years old. She wiped her tears with the back of her arm, walked over to the window, and stared out at the dreariness. In three weeks, it would be Christmas. She wouldn’t think of it. She couldn’t.
She was still in her room when Mattie rang her private phone. “Dinner’s in the oven, Justine. Mr. B says I can have the rest of the day off ’cause my Moe is gonna run me by to see Tonya. You want to come down so I can show you where everything is? No, she did not, but she pulled off her robe, slipped into a jumpsuit, and went to the kitchen.
“She ain’t no better and no worse,” Mattie said. “I’m gonna just peep in on her.” She looked at Justine. “Honey, you’re a wreck. Ax Mr. B to get you a sedative or somethin’.”
“Ask me what?”
Justine whirled around and faced him. What could she say to him? “I read your article. It was fair, and you have a wonderful talent for writing.”
He gazed into her eyes, searching, seeming to judge her, though she couldn’t imagine for what. “You aren’t irritated or angry?” he asked.
She looked over his shoulder at a distant object. “I’m not happy. You could have told me when you discovered that he was my godfather, but…well, you packaged it neatly, and in the end you were his salvation. I don’t think I have a right to judge you.”
Her left hand was the one nearest him, and he grasped it in both of his. “I’m relieved. I would never intentionally do anything to hurt you or distress you in any way.” He seemed to weigh a decision. “I went to see Tonya while I was out this afternoon.” Her heart leapt inside her chest. “No change. I’ll drive you over if you want to go, but I don’t advise it. She paid almost no attention to me. Maybe when she sees Mattie, she’ll perk up a bit.”
Mattie preened. “I think I’ll put on my red and purple wig when I go home; Tonya loves that one. She just laugh every time she see it.”
But would she laugh this time? “Duncan, do you think that man’s in custody? If he is, I’d like a few hours off tomorrow morning. I have to run an errand.”
He released her hand and put both of his in his pockets. She’d never seen him pace, but he walked to the door, walked back, and repeated the action several times.
“They ought to have him by now, since he wasn’t expecting to be taken in. I’ll check.”
Minutes later, he told her, “Yes, he’s in custody, and they want you and Mattie down there Monday morning. Your time’s your own.”
Sunday morning at seven o’clock, she got in her car and headed for Richmond, Virginia. Arnold Taylor wouldn’t answer her calls to his office, but she’d catch him before he went to church. Church. He shouldn’t defile the door by walking through it. Two hours later, she parked in front of his white Georgian home and stared at the place where, during her youth, she’d dreamed of living with him. But instead of letting her share his home, he’d made her live with her aunts. She rang the bell, and after what seemed like forever, he opened it. His loud gasp and harsh swallow told her she’d robbed him of his customary aplomb, his iron-clad composure.
“Hello, Father.” He’d always insisted that she call him that and had scolded her whenever she said “Daddy.” “May I come in?”
He stepped aside. She’d surprised him, and he had no comeback. “To what do I attribute this unexpected pleasure?”
She walked into the place and looked at the trappings of wealth—wealth that she had never questioned until now. The wall covering of silk tapestry in the foyer and living room, marble fireplace with its shining brass accessories; Persian carpets, porcelain vases, sterling silver everywhere, a painting of Thomas Jefferson, and works of James Porter, Elizabeth Catlett, Doris Price, and, strangely, one of a mother and child, entitled “Family” by Josie Miller. Why would he have something like that? But the opulence had a chilling effect on her, and she pitied him.
“Why have you come? Have you left Banks? Aren’t you ashamed to live with a man who isn’t your husband? Didn’t you
do enough when you married my bitterest enemy, a man who trashed my name like a pile of rotted refuse? Why are you here?”
He was so much older than when she’d last seen him six years earlier. Gray and drawn. She spoke with more gentleness than she felt. “I tried so many times to speak with you, Father, but your secretary never put you on the line. I’m here about this.”
She showed him the papers setting forth the transfer of property from himself to her. “Father, I want you to tell me that you aren’t trying to dump these buildings on me to avoid a civil suit and damage your chances for reelection. Have you forgotten that I have a doctor’s degree, which means I’m capable of reasoning. When that boy fell off that staircase, from which the railing had been ripped months earlier, I am the person who got him into the hospital. Me. I paid his bills. And I would never have made the connection if his brother hadn’t given Duncan the address. You see, Duncan is big brother to those two boys. Now, you want to put them out on the street. Over my dead body. How could you do it?”
He slumped into a chair, a beaten man. “I knew you were living with Banks, and I know his reputation. He would never let you take the heat for it, because he has contacts all over the country. He could have bought you out of it, but it will ruin me. I don’t want you to think I expected you’d have to suffer for it. I thought he’d get you off.” He shook his head. “I might as well not run for reelection.”
She stared at him. “Does being an assemblyman mean so much to you that you’d risk my well-being? Duncan buy me out of that mess?” She laughed aloud. “Get a copy of The MarylandJournal weekend edition and see what he thinks of slumlords. Father, I advise you to get a lawyer. A good one.” His face, so heavily lined since she’d last seen him, seemed to sag before her eyes. She stepped toward him, paused, and stepped back. “Maybe…maybe if you’d offer some kind of restitution, you could avoid a suit.”
She turned toward the door, and his hand on her arm stopped her. “Would you care for some coffee?”
Fools Rush In Page 30
