“Is there a reason why you wouldn’t talk to me? Do you have something to hide?”
“Of course not.”
“Does Sweet?”
“Look, man, I don’t want to get involved in—”
“Just answer my question, that one question, and I’ll leave.”
Epps coughed and rubbed his throat.
“Well, what’s your answer?”
Epps averted his eyes. “Sweet never left his hotel room that night. He went to bed at nine with a stack of briefs. I couldn’t sleep because his lamp was on half the night.” He looked back at David. “Now please go.”
“Are you absolutely certain that Sweet was in the room all night?”
“Mister, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you’ve gotten all you’re going to get out of me.”
David left. Epps’s statement had disappointed him, but when he thought about it, he couldn’t say that it surprised him. Sweet was clever. He would have made sure that he had a sound alibi in the unlikely case that anyone raised questions. So he had either gotten Epps to lie or convinced Epps that he was still in the room for the hours he presumably left it.
I’ve got one more chance at bat, David thought. Epps’s statement counted as a strike. And Dr. Steve’s call certainly chalked up as another one.
Two strikes. Three and I’m out.
Of course, if Nella’s description of Lilian’s lost weekend was counted ... well, then he’d already struck out.
But I don’t count it, he thought. There was too much room for Nella’s opinion.
His lips tightened. The fact was, he’d run up against a wall. Hit it full speed running. His intelligent face was grave. He had proven neither method, nor motive, nor opportunity. He was angry and frustrated—and scared.
Am I wrong? he asked himself. Am I wrong to suspect Sweet?
Did he really think Sweet was guilty? Or did he just want him to be? Without a doubt, Sweet had been a lousy husband, but was he a killer?
Back in his room at home, David forced himself to reflect. True, he had no proof, but his suspicions had a solid basis, didn’t they? What about the questions his talks with Annie, Rachel, Nella, and Snyder had raised? The contradictions?
What contradictions?
He wasn’t even sure what they were anymore. The gravest of them all— Lilian’s pregnancy—was apparently no contradiction at all. It was the question of her pregnancy that had formed the underpinning of his suspicions. Without a confirmation of the pregnancy he had nothing. He was sinking into a quagmire of doubt. It was getting harder and harder to think.
Were his suspicions valid? Or were they simply the effort of a weary mind and even wearier heart to blame someone else for his failure to answer Lilian’s call for help?
Has your sense of guilt really driven you this far? Rachel had asked, Is the idea of murder actually easier to live with than suicide? Murder means you can blame someone else ...
He would have to tell her. He went downstairs to head out again and saw Annie.
“You haven’t had lunch yet,” she said.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“I can fix you sumptin’ real quick.”
“That’s all right. I’m going to see Rachel. Maybe we’ll have a bite to eat together.”
“Miss Rachel?” she repeated. “You going to see Miss Rachel again?”
He was reaching for his coat. Her tone stopped him. “What’s on your mind, Annie?”
Her nostrils flared just a bit. “‘Course it ain’t my place to say … but I hope you ain’t meaning to start up sumptin’ you can’t finish.”
Relieved that her concern wasn’t over something more serious, he gave a wry smile and took down his coat. “I’m not.”
“That young woman done been through a lot. Please don’t go making no promises you know you can’t keep.”
“We’re friends. That’s all. Friends.”
“Does that mean what I hope it mean?”
“It means that I won’t hurt her.”
Her stern expression softened, somewhat, but he could tell that she still wasn’t satisfied.
“I know I hurt her when I went away,” he added. “I know she hoped for more, but...”
“But what?”
“But sometimes,” he hesitated, then looked at her. “Sometimes we can’t have what we want.”
She studied him. “In them four years you was gone, what happened to you? What’d they do to you out there?”
He forced a smile and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Nothing important,” he said lightly. “Nothing that a man can’t learn to live with.”
24. Isabella
He felt a pang of guilt when Rachel opened her door. She looked exhausted. Evidently, she’d just returned home, hadn’t even had time to remove her coat. The dark circles under her eyes were pronounced and her heart-shaped face was pale. After he’d left the night before, she’d been called back in to work part of the overnight and early morning shifts, she told him. Two of the other nurses had called in sick.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should go.”
“No.” She stayed him with an outstretched hand. “Come in. Please. Seeing you is good for me.”
She went to the kitchen. Rapidly, she put up water for coffee and took out chocolate cake. Finally, he got her to sit down. He spoke in low, intense tones of his failure to prove a case against Sweet.
“Sweet’s hotel roommate claims that Sweet was in his room the whole night Lilian died. All of a sudden, Dr. Steve says he’s not sure Lilian was pregnant.”
“Oh, David ... what you’ve been through.”
“When I add all that to what Nella said, I... I have to say I...” His voice trailed off.
“Maybe it’s for the best. You’ve done all you can. Now you’ll have peace of mind. Now you know it was suicide. I mean—you do see that now, don’t you?”
He was silent.
“David McKay, you’re one of the most stubborn men I’ve ever known. You’ve got to accept what happened. You’ve got to let Lilian go. That’s the only way to survive this. Your thoughts belong with the living, not the dead.”
Nella had said something similar. Why couldn’t he let go? Admit that he might be wrong? The fact was, he did want Sweet to be guilty. He needed him to carry the blame.
“Promise me you’ll forget about Sweet,” she begged. “For your own sake, you’ve got to promise me that you’ll move on.”
“Rachel... I can’t.”
There was a long uncomfortable moment.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
She studied him with bleary eyes. Then she rose from the table with the slow, stiff movements of a sleepwalker. “I’m very tired now. I’d like to sleep.”
She was kicking him out. He stood up. He looked at her narrow shoulders hunched miserably under her thin coat, remembered what Annie had said, and felt ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She turned away from him. He laid a light hand on her shoulder. At his touch, she gave a dry sob. He put his arms around her. She turned, laid her face against his chest, and openly wept.
“It was so horrible,” she sniffled. “All those months with Lilian and then her dying that way. And then I heard that you were coming back. And it sounds terrible, but I thought that maybe her death was meant to be, that it was worth it, if it could bring you back. But then you said you weren’t going to stay. I don’t want you to leave Harlem, but I can’t make you stay. I don’t want you to stay, not if it’s going to be this way. Not if all you can think about is getting Sweet.”
She babbled on, like a heartbroken child. The kitchen clock ticked loudly. The sounds of laughter floated in from the street. Happy people, normal people, David thought, glancing out the kitchen window. Do such people still exist? Sometimes, it seemed to him that he was mired in sadness, that everyone he knew was struggling with tragedy. Perhaps it was his work in Philade
lphia; perhaps it was only his own skewed view of the world.
Gradually, Rachel calmed down. The remaining traces of her perfume, mixed with the hospital odors of sweat, disinfectant, and sickness, wafted up to him. He kissed the top of her head. She moaned and looked up. Her green eyes intrigued him. Sometimes, they were as clear as dewdrops; at other times, as opaque as a forest at midnight. Right then, they were tired and reddened, and they wore an expression that made him yearn for a sweetness he had no right to taste. He felt himself swelling. He moaned. Even the agony of saying no was beginning to feel good. He was tempted, so tempted to cross that line. If he didn’t get away soon, he’d burst—
“Stay with me,” she whispered.
Somehow, she’d managed to slip off her coat, and now his was coming off, too.
With nimble fingers she unbuttoned his shirt and rolled it back over his shoulders. Spreading her fingertips over his chest, she covered it with hot, moist kisses. She began to lick him, the tip of her tongue fluttering lightly over his nipples. Her lips traced a line of fire, downward, while her fingers undid his belt, burrowed inside his pants and touched him there ... there ... and there. His eyes slid closed; his breathing grew ragged. What was the point? Why couldn’t he—for once—just let go?
He sensed her slide to her knees. When he realized that she was parting his fly, he clasped her by her shoulders and drew her up. She looked at him, wondering. Had she done something wrong? Was he going to leave?
No, he shook his head. “I want to be here, with you,” he said and caressed her with his eyes. “It’s just that ... I didn’t think we could ever have this again. I didn’t really think ...”
A wealth of relief and happiness flooded her face. He stroked her cheek.
“Let’s take our time,” he whispered. “Let’s take it slow ... and easy.”
With his right hand, he cupped her cheek and kissed her lips. When he drew back, he saw that her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. He drew a fingertip over one of her eyebrows and she opened her eyes. They were like green flames now. Taking her face in both hands, he slowly ran his tongue along her upper lip, then made his way down her chin. Tilting her face upward, he gently sucked on her throat.
Moaning, she pressed herself against him. Her body quivered. Then, she pulled away. “Wait,” she whispered and left the room. He heard the sound of running water. When she came back, she took his hand and led him to her bathroom. He saw that she’d filled the tub, a deep claw-footed one. She’d also set lighted candles on the tiled floor. Their small flames cast flickering shadows on the bathroom’s yellowed ivory walls.
Slowly, they undressed one another. She had him lie back in the tub. Then she stepped in with him and knelt between his legs, facing him. When he reached for her, she pressed his arms down.
“Relax, baby.”
Tenderly, she lathered him with a sponge and a bar of soap scented with sandalwood. Gently, as though she were handling a child, she lifted his arms and soaped his armpits, then moved down over his chest. His erection arched over his stomach like a bird about to take flight. He reached to cup her breasts, but she swatted him away, and then she began to wash him with calm efficiency, a woman reclaiming her lost lover as her own.
For a time, he watched her slender hands at work. Then he closed his eyes, slid deeper into the warm water, and gave in to the sweet sensation of her hands moving over him. Now and then, she would kiss him and where her lips touched him, he ached.
He would never feel as captured by a woman as he was by Rachel. As she bathed him, he imagined a cleansing that went deeper than the skin, one that took him back to earlier times, before shame and exile.
He moaned as she cradled his balls and lathered them. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, and then he felt her mouth envelop him. A sharp stab of pleasure shot through him. He looked down. With her tongue, she was caressing him from base to tip, tip to base. She looked up, saw his expression, and smiled her Mona Lisa smile, then gave him one last lick. Still on her knees, she took his right hand and placed it between her thighs.
He curled his fingers into her soft dark triangle. Her breath caught as his middle finger slipped inside her and she bit her lower lip. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes and shivered from head to toe. Then her eyes opened to dwell on him, as warm and inviting as the Caribbean. Silently, she leaned forward and kissed him long and hard on the mouth. All of her pain, her longing, went into that one kiss. He drew her to him, sliding her forward through the water, and kissed her eyes, her lips, her throat. Then he washed her, too.
They dried one another with short, rapid strokes of the towel, then went to her bedroom. Once there, they got close, loving hard, loving deep, sweating to make up for lost time. Once he woke her to lick honey from between her thighs. When the day had given way to early evening, she laid her face on his chest and asked:
“So, is your honey-stick sore?”
“It aches, all right.”
She chuckled and played with him lazily. “You were a hungry man.”
“Four years without a dip in the pot can do that.”
“Four years?” she repeated with wonder, turning his exhausted member this way and that. “Why? Were you sick?” She looked up. “Or were you in jail?”
He saw the morbid interest in her eyes and felt only faint surprise. He’d always suspected that she had a dark side and yes, he was attracted to it. He chuckled.
“Yeah, I saw the inside of a couple. But not in the way you mean.”
She twirled some of his chest hairs around her right index finger. “Does loving me cause you pain, David?” She pulled on the hairs a little, watching his skin lift, and whispered, “Do you feel ashamed?”
He shook his head.
She smiled sweetly at him, then gave his chest hairs a swift, sharp yank, ripping some out by the roots. He jerked up and grabbed her hand.
“What the fu—”
“Do you feel ashamed?”
Their gazes locked. She stared him down.
“Yeah,” he said, finally. “I guess I do.”
Her feline eyes appraised him. “But still, you love me.” Her grip on his hairs loosened, and with a contented little smile, she lowered her head and nuzzled her cheek against his chest.
He let himself sink back against the pillow. One hand he threw across his forehead; with the other, he stroked the top of her head, drawing her hair back from her face. “Why d’you ask?”
Her voice, when it came, sounded as though it was floating from somewhere deep within him.
“Because ... it’s no good when the loving’s easy. It’s got to hurt... and hurt bad. That’s the only way a body knows it’s for real.”
Years later, looking back, he would wonder at the power of pain, at how some people are more attracted to anguish than to ecstasy, how for some they are one and the same. But at the time, he only perceived that Rachel connected with him on a level that no other woman did. And that he was grateful to have someone with whom he could express, without explaining, the pain he otherwise had to hide.
He found that he’d forgotten his keys and had to ring the doorbell. Annie shook her head at the sight of him. Hers was the expression of a teacher who had seen his homework and was none too pleased. It was in the set of her mouth, the way her eyes moved over him. She hung up his coat, gave him another dark glance, then headed off down the hall. He pursued her and put a light restraining hand on her arm.
“Hey, Annie, what’s the matter? Come on, look at me.”
She turned around, her arms folded across her bosom, her lips pressed tight. “Yes?”
“What’s the matter?”
She looked at him hard. This was more than disapproval. It was fury. “Mr. David ... Her smell’s all over you. You reek of her.”
Normally, he was slow to anger, but her words threw his switch. “And what of it?”
“Looka here, I sees you running over there all times of day, disappearing early in the morning and comi
ng back at night. Now I don’t know what you doing, but I can guess and it don’t seem right, not after all that’s happened.”
He took a deep breath to try to calm down. “Annie, I love you and I respect you, but I won’t let you mind my business. Now I know you’re upset about Lilian—so am I—but that don’t give you the right to—”
“This ain’t got nothing to do with Miss Lilian. And you know it.”
He stared at her, not comprehending. “I know what?”
She looked at him skeptically.
“Annie, tell me what-all I’m supposed to know!”
She studied him, still mistrustful, then relented. She told him to follow her into the kitchen, had him sit down. She talked; he listened. Twenty minutes went by. By then, his throat had gone dry, and he was shaken to the core.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Go back ‘n see her. Talk to her. But no matter what she says, please r’member this: There’s some things a woman never forgives or forgets. Miss Rachel may not want to carry her mem’ries round with her—I’m sure she don’t—but she ain’t got no choice. Them mem’ries is cut into her heart, burned into her soul. She’ll never come free of them. Hear what I say, Mr. David, hear what I say. Them mem’ries will be a part of her till the day she die.”
And so they would be. Rachel would never forget the day when the sun turned dark in her inner sky and bitterness settled like a permanent night over her heart. It was the twentieth of January 1923. David had been gone exactly three months. She’d visited Lilian. They were in the McKay family parlor. Rachel had sat nervously on the edge of the fireplace armchair. She was weak after days of vomiting. Her eyes were reddened from nights of crying. She saw that Lilian couldn’t bear to look at her. They were old friends, but Lilian was ashamed and embarrassed. She obviously wanted her out of the house as quickly as possible.
Lilian took a step toward her, then faltered. Her expression was grim, but decided. “I’m sorry, Rachel. You’re like a sister to me, but I can’t help you. You’re asking for something I cannot give.”
Harlem Redux Page 22
