Harlem Redux

by Persia Walker

  Sweet’s lizard-like eyes narrowed. “I refuse to believe there was a pregnancy. But go on. You spoke of several—what was the word?” He paused. “Oh, yes. Contradictions.”

  “Suffice it to say there were enough to make me wonder. When I first started asking questions, Annie warned me that things aren’t always the way they seem. The more people I talked to, the more applicable that warning seemed to be.”

  Sweet smirked. “You think I killed her, don’t you? You feel guilty about her suicide, so now you want to say I did it.”

  “No. Not at all.”

  Sweet’s surprise was obvious.

  David inclined his head. “Naturally, there was someone else who could’ve killed her—someone who like you would’ve benefited, or hoped to benefit, from her death.”

  Sweet tensed.

  David kept his voice calm and restrained. “I know that Gem was interested in you and that you rejected her when she approached you openly. Gem found herself another lover, Adrian Snyder. She showed how much she disliked you when Lilian was around and offered Lilian the benefit of her sisterly advice. Finally, she ran weeping to the Hamptons after her breakup with Snyder. But nothing was as it seemed: Gem neither despised you nor loved Snyder. He didn’t break up with her—she broke up with him. And she wasn’t ashamed of the breakup. She wanted people to know about it. They had to believe she had good reason to suddenly leave town.

  “While the gossips were still atwitter, Gem packed her bags. She fled the cold grayness of New York for the stillness of Harding House. Nella’s described it to me; it sounds like a lovely place. Relatively isolated, set on an outcropping of private beach, with a small private dock and a boat for short excursions. It fitted Gem’s needs perfectly. The water was too cold to swim in, so Gem probably sat on the beach the first couple of days, letting the hours slip by peacefully, watching the sun sink lower over the horizon. I can see her hugging herself, as the air grew chill with the setting sun. She prepared simple suppers and ate them alone. She probably read for a while, before going to bed. She spent several days like this, in self-imposed isolation. Then one night, lying in the dark, let’s say she watched a cloud pass over the moon. And she knew it was time to do what she planned next.

  “She telephoned Lilian, invited her to visit. When Lilian arrived, Gem went on to the next step of her plan—a plan that was exquisitely simple and brutally direct. She killed her own sister—shot her, stabbed her, I don’t know—and hid her body on Nella’s property. Then she dressed herself in Lilian’s clothes, drove back to Manhattan, and took Lilian’s place.”

  Sweet said nothing, but he looked dismayed.

  David went on. “This would explain why the last entry in Lilian’s diary was dated just after the breakup. It would explain why no one had a chance to see Gem before she left. Why Lilian was suddenly no longer pregnant. Why she lost interest in her friends and sought out Nella. It would explain a great deal. And it would explain it with sense.”

  “But that couldn’t be! It couldn’t! Don’t you think I’d know if Gem had been pretending to be my wife?”

  “A good question,” David said. “Very good.”

  Stillness.

  Sweet cleared his throat. “This is ridiculous. I know it was Lilian. If it had been Gem, she would’ve been healthy. But the woman who came back from Harding House was as sick as ever.”

  “You said she was well for some time after Gem supposedly left.”

  “Just for a short time—”

  “Enough time for Gem to develop Lilian’s symptoms.”

  “Preposterous! Impossible!”

  “Think about it—about the mental strain Gem was under. She’d gotten Lilian to confide in her, so she felt sure of her familiarity with Lilian’s life, but there must’ve been many perks to Lilian’s personality, areas about Lilian’s life, that Gem didn’t know about, and they must’ve tripped her up. What was worse was conforming herself to the ways and habits she did know about. It was an ironic twist: Gem the free spirit had trapped herself in a situation where she had to adopt the ways of the sister she’d scorned, the woman she’d killed. As time went by, Gem must’ve felt imprisoned by glass walls. And she felt guilt. Intense, unbearable guilt. Yes, she’d been cold enough to kill her own sister. But she wasn’t cold enough to live with it.

  “Gem was haunted by Lilian’s dying gaze. That would explain a letter Nella Harding found, a letter that reads like a poem. ‘It’s her fault. It’s her fault. My sister, that sister of mine. She’s trying to kill me, to slay me, with her dead blind eyes …’ Gem was the family poet. She’s the only one who would’ve written those words. I think she dreamed constantly about what she’d done. She was tortured by nightmares. That’s why, on a visit to Nella’s house, it seemed as though she was screaming out her own name.

  “When you urged Gem to see a psychiatrist, she panicked. She couldn’t afford to let a stranger probe her mind, but she couldn’t hold out. She probably told the good doctor what she thought he wanted to hear. She knew exactly what to say to make him cluck or sigh or tsk or simply nod his head in empathy, sympathy, or feigned understanding. What a dear old fool, she probably thought. And that was fine, because she found it entertaining to manipulate him, but then he became a ‘tiring old fool’ when she began to suspect that he was seeing through her, was indeed learning more about her through her lies than any of the few truths she volunteered. So she broke off her therapy. She turned to liquor.”

  “Gem would’ve never committed suicide. She’s the most self-loving woman I’ve ever met.”

  “And one of the most self-destructive. Liquor and guilt can bring anyone down.”

  David paused. “Still, I agree with you. Gem did not kill herself. She didn’t die by her own hand any more than Lilian did.”

  Sweet’s dark eyes were bleak and grim. Several uneasy minutes passed by.

  “You might’ve gotten away with it, Sweet. But you’re a sloppy killer.”

  Sweet started, and then caught himself. “Lilian wasn’t the only one with mental problems, I see.”

  “Yes, well ... All of us McKays are cursed with a rather creative intelligence,” David said mildly. “Unfortunately for you, you aren’t. You didn’t do your homework. You didn’t study your victim enough.”

  Sweet said nothing, but he swallowed once.

  “Is your throat dry?” David asked. “Nervousness—fear—will do that to people. Make yourself a drink.”

  Sweet licked his lips, but he didn’t move.

  “I once read that every suicide chooses his death, marks his death,” David said, “in a way that reflects his special temperament. Seen in that light, it was a bad idea for you to have shown that suicide note to me. Neither one of my sisters would’ve written something like that.

  “You quoted Lorraine. I’m sure you thought you were being brilliant. But Lilian hated Lorraine. Why would she quote a writer she so disliked? I mentioned that, but you didn’t react. You didn’t understand. You didn’t realize what your ignorance told me.

  “Then I realized that it wasn’t Lilian, but Gem who was found upstairs, and that made the note seemed even odder. Gem would’ve never written such a thing. At most, she might’ve grabbed a page of stationery and in her pretty script, scribbled, ‘See you in Hell.’ She would’ve never typed it. Neither Gem nor Lilian would’ve thought to write anything so personal on a machine.”

  Sweet’s eyes were riveted to David’s face. He listened, unwillingly captivated, as David continued.

  “Gem’s thinking patterns never interested me before. I never found her scintillatingly unpredictable. She was one of the most boringly predictable people I’ve ever known. Why? Because she was unerringly selfish and vain. She always chose the easiest way out. And she always wanted to look her best. So why would she choose such an ugly, not to mention painful, way to die? Why didn’t she use the drugs that were right there? Why would she instead take a knife and butcher her own flesh? It didn’t make sense.”

&n
bsp; There was a momentary pause, then David added, almost as an afterthought: “There was also the matter of the slashes.”

  “The what?” Sweet stirred. “The slashes?”

  “On her wrists. Suicide victims usually make one or two shallow cuts while working up their courage. But Annie described two clean wounds.”

  “But the shallow cuts were there. Annie just didn’t see them.”

  “But you did?”

  “Yes—I did. You can’t trust that old woman’s memory. The shock of finding Lilian’s body probably drove everything else out of her mind.”

  “I see. So you want me to believe that the discovery shocked Annie, but it didn’t shock you?”

  “I didn’t mean––”

  “Of course, you did.”

  “Don’t twist my words.”

  “I don’t have to. They speak for themselves. Every inconsistency reflects a certain truth.”

  That nervous tic leapt near Sweet’s right eye.

  “I’ve thought a lot about that weekend when my sister supposedly killed herself,” David said. “She told Nella Harding that you’d be gone the entire time. You certainly went to a lot of trouble to make it look that way, setting up an alibi, including a witness. The man who shared your hotel room claims you were there all Sunday night. But we both know he’s lying. It’s easy to buy false testimony. But given time and determination, it’s also easy to break it. I’m sure Epps will think twice when he learns he’s part of a murder investigation.”

  Sweet didn’t answer, but his eyes were venomous.

  David walked circles around him. “You hid while Nikki Harding searched the house. And came out after he left. Gem suspected that you were here and she wasn’t happy about it. She’d come to fear you. She wasn’t sure why. In her confused state, the best she could do was talk about ghosts.

  “You waited until she’d gone to sleep. Then in the night, you crept up on her. As she slept, you took her hand. You uncurled her fingers and—” David raised his hand and, with a swift slicing motion, mimed the flash of a blade over flesh. “The pain woke her. Her eyes snapped open. She saw her blood squirting from her wrist. Perhaps she clapped her other hand over it, but the blood would’ve just bubbled up between her fingers.

  “Maybe you went so far as to tell my sister that it was time for her to die. You held the knife away from you so it wouldn’t soil those nice new clothes her money had paid for. Maybe you tilted the knife, turned it this way and that. No doubt some of the blood trickled down onto your hands. Maybe you looked down at them, admired them. For their strength. For their ability to destroy a woman.”

  The twitch at the corner of Sweet’s eye was pronounced. He strode to the writing table, pulled out a hidden glass and bottle and poured himself a drink. He gulped half of it down, turned, and eyed David with intense distaste.

  “Tell me more. I’m sure there is more.”

  “You’re the kind of killer who takes pleasure in explaining how clever he is, so you explained to her what you would tell the police. You would say you found her dead. That she’d been depressed but had refused help. That she’d apparently taken matters into her own hands. That’s all you’d have to say. They would call it suicide for you.

  “You went on to tell her how everyone would believe you. That no one would suspect. After all, you’re the man who loved her, the good husband who’d stayed at her side. They’d believe anything you said. And my sister listened, mute from the pain, the terror of finding herself trapped with a monster. Maybe she found her voice and asked you, ‘Why?’ You had the money, the house. Why weren’t you satisfied?

  “I can imagine your answer. You thought you were talking to Lilian. She was a wonderful woman. But for a man like you, she was too quiet, too thoughtful. You would love another kind of woman—someone who plays the game of life as you do: a fighter, a dirty player. You wanted Gem. And you were prepared to kill in order to be with her. The great irony is, you killed the very woman you loved.”

  Sweet paled as the meaning of David’s words sunk in.

  “I’m sure my sister pleaded for her life. I know she fought. For all she was worth. Blood everywhere, Annie said. On the sheets, the canopy, the walls. Drugged or not, Gem would never have died easily. You must’ve had to drag her down, pin her down like an animal, to do what you did.”

  Sweet’s eye twitched again. He half turned away.

  “Yet you two deserved one another,” David said. “Both ruthless and greedy, disdainful of humanity and unable to love anyone other than yourselves. Gem, unwilling to risk another rejection, determined to have you at all costs. You, driven by a sick love for the woman you couldn’t have and contempt for the one you did.”

  Several seconds of hostile silence followed.

  Then Sweet tossed back the last of his drink. He set his glass down on the writing table with a thump and turned to face David. His eyes were dull and cold now. Slowly, he raised his big hands in the air and began to applaud loudly, mockingly.

  “An excellent performance,” he said. “Too bad you didn’t sell tickets.”

  David’s smile was frosty. “Would you like that? A public display? That’s what I want, too. You, charged with premeditated murder in a very public courtroom.”

  “What proof do you have? None. If you did, you’d be talking to the police right now.” Sweet was contemptuous. “Where do you get the nerve to accuse me? Where were you when Lilian needed you? I was the one who carried her, who soothed her nightmares and cradled her when she slept. I was the one! Not you!”

  Sweet drew himself up. “You have no right to play judge or jury. I know about you. Don’t think I don’t. I contacted an operative down in Philly, a good, no-nonsense kind of guy. Fast, efficient, accurate. I thought he’d have to look far and dig deep, but he said you were easy. It seems you’re a local hero. Marvelous press clippings.”

  David’s expression became stone-like.

  Sweet laughed. He was enjoying himself. “That’s right. Your secret is a secret no longer, my friend. Soon, everyone who is anyone will know your game. You and your accusations. What a hypocrite!”

  David looked Sweet up and down, then shook his head. “You really don’t understand, do you? This isn’t about me. I don’t care what you say about me, as long as you end up behind bars. It might take time, but I will make you pay for what you did.”

  Sweet’s nostrils flared.

  David said, “Pour yourself another drink. You’re going to need it.” He gave Sweet one last look of contempt, then turned to go. At the doorway, he paused and turned back. “Oh, and one last thing.”

  Sweet, caught holding the liquor bottle, looked up.

  “While you were gone, Rachel Hamilton and I got married. You know her, I believe?”

  Sweet blinked as though he’d been hit. His face drained of expression. “You … and Rachel?”

  “She’s at work. I want you gone before she gets back. Pack your bags and get out.”

  Sweet sank down in the chair. For a moment, he was silent, his face darken with emotion. He cast his eyes around, looking at his beautiful surroundings. But there was no pride of possession, only a look of bitterness and something else. Something akin to … despair.

  Finally, he brought his gaze back to David and got to his feet. He balled his huge hands into fists. “I warn you. I will not let you send me to prison. I’d rather die first. I’ve always been a man to choose my own destiny. Neither you nor anyone else will dictate my end.” With that, he walked out and headed down the hall to the office.

  David watched him go with a grim, set expression. A long fight lay ahead. No doubt, Sweet would make good on his threats. He would tell the world about Philadelphia, but David found that he was relieved. He was tired of running and ready for a fight. If public humiliation was the price to pay to see Sweet in jail, then he was willing to pay it.

  His first concern was Rachel. He had to protect her. The uproar over his past would hurt her—more than it would hurt him. He
cared nothing for the stifling café au lait society that would bar them, but Rachel would hunger for entry. He’d had years to prepare for a day of reckoning, but Rachel would be caught like a deer in headlights.

  He had to send her somewhere safe, where the vicious tongues would be still. Aunt Clara’s in Chicago. His father’s younger sister was practical, tough-minded, and independent. And she loved a good fight.

  Aunt Clara always said that the best defense is a good offense. He had to find proof that Sweet killed Gem. He’d considered having Gem’s remains exhumed. Of course, Sweet would fight it, but David felt that he could box it through. He rubbed his jaw. An exhumation would demonstrate the switch in identities, but would it yield proof that Sweet wielded the knife?

  First things first. He had received word that the druggist’s report was ready. Finally, but finally, he might receive some empirical evidence to use against Sweet. He paused. Of course, that could be a double-edged sword, couldn’t it? He paused. He would have to take the bad with the good, that’s all. He’d just have to take the bad with the good.

  The druggist greeted David with a smile. He was a kindly man with short gray hair and a gray goatee. “I’ve got to some good news for you,” he said, when David stood before over the counter.

  David felt himself inwardly relax. Finally. Progress.

  “There wasn’t nothing wrong with that medicine you brought in,” the druggist said.

  David was stunned. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yeah. No doubt about it. It’s harmless stuff. Bet you’re glad to hear that, huh?”

  David didn’t answer.

  Now, the old man frowned. He peered down from his raised counter and asked, “Just what’d you think you’d find?”

  What indeed?

  David said nothing. With mixed feelings, he paid for the analysis, and turned away. He was gravely disappointed. That report would have been helpful in pushing through to have Gem’s remains exhumed. Without it, he would simply have to find something else. He had intentionally told Sweet about his suspicions in order to rattle him. He hoped Sweet would do something rash, something incriminating, and he would be there to catch him.