The room had a plain pine floor with bookcases against the wall behind the desk. There was a baby avocado tree in a terra cotta pot next to one window.
“Mrs. McCoy?”
The woman got from behind the desk and went to a door between the bookcases. She opened this door and turned back to me.
“Come with me, please,” she said.
That half-turn told me a lot about Mrs. McCoy—the woman. She was around thirty-five, but still had the bloom of youth to her face and figure. It was a nice figure, but her deep green dress played it down. The color of the dress also blunted the richness of her dark skin. She wore makeup like an older woman might have, with little color or accentuation. But the sinuous motion of her turn revealed the sensual woman that lived underneath her clamped- down style. She was at home in her body, dancing with just that little turn.
We came into a room that was even simpler than the assistant’s office. The minister’s office had a plain floor with no bookcases at all. There was a podium holding a large Bible next to the window, and a simple painting of the face of a white Christ hung on the far wall. He didn’t even have a desk, just a table with two chairs pulled up to it. The only means of comfort in the room was a wide-bed couch pressed into the corner.
“This is Reverend Winters’s office,” she said. “No one will bother us in here.”
She took one of the chairs at the table, and I sat in the other.
“What can I do to help you, Mr. Rawlins?”
“Your husband was unhappy to hear me on the phone this morning,” I said. I decided to find out a little bit more about the woman before hearing what she had to say about Etheline.
Lena looked down and then back again. “Foster is old-fashioned,” she said. “He doesn’t like gentlemen unknown to him calling me on the telephone.”
“You’d think Reverend Winters would have known that and had me call you at the office.”
“He has so much on his mind,” Lena said. Her face took on a soft glow when talking about her boss. Even the severe makeup couldn’t hide the feeling she had for him.
“Did he tell you why I was here?”
“Yes. It’s about that poor young girl.”
“Dead girl,” I said.
Tears appeared in the luscious woman’s eyes. She nodded and looked down again. Lena McCoy was so full of love and compassion that any man would be drawn to her. It’s not that she was beautiful, not even pretty, really. But there was something physical there, and caring. If there was music in a room and I saw Lena McCoy, I would have asked her to dance, even though I didn’t like dancing.
“I have some hard questions to ask you about Etheline, Lena. And I want you to answer them.”
She nodded again.
“She was having an affair with your boss, right?”
“Yes.”
“Right here in this room.”
Her assent was a simple movement of her head, like a bird makes when warbling softly.
“What did you think about that?”
“I was happy for him.”
“Happy?”
“Yes. Medgar gives of himself like some kind of saint. He meets fifty people in this room every day. And they’re all askin’ for somethin’. They want money or a soapbox or for him to travel fifty miles to talk to a roomful’a people who don’t even care. They cry on his shoulder. They confess their sins. And he takes it all in, Mr. Rawlins. Twelve hours every day, seven days a week.”
“And Etheline was different?”
“The first day she came here, she brought homemade brownies and a bunch of little white flowers. Medgar had those daisies in a glass of water for two weeks. I finally had to throw them out.”
“Why did she meet the minister?” I asked.
“To apologize. To apologize for her sins. To ask him if she was worthy to be in his congregation.”
“You heard this?”
“Medgar tells me everything.” It was the first hint of pride in Lena’s tone.
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“He tell you when they became lovers?”
“He didn’t need to, but he did. After the first time I would sneak her in through the side door so that no one else would know.”
“You helped him cheat on his wife?”
“His wife helps herself to everything he has. They been married since before he came to Los Angeles. You know he seems the same, but inside he’s changed. He’s gotten bigger. Mrs. Winters changed on the outside. She wears nice clothes and drives a big car. But on the inside she’s hungry and jealous. She ain’t never so much as brought
