“So why did you want to go to the valley?”
I GOT J. OSTENBERG’S address out of the phone book. And then I turned on Jackson’s answering machine just in case someone called while I was out. On the drive over I explained what Bonnie had told me, only I said it was an assistant of mine that made the call.
“SO WHEN WERE you going to tell me about Peter Rhone?” Suggs asked on the ride over the mountain.
“Peter who?”
“Don’t fool with me, Rawlins. I found him myself. All I had to do was locate the chop shops in the neighborhood. You put a little pressure on a man in an interrogation room and he’ll turn in his own mother.”
“So he told you about me?”
“No. He gave me the car and the dealer gave me Rhone. He told me about you.”
“You arrest him?”
“No. He didn’t kill Nola. He might have set fire to his life but he didn’t kill that girl.”
“Woman,” I said.
“Say what?”
“Woman. Nola Payne was a woman just like you and me are men.”
Suggs was driving. He turned to me and gave me a quizzical look.
“I don’t like bein’ called boy,” I said. “I don’t like our Negro women to be called girls. That’s easy enough, right?” It was something I had always wanted to say but hadn’t. Between the riots and Mama Jo I was a real mess.
“Oh yeah,” Suggs said.
What did he care? He didn’t know what made me mad. All he wanted to do was make sure his job was done well.
JOCELYN OSTENBERG LIVED in a nice house on Hesby Street off of Muerretta Avenue. It was a two-story Tudor with a broad green lawn and a crooked oak to the side.
I followed Suggs to the front door. He pressed the button but I heard no bell. He knocked.
A few moments later a woman’s voice said, “Who is it?”
“Police,” Suggs uttered.
“Oh. Wait a minute.”
I heard a loud crack of a lock opening, a chain pulled, another bolt thrown back, and then the doorknob turned. I looked around and saw that all of the windows had bars on them.
The white woman who answered was tiny. She wore a drab blue sweater and a long coal-gray skirt. She also wore a fancy black straw hat and gloves. It was midday and she didn’t look as if she were about to go out but she had on enough makeup to star in an opera. Her ears would have worked on a fat man five times her size.
“Yes?” she asked Suggs, darting a worried glance at me and then looking away.
Suggs held out his identification. She saw the badge and then nodded.
“My husband is at work,” she said.
“We came to ask you a few questions,” Suggs said.
“Who is that man with you?” she asked in a confidential tone as if I were across the street, out of earshot.
“He’s a material witness, ma’am. We wanted to ask you about a man named Harold. He might be using the same last name as yours.”
There was a long silence. Jocelyn Ostenberg was maybe sixty, maybe more. It was hard to tell under all that pancake flour. She had gotten to the age where lies didn’t flow easily. She looked at me, at the floor, at the bent oak. Finally she said, “I don’t know any Harold.”
“No?”
“No sir. I once had a maid named Honey. She had a son named Harrison. Somebody called earlier. They wanted to know about a Harold. Was that someone from your office?”
“No ma’am. What was Honey’s last name?”
“Divine,” she said but I didn’t believe it. “Honey Divine. She died a few years ago, I heard.”
“May we come in, ma’am?” Suggs asked then.
“I don’t have men in my home when my husband is out, Officer. I’m sorry.” She waited for us to bow out.
“Well, okay,” Suggs said, about to honor her request.
“How long have you lived in this house, ma’am?” I blurted out before he could complete his sentence.
“Thirty-five years.”
I smiled and nodded.
“Well thank you, ma’am,” Suggs said.
She nodded and closed the door, making a racket with all of the locks she had to engage.
“That’s a dead end,” the cop said to me on the stroll back to his car.
“You gonna bust Rhone?” I asked him.
