Next to the Watermelon Man’s right ankle, under the sock, was the emerald pendant. Kit must have hidden it before answering the door for the last time.
“I’ll put it with the money,” Fearless said.
I wondered if I’d be toting that bag on my journey down into hell.
WE MADE IT OUT of the building without too many people marking our passage. But every eye turned my way felt like a gun sight following me across an open field.
“I can drive myself,” Leora said when we tried to guide her to Fearless’s ride.
“I’ll drive her,” I said.
“No, Paris. You have her jumpin’ out the window with all your questions and shit.” With that Fearless handed me the keys to Ambrosia’s car.
“Okay,” I said. “You right. But where do we meet? Your mother’s?”
“Naw. I don’t wanna be talkin’ ’bout no murders in my mama’s house. No. You know where Milo leave his key, right?”
“Yeah, in a hole in the wall behind his mailbox. But what about Timmerman?”
“I ain’t worried about him. He ain’t got no pants, no shoes, no money, no car keys. Anyway, he admitted himself to the hospital.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Sure I do. Remember when I made that call from Esau’s?”
“You called the hospital?”
“Yeah, man. I knew he’d probably come after you so I wanted to make sure his butt was in the sling.”
“Why come after me?” I asked. “You the one that hurt him.”
“Yeah,” Fearless said, nodding. “That’s why he gonna leave me alone.”
ON THE RIDE BACK TOWARD MILO’S OFFICE I tried to make sense out of death. Anybody I’d come across could have killed Kit or the Wexlers. Even Timmerman had been in the mix long enough. And what was Leora after? I didn’t doubt that she was innocent of Kit’s murder, but why come after him if she already had her son?
And why wouldn’t the man who killed Kit have searched him? Because he was looking for something particular, something that could not be hidden in a sock.
34
LORETTA KUROKO’S OFFICE had more room than Milo’s. She also had a small canvas cot in a closet behind her desk—kept there for any client who had to make an early-morning court date. Leora Hartman was reclining on the cot by the time I made it to Milo’s place.
She and Fearless were talking when I got there. That was good, because Fearless had a way of making people trust him, even those who thought that he was dumb.
“How you feelin’, Miss Hartman?” I asked when I came in.
“Fine.”
“Is that what I call you? Miss? Or is it Missus?”
“Missus. But my last name isn’t Hartman—it’s Brown.”
I knew a dozen people who went by that name. You met a new one every day or two. It was as common as Smith or Jones—more so among colored people. But still . . .
“Your husband’s not a chess player, is he?”
“He is. How would you know that?”
“And he’s from Illinois but he was born in Mississippi?”
“Where is he, Mr. Minton?” Leora sat up, her sorrow dissipating by the moment.
“No, uh-uh,” I said. “You tell us what’s goin’ on first.”
“Brown is my husband,” Leora said, “but you already know that.”
“You call your husband by his last name?” That was Fearless.
“Everybody does,” I said before Leora could get it out.
“Have you seen him, Mr. Minton?”
“I thought you and he were havin’ problems?”
“Yes, but not like you think,” she said. “He was a gardener at Hampton College when I went there. Nobody liked Brown very much but I loved him and we were married after I graduated. We had Son and moved back to Illinois. But Brown had a, a . . . he had a medical condition but we didn’t know it, not then. At first I just thought that he was just getting used to being married and a father. But . . . He was offensive and rough at times, but then he’d be wonderful. Finally, one day he turned on Son. We decided to put him in a hospital where I could be with him. I sent Son to stay with my mother —”
“Rose,” I said.
“You’ve met her, so you know that she isn’t able to give the twenty-four-hour care that a young child needs.”
