“You,” he said with a smile. “Abdul. Freeman. Somebody came in and washed they hands near the end, but they didn’t say nothin’, so I don’t know who it was.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Near the end,” he repeated. “Because it wasn’t long after that I went back in the service. Bobby Earl and Bunny were giving they altar call.”
“How long was the hand washer in there?” I asked.
“A while,” he said. “A long time now that I think about it.” His eyes growing wide in alarm, he added, “If I was that close to her killer and didn’t…”
He looked away and thought about it, tears forming in his eyes. “I hate to think I was that close to him and didn’t kill him.”
“Why were you even at the service that night?” I asked.
“Whatta you mean?”
“You don’t normally come to church, do you?” I said. “Was it just to see Nicole?”
He nodded.
“Not Bunny?” I asked.
He hesitated.
“You still love her, don’t you?”
He looked away, glancing back at the other inmates. Without looking back at me, he nodded.
“Did you see her?”
“Bunny?” he asked.
“Nicole.”
“Of course,” he said.
“I mean did you get to talk to her?”
He shook his head. “How would I do that?”
“You tell me,” I said. “How’d you use to meet Bunny?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t see her. Not except on stage when she’s singin’. Bunny and I used to meet in the back of the chapel-the kitchen or the cleaning closet-when she worked at Lake Butler. Not since.”
Over at the school, a bell rang and the children began to scatter, most of them racing back to class. A few stragglers had to be goaded by the teacher on duty, but soon the playground was empty, its abandoned equipment looking sad and useless like a body without life.
“I’m sorry to have to ask this,” I said, “and I’m sure it’ll seem like a stupid question since you had a child together, but did you and Bunny use condoms?”
He nodded. “She always made me. And she still got pregnant,” he added, shaking his head. “I think she did it ’cause she went with so many different mens.”
Looking down the sidewalk toward the other inmates, I hesitated to ask my next question, wishing I didn’t have to. True to form, the inmates on the work crew were quiet, respectful, and hard working, their interaction lacking the cruelty, horseplay, and profanity that was typical of many of the inmates on the inside.
“I’m doing my best to find out who killed Nicole,” I said. “And sometimes that means I have to do and say things I’d rather not, but I have to-and I have a good reason to ask what I’m about to or I wouldn’t ask it.”
“What is it? Damn.”
“Did you and Bunny ever have anal intercourse?”
If he found the question intrusive or disturbing, he didn’t give any indication. Shaking his head, he said, “It never came up.”
I nodded.
“We weren’t together long,” he added, as if it were something that had to be worked up to. “But I don’t think they was anything Bunny wasn’t up for.”
“She has a reputation for really liking black men,” I said.
He nodded. “She does. Her dad was a real redneck racist. Used to catch her with black boys and beat her, but she keep on goin’ with ’em.”
“You see anybody in the hallway?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“What about in my office or near the door?”
“I saw the teacher sorta hangin’ out,” he said.
“Mr. Malcolm?”
He nodded.
All around us, spring was turning into summer. The tops of the oak trees above us were filled with thick green growth. The flowers spilling out of the planter in front of the school, already past their zenith, were in the heat of the increasingly warmer days beginning to wilt.
“What about Bobby Earl’s bodyguard?”
He shook his head again.
“Is there anything else you can tell me that might help us?” I asked.
He shook his head.
We both fell quiet a moment. Tears filled his eyes, and he wiped at them absently.
Slipping his hand into the pocket of his inmate uniform, he withdrew a soiled and crumpled piece of paper, unfolded it, and handed it to me. It was a picture similar to the one Nicole had colored for me.
“She colored this for me,” he said. “I carry it everywhere I go.”
I nodded.
“My little girl was being used,” he said, his voice weak and small. “Anyone who’d do that… well… sometimes I think I’d be better off dead,” he said. “I don’t care what happens to me. I really don’t.”
I nodded.
“Would you do something for me?” he asked.
I didn’t respond.
“When you find out who did it, will you tell me first?” he continued.
“And if it’s Bobby Earl,” he said, no attempt to conceal his contempt, “would you invite him back for just one more revival service?”
CHAPTER 31
Later that afternoon, I took Highway 20 into Tallahassee and picked up I-10 heading west toward Greensboro. Greensboro was a small town in Gadsden County, which borders on the Georgia state line. It was originally settled by wealthy slave owners, and is still famous for its large plantations, substantial black population (joined now by Mexican migrant workers), and tobacco crops.
In Greensboro, I bought a pack of Certs at a convenience store and then drove over to the AME Church near the high school where Pottersville regularly got beaten in every athletic competition. The church was actually a small white clapboard house with a chimney that had been converted into a steeple. However, I suspected, that like most of the conversions that took place inside the church, the process was incomplete and didn’t seem to be working out too well.
Perhaps because everyone else was running on CPT, I was one of the first to enter the small sanctuary. I walked down to the front where the casket was centered between the two altars and looked at the lifeless shell that used to be Dexter Freeman’s mother. Even in death, she was beautiful, and I could easily see Dexter’s handsome face in her features. She wore a delicate white dress with lace around the neck, and in her hands was a Polaroid picture of herself and Dexter that had been taken in the visiting park of Potter Correctional Institution. You could tell by her expression that the blue inmate uniform her son wore didn’t diminish in any way the fact that her boy was the apple of her eye.
A small door to my right opened, and I turned to see Dexter enter the sanctuary, his wife and daughter at his side, his son in his arms. He wore a navy blue double-breasted suit and a burgundy silk tie over a crisp white
