Laneer gestured toward his house and, presumably, toward the woman sitting on its front porch. “That apron Sylvia’s wearing? Them pockets are full of candy. Sylvia makes her money selling it.”
“You can make a living selling candy?” Faye was quick-thinking enough not to insult his home by following that question with a disbelieving “Here?”, but Laneer knew what she meant.
“She gets a check from the Social Security since her husband died, but the candy money don’t hurt. And people do for her when they can, ’cause everybody’s kids need a candy lady.”
“To look after them when their parents aren’t around.”
“Sure. Can’t nobody be all the places all the time.”
Faye’s children were a thousand miles away with Joe, so she knew that.
“Besides, kids tell their candy lady stuff that they wouldn’t ever tell their folks.” Laneer leaned down to pluck a bug off a lettuce leaf. There was a ladybug next to it and he left it alone. “I found Kali on my front doorstep this morning, not an hour before we heard the sirens.”
“You told McDaniel she was here all night.”
“She was. Frida sends her down here when she’s gonna be out late. I don’t know what Kali was doing out of my house at daybreak. She won’t say. Won’t say anything at all. When she said your name just now, it was the first time she talked at all since I found her on the doorstep.”
“McDaniel needs to know this.”
The old man stared at her silently. He didn’t have to say, “You would trust the police? With the well-being of a child?” His face said it for him.
Figuring there were other things Laneer hadn’t told McDaniel and might never tell him, she asked the obvious question. “Do you know of anybody who might have wanted to hurt Frida?”
Laneer then launched into a list of truly terrifying people. “There’s her ex-husband, Linton. He comes to mind first. She kicked him out when he slapped her, couple years back, and more power to her for finally getting smart. I never thought much of that man. I saw him standing in front of her house last week, so he’s either back with Frida or trying to get back with her. Me, I think he was just hoping she’d get weak and take him back, but Frida’s too smart to get hit twice.”
Laneer heard what he’d just said and his eyes slid shut. Faye remembered Frida’s broken nose and the blood spreading over her chest. Maybe Frida was as smart as Laneer said, but it hadn’t kept her from getting hit again.
“Is there anybody else besides Linton who you think might want to hurt Frida?”
“Never liked the looks of her boss at the restaurant. He was always trying to turn her head but she wasn’t having none of it. Don’t actually know why. Never heard anything bad about him,” Laneer said.
“She works at a restaurant?”
“Yeah, downtown where the tourists go.”
“She works waiting tables? Cooking? Hostessing?”
“She cleans the place in the evenings, after everybody goes home. Kali’s here most nights until it’s time for her to go to bed. I go with her to Frida’s and sit with her until her mama comes home.”
“Her boss. What’s his name?”
“Armand’s Rib Palace is the name of the place where she works, and Armand’s her boss.”
“Okay, so we add her boss to the list. Anybody else?”
“I most especially never liked Mayfield, down at the store.” Laneer waved his hand down the street.
“You mean the convenience store at the end of the block? Has he worked there long?”
Laneer made another vague gesture with his hand. “He works there for now. Night shift. Linton works days.”
“Frida’s ex-husband?”
“Yep. Linton’s a piece of work, for true, but Mayfield is the one I can’t stand the sight of. He don’t think much of nobody but Mayfield. He’s all the time asking Frida to go out with him, and he’s all the time putting little extra things in her bag. Candy bar. Bag of chips. Pack of gum. Let me tell you something ’bout guys like that, trying to kiss up to pretty ladies by stealing from the stores where they get their paychecks. They ain’t never any good. You’re a pretty lady, too, so you know how it works.”
Faye gave him an “Aw, shucks,” shrug.
“Yeah.” Laneer said. “Mayfield had a crush on Frida back in high school and it ain’t never gone away. Linton’s still kinda new in town—been here six years, maybe seven—but Mayfield goes way back. Born here, I think.”
“Linton’s only been here six or seven years? So he’s not Kali’s father?”
Laneer shook his head. “Frida never would tell a soul who Kali’s daddy was. She knew. I know she knew, because she wasn’t never one to run around with a lot of men. She just wants one man that wants her back and keeps wanting her. And treats her right. Good Lord, she has had a devil of a time finding one of those and I couldn’t tell you why. Anyway, it wasn’t Linton that was Kali’s daddy, that’s for sure, since he didn’t even live here then.”
“Do you know their last names?”
“Linton’s last name is Stone, same as Frida’s. Mayfield? Not sure. Everybody just calls him ‘Mayfield.’ Maybe that is his last name.”
Faye needed to call McDaniel as soon as she left Kali and her family. He needed to know that one simple question to Laneer—“Who might want to harm Frida?”—had resulted in three names in as many breaths: Armand the restaurant owner, Linton the ex-husband, and the single-named Mayfield. One of those names might belong to a man who wanted to hurt Frida, or wanted to put her in her place, but it was entirely possible that Laneer and Sylvia would never trust a policeman enough to share that information.
The top of a small head appeared at the bottom of the window they were guarding. Faye watched it rise slowly until a pair of
