that boy. I didn't do nothing to hurt him!”
It could have been guilt or it could have been grief. Or it could have been fear because I'd figured it out. I stood there with my mouth hanging open, not sure what I was going to do next, but then realized I was free. As his woman climbed out of the car, I backed away, keeping my eyes on both of them, like you do on a junkyard dog whose sight is fixed on your leg. I was trembling hard when I got into my car, and I shook like a mold of my grandma's grape Jell-O all the way home.
CHAPTER NINE
M y confrontation with Liston had left me tense, and I was still uneasy the next morning, so I allowed myself some self-prescribed luxury. After I'd gotten Jamal off to school, I soaked for twenty minutes in a tub filled with bubbles, read a few chapters of a mystery, then made myself pancakes for breakfast. I took my good time getting to Annette Sampson's house. By the time I got there, it was “high noon,” and the midday sun was pouring through the diamond-paned windows of her living room.
Her house, which was located on a narrow street in Belving-ton Heights, was modest, to put it kindly. When I was a cop in the Heights, I'd been surprised to learn that the town had unfashionable areas. For a kid growing up in the Hayes Homes in Newark, Belving-ton Heights represented the “height” of good taste and high living, offering the best of everything—best schools, best people, best homes. It never occurred to me that these highly paid people had poorly paid servants to do their bidding, and that the “help” were usually black and lived in these small, cramped houses.
Annette Sampson's house needed some serious work. A coat ofBenjamin Moore would have done it some good, and three coats would have done it better. The front porch sagged, and birds had built a nest in a corner of the roof. The lawn, if you could call it that, was mostly dirt, and winter had turned last summer's effort at a garden into mud. My place in East Orange, with all its faults, was in better shape. But location is everything in real estate, and if this house were put on the market it would have brought in big bucks. If it had been perched on certain streets in Newark, she couldn't have given it away.
“I grew up here. The house belonged to my father,” Annette Sampson told me as we settled down on her couch, a yellow plastic number that would be hot as hell in the summer. The glass coffee table was chipped, and a leg on one of the chairs was missing. Old newspapers and magazines were strewn around the room like nobody gave a damn. It was hard to imagine this messy place housed the elegant woman in the stunning silk suit I'd seen at Morgan's on Saturday.
“My father was chauffeur/handyman for a rich pharmacist, who owned a string of drugstores, which is probably why I ended up marrying a pharmacist,” she continued. “I know I need to put some money into this house, but money is something I don't have at this point. But it belongs to me. It's all mine, and that sure feels good.” Her emphasis on “mine” clearly summed up her relationship with her husband.
She made a pitcher of Bloody Marys and poured the mixture into two remarkably pretty crystal glasses. Crackers and cheese were carelessly arranged on a matching platter, and I suspected the hastily thrown together snack was an excuse to serve the drinks. I took a sipof mine, which was heavy on the vodka, then held the glass up to examine it.
My family hadn't gone in much for fancy glassware. My father usually drank his liquor out of a mayonnaise jar, and the rest of us used whatever cheap, mismatched things my mother picked up from the sales table at the A&P. I didn't grow up seeing a lot of good crystal.
“I have only two of these beautiful glasses left,” Annette said, noticing my interest. “My mother gave them to me as a wedding present. They're Steuben. Tres expensive. I had six once, but I threw two at my ex-husband in a rage. Celia broke
It could have been guilt or it could have been grief. Or it could have been fear because I'd figured it out. I stood there with my mouth hanging open, not sure what I was going to do next, but then realized I was free. As his woman climbed out of the car, I backed away, keeping my eyes on both of them, like you do on a junkyard dog whose sight is fixed on your leg. I was trembling hard when I got into my car, and I shook like a mold of my grandma's grape Jell-O all the way home.
CHAPTER NINE
M y confrontation with Liston had left me tense, and I was still uneasy the next morning, so I allowed myself some self-prescribed luxury. After I'd gotten Jamal off to school, I soaked for twenty minutes in a tub filled with bubbles, read a few chapters of a mystery, then made myself pancakes for breakfast. I took my good time getting to Annette Sampson's house. By the time I got there, it was “high noon,” and the midday sun was pouring through the diamond-paned windows of her living room.
Her house, which was located on a narrow street in Belving-ton Heights, was modest, to put it kindly. When I was a cop in the Heights, I'd been surprised to learn that the town had unfashionable areas. For a kid growing up in the Hayes Homes in Newark, Belving-ton Heights represented the “height” of good taste and high living, offering the best of everything—best schools, best people, best homes. It never occurred to me that these highly paid people had poorly paid servants to do their bidding, and that the “help” were usually black and lived in these small, cramped houses.
Annette Sampson's house needed some serious work. A coat ofBenjamin Moore would have done it some good, and three coats would have done it better. The front porch sagged, and birds had built a nest in a corner of the roof. The lawn, if you could call it that, was mostly dirt, and winter had turned last summer's effort at a garden into mud. My place in East Orange, with all its faults, was in better shape. But location is everything in real estate, and if this house were put on the market it would have brought in big bucks. If it had been perched on certain streets in Newark, she couldn't have given it away.
“I grew up here. The house belonged to my father,” Annette Sampson told me as we settled down on her couch, a yellow plastic number that would be hot as hell in the summer. The glass coffee table was chipped, and a leg on one of the chairs was missing. Old newspapers and magazines were strewn around the room like nobody gave a damn. It was hard to imagine this messy place housed the elegant woman in the stunning silk suit I'd seen at Morgan's on Saturday.
“My father was chauffeur/handyman for a rich pharmacist, who owned a string of drugstores, which is probably why I ended up marrying a pharmacist,” she continued. “I know I need to put some money into this house, but money is something I don't have at this point. But it belongs to me. It's all mine, and that sure feels good.” Her emphasis on “mine” clearly summed up her relationship with her husband.
She made a pitcher of Bloody Marys and poured the mixture into two remarkably pretty crystal glasses. Crackers and cheese were carelessly arranged on a matching platter, and I suspected the hastily thrown together snack was an excuse to serve the drinks. I took a sipof mine, which was heavy on the vodka, then held the glass up to examine it.
My family hadn't gone in much for fancy glassware. My father usually drank his liquor out of a mayonnaise jar, and the rest of us used whatever cheap, mismatched things my mother picked up from the sales table at the A&P. I didn't grow up seeing a lot of good crystal.
“I have only two of these beautiful glasses left,” Annette said, noticing my interest. “My mother gave them to me as a wedding present. They're Steuben. Tres expensive. I had six once, but I threw two at my ex-husband in a rage. Celia broke
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