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  “Tell me,” I asked, “were you shading me or your husband?”

  “I’ll let you figure that out,” she said. “And by the way, the saleswoman, Miss Dori? She called to thank me for referring you to the shop. She didn’t get your name but she certainly remembered your eyes. Wasn’t she thoughtful?”

  “Well, what are friends for?” I said, still watching the hands.

  She eased closer, maneuvering like a snake intent on finding just the right rock. Her face was like a clown’s mask: too much lipstick on too much mouth and enough silver eyeliner to outshine a traffic light. I wondered if she used a mirror when she applied her makeup. With a face like hers, it was no wonder she had been jealous of Starr.

  “So how’d you like the black museum?” I asked.

  She stopped moving and stared at me. “The what?”

  “You know, the black museum. When the ship docked, we all went to visit it. Tad spotted you in the crowd.”

  His name caught her off guard, seeped through her defenses, and allowed a small smile to break through. “Oh, uh, yes. It was nice.”

  “Too bad we couldn’t catch up with you,” I continued.

  “I left early,” she said, probably holding tightly to the picture of Tad.

  “So I gather,” I said. “You left Newport early enough on Friday to rent a car, drive back to Harlem, and take care of Starr on Saturday night, then beat tracks back to Newport in time to make the last jazz set on deck. Receipts and signatures don’t lie.”

  Her deep intake of breath threatened to put a serious strain on the sweater but a second later she exhaled. I expected an explosion of denial, a plethora of profanity, outright evasion. Accusations that I had been fooling with her husband. Or that Starr had gotten what she deserved for fooling with the wrong man.

  But for a moment, there was only that hush, that tight silence that surrounds a snake before it strikes. Then she whispered, “I knew you were on to something, stepping too close the day you stepped into Travis’s store. I knew it. That thing about your man was just a cover. I should’ve taken care of you myself.”

  “So you sent somebody?”

  “I sent a fool, a fool, and he messed up. But not again!”

  The light in the room may have been dim but the flash of that Harlem Equalizer was unmistakable. The blade flicked open at the press of her thumb as she lunged.

  This was the moment I had been waiting for. All the energy surged forward when I saw the knife. I didn’t wait. I grabbed the knife hand, pulled her forward, and slammed my knee into her midsection.

  She blew out a hard breath and crumpled but did not fall. Instead, she staggered backward, swiping the blade in a wide arc, and got me near my shoulder, just missing my neck.

  I was still holding on and we grappled like two dancers unsure of our steps, stumbling over the cushions and against the overturned chairs. She outweighed me by at least thirty pounds and her hands were like steel. We fell to the floor, and she rolled over before I did, put a knee in my stomach, and had the blade near my ear.

  My hands were at her throat and my thumb was pressed against her windpipe but I couldn’t shake the knife loose. She was choking but determined to see my throat cut. Her one knee must have weighed more than I did and I felt my breath leaving me, but I had no intention of dying from anyone’s excess weight. Or anyone’s knife either.

  I grabbed the cushion and pulled it to me as she swung again and the space between us filled suddenly with a cloud of down.

  Then I grabbed her hand and bent her wrist back until the knife clattered to the floor. We fought through the feathers. I snatched out clumps of her weave. We slugged it out like two street women brawling over a man. And in a way, I was. How dare she look at Tad the way she did?

  With that, I wound up and landed a blow between her eyes that sent her reeling. She hit the floor and, just as quickly, came up again with the knife. But I had the small canister out of my pocket and in my hand. When she came at me, I pressed the button and she dropped the knife, disoriented. This time, when my fist connected, she fell backward over a table and hit the wall. When she went down, she stayed down.

  I sank to the floor myself, breathless, but only for a second. I staggered to the bedroom, grabbed several of Starr’s belts from the drawer, and by the time Chrissie came to, she wasn’t able to move.

  31

  I’ve got to break down and get a cell phone. By the time I ran down the hall and persuaded Mr. D.J. to dial 911, Chrissie was screaming loud enough to bring out everyone in the house and some parts of the neighborhood. People stared at me in the hallway as if I had kidnapped her.

  Meanwhile, Mr. D.J. was pressing his card in my hand and asking my phone number. “You pretty when you mad,” he said, flashing large gold teeth. “And I love mad, pretty women.”

  I ignored him and called Tad, Ozzie, and my dad. They must have hopped in the same car because they all came through the door at the same time, but everything was under control.

  I learned later that Chrissie knew that Travis wanted to leave her for Starr, so she planned the cruise in an effort to reconcile. When he refused, she decided to get Starr out of the way.

  The night of the murder, not only had Sno seen her but Short Change had been sitting in his car shadowing Starr and also saw Chrissie leave the house. Short Change approached her a few days later, figuring he had a whore for life as a trade-off for his silence. Instead, she met him near the park and put a bullet in him with her husband’s .38. Since Travis was going to leave her anyway, she would blame the murder on him and let him spend the time away from her in jail.

  “That’s why she wanted so many pictures taken. With my camera,” Tad said, trying to mollify me a few nights later.

  We were sitting on the terrace, watching the sun spread its last, faint glow over the Harlem River before moving westward.

  “That’s why she came on the way she did,” he said. “She needed a witness to swear that she was on that ship at the time of the crime.”

  “She nearly got away with it,” I said.

  “Speaking of shoes,” he murmured, looking at my legs. “How much did a pair like that cost?”

  I gazed at him in the dying light and saw the rare smile. I smiled back and nodded. “Don’t bother. Knowing you, I probably wouldn’t have them on that long.”

  About the Author

  GRACE EDWARDS was born and raised in Harlem and now lives in Brooklyn. She is the author of In the Shadow of the Peacock and three previous Mali Anderson mysteries: If I Should Die, A Toast Before Dying, and No Time to Die.