If I Should Die Read online

  I often wondered how anyone could have delivered a four-and-a-half-hour speech that didn’t include lunch.

  At the end of that day, everyone, parents and new choristers alike, had straggled from the auditorium in a daze, the choristers only too happy in their newfound roles as cultural ambassadors.

  I had gone home, taken two aspirin, and put on a Wynton Marsalis tape to calm my last nerve before falling into bed.

  “What does Clarence look like?”

  Mrs. Johnson shrugged. “Tall, thin, gangly, like he ain’t never had enough to eat since the day he opened his eyes. Kinda brown-skin with one a them flattop fade-away haircuts. Don’t look too nice on him, though, ’cause his face is real thin.”

  “And you think … Morris thinks … Clarence might have had something to do with Dr. Harding’s death?”

  “Might have. But who knows? Who knows? I, for one, don’t buy that but he did threaten him. Last thing he said when he rushed out the office was ‘You ain’t seen no attitude, Mr. Harding. You ain’t seen nuthin’.’

  “Morris said Clarence stomped so hard the steps shook when he ran down … Now, I suppose ain’t nobody gonna parlez-vous anytime soon ’cause all the trips have been canceled.”

  I said nothing, wondering if the trips had been canceled out of fear and general confusion or merely postponed out of respect for the dead.

  “Where does Clarence live?”

  “In the same projects as me, only he’s in a different building.”

  She opened a patent-leather purse and slipped a piece of paper across the table. “Here’s his address. And his phone number. Lord, I hope he ain’t mixed up in none of this. He got a voice that was heaven-sent. I mean that boy can sing.”

  “Did he sing today?”

  “Matter a fact, he did. He was with the senior chorus, standin’ toward the left, on the very end. I didn’t even think to point him out to you.”

  “That’s all right. Here comes the waitress again. At last.”

  We ate in silence. I did not mention the well-dressed man who had touched Erskin’s mother. Instead I wondered about Clarence.

  Seventeen-year-old kids committed murder often enough that it was no longer front-page, but did a seventeen-year-old find enough nerve to attend the funeral and sing over the casket?

  Did he know how to drive? If so, whose car had he commandeered or stolen? I thought of the HO plates and decided that I needed answers to a lot of things—answers that didn’t seem possible.

  chapter six

  The “Welcome” banner hung limply over the precinct’s entrance, and the main lobby was crowded as usual. An old woman with an empty carrying case was screaming at the desk sergeant because someone had stolen her two Persian cats while she was out shopping for pet food. A short stocky man wanted the police to put out an all-points bulletin for his girlfriend who had disappeared from the Half-Moon Bar while he was taking care of business in the men’s room. Two adolescents sat hunched over on the bench cocooned in their sweat hoods, coating their fear with loud meaningless talk.

  People moved around them, in and out of the area. The air had a slightly medicinal odor which I had never noticed the whole time I’d worked here. I saw that the beige rubber tile floor still had the same indelible coffee stains and gum marks, and the spool of flypaper still hung ineffectually from the ceiling.

  I walked in just after the evening shift had come on. The cordiality surprised me and several officers approached to shake my hand, though several of the others hung back, pretending not to see me.

  I signed in and was accompanied up the stairs to the investigation unit. On the landing, I encountered the man who had caused me to lose my job. Patrolman Terry Keenan smiled and stepped out of the way with an elaborate flourish.

  He was five feet ten, with a thin, pockmarked face, stooped shoulders, and concave chest that seemed to fill out and look healthy only when he donned his bulletproof vest. He said nothing but I remembered that thin nasal voice, whining about never making enough money for this dangerous job and how his taxes alone seemed to be financing the entire welfare system.

  The high point of his career happened when he, in a mob of a thousand other officers of the law, egged on by a prosecuter who bore a striking resemblance to Frankenstein’s monster, stormed City Hall, threatening and cursing Mayor Dinkins. Keenan and several others had been caught on camera but Keenan still had his job. His father was a captain somewhere in Brooklyn so I supposed that counted for something.

  Still, I paused long enough to size him up and regret that I had not punched him twice as hard when I had had the chance. I took comfort in the fact that I’d named him in my lawsuit against the department.

  At the top of the stairs to the left, the door to the investigation unit was open. Detective Danny Williams rose from the desk and approached with his hands outstretched. “Come on in, Miss Anderson—Mali. Good to see you again despite the circumstances.”

  Danny Williams was Tad’s partner and everyone said they made a good pair. Both were as tenacious as pit bulls once they got hold of a clue, no matter how slight or where it led them. But the similarity ended there. Tad lived in a two-bedroom co-op apartment in the Riverbend complex on 140th Street facing the Harlem River, but Danny had recently moved from a brownstone on 128th Street to a split-level on the tip of Long Island.

  “Nobody’s gonna get back at me through my kids,” he liked to say. Yet he remained in the neighborhood spending as many off-work hours as Tad. He tracked down leads and most of the time he was successful, but rumor had it that his wife and daughters rarely saw him.

  At one time, Tad had hinted that Danny might have some other reason for hanging around Harlem so much. A lot of calls came in on Danny’s line, and when Tad offered to take a message, a woman’s soft voice usually said, “No message,” and hung up. Of course, he could have traced the calls if he wanted to, but what Dan did was his business. Tad was trying to get a handle on his own problems at the time and had no interest in another man’s personal stuff, even if he was his partner.

  I looked at Danny now and wanted to shake my head. Here was this slightly chubby, middle-aged man with a wife, three daughters, a new car, and a house mortgaged up to his eyeballs. Was he still trying to burn his candle at both ends?

  He pulled out a chair for me, then walked around his desk to sit facing me. His movements were languid, and although he did not weigh as much as Tad, the roundness of his stomach made him appear heavier.

  Up close, I saw that he had less hair than when I had last worked in the precinct. His suit bore the hallmarks of very good tailoring and his dark brown face was clean-shaven, but under the fluorescent lights, he appeared tired.

  “So how’s it going, Mali? Private life must be all right. You look like you just stepped off the cover of Essence. Our mutual friend mentions you all the time. Talks my ear off. Hey, a Ph.D. I’m damn proud of you and I’m glad to see my man smiling again.”

  I had dressed carefully for this visit. Fresh haircut, small gold Nefertiti earrings, and shoes and shoulder bag to complement a beige wool suit. At five nine and 120 pounds, people often mistook me for a model or a disciplined athlete. Now I felt uncomfortable, wondering if Tad had been smiling because of my schoolwork (my graduate study) or my “homework” (my activities with him). But I hadn’t made love to him yet, so what was he so happy about?

  The safest answer was no answer at all so I smiled and remained quiet. Danny fingered his notebook and spoke of his family. “Teenagers are the hardest thing to raise,” he complained. “They think they know everything.”

  I thought of Alvin, who was not yet a teenager but who also pretended, once upon a time, to know everything. Now the silences have grown longer, and when he does speak, it is the echo of grief I pretend not to hear.

  Danny unfolded a wallet-size collection of pictures. “This is Harriet, the oldest. That’s Claudia, and the one next to her is Louise.”

  His fingers moved across the surface po
inting out the split-level in the background complete with the brick barbecue grill. The final picture was that of a small, light brown woman seated in a wheelchair near a curved sofa inside the house.

  “This is my wife.”

  I smiled, waiting to hear her name, but he folded the collection up and slipped the wallet in his jacket again.

  “It’s wonderful that your children have such old-fashioned names.”

  He leaned back in the chair. “Yep. I left that decision to my wife.”

  I nodded again, waiting for him to continue, to at least talk about why she was in the wheelchair, but he said nothing more.

  I looked around the small room with its two desks, the battered chairs, and the three filing cabinets in the corner supporting a huge spathiphyllum plant, its leaves grown wide as palms and pointing up toward the lights.

  A row of “Wanted” posters hung from the wall at eye level in stacks as thick as telephone directories. They were suspended from large hooks with photos and sketches of America’s Most Wanted. The wall nearest Danny’s desk was covered with a glossy “Just Say No” poster and next to that was the sector map with its black, yellow, white, and green pins representing the incidents of homicide, rape, burglary, and robbery.

  I glanced at the map and wanted to ask “How’s business?” but knew that I’d be there all night if I had to listen to his answer.

  I was beginning to wonder if this was a social call when he finally got around to the first question. I gave my statement, describing the event as well as I remembered but omitted finding the gold caps. Let Tad discuss that with him. I’d had enough of a lecture when I’d given them to him four nights ago. I didn’t need a further reminder about “tampering with evidence.” If indeed it was evidence. But I did mention speaking that night to Mrs. Johnson, the boy’s mother.

  Danny looked up from his report sheet.

  “Oh? What did she say?”

  “Nothing revelant. Just thanked me for saving Morris.”

  I also didn’t mention the later conversation in the restaurant.

  Danny put his pen down and leaned across the desk. “We all thank you, Mali. I mean it. You know, when I look at my daughters, it hurts to see something like this …”

  I nodded, wondering if, in his busy schedule, he got the chance to look at his daughters. It was common knowledge in the precinct that he wanted to take on every homicide case that came in. And when he got a case, he submerged himself in it. I wondered if it was his way of crowding out the situation at home.

  “I dropped by to see Mrs. Johnson yesterday,” he continued. “She was just coming in from the funeral so I guess my timing was off. Nice woman but nervous. I guess anybody’d be nervous trying to raise a kid nowadays with all that’s going on … By the way, what can you tell me about the boy?”

  “Nothing, except that he’s a member of the Chorus and a friend of my nephew. They play ball together sometimes.”

  “Basketball?”

  “Well, yes …”

  “Where?”

  “Around. You know, the usual places …”

  “Kid been in any trouble before?”

  I looked at him. “Which kid?”

  “Sorry. I meant Morris and of course you wouldn’t know that. I’m sorry.”

  He flipped his notebook closed and rose from behind the desk. The interview had ended.

  I rose also, feeling vaguely disappointed. Weren’t there more questions to be asked? It’s true that I didn’t get a good look at the person in the car and he seemed satisfied with that, but why ask me so many questions about Morris and what he might have seen? Where was the “solid lead” he had talked about at the rehearsal hall?

  Perhaps he’d gotten all the information he needed from Mrs. Johnson. Or he’s going to question Morris again. That’s his method. Circle around and around like a shark and then close in.

  Then again, perhaps he really has more cases than he can handle.

  He seemed to be in a hurry to dismiss me so I obliged.

  “If you think of anything else I might be able to help you with, give me a call,” I said.

  On the first floor, I glanced toward the rear where the holding cells, twenty-five in one long unlighted row, were situated. The area was quiet and the crowd in the lobby had also thinned out. There was no sign of the two boys in the sweat hoods and no one screaming, cursing, or making hysterical demands. I checked my watch and knew it would not remain that way because the evening was just beginning and there was always a peculiar ebb and flow from crisis to crisis.

  A slight breeze drifted in and the “Welcome” banner fluttered as I passed beneath it. Outside, I decided to take the long way home and stroll with ordinary people who were going about ordinary business. I walked toward Malcolm X Boulevard and turned to stroll past the Schomburg Research Center. Inside the glass walls, a small crowd lifted champagne glasses, celebrating a new art exhibit, while across the avenue, an ambulance splashed a whir of red and yellow lights against the walls as it screeched into the emergency area of Harlem Hospital.

  I continued to walk, not too fast, because I wanted to think about the questions Danny Williams should have asked me. Questions about the license plate. About Erskin and if he was alive when I had gotten to him. The possibility of other witnesses. Instead, he asked about Morris as if the boy was the villain instead of the victim, but that was Danny’s way, his roundabout method.

  chapter seven

  The temperature had reached fifty-five degrees when I stepped out of Shepherd Hall on Convent Avenue and rushed to a phone. Deborah’s line at the library was busy so I hung up and waited and watched the other students as they lounged about the CUNY campus, convinced that spring had finally arrived.

  I tried the number again and her calm voice came on the line: “Research and Acquisitions, may I help you?”

  “Deborah? My last class has been canceled. How about lunch?”

  “You caught me just in time, girl. I’ll meet you across the street from the Old School.”

  The Old School was our junior high school on 135th Street and Edgecombe Avenue where Deborah and I first met in the seventh grade. From there, we went through high school and City University together.

  The walk from the campus down the steep hill near Hamilton Terrace triggered old memories of my sister and me sledding down this dangerous incline and curving into a snowbank at the last minute, barely avoiding sliding out into the rushing traffic of St. Nicholas Avenue. We did this in bone-freezing weather, as long as the snow lasted, and were always sorry when winter gave way to spring.

  Walking down the hill now had a different feeling. My sister was gone and I was glad for Deborah’s long, steady friendship.

  The traffic on the avenue seemed to move faster now and it made me dizzy to watch. As I approached the corner, I actually waited for the light to change before stepping off the curb.

  Despite the warm weather, most of the benches along the park were empty. I strolled past St. Mark’s Church where St. Nicholas and Edgecombe Avenues merged. A block away I selected a bench directly across from the school and opened my notebook. A jogger ran by, circled back, and though he was out of breath, managed to call out: “Hey, pretty. Need some help with your homework?”

  “Not today, thank you.” I smiled at the man. Despite his nice strong legs, he looked old enough to be my father. He smiled and waved and ran on.

  Minutes after I lost sight of him, Deborah strolled across the avenue. She sat beside me and extended a large brown paper bag.

  “Here we are. Our favorite food …”

  Before she opened it, I knew the package contained fried chicken sandwiches from Pan Pan’s restaurant, complete with french fries, catsup, hot sauce, banana pudding, and large containers of iced tea.

  Deborah seems to have been blessed with a rare metabolism which allowed her to eat five meals a day yet she never enlarged beyond a size 5 dress. She was five feet six inches tall, with close-cut hair and beautiful skin. Her earrin
gs were the biggest things on her. I was a size 7, and whenever I looked at her, I felt fat.

  “How’re you doing, Mal? I heard something in your voice that said ‘Urgent. Come quick. Bring favorite food.’ What’s going on?”

  I laughed as she handed me a sandwich. The chicken leg was crisp despite the catsup. I added some hot sauce and took a large bite. Finally I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound as if I were at death’s door. I need some background on a man by the name of Gary Mark. Thirtyish, white, works as director of development for the Uptown Children’s Chorus. Though from the looks of him, seems he belongs down on Wall Street. Corporate type, big time. Success written all over him.”

  She made a note of his name. Aside from her position as a researcher, she was also a writer who knew how to get a handle on anything in the city that needed knowing. Her mind was like an encyclopedia and her memory rivaled a computer chip. She had been that way ever since our junior high school days.

  “Shouldn’t be too hard,” she said between bites. “I’ll pull up some of the corporations, brokerage houses, and foundations. Stuff like that. If nothing pops, I’ll scan the scandal sheets.” She glanced at me. “Someone you’re interested in?”

  “Not the way you think. I sort of bumped into him the day Dr. Harding was murdered. Everyone was upset at the rehearsal hall but he was more than upset. Frightened is a better word. And I don’t know why. I need some background because he’s around the kids. And Alvin is in that chorus.”

  “Oh shit. Doesn’t anyone check on these things nowadays?”

  “He’s not a pedophile but I suspect something else is going on. I think he might have a fondness for nose candy. Lots of it. I mean the clothes look like a million dollars, but there was something about his expression, something had terrified him …”

  We ate in silence. Deborah sipped her tea and started on the fries. “Well, I should have something for you in a day or so.”

  “Good.”

  She glanced at me and reached out to tap my hand. “Listen, if this guy has such a shaky aura, why don’t you just pull Alvin out and let it go? I don’t want to pick up the newspapers one morning and read where your body was found floating off Riverside Drive. Let it go.”