Criminal (2 page)

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We sat down with our lunch in front of the TV. Kenyetta was in charge of the remote, flipping around, trying to find something decent, when she passed a news channel and then clicked back.

“You hear about this?” she asked me and Bird. “Yesterday? Animals, I tell you. They shot this man just in broad
day
. Coming home from some speech to Boy Scouts.”

A wad of tuna and bread and cheese stuck, dry, in my mouth. I was afraid I'd choke. On the TV screen was the house we were at yesterday, me and Dee. The yellow one with the porch. In
front of it were a couple cop cars and that
CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS
tape all around the yard. A news lady with wide brown eyes and straightened hair was talking into her microphone. Serious.

“. . . still have no official suspects in the case, but we've been told by police that they have begun questioning a few leads in the investigation. Neighbors said they believed the shots they heard in the area on Saturday afternoon were simply kids playing around with firecrackers. If more of them had investigated those sounds, police might now be closer to finding the persons involved in the murder of Deputy Marshall Palmer, who is survived only by his sister, in Indiana, and his seventeen year-old daughter, who was out of town at the time of the shooting. A sad homecoming for her, for these nearby neighbors, and the county police force as the search continues for these brazen killers. For now, I'm Kelly Douglas, reporting live.”

Kenyetta and Bird were talking to each other while the report was going on, but I heard nothing. Only the words of the news reporter:
persons involved
. Persons. As in, more than one.
Killers.

Kenyetta's voice finally came into my head. “. . . know they ain't going to rest until they get these crazy-ass folks. Police don't take killing one of they own kind too light. Who I really feel sorry for is his daughter, though. Only child and they say she was up in Ohio somewhere looking at college when it happen. Can you
imagine?” She put her hand up by her face like she was talking on the phone. “‘Hello, is this Miss Palmer? We sorry, honey, but your daddy dead. You need to come back on down here.'”

Bird made tsking noises.

“They think a gang done it,” Kenyetta went on. “Man's retired now, but they say he worked real hard getting the gangs out from over where all those, you know, refugees and them come in and ain't have nothing. He cracked down even on apartment landlords and all that. But still, son. In the
day
? Man coming home from his do-good work and just get shot dead.”

“Lord, I hope we don't start seeing more of that around here,” Bird said.

“You far enough away.”

“These times, people getting desperate . . .” Bird went on, talking about the neighborhood, telling Kenyetta about the rash of break-ins that happened a few streets over from us at the beginning of the summer, but I stopped listening. I had to concentrate on making myself swallow the food in my mouth. On fixing my face in some kind of way that pretended I was as concerned about the neighborhood as they were. That my gut wasn't burning and hollow at the same time, finding out the man Dee shot yesterday—and killed,
killed—
was a cop.

Five minutes later, though, I was in the bathroom, over the toilet, retching. I'd said I wanted a shower and turned on the
bathtub water, hard, so that Bird and Kenyetta wouldn't hear. I flushed and sat on the edge of the toilet, not sure I wouldn't puke again, hearing Kenyetta saying,
Police don't take killing one of they own kind too light.
Eventually I climbed under the water, my clothes still on.

Persons involved,
the reporter had said.
Brazen killers.

Persons.

Not just Dee.

But Dee and—

Me.

I WAS IN THE SHOWER A LONG TIME. THINKING, I GUESS,
but mostly needing to get clean. I'd stripped off my clothes and left them in a pile on the bathtub floor, rubbing the soap over my skin, my hair, my face. Sudsy water washing down. I wished I could get it far enough into my ears, behind my eyes, to take away what few sounds and sights I had from yesterday, what Dee did, but I knew the only thing that would take care of that was time. More time, especially, in the dark with Dee taking over me—Dee and nothing else.

After I got dressed in dry clothes, I went into the kitchen. Kenyetta was gone, but Bird was still at her sewing machine. I walked past her as normal as I could and took a couple of garbage bags out from under the sink.

“What you doing?” Bird asked, not looking up from her sewing.

“I've done enough lazing this weekend.” I forced my voice to be even. “I thought I'd do some cleaning up.”

“Girl, you always welcome to it.” She smiled.

“I thought maybe you could show me your haul from yesterday, too.”

“Oooh.” Bird let it out in a long breath. “We going to need a couple hours.”

We smiled at each other again—I could feel how weak mine was—and I left her and Jamelee in the buttery kitchen.

In the garage, I found a rake among a few other rusty tools. I took it outside to the dried-out yard, even though there wasn't much in the way of work for me to do. At least there were enough dried leaves on the ground from the one little magnolia for me to push into a pile, plus those big grenade-looking pods. I raked them together as best I could, put them into my garbage bag. I also spent time plucking up the trash that people had dropped by the sidewalk on their way down to the bus stop—chip bags, Gatorade bottles, and grease-spotted napkins. Those I shoved into the bag too, wishing I'd thought to bring out latex gloves.

After that I set out for my real, intended task: cleaning out Bird's car. Dee had taken everything important from it yesterday,
but that news report and what Kenyetta said scared me. Dee told me they weren't going to be asking any more, but I wanted to make sure that if they did come around, there wouldn't be anything else for them to find.

Besides Jamelee, Bird's car was her pride and joy. She'd bought it, cash, with her own money last year and had it custom painted so dark purple it was almost black, with a sparkly shimmer underneath the paint. There was a gold racing stripe down both sides and some Hindu symbol painted on the back that she told me meant “strength.” She had it washed almost every week and drove it like a grandma, five miles under the speed limit. Though she was okay with me driving it from time to time, I knew better than to ask too often, and when I did, I made sure to keep it full of the expensive gas. She babied that thing that much.

Inside the car was a different story. Inside was where Bird let the chaos show in spades. The back was the worst: floor jammed with KFC bags and cups from Bird's other job, plus fruit bar wrappers and old Cheerios dropped by Jamelee. Receipts. Phone numbers for people Bird finished projects for months ago. Plus extra baby clothes (one tiny shirt with a big juice stain on the front), dried-out baby wipes, and even a pair of shoes I think Bird forgot she had. One single pink sponge curler, under the driver's seat, was so old it had a brown crust along one edge. I
didn't know where half the stuff came from, and I knew Bird didn't either.

One thing I was glad I did find was a cigarette butt and crumpled-up pack of Dee's smokes. Bird would've killed me if she'd known I'd let him smoke in the car—even if I didn't really remember letting him do it—but now it seemed even more important to get it out. There couldn't be any proof he was in here. I shoved it deep under the rest of the trash in my bag. I almost wanted to text him, tell him what I'd found and how I'd helped, but he'd said not to contact him yet. I'd save it for a surprise later.

After I cleared everything out from the floor, it looked much better. I almost wanted to vacuum it out. But I knew cleaning it up too good would make her raise her eyebrow and wonder if something was up.

Whenever I got to a pause in the cleaning, I checked the glove compartment. Three times, four. Each time, I didn't want to even touch the latch, but I had to, just in case there was something left. But there never was, of course. Only the car owner's manual and Bird's insurance card in a little plastic bag. A flashlight.

As a last effort, I took the hem of my T-shirt and wiped off the steering wheel, the stick shift, and all the seats. I wanted to spray the whole thing down with Clorox, but Bird would think that was
too strange. I kept chanting in my head, over and over,
Dee said they aren't going to ask us anything else
. And I had to believe him. He'd taken care of most everything. But now I was taking care of him—us—just a little more: the way he counted on me to. All that would happen now was we'd get further and further from this whole thing, and one day—maybe—I could forget.

CLEANING OUT BIRD'S CAR INSPIRED ME. AFTER I SHOVED
everything from the car deep in the trash barrel and put it on the curb for morning pickup, I aimed for the back room—my room. I tried to keep things decent in general since this wasn't really my house, but there were clothes all over the floor and ruined magazines, plus fast-food bags and trash from us eating dinner in bed. Dee's ashtray needed emptying, and I knew those sheets could use changing too.

“You sure you want me to interrupt?” Bird said at the door. “You seem on a tear.”

I tried to cover up the fact that she'd startled me.

“Feels good to make things nice, you know?” I was holding a wrinkled pillowcase in my hand and worked at folding it into a tidy square.

“Guess that was some date yesterday then, huh?” She stood there, easy, against the frame of the door.

“What do you mean?” Fold. Crease. Fold.

“You and Dee, all lovey-dovey. Like nobody keep you two apart.”

“He's like that.” I swallowed. “You just don't get to see him much is all.”

She snorted. “Oh, I see him. But really more I mean you. Moving faster around the room all the time. Like something in you is on fire.”

I thought I could tell her then. That she'd understand I'd had no idea what was going to happen when we left the house yesterday, what he was going to do. After all, she knew, from Jamelee's daddy, all about how you could think things were one way and find out they were another. She knew about doing what you had to do for what you loved most. But I also knew the kind of grudge she took hold of. And Bird already disliked Dee plenty.

“You just—take such good care of me, you know?” I said. “And I'm happy we could all hang out this weekend, I guess. I mean, it makes me happy.”

Another snort from her. “You know I ain't never going to stop you helping me with the load around here.” She smiled down at Jamelee, who had crawled down the hall to see what we were up to.

I swallowed. “I'd do anything for you, Bird.”

Her gaze came up to me then. Probably it was my imagination, but it felt like her eyes were gripping me: seizing my bones and making my heart stop.

“Tell me what you think about these ridiculous curtains on clearance Mel talked me into getting, then.” She laughed, picking the baby up from the floor and strolling down the hallway, leaving me with the pillowcase still in my hand and my next breath caught in my throat.

I DIDN'T LIKE GOING DOWN THE STREET TO MOMMA'S
house, but twice a month I had to. My stepdad Gary had told that me turning eighteen legally freed me from her life, but he hadn't ever explained how to shake her off me for good. Based on the mail we got, he hadn't figured out how to himself either, even from as far away as a twenty-year jail sentence he'd already served five years on. This time I was doing more than checking in, though, and taking care of the few bills there were to pay. After Bird tried on outfit after outfit for me and dressed Jamelee up in her new clothes too—both of them so cute and adorable—I knew I had to get Dee's trash even farther away from them. So, even though it was close to dinnertime, I told Bird I needed to go down to my momma's. She shrugged and said she'd wait for
me to eat, and I left the house out the front door quick, grabbing the trash bag by the curb. Then I snuck around back and walked down the street.

Cherry, my momma, lived one block behind and two blocks over from Bird's place. She owned the house outright, thanks to my grandma, who had taken care of me once Cherry started her addiction for real. Of course, it wasn't until Grandma died that I realized exactly how much
else
she'd taken care of and what I would have to from then on, after. Thanks to Grandma's money, though, there wasn't a lot to pay for anymore, outside of food and regular expenses. But Cherry's and my phone plan had been linked for years, and even after I dropped out of school and started working at the hair salon, it always seemed too expensive or too complicated to change it. There was the insurance, too, which I knew from Grandma was important to keep up. I had let the cable get cut off, though. She could watch static over there, for all I cared.

Most of the house was dark when I got there, which wasn't a surprise. A single dull porch light on and one farther in the house—the light over the kitchen sink. I dropped the trash from Bird's car into the bin outside the garage and let myself in the back kitchen door. Right away I could tell Cherry wasn't home, though it wasn't clear how long she hadn't been. Around about sixth grade, when we first moved here, Cherry started getting . . .
sick. Sometimes she was sick at home, and other times she had to go somewhere else. How long she's actually been on drugs I don't know, still. When I turned thirteen, Gary went to jail on his Long Bust, and things got weird in other ways I couldn't put my finger on. Afternoons, Grandma would show up at school instead of Cherry, taking me over to her house to spend the nights that would sometimes last for days. Other times, Momma would be excited and in a good mood, and we'd have parties over at our house. Full of people. Usually loud and very happy. When she remembered in the mornings, she'd send me to school. Other days I'd be “sick” too and just stay at home and watch TV with Cherry and her friends. Lots of them men, like she had forgot about Gary altogether.