Dream With Little Angels (9 page)

A
s soon as Mom pulled into the drive, I raced inside to call Dewey and tell him about the roadkill. He was skeptical. “Did you actually
hit
it? Or just see it?”

“Both. I mean, we hit it and then I looked back and there it was.”

“You're
sure?
”

“Dewey, I'm telling you we ran over a possum. It's splattered across Main Street.”

I could hear him sigh through the phone. “Okay, I'm bringing my bike over. Let's go check it out.”

Mom stopped me on the way outside. “Where are you going?”

“With Dewey for a bike ride.”

She did a weird thing then. She just stood there like she almost wasn't going to let me go. “Mom, I'll be with
Dewey
. On a
bike
.” I knew she was thinking about Carry off by herself for the day in Satsuma. I felt like telling her:
I'm not going to Satsuma, I'm going down the street a mile
. But I decided not to.

With a big breath, she looked away and came to a decision. “Okay, but don't be long, all right? An hour?”

“I don't have a watch.”

“We'll have to get you one.”

“Okay, but I don't have one today.”

Uncle Henry must've been listening from the living room where he was watching television. He came in and handed me his Timex. “Here, now you have a watch,” he said. “Please, for your mother's sake, don't be late?”

His seriousness almost scared me. “I won't,” I said. “We're just going downtown to check somethin' out. Then we'll be right back.”

Mom looked puzzled. “Check what out?”

I looked to Uncle Henry. “Mom hit a possum on the way home from droppin' off Carry. Dewey doesn't believe me.”

Uncle Henry's eyebrows went up. “Really?” He looked at my mother. “You really hit a possum?”

She shook her head, shrugging. “I dunno, I might have. Why? Since when is hitting a possum such a big deal.”

“Oh,” Uncle Henry said, nodding, “it's a big deal to some people right now.” He gave me a wink. “I'll explain it to her. You go make sure it's still there and actually dead. Then come home and tell me how this affects the overall theory.”

My mother looked at him like he'd lost his marbles. I thanked him for the watch and went out the door.

“One hour!” my mother called after me. “Or less. Less is okay, too.”

 

We weren't even halfway to Main Street when we found a dead raccoon lying on the side of the road. By the looks of things, it had probably been there near on a week. We got off our bikes and inspected it thoroughly. Dewey even poked it with a stick. “It's over.” He sighed.

I frowned. I hadn't realized how much more interesting life was with an unsolved roadkill mystery hanging over it. This was like someone had set a giant piece of birthday cake in front of us, then laid down a big ol' fork, and then, at the last minute, took away the cake. All we had was forks.

And dead animals on the road.

Still, we continued on to Main Street to double-check that the possum my mother killed on our way home was actually dead. It was. Pretty much in the same state of deadness as the raccoon, only more fresh.

“Well, this ain't the way I wanted this to end,” Dewey said. Neither of us did.

“After what Uncle Henry said, I really thought it had something to do with Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow,” I said.

“I still think he's up to no good,” Dewey said. “Could be he just hasn't gone collectin' for a while.”

“Dewey, that raccoon has been there at least four or five days.”

“Maybe he's saved up so much he's got a stockpile,” Dewey offered, but I could tell he was scrambling.

“Could be,” I said. We wanted to believe it, that's for sure.

“Even if he isn't stockpiling roadkill, I still think he's up to no good,” Dewey said.

“Oh, I know he is,” I said. “It's just some kind of no good that ain't got nothing to do with disappearing roadkill. At least not no more.”

“So we still have a mystery.” Dewey smiled.

“He's still at the top of my suspect list,” I said.

“Mine, too.”

For what, neither of us knew. I pulled Uncle Henry's watch from my pocket. It was too big to wear around my wrist. “My mom told me to be home in an hour. We still got twenty-seven minutes, not countin' the fifteen it'll take to get back.”

That was when Tiffany Michelle Yates came out of Igloo's with an ice cream cone in her hand nearly as big as my head. It was one of those waffle cones and the ice cream was pink.

“What kind of ice cream is pink?” Dewey asked.

“Bubble gum,” she said with a big grin. Her teeth looked especially white against her dark face.

“Looks girlie to me,” I said.

“I'm a girl,” Tiffany Michelle Yates said. And she was. A black girl two years younger than Carry that Carry used to sometimes play with. That was back before Carry discovered boys and what Mom called
cliques
. Now Carry wouldn't be seen as dead as this possum playing with a thirteen-year-old.

“What're y'all doing?” she asked. She wore a pretty pink dress that matched her ice cream and her hair looked freshly washed with a bright yellow ribbon tying it back. She looked as though she belonged on a postcard for Alvin with that giant ice cream cone in her hand.

“The roadkill came back,” Dewey explained.

She lifted an eyebrow. “What?”

“It had all disappeared for the longest time, but now it's back.” He pointed to the possum on the road. “Abe's mom killed this one.”

“Okay,” she said, looking at us like we fell off the back of a nut truck. We watched her continue down the sidewalk, eating her ice cream.

“Girls can be so weird,” Dewey said, mounting his bike. “I doubt I'll ever understand them.”

I thought of Carry and agreed. “I know you never will. They're not understandable. I think that's their reason for ex-istin'. Uncle Henry told me somethin' like that once.”

We rode down the sidewalk, showing off by going no hands and saying, “Bye,” to Tiffany Michelle and her giant ice cream cone as we went past.

From what my mother would later find out, it was the last thing anybody said to her before she disappeared.

W
e made it back home with ten minutes to spare. My mother was happy about that, and when I returned the watch to Uncle Henry, he promised to buy me my own next time he was in town. I could tell my mother was still a little concerned about Carry, even though she still had three hours to go until the time she had promised to be back home.

Mom made us some chicken noodle soup and we ate it in the living room while watching television. Cooking and television were nice distractions for her, but every time a show ended I saw her glance over at the clock on the mantel and get a bit more antsy.

“Stop worryin',” Uncle Henry said at four. “She promised to be home at five, she'll be home by five. Besides, I thought you was goin' into work this afternoon?”

“What if she ain't back by five?” my mother asked.

“Then we'll deal with that then. Don't make up problems ahead of time that don't even exist yet.” He flipped through the channels, stopping at some fishing show.

“You're not gonna make us watch people fish, are you?” I asked.

“It's kind of relaxin',” he said. “I think your mom could use some relaxin'.” He looked at my mother. “That is if she ain't goin' to work like she says she was gonna. Are you goin' in or not?”

“So far I've decided to take the day off. I'll make an official decision come five.”

“Fishin's relaxin' like watchin' paint peel's relaxin',” Dewey said. We all laughed until the telephone rang, interrupting us. The sound of it made my mother nearly jump out of her skin.

“Quit thinkin' the worst,” Uncle Henry said, watching her get up to answer it. “It's got nothing to do with Caroline.”

He was right. It didn't.

But I could tell my mother was still terrified when she hung up the phone after taking the call.

Uncle Henry could tell, too. It was in his voice. “Who was it?” He was out of his chair, out of the living room, and standing right beside her. I was behind him. Dewey was still in the living room watching people fish.

“Mrs. Yates. Tiffany . . . her daughter. She's missing.”

“
Missing
missing?” Uncle Henry asked. “Or just ten minutes late coming home?”

My mother looked stunned. “
Missing
missing. Goin' on near three hours, Mrs. Yates said. Tiffany Michelle was supposed to meet her friend at the movie house at two. She never showed up.”

I thought this over and then spoke up. “Dewey and me saw her right before then,” I said. “She was on Main Street with the biggest ice cream cone I ever seen. One of those big ol' waffle cones. The ice cream was pink just like her dress. She asked us what we was doin' and we told her studyin' the roadkill that all came back. We even showed her the possum you runned over, but she didn't seem to care so much about it, just that big waffle cone. I swear it was the biggest one I ever seen.”

Uncle Henry held up his palm. “Slow down there, son. We don't care so much about the ice cream. Are you sure it was Tiffany Yates?”

I nodded. “Tiffany Michelle Yates. She had a bright yellow bow in her hair and looked like she'd just had a shampoo. I reckoned the way she looked she belonged on some sort of postcard or jigsaw puzzle or somethin'.” I thought all my details were helpful, but nobody seemed to want to hear about them so much.

“Are you sure it was right before that time? How do you know?”

“Cuz I was wearin' your watch, remember?”

“Put on your shoes and coat,” my mother said to me. “Dewey, you, too.”

“How come?” I asked.

“Cuz you're witnesses. You could be the last people who saw this girl before she disappeared.”

I frowned; something in my stomach clenched. “Where are you takin' us? We ain't goin' to jail or nothin' like that, is we?”

My mother shook her head, giving Uncle Henry as much of a half smile as she could in her state. “Of course not. You're coming with me to see Mr. and Mrs. Yates. They're gonna wanna talk to you. Then we're gonna go to Main Street and you're gonna explain exactly where you saw her and what she said and everything else.”

I thought I'd already explained it pretty thoroughly, but I didn't mind doing it again. It made it seem like Dewey and me were kind of special now that we were witnesses and all. We put on our shoes while my mother went into the bedroom and changed into her uniform. She came out wearing her gun and everything.

The Yates lived in the same area as Luther Willard King. In fact, I had ridden my bike past their house the last time I brought Luther Willard the ten dollars from my mother for not mowing our lawn. I remembered back to the first time I made that trip. Back to those two girls practically naked playing in the dirt in front of the house and how I'd heard Luther Willard's father wheezing and coughing in the back, as close near death as a rat in a gator swamp. We drove slowly up Oakdale Road, my mother checking the house numbers. Six older black kids rode past my side of the car on bikes. They all smiled with big white grins.

The Yates didn't live in a rundown shotgun house like Luther Willard King, but their place wasn't a whole lot nicer than the Kings', either. It was cramped and gray. I couldn't tell if it once was painted or if that was the color it was supposed to be. They had a bit more lawn in the front, but it was patchy and mostly moss, especially around the concrete steps that led up to the screen door. At least the house's roof wasn't caved in. The garage, separated from the house, wasn't quite so lucky.

“That thing's gonna fall over right onto that car,” I said as we parked at the end of the drive. “But by the looks of that car, I doubt anybody'll notice afterward.”

Dewey laughed.

With a sigh, my mother shut off the engine and turned to me. “What's wrong with you? Why do you say stupid things like that?”

Dewey stopped laughing.

“Like what?” I asked. “Look at that car. I doubt it even runs without at least three or four of them black kids pushing it.” Dewey laughed again. I thought I was being honest. Normally my mother valued honesty. Today, apparently, things were different. Right away, I knew I'd made a mistake.

Her face actually grew red and I could tell she was really mad. Dewey shut up again. I even flinched, thinking she might swat me one. “What? What'd I do?” I asked.

“That is the most racist thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth. I have a mind to go home and make you suck on a bar of Ivory soap.”

“For what? What part of what I said was racist?” I looked back at Dewey, but he just shrugged.

“
All
of it, Abe. First off, where do you get off criticizin' other people's houses? You're lucky you have one to live in. You could very well have grown up far poorer than them.”

“Like the Kings?” I asked. “Have you seen Luther Willard's place? It makes this one look like the Grand Hyatt down in Satsuma.”

“You interrupted me, Abe; I wasn't finished. And you interrupted with yet another near racist comment. But we hadn't gotten to your worst one. The one about them boys pushin' that car around.”

I sighed. “I guess I don't understand racism.”

“I guess you should learn.”

“How?” I asked.

“Well, there's two ways. The easy one and the hard one. I'd advise the easy one: Just figure it out for yourself, and when in doubt, keep quiet.”

“What's the hard one?”

“Having some of them black kids give you a little reminder whenever you say something offensive. I don't reckon they'd have much understandin' for a little no-account white boy like yourself.”

Narrowing my eyes, I studied my mother, trying to tell if she was kidding or not. I couldn't be sure, so I decided to err on the safe side and go with trying to figure things out the easy way.

Mr. Yates answered the door and invited us into the front room, which he referred to as the parlor. A tall, thin man, he wore an unbuttoned yellow shirt over a white T-shirt and brown pants. His chin was stubbly, as though he hadn't shaved in a couple days. He directed us to a flowered couch with worn cushions that sat in front of the window.

I ran my toe over the green shag carpet, trying not to notice Mrs. Yates crying. She was sitting in a mustard-colored chair in the corner by the fireplace, holding a hankie to her cheek, wiping back tears as she tried to talk about Tiffany Michelle. Mrs. Yates wasn't a thin women. She was short and stout, but carried herself with much grace. Her bright brown eyes gleamed behind her tears.

Mr. Yates brought in a pot of coffee and four mugs. I couldn't figure out why there were four, given there was only three adults in the room, but it turned out Mr. Yates didn't drink coffee. The extra two were for Dewey and me. I looked to my mother, but she shook her head. “It'll stunt your growth. And trust me, you two need every inch you can get.”

Mr. Yates laughed at this, even though I could tell it was a forced laugh. He wasn't crying, but he was obviously just as upset about his daughter as his wife was.

My mom told them how Dewey and me had seen Tiffany on Main Street with the ice cream cone. They listened to me tell it a few minutes. I told them Tiffany was very pretty in her pink dress and yellow bow and that she looked like a postcard. This seemed to make them happy.

Dewey kept completely silent the whole time. It was certainly a change from his regular behavior.

“You don't think she's been taken like Mary Ann Dailey?” Mrs. Yates asked my mother. Mr. Yates, squatting beside her chair, put his hand up on her leg.

My mother sighed. I knew she didn't like the insinuation being made by someone else that Mary Ann Dailey had been nabbed by someone. My mother had come to this conclusion on her own very early on, but for some reason she took exception with anyone else having the same opinion. This time, she managed to keep her thoughts hidden away. I was glad of that. I think everyone in Alvin had resolved themselves to the fact that Mary Ann hadn't just wandered off and would turn up walking aimlessly down Main Street any moment. Even the kids at school knew most likely someone was responsible for her disappearance.

“She's been gone barely three hours,” my mother said. “Normally we don't even consider people missing until forty-eight, so right now I wouldn't worry too much. She could be lost, she could have gotten distracted, she could be out with friends. At this point, there are still many possibilities. I wouldn't be too worried.”

“Our Tiffany always goes where she says she's going,” Mr. Yates said. “And she's never late comin' home.”

I thought of Carry and looked over at my mother, but she was intently listening to the Yateses, nodding and taking notes. “Well, we're gonna go check Main Street where Abe and his friend here saw your daughter and ask around and see if anybody else saw her. I'll let you know as soon as I find anything out.”

Tears welled in Mrs. Yates's eyes. “Please bring my baby home.”

I felt my mother grow tense and she hesitated. Her breath caught in her throat. “I'll do my best, ma'am.”

 

We drove up Main Street to Igloo's, where me and Dewey told Tiffany Michelle about the possum. After questioning everyone in the local stores and finding nobody who remembered seeing the girl, my mother made me go over the whole thing again, twice. Both times I made a big deal out of the roadkill she runned over still being there.

“Okay, Abe?” she said. “I'm not so interested in the dead possum. Concentrate on the parts of the story involving Tiffany.”

I tried explaining that the roadkill was the whole reason we were talking to Tiffany Michelle in the first place, but she didn't seem to care. I showed her where Tiffany had walked, and told her what she had said and how we rode past her with no hands and said, “Bye.”