Like Sheep Gone Astray (32 page)

They were both fingering the hooks and elastics of undergarments when a loud slam made them bolt upright in the bed. Several of the candles went out as a sudden burst of air chilled the room.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Savant. We tried to stop her, but she pushed past all of us.” Tyrone was rushing through the doorway, followed by Yvette, Leon, and Eddie. The bedroom door squeaked back and forth on its hinges

“What the—” Reggie's long, black muscular legs swung out of the bed as Terri pulled the sheet up to her neck. Neither of them focused on the foursome at the door. Their eyes were glued to the heavily weaved blond standing at the foot of the bed. She was shaking and pointing and shouting.

“You! I knew you were up here with that raggedy skank!”

“What in the world is going on?” Terri did not realize how loud she was yelling. “You again?” She screamed at the woman, recognizing her immediately as the woman from Bible study the other night. Who could forget that nappy wet and wavy? “Reggie, who is this? Do you know her? What's going on?”

Reggie was the only calm person in the room.

“Now, now, ladies. Wait.” But his words were lost in Nikki Galloway's sudden lunge toward Terri's hair. She grabbed a handful of the short tresses and pulled Terri out of the bed by her roots.

“I don't know what you thought you was about to do with my man, but you're about to find out what I'm going to do to you.”

Nikki threw a slap in the direction of Terri's face but Reggie interceded.

“That's enough.” He grabbed Nikki by the wrists, pulling her out of the room as Terri quickly buttoned up her shirt.

Tyrone and company still stood gaping at the door.

“Ex-cuse me!
“ Terri finished readjusting herself, picked up her purse, and headed for the hallway. Nikki and Reggie were arguing in a corner.

“Terri, wait.” His bass voice was two octaves higher. “Miss Galloway mistook the business relationship between me and her as something more. I assure you it has never been more than that.”

“Negro, why you talkin' about me like I ain't even here? I know I ain't just business to you. Come back here!”

Nikki's continuing rampage of words was largely ignored as she followed Reggie, who was following Terri down a back stairway. The tears streaming down Terri's face felt like pepper mixed with fire as she stormed to her new Lexus. Reggie caught her arm just as she opened the door. She tried to pull away, but he pulled her face into his hands, looking directly in her eyes.

“Terri,” he said, leaving his words at that.

She could not stop the tears. “I have never been so embarrassed and humiliated in my entire life.”

It was true. She had never imagined a low lower than the experience she'd had at the banquet with Anthony. But here it was. She stared at the small crowd coming out the front door, Nikki's mouth again leading the parade. These people had just seen her in her drawers, about to get down and dirty with a man who had “business relationships” with a woman who could pass for a free hooker. The thought brought a shame beyond definition. It wasn't just these circumstances. It was everything.

“Terri, please believe me. We need each other. This wasn't a good start for us, but I promise everything will get better.” Reggie seemed oblivious to the commotion. He was standing there barefoot in his underwear, for goodness' sake. What kind of fool turkey was this man?

And then, just as intensely as the tears had fallen and the sobs had sounded, came a burst of laughter she could neither explain nor control. She laughed so hard the onlookers stared at her as though she were the one standing outside in nothing but a pair of black boxers. It was all so ridiculous she couldn't wait to drive back across town and tell Cherisse.

“Mr. Savant, your car.” Nobody missed Eddie's words. Terri drove off, leaving Reggie to rescue his Jaguar from the inspired artistry of Nikki Galloway.

Anthony woke up exactly one minute before his alarm went off at midnight. He had managed to squeeze in about four hours of sleep. Stretching, he walked to his closet and pulled out a pair of khakis and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. He wanted to be comfortable for the trip but still look nice enough to win Aunt Rosa's approval. Her mind may be slipping in the haze of Alzheimer's disease, but he knew that every now and then she would peek through the fog and comment on reality.

As Anthony quickly prepared and ate a turkey-sausage biscuit, his thoughts were on what he would say to his great-aunt. He hadn't spoken to her in months, hadn't seen her in a couple of years. He knew he was wrong for not checking in on one of the few family members he had left, but it was hard seeing her go forward in years as her mind went back.

Rosa Bergenson had been a pretty woman in her youth, with deep black hair that naturally curled around her pear-shaped face. Her skin had the texture of finely spun silk and was the color of sweet straw in August. Highly arched eyebrows accentuated the intensity that lurked in her deep brown eyes. The beauty she carried so regally as a young woman had retained its grace into her winter years. Gray hair became a silver crown upon her head, and her skin, though slightly wrinkled, held no other blemishes. Only her eyes proved her age and her illness, the sharpness to them losing its edge to a glassy, often blank, blackish blue.

Anthony tried to call Terri on her cell one more time. He'd been trying to reach her since their confrontation in the garage. The shock of her words found no place in him. He'd already prayed and left his marriage in the Master's hand. Anthony was convinced that once he shook Stonymill off of him, she would find it in her heart to forgive his greed. They would be able to focus on the coming baby and be a drama-free family.

He fought to hold on to his peace, smiling to himself although she was not picking up her phone. Her voice mail was already full with messages he'd left earlier, pleas for her to come back home to talk. He tried Cherisse's number again, and again no answer. He was not deterred. It will all work out.
Confidence.

Half an hour later, he was behind the wheel of his BMW once more, the gas tank on Full, a cup of steaming coffee in the cup holder. It was a ten-hour drive to Sharen, South Carolina, a ten-hour drive to his dear great-aunt Rosa. That meant he had ten hours to pray for enough watts to work in Aunt Rosa's memory to shed some light on him.

Chapter 14

T
ossing and tumbling were doing nothing to help Eric sleep, so he was almost happy when the telephone rang. It gave him an excuse to get up at four
A.M.

“Mr. Johnson!”

“Who is this?” Eric did not catch the voice initially. He thought of all the phone calls and messages he'd been getting the past two days. The fallout from that false mailing had only increased.

“It's me, Snap. I'm at the phone booth outside.” Eric looked out a window and saw Snap waving under a street lamp at a booth halfway down the block. As he reached back for the phone, the encounter he'd had with the young street hustler early Saturday played in his mind like a movie tape on fast speed.

He'd known Snap since he was a preschooler, watched him grow up on the street, both of them fighting their own personal demons. But with all the history behind and between them, he'd never gotten a phone call from him. A feeling of dread crept upon Eric.

Pray.

The command was as intense as it was sudden. Just under his breath, Eric slipped into a prayer so fierce only the Holy Ghost could understand his words.

“Snap, is everything okay? Why don't you come up here to talk?” Really, why didn't he? Eric wondered. What was so urgent that Snap could not take the extra three minutes to run up the street, up the steps, and knock on Eric's door? Why the phone call, and why right now? Eric tried to stay positive, although he knew from experience that phone calls at four o'clock in the morning rarely brought good tidings.

“There's no time. Look, man, I been tryin' to find out who's behind them rumors about you. I know it's early, but I had to tell you to watch your back, Mr. Johnson. I been hearin' some serious—”

Eric cut him off with a question he abruptly felt compelled to ask. “Snap, have you asked Jesus into your heart yet?”

“Huh? Look, man, I'm tryin' to tell you—”

“Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and came back to life so you could have a right relationship with God?” Eric interrupted again, his words spilling out over each other. He could not remember a time when he'd felt this much urgency.

“Eric, listen to me!”

“You need to confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Right now!” Eric surprised himself with the force of his words. Where was all this coming from?

“I'm hearin' you, man, but you need to listen to me! Aw, shoot!” Snap turned away from the phone. The deep rumble of an approaching speeding car filled the night air. When Snap spoke again, his words were breathless and fast.

“You know a chick named Nikki?”

“Snap, what's wrong?”

“Don't—”

But before he could finish his sentence, a screech of tires cut him off. Eric could smell the burned rubber from his window. Before another word, another thought, another prayer, gunshots rang out like supercharged popping corn. A spray of pops and pings shattered glass and bounced off concrete. Eric could almost hear the standing chorus of screams from unseen mothers and fathers inside their homes, trying to cover their little ones who were sleeping near windows. He knew from experience that the people on his block were once again trembling, hiding, ducking down out of stray-bullet range, even as he himself dove to the safety of his floor.

When the shower of metal stopped and the car sped back into darkness, Eric whispered knowingly into the phone.

“Snap?”

There was no answer.

He waited until after the sirens stole the silence, until after his room was washed in a flood of blue and red flashing lights, until after the newest heartbroken mother's scream for her son added another high-pitched timbre to the community's ongoing wail. And then he allowed himself to look out the window.

Seventeen years of life, seventeen years of hard labor but no birth, lay stretched out in a pool of blood on the street below him.

Minutes later: yellow tape, white chalk, the crowd standing on the corner, the sleepy eyes peeking from behind window shades. It was the usual scene. The officers, wearing gloves and badges, picking up bullets and drug vials, no longer shaking their heads. It was the usual scene. But even as Eric surveyed the routine scene unfolding before him, he knew that there was nothing routine or usual about Snap's murder. The timing was too coincidental. His gut told him so.

Snap got killed trying to tell him something about Nikki.

“Don't.” Eric said the boy's last word out loud. Don't what, though? Don't give up on her? Don't ignore her? Don't dismiss her? Don't ever fire her? Don't trust her?

Eric fell to his knees.

“Jesus!”

Groans and cries replaced words.

Sunday morning Kent Cassell agreed to attend a local church at Mona's insistence. Other tourists on the small island of Martha's Vineyard flocked inside the historic sanctuary, admiring the centuries-old architecture. It was a traditional service with a pipe organ and hymns, responsive readings, and a scholarly sermon.

Kent, who did not consider himself a religious person, found a comfortable solace in the voice of a mezzo-soprano who led an eight-part choral arrangement of the classic hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Mona seemed similarly moved. He noticed a tear gracing her cheek as she closed her eyes and listened to the soloist. When she opened her eyes and caught Kent glancing at her, she took his hand and they refocused on the service together.

The young preacher, a new graduate of divinity school, gave a thought-provoking talk on predestination and free will. Kent listened intently until his mind drifted back to Shepherd Hills. He wondered what gospel that preacher Murdock gave from the pulpit on Sunday mornings. A gospel of deceit and lies, Kent was sure.

He was convinced that Anthony and that phony politician were working together to dupe weak-minded people out of their money. That was how Kent viewed religious nuts and fanatics, easily swayed simpletons who lacked the strength and sense to think on their own. He never understood people who trusted their lives to unseen “forces” or “powers” and freely gave of their purses and wallets because a man in a long robe standing in front of them told them to do so.

When an offering bucket passed by him, he dropped in a dollar strictly out of politeness and not out of religious principle. He'd willingly paid to tour a lighthouse: why not offer a buck to keep the historic church building healthy?

After the benediction was given, he followed Mona out to the vestibule and tried to join along with her a spirited discussion about destiny and fate, but he could not get his mind off of Anthony and Councilman Banks. He slipped away unnoticed to a pay phone in an adjacent church hall.

Using his calling card, he dialed the police headquarters in Shepherd Hills and pressed extension two. He knew Sheriff Malloy would be there, as he was every Sunday morning, catching up on the week's paperwork.

“Malloy speaking.” He answered promptly on the second ring.

“It's me again. Just checking to see if there are any new developments.”

“Actually there is. I'm glad you called. I've been waiting to hear from you.”

Kent's heart beat faster as he felt the usual nervous excitement that flooded his senses whenever a case was about to break. “What is it?”

“I got a package yesterday filled with papers compiled and signed by Anthony Murdock himself, implicating him in fraudulent business dealings in that Stonymill expansion project. From what I can see, we have almost enough to indict him and several other businesspersons and politicians on federal bribery charges.”

“Including Councilman Banks?”

“So far I haven't been able to come up with any misdeeds by him, but I'm still looking.”

Kent could hear the sheriff rummaging through a pile of papers. He felt disappointed, wanting to know what was missing so both Anthony and Banks could be exposed for the lying, crooked thieves he was convinced they were. There had to be something more. Something wasn't adding up right. Maybe he and Malloy were making the wrong assumptions about how Anthony was working. Maybe there was a plan in place that they had not even begun tapping into. Kent wanted to see those papers himself.