Miss Lizzie (33 page)

“Here we are,” said Boyle.

“Charlie lives here?” I asked him. I had begun to picture Charlie living, squalid and sad, in a rundown sullen shack like one of those we had passed.

“Yep. C'mon.”

I did not really want to come. For the first time, as we drove down that road, I had understood that black people might lead lives in their own right, and not serve merely as adjuncts and background to the lives of white people. Not an especially brilliant insight, granted, but rather a disconcerting one at the time. I did not know what I ought to do with it, did not know where thought and feeling, armed (and alarmed) by this new truth, might lead me. I told myself that by being here we were imposing ourselves upon people who wanted nothing to do with us. But the truth is, their sudden reality was imposing itself upon me; and I had, or so I thought, experienced quite enough of new realities over the past week.

But even if I could have verbalized all this to Boyle, it was too late now to tell him.

We got out of the car and followed the flagstones up to the porch. Pale-blue curtains hung in the windows. To our left, a white wooden swing hung above the floor. They were simple, everyday objects; and yet, just then, invincibly alien to me.

I asked Boyle, “What's that smell?”

“Chickens. Pretty ripe, huh? Coop must be out back.”

He knocked on the door. After a moment, Charlie opened it.

He wore polished black shoes, pressed black woolen pants, an opened black vest, a white shirt without its collar. I had never seen him dressed in anything but blue denim coveralls, and those usually stained and smeared.

“Mr. Peterson?” said Boyle.

Charlie looked from Boyle to me.

“Hi, Charlie.” I smiled, pleased to see him even if he chose to masquerade as someone else.

He looked down at me, and his face was far from friendly. The black skin tightened around his eyes and curled downward at the corners of his mouth.

TWENTY-FIVE

THE EXPRESSION DISAPPEARED from Charlie's face so quickly I was unable to determine what it was, beyond a kind of general unhappiness. He looked back at Boyle and said, “You not the poh-lice.”

“Uh-uh. Pinkerton. Harry Boyle. We need to ask you a couple questions about last Tuesday. Won't take long.”

Charlie's mouth moved as he sucked at a tooth. He said, “I already talk to the poh-lice.”

Boyle smiled pleasantly. “Good. Then this'll just be more of the same. Easy stuff. Could we come in?”

Frowning, Charlie reached up and scratched for a moment at the back of his white-haired head. Then he said, “We talk out here. Don't want to disturb Mrs. Peterson. She ailin' some right now.” He waved a hand—reluctantly, I thought—toward the swing.

Boyle and I sat down on the swing. Charlie leaned back against the low wall of the porch. He did not seem to know what to do with his knobby hands. For a moment he put them, large and gnarled, one atop the other on his lap, and then he crossed his arms and held them underneath, long fingertips flat against the curve of his ribs.

“We interrupting something?” Boyle asked him.

“Gettin' ready for services. Over to the church.”

This was a very different Charlie from the man who had joked and laughed with me. He lived within a quiet self-possession at which I would never have guessed. And yet behind it, so it seemed to me, lay the same guarded watchful quality, the same wariness, I had sensed since we arrived in his neighborhood.

“This won't take long,” Boyle assured him.

Charlie nodded. “Yessuh.” He had not looked at me since that first glance in the doorway. Now he did. “Sorry about your momma, Miss Amanda.”

I said, “Thank you, Charlie.”

“The good Lord give and he take away. He give you comfort now, you axe for it.”

I nodded.

“Mr. Peterson,” said Boyle.

“Yessuh?” Blinking, he shifted his position slightly on the wall.

“You were on Water Street last Tuesday? Near Mrs. Burton's house?”

“Poh-lice already axe me that.”

Boyle nodded. “And what'd you tell them?”

“I tole 'em the truth. Yessuh, I on Water Street Tuesday.”

“Did you go to the Burton house?”

“Yessuh. Goes up and knocks on the door like I do. See if Miz Burton, she wants to order her a chicken. Usually she do. Once a week, leastways. But nobody show up, so I leaves. This just like I tole the poh-lice.”

“You see anybody else around?”

“I sees that Mr. Hornsby. Big gennleman works on Captain Hardee's boat. The police, they already know he be there. He the one say
I
be there.”

“You talked to the police yesterday?”

“Yessuh. Chief Da Silva come here. And another one. That Mistuh Medley. 'Bout this time of day.”

“Where was Hornsby when you saw him?”

“He comin' down Water Street. I goin' up.”

“After you left the Burtons' house.”

“Yessuh.”

“And you were going north on Water?”

“Yessuh. North.”

“Away from downtown.”

I think that Charlie smiled then, very faintly, very quickly. “Yessuh. North.”

Boyle smiled and said, “See anybody else on the street?”

“Nosuh. Only Mr. Hornsby.”

“Where were you going, Mr. Peterson?”

“See Miz Cooper, over to Burnside. Had a chicken for her she ordered from me.”

“That was the thing in the bag you were carrying?”

“Yessuh. Poh-lice axe me that too. You axe Miz Cooper I didn't bring her no chicken.”

Boyle smiled. “Take your word for it. But just so's I get an idea, where's this Miss Cooper live?”

“Three-one-two Burnside. You go ahead, you axe her. She tell you.”

“No problem, Mr. Peterson. Burnside is what—two, three blocks up from Mrs. Burton's house?”

“Yessuh. Fremont, and then Sheridan, and then Burnside. Three blocks.” Charlie sucked on a tooth. “North, that is.”

Boyle grinned. “That'd be away from downtown, I guess, huh?”

Charlie did not smile, but for an instant his eyes seemed brighter. “Yessuh. That direction.”

“What did you do after you gave Miss Cooper her chicken?”

“I goes back to Water Street and walks down that till I comes to Grant, and then I goes up Grant to Main Street and gets the buggy.”

“Where was the buggy?”

“I leaves it by the Woolsworth.”

Boyle nodded. “Okay. So you came back down on Water Street. You passed Mrs. Burton's house again. You see anything this time?”

Charlie glanced at me, glanced back to Boyle. “Nosuh. I tole you. I don't see nothin' at Miz Burton's house.”

“You see anything else at all while you were on Water Street?”

“Nosuh. Like I tole the poh-lice.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Peterson?”

“Nosuh. I keeps tellin' you, I don't see nothin' at Miz Burton's house.”

“But did you see anything along the street? Or on Burnside? Anything strange, anything unusual?”

Charlie cocked his head, his lower lip protruding. “Nosuh. Don't believe so.”

“Nothing? Everything exactly like it always is?”

“Yessuh.” Charlie shrugged. “'Cept for the Packard.”

Boyle frowned. “The Packard? What Packard?”

“Parked on Burnside, under the trees. Half a block down, across from Miz Cooper's.”

“A two-door Packard?”

“Nosuh. Onliest two-door Packard in town, that be Mistuh Childers's from Boston. I know that car, I be bringin' Mistuh Childers a chicken every week. This a four door.”

“You're sure?”

“A four-door Packard,” Charlie said. “Black. Parked right there on the south side of the street, plain as day.”

“You tell this to the cops?”

“Sure.” He shrugged again. “They axe me did I see any strange cars. I tells 'em bout the Packard.”

Boyle nodded. “Okay, Mr. Peterson. Getting back to Mrs. Burton's house—”

“I tole you, I don't see nothin' at Miz Burton's house.”

Boyle nodded. “I remember. But you were standing right outside the front door, right? So while you were there, did you
hear
anything? Anything from inside the house?”

Charlie's glance darted at me again, darted back to Boyle. “Nosuh. Don't hear nothin', don't see nothin'.”

Perhaps it was the way he had slipped a look at me—three times now when our house was mentioned—that made me feel he was not telling the truth. “Are you
sure
, Charlie?” I asked him. “It's really important.”

He looked at me, his eyes sad. “Miss Amanda, best thing now, you leaves this be. Do your grievin', do your prayin', and then you moves on. Nothin' good come of all these questions.”

“But Charlie,” I said, “we really want to
know
.”

Slowly he shook his head. “Nothin' good come of it.” He turned back to Boyle. “Like I tole you, I don't hear nothin', I don'—”

He turned around to look off to his right.

Another Ford came bouncing and bucking down the road, a cloud of brown dust billowing behind. As we watched, it braked abruptly, tires skidding, and pulled in behind Boyle's and lurched to a halt. The doors popped open and four white men spilled out and gathered together at the edge of the lawn, about twelve feet away on the far side of the low picket fence. I recognized the two who had tumbled from the backseat, although I did not know their names. They had been part of the crowd that threw tomatoes at Miss Lizzie. And I recognized the driver, a big man, weaving slightly, a wide grin on his broad face. It was Hornsby.

Charlie had stood away from the wall of the porch and turned to face them. Boyle stood up now, as I did, and Boyle said quietly, “You got a bird gun in the house, Mr. Peterson?”

Charlie said sadly, “Nosuh, I sure don't.”

“Uh-huh,” said Boyle:

“God
damn
!” Hornsby said, and his broad face was bright with pleasure. “It's fatboy! How you doin', fatboy? Told ya I'd see ya again.”

Boyle nodded. “Ace.”

Hornsby laughed. He turned to the other three. “This here's fatboy. I told ya 'bout fatboy.”

The men nodded and grinned. One of them called out, “Hey, fatboy!” and then doubled over, made helpless with laughter by this witticism. His two friends, evidently sharing the same sense of humor, slapped each other on the back and guffawed. They all appeared quite drunk.

Hornsby said, “I'll tell ya what, fatboy. It's so good to see ya, I'm not even gonna pound your ugly face in.” He waved his big hand magnanimously. “You go off and do whatever ya want. We got business to take care of here, me and my friends.”

“What kind of business?” Boyle asked him.

Hornsby hooked his thumbs over his belt. “Nothin' serious. We're just gonna take ole Charlie here for a little ride, ask him some questions.”

Behind Hornsby, one of his friends guffawed again.

“What kind of questions, ace?” Boyle asked.

Hornsby laughed. “What
kinda
questions?” Grinning, he turned to the others. “He wants to know what
kinda
questions?”

The three men laughed at this. Boyle turned to me and said under his breath, “Anything starts to happen, you run. All the way home. Got me?”

I nodded.

When Hornsby rounded on Boyle, he was no longer grinning. “I'll tell ya what kinda questions, fatboy. The kinda questions that ain't none of your damn business. This here is our town and we don't need no fat Pinkertons to handle our niggers for us. You just get in your car and take the girl with ya and get outta here before ya get yourself hurt.”

Boyle shook his head. “Don't think so, ace.”

Hornsby laughed again, harshly, heavily. “You don't
think
so?” His face went cold. “Listen, fatboy, that nigger killed a white woman. He ain't gonna get away with it. Not in
this
town.”

“Sounds to me,” said Boyle, “like you and your friends got seriously misinformed.”

“Sounds to me,” Hornsby said, “like you're gonna get your fat ass kicked.”

Boyle nodded. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

He stepped off the porch. Hornsby turned to the other three men, jerked his head toward Charlie's house, and the four of them moved forward, stepping over the picket fence.

A car horn honked off to the left, and for a moment everyone froze.

A
long sleek black Cadillac sailed down the road. It slowed as it purred past the two Fords, and then it swung off the road and parked before them. The far door eased open and Mr. Slocum stepped out.

Tall and slim and (as usual) spectacularly well groomed in another white linen suit, he sauntered around the front of the Cadillac and up to the four men. Two of them, the two I recognized from Miss Lizzie's house, still straddled the picket fence; Hornsby and the fourth stood on the lawn.