A Dead Man Speaks Read online

  Scenes flashed across my mind, Clive standing over me, and I’m shrinking. Shrinking until I don’t know who I am or where I am. Is it the hospital? I don’t know. The only thing I’m conscious of is his anger. Filling the room like a thick blanket.

  “Well, why didn’t you?”

  I’m back in the now of my life, and I’m angry, angry at myself and at the detective for uncovering what was better left alone. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, detective.”

  “I think it is, ’cause I think it might have something to do with your husband’s death… maybe something so simple as a big fat insurance policy, or maybe half of a multi-million dollar business, a fancy Central Park apartment, house in the Hamptons and who knows what else? So ya see, Mrs. January, it is my business.”

  I swallowed hard, about to light another cigarette, but I resist, I’m not going to let his memory push me over the edge. It’s bad enough that he tormented me in life. I will not allow him to continue in death. So I turn to the detective, trying to keep a level voice, after all, what if I were a suspect? This jealous weasel of a white man would probably like nothing better than to haul me in on murder charges. “Well if you must know, I couldn’t leave Clive January. No one does.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Detective Bob

  Weird chick. That’s all I could think. Real ice queen. But somehow my gut told me that she wasn’t the one. Don’t ask me why. I just knew she wouldn’t do anything to embarrass herself or her family. And one thing a chick like that wasn’t about to do was to go to jail for killing somebody that she didn’t give a shit about anymore. I looked at the faded newspaper clipping. New York Times, June 1980. A picture of Clive January and his blushing bride-to-be. The one I just talked to. Only, she wasn’t blushing no more.

  I skimmed the short article: “Clive January investment banker and founder of January & Associates will wed Monique Raymond after a whirlwind courtship. The ceremony and reception will be held at the Long Island summer home of the bride’s parents, Dr. and Mrs. Steven Raymond. The bride’s father is the chief of Pediatric Surgery at St. Johns Hospital in New Rochelle. The bride’s mother is an administrator with the New Rochelle school system. The groom’s parents are deceased. Over 400 guests will attend the festivities, and the couple will honeymoon in St. Kitts.”

  Well la di da…so she comes from money, too. Not him, though. From what I’d been able to piece together, he was just a regular guy who married up after he’d made good. The American way.

  I glanced again at the picture. He looked young and cocky; and her, innocent, fresh, and totally in love with him. None of that left on her face now. I was about to file the article away, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. Something kept drawing me to his eyes. I got that feeling again, of being pulled into the picture, into his world. My stomach turned over as if I were about to lose the stale pastrami sandwich I’d had for lunch. I swallowed, breathing, trying to force myself back. It was a repeat of that day at his beach house when a force stronger than me pulled me back, back into a tunnel of the past. Clive’s past. Faces started rushing past me like moving pictures, and then I was seeing through his eyes, hearing through his ears and Bob Greene was gone, lost in his will. I was Clive.

  * * *

  Bright sun blinds my eyes. I am looking down a beach. A narrow strip of white sand. Children, all black children are playing in the sand and diving in and out of the waves of the calm bay. Houses dot the grassy dunes, and everywhere, black people relax, joke, sip drinks, play cards. This is home for them. I’ve never seen anything like this before.

  I’m walking down the beach alone. Everyone seems to know someone but me. I feel like I’ve stumbled on an exclusive club, only I’m the odd man out. I feel self-conscious. Like I used to when I first got to college, afraid that someone would dig too deeply into my past.

  People turn and look at me as I walk, curious glances, raised eyebrows. I’m about to turn back when I hear my name.

  “Clive…Is that Clive January?”

  I turn and see a short, brown-skinned man, starting to bald slightly. I blink in the sun, not quite sure where I know him from.

  “It’s me, Andrew Haven, from Bender. I left right after you got there.”

  “Andy…what’s up, man?”

  I feel better, a familiar face. I sense my confidence starting to grow again.

  “Not a whole lot. I moved to Chicago a couple of years ago, but I’m thinking about moving back. Goldman made me an offer that’s looking real good, especially when I think about those cold assed Chicago winters.”

  I smile, remembering the first time we met, figuring I’ll rub it in. “You shoulda taken me up on my offer. I started my own firm two years ago, and we’re kickin’ ass man. I mean big boo-ty.”

  “So I hear. Congratulations.”

  Insincerity. But I don’t give a fuck. I’m glad to have somebody to rap with. To make me feel like I belong. I look around at the comfortable black folks, and I know that this is someplace I want to belong.

  Andy looks suddenly like he’s not sure of what to say next, then blurts out, almost in spite of himself. “Well, maybe I will work with you someday, five or ten years from now…”

  He laughs a forced laugh. High pitched, nasal, like the white deputy in that jail years ago. I turn away from him, focusing on the sea eating away at the glaring white beach. “I won’t be here in ten years…”

  I look into his face, an army of sweat on his round brown forehead, and now I smile saying, “Man, don’t you know the good die young…” I skip a shell across the sand. A perfect arc. “And I’m the best there is…”

  Andy smiles politely. Envy falling across his face. But what can he say? A soft, almost airy voice comes from behind us. “Andrew, don’t be so rude. Introduce me to your friend.”

  I turn to a pretty light-brown skinned woman. Her wavy black hair is pinned up, and her pale blue swim suit reveals just enough. Something about her eyes remind me of someone, clear and so light brown that you can see your reflection in them.

  “Oh sorry Monique,…Monique Raymond, Clive January…”

  She smiles warmly. An innocence and vulnerability etched in her face. Again, I think of someone. And now I know who. Mrs. Foster. I feel as if I’ve stepped back into time to that small Southern town and folded myself up in the warmth and goodness of the first woman who ever loved me. I feel close to this woman, Monique, as if she’s always been a part of me. I smile at her, wanting to know more. Suddenly needing to know, who she is, this ghost of my past staring into my present.

  “Do you live around here?”

  “Uh huh…Over there…at the end of the beach.” She points to the biggest house on the bluff, a modern white ranch with a long wrap-around deck. Two middle aged black couples are lounging on the deck, laughing, playing cards.

  And I notice that Monique has been staring at me like she knows me, too. And I think of Mrs. Foster and her eyes are the same and she is the same and I want her. Suddenly, I feel like I need her to close the circle of my past to be for her what Daddy wanted to be for Mrs. Foster…

  * * *

  It’s night now. The beach is empty. Lights dot the air from the houses perched on the dunes. I’m alone. Occasional conversation floats out. I kneel on the sand, still warm from the day’s sun. I take out my wallet. A small photo. The stupid kind you take in the booths in Woolworths. Her face smiles back at me, her voice playing in my mind.

  “So, Clive January, will you marry me?” I look over at her smooth body lying next to mine. I cradle my face in the small of her back, her perfectly round brown ass jutting in front of my face like two delicious scoops of chocolate ice cream, melting slowly under my tongue. She turns over and places a small firm breast in front of my face. “Well, will you marry me?”

  And suddenly I feel drunk or drugged, like I always do with her. “Laurel, I love you…” She sits up, entwining her small body into mine, so that our hearts drum together. “So marry
me then.” She’s kissing me. Licking my chest, squeezing me. I let myself go, swept away, being totally at one with her.

  And I hear myself saying, “Yes, I’ll marry you, Laurel. I’ll marry you…” A cold wind tugs the photograph out of my hand. I grab it from the sand. The voices have stopped. The memories frozen, filed back in my brain. That was six months ago. I haven’t seen her since. She wrote, said she was coming back to marry me. But she didn’t come. She wouldn’t tell me where she was. Then the letters stopped. She called once, but she wouldn’t say where she was or when she was coming back.

  I wrote, but the letters came back with no forwarding address. I called, but the number had been changed. And I thought shit, it’s happening again, like when I left Hendersonville, I can’t get her out of my mind. I think she’s there and she’s not. But this time, I felt like there was this hole in me that wouldn’t close up. Then I realized I was hooked. What I’d fought all along had happened. I’d gotten used to seeing her, used to waking up next to her and her just being there.

  We had lost track for about five years after that time I saw her after college, and then one day she’d just reappeared, and almost from the start we’d started living together. Marriage wasn’t really my thing, and she hadn’t seemed too pressed either until right before she left. Then she disappeared, saying she had to straighten some things out, she’d be back in a few weeks—and now it’s been six months.

  I look out at the sea stretched in front of me. Calm. Like it is waiting for me to make the next move, I have to decide whether to ripple the waves. And I just stare. Something is pulling me to act, to break loose, get on with it. But I keep feeling her touch, like the wind against me, warm then cool. I kneel down in the sand and draw a circle, like the hole I couldn’t seem to close up. But maybe it was better. Maybe this was my chance to take back that part of me that I’d lost to her, for good this time, leaving it and her in the past, where they belonged.

  I kick the sand across the circle, and picking up a stone skip it over the smooth surface of the water. And now I’ve met the woman I’m going to marry. And it’s not her. I look at the photo again. And then around me. The homes, the comfort, the quiet. And I let the photo slip from my hands. Carried by the night air, higher, higher, and then resting on the black water, disappearing under the hungry waves. I get up and walk toward the lights.

  * * *

  Shit. I’m in the tunnel again, whizzing forward, passing time. I don’t know how much time. I stop. A gentle Long Island evening. The air is heavy with the smells of the sea and flowers and life subdued. I’m looking into Monique’s eyes. But now she’s in white. It’s our wedding. Everyone is smiling. But for some reason I have this sense of foreboding, like nothing this good can last forever.

  I’m whirling her around the dance floor. She whispers in my ear, “Clive, I love you so much.”

  I kiss her gently behind her ear, brushing her hair away from her face. People laugh and titter. Seeing faces in a blur, snatches of “They’re so in love…aren’t they a beautiful couple?” Again, that feeling, this can’t last. I close my eyes. She holds me tightly. The music, the people, the sea air, transporting me away…

  Then a voice crashing through my thoughts. Her voice. So near. But different, slurred, like she’s been drinking. “No I’m not leaving. I said I want to make a toast to the happy couple.”

  My eyes shoot open, and I’m staring at Laurel. She’s drunk, and for the first time not in control, waving a champagne glass high over her head. All I can think is how did she get here? How did she know?

  Monique tugs at my arm. “Clive, who’s that woman?”

  I meet Laurel’s red eyes, from crying or drinking, I don’t know which. I turn away, whispering to Monique, “A friend, just a friend.”

  But Laurel has maneuvered her way between us. “I’d just like to toast your wedding…and your eternal happiness…”

  Monique smiles politely, digging her fingers into my arm, never taking her eyes off of Laurel.

  “We haven’t met…”

  “You mean Clive hasn’t told you about me…his, let’s see, was it ‘neighbor,’ or was it…lover…I forget now.”

  Monique has stopped smiling, and the room is suddenly quiet.

  Monique’s father, Dr. Raymond, raised eyebrows, but cool, always cool, has gently grabbed Laurel’s arm. “Now why don’t we wait until after the cake is cut for the toasts…Miss uh…”

  And before Laurel can protest, he glides her away from us and out on the veranda. That’s how these people are. No scenes, no shouts just discretion and a quiet calm to cover over everything.

  Monique’s clear brown eyes are clouded over, like Mrs. Foster’s when I hurt her, too. And I want to hold Monique and make it up to her, but I can’t. It’s like a part of me got a charge out of seeing Laurel, the old seduction pulling me in. And all I can do is kiss Monique gently on the cheek and say, “I’m sorry…”And I think for the first time how cold her cheek is.

  The scenes are changing around me again. I’m in a room, the wedding is over. But I know it’s my wedding night. Monique’s gown is crumpled on the chair. I’m lying next to her. Trying to let her gentle breathing rock me to sleep. But my mind won’t relax. I feel like I’m suffocating under an unknown force. I get up and look down at the beach. I realize that I’m at her parents’ home. The beach is empty and quiet, the sea wanting me. I leave quietly, not really dressing, just slinging a shirt over my head and slipping into sweats. And now I feel free, stretching out on the damp sand, closing my eyes.

  “I knew you’d come.”

  And I see her. Taunting me. “Laurel!” I bolt up. Damn. She’s standing over me, tiny as she is, she seems to tower over me now. Coolly saying, “You know you’re mine. You promised to marry me.”

  “Fuck, Laurel, what the hell are you still doing here?”

  She hasn’t moved, still standing over me, back in control. The temporary emotional lapse at the wedding fading away with the champagne. She looks through me calmly, like she can read every emotion on my face, her words rising over the sound of the sea…

  “And what the hell are you doing married?”

  I spit out, confused, angry, “Don’t gimme that shit. You disappeared, and then come back expecting everything to stay the same. Who the fuck do you think you are!?” I try to get up and walk away from her, but I have to know, the question that had been with me for six months…“Where did you go?”

  For a minute she doesn’t say anything, the sound of the water bubbling up around her feet blanketing out everything. I can barely hear her whisper, “I went to find him.”

  “You went to find who? And who the hell is him?”

  “My father! That’s who! I’ve been looking for almost ten years. I had to find him. For me, so that I would know who I was. And I did. I finally did find him. He was sick, in a nursing home, so I spent the last six months with him until he died. I wanted to feel whole like I knew me or at least a big part of me before I could give myself to you. That’s why I left. That’s why I couldn’t come back or even call you until it was over.”

  Her voice was numb and emotionless like whatever feelings she’d had had been spent months ago with a man she barely knew, but who’d consumed her life for the past ten years. She looks at me without blinking. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it, obviously… it’s too late.”

  “You’re damn right it’s too late!” I turn away from her, not sure of my feelings even as I said it. Everything was coming up, the hole that wouldn’t close, wanting her so much, and then shoving it all aside, a new life with my wife. I try to swallow my uncertainty and force the words out … “It’s over…it’s all over.”

  But she isn’t really listening to me. There were words in her head that I couldn’t hear. Only a quiet determination. “Things are the same. Nothing will ever change with us, don’t you know that by now, Clive January?”

  And then she kneels down straddling me, and with more force than I ever thought s
he could summon up in those slender arms, she yanks my sweats down so that they’re twisted around my ankles. And I’m lying there naked from the waist down as she descends on me, cradling her mouth over me, swallowing me. And I can’t move. My body is charged with the same electricity that I’d felt the first time we made love, like I was a prisoner to her will, like I was nothing under the strength coiled up in her tiny body.

  The sound of the waves split my head, and I push her over, twisting my body around hers, filling her with everything I’d dreamed of while I was making love to my wife…

  And now I’m climbing back in bed with Monique. Dawn casting a pale grey haze over the room. Her breathing still regular and gentle. And I think of the other dawn when Daddy crept in the room after being in Mrs. Foster’s bed, quietly, almost guiltily. But I wasn’t Daddy. Because Daddy had a soul.

  * * *

  The tunnel was closing in on me, faster and faster pushing me back to me. To my life. Clive was gone. I was sitting on my bed clutching his wedding announcement, sweat trailing in my mouth. My heart in the seat of my pants. Weak, I knew if I tried to stand up I’d probably fall over. My hands were starting to shake, and the nausea was starting to creep in again. But I didn’t care. I was determined to see this through. Clive’s will was strong, but so was mine. Damn it and I don’t know why, but I shouted out to the nothingness, “I ain’t afraid, Clive January. If you’re trying to scare me, to make me blink, it ain’t happenin’ d’you hear me you black son-of-a-bitch. You hear me. I ain’t afraid!”

  I was dizzy and weak, yet somehow I got up off the bed, half expecting to see him. But just silence. The only thought in my head was Laurel. She’s the one I’ve got to find. She’s the key. He wanted me to know that. I was starting to figure him out now. He wanted to me find out who killed him, because he didn’t know. Whoever did it shot him from the back, so he wouldn’t see them and maybe cry out their name. I knew he’d keep taking over me, imposing his life on mine until I did.

  I shuddered. Shit, I’d wanted my eyes back. I’d wanted to be able to do what I thought I’d lost. Now I was doing it more than I ever had with anybody or any case I’d ever had in all the years I’d been on the force. So then why didn’t I feel good? Why did I just feel this heaviness? I didn’t really want to see what was out there in the past, Clive’s past. Maybe whatever it was, was going to pull me in so deep that I couldn’t get out. Somehow I knew that it was already too late. There was no turning back. I’d opened my eyes to him, and I couldn’t close them now.