Bare Bones (3 page)

AsSlidel and I took opposite ends of the couch, I heard a door open, then the tinny sound of a gospel station. Seconds later the music was truncated.

I looked around.

The decorating was nouveau Wal-Mart. Linoleum. Vinyl recliner. Oak-laminate coffee and end tables. Plastic palms.

But a loving hand was clearly present.

The fril ed curtains behind us smel ed of laundry detergent and Downy. A rip on my armrest had been careful y darned. Every surface gleamed.

Bookshelves and tabletops overflowed with framed photos and crudely made objets d’art. A garishly painted clay bird. A ceramic plate with the impression of a tiny hand, the nameReggiearching below. A box constructed of Popsicle sticks. Dozens of cheap trophies. Shoulder pads and helmets encased forever in gold-coated plastic. A jump shot. A cut at a fastbal .

I surveyed the snapshots closest to me. Christmas mornings. Birthday parties. Athletic teams. Each memory was preserved in a dime-store frame.

Slidel picked up a throw pil ow, raised his brows, set it back between us.God is Love,embroidered in blue and green. Melba’s handiwork?

The sadness I’d been feeling al morning intensified as I thought of six children losing their mother. Of Tamela’s doomed infant.

The pil ow. The photos. The school and team memorabilia. Save for the portrait of a black Jesus hanging above the archway, I could have been sitting in my childhood home inBeverly , on the south side ofChicago .Beverly was shade trees, and PTA bake sales, and morning papers lying on the porch. Our tiny brick bungalow was my Green Gables, my Ponderosa, my starshipEnterpriseuntil the age of seven. Until despair over her infant son’s death propel ed my mother back to her belovedCarolina , husband and daughters fol owing in her mournful wake.

I loved that house, felt loved and protected in it. I sensed those same feelings clinging to this place.

Slidel pul ed out his hanky and mopped his face.

“Hope the old man scores the air-conditioned bedroom.” Spoken through one side of his mouth. “With six kids, I suppose he’d be lucky just to score a bedroom.”

I ignored him.

Heat magnified the smel s inside the tiny house. Onions. Cooking oil. Wood polish. Whatever was used to scrub the linoleum.

Who scrubbed it? I wondered. Tamela?Geneva ? Banks himself?

I studied the black Jesus. Same robe, same thorny crown, same open palms. Only the Afro and skin tones differed from the one that had hung over my mother’s bed.

Slidel sighed audibly, hooked his col ar with a finger, and pul ed it from his neck.

I looked at the linoleum. A pebble pattern, gray and white.

Like the bones and ash from the woodstove.

What wil I say?

At that moment a door opened. A gospel group singing “Going On in the Name of the Lord.” The swish of padded soles on linoleum.

Gideon Banks looked smal er than I remembered, al bone and sinew. That was wrong, somehow. Backward. He should have seemed larger in his own space. King of the realm. Paterfamilias. Was my recal incorrect? Had age shriveled him? Or worry?

Banks hesitated in the archway, and his lids crimped behind their heavy lenses. Then he straightened, crossed to the recliner, and lowered himself, gnarled hands gripping the armrests.

Slidel leaned forward. I cut him off.

“Thank you for seeing us, Mr. Banks.”

Banks nodded. He was wearing Hush Puppies slippers, gray work pants, and an orange bowling shirt. His arms looked like twigs sprouting from the sleeves.

“Your home is lovely.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you lived here long?”

“Forty-seven years come November.”

“I couldn’t help noticing your pictures.” I indicated the photo col ection. “You have a beautiful family.”

“It’s jus’Geneva and me here now.Geneva my second oldest. She hep me out. Tamela my youngest. She lef ’ a couple months ago.” In the corner of my eye I noticedGeneva move into the archway.

“I think you know why we’re here, Mr. Banks.” I was flailing about for a way to begin.

“Yes’m, I do. You lookin’ for Tamela.”

Slidel did some “get on with it” throat clearing.

“I’m very sorry to have to tel you, Mr. Banks, but material recovered from Tamela’s living room stove—”

“Weren’t Tamela’s place,” Banks broke in.

“The property was rented to one Darryl Tyree,”Slidel said. “According to witnesses, your daughter’d been living with Mr. Tyree for approximately four months.”

Banks’s eyes never left my face. Eyes fil ed with pain.

“Weren’t Tamela’s place,” Banks repeated. His tone wasn’t angry or argumentative, more that of a man wanting the record correct.

My shirt felt sticky against my back, the cheap upholstery scratchy under my forearms. I took a deep breath, started again.

“Material recovered from the stove in that house included fragments of bone from a newborn baby.” My words seemed to catch him off guard. I heard a sharp intake of breath, and noticed his chin cock up a fraction.

“Tamela only seventeen. She a good girl.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She weren’t with child.”

“Yes, sir, she was.”

“Who say that?”

“We have that information from more than one source.”Slidel .

Banks considered a moment. Then, “Why you go looking in someone’s stove?”

“An informant stated that an infant had been burned at that address. We investigate such reports.” Slidel didn’t point out that the tip came fromHarrison “Sonny” Pounder, a street-corner dopeman bargaining for favor after his recent bust.

“Who say that?”

“That’s not important.” Irritation sharpenedSlidel ’s tone. “We need to know Tamela’s whereabouts.” Banks pushed to his feet and shuffled to the nearest bookshelf. Easing back into the recliner, he handed me a photo.

I looked at the girl in the picture, acutely conscious of Banks’s eyes on my face. And of his second oldest looming in the archway.

Tamela wore a short-skirted gold jumper with a blackWon the front panel. She sat with one knee bent, one leg straight out behind her, hands on her hips, surrounded by a circle of gold and white pom-poms. Her smile was enormous, her eyes bright with happiness. Two barrettes sparkled in her short, curly hair.

“Your daughter was a cheerleader,” I said.

“Yes’m.”

“My daughter tried cheerleading when she was seven,” I said. “Pop Warner footbal , for the little kids. Decided she preferred playing on the team to cheering.”

“They al have their own mine, I guess.”

“Yes, sir. They do.”

Banks handed me a second photo, this one a Polaroid.

“That Mr. Darryl Tyree,” Banks said.

Tamela stood beside a tal , thin man wearing gold chains around his neck and a black do-rag on his head. One spidery arm was draped over Tamela’s shoulders. Though the girl was smiling, the fire was gone from her eyes. Her face looked drawn, her whole body tense.

I handed the photos back.

“Do you know where Tamela is, Mr. Banks?” I asked softly.

“Tamela a grown girl now. She say I can’t axe.”

Silence.

“If we can just talk to her, perhaps there’s an explanation for al this.”

More silence, longer this time.

“Are you acquainted with Mr. Tyree?”Slidel asked.

“Tamela gonna finish high school, same’s Reggie, ’n’ Harley, ’n’ Jonah, ’n’ Sammy. Din’t have no problem with drugs or boys.” We let that hang a moment. When Banks didn’t continueSlidel prodded.

“And then?”

“Then Darryl Tyree come along.” Banks practical y spit the name, the first sign of anger I’d seen. “’Fore long she forget her books, spend al her time moonin’ over Tyree, worryin’ when he gonna show up.”

Banks looked fromSlidel to me.

“She think I don’t know, but I heard about Darryl Tyree. I tole her he weren’t no fit company, tole her he weren’t to be comin’ round here no more.”

“Is that when she moved out?” I asked.

Banks nodded.

“When did that happen?”

“Roun’ Easter time. ’Bout four months back.”

Banks’s eyes glistened.

“I knew she had somethin’ on her mine. I thought it was jus’ Tyree. Sweet Jesus, I din’t know she was with child.”

“Did you know she was living with Mr. Tyree?”

“I didn’t axe, Lord forgive me. But I figured she’d went over to his place.”

“Do you have any idea why your daughter might have wanted to harm her baby?”

“No, ma’am. Tamela a good girl.”

“Might Mr. Tyree have placed pressure on your daughter because he didn’t want the child?”

“Weren’t like that.”

We al turned at the sound of Geneva’s voice.

She gazed at us dul y, in her shapeless blouse and terrible shorts.

“What do you mean?”

“Tamela tel s me things, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“She confides in you?” I said.

“Yeah. Confides in me. Tel s me things she can’t tel Daddy.”

“What she can’t tel me?” Banks’s voice sounded high and wheedly.

“Lots of stuff, Daddy. She couldn’t talk to you about Darryl. You shouting at her, tryin’ to get her to pray al the time.”

“I got to be thinkin’ ’bout her sou—”

“Did Tamela discuss her relationship with Darryl Tyree?”Slidel cut Banks off.

“Some.”

“Did she tel you she was pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

“When was that?”

Genevashrugged. “Last winter.”

Banks’s shoulders slumped visibly.

“Do you know where your sister is?”

GenevaignoredSlidel ’s question.

“What d’you find in Darryl’s woodstove?”

“Charred fragments of bone,” I replied.

“You sure they from a baby?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe that baby was born dead.”

“There is always that possibility.” I doubted the words even as I spoke them, but couldn’t bear the look of sadness inGeneva ’s eyes. “That’s why we have to locate Tamela and find out what real y happened. Something other than murder could explain the baby’s death. I very much hope that turns out to be true.”

“Maybe the baby come too early.”

“I’m an expert on bones,Geneva . I can recognize changes that take place in the skeleton of a developing fetus.” I reminded myself of the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

“Tamela’s baby was ful -term.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The pregnancy lasted the ful thirty-seven weeks, or very close to it. Long enough that the baby should have survived.”

“There could have been problems.”

“There could have been.”

“How d’you know that was Tamela’s baby?”

Slidel jumped in, ticking off points on his sausage fingers.

“Number one, several witnesses have stated that your sister was pregnant. Two, the bones were found in a stove atherresidence. And three, she and Tyree have disappeared.”

“Could be someone else’s baby.”

“And I could be Mother Teresa, but I ain’t.”

Genevaturned back to me.

“What about that DNA stuff?”

“The fragments were too few and too badly burned for DNA testing.”

Genevashowed no reaction.

“Do you know where your sister has gone, Miss Banks?”Slidel ’s tone was growing sharper.

“No.”

“Is there anything youcantel us?” I asked.

“Just one thing.”

Genevalooked from her father to me toSlidel . White woman. White cop. Bad choices.

Deciding the woman might be safer, she launched her bombshel in my direction.

ASSLIDELL DROVE BACK TO MY CAR, ITRIED TO QUELL MYemotions, to remember that I was a professional.

I felt sadness for Tamela and her baby. Annoyance atSlidel ’s cal ous treatment of the Banks family. Anxiety over al I had to accomplish in the next two days.

I’d promised to spend Saturday with Katy, had company arriving on Sunday. Monday I was leaving on the first nonfamily vacation I’d al owed myself in years.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my annual family trek to the beach. My sister, Harry, and my nephew Kit fly up from Houston, and al my estranged husband’s Latvian relatives head east fromChicago . If no litigation is in process, Pete joins us for a few days. We rent a twelve-bedroom house near Nags Head, or Wilmington, or Charleston, or Beaufort, ride bikes, lie on the beach, watchWhat About Bob?,read novels, and reestablish extended-kin bonds. Beach week is a time of relaxed togetherness that is cherished by al .

This trip was going to be different.

Very different.

Again and again, I ran a mental checklist.

Reports. Laundry. Groceries. Cleaning. Packing. Birdie to Pete.

Sidebar. I hadn’t heard from Pete in over a week. That was odd. Though we’d lived apart for several years, I usual y saw or heard from him regularly. Our daughter, Katy. His dog, Boyd. My cat, Birdie. HisIl inois relatives. MyTexas andCarolina relatives. Some common link usual y threw us together every few days. Besides, I liked Pete, stil enjoyed his company. I just couldn’t be married to him.

I made a note to ask Katy if her dad had gone out of town. Or fal en in love.

Love.

Back to the list.

Hot waxing?

Oh, boy.

I added an item. Guest room sheets.

I’d never get it al done.

By the timeSlidel dropped me in the ME parking lot, tension was hardening my neck muscles and sending tentacles of pain up the back of my head.

The heat that had built up in my Mazda didn’t help. Nor did the uptown traffic.

Or was it downtown? Charlotteans have yet to agree on which way their city is turned.

Knowing it would be a late night, I detoured toLa Paz , a Mexican restaurant at South End, for carryout enchiladas. Guacamole and extra sour cream for Birdie.

My home is referred to as the “coach house annex,” or simply the “annex” by old-timers at Sharon Hal , a nineteenth-century manor-turned-condo-complex in theMyersPark neighborhood in southeastCharlotte . No one knows why the annex was built. It is a strange little outbuilding that doesn’t appear on the estate’s original plans. The hal is there. The coach house. The herb and formal gardens. No annex.

No matter. Though cramped, the place is perfect for me. Bedroom and bath up. Kitchen, dining room, parlor, guest room/study down. Twelve hundred square feet. What realtors cal “cozy.”