Pernicious (11 page)

         
“Nice to meet you,” Joanne said.

         
“And big mama here,” Mrs. Banks said, indicating the heaviest and youngest of the three, “is Kimberly Banks, my favorite sister-in-law.”

         
“Nice to meet you,” Kimberly said. To Mrs. Banks: “When I hit you, you’ll never talk out the side of your mouth again. I’m not fat!”

         
“Ain’t she fat, Detective?” Mrs. Banks asked.

         
 
The three women sat there, waiting for her to respond.

         
Yes, she’s fat--why you asking me? You don’t need a detective to figure that out.

         
“Ain’t she?” Mrs. Banks insisted.

         
“Well…” Tasha said, looking for an exit. “Are you also related to Tyrone Banks?”

         
“She’s his baby sister,” Mrs. Banks answered.

         
“I can speak for myself, Shirley. Yes, Tyrone is my brother.”

         
“Now let’s play cards,” Mrs. Banks said. “Hey, wait a minute! There’s only fifteen dollars here. Somebody’s not up.” All three women stared at Tasha.

         
“Guess it’s me,” Tasha said. “How much are you playing for?”

         
“Five dollars a game,” the women chorused. Kimberly added: “No extra rounds on hits, and if you go down and get caught, that’s double.”

         
Tasha held up a wrinkled fifty-dollar bill. “Can anyone change this?”

         
“Lay it out there,” Kimberly said. “Money will change itself.”

         
Since when? Tasha thought, tossing the bill on the table.

         
Mrs. Banks won the first three games, and Tasha said nothing as the woman debated how much she had in her fifty-dollar bill.

         
As Kimberly dealt the fourth game, Mrs. Banks got up and retrieved a mason jar from the cabinet. She placed it in front of Tasha.

         
“Say when,” she said, pouring gin.

         
“Ma’am,” Tasha said, the glass filling more than half full. “When!”

         
“Well,” Mrs. Banks said, resuming her seat, “what you want to know ’bout Ty?”

         
Tasha glanced uneasily at Joanne and Kimberly.

         
“Never mind them,” Mrs. Banks said. “Everybody already knows everything there is to know. No secrets here.”

         
Tasha sipped her drink. Too strong. “Ma’am, forgive me if I’m being forward. Your husband’s death was in part attributed to the drug Sildenafil. Do you have any idea where he got this drug?”

         
Mrs. Banks, mouth agape, stared at Tasha. Turning to Kimberly: “Didn’t I tell you she talk like a white woman?”

         
Tasha sipped her drink again. “Ma’am, it’s important. If we can determine where your husband got this drug, we may be able to determine whether or not foul play was involved.”

         
“Hell,” Mrs. Banks said. “I can tell you what killed him. A low-down, dirty skank named Perry Banks. That’s what killed him. Don’t waste your time looking for a drug. Perry Banks killed him. Years ago I was begging you people to arrest her, and y’all wouldn’t listen. Now, just when everybody is starting to accept what happened, here y’all come asking questions.”

         
“Check yourself,” Kimberly said.

         
“I apologize,” Mrs. Banks said. “I didn’t mean to sound like it’s your fault. I just get upset thinking ’bout it, you know. If it was some white woman’s husband, it would’ve been different. The trial would be over and the low-down skank would be in jail.
Me?
A nappy-headed black woman? Uh-uh! One of your people told me to get a life. I went down to the station--me and Kimberly--and told the man what I knew was true. He said, ‘Get a life.’ Didn’t he, Kimberly?”

         
Kimberly nodded.

         
“You know I was married to Ty twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years. Bam! A koochie mama pops up and snatches him away from me. Of course, I couldn’t blame him. He’s a man, couldn’t help himself. What man could resist something like her. Young, gorgeous, sexy--everything I ain’t. She probably did stuff to him I wouldn’t dream of--”

         
“Shirley, puh-leeeeasse!” Kimberly said. “She ain’t all that!”

         
“Yes, she is,” Mrs. Banks said dryly. “Might as well admit it. She’s all that and a bag of ice. Ty wouldna left me and his kids for some crackhead he let crawl up in his truck. Uh-uh, no way! He was getting old and he wanted to feel young again, you know. How men are when they start getting old. And he knew I wasn’t doing anything I hadn’t been doing.” She stopped and stared at her cards.

         
“Your play,” Joanne reminded her.

         
She pulled from the deck, dissed the card. “She didn’t even go to the funeral. She had all that money and she buried poor Ty in a pine box with knotholes all over it. Wasn’t nothing I could do--she had all the rights. She’d asked me, I would’ve scrounged up enough money for a decent funeral.” Shaking her head: “It was the saddest funeral I’ve ever attended…the saddest.”

         
“Did Donny leave?” Joanne said, an obvious attempt to change the subject.

         
Mrs. Banks ignored her. “I swore ‘fore God, Reverend Black and Ty thirty-seven years ago that I would never know another man outside of Tyrone Banks. To this very day I’ve kept that vow.” Tears rolled down her face.

         
There was a long silence; it was Mrs. Banks’ turn to play again. No one commented.

         
A hissing from the stove interrupted the quietude.
      

         
“My greens!” Mrs. Banks exclaimed, rushing to the stove. “Damn!” She took the smoking pot to the back door and threw it out.

         
Kimberly laughed. “First you burned the cornbread, then the peas, now the greens. What’s next?”

         
“I might burn your fat ass,” Mrs. Banks said, grinning.

“See what that smells like.”

         
Tasha took another sip of her drink; now it didn’t taste as strong. She could feel the effects of the gin, slowly but surely creeping up on her. Lightheaded. And she no longer wanted to talk about death and murder. She wanted to socialize with these women, laugh with them, talk with them about anything except the reason that brought her here.

         
“I wonder,” Kimberly was saying to Mrs. Banks, “what happened to her daughter?”

         
Mrs. Banks took a generous sip of her drink. “Last I heard she was living with her grandmother down in Dawson. I feel for any child with a mother like that woman. She sent that girl to the funeral all alone. Pitiful. Just pitiful!”

         
“What was her name?” Kimberly asked.

         
“I forgot. Hold on, it’ll come to me. I know it starts with a K. Keisha…Kenyata…Keshana, that’s it.”

         
“What?” Tasha said, snapping to attention. “What did you just say?”

         
The three women stared quizzically at Tasha.

         
“The name Keshana, who were you referring to?”

         
“Perry’s daughter,” Kimberly answered.

         
“Her name is Keshana Green?” Tasha asked.

         
“I don’t know ‘bout the Green part,” Mrs. Banks said. “I know her first name is Keshana.”

                          
Chapter 5

         
Every square foot of her front yard, except the driveway, was covered with flowers. Oriental poppies lined the base of the house from end to end, their hue so brilliantly crimson the house appeared to bleed. Purple foxgloves ran along one side of the driveway, while red, yellow and white roses ran along the other.

         
There the symmetry ended. Petunias, verbascums, delphiniums, chrysanthemums and helianthemums were scattered throughout the yard in no discernible pattern. A chaotic profusion of colors.

         
Perry abandoned the shovel and stepped back to admire her handiwork. She’d planted every flower, pulled every weed and clipped every…She wasn’t sure what exactly she’d clipped, but if it was clipped, she’d clipped it.

         
A pink two-story antebellum with four columns shadowed the yard.

         
Perry had replaced the original portico with a double-tiered, cast-iron railed gallery. She’d stained and varnished all the shutters and replaced the prison-gray colored wooden door with a solid brass one, shipped all the way from Horsehead, New York. When the sun hit it just right, the reflection glimmered like a star.

         
“Mine,” Perry said under her breath. “All mine. Bought and paid for.”
 

         
She smiled, fought the urge to laugh, remembering the day she first laid eyes on the house.
      

         
Oh, what a glorious day that had been…

         
All the agents at Plantation Realtors busied themselves about the office, each acting if she were a piece of furniture.

         
She waited patiently for an hour or so before standing and shouting, “I want to buy a damn house!”

         
A gray-headed white man strolled over to her and directed her into a small office.

         
“I’m looking to buy a house and I’ve been sitting out there over an hour while others have come and gone.” Louder: “This shit continues, I’ll take my business elsewhere!”

         
Gray-head frowned and laid a picture portfolio on the desk. “Miss, why don’t you take a look at these. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back.”

         
“When you go, send someone in who wants to sell me a house.”

         
The man left hurriedly, and several minutes later another man, with twitchy eyes behind thick bifocals, entered.

         
“Excuse me,” he said stiffly. “Is there a problem?”

         
“Not yet,” Perry said.