The Cantaloupe Thief (3 page)

“Brani G! Haven't seen you in awhile.”

“I need two things. One, a lunch to catch up. And two, a time to talk to you about a story I'm working on.”

“The hit-and-run?”

“What hit-and-run?”

“One of our homeless men was killed at the corner of Oakley and Anders five nights ago,” Liam said. “That's not what you wanted?”

“Sorry, but this is the first I'm hearing about it. I'm working on a tenth anniversary piece on the Alberta Resnick murder.”

“Come on over and we'll negotiate. I can make time this afternoon.”

“Ah, you remember deadlines. I'll be there at two if that's all right.”

“See you then.”

 

Branigan left the office at 1:30, giving herself time to run by Bea's Bakery to grab bagels and coffee. She figured Liam wouldn't have taken time to eat. The Main Street bakery smelled deliciously of yeasty, sugary treats and Bea's to-die-for biscuits, but she virtuously selected two wholegrain bagels, no cream cheese. She didn't let Bea slice them, convinced that slicing kick-started a slide into staleness.

She pulled into Liam's parking lot with five minutes to spare. She saw his eight-year-old SUV, apparently a requirement for dads of soccer players. Liam was carpool dad times two, with his children Charlie and Chan finishing their senior year at Grambling High East.

Branigan smiled at the names, as she did every time she thought of Liam's striking offspring. Liam and his wife Liz had no intention of naming their children after the fictional Chinese detective. They named the girl Charlotte after Liam's great-grandmother, the boy Chandler after a family name they discovered in Liz's ancestral tree. Leave it to seventh-graders to get Charlie and Chan out of that. So that's who they'd been since middle school. Charlie and Chan, the Delaney twins. That's what most people thought anyway.

But a few family friends knew they weren't twins at all, but first cousins. Liz was twenty-four and pregnant with Charlie when Liam's teenage sister, well on her way to becoming a heroin addict, turned up pregnant. Shauna Delaney refused to name the father, and threatened to have an abortion. Liam's parents begged her to reconsider, promising they would care for their grandchild. But it was Liz who finally persuaded the fragile young girl. She and Liam offered to raise the baby as a sibling to their own. Shauna, who worshiped her older brother, consented. Hours after the birth, she relinquished the baby and disappeared from the hospital. Liam's family hadn't seen her since.

Since Chan was just six months younger than Charlie, they were in the same grade at school, and most people assumed they were twins. Liam and Liz certainly treated them the same, and so did Liam's grateful parents. It was not until Chan turned a gangly twelve and began to develop the long muscular legs that would serve him so well running a soccer defense that Branigan had the first inkling of who his father might be. For she had known his father when he was twelve.

The homeless shelter showed signs of Liam's five years on the job. It was a Big Box, a sprawling, high-ceilinged, one-level former grocery store. The city had been delighted to get the food store twenty years earlier. But after seven years and profits much lower than its suburban stores, the chain abruptly pulled out, leaving an empty shell and city council members appalled that their predecessors hadn't ensured an exit penalty.

For six years, the building sat empty, an eyesore and graffiti magnet. Well, empty if you didn't count its homeless residents who broke in and built fires and left trash piles heavy on whiskey bottles and malt liquor cans. All told, it was a mess that defied the mayor's efforts to attract developers to its promising location six blocks west of Main Street.

A suburban church interested in inner-city ministry ultimately sought it out as a satellite campus. Such a use wasn't the city's first choice, but council members figured it was better than an empty storefront. Unfortunately, the newcomers understood little about the lives of the homeless and mentally ill and addicted who lived in proximity to the satellite campus. They went through three pastors in quick succession.

Liam was the fourth, a former
Rambler
reporter and seminary grad, his only experience a single stint as youth minister. He took the struggling mission church as a last-ditch effort by the mother church; the missions committee made it clear they were leaning toward closing it within eighteen months.

As Liam told the story, he didn't know enough to understand what would and wouldn't work. He began by looking at the property as a homeowner, wanting to create a more visually welcoming space by breaking up its monotonous asphalt and concrete. He recruited students from his and Branigan's alma mater, Grambling High East, to perform student service hours; they dug up dead grass and planted trees and flower beds. Liam wheedled them to use Student Council funds to buy river birches and roses, tulip bulbs and verbena, geraniums and day lilies. Soon the students and the mission church had an easy partnership that served both well.

Inside, the teenagers painted an entire interior wall with a colorful mural, peopled with Bible characters. From what Branigan could tell, Adam and Eve were sharing an apple with Daniel as he fought off lions, one of which was saddled and ridden by Joshua entering the land of Canaan, which was populated by multiple Goliaths fighting off sling-wielding Davids. Liam smiled wryly the first time he showed Branigan the mural. “Exhibit No. 1 on why we need Bible study,” he said.

Within a few months, the homeless people who ate breakfast and dinner in the church's soup kitchen and attended its sparse worship services began showing up to garden and clean. Liam was surprised, but instinctively realized their participation was a positive step.

Other churches took note and began sending teams over to learn about homeless ministry. When Liam's eighteen-month trial period was up, the mission church had its partner high school, eleven partner churches, and had opened the back of the grocery store as an eighteen-bed homeless shelter for men. Liam contemplated housing women as well, but a trip to a women's shelter in North Carolina convinced him that both genders couldn't be housed in the same building. For now, the shelter remained for men only, though women were welcome for its hot meals.

Branigan shook her head admiringly as she walked past the results the students and homeless men had wrought — the beginnings of dappled shade, ruby roses and pink geraniums, deep yellow day lilies and golden marigolds. Raised vegetable beds flourished in the field beside the building.

She knew that Liam wasn't everyone's idea of a proper minister. He drank beer at the city's outdoor festivals. He dealt with the homeless with brusque expectations rather than sympathy. He welcomed gays with an outspokenness that didn't always play well in conservative Grambling. But the Delaneys' roots in Grambling ran deep, and city leaders couldn't argue with Liam's success. He had his admirers as well.

Branigan reached the former grocer's electric doors, which slid open silently. She passed under the sign proclaiming “Jericho Road”. To the side was a folk art painting of multiracial diners sharing a meal. In calligraphy across the bottom were the words “Where the elite eat — with Jesus”.

A man she vaguely recognized greeted her from a desk behind an open receptionist's window, a huge smile splitting his face.

“Miz Branigan? You hasn't visit us in awhile.”

She searched her mind frantically for a name. Dan? Don? Darren? Liam had taught her the importance of using names.

“Dontegan!” she said triumphantly, a moment before her hesitation would have been obvious. She could see the pleased look on his face and was glad she'd made the effort. “I'm here to see Liam.”

“Pastuh told me you was coming,” he said. “Go right in.”

Liam's office was a boldly colored space, painted lime green and sporting canvases from Jericho's art room. He stood to greet his old friend, his red hair unruly, his face breaking into a welcoming grin.

“Hey there!” he said, pulling her into his skinny six-foot frame and grabbing the Bea's Bakery bag. Though Branigan was taller than average — five-feet-six in flats — she reached only his shoulder. “I've missed you!” he said. “And I've missed lunch.”

He rooted around in the bag. “Are you kidding me? Naked bagels? No cream cheese? What's wrong with you, girl?”

“Think of it as an appetizer.” She plopped her bagel and coffee on the coffee table that sat between two rocking chairs. He took the rocker with navy cushions, motioning her to take the softer, green-upholstered rocker she loved.

“Despite your unwillingness to feed me adequately, I'm glad you're here,” he said. “These guys think no one cares when one of them dies.”

Branigan was embarrassed. She hadn't been aware until this morning that one of them
had
died, and reluctantly told Liam so.

“You can make it up to me,” he said. “I'll help if I can with your murder story, and you write something on the hit-and-run.”

“Deal.” She took a sip of coffee. “You know what I've always remembered you saying? Early on you said a man told you the worst part of being homeless wasn't being cold or wet or hungry. The worst part was being ‘looked right through'.”

Liam nodded. “And we try to look. I say that in every speech.”

“That sticks with people. Anyway, tell me about your guy. After I talked to you, I looked it up. All we ran was three inches. I missed it entirely.”

“Well,” he said, “Vesuvius Hightower was killed on his bike where Oakley crosses Anders, there at the library. The driver didn't stop.” The intersection was three blocks away, between the church shelter and Main Street. “I have no idea what he was doing there. Obviously, he missed our 9 o'clock curfew, so he was going to have to sleep outside. But he had done that before. No big deal.

“Vesuvius was a sweetheart when he was on his meds,” Liam continued. “Very gentle. Childlike. I'm pretty sure he was MR in addition to bipolar.”

Branigan scribbled “mentally retarded”, which was still the official diagnosis, though not the politically correct one. “Mentally challenged” or “mentally disabled” were the terms
The Rambler
used.

“He lived here for eight months,” Liam went on. “Our mental health worker was making progress with him. He was on his meds and about to get permanent housing. But the reason I thought it was a story for you is that his father died the same way five years ago.”

“You're kidding.”

Liam picked up his phone and punched in three numbers. “Dontegan, can you come to my office for a minute?” He turned back to Branigan. “Dontegan told me about Vesuvius's father on the morning we got word about V. It must have happened just weeks before I got here, because I didn't know.”

Dontegan walked through Liam's open door.

“Don-T, can you tell Branigan what you told me about V's father?”

“V used to ride his bike with his ol' man,” Dontegan said. “Ever'where. You ain't never see one 'thout the other. They come to church here way before Pastuh Liam, when nobody else hardly came. They stay in that neighborhood 'cross Garner Bridge. One night the ol' man got on his bike, way late in the middle of the night. They think he was headed to the grocery. He got hit crossin' the bridge. Car kilt him.”

“Another hit-and-run?” Branigan was amazed at the careless violence this population faced.

“Nah, the woman, she stop,” Dontegan said. “She was all cryin'.”

“Was she charged?”

He shrugged.

“Then how do you know she was crying?”

“Just what I heard.”

She nodded. Armed with Vesuvius Hightower's last name, she could search the paper's archives for confirmation.

Liam took up the story. “A lot of times our guys don't have any family to organize a funeral service. But Vesuvius did. He had aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters. We held his service yesterday. They had honestly tried to help him, I think, but he'd worn them out. That happens a lot with the mentally ill and mentally challenged. Their families don't have resources for the basics, much less mental health care.”

Branigan knew this was why Liam had been so determined to hire a mental health counselor as soon as he could raise the money.

“Damn,” she said, then repeated a question she'd asked him a dozen times. “Doesn't this work break your heart?”

Liam shrugged, held his palms up. “It probably should. But this stuff comes so fast and so often, it mostly washes right over you.” He smiled apologetically. “But I did think the angle of father and son dying the same way was a story that cried out for the Brani G touch. You can talk to Dontegan more if you need to. And anybody else.” He finished his bagel and tossed the wax paper into a trashcan as Dontegan left. “V was well liked,” Liam added. “He ran the laundry room most weekends.”

“Okay,” she said, “I'll try to flesh it out with your men and the Hightower family, and have it ready to run Sunday.”

Liam picked up his coffee. “Now, how can I help you?”

“You remember the Resnick murder?”

“Sure.” The entire newsroom had been called in on the first few days of the notorious case in July, nearly ten years ago. Alberta Elliott Grambling Resnick, a cousin of Tan's father, had been stabbed to death in the kitchen of her lovely shaded mansion, two blocks off North Main Street. The case was strange, start to finish.

Mrs Resnick was an elderly widow with two sons and a daughter, all of them well known in historic Grambling. Because the murder occurred over a long July 4 weekend, all the children and grandchildren had been gathered. And given Mrs Resnick's wealth, all were suspects.

July 4 fell on a Thursday, and the family threw its lavish annual holiday party, followed by the city's fireworks display, easily seen from the front yard. Around 11 p.m., the party broke up. The older son, the daughter and two thirteen-year-old granddaughters spent the night.