The Man in 3B (33 page)

We talked about my mother’s death and what it was like for him to raise me without her. I’d always appreciated everything that Pop did for me, but hearing him talk about it this way made me see how much he’d sacrificed to give me a good life. He admitted to me that he was in love with Nancy, and if it weren’t for me, he might have tried harder to get her to leave her husband. The only reason he didn’t was because we all lived in the same building and he didn’t want me exposed to that kind of drama.

Our conversations finally got around to the source of all the tension between us lately. Pop said he didn’t understand how I could be attracted to men, but I told him there was really no way I could explain it any more than he could explain what made him like women. In the end, he said he loved me and would accept me as I was, and that was enough for me. We healed a lot of pain in our relationship in the time we spent together.

One area we really didn’t talk too much about was my friendship with Daryl. The only thing Pop said was that he still had his doubts about Daryl’s intentions toward me. As for me, I could barely even speak Daryl’s name without breaking down, so we stayed away from that subject. My emotions were still so raw. It would be a long time before I got over the loss of my best friend. That’s why it was a good thing I had Pop to lean on at the wake.

“Come on, son. This way.” He handed me a tissue, then placed his arm around my shoulder, directing me forward in the line to greet Daryl’s family near the casket. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be all right. It just hurts, that’s all.” I wiped my eyes and lifted my head, but a glimpse of Daryl’s photo on top of the casket caused a fresh wave of tears.

“What the hell—?”

For a second, I thought Pop was mad at me for crying over Daryl, but he wasn’t even looking at me. I followed his gaze and saw what had caught his attention.

The police were rushing in from the back of the room. I recognized the homicide detectives who’d interviewed us the day of the fire. They were headed toward Slim and Krystal, who looked pretty damn scared. Connie was there too, but she had this weird look on her face, like she was amused by their arrival. I didn’t know what was happening, but I had a bad feeling.

Everything that happened after that was a blur. Instead of stopping by Slim and Krystal, the cops kept going. Slim looked at Krystal, and I swear I could see every muscle in their bodies relax now that they knew the cops weren’t there for them. Connie’s smug look was replaced with confusion. The astonished crowd parted for the cops like Moses parting the Red Sea. They were headed toward the line that Pop and I were standing in, and suddenly I was the one feeling tense.

I heard Pop say, “Don’t resist and don’t say anything without a lawyer.”

“Uh-huh,” I answered, and just like that they were upon us, hands on their waistbands like they were ready to draw their guns. Pop raised his hands in the air, and I followed his lead. After the worst two weeks of my life, this was definitely not the way I wanted it to end.

“Benton Wilkins,” Detective Anderson said loudly, “you are under arrest for the murder of Daryl Graham.”

I heard the crowd in the room react, and the noise sounded like a thousand angry bees. I was too dazed to make out what anyone was saying.

The detective spun Pop around, jerking his arms behind his back and slapping on handcuffs. I wanted to protest, to say they were hurting him and that they had the wrong man, but I couldn’t form the words. I watched in stunned silence as they led Pop out of the room.

“Benny, could you use a ride?”

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Detective Anderson standing next to me. “Where are they taking him?” I asked.

“Down to the station. Eventually he’ll be taken to Central Booking. I can take you down there if you’d like.”

“Yeah, take me down there.”

An hour later, I was sitting in a tiny room alone at the 113th Precinct. Detective Anderson walked in carrying a cup of coffee and a can of Coke. She sat down and slid the Coke across the table that separated us. I felt her eyes on me as I opened the can and took a long swig.

“Your father’s in a lot of trouble, Benny,” she said when I put down my drink. “If you know anything, you should tell us so you can help him.”

I leaned back in my chair, feeling scared and confused. I’d been sitting there expecting someone to come in and tell me they’d figured out they had the wrong guy and they were letting Pop go. But now Detective Anderson was making it sound like Pop was guilty. What the hell was going on? Was this some trick they were playing on me, trying to get me to implicate my father just so they could close their case? Well, I was not about to play their game.

“I don’t have anything to say until I get a lawyer.”

She chuckled. “Been watching
Law & Order
reruns lately, have you?”

“I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I know my rights, and I want a lawyer.”

She looked down at her coffee, shaking her head. “For what? You’re not the one under arrest.” She lifted her head and looked me dead in the eyes. “Your father is.”

I didn’t know how to respond. No one ever tells you what to say beyond “I want a lawyer.”

This was the best I could come up with—“Well, then he wants a lawyer too.”

“To be honest, Benny, your father gave up his right to counsel.”

Why in the world would Pop do that? It couldn’t be true. “You’re lying. That doesn’t even sound right. He’s the one who told me not to talk to you without a lawyer.”

“I’m sure he did. I’d tell my son the same thing. But once we showed him all the evidence we had against him, he must have said the hell with a lawyer.”

I stared at her, at a complete loss for what to say next.

Anderson softened her tone a little and said, “Benny, your father confessed. Truth is, you can go home if you want to. I just wanted to know if you had anything to say before we sent him down to Central Booking.”

“What are you talking about? He confessed to what?” I’d heard of good cop/bad cop, but she was taking it to new extremes. Did she really expect me to believe this crock of shit she was trying to hand me, that my old man up and confessed to murder? For the first time in a long time, I laughed.

“Benny, I know it’s hard to believe, but your father confessed to the murder of Daryl Graham.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it’s not gonna work. I know my father would never confess to a crime he didn’t commit.”

“Believe me, you’re not the only one who’s shocked. Our case was good, but I’ll admit it was mostly circumstantial—until he confessed. Now it’s a slam dunk. This case might make my career.”

“Well, congratufuckinglations. I don’t care what you say. I’m not buying it. I know my Pop didn’t confess.” I shook my head, still refusing to believe what I was hearing.

She said, “I can get you a copy of his confession if you’d like. We’ve got it all on tape.”

I rolled my eyes.

Anderson kept going, probably trying to see if she could get me to crack. “He said he did it because Daryl turned you against him and made you gay. Is that true?”

My stomach lurched. I hate to say it, but even with all the bonding we’d done over the last few days, there was still a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind. Was it just a coincidence that Pop was at the scene of the crime before anyone else? And since then, he’d claimed he was cool with my sexuality, but he never said he was cool with Daryl. Now Detective Anderson was making me wonder if there was a reason he’d never said that. Could he really have hated Daryl enough to kill him?

“Did he—” My voice cracked, and I couldn’t go on because I refused to break down in front of her.

She stared at me as I tried to process the news. “If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry, Benny.”

“I wanna see him,” I mumbled. If he had confessed I had to hear it from his own lips.

“Sure. He wants to see you too.” She stood up, gesturing for me to follow her out of the room.

I could barely catch my breath as I walked down the hall behind her. She took me into another small room, where my father sat handcuffed to a chair beside Anderson’s partner, Detective Thomas.

Pop and I stared at each other until finally Detective Thomas got up and said, “Anderson, why don’t we give them a minute alone?”

Anderson turned to me and asked, “You gonna be all right?”

I nodded, and the detectives left me alone with my father. Our staring contest continued until Pop finally broke the silence.

“Have a seat.”

“I’m okay standing.”

All of a sudden, it was hard to look at him.

“Did they tell you I confessed?” There was no remorse in his voice. Like it was no big deal. Like it was easy to take a man’s life.

“Yeah, they told me,” I said as the tears began flowing down my face. “Why, Pop? Why would you kill him? I thought we were past the whole thing about me being gay. I thought we were good.”

“We are good, son.” That’s all he said. No explanation, no apology. Nothing. He was my father and I loved him, but I was seriously starting to hate him.

“You told me you didn’t kill him!” I said through angry tears. “How could you? He was my only real friend.”

Finally my father’s tough exterior broke and I could see real emotion on his face. “Benny, can’t you see I did this for you? I’m trying to protect—”

“
Protect me?
How the fuck is this protecting me?”

He glanced toward the two-way mirror in the room. Obviously the detectives were watching this whole thing. “Sit down, son. Let me talk to you. I can explain.”

“We’ve got nothing to talk about.” I walked over to the door and banged on it three times. “Let me out!”

“Benny, please! Let me talk to you, son.”

As the detective opened the door, I turned to Pop and said, “We’ve got nothing to talk about. And for the record, I am no longer your son.”

I heard Nancy pounding on Ben’s door long before I stepped off the elevator and actually saw her. In one hand she held a foil-covered dinner plate, and with her other hand she was banging on the door like she’d lost her mind. I wasn’t surprised to see her, because she’d been delivering plates to the Wilkins’s household pretty often since the fire, but I’d never seen her so worked up about it.

She took a break from pounding to yell, “Benny, I know you’re in there. I can hear you on the other side of the door. Please let me in. The food’s gonna get cold.”

“Lay it down outside the door,” I told her. “He’ll take it when you leave.”

I knew from experience that Benny was still too shell-shocked to want company. I’d been leaving a plate at the door for him every day since his father was arrested to make sure the poor kid was eating. Yesterday was the first time he’d opened the door and took it from my hands, and even then, he couldn’t bear to make eye contact.

“I’m trying to make sure he’s okay,” Nancy said, sounding sincerely worried.

“I know, but he’s not ready for help just yet. His world’s come crashing down around him, and he’s still trying to make sense of it.”

“He sure ain’t the only one. Between Daryl’s death and Ben’s arrest, I’m barely holding it together myself.” Tears were welling up in her eyes, which kind of surprised me. She was taking this whole thing much worse than I would have expected, considering she had
a husband downstairs. I wondered what he had to say about all the plates of food she’d been delivering lately.

I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Nancy, it’s gonna be all right,” I said, even if I wasn’t sure it would be.

“It’s not true what they’re saying about Ben, you know. He didn’t kill Daryl.” She wiped her tears and looked at me. “I know he confessed, but he didn’t do it.”

Wow, now that’s what I call a ride-or-die chick. She really cared about Ben more than I would have guessed.

“I hope not, Nancy. I’m gonna keep him in my prayers.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that. How you holding up?”

I shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I guess. One minute I’m fine; the next I feel like jumping out my window.” I sighed. “I’m thinking about moving out of state. Maybe out to California or down to Florida. I just know I wanna get far away from here.”

“I know exactly how you feel. I wish I could get away too. If I didn’t have those kids, I’d be your roommate,” she said with a grin.

I placed one hand on my hip. “Uh-uh, girl. You couldn’t be my roommate. You talk too damn much for me. I’m moving to get away from the drama, not create it. I can see you now, running the West Coast version of the stoop news.”

She laughed along with me. I was glad to see she had a sense of humor about it.

“That may be true,” she said. “But at least I don’t lie like some of the sisters out there on the stoop.” We both knew she was talking about Bertha. “Seriously, though, Connie, if you do move, go somewhere that you’re going to be happy.”

“Trust me, I’m planning on it.”

“Good.”

She looked at the door and said, “Well, I guess you’re right. I’ll just leave the plate out here and Benny can come get it later.” She put the plate down and said, “It was good talking to you, Connie.”

“You too.” When she walked away, I fished in my purse to find my keys. When I turned around to head into my own apartment, I
glanced down the hall toward 3B. That’s when I noticed that the door to Daryl’s apartment was open. Curiosity got the best of me. I walked to 3B and peeked my head inside the open door.

“Hello?” I called out. I wasn’t about to go any farther. The living room was a black charcoal mess. Regrettably, there wasn’t anything to be salvaged other than some really good memories. “Anyone in here?”

“Can I help you?” A voice came from one of the bedrooms. Detective Thomas walked out into the living room. “Connie, everything all right?” he asked when he saw me.

“I saw the door open. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t one of the kids trying to vandalize the place. Not that there’s much to vandalize.”

“No kids; just me, recanvassing the crime scene.”

“I thought this case was closed,” I said.

He stepped out of the apartment to continue our conversation in the hallway, away from the smoky odor. “My captain and the DA seem to think so. As far as they’re concerned, this case is a slam dunk. Score one for the good guys.”