His Last Wife Read online

  “I don’t know. I was hoping maybe Leaf knew. Now he did sound like maybe there was something going on in the inside. At least that’s how it came out,” Val said.

  “The inside?”

  “In the GBI. He seemed to think there were some hands in Jamison’s files and he was trying to figure out who and why,” Val added. “Guess that’s what led to this.”

  Kerry looked down at her lap and said sadly, “You should’ve told me. Why didn’t you just tell me when you found out? Instead of waiting until now?”

  “You know how that goes—it’s like telling your friend you caught her husband cheating,” Val answered. “You’d think the husband would be the one to get the ax—but it’s usually the friend. Not the husband. Guess I didn’t want to get the ax.”

  “I would’ve listened to you, Val.”

  “Yeah, but would you have believed me?”

  Had Kerry and Val been standing outside of the car, they might have felt the wind kick up slightly and seen the shadows of something far off approaching. But instead, the presence of something big flying overhead was only announced when the sound was up close and the helicopter Val had sensed flew right over the top the car.

  They looked up at the big blue craft and saw in bright white letters, GBI.

  “Shit!” Val shrieked.

  Both of their hearts went into shock.

  Val felt like she was about to faint.

  “They’re here for us. They’re looking for us!” Kerry said. “What are we going to do?”

  “Get the fuck out of here!” Val went into action, turning the car on and pulling off, but she kept the car off the road and in the dirt, where it was still partially covered by trees dangling over from the woods. There was popping and the sound of pieces of fallen wood breaking under the car.

  Kerry leaned forward and looked out the front window to keep her eyes on the helicopter, which was coming in and out of view and seemed to be getting lower.

  “How did they know we’re here?” Kerry shouted. “How’d they know how to find us?”

  “I’m not trying to find out!” Val pushed her foot down harder on the gas and swerved back into the road.

  “Oh, my God! You think they know? They know we were at that house and they’re looking for us? They think we killed those people!”

  The helicopter crisscrossed the road again, but it had turned and was heading in the opposite direction of them, leading back toward the cabin.

  “Maybe we should just stop. Just pull over and stop and let them know what happened? What we saw?” Kerry went on, looking out the back window.

  Just then, Val saw the last remaining markings of an old wagon road that was covered with new grass and weeds. She made a sharp right that sent Kerry flying toward her in the front seat. Both women screamed, but Val never let up off the gas.

  The forgotten road led deep, deep, deep into the woods, where there was a solid canopy of trees tenting the forest floor. Val and Kerry looked out either side of the car at uninterrupted green. The woods were so dense it was quickly night around them.

  “Where does this road lead?” Kerry asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably to another road and then another road,” Val said, slowing down and stopping the car. She turned off the ignition and listened. “You hear the helicopter anymore?”

  Kerry had been listening too and she replied, “No.”

  “This is crazy,” Val whispered like the forest had ears. “What’s happening? Why are they looking for us?”

  Kerry didn’t answer, so Val turned to her and saw Kerry’s suggestive look.

  “Not that again,” Val said and shook her head. “Don’t go there with that hocus-pocus black Negro spiritual crap again. That had nothing to do with this.”

  Kerry rested her elbow on the door console and averted her eyes.

  “What?” Val pressed. “What? You’re thinking it again—aren’t you? You really are fucked up in the head.”

  “Do you have anything better?” Kerry grumbled. “Any other reason why everyone around us keeps getting killed or dying or killing someone else? Do you have a better explanation than the one I’ve come up with?”

  “No, I don’t have anything else,” Val said, looking out the window on her side of the car. “But that doesn’t mean I should just pick up and believe this. It’s just a bunch of blogs written by angry black folks who spend all day and night trying to come up with new ways to make us hate this country. They have no proof. It’s just lies.”

  “What if there is proof? What if I can get you proof?” Kerry asked.

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “This man I’ve been e-mailing, Baba Seti, he said if I come see him, he can explain everything. He said he can take me to Jamison.”

  “No, Kerry. That doesn’t even sound right.”

  “Again, do you have anything better?” Kerry turned to Val and held up her hands. “People are dying. Helicopters are flying around. And we don’t even know if they’re looking for us. Or if they want to kill us too,” Kerry said sharply. “We can’t exactly just go home. We might as well go there and at least find out. See what he’s talking about. Let’s just lay low until we can get a little bit of information. Something.”

  Val made a silent decision about Kerry’s plea. She only started the car again and pushed down on the accelerator.

  She was right. That one road led to another road and then that road led to the next. Soon, they were out on the highway and headed back to Atlanta. No helicopters in sight.

  Chapter 13

  Night was new once the Jaguar with the new red country clay caked to its tires and underbelly got off of the Lee Street highway exit in the heart of the West End. The sky was a dusty gray-blue with faint twinkles promising stars dotted just above the tallest buildings.

  Kerry and Val barely spoke, expect for Kerry giving an occasional directive about where they were going and what turns Val should make. It wasn’t that they were angry with one another. They were just exhausted by the day, the week, the months, all of time that predicted this circumstance. They were thinking about what was next, what was real, what was needed to survive. They both felt like they’d been on a long trip in the cramped seats of one of those countryside crawling buses that always stank of urinal deodorizing pucks mixed with human excrement and urine by the time the trip was over. They just wanted to get out of that car and figure out what the next move was. Val kept her eyes on the road. Kerry looked out the window and listened for another helicopter.

  When they’d parked the car and walked to the front of the block-long brick building where Kerry had spotted the address Baba Seti sent in one of his e-mails, Val took a step back and fixated her eyes on the wood carving over the doorway. Every angle of the shape made a demand of her memory. She’d seen it so many times and never really understood what it meant, but knew enough to lock it into her subconscious. It would be back and it would have meaning.

  She pointed at it. “Fihankra,” she said like a baby who’d learned a new word and image to match it.

  “Yes,” Kerry confirmed by her side. “That’s what this place is called. It’s the Fihankra Center.”

  Kerry felt Val’s hesitation, so she stepped ahead and held the door open for her, pointing inside as a breeze of holy oils and incense burning came outside to greet them. It smelled something like an aromatherapy.

  Val took one step and then another toward the open doorway. Every time she’d heard Fihankra flashed through her brain. There was that time at David Bozeman’s office when she’d spoken to him about all of those sizable donations Jamison had been making to the Fihankra Organization. The symbol on the letterhead. The tattoo on Ernest’s wrist. Him saying, “It means protection, security. Every time I look at it, it reminds me that I have to take care of my own . . .”

  It seemed as if as soon as they stepped on the white tile that complemented the bare white walls in the vestibule beyond the doorway at the Fihankra Center, a short woman wi
th a short Afro dressed in a nursing uniform showed up with a look of familiarity in her eyes.

  Kerry tried to introduce herself anyway, but the woman stopped her.

  Softly and humbly, she informed Kerry and Val that they’d been awaiting their arrival. They were to follow her.

  Val and Kerry exchanged stares behind her back. Kerry took the first step and Val had no choice but to follow.

  What looked like an old warehouse that might house a struggling community center or day school from the outside, was actually trimmed with contemporary comforts and the latest technology inside. As Kerry and Val followed behind the woman, who’d mentioned that her name was Mother NuNu, they saw that the walls and floors remained hospital white and hospital clean, but in what looked like maybe it was a waiting area, there were flat screens turned to different news stations, a row of 3-D computer terminals, and one wall filled with nothing but books. In the middle of the floor, there was an information center, where men dressed as security guards watched video coverage of cameras outside the facility.

  Sleek black leather chairs comforted people of every anthropological and cultural background. There were white faces in Muslim robes, brown faces donning ascots, yellow babies and mothers, black elders in dashikis. They all turned and looked at Val and Kerry as the women followed Mother NuNu through the facility. Some whispered and pointed. All were silent or fell silent once Val and Kerry crossed their path. Some smiled. One old woman waved and nodded.

  Not knowing what else to do, Val waved and returned the nod.

  Mother NuNu took Kerry and Val to a fruit-juice bar and handed them prepared juice. She said they looked tired and thirsty and reminded them of the importance of keeping a healthy diet. They had work to do.

  At the end of a long hallway, there were two closed oak doors.

  Mother NuNu handled both knobs at the same time, pulling them open in some grand reveal.

  In an office that was really bigger than the lobby and had even more flat screens turned to news stations and books and cozy chairs, there was a long, conference table–sized wood desk with a man seated behind it. While everything else in the room was big and over the top, this man was actually rather small and frail. Though he was seated, both women could tell he was shorter than them. His colorful kente-patterned kufi was sat back on his head to keep from falling down over his forehead.

  He stood before Mother NuNu announced Kerry and Val. He walked out from behind the desk, revealing his long day shirt that matched the kufi.

  “You’ve finally come,” he said, approaching Kerry with his arms outstretched. “Welcome, my sister. You are home. I am Baba Seti.” He bowed deeply and kissed Kerry’s hand, before doing the same to Val.

  Mother NuNu took the already emptied juice glasses from Kerry and Val and said she’d come back with refills.

  Baba Seti offered Val and Kerry a seat and listened attentively as they shared each detail of their brush with danger that morning in North Georgia. He nodded and added his take on the events throughout the telling. Kerry agreed with everything he said, but Val was just trying to take him in.

  On the wall behind his desk was a life-sized painting of some African warrior with jet-black skin. He was all muscles and carrying a shield and spear. Beneath the picture was the name Shaka Zulu. Beneath that was plaque that read: THE PEOPLE WILL MAKE THE RULES. THE PEOPLE WILL NOT BE RULED.

  Pictures and sayings like that were on all of the walls in the office. One was of an old black woman who looked like a warrior, but she was sitting on a stool and had what looked like jewels or offerings wrapped around her shoulders. Beneath her picture was the name Yaa Asantewaa. Beneath that was a quote: WE CAN ALL FIGHT, SO WE WILL ALL FIGHT. BUT ONLY IF WE HAVE TO.

  While Baba Seti looked old and frail, his voice and ideas were as spry as a first-year college professor. He spoke with precision and detail, remembered every word Kerry had said and spoke it back to her with quick interpretation. He seemed to have an understanding and explanation for everything.

  “It is a good thing you sisters came here. We can protect you here. What you saw today was no coincidence. It was the dribble of the casualties of war. Of war beginning. Of war continuing,” Baba Seti said when Kerry explained how they decided to drive straight to the Fihankra Center from Dahlonega.

  Val and Kerry watched, impressed, as he called in a man he called his security director and told him to comb news stations and connect with contacts in the Bureau to see if the agents were really looking for them. He dispatched units to their homes to see if agents had been to the houses.

  Val noticed that he kept using the word agent for every person outside. Most times she didn’t know who he was talking about.

  Kerry sighed, sounding relieved by the swift action. “I’m so glad I e-mailed you and that we’re here. We didn’t know where else to go,” Kerry said, taking the new fruit juice from Mother NuNu, who’d entered the room. “I kept telling Val that you could help us, but she doesn’t believe—” Kerry stopped and looked at Val like she’d mistakenly let out a secret. “I’m sorry,” she said to Val and then turned back to Baba Seti at his desk. “It’s just that she’s not as convinced as I am. You know?”

  Baba Seti looked at Val sympathetically. “No one should need to be convinced of the truth. The truth is reality set before you. But,” he continued with his sympathetic look turning to empathy, “there is a structure in place to disguise it. To make it seem like unreality. They even made reality TV to show you what reality is. What it should be. But it’s really right in front of you all of the time. Looking at you and begging you to be convinced. Begging you to see past what is placed in front of it.” Baba Seti stood and walked out from behind the desk again.

  Val and Kerry followed him with their eyes as he spoke and walked to stand in front of the wall of flashing images from news channels.

  “Tell me, what exactly do you need help seeing?” he asked.

  Kerry tried to speak for Val, but Baba Seti held out his hand to stop her and allow Val to share her concerns.

  “Kerry says on your blog you said Jamison isn’t dead and that you know where he is.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t believe that, because I saw Jamison at the morgue. I know he’s dead. He was thrown from a roof, so how could he be alive and wherever you claim he is?” Val posed.

  “Interesting questions. May I ask one?”

  Val nodded.

  “What did you see at the hospital?” Baba Seti asked, crossing his arms over his chest to signify that he was interested in what Val was about to say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I inquired about what you saw at the hospital. You said you saw him at the morgue and he was dead. Tell me what you saw.”

  “Well, you know what happened to him, so you know there wasn’t much to see.”

  “What did you see?”

  Val knew where Baba Seti was going, so she argued, “They wouldn’t let me see his face. The coroner said it would be too difficult to see.”

  “What did you see?” Baba Seti repeated in the same tone as before. He was allowing Val’s points to prove his point.

  Val’s list hadn’t changed: the bloody clothes, his wallet, his hand, his feet. “I know what you think, but I know his hands. I know his feet. It was him.”

  “No other person in the world has feet like his? Hands like his?” Baba Seti asked. “Look at your own hands. Are they one of a kind? Are you sure? Do you think that if you wanted to, say, make someone believe they were looking at your hands and feet, you could find someone with hands and feet at least similar to your own to make them believe they were looking at your hands and feet?”

  Val aborted her point. “Kerry saw him being thrown off of the building.” She looked at Kerry, but Kerry turned away to Baba Seti.

  “Dear sister, that morning she saw what you saw—what someone wanted her to see,” Baba Seti said calmly.

  “So no one fell from the roof? People saw it. There
were police officers everywhere,” Val listed.

  “Someone did, but it wasn’t Brother Taylor.”

  Baba Seti told Val about the dead man who took the fall, the affiliations of the people speaking to the media, the coroner’s affiliations.

  “They were all in on it?” Val said in disbelief. “They were all helping Jamison? They knew it wasn’t real?” Val shook her head. “No. That’s crazy. How could that many people in this big city be in on the same thing? All agree to the same thing? It would be impossible to pull that off.”

  “Was it impossible for the police officers to show up on the scene and quickly discern that Kerry was the killer? Lock her up and do all else, except throw away the key?” Baba Seti asked.

  “I don’t know everything about that.”

  “Then how do you know everything about this?” Baba Seti walked back to the desk and sat on the edge in front of Val and Kerry. “You don’t want to believe, sister, and that’s their plan. Brother Taylor is a believer. He supports the Fihankra Center and the movement.”

  “What movement?” Val asked.

  “The movement to reclaim the soil for the people. The movement to have men judge men. There is no justice here and there won’t be until men are judged. That is how it’s supposed to be. We’ve gone too long without the men being judged and it’s almost time for that to happen. There’s this saying: The people should not fear the government. The government should fear the people. We are the people and soon they will fear us.”

  “Again, with all of this they—who are they?” Val asked. “Do you mean the government—like the U.S. government led by President Barack Obama, who is a black man, might I add?”

  “I am not speaking of the government, sister. That’s merely a system in place to collect money from you and tell you what else you can and can’t do with the little bit of time you have in your life between making them more money or spending the illusion of money they give you and call an ‘income,’ because the outcome is always an income and after that the rest of the outcome is spent on cable television, wine, and student loans,” Baba Seti explained without taking a breath. “So, no, I’m not speaking of the U.S. government led by Barack Hussein Obama. I’m talking about that which governs the government. This government and all others.”