His Last Wife Page 7

  When they pulled into the circular drive outside of the house where Mama Fee was hiding behind blinds in her top-floor bedroom window, Monty’s heart was beating so fiercely, he feared he wouldn’t be able to take his Viagra to keep up with whatever Val had in mind in the bedroom.

  When Val pulled into the driveway, she noticed a familiar automobile sitting in the space where she usually parked. It was a big, black truck that she’d seen recently but couldn’t place in her memory. She wondered if maybe it was one of her sisters coming over from Tennessee to be nosy about what she was into, but then she noticed the Georgia plates.

  Both Val and Monty got out of their cars at the same time.

  Monty was walking toward Val, saying something about her driving speed and he was laughing, but all of Val’s attention stayed on the truck.

  “I’ve never seen a woman handle a car like that,” Monty was saying when the driver’s-side door of the truck opened. “You’re like the black Danica Patrick.” He laughed a little, but then he noticed where Val’s eyes were focused and looked that way as well.

  “What are you doing here?” Val said when she realized who was getting out of the truck. It was the man who’d been in her bed the night before.

  “What? Who—who is this?” Monty said, stopping in his tracks behind Val. He was standing just inches away from the front of Val’s car and a few feet away from the back of the truck, with the big man with the football player’s body walking toward him.

  “I wanted to see you again.” Ernest spoke nonchalantly to Val like Monty wasn’t standing behind her.

  “See me? I didn’t invite you here,” Val snapped.

  “I know. I was going to invite you out. Maybe to a movie at the drive-in or for some dessert in the West End. But you didn’t give me your number,” Ernest said, chuckling. He was wearing the black suit he’d put on to go out for drinks with some of the other former Falcons players he sometimes hung out with. But when he got to the bar, while all of the other guys were complaining about their wives and chasing young girls, he was thinking about Val.

  “What the fuck are you laughing at?” Val said. “I’m calling the police.” She went to pull her phone from her purse.

  “What, you don’t know this cat?” Monty interjected, trying his best to sound tough.

  “Dude, don’t say shit,” Ernest offered, still relaxed and ironically sounding tougher. “You don’t want it. I know you don’t. You might as well just go back to your car and drive home to your wife and kids.”

  “How do you know I have kid—”

  “Shut up, Monty!” Val shot and then she said to Ernest, “You don’t have a right to tell anyone to go home. Your ass wasn’t even invited here in the first place. What are you, a stalker?”

  “Look, if there’s a problem, I can go,” Monty said with a sudden change of heart and already stepping away.

  “That’s right, partner. Carry your ass home. Probably have soccer with the kids in the morning, anyway,” Ernest snapped at Monty. “Might as well call it a night.”

  “No! Don’t you dare go anywhere!” Val ordered, turning around and pointing her finger at Monty like he was her teenage son.

  He put his hands up again like he had at the club and tried to smile, but those dimples were looking very nervous as both Ernest and Val peered like they were about to attack him at any moment: one if he stayed, one if he left.

  “I came here for some pus—” Monty started, but then he stopped when he looked at Ernest. “I’m sorry, bruh. I mean, I didn’t come here for no drama. I think you two need to talk about some things.”

  “Yes, we do.” Ernest stepped up and stood beside Val, who was trying to push him away from her, but he put his big heavy arm around her shoulders and forced her to look something like his lady.

  “No, the hell we don’t,” Val complained, twisting away. “Monty, don’t you dare leave! I invited you here! Not this crazy fool!”

  It was too late. Monty from the club was already two-stepping his way back to his car and jumping inside.

  “Sorry! Tonight’s not the night!” he said, slamming his door closed and turning on the ignition in a rush. He backed out of the driveway like the house was about to explode.

  In all of her anger, Val actually was so pissed that she stopped struggling under Ernest’s heavy arm.

  “Look what you did,” she said, like this was their routine.

  “Nigga wasn’t shit, anyway,” Ernest said, waving at Monty. “Car wasn’t even his.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It had sorority tags on it. You didn’t notice that?”

  “Hmm . . .” Val squinted to see a sorority plate right on the front of the car before Monty spun out into the street and sped off.

  Ernest yawned dramatically. “I’m tired. Let’s go inside and go to bed,” he said casually.

  “Bed? What? You’re about to go to jail. I’m calling the police,” Val argued again.

  “No, you ain’t.” Ernest turned Val and her unused cell phone toward him and stepped up to her. “You don’t want to make that call. If you wanted to, you would’ve done it already. You’re the kind of woman who does exactly what she wants to do.”

  “You don’t know me,” Val said, but she was definitely putting the phone back into her purse.

  “Maybe not. But I do like you.” Ernest smiled. “And I really did want to see you tonight.”

  “Well, the night is over.” Val rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “You are too late.”

  Ernest looked up at the sky. “Moon’s still out. Sun won’t be up for a few hours.” He looked back at Val so softly. “Can I spend those hours with you?”

  “Doing what?” Val’s eye-rolling and frowning was replaced with a suspicious blush.

  “Sleeping.”

  “Sleeping?” She looked at him like he was crazy. “That’s all you want to do?”

  “Yes. I want to chat. And lie behind you and go to sleep. That’s what I want to do. That’s all I want to do.” Ernest placed both of his large hands over Val’s shoulders. “Will you let me?”

  Chapter 5

  Tyrian had observed two very important things about Thirjane Jackson since she showed up at his summer camp crying and saying he needed to come and spend another night at her house because his mother Kerry had “gotten herself in some trouble.” First, his grandmother never did anything without first having a sip of her “special drink” that she kept in the silver bottle in her pocketbook. A trip to the grocery store, church, the doctor, tee off, or soccer practice—from the backseat of the car, he watched his grandmother take a few sips of her drink, sometimes say a little prayer or curse to herself while gripping the steering wheel, and then sliding the silver bottle back into her pocketbook before they made a move.

  This didn’t bother Tyrian much. Grandma was sometimes more funny and less mean after having the sips. The smart seven-year-old already knew it was alcohol, but didn’t have the heart to tell her after she lied and said it was her “medication.” She’d smile more and order him around less and not say so many mean things about Kerry. But still, sometimes things wouldn’t go so well. She’d get really quiet and look tired in her eyes. And one day, when she was late picking him up from school and drove so far over the yellow line in the middle of the street a white man in a truck coming toward them gave them the middle finger, she just pulled over and started crying. He asked what was wrong. Why she was so sad. She hollered at him. Yelled. Screamed. Told him not to say another word and never to bring up what had just happened again. Her old-lady blush and foundation making waves down her wrinkled cheeks beneath streaming tears, she looked at him in the rearview mirror and made him swear, “Grandma’s business is Grandma’s business.”

  And that little verbal contract was the main motto of the second thing he’d observed: Grandma had a lot of business. Almost every day, sometimes twice in an hour, Tyrian would be sworn into these little secrecies. And sometimes they were li
ttle things or funny things. Like that Grandma’s teeth weren’t real. And that she almost always cheated at Pokeno when they played on Saturday night. And that she hated the pastor’s wife at church. And when she went up front during the collection, the envelope she put in the basket was always empty. “All that money First Lady be spending on them tacky-ass Fashion Fair dresses she wears every Sunday, I’ll be damned if I give a dime to this church,” she’d said one day after church before turning to Tyrian and adding, “And don’t you tell anyone what I said. Grandma’s business is—” Tyrian had heard this so many times he cut in with the predicate: “Grandma’s business.”

  As thin as the promises from a seven-year-old could be, Tyrian honestly intended to keep his promise to Grandma Janie. But there was one bit of business she was conducting that he was actually finding hard to keep secret. The bit was so juicy, so bold, that Tyrian promised himself that as soon as he got the chance he’d share the information with the only person who would care: his mother. As soon as he got her alone, he’d put his hand to his mother’s ear and whisper so low that no one else would know: “Grandma’s got a boyfriend.”

  Well, Tyrian wasn’t exactly sure if the man was his grandmother’s boyfriend. She’d never said he was and Tyrian never saw them kiss, but that was the only reason he could develop to explain why his Grandma Janie was so adamant that he tell no one, absolutely no one, about the white man with the black hat who met them at the park sometimes and sat on the bench to talk to his grandmother as he played on the jungle gym.

  One afternoon, on a Thursday after school when Grandma Janie took Tyrian to the park, he decided to conduct an experiment when her boyfriend was walking toward their bench and Grandma Janie began to shoo Tyrian away. The precocious little one decided to record their conversation on the one device his grandmother would never suspect—his iPad. He’d seen it done on one of the animated pet-detective shows he’d watched on the Disney Channel. Sadie the Dog had launched a full investigation to discover where her owners kept her bacon treats. One night, she set up an iPad surveillance unit beside her crate in the kitchen and in the morning the video was filled with clues. Tyrian laughed innocently at the idea of being like Sadie the Dog, collecting clues about his grandmother’s new boyfriend. He wouldn’t tell his grandmother, of course. But he would tell his mother. As soon as they were alone, he’d whisper in her ear everything that was said and they’d laugh and laugh and laugh at Grandma’s silly business.

  “You go on and play, boy,” Thirjane said sternly when the man was getting closer to her and Tyrian on a bench beside the playground. “Go on and play and don’t come back over here talking about you’re bored. Don’t come back until I tell you to. You hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tyrian agreed. He handed her the iPad he’d been playing a game on and smiled without showing his gap teeth—the way she’d taught him to. “Can you hold my iPad for me?”

  “Not like I have a choice,” Thirjane complained, to no one’s surprise. “I don’t know why you brought this thing out here in the first place. Act like you can’t be away from this computer for five minutes. Not even to play.”

  Tyrian stood there and listened to his grandmother’s tongue. He didn’t know if he should stay or go and play. And he normally got more of a lashing if he chose incorrectly.

  Finally, when the man was just five feet away, she said, “What are you standing there for? Go and play! And remember what I said. You don’t come back over here until I call you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tyrian said. “And could you please hold my iPad on your lap? Don’t sit it on the bench. It might fall and break.”

  “Boy, I’ll throw this thing in the gutter if I choose! Now, go on and play!”

  All that heavy talk and Thirjane did just as her grandson requested: Kept the iPad right on her lap like she was cradling a baby. She gave Tyrian a hard time, but really she loved him more than herself and his mother. The hard-time stuff—that was just her way.

  Tyrian made good on his promise too. He stayed far away from the bench as his grandmother talked with her special guest, strategically biding his time on equipment that conveniently faced the pair. He tried to read their lips and guess what they were saying, and in his young mind the exchange sounded something like all those Lifetime movies his mother had watched on the couch at home. “Oh, my sweet love. I love you,” his grandmother would say and the white man would respond, “And I love you too, darling.”

  But when Grandma Janie’s boyfriend was gone and she called Tyrian back over so they could go home to cook and eat supper, he learned that their talk went nothing like that. In fact, hovering over the iPad in his dark bedroom closet after Grandma Janie had sipped her special medication and fallen asleep on the couch, he wondered if he’d need to launch a new investigation to get better clues about Grandma Janie’s boyfriend. They weren’t even talking about being girlfriend and boyfriend. And although Tyrian didn’t exactly know what that meant, he listened and knew this wasn’t it. He couldn’t make sense of most of it, but before the charge went dead and the iPad had stopped recording, the conversation went like this:

  Thirjane: You go on and play, boy. Go on and play and don’t come back over here talking about you’re bored. Don’t come back until I tell you to. You hear me?

  Tyrian: Yes, ma’am. Can you hold my iPad for me?

  Thirjane: Not like I have a choice. I don’t know why you brought this thing out here in the first place. Act like you can’t be away from this computer for five minutes. Not even to play. [long pause]

  What are you standing there for? Go and play! And remember what I said. You don’t come back over here until I call you.

  Tyrian: Yes, ma’am. And could you please hold my iPad on your lap? Don’t sit it on the bench. It might fall and break.

  Thirjane: Boy, I’ll throw this thing in the gutter if I choose! Now, go on and play!

  [long pause]

  Man: Hello. How are you today?

  Thirjane: Could be better. Any news for me?

  Man: Nothing much. Been making calls and—

  Thirjane: Well, you can stop with the calls. They’re not working. You want answers, you’re going to have to go out there and shake some trees. That’s what I pay you for.

  Man: Actually, that’s not what you pay me for. You paid me for—

  Thirjane: Never mind what I paid you for. You fucked it up and look where we’re at now.

  [long pause]

  I have to do something. We have to do something to make this right.

  Man: I’ve been thinking. I know someone who put in work for the DA. You know when that guy from the church was trying to have him fired?

  Thirjane: The pastor who drowned in Lake Lanier?

  Man: Yeah, that one. Like I was saying, I know the guy who put in work for the DA back then.

  Thirjane: You think he’ll talk?

  Man: Not a chance in hell, but he’ll get us in the DA’s ear. And then I’ll get some phone calls returned. You know?

  Thirjane: Sounds good. Make your move.

  Man: Thing is, it’s going to be a little more.

  Thirjane: More what? Time?

  [long pause]

  How much?

  Man: Twenty.

  Thirjane: Twenty? I don’t have that.

  [long pause]

  Man: She does.

  Thirjane: No. No. I can’t. She can’t know. Not about this. She can’t ever know.

  Tyrian fell asleep on the floor in the closet after listening to these words more than ten times and making sense of none of it. Still, he knew it wasn’t good. He’d never heard his grandmother sound so scared or being ordered around to do anything by a man—not any man. Suddenly, his plan for laughs with his mother about Grandma Janie’s secret boyfriend sounded like trouble for him or trouble for someone. This was Grandma’s business and Grandma’s business was . . . Grandma’s business.

  Chapter 6

  Kerry was on the phone, trying to fire her lawyer. Ther
e was a litany of reasons. Top of the list: She was still in jail.

  “You should just be able to do something. And like, get me out of here, Stan. It doesn’t make any sense. People come and go every day. Some with crimes worse than mine—I mean, who committed crimes worse than the one I’m charged with.” Kerry pressed her mouth into the phone like she was telling a secret she didn’t want the guard standing behind her and half listening to the conversation to hear. “One woman was in here for touching her kid. Like molesting him. She got out.” She shouted louder in what was almost a scream, “But I’m still here!”

  “I know. I know.” Her lawyer, Stanley Lebowski, repeated what he’d said after each of the key reasons Kerry provided to explain why she felt she needed new representation.

  “No, I don’t think you do know. I don’t think you really understand. You say you do, but then there’s nothing. I have a child, Stan. I haven’t put my son to sleep in three months. You have kids. Do you know what it’s like not to tuck them in at night? Not to know if they’re coughing in the middle of the night or having nightmares or just need you to hold them tight? Not to see them in the morning?”

  “No, Kerry. I don’t,” Stan admitted.

  “So, you can’t know. You see? You can’t know what this is like for me.”

  “I’m trying my best. And I know you think that’s lip service, but it’s true. I’ve called in every favor. I’ve shaken every tree, but nothing will turn up. The DA won’t even see me to try to make a deal.”

  Stan was half-naked and laying on his back in the hot-coal steam room at the Jeju Day Spa just north of the city. It was his office away from the office. Where he came to clear his mind and see his most stubborn cases in a new way and maybe get a few glimpses at some hot Asian girls in their underwear, as well. He’d spent many days at the spa since he’d started working on Kerry’s case. So many that one of his assistants had actually set up her laptop and Wi-Fi in the lobby. It wasn’t because he was shrinking from his responsibilities or taking Kerry’s lockdown lightly. Contrary to what Kerry believed, he was doing everything he could to get her out. But there was something stinking about the case. Something just rotten that wouldn’t let his mind pull it apart. And no matter how many massages he got where he listed every single fact of the case in his head or sittings in the steam room he endured while considering those facts from every angle in the judicial system, he always came out feeling like he was back at square one. Kerry didn’t do the crime. That was obvious. Kerry was in jail for the crime. That was obvious. Kerry shouldn’t be in jail for the crime she didn’t do. That was obvious too. It was base-level law-school logic. The same logic he’d thought would make the DA automatically release Kerry just hours after Val had called him in the middle of the night about taking the case. In his head, he imagined walking out of the courthouse with Kerry crying on one arm, Val crying on the other, a sea of cameras and reporters in front of them. He’d make a declaration—“Justice prevailed this morning!” Everyone would cheer for Lebowski. Another case won! That’s how it always went. But not this time.