5
By two o’clock that afternoon, I longed for a drink. The phone had been ringing incessantly on the one day that my secretary, Hernanda, decided to call in sick. Reporters were calling. Friends whom I hadn’t heard from in a while decided to call to either chat, offer murmured and unhelpful comments about the violent times we live in, or fulfill their morbid curiosity. Even worse, I’d had to cancel my eleven o’clock hearing because I’d been so busy dealing with Chester’s caseload as well as my own.
Raymond had stopped by earlier for a brief conversation. He was clearly distracted, and I got the impression something other than Chester’s death was occupying his thoughts.
“Have you started going through Chester’s files?” he asked.
“Not all of them,” I replied honestly. “I’m still going through my own pile, but by later this afternoon, I should be able to turn my attention back to his files. I checked with docketing, and his calendar is clear, at least for the next three days.”
“Nothing in court?” asked Raymond, clearly surprised.
“No,” I said, “according to docketing, last week he decided to cancel his appointments through the end of the week.”
“Maybe he was planning to take a vacation,” said Raymond, “but he never mentioned it to me. I’ll have to check with his secretary.”
I knew that would be a waste of time. “I don’t think he was planning a vacation, at least he never mentioned anything to me. I’d think that if he was going away from the office for a couple of days, he would have told me, considering that the Pileski trial is two weeks away.”
Taking on that distracted, almost vacant look again, Raymond said cryptically, “Yeah, well, Chester always was secretive.”
Chester wasn’t the only one that was secretive. I knew that Raymond wasn’t giving me all the information he had about Chester’s files. He also wasn’t telling me what he was looking for, and the whole needle in the haystack thing wasn’t working for me. I suspected that whatever Raymond was seeking might have ultimately gotten Chester killed, but I couldn’t be sure if this was just my overactive imagination. Could Raymond have had something to do with Chester’s murder? I shook those terrible thoughts out of my head. Raymond was no murderer. Still, after spending hours poring through files, not knowing what I was looking for, my patience, which was never strong to begin with, was wearing very thin.
“Raymond, what am I looking for?”
“I don’t know exactly,” he replied. “Just make sure that his files are in order ... but if there’s anything unusual that you find, let me know right away.”
I knew he was lying.
“Unusual?” I asked. “That’s not being very specific.”
“Use that brain that God gave you, Jasmine,” he replied in a voice more curt than I thought was necessary. “You’ve got a whole lot of common sense. If something doesn’t smell right, let me know.”
He left my office, still distracted and a bit more agitated than he’d been before arriving. Well, I thought as I watched him walk away, welcome to my world. I turned my attention back to the files.
If I’d intended to get any work done that day, I was mistaken. When the phones were not ringing, there was someone knocking at my door. There was a steady stream of associates and secretaries in and out of my office who wanted to talk about Chester’s murder or to speculate about what was going to happen to his cases now that he was gone. The secretaries all came into my office clearly upset, talking about Chester and his wonderful attributes. I have often wondered why the dead, even when they are undisputably evil, often take on kinder and gentler attributes after their departure to the hereafter.
Was this the same Chester who had yelled, cursed, and snarled at the secretaries when his good looks didn’t get him whatever it was he desired at a particular moment? Was this the same Chester who had insisted that all of the secretaries address him by his last name? The same Chester who had fired his most recent paralegal for the unpardonable sin of misspelling a client’s name and not having the good sense to feel bad about it?
The associates who came to my office also mourned his loss, but a good percentage of them seemed more intrigued about who would inherit his formidable caseload or, more to the point, his clients. I was disheartened, but not surprised. Although the world is full of many good, decent, caring people who happen to be lawyers, I had come across my fair share of sociopaths with a briefcase, who answered to the title attorney at law. Nevertheless, I admonished the associates, none of whom were as senior as me on the food chain, and who therefore had to take it, that a bright and promising life had been taken, Chester’s caseload be damned. As much as I’d personally disliked Chester, I found the casual callousness with which these people treated his death as another reason I probably should have bypassed law school when I’d had the chance. The Peace Corps started to look more and more appealing to me.
The telephone rang, and I answered it automatically. Immediately, I regretted my actions. It was my mother.
“Jasmine, how could you let Thea and Reese stay with you?” she said, without any greeting.
I took a deep breath and counted to ten. I knew what was coming.
“Her place is with her husband,” my mother continued.
“What did you want me to do, Mom? Kick them out on the street?”
My mother sighed loudly over the phone—a long suffering sigh—then she said, “One divorce in this family is more than enough, Jasmine. You need to talk some sense into her, not harbor her and her child like fugitives in that apartment of yours.”
I truly love my mother, but there were days when I had to work hard to remember that.
“Mom, have you talked to Thea?”
My mother sighed again. “I’ve been trying to talk some sense into her all day, but she won’t listen to me.”
“Did she tell you about Brooks?” I asked. I didn’t want to betray my sister’s confidences.
“Yes, she told me some madness about another woman.”
Now it was my turn to sigh. I could not believe that my mother, as feisty as she was in her own marriage, was going to start singing some “stand by your man no matter what he’s done” craziness.
“Mom, please do not tell me all men do this and—”
She cut me off. “You know me better than that. If that is what Brooks did, well, then he made his bed, so to speak, and he’s got to lie down in it without his wife. But I don’t believe that Brooks is that kind of man.”
“Thea feels pretty strongly that he cheated on her.”
“Hmph! She hasn’t even talked to him. She doesn’t know what he’s done, if anything!”
“How do you know all this?” I asked, although I was fairly certain I knew the answer.
“Brooks called me. He’s beside himself with worry! He tried calling her on her cell phone, and she won’t answer. It was Reese who called him this morning to tell his father where they were. Can you imagine Reese having to do this? I don’t know what’s gotten into your sister. I would have expected this from ...”
She stopped her sentence abruptly when she remembered that she was speaking to me.
I won’t lie and say my mother’s words didn’t hurt. I was used to them, but they still hurt. I tried to remind myself that sometimes her mouth got a little ahead of her brain, but Lord knows, the unspoken words felt like a slap in the face. It wasn’t as if I sold crack on a street corner, I wanted to yell at my mother. I’m a lawyer. A respectable member of society. Just because I didn’t follow the life you mapped for me doesn’t make me a failure. But this was a battle I’d have to wait another time to fight.
“I’ve got to go, Mom. I’m really busy this morning.”
“But what about Thea?” she asked, undeterred.
“Whatever she decides, she’ll be just fine,” I said, and in my heart I knew that I was right about this. My sister was going to be fine. “And I’ll support any decision she makes.”
“Jasmine, listen ... talk to her—”
“I’ve got to go, Mom,” I said, before placing the telephone in the cradle.
I remembered a time, many years ago, when I was a little girl. I was tired, and we were in church. We’d gone to my grandmother’s Baptist church in Georgia. Unlike the efficient (quick) Episcopal services I was used to, we were in our third hour of worship, and the end was nowhere in sight. I remember laying my head on my mother’s lap—I must have been around seven years old—and she’d stroked my hair. I felt safe that day. Safe and loved by my mother. I was glad for that memory. It reassured me that there was love there. Even when my mother’s words hurt, there was still some love in there.
Several hours after my mother’s telephone call, I was knee-deep in Chester’s files. A quick knock on my door announced the arrival of Lamarr, the head of the mail room and my all-around helpmate. He was one of the few people in the firm whom I considered to be a friend. I had enlisted his aid in obtaining all of Chester’s files, which were now placed on my floor, my chairs, and in every other available space in my office.
“Here’s the last load, Jasmine,” he announced. “Thank God.”
I looked up from the work and was relieved to see a friendly face.
“You look as if you’ve just lost your favorite teddy bear,” he said.
“Tough times,” I replied.
Lamarr closed the door behind him. “This thing with Chester has gotten everybody pretty spooked.”
I let out a long sigh in response, unable to think of anything to say other than the obvious. For most folks, including me, murder was a spooky thing.
“I know this might be a stupid question,” Lamarr continued, looking directly at me, “but is something else, something other than the demise of Chester Jackson, bothering you?”
He knew me too well. “Thea left her husband.”
“What happened?” Like most of my male friends, Lamarr had a not so secret crush on my sister.
“He cheated on her.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that. Brooks isn’t stupid enough to do that.”
I thought back to the conversation I’d just had with my mother. Both she and Lamarr obviously had more faith in Brooks than was warranted.
“Could we change the subject?” I asked. I didn’t feel like discussing my sister’s marital issues, particularly after my less than wonderful conversation with my mother on the subject. The demise of my own marriage still caused the occasional bouts of pain, and the thought of my sister having to go through the same crisis depressed me.
“How many files have you got there?” I asked him.
“Forty-two files. That should be all of them, or that’s what Irmalee says.”
I got up to help Lamarr unload the cart laden with Chester’s case files.
I thought of Irmalee’s bitter reaction to my offer of condolences earlier this morning and shook my head. I hoped I didn’t have to deal with her too often, although I knew she would be the most logical person to help me if I had any questions about the files.
“I told her that she probably shouldn’t have come to work today,” said Lamarr as we took case files off the cart and searched for space in my office to store them. “But she wasn’t about to hear that. It’s almost as if she feels like she’s still working for him.”
“They were close,” I said neutrally.
“Yes, they were,” he agreed, but there was something about the tone of his voice that made me stop and look at him.
I knew that tone of voice well. He had some serious scoop, and with gentle or not so gentle prodding, I would soon find out exactly what it was he knew.
Although I got along with most of the people in the firm, I wasn’t close to anyone but Raymond, Lamarr, and Hernanda, my secretary. Lamarr and I had spent many late evenings in the office, talking about life and firm gossip. He kept my secrets and made me laugh even on bleak days when I cursed the day I entered the legal profession. We were buddies almost from his first day at work at B&J.
Tall, thin, with skin so light that most people thought that he was white, Lamarr had come to B&J right out of drug rehab. Raymond had been a board member of the rehab center, and another board member, an idealistic social worker who still believed in the goodness of people’s hearts, prevailed upon Raymond to give Lamarr a job. Lamarr had started out as a file clerk and ended up running the mail room, and in most respects, running the office. He helped out with everything, from sorting mail to document production, to supervising the file clerks. Raymond often said that Lamarr was his best hire. I was inclined to agree.
“Now, Jasmine girl, you know how I hate to gossip... .”
I didn’t know any such thing. In fact, I knew the opposite was true, and I said as much.
“You got me there,” he replied. “But I don’t want to gossip about the recently dearly departed.”
“Lamarr!”
“Now, Jasmine, you know that discretion is my middle name.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” I replied.
Lamarr closed the door, a sure sign that he was ready to dish the dirt, and sat down in front of me, in the same chair that Detective Claremont had occupied earlier that morning. He flashed me a smile and lowered his voice.
“Jasmine, now you know you didn’t hear it from me, but Irmalee and Chester had been kicking it for years.”
“Kicking it?”
“You know, they’d had a relationship for a while. Let’s put it this way: their thing predated his marriage to Sherrie, and from what I hear, they were together even before you lost your mind and dated that fool, not to talk ill of the dead.”
With everything that was going on with my sister, and everything I knew about Chester, this news shouldn’t have surprised me. What did surprise me was that I had not picked up this particular bit of gossip on the office grapevine.
“How did you find this out?” I asked Lamarr.
“Let’s just say that my eyes did not deceive me one cold winter night.”
I shook my head. If I’d married Chester, I would have shared Sherrie’s fate. “This was still going on after he and Sherrie got together?”
Lamarr nodded his head. “I didn’t discuss it with you at the time because of your, er, history with the man, but now that you’re going to be working on Chester’s files, probably with Irmalee’s help, I figured that it was time to give you full disclosure.”
I agreed. It was best to know all when you were walking into a minefield, something I suspected I was doing as I examined Chester’s files.
“In other words, Sister Jasmine,” Lamarr continued, “watch your back.”
I could see why all those women in Red Hook, the neighborhood that Lamarr grew up in and swore never to leave, were steadily trying to catch his attention. There was no nicer, kinder person than Lamarr. An all true man, as Alexander O’Neal used to sing. There were times when I would wonder what it would be like to be more than friends, but we’d never crossed that particular bridge, and it was just as well.
“When are you going to find some nice woman and rock her world?” I would ask, but I knew the answer.
Lamarr’s wife had died years ago, and his grief about her death had ultimately led to his dance with Mr. Heroin. A dance that almost killed him. It had taken years, but he got clean and stayed clean. Still, a certain sadness remained, and the earth mother in me was always drawn to protect him.
Even now, I wanted to help chase away some of that pain, which I still saw in his eyes. “You need a good woman in your life,” I told him, but I knew that there was no woman alive that could compete with the ghosts that inhabited his heart.
“Folks talk about Red Hook and how bad things are there.” Lamarr’s voice cut through my thoughts. “But when your number’s up, don’t matter where you live. Look at Chester, living in that fancy town house over on Park Avenue.”
I nodded my head.
Lamarr looked at me. “Enough talk about Chester. How are you doing? I know that even though you guys fell out, you once cared for him.”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess I’m still trying to understand how this could have happened.”
“Nothing to understand. He lived by the sword.”
“Lamarr!” I was surprised at the hardness in his voice. I knew that Lamarr didn’t like Chester. Chester had talked down to him on several occasions. People like Lamarr, people that didn’t have anything that Chester wanted, didn’t exist in his orbit.
“I’m sorry he’s dead, Jasmine,” Lamarr said quietly. “But he was retribution waiting to happen.”
I couldn’t blame Lamarr for how he was feeling. I knew there were several other people in New York singing the same song.
“Well, he’s in the hands of the ancestors now,” said Lamarr. “It’s the ones who are left behind. Those are the ones I pity. I’m sure there are folks who cared about him, and those are the folks I feel for.”
I digested this in silence.
“While we’re on the subject,” said Lamarr, “watch out for Nina Smyth. Don’t trust her.”
“What does Nina have to do with Chester?” I asked.
Lamarr raised a censoring eyebrow.
“They were kicking it?” I asked, using Lamarr’s phrase.
“You got it.”
I never thought I’d ever feel sorry for Chester’s wife, Sherrie. She was a hard, calculating woman who viewed Chester’s breakup with me as a personal triumph. Still, it was hard not to pity her given the current circumstances.
“That explains Nina’s reaction to the news yesterday.”
“Watch your back, Jasmine,” Lamarr repeated.
I hated when Lamarr was deliberately cryptic. “Lamarr, what are you saying?”
“Raymond isn’t going to like it when all Chester’s dirt starts coming out. You know how protective he is about the firm. You need to be aware of the undercurrents running around here, my sister. Believe me, they are strong.”
I repeated my question. “Lamarr, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying be careful. Watch your back. Chester was into a whole lot of stuff, and all of it’s gonna come out. Just keep your eyes open.”
“Lamarr, you have to give me more information than that,” I said.
“Keep your eyes open,” he repeated. “That’s as specific as I’m going to be right now. Trust me, you’ll be safer that way.”
“Safer?”
Lamarr stood. “Jasmine, sometimes it’s better and safer not to know too much. Trust me.”