The crowd that surrounded Sarah Lawford’s home had increased substantially since I went inside to talk to my daughter. Looks of concern were on the faces of men and women, blacks and whites alike in our integrated neighborhood.
Initially, Henson Academy was predominantely black. When it was learned that Henson was rated the best in the District of Columbia because of the high academic standards, well-to-do whites and other minority groups began to send their children there in droves. Booster money poured in. Soon the school had state-of-the-art computers, a brandnew gymnasium; an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a fencing team.
Our community was probably the only one in America where whites were moving in, not out. Property values were growing, not declining. More important, our community was rising above the petty differences that plagued the country, becoming a racial cross-section of America. Nevertheless, murder had a way of bringing out the worst in people. Often, people associated a person’s deeds with their color and either excused what’s happened, or they’re shocked by who actually committed the crime.
“What’s happened to Miss Lawford, Mrs. Perry?” I heard Luther Pleasant ask me.
I looked down at the boy genius who had asked me a thousand times if he had asked me once to teach him the ancient martial art that had become a major ingredient of who I am.
“I don’t know, Luther,” I told him. “I haven’t been in the house yet.”
I opened the white picket fence and walked up the stairs two at a time. Kelly met me at the door. She told me that Detective McDonald was in charge. We knew him and that meant we wouldn’t have to throw our weight around. I hated doing it and the cops hated it, too.
I could tell by the look on Kelly’s face that whatever happened to Sarah Lawford wasn’t good. Kelly and I had worked lots of murder scenes. After a while, we even ate lunch or dinner immediately after leaving a scene. Never have I seen Kelly look so ghastly, so completely appalled.
“What?” I said, unsure if I wanted to know what she had seen.
“The son-of-a-bitch struck again,” Kelly told me.
“Who?” I said, unable to distinguish whom she was talking about.
“The same man that killed the warden, killed this woman.”
“What?” I heard myself asking in a stupefied daze.
I walked up the stairs, still confused, still flabbergasted at what Kelly had said. D.C. Homicide was on the scene. The mechanized sound of pictures being photographed rang in my dulled senses. A litany of voices buzzed in my ears. Almost in slow motion, I walked into the room, completely unnoticed by D.C. Homicide. Thick puddles of blood were everywhere. Some of it was sprinkled on the wall like it had been squirted. I looked down and I saw Sarah Lawford’s head, which had been separated from her body. Her brown eyes seemed to stare at me in unimaginable horror. I knew then that she was alive when this animal, this demon from the bowels of hell, had sliced into her flesh like he was opening a can of soup.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. I remembered the wedding invitation Keyth and I had gotten when we returned from our westward excursion. I could literally see the invitation in my mind, see the wedding bells, smell the newness of the lavender paper the words were printed on. I fought back my tears. I knew this woman. I knew Sarah Lawford. I had been in this home many times. I also knew Bernard Rodgers, her fiancé. This would kill him.
There’s nothing more sobering than death, I thought. Nothing penetrates the heart like death. The stench of it. The pain it causes those it leaves in its wake is often unbearable. It awakens you. It shakes you, and makes you realize what’s truly important. Death trivializes everything except life itself, ironically its only opposite.
The coroner had turned over Sarah Lawford’s torso and was examining the lacerations on her back. I cringed when I saw flesh pulled away from bone. Oh, my God! The fact that she actually lived through the flogging was a miracle, I thought. I had seen enough.