Chapter 24

At ten the next morning, I drove out to Calumet City, to Dontell Adkins’s last address, hoping I’d find his family still there. It was a small community nestled between the expressway and another community just like it, once anchored by a busy shopping mall, now half dead and long out of fashion. There were ten-minute lube joints, car dealerships, tire retailers, and fast-food places hawking greasy sliders, fanciful chalupas, and chicken parts battered and fried and topped off with a biscuit all within five blocks of each other. The kind of community you sped right through on your way to someplace else, like jury duty. The courthouse in Markham was just up the road north.

I rang the bell at a neat, single-family two-level with a wreath of summer flowers on the door, and moments later an elderly black man opened the door and stared at me through a storm door. “Morning.”

“Yes, good morning. Mr. Adkins?”

He peered at me as though he was trying to place me. A pair of battered eyeglasses poked out of his shirt pocket, and he slid them on to take a better look. “That’s right. I know you?”

He had a thick accent, Southern, which reminded me instantly of my grandfather and Pop, who were both born and raised in Louisiana.

“No, sir. My name’s Cassandra Raines. I wonder if I could talk to you about your grandson Dontell?” I held up my license, a business card along with it. “If you have a minute.”

His face changed in an instant. It’d been just another morning just seconds ago, but now a veil of grief slid across his face, and it looked like he’d aged decades more just standing there. “We lost our Donny about four years ago.”

“Yes, sir. I know. That’s what I’d like to talk to you about. I won’t take up too much of your time.”

He eyed the card, the license, which I still held up. You couldn’t be too sure these days of anyone who came to your door unannounced. People could be cruel, evil, and the elderly were among the most vulnerable. I stepped back from the door and waited for him to decide to trust me.

After a time, he took his glasses off, slipped them back in his pocket, and opened the door. “Come on in. A few minutes are about as much as I got. I’ll be eighty-seven come April, if I live to see it.”

It was cool inside the small house, and dark, the drapes drawn. It felt close, hemmed in, as though the Adkinses had built themselves a tomb for the living inside the four walls. The furniture, old, neat, was encased in plastic covers, just as my grandparents’ furniture had been my entire childhood. When nice things were hard to come by, you did whatever you could to keep them nice.

He gestured toward the couch. “Can I get you something? A cool glass of water? Sweet tea?”

I smiled. “No, sir. Thank you, I’m fine.” I started to sit, but then an old woman, about the age of Mr. Adkins, walked into the room. I assumed she was Mrs. Adkins, and I popped up to greet her formally.

“Israel, who was that at the . . . ?” She stopped when she saw me and moved to stand by her husband. They made a handsome pair, gray hair, life experience and all, and reminded me instantly of my grandparents, who’d been married fifty-three years when my grandmother suffered a stroke and passed away.

“My wife,” Mr. Adkins explained. “I was just about to call for you, Marva. This is an investigator asking after our boy.”

Her face changed, too, just like her husband’s had—pain, loss, grief, anger, helplessness, all of it carved into the lines around weary eyes. She stepped away from her husband’s steadying arm, walked over to me, and looked me straight in the eyes, as though she were facing down Satan himself.

“You find the man who ran over our Dontell?”

Mr. Adkins went to her, placed a gentle, steadying hand on her shoulder, and then passed her my card. She read it, then looked back at me as if to say, “So what?” I rethought the offer of the sweet tea just then, thinking the break for the beverage would take some of the heat out of the old woman’s eyes, but at this point, I didn’t have the heart to ask for it.

“Why don’t we all sit?” Mr. Adkins said. “See what she has to say.” He eased down into the two-seater across the coffee table from me, leaving his wife and me standing. It was her house. I couldn’t sit until she did. He reached out for her hand. “Marva?”

She finally sat down next to her husband. I sat, too, then took a breath and started. “I read about Dontell’s accident in the newspaper. There weren’t many details.”

“Wasn’t an accident. They ran our Dontell over in the street like a dog and kept on going. When it’s an accident, a person, a human being, stops and sees about you. Four years. Now here you come. Do you know who killed Dontell?”

“No, ma’am.”

She rose from the two-seater. “Then we got nothing to talk about. I’m done wasting time going over the same information, but ya’ll, the police and such, don’t do your part.”

Mr. Adkins’s calm voice broke in. “Marva?” She eased down again reluctantly, and the look she gave me pierced right through me.

I went on. “I wanted to know if you could give me more details about what happened. Maybe there were witnesses? The paper didn’t say.”

“Why do you want to know all this now?” Mr. Adkins asked.

“That’s right,” Mrs. Adkins snapped.

In my head I cycled through what I could say and shouldn’t say. “I can’t really say too much about why I’m asking.”

Mrs. Adkins’ eyes fired anew, and I saw her husband’s hand squeeze hers tighter.

“I’m sorry. You have no reason to trust me, but I wish you would. If what I’m working on somehow connects with what happened to your grandson, I may be able to get you some answers. At least I’ll try to.”

I waited while they sat on it for a moment. Then Mr. Adkins spoke for both of them. “Go on, then. Ask your questions.”

They relayed much the same information Reesa Loudon had given me about how terrible it was working for Allen. I listened, knowing they were treading over information I already had, but believing it gave them an opportunity to loosen up some before I asked about what I really needed to know about—his death.

“What can you tell me about the day he died?”

“It was a sorrowful day,” Mrs. Adkins said. “He left out early, saying he needed to get down to his job and pick up a letter they were supposed to give him recommending him for other work. He said he had to go get it in a hurry, before they changed their mind about giving it to him at all. That’s how they were.”

“Allen’s office.”

“Hateful woman.” Mrs. Adkins muttered it, as though she were cursing the devil. “He was crossing the street, they say, on his way back. Something a person does a million times without thinking about it. The car came out of nowhere, speeding, and hit him straight on. It never stopped.”

Mr. Adkins picked up where his wife left off. “They found the stolen car a couple days later, all beat up.”

“People stopped to help,” she said. “A nice woman even held his hand while they waited for the ambulance. I thank God for that woman. I just couldn’t live if I knew our Dontell died alone and scared. After they took him, she even helped gather up his things that got scattered all over. There’s still kindness in this world.” She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “He was all we had in the world. I miss that boy every second of every day. I won’t have a minute’s peace until I see him again.”

A letter. Why had Dontell gotten a letter of recommendation? Hadn’t Reesa Loudon told me that Allen didn’t give them? That it was her way of exacting punishment on employees she wanted to hold back? So, what made Dontell special? I asked about the witnesses.

“I expect it’s on the report they gave us,” Mr. Adkins said. “We put it with his things.”

“Israel can’t bring himself to go through the box.” Mrs. Adkins turned to her husband. “Me either. But we keep everything in his room. It’s all we got left.”

“Did you ever hear anything from Allen?”

“Never did,” Mrs. Adkins said. “We didn’t get so much as a bereavement card. I didn’t think it was right, and I just couldn’t let it go. I called up there. I asked for her, but they gave me somebody else, who was real cold over the phone. She said she didn’t know anything about Dontell being killed, acted surprised to hear about it. That was the end of it. I couldn’t do any more.”

That had to be Chandler. There had been only three of them working at the time—Allen, Dontell, and Chandler. Reesa had quit by then and had relocated down South. No condolences?

“Could I see the police report and his things?”

Neither answered. I was afraid I’d gone too far, asked for too much.

“Where are your people from?” Mrs. Adkins asked.

The question caught me off guard. It was one I wasn’t usually asked. “My mother’s side comes from Louisiana, Baton Rouge and small towns around there. My father’s family . . .” I had to take a moment to recall. “Michigan, I think?”

“You think?” she said.

“We aren’t close.” I could tell by the look on her face that this wasn’t going to cut it. “We’re working on it. Slow process.”

“He’s your Daddy, isn’t he? What do you mean, you ain’t close?”

I could feel sweat trickling down my back, my collar hot. Why was my mouth so dry? “Um.”

“Marva, let the woman alone. I knew some folks from Baton Rouge. Babineaux. You know any Babineauxs?”

I shook my head. “I don’t, but my grandfather might have.”

Mrs. Adkins said, “You ain’t close to him, either?”

“I was. He died several years ago. My grandmother, too. I lost my mother when I was a kid.” There it was. We’d found our commonality—loss. Mrs. Adkins settled back; her gaze softened. I’d broken through. The three of us sat for a moment without talking. I was thinking about the people I’d lost, and the Adkins were likely doing the same.

She stood up, straightened her apron. “I put his things in his closet. I’ll let you look, but I want everything put back just how you found it. Every scrap of paper, you understand?”

I stood, having just been given a gift. “Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

I called Allen’s office and asked for Chandler, and Pamela transferred me to Kendrick. Apparently, Allen was working from home, which meant Chandler was also working there.

“Does she have any events on her schedule for tonight?”

“She’s got lunch at noon at the Drake,” Kendrick said.

“Perfect. Thanks.”

I hung up and drove to Allen’s condo, and walked into the lobby to find the lobby desk manned by a thin black man with glasses and a green blazer. We had a polite discussion. I wanted to go up to Allen’s, but my name wasn’t on the approved list of visitors. He pointed me to the courtesy phone, which sat on a table in an alcove off to the side. If I called up and Allen agreed to see me, he’d let me up. Meanwhile, residents, one-percenters all, glided blithely past me, flaunting their access to the elevators, tacitly rubbing my working-class nose in it.

“Ms. Allen is not receiving visitors at this time,” her housekeeper, Isabella, told me in stilted English.

I peeked around the corner at the guy at the desk. He hadn’t forgotten about me. I had a sinking feeling that this was as close to Allen as I was going to get without SWAT backup.

“Tell her it’s important that I speak with her.”

There was a brief hesitation. She was likely consulting somebody. “No visitors. Would you like to leave, por favor, a message for the señora?”

I gritted my teeth. “Tell her it’s about Dontell Adkins and David Grissom.”

Another pause, more consultation. Nothing I could do about it. I was trapped in the lobby, after all, with floor upon floor of living space separating us. Allen didn’t have to talk to me. She didn’t even have to talk to the police unless she felt like it. All she really had to do, when you thought about it, was hang up the—

The line went dead. “Hello?”

I bit my lip, peeked around the corner again. Still there. I hung the phone up. There was nothing else I could do.

I passed the lobby desk on my way out. “Next time I’ll bring her chocolates,” I said to the desk guy.

He winked at me. “You’d do better bringing them for me.”

There was more than one way to skin a cat. Allen had lunch plans at the Drake at noon. It was about eleven thirty now. I’d wait. I trotted around the building to the garage entrance, slid in and spotted Allen’s limo idling right in front of the private elevator that led to the residences. I approached cautiously and rapped gently on the driver’s window.

Elliott slid the window down. “Ms. Raines.”

“Elliott. Waiting for your boss?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to stand here until she comes down. Just wanted you to know so there won’t be any misunderstanding.”

“She’ll have a guard with her. Big guy. And Chandler, of course.”

“Is the guard armed?”

“Afraid so.”

“Twitchy?”

He frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Never mind. I got it.” I glanced over at the elevator door. Nothing yet. “Thanks for letting me know.”

I backed away, stood patiently between the car and the elevator. This was a gambit. It might not work. Allen’s security might be as impenetrable as their company name suggested. Titan Security. Get over yourself. I waited fifteen minutes; then the door opened, and Chandler, Allen, and a white guy as wide as a frigging bull moose stepped off the elevator and made for the car. They all saw me at about the same time. The bull moose switched to high alert, Chandler looked like she’d swallowed her tongue, and Allen looked at me like she wanted to skin me alive. Elliott got out of the car, came around the side, and stood at the passenger door, but Allen stopped to give me the business before she got in.

“You have a nerve. I should have you arrested for harassment.” She cocked her head toward the Titan guy. “Norman.”

Norman? I looked at him, grinned, but let it go. Naming this guy Norman was like naming a Chihuahua Hercules. It just didn’t go together. I kept my hands visible. Chandler stood off to the side, her mouth clamped shut. If anything went down, she was not going to be any help to me whatsoever. I looked over at the guard. He was watching me pretty closely.

“I only need one minute,” I said.

Allen sneered at me. “There’s nothing we need to talk about, is there? You made yourself quite clear the other night. We’re done here.”

“I spoke with David Grissom. He teaches now. Looks good for a man his age. Well put together. He had a lot to say about your time together back in college.” He hadn’t really. I was still trying to figure out that lion and meat thing, but maybe the lie would prompt Allen to cough something up if she thought I already knew most of it. That was my play, anyway. “I see now why you wanted to keep everything quiet.”

To borrow Whit’s term, Allen went ghosty. Then meanness fought back and took it from there. “Who do you think you are? Do you have any idea who I am? What I can do to you?”

“Cut the crap, Benita. Did it ever occur to you that I’m actually trying to help you? You can burn the letters, shred them, cut them up and eat them, but that’s not going to stop what’s going on. Two people have been killed. Two people directly connected to you and your magazine.”

Her head had jerked back at the mention of her real name, but the shock lasted only a couple of seconds. Meanness roared back again. Her entire body coiled like a heavyweight spring. “I’d be careful if I . . .”

I went on as if she’d said nothing. “I also found Dontell Adkins. Remember him?” I turned to Chandler. “You said you had no idea where he was. Hadn’t seen him since the day he quit. He’s buried in the cemetery. Run down, interestingly enough, not too far from where you guys started out all those years ago. His grandparents seem to think he’d just come from seeing the two of you. But you knew he was dead, because his grandmother said she called the office and spoke to you personally. Funny, you don’t remember that.” Chandler looked stricken. I turned back to Allen, checked on Norman. All good there. “I’m going to find out what’s going on. That’s a promise. However that shakes out for you is just how it shakes out.”

“Out of my way. Elliott! The door.” Allen brushed past me, signaling Norman to ramp it up with the guarding business.

Elliott opened the limo door and stepped aside to let Allen through. Norman stepped forward. I took the hint and backed way up.

“I’m gone. Don’t want to impede Ms. Allen in any way. Besides, I’ve got an appointment with a couple of cop friends to discuss the latest developments, so I have to run.” I had no meeting set but let her go on and worry about it. “We’ll talk again soon. Till then, have a nice lunch. You, too, Norman.” I turned and left, not bothering to look back to watch the limo pull away.