MONDAY, MAY 17—LINCOLN PRAIRIE
Ir was almost eight o’clock in the morning when Delilah heard the knock on the door. That Cornelius. They did have a key for each other’s house. He was coming for breakfast and she hadn’t even put the oatmeal on yet. She sat and looked out the front window when she got up. The sun was shining and the daffodils and tulips planted years ago were still coming up.
She opened the door without putting the chain on first. “Why Officer Torres. I thought you were Cornelius.”
“Check first anyway,” Officer Torres cautioned.
“What in the world ...”
Officer Torres was carrying three plastic grocery bags in one hand and a gallon of milk in the other.
“I thought if I came early enough you might not have started breakfast and you’d make me some of your blueberry pancakes.”
“Well, just come right on into the kitchen.”
Officer Torres put the bags on the table. “I wasn’t sure what to bring,” she said. “At my house we have scrambled eggs with cactus and chorizo wrapped in a tortilla.”
She took three packages of fresh blueberries out of the bag, then five-pound bags of sugar and flour, a box of pancake mix, two dozen eggs, and three pounds of sausage, along with molasses, maple syrup, orange juice, and cranberry juice, and a three-pound can of Folgers coffee. That would be a treat. Delilah always bought a pound of house brand.
“Good grief, child. You’ve got enough here to feed an army.”
“Did I bring what you need?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll get a nice batch whipped up for us. My, won’t Cornelius be surprised.” She reached for the box of pancake mix. “Anything interesting going on in Bullfrog Bog? It hasn’t gotten warm enough yet to sit on the porch. We ain’t had much excitement here no way since you’ve been around.”
“You want some excitement?” Lupe teased.
“No, not really.”
“How about a neighborhood cookout for the Fourth of July?”
“You serious?”
“Me and the other guys who work this beat have been talking about it.”
“That really would be somethin’.”
Delilah was cracking eggs in the bowl with the pancake mix when Cornelius came in. “You got your hearing aid turned on, Cornelius? We got us some company. And we got blueberry pancakes and link sausages for breakfast, thanks to Officer Torres here.”
Cornelius adjusted his hearing aid while she was talking. “Good to see you again,” he said.
“I’ve had a real taste for Miss Delilah’s cooking for a while now.”
Cornelius grinned. “She don’t do too bad for an old woman.”
“Cornelius Jefferson!”
“Township folk been coming out just like you said,” he went on. “They plowed out the snow for us this winter and they say they’ll be coming to cut the grass this summer.”
Delilah added more milk to the batter, then carefully folded in the blueberries so the batter wouldn’t turn blue. She knew that Officer Torres had come here for a reason, and it wasn’t just to have pancakes. She never came empty-handed, though, and even better, Bullfrog Bog was a different place since she’d been around.
The whole neighborhood was safer with Officer Torres around. No more teenagers hanging out on the streets. She helped catch the kids who were doing the break-ins last year. Delilah even went back to sitting on the front porch with Cornelius most summer evenings. Besides that, Officer Torres visited all of the old people around who lived here regularly, had the fire department put in smoke alarms and the township office install dead-bolt locks. She made sure they was checked on if it got real hot or real cold. They even had a way to let her know if something was wrong in their homes.
Delilah put some of the sausages in a skillet and began making the pancakes. Time the food was on the table; Officer Torres was showing Cornelius a newspaper article.
“Is this that actress what got drowned when we was having them floods?” Cornelius asked.
“Does she look familiar?”
Cornelius hesitated. “No, too young. How would I know a young pretty actress like that? Says here she comes from . . .” He pulled his glasses down his nose a bit for better focus. “Los Angeles.”
Delilah put a plate stacked with pancakes on the table. Then she looked over Officers Torres’s shoulder and stared at the picture of the woman. “What you say her name was?” she asked.
“Savannah Payne-Jones.”
“Never heard of nobody named that,” Delilah said, but she sure enough recognized that jewelry and those eyes. “She got any children?”
“A daughter, Sara. She’s twenty-three, teaches math and science.”
Delilah blinked a few times. She couldn’t cry. “And this Savannah came here from Los Angeles. Was she a big star?”
“No, just bit parts, but lots of them. Actually, she was born in Medford, some town near Boston.”
“That’s in Massachusetts somewhere, ain’t it?” Delilah asked. What in the world would have made Tamar think to go there?
“Yes. We haven’t been able to find out anything about her parents, though. It’s as if they just showed up one day fully grown and got married. We got a copy of their marriage license and all of the information on it is false.”
“False how?” Delilah asked.
“Parents’ names. Where they were living before they married. Where they were born.”
“Can’t you just ask them, being as you know who they are. They must want to come claim their daughter.”
“They died,” Lupe said. “Car accident nineteen years ago.”
“Where were they buried?”
“In Connecticut. We’ve got a picture of them though. I’ll bring it over if you’d like to see it.”
“Might be interesting to see it,” Delilah said. There was no need to speak up until she was absolutely sure. Behind her, the sausages were sizzling. Delilah rushed to the stove, and put them on a plate. They had browned nicely. “Juice or coffee,” she asked.
“Coffee,” Officer Torres and Cornelius said almost at the same time.
Delilah brought two steaming cups to the table, poured some of the sugar into a sugar bowl and found a pitcher for milk. Good thing Officer Torres had brought that; she was out of it for the rest of the month. She poured some cranberry juice for herself.
She had to make herself eat. It felt as if there was some huge lump in her throat. The actress in that picture had to be Tamar’s child. She didn’t know of anyone else but her husband, Tamar’s daddy, and Tamar who had those light-colored eyes. As for the jewelry, nobody but Tamar could have given it to her.
Officer Torres apologized for not being able to stay. She left the newspaper article on the table. When Cornelius started to say something, Delilah gave him a look and he shut up.
“What’s wrong, Lila?” Cornelius asked as soon as Officer Torres left.
“Take another look at that picture Cornelius. A good long look.”
“I saw the jewelry,” he said. “Knew right away who it belonged to and who gave it to her.”
“Take another look at Savannah.”
He pulled his spectacles halfway down his nose and held the paper closer to his face.
“This can’t be Tamar,” he said.
“No, but it’s got to be her child. Asher gave Tamar that jewelry,” she told him. “You might of made like wasn’t nothin’ going on, but Asher got them packages from Mr. Newsome’s son, who was off in the war. Asher wasn’t nothin’ but their handyman, Cornelius. There’s no way that rascal Warren Newsome Junior would send anything to Asher lessin’ it was something his father shouldn’t be getting in the mail himself. That Warren Junior— town hero, my behind. Nobody put it in the paper when he beat that boy near half to death, nor when he assaulted that teacher. Then there was that car he wrecked while he was drinking and driving. None of that ever got told.”
“Lila, I know this here actress looks just like Tamar, and there might not be too many people with that color eyes, but we don’t know nothin’ more than what Officer Torres told us, and she sure didn’t tell us much.”
“She told us much as she wanted us to know. You remember them cuff links Asher was sportin’ and showin’ off before he left? Them ones that looked like junk with them big green stones? 1 bet he took them from those boxes what came those first few weeks after Warren Junior died. I bet Mr. Newsome didn’t see any of what was inside. I bet that jewelry he gave Tamar, what Savannah’s wearing in that picture, come out of one of them packages, too.”
Sara. She had a great-granddaughter named Sara. “Think about it, Cornelius! That’s probably why Asher went to Michigan all of a sudden without ever even talkin’ about goin’ anywhere. . . . And him always talkin’ like he was such a good Christian man. He did that ’cause of you, Cornelius. Knowed you were a preacher’s son and wanted to stay on your good side. I never did believe it myself.”
She hadn’t showed him but that one letter Asher sent Tamar, the one where he talked about that trouble with his heart. And that was just to spare Cornelius more grief. But it was time now that he knew. Somehow she had to look after her great- granddaughter, make sure nothin’ happened to her.
Cornelius got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. He looked hurt, but in his heart he had to know that what she said was the truth.
Delilah felt too agitated to put the food away and wash the dishes. She forced herself to do it anyway, and as she worked, she began to feel calmer.
Cornelius waited until she had cleaned up and was sitting down.
“So, why didn’t you tell Officer Torres nothin? She been good to us, Lila. We should be helping her.”
“Someone else we got to talk to first,” Lila said. “That woman what come visitin’ Asher Hunt, that one what called herself Laura Hunt.”
“She was his cousin, Lila.”
“That’s what they said. She come back six months after he was gone askin’ for whatever he left here, wanting that watch he gave you. You never ought to have gave that to her, Cornelius.”
“Might have been what he woulda wanted, her bein’ kinfolk and all.”
“Maybe,” Delilah insisted. “Wherever Asher went, you can bet she knows. And now my granddaughter’s picture is in that newspaper wearing the jewelry Asher gave Tamar. She comes here and all of a sudden she’s dead.”
“You sure shoulda told that to Officer Torres.”
“Cornelius! Use your head! I got me a great-granddaughter, Sara.” She said it again, “Sara.” Her great-granddaughter, a gift from Tamar. “I can’t have her mixed up in nothing that’s to do with the police that has to do with her mother, or Tamar and that fool Asher Hunt, lessin’ I know what it is for sure. Now you get yourself over to Sadie’s house, Cornelius. Remember how that Laura was writing to her, trying to get information about us, and askin’ if anyone heard from Asher and if he come back? Sadie might be almost as addle-brained as you sometimes, Cornelius, but she don’t never throw nothin’ away. You see where them letters come from and use Sadie’s phone to call that Laura and tell her she got to come talk to us now!”
Cornelius scratched his head. “Seems to me like the police ought to be talkin’ to Miss Sadie, and Laura,” he said. “Not us.”
It wasn’t easy, but Delilah managed to shed a few tears. “We talkin’ ’bout my kinfolk, Cornelius, only kin I got. My Sara! My great-granddaughter! You heard Officer Torres. Tamar and whoever she married is dead. Now my granddaughter is dead, too. I ain’t never goin’ to get to know her, and her bein’ an actress and all. Ain’t nobody left but my great-grandchild. I got to be sure how Asher got that jewelry ’fore I can talk with anybody. Tamar’s dead, Cornelius. She’s dead.” This time the tears came easy. “Ain’t nothin’ I can do for her now except to make sure nothin’ bad is said about her. Least not in public. And protect her grandchild, my Sara.”
“Asher’s cousin Laura did came around one time just before he left for Michigan,” Cornelius admitted.
“You didn’t tell me that, Cornelius Jefferson.”
“You was upset enough that she was comin’ around at all. Worried for Tamar as well. They talked for a long time. He must have told her something. That’s why I ain’t never quite believed he was dead. They planned something. He might even be with her now. We got to tell Officer Torres all of this,” Cornelius insisted.
“What if it Tamar or Asher did something that we don’t want the police to know?”
“Ain’t no more need for secrets.”
“Says you, who kept one from me all these years! Sara, my great-granddaughter is twenty-three. She’s just a child. I got to do this for her. You want it to come out if Asher was a thief? And worse, have him arrested if he still is alive?”
Cornelius bowed his head at that, studied the red-and-white squares on the plastic tablecloth for a few minutes. Then he got up. He reached for his hat and shuffled on down the hall and out the door. For the first time, as Delilah watched from the window as he walked down the street, he looked old.
Alone, she looked at the picture again. Savannah. Her granddaughter. Someone she would never know. Never. But she would know Savannah’s child. She would meet Sara. But first she had to protect her somehow and that meant finding out what Asher did, and if Tamar left because she was involved in whatever it was. Officer Torres would help her keep it out of the news if it was something bad. Officer Torres would handle whatever it was in a way so that nobody ever had to know.