Delilah watched from the window as a car pulled up and a woman who had to be Laura Hunt got out. Asher’s cousin, if that’s who she was, didn’t look nothin’ like she remembered. Had her hair pressed with a hot comb back then. Now she looked like she was wearing a wig what with all them braids. Delilah had the door open before the woman reached the porch steps.
“I’ve come to see Mr. Jefferson.”
Them braids made her look younger than Delilah thought she was. That and all that makeup.
“He’ll be over soon as he sees you’re here.” When Cornelius came back from talking to her at Sadie’s, he said Laura had been calling Sadie off and on for years, asking about Tamar and Asher.
Delilah led the way down the hall. The paper with Savannah’s picture was on the table.
“Coffee?” she asked.
There was no answer. Laura was reading the article.
“That’s Tamar’s daughter,” Delilah told her. “Not that I have to tell you that.”
“Is this why you wanted to see me?”
“I wanted to see you because she’s wearing Tamar’s jewelry. That old clunky stuff that Asher gave her. You come here and took that watch from Cornelius. I wondered at the time why you just had to have it. Me and Cornelius, we don’t neither of us know what we’re looking at, do we? But you do. I was goin’ to ask you how Asher got it, ’cause I didn’t want no shame attached to Tamar’s name. But I think I just might of figured that out.”
“Figured out what, old woman?”
“Old woman! Who you calling old? Tamar would have been seventy-two if she was still living. You was older than her first time you come here. Better watch who you callin’ old, girl. There’s us who can deal with our age.”
“I’m not Laura,” she said. “I’m Jenny, Laura and Asher’s daughter. Laura’s dead. God only knows what happened to him. They never married anyway, so I really don’t care. And fifty-two isn’t old.”
“You need to do yourself a favor and wipe off some of that paint you got on your face and get rid of that wig.”
Jenny came up behind her. Before Delilah could turn to face her, the girl grabbed her arm, pulled her over to the table, and pushed her down in the chair.
“You shut your mouth, old woman,” she said. “And stay there,” she warned.
Delilah sat very still. Jenny stood with her back against the sink and her arms folded.
Cornelius picked that moment to come in. He came into the kitchen smiling. “Laura, you looking good, girl.”
“Hah. That ain’t what the old woman thinks.” She picked up a knife off the counter. “And you just sit your old ass down at that table with her.”
Delilah watched as Cornelius stopped smiling and sat down. “Laura,” he began. “You remember—”
“I am not Laura. I’m Jenny. Laura and Asher’s daughter.”
“Asher’s daughter? No wonder you looking so good,” Cornelius said. He sounded confused.
“Shut up,” Jenny told him. She was holding the knife like she meant to use it.
In as quiet a voice as she could manage, Delilah said, “Why you really come here, girl?”
“That old man wanted to know where Asher’s cuff links were, what they had to do with the jewelry Asher gave Tamar. He asked too many questions. How Asher got it, where it came from. I knew what those questions were about as soon as I saw you had a copy of this newspaper article.”
“You knew Tamar had a daughter?” Delilah asked.
“No, stupid. Tamar. Tamar. Who gives a damn about her? It was the jewelry. You two have found out what it’s worth, haven’t you? I know you didn’t think I would give it to you, or did you?”
“You have Tamar’s jewelry,” Delilah said. Officer Torres hadn’t said anything about the jewelry. But if Jenny had it. . . “Savannah didn’t just drown, did she?”
“That jewelry was mine!” Jenny said.
“Of course it was,” Delilah told her, not that it was true.
“Don’t you try to placate me, you old bird.”
Now what did placate mean? It had to be something insulting. Delilah almost had to bite her tongue. She looked at the knife before she opened her mouth and decided not to say nothin’. This would teach Cornelius not to keep sharpening her kitchen knives on that old razor strop of his. She glanced at him and said, “You okay?” He nodded, but she could see he was more scared than she was.