C H A P T E R • 3
I saw Captain Obsidian Bailey walking back toward me and the sight of him made me lightheaded. Then I felt the return of dread as a cold rush.
Obsidian is aptly named, I swear—dark as the stone and grounded. Being a New York City policeman for over ten years and the discipline of various fighting practices could only have sharpened the special gift he was born with.
When he got to me, he said, “Come with me. Somebody abandoned a vehicle. We think it’s the hit-and-run car. We can use a witness like you.”
My instinct was to back away from witnessing. “It happened very fast.” Then I felt ashamed of myself. “She looked both ways before she crossed the street.” I started to speak, stopped, then started again. “But the car came out of nowhere.”
“Breathe, Pearl.”
“And she still ended up being part of this out-of-control scene. How could you all let it get like this?”
“Whoa. You moved three thousand miles away, and it’s my fault?”
“Every time I come back, it’s worse. Like you all just don’t care.”
“Is it easier to care from a distance? Coward.”
“Don’t you call me names. How dare you.”
“How dare me? What is that? So now you’ve made yourself a couple of Hollywood movies, you’re all indignant and shit?” Hollywood sounded like a dirty word in his mouth. “I’m sure you haven’t spent time with Cecelia Miller in years.”
“Actually, there’s not much about me you can be sure of anymore.”
“Perhaps you’re right; although I kind of doubt it. We should catch up.”
We traveled three blocks in a police car with the lights flashing and the terrible racket of the siren. Obsidian was in the passenger seat and another cop was driving. I slumped down in the back. There was no way not to look like you belonged back there. It was too definite and final. I watched pedestrians outside, free to stop and look in the open window as we passed, probably mistaking me for some criminal or an informer—a perp or a snitch.
At 122nd Street and Frederick Douglass, just south of the precinct, I panicked when the door handles inside didn’t work. I thought the officer was moving slower than necessary as she climbed from the driver’s seat and opened my door from outside. The little smile she gave me confirmed it. She was enjoying my panic.
“Captain?” Two of the police people paused just long enough to see if Obsidian wanted anything. About a dozen others buzzed around the car cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. The front door was open and the radio was on, but the driver was nowhere.
Up close, it was unremarkable—one of the late-model American cars with the “T” license plates prowling the city for fares their fat yellow cousins won’t take. One headlight was busted and loosened from the metal frame, which was broken into jagged pieces and hurt me to look at. I hoped the big disgusting dent in the front was from hitting the pole.
“That’s the car. He had no business being on the downtown side of the street. He hit her on purpose. Otherwise, why didn’t he stop?” I asked Obsidian.
“There are a dozen reasons why people don’t want to stop and talk to the police.”
“Don’t patronize me.” I hate that.
“Does it help to get mad at me?” he asked. “Go ahead. I can take it.”
While I was the subject of his attention, his eyes with those incredible clear whites never left mine.
“Can you find out what happened?” I asked him. My question skirted what I really wanted to know which was more like, ‘Can you fix it?’
“Somebody in this crowd saw something. We’ll get to it. But first I need you to give Detective Stanley your statement. Stanley! Get Pearl here to draw a picture. She has an incredible visual memory.”
“If you have the car, can you get Ceel off the street?” I asked.
“The medical examiner is taking her now. I’ll call you later.”
It didn’t take long to tell the officer almost everything I knew. She probed and asked the right questions and took me back to what I was watching from my window when Cecelia was hit. I sketched a kind of storyboard for her with arrows pointing to where the car could have come from and where it went. What I didn’t do was tell her about the pictures. They were redundant anyway because what they showed was the car and the police already had the car. And I didn’t want to risk having the pictures called evidence so I wouldn’t be able to publish them on the front page of the paper.
The paper!
Damn. I had forgotten all about my inheritance while I was running around outside, and I could hear the voices of my father and my grandfather in my head. They were both more than capable of haunting a sister.