UNFORTUNATELY,warm and fuzzy moments with my mother did not last. Shortly after her lullaby, she resumed tormenting me on the topics about which mothers torment daughters who have disappointed them. After spending a month with her in the half hour that followed, I prayed for respite. God answered my prayer just before noon, when Ma opted to go to lunch with Maggie. The dish they’d devour would be me, for sure. I didn’t mind. I decided to redeem some of the time I’d lost by paying Christine Webber a surprise visit.
I arrived in Royal Oak, hoping she’d be home, not knowing if I was burning very expensive gas in vain. Kalaya had let me know that Kate’s funeral would be at eleven o’clock the following morning. I hoped to catch Christine at home with a network of friends and family who could help her through this tragedy.
Christine and Kate’s house was a small, neat A-frame on a quiet street close enough to walk to downtown——primo real estate at a premium price. SUVs filled the driveway and spilled into the street. I got out of the Love Bug and made my way to the porch. The lace curtains that dressed the open windows made it easy to see the bustle of activity inside. A multigenerational group of people——mostly women——milled about, holding drinks and plates of food. I knocked on the door, saying a quick prayer for help that started with something likeLord, I know Jazz wouldn’t like this, but …and waited to see if help would come.
A short, thin white woman of about fifty, with spiky white hair and Tammy Faye Bakker mascara, opened the door. She had on a white faux-fur miniskirt that truly would have made my mother need nitroglycerin tablets, especially having seen it on a woman this age. A red long-sleeved cashmere T-shirt with a skull on the front and black-and-white stripes on the arms topped the skirt. Outrageous electric-blue platform-heel boots, circa ’73, completed the ensemble. I smiled at the woman and gave her a few thousand dance-to-your-own-drummer points.
“Are you here for Chrissy?” she said warmly.
Thank God for fur-skirt lady. “I’m with the Washtenaw County Jail,” I said, as if that had any relevance whatsoever to the case. “I just have a few questions for her.”
Fur-skirt lady’s face fell. Apparently, Chris had been questioned, and her friend didn’t look like she appreciated the implications that came with that. She probably also wondered what in the world Washtenaw County had to do with the case.
I briefly touched her elbow. “I’m not a police officer. I’m a forensic psychologist. I’m just doing a brief psychological autopsy. I only want to know what Kate’s last days were like. I’d really like to help the police find who killed Christine’s partner.”
This seemed to appease her a bit. She moved to the side, allowed me to enter, and pointed through the crowd. “She’s over there by the futon.”
“Thank you.” I realized my social graces were lacking. “I’m sorry. I’m Amanda.”
“Tori,” she said.
“Do you think you could discreetly let her know I need to speak with her?”
“Sure.”
Fur skirt meandered her way through the mourners, and I followed her to where Christine sat in the center of a sofa, flanked by two women and a man draped lazily on the sofa’s arm.
All I could think wasWow. Christine was stunning. She had the regal presence of Maya Angelou. Snatches of a Maya poem,Phenomenal Woman, came to mind:Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. / I’m not cute or built to suit a model’s fashion size.
No, I wouldn’t call her cute, but she had the formidable presence of a queen. Long jet-black dreadlocks flowed down her neck. She was dressed like Addie Lee, in an amazing silk caftan with an African-inspired print. Bone bracelets crept up her arms. Unlike Addie, she had muscle tone——I could see that even through the caftan. Her arms resembled a boxer’s. Jazz must not have been kidding when he’d said she could rumble.Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. And with the size of her hands, that would be some sting. She had a definite edge about her, ghetto toughness, like she’d seen too many bad things in life and had grown a hard shell around her soft center. I’d seen this in other women cops——though not all——and in women who’d lived on the streets for a long time.
Tori whispered something in Christine’s ear, and Christine looked up at me. She sized me up in that way I’d seen only cops do. She stood and gestured with her head toward a hallway. I went with her, all eyes in the room following us for about two seconds before their attention went back to the people in the room who were far more interesting than me.
She opened a bedroom door; coats were piled high on the bed. The room was decidedly feminine, with Laura Ashley florals, tastefully done. A soft shade of lavender colored the walls, matching the lavender-and-lilac flower print on the bedspread. Chris pushed the coats to the side and made a place for me to sit. “Sorry I don’t have any place else to take you. As you can see, the house is full.” Her voice sounded both melodic and authoritative, a smoky, Jazz singer’s alto. She could have been an old-school African-American actress like Cicely Tyson. I wondered how a woman like this ended up being a cop; what tragedy——if any——had driven her to the job? She eyed me warily. “I didn’t expect this many people. Kate’s family took over all the funeral arrangements, and I’m”——she sighed deeply——“just here with my sistahs, trying to make my way through this…” Whatever else she would have said, she swallowed. She regarded me with the cool detachment of a person who needed to keep her hurt at a minimum. “Tori said you’re from the Washtenaw County Jail. What do you have to do with Kate’s murder?”
“I’m doing her psychological autopsy.”
“Why is that? Wayne County hasn’t sent anyone here for that. Why would Washtenaw?”
“I’m on my own, Ms. Webber.”
“Call me Chris.”
“Okay, Chris. I’m looking into Kate’s death privately. I happened to be on the scene at her death investigation.”
“Why is that?” Chris kept her expression even. “She wasn’t found in Washtenaw County. You’re a little far from home, aren’t you?”
“The DI on call asked me to attend. I’d worked with her on another case.”
She stared at me but didn’t question me on it.
I tried to sound like I actually had a reason to interview her. “Someone brutally murdered your partner. I want to know who would do that to her, and I’m committed to trying to find him.”
“Or her?”
Interesting. A guilty person would take every imaginable opportunity to draw attention to someone——anyone——else. As a former homicide detective, she’d know that. What was she doing? “I’m not a police officer, Chris. It’s not my job to interrogate you.”
“I’m not sure why you’re here at all. I’m hoping you’ll tell me.”
I cleared my throat, a nervous gesture I should have been conscious enough to avoid letting her see. “I’m a behaviorist. I look at people. Watch what they do. I find patterns in behavior. I believe my work can help me discover who’s responsible for her death.”
A tight smile spread across her lips. “I do the same thing.” She paused. “I’m not implying that I’m still a homicide detective, but I still take care of people.”
Interesting choice of words:I still take care of people.
“If you’d be kind enough to answer some questions, I’d like to get a clear picture of who Kate was, how she spent her days, and who she spent them with.”
Chris cocked her head and sized me up again. “Why are you investigating on your own?”
“The woman you love is dead. She needs all the help she can get.”
“What’s in this for you?”
“I saw her, Chris. No one deserves to die that way.”
She shook her head slowly, closed her eyes, then turned her head and gazed to the right. Her expression collapsed to a flat, disengaged affect. Christine had gone to some terrible inner place.
Wait.Her eyes had shifted right. In memory. Had she seen the crime-scene photos? Would Bobby Maguire have told her what Kate looked like? About the pose? Or was she just imagining Kate as she looked now, at the funeral home? Either image would be horrible enough, but I’d seen something in the way she’d shaken her head.
Chris asked a question. I’d been so deep in my own thoughts that I didn’t hear her. “Excuse me?” I said.
“I said what’s your name?”
“I’m Dr. Amanda…”
God, can I just borrow my mother’s maiden name for a minute? It’s really not convenient to be a Brown right now.
Of course, Chris in no way possessed the unflappable mien of Bobby Maguire. She wouldn’t let me get away with just Dr. Amanda.
“Your last name, please.” She commanded it. She must have been fierce in homicide.
“Brown. I’m Dr. Amanda Brown.”
“Brown?”
I nodded.
She grunted. Shook her head in disgust. “Amanda Brown, also known as Bell. I should have seen it. You look just like her.”
I didn’t want to ask, but how could I not? “Who areyou speaking of?” I asked, not so much feigning innocence but giving her the opportunity to tell me whom she thought I looked like. At least that’s what I hoped she would do.
Chris’s regal posture stiffened considerably. Tension seemed to gather in her shoulders and arms. She clenched her sting-like-a-bee fists. “You’re here for Jazz.” A statement, not a question.
“I’m here for Kate.”
She didn’t raise her voice, but she inclined toward me with a venom-dipped whisper. “I know exactly who you are. You look just like your sister, Carly Brown. You’re Jazz’s woman, and you’re not here for my Katie. You’re at the wrong house, girlfriend. I suggest you leave now, or things may get ugly.”
Dideverybodyknow about Jazz and me? And when did I become his woman? Not to mention she just said I need to leave and could start reciting Mohammed Ali quotes any minute——and not about floating butterflies!
“This isn’t what you think, Chris. Yes, I want to help Jazz, but I don’t think he did it.”
“Why would you? You’re his woman.”
“There are others who don’t think he did it, either.”
I watched her reaction. One carefully sculpted brow subtly lifted. My theory had surprised her. “Keep talking,” she said. She unfurled her stingers.
“Kalaya Naylor met with me this morning. Do you know who she is?”
“She’s that reporter for theBeat. Kate met with her a few a times.”
“I’d gone to see Bobby Maguire, and Ms. Naylor wanted information. She approached me. She told me about Kate’s story. Did you know what she was trying to do?”
Chris sighed, pushed the mound of coats to the side, and lay against them. “Kate always had some crazy hustle going on. She drove me absolutely nuts with her schemes. I knew about it and told her she needed to drop it. She could upset a lot of people with that mess. She could make a lot of enemies.”
“Do you think she told anyone else she planned on getting Kalaya to do an exposé?”
“No. As indiscreet as Katie was, she wanted the story to be a surprise. She didn’t advertise it to the people she planned to call out.”
“And you’re sure of this.”
Chris nodded. “Reasonably.” She paused and fiddled with one of her dreadlocks.
“I have two thoughts about this story she wanted to do. One: maybe whoever hurt her didn’t want his wife or significant other to know what he’d done, even if he wasn’t a person who could sell newspapers. Two: Kalaya and I suspect she’d snagged someone who wasn’t a cop. Maybe a politician. Someone who’d want to keep a low profile to keep from hurting his career.”
“What makes you so sure it was a man?”
That question again? “Look, I’m not saying that I’m an expert profiler, but I am seeing patterns emerge.”
Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but I noticed. Was that a flicker of fear I saw? “What patterns?”
“She had something done to her that a woman wouldn’t do.” I watched her carefully for any sign of reaction.
An unmistakable flash of recognition showed in her eyes. “And what was that, Dr. Brown?”
Dr. Brown? The first time she’s used a name for me. She’s letting me know I’ve touched a nerve while acknowledging my expertise. Very interesting.
My mind whirred like a hard drive trying to process what was happening here. I went back to the scene. In my mind, I saw Carly pulling back the sheet on Kate’s body, a sheet that had no business being there if she’d been purposely posed. What murderer covers a body?
One that’s ashamed. One trying to hide his crime. Or…someone who feels empathy. Someone who loves her?
“Where were you on the night Kate was murdered?”
Chris stood. “You’d better go,” she said, obviously seething.
I stood. “Did you see her at the scene?”
“No.”Delayed timing. Stiff posture. No facial affect. She’s lying. “I was at my mama’s house.”
Now she’d mentioned an alibi, a bad one——who wouldn’t name her mother as an alibi?
I’d lost ground with her, and I couldn’t afford that. There was no way I’d build rapport now. I went for the gusto and let her know she was off the hook for now. “I believe the person responsible knew her intimately and yet had a profound dislike, even hatred, of her. Perhaps hated himself for being with her.”
“That sounds like me most days.”
More confessions. “Did Kate have some kind of diary, Chris?”
“You need to leave. I have a funeral tomorrow.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? Because I don’t. I don’t understand why I’m putting a beautiful, vibrant, thirty-year-old woman who had her whole life ahead of her in the ground tomorrow.”
“Are you getting grief counseling?”
“That’s for herreal family. All I get are the whispers. I don’t even get to sit with her family at the front of the church.”
“Talk to someone about your feelings, Chris. It’ll help you.”
“I just might do that. I might even need to talk to a professional. Do you understand what I’m saying, Dr. Brown?”
An invitation?
“May I speak with you after the funeral?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “I’ll see how I feel.”