Authors: Angela Henry
“Did you hear me? Where’s Milton?” he asked again, louder this time. I cried even harder, lapsing into hiccupping, heaving sobs.
“Here I am, bitch!” came a familiar voice from outside the car. The passenger door on the driver’s side flew open and I watched in the rearview mirror as Timmy Milton dragged Vaughn Castle ass backwards out of the car and proceeded to administer a beat-down worthy of Mike Tyson in his prime.
Timmy had caught Vaughn off guard and had him on the ground so quickly that all he could do, in the face of all the kicks and blows Timmy was raining down on him, was to flail pitifully at Timmy’s legs with the Swiss Army knife, which he’d somehow managed to hold on to. I jumped out of the car and stomped on his wrist, causing him to let go of the knife, and kicked it underneath my car. Timmy aimed a punch at Vaughn’s face. Vaughn managed to move his head, but still caught the brunt of the blow on his temple. He was out cold.
Timmy and I stood staring at each other. I was still sniveling. Timmy was panting hard like he’d just run a marathon. He came over and put his arm around me.
“You okay, Kendra?”
“I’ll be all right,” I said, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “How in the world did you know where to find me?”
“I been followin’ this fool. Saw him sneak into the back a your ride. I didn’t want to cause no scene in that ritzy neighborhood and have them callin’ the police so I followed y’all out here. Woulda been here sooner but that brokedown whip I was drivin’ stalled out at the stop sign back there. I had to leave it parked in the street. I ran all the way down here.”
“Why were you following Vaughn?” I asked, looking down at the man in question and suppressing an urge to kick him.
“Better to be the hunter than the hunted. Know what I’m sayin’?” he asked, then, sensing my confusion, explained himself. “I figured if I was followin’ him, I’d know what his ass was up to. I was goin’ crazy sittin’ around waitin’ for his punk ass to find me. I wasn’t feelin’ that at all. So, after he attacked you, I started tailin’ him —”
“Wait a minute,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him. “How did you know he attacked me?” Timmy stared at me with an annoying smirk but didn’t answer. Vaughn started moaning and we both stared at him, panic-stricken.
“We need to tie his ass up before he comes to. You wait here,” Timmy said, searching Vaughn’s pockets and pulling out a set of car keys. “I’ll be right back,” he said, after seeing the look of fear on my face.
Timmy ran off in the direction he’d come from, leaving me alone with the unconscious Vaughn. I got on my hands and knees and retrieved the knife from under my car, just in case, and picked up my car keys, which Vaughn had dropped when he was pulled from the car. I spotted an orange plastic jump rope in the weeds by my car and grabbed it. I started to tie Vaughn’s hands with it but was too afraid to touch him. I waited for Timmy. Minutes later he returned, driving Vaughn’s Escalade.
“Where’d you get his car?”
“He parked it a block over from where you was parked. Help me turn this mutha over.” We turned Vaughn over and Timmy pressed his knee in Vaughn’s back, in case he woke up, while I used the jump rope to tie his hands tightly behind his back. My hands were shaking and sweating badly, which was a good thing, since I hoped it would keep my prints from sticking to the plastic rope. I then helped Timmy lift Vaughn into the back of his Escalade. No easy feat since he was deadweight. I spied something blue on the floor in the back seat. It was the blue scarf that he’d used to strangle Aretha Marshall. I got a chill as I realized he must have been watching me that night and seen me drop it in the street. I could feel myself getting angry just thinking about Aretha’s blue lips and swollen face. I balled up the scarf and stuffed it in Vaughn’s mouth.
Timmy locked the car and wiped off the keys and everything else we’d touched with his shirtsleeve. He wrapped the keys up in a dirty discarded diaper found lying not far from the spot where I’d found the jump rope. He lobbed the diaper like a grenade deep into the woods. He took the Swiss Army knife and sunk it to the hilt several times in each one of the Escalade’s tires. When Vaughn woke up, he’d be in for one hell of a surprise. Timmy and I got into my car and drove away, leaving a still unconscious Vaughn locked in his undriveable car. It would probably be a while before anyone would find him, giving me plenty of time to report both of his attacks on me to the police.
I drove Timmy back to the car he’d been driving, a rusted-out orange Chevy pickup truck that I’d never seen before, which was indeed parked right in the middle of the street with a couple of angry motorists gathered around it. One had pulled out a cell phone and was no doubt about to call the police. Timmy jumped out to assure them that the car would be moved quickly. I had to give him a jump to get it started, after which Timmy proceeded to drive off without even looking back. I called out after him but he didn’t stop, and left me standing in the middle of the street in a cloud of exhaust. Damn! I didn’t even get a chance to tell him about Inez being alive. Feeling pissed off, frustrated, and quite dirty, I quickly hopped into my own car and took off.
I headed for the police station, which took me straight past Holy Cross Church. The parking lot was empty of cars except for a gold Mercedes Benz and a brown Lincoln Town Car. I looked at my watch and realized Morris Rollins was probably at Holy Cross meeting with Bonita at that very moment. I wondered what was going on and if it had anything to do with the fact that Rollins was hiding Inez. I’d overheard Rollins saying something about someone knowing something. I wondered whom he and Bonita had been talking about and what this person might know. My curiosity got the best of me — again. Vowing that this would be my last act of snooping before going to Harmon and Mercer, I parked my car across the street from the church and got out. I pulled my coat tightly around me, crossed the street, and headed across the parking lot. I hoped no one would notice me and get suspicious, but since I was dirty, wearing wrinkled clothes, had matted hair, and a knotted up forehead, I figured anyone who did see me would just think I was in need of Jesus and therefore in the right place.
The door to the church was unlocked, but the atrium was dark and empty. Upon entering, I saw a glow of light underneath Rollins’s closed office door and crept up to it. I pressed my ear to the door but heard nothing. I heard voices coming from behind me in the direction of the church’s basement steps. It was Rollins and Bonita, and they were arguing. Their voices were getting closer. I quickly ducked inside Rollins’s office.
“Well, how much does he know, Bonita?” I heard an exasperated Rollins ask his sister-in-law.
“He knows Shanda might not be his daughter,” I heard Bonita say in a trembling, tear-filled voice. “It’s like I told you. The hospital didn’t have enough of Shanda’s blood type on hand. So they were going to have me, or Rondell, donate blood for her transfusion. I wasn’t a match so Rondell said he’d donate his blood and…and…” Bonita was unable to finish her sentence and dissolved into a fit of loud, snot-filled sobbing.
“I understand, Bonita. It’s okay. I know you had to tell him. We should have told him the truth years ago. Does he know I might be Shanda’s father?” Rollins asked gently.
“Yes, I tried to explain but he…he called me a…a…whore and just took off. I haven’t seen him since. Oh, Morris, what are we gonna do?”
“What we aren’t going to do is get hysterical. I’ll try and find Rondell. Don’t you need to get back to the hospital to check on Shanda?”
“Yes,” Bonita said, then blew her nose loudly before continuing. “They said I could take her home this evening if she was feeling better. Oh, my God! What am I gonna tell her? She’ll be asking for her daddy. What do I tell her?”
“Just tell her he’ll be home soon. You can do this, Bonita. Now, can I count on you to pull yourself together?”
I peeked through the doorjamb and saw Bonita nod mutely.
“Promise me you’ll find him, Morris. We have to make him understand.”
“I will, sweetheart. Now, you go and take care of Shanda.” I watched as Rollins ushered Bonita out the door before turning and walking towards his office.
Crap!
Here I go again
, I thought as I flattened myself against the wall behind the door. But, to my great relief, Rollins just stuck his hand inside the door, flipped off the light, and pulled the office door shut. I heard his retreating footsteps as he left the church. I breathed out a sigh of relief. Then I realized that while I probably wasn’t locked in Rollins’s office, I was most likely locked inside the church. I waited a few minutes, then left the office to check the church’s front doors to find that they were indeed locked. I frantically fumbled around the dark church hoping to find a way out, with no luck. All the doors and windows were locked tight. Resigned to my fate, I reluctantly returned to Rollins’s office.
I sat at his desk, resisting the urge to turn the lights on as they might attract unwanted attention. It was only then that I was able to give some thought to what I’d overheard. Morris Rollins might be Shanda’s real father. I thought hard about Shanda. Did she resemble Rollins in any way? As far as I could tell, Shanda looked more like Bonita than either Rollins or Rondell. I wondered how she’d take the news. Would it matter at all to her that Inez might not be her cousin but her half sister? And, how would Inez feel knowing that her father had cheated on her mother with her uncle’s wife? Boy, Rollins sure had a mess on his hands. But somehow I knew he’d come out unscathed, smelling like a rose, and possibly with a new daughter to boot. And Bonita? I tried hard to imagine prim and proper Bonita Kidd and Morris Rollins in the throes of passion. I could feel an attack of the giggles welling up in me as an image of a naked Bonita popped into my head — hair loose and flowing, mouth open, head flung back — straddling Rollins and riding him hard, like he was the odds-on favorite at the Kentucky Derby who’d fallen into last place.
Then an image of a heartbroken Rondell Kidd popped into my head. Horrible fashion sense aside, he seemed like such a nice man. I remembered the pride in his face when he talked about Shanda’s beautiful singing voice and how terrified he’d been when she’d been rushed to the hospital. How could he possibly handle the fact that his only child might not be his and — to make matters even worse — she might have been fathered by his own brother, a brother who was rumored to already have more children than he was supposed to? If Shanda hadn’t tried to commit suicide, the truth may never have come out. Would Morris and Bonita ever have confessed? My guess was no. I was happy this wasn’t my problem. I had my own problems, the most pressing one being how I was going to get out of the locked church. I supposed if I wanted out badly enough I could call someone. But there was no excuse that I could come up with that would explain my being here in the first place. How in the world could I explain being locked inside Holy Cross Church to Mama? She’d immediately think I’d been involved in some kind of tryst with the reverend. Although, technically speaking, he was now a widower twice over.
I rooted through Rollins’s desk in hopes of finding a set of keys to the front door or any door, for that matter. No such luck. But I did, however, find a big bag of miniature Hershey bars in his bottom drawer. I hungrily tore open the bag and began eating. I hadn’t had anything to eat since my hot fudge cake earlier in the day. Could a woman live on chocolate alone? I was about to find out. Since I had time to kill, I snooped through the rest of the desk drawers.
I didn’t find anything of much interest at first, just several boxes of Kleenex, a bottle of antacids, an assortment of pens, pencils, and pads of notebook paper, telephone books, a nail clipper, a multitude of file folders, and a bottle of cologne. I was half expecting to find condoms and porn magazines, but not at all surprised when I didn’t. I halfheartedly flipped through the folders but most of them just contained receipts, order forms, applications and lots of bills for work done or about to be done on Holy Cross. The pile of bills I’d flipped through on his desk before was nothing compared to what was filed in the desk drawer. Bills for work done on the roof, plumbing bills, repairs on the building’s foundation, landscaping bills, and so forth and so on. It appeared that Holy Cross’s upkeep was costing a small fortune. No wonder Rollins asked so much of his congregation. He’d told me every dime went back into the church, but apparently donations didn’t cover everything. How could the reverend live so lavishly, and support a much younger wife with expensive tastes, when Holy Cross was such a money pit? Unless Reverend Rollins was dipping into the donations to support his lush lifestyle and leaving Holy Cross’s upkeep to suffer. Was that the reason he had been so hot to cash in on an insurance policy on someone who wasn’t even dead? Did he need the money to live on? Whatever his reason, he was risking jail time for fraud if I was right.
I refiled the folders in the correct order and tried closing the drawer. But it wouldn’t close all the way. Something was stuck in back of the drawer, preventing it from closing all the way. I had to remove the entire drawer to reach it. It was another unmarked file folder. In the folder I found copies of three huge life insurance checks. All the checks were made out to Morris Rollins. Each check was attached to a copy of a death certificate. I could feel my stomach start to knot up as I flipped through the file. The names on the death certificates were Richard Charles Maynard, Gina Camille Parks, and Joseph Robert Porter. For some reason, Richard Maynard’s name was familiar to me. Morris Rollins was listed as the father on all three death certificates. Wasn’t Vaughn Castle’s dead friend named Ricky Maynard? But something else about that name tugged at my memory. I saw that the mother’s name on the certificate was listed as Vera Maynard. Then it hit me: Vera Maynard was Mattie Lyons’s unfortunate niece who’d had an affair with Rollins years ago. She was the girl Mama always talked about. Richard must have been the result of that affair and he was also apparently Vaughn Castle’s dead friend Ricky. I looked at his death certificate and saw the cause of death was listed as vehicular homicide. Morris Rollins had been awarded a life insurance check for one hundred thousand dollars when Ricky met his unfortunate demise at the tender age of twenty-five. I looked at the other certificates.