Part 5 (1/2)

My heart pounded. I held my breath.

Was he still here?

”I'm warning you, I've got a gun and I'm licensed to use it!” I made my voice sound tough, threatening, but I had no gun. It was locked in a safe in my bedroom. I was scared, and the tremble in my voice gave me away because I wanted to turn tail and run.

But was I imagining things?

Could Jamal have left the chair pushed out, the tablecloth crooked, the doormat out of place. I had been in a rush to buy the car this morning, maybe I simply hadn't noticed.

Trust your instincts.

That had been drilled into me so often when I'd been a cop, I said it in my sleep. had been drilled into me so often when I'd been a cop, I said it in my sleep.

Always trust your gut.

My place had been violated. I was sure of it now, but by whom? And what was he looking for? Had he known I wouldn't be home? Or had he been looking for me? Was he still here?

I stepped farther into the kitchen, my ears alert for any sound, my eyes searching for any sudden movement. I grabbed a butcher knife out of the knife holder next to the blue gla.s.s containers, stepped carefully, the knife tight in my hand, ready to use it if I needed to.

Silence.

Slowly, I climbed the stairs, listening for sounds, glancing behind me, all my senses sharpened. The smell was different. It was an odor from my past, heavy like perfume, but I wasn't sure where and when I had smelled it before. I stood there trying to identify it, but I couldn't remember. I entered my bedroom, scared as h.e.l.l, and went to the locked chest that held my gun. My fingers shook as I turned the combination, opened the chest, picked up the gun, and clicked off the safety. Then I searched my house-Jamal's room, closets, under the beds, bas.e.m.e.nt-my .38 in one hand, kitchen knife in the other.

I found nothing and after a while I felt foolish for having been so afraid. I placed the knife back in the holder, locked the gun back up, then collapsed on the couch, my body tense. I thought of calling Jake, then dismissed the thought. The telephone rang, the jarring sound of it startling me. It rang four times before I answered it.

”Tamara?”

”Who is this?”

”Larry Walton. I said I'd call you later, remember?”

”Yeah.”

”I was wondering if you're free tomorrow. For brunch.”

”Yeah.”

”How about Jay's in Newark, is that okay? Let's say around one?”

”Yeah,” I said, and hung up the phone, my fingers as tight around it as they'd been around the gun.

I'm not sure what made me pick up the pencil lying next to the phone and write the letters I'd seen in Celia's book on a sc.r.a.p of paper. I don't know why the letters came out in the girlish script that had been in her book, as if her hand were guiding mine.

A. Was it for Annette or Aaron? Was it for Annette or Aaron?

B. Brent? Beanie? Both? Brent? Beanie? Both?

C. D. Clayton Donovan? Clayton Donovan?

Or was C for Chessman?

CHAPTER SEVEN.

I asked Larry Walton about asked Larry Walton about Celia Jones the moment we sat down to brunch. Celia Jones the moment we sat down to brunch.

”Do you mind if we order first?” he asked with the charming grin that marked everything he said. He was a good-looking man, that was for sure, and the teenage waitress acknowledged it with a nause-atingly sweet smile as she set our table. He ordered brunch like he was serious about food, which is always a good sign in a man. Jay's was jammed, like it is every Sunday morning. I usually throw caution to the wind when I come here, wolfing down calories and carbs like they won't show up on my hips, but even the fried fish and biscuits didn't tempt me this morning.

As Larry Walton sipped his orange juice, I gulped down the first of three cups of coffee lined up in a row in front of me. It was tacky as h.e.l.l to order three cups at once, but I needed the jolt and didn't feel like waiting for refills. Last night had been another rough one. I spent the first half of the night tossing, turning, and waiting for somebody to try to break into my place again, and the second half trying to figure out what Larry was going to say to me this morning.

”You sure you don't want anything else?” he asked as the waitress set down his order of eggs, biscuits, fried porgies, and grits. The smell of fried fish has always had the power to break me, but professional integrity beat out greediness this morning. It was better not to let him treat me to brunch until I knew what role he played in Celia's drama, and I didn't want to pay for it myself; brunch at Jay's was not in my budget.

”No, I'm fine,” I said.

He grinned, dimple showing. ”That's what you told me yesterday. When aren't you 'fine,' Tamara Hayle? Is there ever a time when you aren't self-sufficient and self-reliant?”

”I'm fine then, and I'm fine now.” I hadn't meant to sound so snappish, but it came out that way, and I didn't bother to apologize. Larry shrugged as if it didn't matter and bit into a biscuit. Neither of us spoke until he'd finished eating, and I asked the question that had been bothering me since yesterday afternoon.

”So why were you at both of their funerals?”

He took a sip of coffee, placed the cup carefully down on the table, and looked me in the eye.

”You mean Celia and her son?”

”Why else are we here?”

”Because I knew Celia.”

”In the biblical sense?” I asked, hurled into nastiness by three cups of coffee on an empty stomach. ”So just how close were you?”

”Close enough so I cared about her and Cecil. Close enough so that if I had ten minutes alone with the son of a b.i.t.c.h who killed her, they'd put me in jail for life,” he said in a way that told me more than he knew. ”I was at loose ends for a while. Marva, my wife, and I were still together, but I was very lonely, and being lonely in a bad marriage is the worst kind of loneliness. I was looking for someone to help me through a bad time. I needed some fun, and my relations.h.i.+p with Celia supplied both.”

”So basically, you just f.u.c.ked her,” I said, using the ”F” word to both shock and bluntly define what I suspected was at the core of their relations.h.i.+p. It had the desired effect: He blushed and dropped his gaze for a moment before returning his eyes to mine.

”I suppose that some people might put it like that, but Celia was very vulnerable and kinder than anybody I've met in a very long time,” he said, implying with a slightly raised eyebrow that she had it on me in the kindness department. ”Celia Jones was a decent woman who never got a break, and during the time I was with her, I treated her like a queen because beneath all that tough bravado, that's what she was.

”I wasn't in love with Celia, and she certainly wasn't in love with me, she had too many other men in her life for that, and she made no secret of it, but I respected and liked her, and I hope she felt the same about me. f.u.c.king her, as you put it, was a very small part of our relations.h.i.+p.”

It was my turn to blush. For a minute, I thought he was going to stand up and stomp out of the place. Instead, he politely asked if I'd like some more coffee, and ordered another cup for himself, keeping me on tenterhooks as he added cream and sugar and leisurely stirred it.

”So do you still play chess?” I asked, sick of the strained silence and trying for neutral ground.

He was surprised by the question. ”Yes, once a chess player always a chess player. It's a game that influences your life.”

I couldn't think of a follow-up to that so I asked the obvious. ”Why did you invite me to brunch?”

”When I saw you yesterday, I remembered you'd been Celia's friend in high school. I figured you'd cut her out of your life like everybody else, so I didn't bring her name up, but when you came to her son's funeral I knew that at least you'd cared enough about the two of them to show up. I asked you out because I wanted to find out if you had any idea who could have killed her or her son. Will you tell me what you know?”