I gave a quick glimpse at Rudy and Kelly. “I’ll be the new general counsel.”
Bradford raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I hope I can count on you to assist me in my investigation. You might be interested to know the coroner ruled Mr. Sayles’s death a homicide. Apparently someone killed him and staged his death to look like a suicide.”
Someone killed him.
My knees buckled slightly. The detective’s words repeated over and over again like an earworm winding its way through my head. The coroner ruled Mr. Sayles’s death a homicide. And right there, in front of the First Presbyterian Church of Buckhead, I sensed a shift. Like the first small tug at a loose thread that unravels a tapestry. A troubling bend in the arc of my life. And all I wanted to do was leave, to quietly run away from everything like I did before.
Chillicothe, Georgia, August 1979
The day had lumbered, laden with the sweltering summer heat. The humidity hung thickly and sealed the entire town in a blanket of sweat and listlessness. People sat out on their porches, fanning themselves, shooing flies, and talking about how long it had been since the last rainfall. By eight o’clock at night, the temperature had barely dipped below ninety.
I stood on Martha’s front porch peeking through a hole in the cheap screen door, silently praying that Miss Vera was right about this entire plan. This was the last piece of the puzzle to put into place before I headed to Virginia. I could see Martha sprawled across that lumpy brown sofa in the living room. She wore a pair of dirty seersucker shorts and a blue Happy Days T-shirt, her dingy bra strap peeking from under the sleeve. Vera’s large frame hovered over her like a human dirigible. The two women were both Black, but they couldn’t have been more different: Vera, large and formidable; Martha, small and weak.
“I told you get outta my house,” Martha said, slurring her words. On nights like this one, when her “demons,” as she called them, chased after her, her conversation was slower and rambling. “I don’t want to hear nothin’ you got to say.”
“You gonna listen to me tonight.”
Martha didn’t respond. Neither of them spoke and I held my breath, waiting. The cicadas chirped noisily underneath the warped planks of the porch, highlighting the unbearable silence between the two women. I was terrified that Vera might give up and change her mind about talking to her.
“Martha, you listening?”
Martha blinked a few times as she righted herself on the sofa. She used to make me and Sam walk around without making a sound on nights like this because she said any little noise made her head hurt.
Vera was far from being quiet. “Are you listening to me, Martha?”
She frowned up at Vera for a second then rubbed her forehead. “I need a cigarette. Sammy? SAMMY, bring me my cigarettes!”
“He ain’t here,” Vera said softly. “He’s back at my place. Ellie told me you not gonna let her go off to that private school. Why would you block this girl’s chances for making something outta herself?”
“No,” Martha said with a scowl. It seemed like Martha was always mad at Miss Vera since Sam and I started spending so much time at Miss Vera’s house. But things were always so much better there. “I said no. Them my kids. Who you think you is coming in my house and telling me what to do with my kids?” Martha stood from the sofa on wobbly legs. She might have fallen face first into the floor if Vera’s girth hadn’t broken her fall. “I ain’t got no money for something like that. She can stay here and go to school. What, she too good for the schools here in town?”
I rested my head against the doorframe, fighting back tears. They went silent again. I peeped back inside the screen. It was hard to see what she was doing at first. Then, I realized Martha was digging through the sofa cushion for a cigarette.
“Listen here, Martha, Ellie is smart. That school will pay for her books and food and everything. Now, me and Birdie and some other folks, we took up some money. We got enough to get her up there to the school.”
Martha perked up. “What money?”
“We took up a collection. The church helped out, too. Now, you her momma and it ain’t right for me to just send her off without getting your blessing. But if I have to, I will. So you all good with this, right?”
Martha peered toward the screen door and spotted me staring inside. “Ellice Renee Littlejohn.”—her tone was bitter and fermented on her tongue—“Get in here!”