When Did We Lose Harriet? Part 21

Jake and Glenna both needed to rest after lunch, but I didn't dare lie down. I feared my dreams. This might be a good time to see Kateisha, and maybe Josheba would like to go with me. "Want to meet me at the center and see what she has to say?" I asked.

"I'll do better than that," Josheba offered. "I'll come get you."

"Is Morse home yet?" I asked as I climbed in the car.

"Not yet, but he's promised to get back by Sat.u.r.day. My club is having a big dance, and I don't want to miss it."

Two blocks from the center we stopped for a light and saw Twaniba standing listlessly on the corner. Josheba rolled down her window. "Do you want a ride to the center? We're going over to see if Kateisha is there."

"Kateisha's home with toothache," Twaniba murmured, scarcely moving her mouth.

"Do you know where she lives?"

"Yessum." Twaniba gave lifeless but accurate instructions.

Kateisha lived in one of the most dilapidated houses I'd ever visited, a dingy white bungalow with a sagging porch, faded brown trim, chipped cement steps, and a bare dirt yard. Not one flower bloomed around the spindly, untrimmed spirea that cowered in front.

Kateisha herself was sitting on the edge of the splintery porch, picking her hair. She hadn't made the spout yet today, so it all stood straight off her head like she'd stuck her finger in a socket. One cheek was plumper than usual.

"I hear you've got a toothache," I greeted her, concerned. "Have you seen a dentist?"

"Don't need no dentist. It'll get better. Always does. What you all doing here?" She tried to sound casual, but I could tell she was both pleased and embarra.s.sed.

"Looking for you." Josheba sat on the rough porch boards with her feet on a cracked concrete step. In honor of my new skirt, I decided to stand.

"How'd you know how to find me? Did Screwy Lewey give out my address?"

"No, it was Twaniba." I swatted away a curious fly.

"Good old Cowface." Kateisha pulled a weed that grew up beside the porch and used it to tickle her plump, bare knee. She looked at Josheba from the corner of her eyes. "You still seeing Mr. Henly?" she asked suspiciously.

Josheba laughed, but seemed nervous. "I'm not seeing him, girl. I'm engaged to a man named Morse."

Kateisha glowered. "You like him, though. I can tell." She threw the weed into the dirt. "Could be dangerous. Harriet used to like him. Now she's missing."

I looked at her sharply. "Do you think that's why she's missing?"

Her big shoulders heaved in a shrug. "Don't ast me. All I know is, Harriet got somethin' on Screwy Lewey, and two weeks later she up *n' disappeared."

"We think we've found her," Josheba said flatly.

Kateisha's eyes widened. "Where? What she been doing all this time?"

"If it's really her, she's dead, honey." I gave her as many details as I thought wise.

Kateisha sucked in her breath and winced as the air hit her sore tooth, but she didn't mention the pain. She sat silent for some time, then demanded, "When, you say?"

"June tenth, in Oakwood Cemetery."

"What'd I tell you?" Kateisha muttered in a low voice. "She got something on Mr. Henly, and somebody offed her."

"What do you mean she *got something on him'?" I asked. "What was it?"

Josheba clasped her hands so tightly in her lap, the skin was almost splitting.

"I don't know," Kateisha shook her head. "But *bout two weeks before school let out, Harriet say she found out somethin' about Mr. Henly he didn't never want n.o.body to know. She say she could get offed for knowin', but he was payin' her-"

Josheba yanked a weed that was growing right in the step, and twisted it like she'd like to wring Kateisha's neck. "That's not the way it was, Kateisha. I know what Harriet knew about Mr. Henly. It wasn't anything to get killed for knowing."

"I know she hit on him for money not to tell," Kateisha insisted, rolling her eyes.

Josheba rolled her eyes right back. "So she couldn't have been afraid of him, then, could she?"

"Maybe not." Kateisha picked her hair like she had nothing better to do. In a minute she muttered, "Harriet had something on her uncle, too, but I don't know what. Bragged all the time he pay her ten dollars a week not to tell her auntie." She wiggled around and stuck the pick in her back pocket. "Could be he offed her *stead of paying up one week." She thought it over and rejected her own suggestion. "Nanh-he wasn't payin' that much."

I shared her doubts. "How about Ricky Dodd-do you know him?" I asked.

"Sure. He ain't much, but he was sorta like a brother to Harriet, you know? *Cept'n more so. I don't worry over Dre like Harriet did Ricky. Dre can take care of himself-and if he don't, it's no skin off me. Harriet worried all the time over Ricky-but she didn't take nothin' off him. Said if he gave her trouble, she'd see he got busted."

"For what?" I wondered if Kateisha knew about Ricky's recent jail stint.

"Oh," Kateisha waved casually, "you know. Drugs, that sort of stuff. He's been in twict already." She sounded like that was a normal part of life. Maybe in hers, it was.

"Did you know that Harriet took a gun away from him?"

"Course I knew. She stashed it in a drawer, but I told her she better put it in a safer place. Anybody coulda found it there-that cousin of hers, her auntie, her uncle, anybody. Even her auntie's maid. Folks don't look too kindly on kids with guns." You'd have thought she was the world's foremost authority on that subject.

"So what did Harriet do with the gun?"

"I dunno. Said she'd get rid of it, but I forgot to ast if she did." Kateisha found a scab on her knee and started to pick at it.

"Did Harriet ever talk about money?"

Kateisha hesitated, then nodded. "Her granny lef' her some. I don't know how much, but Harriet was alius talking about what she was going to do when she turned twenty-one." Her voice grew mournful. "Now she won't get to do it."

"I want to try and find out who did this to Harriet, Kateisha," I told her, "but I need your help. Harriet's aunt said she left their house on Sat.u.r.day, June first, but she wasn't found dead until the tenth. Do you have any idea where she was staying?"

"I know where she was staying up to Tuesday," she boasted-adding, "but I can't tell."

"Why not?"

"I promised Harriet."

"Harriet's dead, Kateisha," Josheba reminded her.

"She might still be listening," Kateisha said mulishly. "I don't want her hanging around my bed at night."

She's hanging around mine instead, I thought. Instead of saying it, I played a hunch. "Let me guess, and you just nod or shake your head. Was she staying here?"

Kateisha hesitated, then nodded.

"Did somebody-your brother, maybe-take her back to her house for clothes a few times?"

She nodded, stopped, shook her head, stopped, started to nod again, then sighed. "I didn't make no promises about that. Dre and Z-dog, his homie, borrored my uncle's car *n took her back onct, Sunday mornin'."

"How long did she stay here?"

Kateisha started to balk, then relented. "Sat.u.r.day *til Tuesday. Mama didn't like it much-she don't trust white people-but she say I can sleep on the floor and give Harriet my bed if I want to. When Harriet left without saying thank-you, Mama's so mad she say she never take in a white chile again. We didn't know she was...pa.s.sed on."

"She left on Tuesday?" I wanted to hear her version of that day. "Tell me about Tuesday. What did Harriet do?"

Kateisha's tongue darted out of her mouth and moved back and forth while she thought. "She met Miz Scott...that's her trusty...and then she went down to the center to keep the telephone some. I had to go to clinic, so she say she see me down to the club."

"Did you see her?"

Kateisha nodded. "Sitting at the desk like G.o.d A'mighty, taking down messages and actin' like she own the place."

"Where was Mr. Henly?" Josheba asked.

"Runnin' things and givin' Biscuit instructions about what to do all day."

"Then what happened?"

The girl would not be hurried. "Nothing. She got a few calls and wrote down messages, then Mr. Crane-hey, that's your bro!"

I nodded.

"Well, he come, but she still hung out in the lounge, readin'. I was mad, *cause I was wantin' her to come back to the gym. Mr. Henly was formin' a volleyball team that afternoon, and we needed practice bad. Nex' thing I know, Harriet's lef *thout so much as a word. Just walked out, and never come back." She sounded as glum as she had the day we met.

"And you had no idea why?" I pressed her.

Kateisha grunted. "Know what Twaniba say, if you can believe her. She say Harriet bragged she was goin' to meet her mama."

"Her mama?" I echoed. "Are you sure?"

Kateisha shrugged. "That's what Twaniba say. Say her mama call and say, *Come meet me.' I thought that's funny, *cause Harriet didn't have no mother. *You mean her auntie,' I told Twaniba. But old Twaniba got stubborn and say Harriet say she goin' meet her mama." Kateisha's lip trembled. "Looks like she met her Maker, instead."

That kept us all quiet for a minute.

Finally, I had to ask, "Did Twaniba say anything else Harriet did?"

Kateisha thought, then her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Harriet made Twaniba take your bro on a tour of the center when his time was almost up, whiles she kept the phones. Twaniba was real put out, *cause she don't like to stir if she don't have to."

"Who else was in the room at the time?"

"n.o.body. Soon's they got back, Harriet left." Kateisha heaved a huge sigh. "Here I been thinkin' she's with her mama or somethin', and I been put out with her for leavin' without sayin' good-bye, *n'..." Her lip quivered, and huge tears rolled down her cheeks. "If I'da known, I'da gone with her." No friend could say more than that.

I bent down and laid one hand lightly on her broad heaving shoulder. Josheba patted her knee. While she sobbed, I considered what she had told us.

This was the first we had heard of a call. After the call, Harriet borrowed bus fare to go "meet my mother." Did Myrna Lawson indeed call, then lie in wait to kill her? Did someone know Myrna had called, and kill Harriet before she got to her mother? Or did someone else call and pretend to be Myrna?

Whoever called, Harriet had not trusted her completely. Before she left, she got everyone else out of the room and carefully hid a book containing three thousand dollars.

At last Kateisha raised a tear-stained face. "I tole you all I know. What you know?"

"Not much more than you do," I confessed. "We know her aunt found clothes missing two or three times, like Harriet had come by for them, but n.o.body remembers seeing her after Tuesday. We know Harriet planned to go to an acting school in Atlanta-"

"For real?" Kateisha sniffed and wiped her nose on one bare forearm.

"For real. She and Mrs. Scott took the money out of the bank that morning to pay the tuition. But she never left Montgomery."

Kateisha didn't want to dwell on that. "What else you all know?"

"We know Harriet's mother did come to town, but not until this week, and she was shot the day after she arrived."

"Her, too?" Kateisha was dumbfounded. "Who offed her?"

"I...Ricky was seen running away from the house, and they found his girlfriend's gun nearby. It had killed her, so they arrested him-"

"Harriet took that gun," Kateisha reminded me. "She'd never of given it back. Never! She wouldn't shoot her mama, either. Not if she knew it was her."

"Well, Ricky was arrested for the shooting, but somebody bailed him out. Now he's disappeared. The police don't know where he is."

Kateisha tossed her head proudly. "I know where he is. Leastways, I know where he's gonna be Sunday mornin'."

Josheba clearly didn't believe her. "How do you know that?"

Kateisha stuck her nose in the air. "*Cause he and Dre do some business together."

"What kind of business?" I asked before I thought.

She waved one hand. "You don't want to know. But Ricky was over to our house last night, *n' I heard him and Dre makin' plans." She cast a furtive look around. When she spoke, her voice was low. "They havin' a meetin' down to the teen center six-thirty Sunday mornin'."

"I thought it was closed until one on Sundays," Josheba objected.

"It is. That's why they meetin' then."

"How will they get in?" I asked.

"Biscuit's made a key. Said it was the safest place in town at that hour. Mr. Henly's not an early riser. What's the matter with you?" she suddenly asked someone behind me.

I turned and saw a young man racing up the cracked walk. "Gotta meet somebody, and I forgot somethin.'" He hurried breathlessly inside, slamming the torn screened door behind him.

"That's my brother Dre," Kateisha said with offhand pride.

I had seen him clearly. A little older than Kateisha and far thinner, he wore running shoes and a gold watch that both looked far too expensive to belong to this house. But that wasn't what made me take a couple of steps after him. It was his face. He was the boy who spoke to me in the library, the day Jake's car was stolen.

Josheba stood and started purposefully down the walk. "We got to be goin', Kateisha. See you later."