Hanging on a String Read online

  “Why?” he said, exasperated at my questions, my refusal to leave him to his misery, and countless other faults, I’m sure. “Why can’t you leave it alone?”

  “Because I could be next.” It sounded dramatic even to me, but it did the trick. I finally got Raymond’s full attention.

  I told him about the note Detective Claremont found with my name written on it, and I told him about Lamarr’s warning. “I need to know anything you know about what happened to either Lamarr, Irmalee, or Chester.”

  “I don’t know anything about what happened to Irmalee or Lamarr, but I suspect that whatever happened to them is tied directly to Chester,” said Raymond.

  “What do you know about what happened to Chester?”

  “I know that the last time I saw him, he was afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” replied Raymond. “He was talking crazy. Talking about ghosts coming back to haunt him. I got the impression that there were things in his past that were resurfacing.”

  From the pained look in Raymond’s eyes, I knew he understood Chester’s plight.

  “Did he tell you what these things were?”

  “No, but he kept repeating, ‘What’s done in the dark will come to light.’ Back then, I thought he was talking about my situation, but now I’m not sure. I’m not sure about anything.”

  “What else did you talk about?” I asked, eager to get as much information as I could.

  “I told him to stay out of my business or I would kill him.”

  “Did you?” I asked. “Did you kill him?”

  “No, I didn’t kill him, Jasmine. Though God knows that at the time I’m sure I wanted to. I had gone to talk to him about Vincent’s claims that he took his money. He denied it. Said he was being set up. But he promised me that if I took any action against him, he would tell the firm who I really was.”

  “Do you know anything else? Anything else that would point me to whoever did these killings?”

  “No. But if Lamarr told you to be careful, I would listen to that advice. He knew a lot about Chester. And so did Irmalee. Irmalee helped Chester with all his dirty work until she realized that she would never be Mrs. Chester Jackson. Listen, Jasmine, two days before Lamarr died, he told me that if anything happened to him, not to believe it was an accident. Lamarr knew something was going to happen. I guess he thought he could protect himself.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” I asked, annoyed that here I was, running all over New York, trying to prove that Lamarr was murdered, and Raymond had information all along, but he had not shared this information with me, one of Lamarr’s closest friends.

  “Forgive me, Jasmine,” he said. “I was trying to save my own behind.”

  When I got back to my office, I called Marcus Claremont. He sounded surprised and a little pleased to hear from me. I told him what Raymond had told me about Chester being afraid and Lamarr’s concern for his own safety. Although I’d debated briefly about giving this information to Marcus, it wasn’t privileged information, and with the murders that had recently affected B&J employees, I thought that someone in law enforcement should get this information. I was feeling more than a little spooked by everything, and enough people had warned me to be careful. I thought that it was time to heed their advice.

  “Jasmine, I hope that you’re not getting too involved in this investigation,” said Marcus.

  “What do you mean?” I asked innocently.

  “I mean that you should let the police do the investigating. Things could get dangerous.”

  I bristled. “I’m not a fool, Detective Claremont.”

  “It’s Marcus, and I didn’t say you’re a fool. You’re a loyal friend who probably wants to find out what happened to Lamarr, but listen, when you get information, just pass it my way, and I’ll take care of it.”

  Not likely, I thought, but I kept my thoughts to myself. “I’ll be careful,” I said.

  “I’m not feeling all that reassured by that statement,” said Marcus.

  “Well, it’s the best I can do right about now.”

  “Promise me, you won’t do anything foolish.”

  “That depends on what you mean by foolish,” I replied.

  I heard him groan over the telephone. “My grandmother warned me about women lawyers!”

  15

  My cousin Evie owed me a favor. In fact, she owed me several favors. I was her personal lawyer, and I hadn’t charged her for any of the years of legal advice, and so I did not hesitate to call her. Evie was a sergeant with the New York City Police Department. I knew I needed some help, and I knew from Marcus’s warning to me, he wasn’t going to give me the kind of help that I needed.

  “Okay, so what do you need today?” Evie asked me after she answered her telephone.

  I explained to her that I thought that Chester’s murder was somehow related to Lamarr’s death.

  “I need your help,” I said. “Whatever information you can give me about Chester Jackson’s murder—maybe that can help me.”

  “You’re lucky we’re related,” Evie replied. “What sort of information are you looking for?”

  “Anything and everything.”

  Evie laughed. “Well, why not ask for the moon? Hold on. I’ll be back.”

  Seven minutes later (I timed her), she got back on the telephone. “Sorry. It’s crazy here today,” said Evie, although she didn’t sound sorry. She sounded harried. I’d often wondered why Evie went into law enforcement. She had grown up a card-carrying vegetarian pacifist. It was still a shock to me whenever I saw her with a gun. “I was born to do this,” she’d told our surprised family after disclosing her career choice. She’d been right. She was one of the finest of New York’s finest. Her various accolades and citations attested to that.

  “Okay, I’ve got the police report ... your boss paid him a visit around seven that evening ... left about forty minutes later ... according to the chauffeur. The chauffeur took the deceased to dinner at around nine to some restaurant. . . Patsy’s over on Fifty-second and First, I think. He ate alone, according to the chauffeur. Left the restaurant around ten fifteen. Also alone. Chauffeur took him home. Said good night. The chauffeur went home ... that’s the last person to see him alive ... other than the murderer, of course. Wife was out of town ... butler had night off ... all very convenient, if you ask me.”

  “What’s convenient?” I asked. Evie had lapsed into copspeak.

  “Well, this guy Chester sounds like he was very rarely alone ... And during the time that he was alone, he gets offed ... I mean, murdered. Whoever did this knew enough about Chester to know the best time to do the deed.”

  “What else do you have?” I asked.

  “No sign of forced entry, and the chauffeur got the feeling that Mr. Jackson was expecting somebody. He left the light on downstairs. They found him clothed only in his trousers ... Apparently, he was in the bedroom when all this went down. Hmm, now this is interesting ... The toxologist found some barbituates in his blood.”

  “He was drugged?”

  “Looks like it,” Evie replied. “Okay, what else do we have here? Wife found him the next morning ... looks like she has an airtight alibi ... She’d just come back from Chicago ... got in around seven ... got home around nine. Rush hour is a bitch! ... I don’t see anything else here... .”

  “Yeah, but ...”

  “Look, Jasmine, I’d love to help you out some more, but I gotta go. I’m due downtown for a court hearing... .”

  “Thanks, Evie.” I knew she was busy, but she had come through. The information about being drugged was interesting.

  “Later,” she said, hanging up the telephone before I had a chance to respond.

  After I spoke with Evie, I took a cab to 160-5 East Sixty-seventh Street. The home of the late Chester Jackson. I was going to pay the widow, Sherrie, a little visit. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get past the front door, but I was working on it during my ta
xi ride from the precinct to High Society Hill, what Lamarr had christened Chester’s tony neighborhood.

  Chester’s block was bordered by Park Avenue on one end and Lexington Avenue at the other. You could just smell the money as you walked down the short block, lined on both sides with brownstones and gaslights. The trees were full with thick green leaves, and the abundance of window boxes, filled with colorful, but always tasteful, flowers, only added to my sense that I was walking in a gold-framed painting that should be hanging in a museum somewhere.

  I watched as nannies pushed strollers carefully down the street. Wives, girlfriends, all looking good, even the ones in casual running gear, made their way to and from these expensive homes. There was even a dog walker walking four white poodles, whose dog collars probably cost more than my monthly rent, thrown into the mix. Everyone on the street seemed to belong there. They walked with an air of entitlement. To live here meant they have either worked very hard, or someone in their past history worked very hard, or they got lucky and made a lot of money, or they married someone with a lot of money.

  The taxi stopped in front of a brownstone in the middle of the block. Chester had bought the brownstone a few months before our relationship ended, and I was intimately aware of all of its features. The ballroom on the third floor. The floor-to-ceiling windows that faced out on a small terraced garden, complete with antique statues. The curved stairway that led from the living room to the second floor. The marble floors, which dated back to the original owners in the late 1800s. The six bedrooms, three fireplaces, and antique wood-burning stove in the kitchen. I had encouraged him to purchase the brownstone, with the hope that one day it would be our home. Although I was strictly an uptown girl, as in Harlem uptown, I was not averse to moving to Park Avenue. Three months after Chester moved in, I got my eviction notice on the fax machine.

  I paid the cabdriver and walked quickly up the front stairs, which led to the first floor. The windows on the second floor were open, and white lace curtains danced in the warm breeze, which signaled that June’s warm days were soon to give way to the stifling hot days of New York in July. I reached the front door and was momentarily taken aback by the two brass knockers shaped like lions’ heads. What the hell was I doing here? I asked myself again. There was no way on God’s green earth that Sherrie would talk to me. You’ve got nothing to lose, said the voice of reason that sometimes occupies my head. The voice, a far more cynical one, that occupied the other part of my head asked, What about your pride? This was the woman who came between you and Chester. This was the woman who had had a gleam of triumph when she snagged away from me what we both thought at one time was a good catch. But she’d come to learn what I’d learned shortly after our breakup: Chester was the booby prize. Still, even though she no longer viewed me as a threat, I’m sure she had no love for me, and this had to be just about the worst time to talk to the bereaved Mrs. Jackson, or Mrs. Jackson I, as Dahlia referred to her.

  Shut up, I said to the dueling voices and grabbed a brass handle that protruded from one of the lions’ mouths and rapped on the door loud enough to rouse the dead, or anybody inside the brownstone. Almost immediately, as if on cue, the door opened just enough to reveal an elderly black gentleman dressed in a dark suit. He looked as if he was pushing eighty, and I thought to myself that he should be somewhere collecting Social Security and not answering someone’s door.

  “May I help you?” he asked in a neutral tone. His head was cocked slightly to the side, and his eyes raked over me, with an open curiosity.

  “My name is Jasmine Spain,” I said, my back stiffening at his dismissive stare. “I’m a colleague of Mr. Jackson. I’m here to pay my condolences to Mrs. Jackson.”

  At the mention of Chester’s name, the old man nodded his head. “I see,” he replied, not moving from the doorway. “That’s quite nice of you, ma’am. However, Mrs. Jackson is indisposed.”

  Another person, one with tact perhaps, would have thanked the butler and turned around and let the matter drop. But I was not that person. I knew Sherrie was not somewhere inside her beautiful house, crying about the demise of her husband. After everything he’d done to her, I couldn’t say that I blamed her. I knew also as time passed, any hope of getting information from Sherrie would greatly decrease. Sherrie’s relatives lived in Illinois, and I suspected that she would be paying them a visit as soon as she got her affairs in order. New York was in many ways like a small town when it came to gossip among the black bourgeoisie, a group in which Sherrie’s membership was assured, and I knew Sherrie would have to lay low for a while to get away from the tongues, malicious or sympathetic. My guess was that she was going to hotfoot it out of town as soon as she could.

  “Please tell Mrs. Jackson that I’m here and I need to speak with her,” I said, staring right back at the butler. “It’s very important.”

  The butler’s left eyebrow raised slightly as he repeated, “Ma’am, Mrs. Jackson is indisposed. She is not taking any visitors.”

  “Look,” I replied, “I won’t take up too much of Mrs. Jackson’s time. Just tell her I’m here. If she doesn’t want to see me, I’ll leave.”

  “Let her in, Simon.”

  I heard Sherrie’s voice somewhere behind the door.

  Simon, the butler, opened the door wider to reveal Sherrie standing off to the side. She had obviously heard our exchange. Simon looked over at Sherrie, concern shadowing his otherwise placid expression.

  “Are you quite sure, ma’am?” he asked Sherrie.

  Sherrie nodded her head and looked at me. “I’m quite sure that I can handle this.”

  Simon turned and walked away, without further comment. From his tight, pursed lips, I could tell that he did not approve of my presence at the home, but he held his peace.

  “Come in,” said Sherrie. Her voice was dull, and her eyes expressionless. No anger. No sorrow. No curiosity. Nothing. She was dressed in a long purple dress. In her hand she held a glass filled with a clear liquid, which smelled like rum. I noticed that there was no ice in the glass.

  I followed Sherrie through the foyer, with its marble walls and floor, into a sitting room. The sitting room had red wallpaper with flecks of gold, which glinted from the light of the ornate chandelier hanging overhead. There was a red velvet couch, with two red and gold chairs with velvet cushions placed in front of the couch. There was a deep golden-colored rug in the middle of the floor. The place looked like a bordello.

  Sherrie sat on the couch and sipped her drink. Her eyes never left my face. I sat in one of the chairs facing the couch.

  Not one to mince words, Sherrie asked, “Now what the hell do you want?”

  I used to think that Sherrie was a beautiful woman. Tall and slender, like a golden willow, with dark eyes and jet-black hair, which provided a contrast to her complexion. Her thick hair, which she usually wore in loose curls tumbling around her shoulders, was now twisted and pinned at the top of her head. Her eyes looked tired, and there were fine lines of strain around her eyes and her lips.

  “I need some information about Chester’s death,” I replied.

  “What sort of information?” she asked as she continued sipping her drink.

  “I need to find out if you know who might have killed Chester.”

  Her laugh was immediate. Hard and brittle, like the woman in question. “A lot of folks wanted that bastard dead. Hell, I’m one of them.”

  This provided me with an opening for one of the questions I wanted to ask Sherrie. “Did you kill him?”

  Sherrie stopped laughing.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t kill him. But I wish I knew who did. I’d give him a medal.”

  So much for the grieving widow. “Any ideas on who the medal’s recipient might be?”

  I watched as Sherrie put her index finger in her glass and stirred her drink slowly. She stared at me for a few seconds before she spoke. “I don’t like you, Jasmine Spain. I don’t like women like you. Women who think they have all the answer
s.”

  “If I had all the answers, Sherrie, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Yeah, well, welcome to the real world, Miss Spain.”

  I didn’t know whether to attribute the hot spite in her words to her feelings about me in general, the death of her husband, or the drink she was sipping on.

  “You were the person who found Chester?” There was no delicate way to ask that question, and since she already seemed pissed at me, I figured I’d go for it.

  She nodded her head. “Yes, indeed. I was the one who found him.”

  She sounded as if she were bragging about a latest accomplishment.

  “I was in Chicago for a few days, I needed to get away. I caught the red-eye. Found my husband had gotten his just desserts. I’m only sorry that I couldn’t congratulate whoever had the balls to do what should have been done a long time ago. By the way, I used the same limo driver I always use, and I already gave his name to the police. He picked me up at LaGuardia and dropped me here, in case you want to check.”

  She was cold-blooded. I can’t say that I was shocked. Chester had humiliated a long line of folk, including me, and it wasn’t hard to understand the desire for revenge.

  “I know you aren’t crying too many tears about Chester,” said Sherrie. “He screwed you over but good.”

  “Just like he screwed you over, Sherrie.” I knew that I was being petty, but it was all I could do not to add, “Right back at ya, babe.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I let you in here, Jasmine Spain. You’ve been through the same stuff I’m going through. I guess you could call us sisters, now that we’ve both been burned by the same fire.”

  We’ve both been burned, I thought, but I would be damned if I allowed myself to become scarred and jaded like the woman sitting on the couch in front of me. Plus, I didn’t subscribe to that old saying “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  “What are you up to, Jasmine Spain?” asked Sherrie, interrupting my thoughts. “Why the hell would you care what happened to Chester? Especially after what he did to you? You planning on playing detective in addition to playing lawyer?”