Hanging on a String Read online

  “Don’t be fresh,” I said, but I continued laughing. “And it’s Miss Jasmine to you.”

  “Alright, Miss Jasmine. One day you’re gonna realize that I’m the one you should be with.”

  The sound of his laughter went a considerable way in lifting my spirits as I walked downstairs to the entrance of my apartment. There were some letters jammed in my mailbox, and I took them out with one hand while I opened the door to my apartment with the other. The late afternoon sun that streamed in my apartment also lifted my spirits. As Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like home. Even if home was an apartment that was too small to hold all of my furniture. Glancing quickly through the mail, I saw it was the regular assortment of bills and junk mail.

  The light on the answering machine on the kitchen counter was blinking. I walked over and hit the play button. There were three messages. The first was from my ex-husband. Jasmine, listen, call me back if you want to talk ... I tried to call you back at the office, and you didn’t answer. His voice trailed off, as if he wanted to say something else, but he wasn’t sure. I shouldn’t have called him, I thought as I erased his message. He sounded worried, and it wasn’t his job to worry about me, not anymore, just as it was no longer his job to try to rescue me. Whatever I was going through—whether it was regret, sadness, or plain old shock—I was going to have to handle it without Trevor.

  The next message was from my mother. Jasmine, I just heard about Chester Jackson, that fellow in your firm. Didn’t you date him before? ... I told you about that law firm ... working with those criminal clients ... It isn’t safe, Jasmine. Call me. I erased that message also. I wasn’t ready to deal with the force of nature that is my mother. I’d call her tomorrow.

  The final message was perplexing. It was from my sister. Hey, it’s me. I might need your help. Those were her only words, and she was crying. What was she crying about? I was worried. Unlike me, a person who was born emotional, Thea was as stoic as they came.

  I dialed my sister’s number at the Vineyard, but no one answered. My sister was the only person I knew that didn’t have an answering machine. After seven rings, I hung up the telephone. I felt fatigue overcome me, and I kicked off my shoes. Without bothering to take off my suit, I lay down on the couch, intending to get up in a few minutes. I didn’t wake up until several hours later, when I heard someone banging on my front door.

  I awoke, disoriented. Then, everything came back to me: Chester’s death, sleeping on the couch, unopened mail. The banging on my door continued, accompanied now by the high-pitched barking of what I was certain was a very little, very angry dog. After reluctantly getting up from the couch, I walked over to my front door and looked through the peephole. My sister stood there, holding something furry in her arm. I quickly opened the door. Something terrible must have happened; someone else must have died. It would take only death or severe bodily injury to get my sister to leave a vacation at her beloved Martha’s Vineyard.

  The first thing I saw was that she’d been crying. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. Then I saw that the furry thing in her arm was her dog, Magic, who barked mercilessly at me. Beside her, my nephew, Reese, stood, looking bewildered. I looked around for the fourth part of this picture, but her husband, Brooks, was nowhere in sight.

  “Thea, what’s wrong?” I asked.

  She started crying, and Magic continued barking. My nephew, Reese, took control of the situation. Taking Magic (who was now baring his little Yorkie teeth at me) from his mother’s arm, he said, “Hi, Auntie Jasmine. My mom left my dad, and she took me and Magic with her. Can I come in? I’m hungry.”

  After I fed my nephew leftover Chinese food and put him to bed, I learned what was going on with my sister.

  “Brooks is having an affair,” Thea wailed.

  She was sitting on the couch beside me, with Magic sleeping in her lap. She had spent the last two hours crying. I knew whatever had happened was bad, but I never suspected that Brooks would do anything so crazy. Brooks was the poster boy for faithful husbands. He had loved Thea since they were both teenagers. He still brought her flowers, even though they had been married for fourteen years; he went to church without being forced; coached my nephew’s baseball games; cooked dinners on weekends for his family; and from all appearances, seemed to worship the ground Thea walked on. If Brooks couldn’t be faithful ... I shook those disturbing thoughts right out of my head.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Thea nodded, misery written all over her face. “I found a letter from a woman,” she said. “It was in his jacket pocket.”

  “I wasn’t looking!” she added guiltily. “Well, alright, I was looking. Brooks has been acting so distant lately, really moody, and that isn’t like him. I’d suspected that something was going on—late-night business meetings, phone calls at all hours of the night. He was just acting really strange... . Jesse, that’s the woman’s name, wants him to leave me.”

  My shock moved on to anger quickly. How could Brooks do this to my sister? How could he do this to his son? I thought Chester was bad, but at least with Chester, you knew what you were getting. Brooks perpetrated the happy family man, and in reality, he was out there carrying on.

  “She’s an idiot,” I replied. “If he wasn’t faithful to you, what makes her think that he’ll be faithful to her?”

  “How could he do this?” Thea whispered. “How could he do this to his family?”

  “I’m sorry, Thea,” I said, hugging her tight. “I know that there’s nothing that I can say or do to make this better, but I am sorry.”

  It felt strange to be the one comforting Thea. Usually, it was the other way around. Even as a child, Thea was always protecting me. I remembered the times that she would wrap her arms around me when I was crying. During every major catastrophe in my life, including my divorce, the time I wrecked my car on I-95 on the way to Martha’s Vineyard, when Chester dumped me, when I thought I had breast cancer, she was a rock I would lean on.

  “Not half as sorry as me.” Thea kept crying.

  “How’s Reese taking all of this?” I asked. My nephew was close to his father, and I knew that whatever was going on with his parents was going to be tough for him.

  Thea stopped crying and wiped her swollen eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t think he really understands,” she said. “He just thinks I’m mad at Brooks, but he thinks I’ll get over it.”

  “Can you?” I asked. “I mean, do you think you can get over it?”

  Thea looked me straight in the eye. “Never. How could I ever trust him again?”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. “Maybe you guys should get some counseling.”

  “Counseling!” Thea’s voice was sharp. “I’m divorcing him. I’m getting a divorce.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. I supported any decision my sister made with respect to her private life, but I was certain she didn’t fully know what she was getting herself into. “Maybe you should take some time to think about this.”

  “Absolutely,” Thea replied. “Do you know any lawyers that do this kind of stuff?”

  “Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” I said. “You need some sleep. Are you going back to your apartment?”

  Thea lived in a four-bedroom apartment in a prewar building on Columbus Avenue. Complete with fireplaces, hardwood floors, soaring high ceilings, and heart-stopping views of Central Park.

  Thea stood up. “I’m not moving back there,” she said in a voice that was calmer than it had been since she’d first walked into my apartment. “I’m staying with you until I can find a place for me, Reese, and Magic.”

  “I’ll take the couch,” I said. “You and Reese can have the bed.”

  Thea gave me a quick hug. “I don’t know what I would do without you. Mom is going to kill me when she finds out. She hasn’t gotten over your divorce yet, and now here I come with more bad news.”

  “She’s a strong woman,” I replied. “She’ll be fine. Besides,
Dad will calm her down.”

  Still, I knew that my mother would be disappointed. Devastated would probably be a more accurate description of my mother’s mental state when she found out that yet another perfect marriage of one of her progeny was headed for divorce court. I was used to my mother’s disappointment. Thea, however, had always been the daughter both my parents pointed to when they were illustrating perfection, or something close to it. Pushing my parents’ disappointment out of my mind, I concentrated on finding something to cheer Thea up—although I knew as a battle-scarred veteran in a divorce war, sometimes there wasn’t that much cheering up in the world.

  I watched as Thea walked over to my bedroom door. What a day, I thought. Death and divorce.

  4

  The next morning I left the house before Thea and Reese were awake, and although Magic glared at me as I got myself together for my meeting with Marcus Claremont, he didn’t bark. I hoped we’d reached a truce, but with Magic, you couldn’t be certain. After counting five yellow cabs, which were already taken, I made my way down into the bowels of hell. Specifically, I took the subway during early morning rush hour.

  It was an unusually hot morning in late May, and things got even hotter on the Number 1 train. The air-conditioning system on my train had given up the ghost, and the tempers of the harried subway riders flared in response. I managed to fight my way to a seat at Forty-second Street, which was several stops from where I first got on.

  By the time I got off the train at Wall Street, my nerves were shot, and my black Chanel knockoff suit clung to the sheen of perspiration covering my entire body. I had a run in my stockings, and someone had stepped on my pumps and left a nice dark mark right by the toe. It was only eight o’clock. I was sure that things were not going to get better.

  I walked up the narrow subway stairs and gratefully embraced the bright sunlight. Although the thick, hot morning air promised extreme heat and humidity, I was glad to be aboveground and headed for a cool, air-conditioned place. Crossing the street quickly, I made my usual stop at Ricardo’s newsstand.

  “Hey, Ricardo. How’s it going?” I asked.

  Some people needed coffee to get their workday started. For me, it was my early morning conversation with Ricardo that usually provided the necessary jolt to propel me into my office, ready to face a day of frenzied litigation. Ricardo was good for gossip, compliments, and weather predictions.

  “I can’t complain,” he replied. “Have you seen the headlines today? That guy from your law firm is all over the paper.”

  Ricardo handed me one of the New York dailies. Chester’s face was plastered on the front page. He was wearing a broad smile, with his eyes squinted toward the camera. Splashed above his head was the bold headline LEGAL EAGLE’S WINGS CLIPPED. So much for decorum and dignity in death, I thought. The other paper wasn’t much better. Once again, Chester made the front page, but this one had a nicer picture of him. It was a full shot of Chester walking down the stairs of the federal courthouse, wearing a smile of victory. His coat was open, revealing a crisp suit. Nina and Wayne were walking a respectful distance behind him. The headline read PROMINENT NEW YORK ATTORNEY FOUND MURDERED.

  Ricardo shook his head. “Makes you want to get the hell out of New York,” he said. “May God rest his soul. He always let me keep the change.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was discuss Chester’s recent departure, and I skipped the rest of the conversation, which I knew would be about the murder. Thanking Ricardo for the newspapers, I made my way to the corner of Wall and William Street, along with all the other people who were rushing to desks, bosses, computers, deals, or whatever other business they had on Wall Street.

  B&J was located at 55½ Wall Street. A nondescript grey Wall Street building on the outside, it was a veritable palace of marble, glass, and chrome once one pushed through the revolving door. I said my usual good morning to the security guard in the lobby and walked toward the elevator bank. I rode up in silence to the ninth floor, thankful that there was no one from B&J riding with me. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I wanted to read the paper in silence, eat my yogurt at my desk, and think about how best to navigate the day.

  “Good morning, Jasmine,” Raquel, the receptionist, greeted me. B&J was one of the few New York firms that had a receptionist start work at seven in the morning. Raquel’s usually cheerful face was now worried. She had been with B&J almost from the firm’s inception, and although she tended to lose messages, talk too much, and get in people’s business, Raymond had a soft spot for her.

  “Isn’t it just terrible what happened to Chester!” she said, her voice lowered to a dramatic hush. Although it was just past eight o’clock, it wasn’t too early for her to gossip. Shaking her head, she continued, “And as fine as that man was! Who would want to kill him? I’m telling you, all these ugly folk running around New York, and God knows they are going to live forever. But, a good-looking, rich man like that, and someone has to go and kill him! It just ain’t fair.”

  For a moment I stared at her, wondering if I had truly heard what she’d said. Then I decided that sometimes it was best not to comment on other people’s foolish words. I said a quick good morning and kept stepping.

  “Oh hey, Jasmine,” Raquel called after me, almost as if as an afterthought, “there’s someone waiting for you. A cop. He’ll be back in a minute. I think he went to the bathroom. He was here yesterday, too, talking to some of the attorneys about Chester.”

  I didn’t know if it was just me, but the way Raquel was looking at me reminded me of when Inspector Columbo would casually ask a suspect, who you knew was the actual culprit, an innocent question—ready to catch the unsuspecting murderer in some sort of lie. Raquel raised an eyebrow, as if speculating on the exact nature of my whereabouts the previous day.

  “Send him down to my office,” I said.

  “Speaking of fine men, that detective sure is easy on the eyes.”

  Apparently, Chester’s murder had now taken a backseat to the apparently good-looking detective. Thanking her for the information, I walked down the hallway and headed to my office.

  B&J occupied one floor of 55½ Wall Street. It’s furnishings were more functional than fabulous. Raymond didn’t believe in squandering the firm’s resources on luxurious surroundings. I believed most of the furniture came from a secondhand office retail store. Still, the pieces of African art that adorned the walls gave the place a little bit of color, relieving the overwhelming grey—grey carpet, grey wallpaper, and grey chairs. I had once told Raymond the grey chairs did not look right with the brown desks. His response to me was that for the price he paid, the chairs would look right with just about any piece of furniture.

  As I walked down the hallway, I passed directly by Chester’s office. The door was open, and I glanced inside. I saw that his secretary, Irmalee Littlejohn, was in the office, sorting through some papers on his desk. Like me, she was dressed completely in black, except she was wearing a strand of pearls, which didn’t look like the Chinatown imitation pearls that I wore to court or on other special occasions. I knew that she would be devastated, and her stricken face confirmed my analysis.

  I called to her in greeting, and she looked up. Her eyes looked vacant, as if she did not recognize me at first. Irmalee was known as Chester’s bulldog. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for Chester. You had to go through Irmalee before you got to Chester. She was a tiny, attractive woman who would be much more attractive if she learned to smile and changed her hairstyle to something less severe than the tight chignon she always wore. She didn’t like me. I never really could figure out what her basis was for disliking me; I hardly knew the woman. Still, every time she spoke to me, which was thankfully not that often, she had a strange look on her face, as if she were eating something vaguely distasteful.

  I stopped for a moment to say something to her. I felt some expression of remorse was necessary. After all, she had worked closely with Chester, and according to usually well-infor
med office gossips, Irmalee lived to breathe the same air as Chester.

  “I’m sorry about Chester,” I said to her.

  She didn’t move for a moment. Instead, she just stood there, staring at me. Usually, she was just distant and rude. Today was an entirely different matter. She was openly hostile. When she finally spoke, her words were full of venom.

  “I’ll just bet you’re sorry,” she said, her voice low and mean.

  I stood at her doorway for a long, silent moment, thinking of an appropriate response. Finally, I realized that responding to her wouldn’t change anything. She’d never held a high opinion of me, and that wasn’t about to change. Any discussion would be a waste of time. I turned and kept walking.

  I approached my office and saw that the door was open and the lights were on, which was strange. I never left the firm without turning off my office lights and closing the door. Even the cleaning lady closed my door after she was finished cleaning my office, and as far as I could recall, she always turned off the lights. I took a look around, and everything seemed to be in order. Still, I knew that someone had been in my office.

  I walked across the small room, and sat down on the chair behind my desk. My office was not large by other senior associate standards, but it had a decent view of Wall Street. I managed to make the room reflect my personality, from the pictures of my family, to the framed photographs of Jamaica, my favorite place in the world, which hung on every wall, to my potted ferns, my signed portrait of Justice Thurgood Marshall, my college and law school diplomas, and my CD player, where I played my rap music and smooth jazz when I worked long into the night. I spent a lot of time in this room and I wanted to make my surroundings as comfortable as possible.

  “Miss Spain?”

  I looked over at the doorway to my office, from where that voice had come, and found myself looking at a man tall enough to play basketball in the NBA. In his hand was a small paper cup.

  “You must be Detective Claremont,” I replied.