Chapter Eleven #2
Mrs. Henry probably would have argued more, but she didn’t have the time.
A few minutes later and she was out the door in a whirlwind of tight hugs and tired eyes.
Her oldest son went with her. The laundry needed to be washed; once that was done, Bea and Vivian took over hanging it on the rack above the stove while Florence sat with the other two children to go over their schoolwork.
“Did you find a letter?” Vivian asked, lowering the rack and tying its pully rope in a knot to keep it in place while they worked.
Bea scowled. “Alba took his papers, fat lot of help she is. Said she had to look through them to find things she’d need for the baby.
And Mama said not to bother her. I could barely sleep last night, wondering what to think about this whole mess.
Do you think he got one? What else did Mr. Guzman say last night? ”
Vivian glanced at the three heads bent over the table and lowered her voice as much as she could. “Not much more,” she said, filling Bea in on Mr. Guzman’s admission that he had tried and failed to catch the letter writer.
“God almighty,” Bea swore quietly. “Do you think this means it wasn’t a mob angle at all?”
“It still could all be,” Vivian pointed out. “Making folks scared like that, so they hand over their valuables? Sure sounds like a smooth operation to me.”
“And it’s the sort of thing the police aren’t going to take notice of. Plenty of things in a normal home have arsenic in them, so if someone tried to report it—”
“Like that family did,” Vivian interrupted.
“Right. They tried to report it, but the police just think it’s lazy poor people who got careless and left out a can of some everyday thing.
” Bea shuddered. “Then a death like Pearlie’s, that looks like a suicide?
No one looked twice at that. But why the change?
” There was a pleading note in her voice, and her hands shook as she raised the rack once again so that the drying clothes hung over the stove.
“Everyone else, it was just threats. Why did Pearlie have to be the one to die?”
“If he got one of those letters—”
“And he must have, right?” Bea interrupted. “With that bottle being full of arsenic…”
“But everyone else did what the letters said,” Vivian said softly.
She didn’t look at Bea as she said it, wanting to give her friend as much space as she could to work through her messy feelings.
“And the money was gone, which means whoever was after it got it, either before or after he…” She didn’t want to finish that sentence.
Bea was silent for a long moment, her hands braced against the edge of the counter, her expression tight and angry. Vivian didn’t blame her. Sometimes, anger felt easier than sorrow.
“But here’s the question, right?” Bea said at last. “Pearlie must have thought that bottle was from whatever boss he was working for, whoever paid him that money. Are they the same person?”
“I don’t know.” Vivian grimaced. “Before we can figure anything out, we need to get those papers from Alba and see whether there actually is a letter there.”
Bea shook her head at the mention of Alba. “I still can’t believe Pearlie left behind a baby. Poor Alba. I don’t even like her, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, being left alone and pregnant like that.”
“She’s not alone,” Vivian whispered, reaching out to squeeze her friend’s hand. “She’s got all of you. And you’re going to love that baby to pieces, even if you never come around to liking her.”
After a moment, Bea squeezed back. “Let’s go see if she’s home.”
Alba, it turned out, lived in the same building as the Henrys, one floor down.
She opened the door quickly enough when they knocked, looking surprised.
Then her face drew into a scowl. She was a beautiful mess, her hair pinned haphazardly on top of her head, wearing only a wrapper and her step-in, as though she had been in the middle of getting dressed when they knocked.
“Here to gloat? Or planning to help me pack?”
Bea and Vivian glanced at each other in confusion.
“Pack?” Vivian asked. “Are you going somewhere?”
Alba laughed, bitter and a little wild. There were tear tracks on her cheeks. “They could probably hear the shouting all the way over in Brooklyn, I just assumed you heard it, too. My mother kicked me out. She wants me gone by the time she gets home.”
Vivian felt a wave of phantom nausea, and she swallowed rapidly.
It was every girl’s nightmare, of course, and the reason she never let herself get so friendly with any man she met when she was dancing or working.
It was bad enough that once women had babies, they never seemed to stop having them.
But being unmarried and with a kid on the way was a steep drop into a ditch that could be impossible to climb free of.
Especially if you had the sort of family that would kick you out when that happened.
“What did she say?” Bea asked softly.
“That she can’t keep such a sinful girl under her roof.
But I think she just doesn’t want another mouth to feed.
Especially since it’ll be hard for me to work right after the baby comes.
” There were tears in Alba’s eyes again, but she brushed them away and tossed her head, her pretty mouth trembling before she pressed it into a tight line. “I’ll manage. I don’t care.”
“Well, I care,” Bea said. “Fine model of Christian charity she is, stupid cow. You’re coming home with me.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Like hell I don’t,” Bea snapped.
Alba glared at her. “Don’t suddenly start pretending you like me now, Beatrice.”
“I’m not pretending. I still don’t like you.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll let someone throw you to the wolves like that.
We’re not letting anything happen to you or that baby, and you know my mother will say the same.
So go pack whatever you’ve got that matters to you.
Are those Pearlie’s letters?” Bea added, almost like it was an afterthought, as she pointed to a stack of papers on the table. Alba nodded. “I’ll gather those up.”
Alba lifted her chin, proud and angry, looking like she wanted to argue, but Bea cut her off impatiently. “Don’t be all high and mighty and stupid about it. Just say yes and get your things.”
They stared at each other. At last Alba nodded and, without another word, disappeared into the back room.
Vivian watched her go, remembering Dr. Harris’s instructions not to upset her.
The last thing they needed was Alba overhearing whatever they might say while going through Pearlie’s papers.
Luckily, Alba didn’t seem to be at all suspicious of what they were doing, and she yanked the door shut behind her.
Vivian turned back to the table. Beside her, Bea took a deep breath and pulled the stack of papers toward them.
There wasn’t much to them—jotted notes, a few letters from friends in different states all dated more than a year ago.
Bea put those aside for her mother, who had wanted to write to those folks and let them know about Pearlie’s death.
There was a handful of receipts from what might have been a pawnshop.
Bea stared at those for a long time. “He only had one suitcase when he arrived in the city,” she said quietly. “And he always insisted on paying for his room and board before he got a place of his own.” Sniffing a little, she pushed the receipts aside with a jerky motion.
They fluttered to the floor, and Vivian bent to gather them up, her chest feeling tight.
Pearlie had always been outgoing, friendly and playful and proud.
She wondered how many of his things he’d had to pawn to feel like he was pulling his weight before he got that job at the Nightingale.
And she wondered if he had been able to buy them back before his death.
Vivian was just shuffling the receipts into a pile when she heard Bea suck in a breath. She looked over and found her friend staring at a single sheet of paper.
Without a word, Bea slid the paper across the table, only her fingertips touching it, as though it would burn her or poison her if she held it too tightly. Just as gingerly, Vivian picked it up.
The letter was written in blocky, ugly capital letters.
Unlike the tidy little note that had come with the brandy bottle, this one looked as though the person writing it had been barely literate.
Or, maybe, they’d been trying to disguise their handwriting.
It was just as Mr. Guzman had described: a demand so simple it almost seemed like a joke, telling Pearlie to put the one thousand dollars he had into a bag and leave it in a certain spot at exactly one in the morning.
The date it gave for the drop-off was two weeks before.
Don’t stick around or try to see who’s coming to get it, the letter finished.
You won’t like the consequences if you do.
Someone trying to disguise their writing, then, Vivian thought. Her mind latched onto the details of the note to avoid thinking what they really meant. No one who was barely literate wrote out words like consequences.
“One thousand dollars?” Bea breathed. Her hands were trembling, but Vivian couldn’t tell whether it was from shock or sorrow or anger.
A mess of all that and more, most likely.
“How the hell did he get that? And what the hell are we supposed to do with this? And why did they just rob everyone else, but my uncle was the one who they killed? Why’d they have to decide to change everything then? Why him?”
Her voice was rising as she spoke. Vivian tried to gesture for her to be quieter, but it was too late.