Chapter Eleven #3
“What are you talking about?” Alba demanded.
She was standing in the doorway when they turned guiltily around, wearing a cheap, fashionable dress, her hair pinned more tidily, a bag in one hand and a notebook under her arm.
But she somehow looked even wilder than before, her eyes darting between them with more angry, jittery energy than her small frame looked like it could contain.
“Who was robbed? Who was murdered? What—”
“It’s okay,” Vivian said, trying to sound soothing, her hands held out as if she were trying to placate a feral cat in an alley. “Really, it’s nothing you need to worry about. You just finish packing and—”
“You shut your mouth,” Alba snapped. “You ain’t part of this family, so it’s got nothing to do with you.” She rounded on Bea. “What were you saying about Pearlie? Tell me. I deserve to know. Tell me right now, or I swear I will throw open that window and—”
“God almighty, Alba, leave her alone. And shut your own mouth for half a second so I can answer you,” Bea finally yelled.
The two of them stared at each other, both of them breathing as heavily as if they had just run up the building’s five rickety flights of stairs.
So much for keeping calm. Vivian didn’t even want to think about how Alba might have been planning to finish her threat.
Bea took a deep breath. Her voice was steady when she answered, but Vivian could see her hands shaking. “We found out some things about Pearlie,” she began slowly.
“Some of them I’m guessing you already know?” Vivian broke in. “The money, maybe?”
Alba stared at her for a moment. “What makes you think I know about any money?”
“Because you saw us at his place, even though you hightailed it out of there pretty damn quick. And as far as I know, you haven’t asked what we were doing there.
” Vivian glanced at Bea as she spoke; her friend, looking surprised, nodded slowly.
“So you know Pearlie was working for someone and got a hell of a payout from it, don’t you?
” A sudden thought occurred to her. “Is that why you were there? Were you coming to look for the money?”
The silence stretched through the room, answering the question even before Alba spoke.
“Yes,” she said at last. “Of course I knew about it. Pearlie and me, we told each other everything. He knew about the baby,” she said, a defensive note creeping into her voice.
Her free hand pressed instinctively against her lower belly, her fingers splayed wide as she took a deep breath that didn’t seem to do much to steady her.
“He was going to take care of us. But then…” She shuddered.
“The doctor said he killed himself, and the money wasn’t where he’d hidden it.
I thought maybe he spent it, or lost it, and couldn’t bear to tell me.
And I was so…” Her words came out in a sudden rush.
“I was so angry at him for leaving us like that.”
“He didn’t leave you,” Bea said. She was angry too, an icy anger that made Vivian feel chilled herself. “Someone sent him a bottle of brandy, with a note thanking him for a job well done. Vivian has a friend who knows a fella in the coroner’s office. They tested it, and it was full of arsenic.”
Alba’s bag and notebook fell to the ground, and she grabbed the doorframe with one hand to steady herself, her other hand tightening protectively across her belly once more. “But who—Why would someone—”
“For his money, looks like,” Vivian said quietly.
“Someone’s been threatening folks around here, sending them letters demanding whatever pretty or precious things they’ve got, and threatening them with poisoning if they don’t pay up.
And Pearlie got one of those letters, because someone must have talked and found out about the money. ”
“What?” Alba was shaking her head, her back pressed against the doorframe as though she were trying to run away without realizing it. “That doesn’t make any sense. How…” She trailed off, eyes wide and mouth trembling.
“Pearlie didn’t pay up,” Bea said, holding out the letter, relentless in the face of Alba’s denial. “We just found the letter in his things. He didn’t pay up, so they killed him and took the money.”
“And now word’s going to get around,” Vivian said, realization dawning. “That’s what they’re hoping for, I bet. Word gets around, and then people really will pay up, because they don’t want to die and have it just dismissed as a suicide or an accident—”
“And of course the police aren’t paying any attention, because that’s exactly what it looks like,” Bea agreed bitterly. “And we can’t even tell them, because who knows what kind of reach this group has and who they’ll come after next.”
“No. That doesn’t make sense.” Alba was still shaking her head. “That can’t be what happened, you don’t—”
The door to the apartment opened, and all three of them turned in panic.
But the woman who was standing there looked too old to be Alba’s mother, her white hair pulled into a soft, old-fashioned knot on top of her head and her face a spiderweb of cozy lines and folds.
She looked as kind and gentle as it was possible for an old woman to look as she stared at the three of them in surprise and confusion.
For a moment Vivian relaxed. But then the woman’s gaze moved from Vivian to Bea, her expression growing pinched and suspicious.
When she finally rounded on Alba, her eyes were hard and flinty, her mouth twisted as though she were tasting something disgusting.
An angry, disapproving torrent of words exploded out of her, her voice starting loud and getting louder.
Vivian flinched; even though she couldn’t understand, it wasn’t hard to figure out the meaning as the old woman gestured dismissively at Alba and pointed toward the door.
Alba spoke to her rapidly in the same language, but the old woman just got more insistent, pointing at Vivian and Bea as she shook her head.
“Me voy, Abuela, me voy,” Alba finally snapped.
Stalking to the table, she gathered all the papers into a pile and shoved them at Bea, who was left with her arms full, papers sticking out at all angles.
Vivian picked up the bag and notebook, planning to carry them for her; the notebook was actually a sketchbook, she saw, full of little drawings, birds and plants and buildings around the city.
But Alba snatched them both from her, glaring at Vivian as though daring her to argue.
Then, head held high, she stalked toward the door.
She didn’t look back, and Vivian and Bea were left scrambling to catch up.
Vivian looked back as she turned to close the door behind her.
The old woman, silent now, was watching her granddaughter go.
There were tears in her eyes. But when she saw Vivian looking at her, her expression grew flinty again.
She stepped forward just enough to yank the door out of Vivian’s hand and slam it closed.
Vivian stared at the door, her heart aching for Alba in ways that she could never say out loud.
Maybe Florence was right. Maybe it was better not to have any family at all.