Colored Heat-Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

                As I drove back into Ransom, I thought about what Horace had said and decided it was high time I took a trip down Maple Avenue, where Raymond and Lulabelle Mackenzie had lived.  I had noticed the cross street off of North 14th and turned when I hit the intersection, heading down toward the south side of town, where the blacks lived. 

                I didn’t know which house to look for, but I pulled up alongside some children playing ball in the street and asked, “Where’s the Mackenzie house?”  Several of the children giggled shyly, but a girl, about ten years old, stepped away from the group and pointed down the street.

                “’Bout two blocks down, mister, on the right.  Yeller house.”

                “Thanks,” I said, with a wave and a smile, and I drove the rest of the way.  I pulled up on the edge of the grass in front of the old yellow house and got out.  From the heat and the height of the sun, I estimated that it was nearing noon.  There was a group of children playing down the street and the front door was open, though the screen was shut.

                I walked up the path to the porch, past the parched yellow grass, mounted the steps, and rapped on the wooden frame of the screen door.

        “Who’s dere?” yelled a voice from inside.

        “My name’s Carey Lovett,” I hollered back.

                A middle-aged black woman in a printed housedress came to the door and looked through the screen at me.  She had on worn white slippers that accentuated the color of her feet.

                “What you want?” she asked me, squeezing a dirty rag in her hands.

                “I just wanted to talk to you about Raymond and Lulabelle,” I said.

                “Why?”

                “I was talking to Horace Monroe and he suggested I call on you.”

                She unlatched the screen and joined me on the porch, twisting the rag in her calloused hands.  “You with the police?” she asked.

                “No,” I replied.  “I’m visiting from out of town.”  I was trying to think of a reason why she should talk to me, and I was having trouble coming up with one.  “My cousins own the bakery,” I said, “and they said they haven’t seen Raymond in a while.  A better job opened up and they’re going to give it to someone else if Raymond doesn’t show up soon.  I said I’d see if he was interested.”

                “So how’d you come to talk to Horace Monroe?” she asked me, still somewhat skeptical.

                “My grandmother knows his mother, and she sent me to him, and he sent me to you.”

                “That’s sho’ a lot of trouble for someone you don’t know,” she said.

                I just looked at the front yard for a moment and didn’t say anything.  Then, “So, have you seen Raymond?”

She looked past me at some children as they kicked a ball by her yard.  The building across the way cast a quiet shadow halfway into the street.  “What’s that?” I asked.

                “Old ice house,” she told me.  “Hasn’t been used in years.  Kids used to play in there before they closed it up for good.”

                There were boards over the windows and the door.  I looked Mrs. Mackenzie in the eye and asked her again:

“Where is he?”

                She shook her head sadly.  “Don’t know.  I haven’t heard from that boy in weeks.  And my ‘belle dead, now, too.  Had her funeral two days ago.  You hear ‘bout that?  He didn’t even show.”  She was crying now.

                “Yeah, I heard about it.  The police find anything?”

                “You kiddin’?  They ain’t lookin’.  Police don’t give a damn about no black girl gettin’ killed, even when it happens in broad daylight on the main street of town.”

                I was about to agree with her but I stopped myself, remembering what Sheriff Martin had said.  “Did your daughter know where he was?  Before she died?”

                She wiped at her cheeks with the dirty rag.  “I don’t know.  She was just a kid, you know; didn’t talk to me a lot no more.”  She paused, looking again at the ice house.  “That’s funny . . .” she began.

                “What?” I prompted.

                “Something different over there.  Can’t be, though.  Hasn’t been anyone over there in years.”  She looked across the street for a moment longer, then shook her head as if to clear the thoughts from her mind.  “Is there anything else?” she asked me.

                “No, I guess not,” I said.  I thanked her and walked back out to my car.  She had gone back inside by the

time I reached the door.  I turned the key, glanced over at the ice house, and then thought nothing of it as I

drove toward town and the 7-11.  It was lunchtime, and I was ready to see Sally Ann.