Chapter Twenty-Seven
Home, of course, was my grandmother’s apartment, and the street was quiet there, too. All of the old folks in the neighborhood were inside for the night, some with their front doors open to let the evening air in, some shut tight with their air conditioners on full blast.
I went inside and washed up and went to bed. And I dreamed. I dreamed I was at a Fourth of July parade at home in New Jersey, standing on the edge of the street in my hometown and watching the cars and bands and people go by. Then I realized that I was standing there with the Macaboos, and Aunt Millie was waving a tiny American flag and singing “Stars and Stripes Forever” in a shaky voice. Lester Jr. kept telling her to be quiet, but she kept on regardless.
As the parade passed by, a group of teenaged black girls in elaborate blue and white marching band uniforms approached and stopped in front of me. They began clapping and stomping their feet in time to a song they chanted. Aunt Millie stopped waving her flag and Lester Jr. stared ahead with no expression on his face. Then there was the sound of a firecracker going off and one of the marchers slumped to the ground. I tried to walk toward her but my feet wouldn’t move. They were like heavy weights at the bottom of my legs and I couldn’t lift them off the ground.
Suddenly, Lester Macaboo III was there in front of me, his face wild. “Stay out of it, Carey!” he told me. The marchers moved on, leaving the girl behind in the middle of the street. No one was paying any attention and I couldn’t move. There was smoke all around and I started to choke. I felt cold. Then I woke up.
I had forgotten to turn the air conditioner down for the night, and the apartment was like an icebox. I got up and opened the front and back doors and turned off the cooler and tried to forget about my dream. After a while I went back to sleep.
The next morning was Saturday, and it dawned sunny and warm. I woke about nine a.m., showered and dressed, and went to the hospital. My grandmother was dressed and waiting for me. Dr. Barnaby was in the hall and I spoke to him briefly.
“Mary’s as strong as a horse and just as stubborn,” he told me. “She insists on going home and I can’t argue with her. Keep an eye on her for me, will you?” I said I would.
I helped my grandmother down the hall to the elevator, then down to the ground floor and out to the front. I brought my car around and picked her up. We drove straight home and I put the air conditioner back on and closed the apartment up at her request. She changed into her house dress and slippers, put away the portable oxygen tank she’d come home with, and hooked herself back up to the big oxygen tank in her bedroom.
“Come and talk to me, baby,” she said. I sat in the rocking chair next to her bed and listened to her talk about the hospital and how sick the other patients were. We talked about the heat a little, and then I decided to show her what I’d found the night before at the Crane house.
“I did a little investigating last night,” I began.
“What kind of investigatin’?” she asked.
“Well, you recall how I told you about Peter Crane dying?”
“Mm hm?”
“I went to his house and checked it out.”
She laughed suddenly and happily, coughing but laughing through the cough. “You are a real pistol,” she told me. “You went in that old nigger’s house by yourself last night?”
“I sure did,” I said, smiling.
“Why in the hell would you want to do that?”
“I’m looking for the missing link,” I said. “Something to tie everything together and help me figure out what’s going on around here.”
“Did you find anything?”
“I think so.” I got up and went into the living room. I had put the photo and slip of paper in her desk drawer, under her own address book. I took them out and brought them back into her room and sat down. “I found these in his wife’s old room,” I said.
This time she was able to suppress her laughter, but just barely. “Let me see.”
I showed her the photograph first. “I’ll be damned,” she said. “Lester.”
“It’s him, isn’t it,” I said.
“Sho’ is,” she said. “Long time ago. He was a fine lookin’ man in his day. Damn shame what happened to that family,” she said, and smiled to herself.
“Who’s the other man?” I asked her.
“Don’t know. Looks familiar, tho’. Can’t place it right now. I can call around and probably find out,” she said.
“No. Please don’t. I don’t want anyone to know what I’ve got here, at least not yet. Do you know the building behind them?”
“That’s the old bakery building. Right there’s where I saw Peter Crane that time, when I was a girl.” She pointed to a spot behind the black man.
“I also found this, but I don’t know what it means.” I handed her the slip of paper.
“F.T.,” she said to herself. “4-7012. Well, that’s an old phone number.”
“With only five digits?”
“Sho’, hon’, that’s how it used to be in Ransom before it got too big. Everyone had the same exchange so all you had to do was dial the last five numbers. Want to try them?”
I hesitated, and she picked up her phone and dialed the numbers. “No good,” she said. “This number’s been out of service for awhile, I guess.”
“How can we find out who it belonged to?” I asked her.
“Let me call Peg at the phone company. Maybe she can find out.” She picked up the phone again and dialed. “Peg? Mary Lovett. How you been? Good. Me? I’m holdin’ on, but just barely. Just came home from the hospital again. Mm hm. My grandson here is takin’ good care of me.” I smiled at her.
“Listen, Peg, I need a favor. Can you look up an old number for me? Yeah, it’s 4-7012. Okay. Call me back.” She hung up the phone and said, “She’ll find it for me. Peg’s good. She’s quiet, too. She won’t tell anyone what’s going on. Now, Carey, let’s get serious for a minute. Tell me what’s going on here. I don’t want you gettin’ into any trouble.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “Sheriff Martin knows I’m looking at this. I’ve talked to him about it and he’s glad for the help.”
“You’re not telling me he told you to break into Peter Crane’s house last night, are you?” She looked at me sternly.
I hung my head. “No, he doesn’t know about that. But he knows just about everything else. And I thought it was important.”
“Well, just be careful, okay hon’?”
“I will,” I said, and hugged her. “Now get some rest.”
I went into the living room and she put the TV on next to her bed. In a few minutes she was asleep, happy to be home and back in her own bed. Half an hour later the phone rang. She was a light sleeper and answered it on the third ring.
“Hi, Peg. What’d you find out?” I went into the room and sat down next to her bed. “Okay, thanks. I’ll talk to you soon. Keep quiet about this, now, hear? Bye.”
She hung up the phone. “I guess you won’t be too surprised to hear who had that phone number ten years ago,” she told me.
“Who was it?”
“Lester Macaboo himself. I should have recognized it; I dialed it myself enough times. But I guess I forget things now and then. That explains the initials, too.”
“How?”
“F.T.,” she said. “That’s Francis Tompkins.”
“Francis? The house boy?” I was surprised.
“None other,” she said. “I wonder what Hattie Crane had his number for.” She looked puzzled and was then lost in thought for a minute. I sat back in the rocking chair and thought.
“This is all starting to add up,” I said, finally, “but I know there’s something I’m forgetting.”
“I don’t like this,” she said. “I don’t like any of this one bit.” We looked at each other in silence for
quite some time.
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