I ALMOST PICKED UP the phone to call Laura, then realized how early it was. Laura liked to sleep until the very last minute, and hated being awakened for any reason.
In December, we had agreed not to see each other during the week unless it was a special occasion. Laura was running a major company, and I often worked odd hours. We tried to spend at least one weekend day together, but even that was hard. Laura had a conference all this weekend, and wasn’t even sure if she could get away for Jimmy’s birthday party.
Which I had forgotten until now. I suspected the
Grimshaws wouldn’t be in a party mood this weekend. Jimmy’s birthday was on the 15th, so we could postpone the party one week, and maybe not make it a surprise.
I went through my morning routine quietly so that I didn’t wake Jimmy. He still had fifteen minutes to sleep and considering how restless he had clearly been the night before, I figured he needed it.
For once, I had time to make us a real breakfast. I even had eggs and bacon and bread so that the idea of a real breakfast wasn’t a wish, it was something I could actually do.
Bacon was sizzling when Jimmy finally woke up. As he staggered into the kitchen, the television—which I had forgotten—sprang to life.
A familiar male voice intoned, “Good morning. This is WMAQ-TV Channel 5 NBC Television in Chicago…”
“Want me to shut it off?” Jimmy asked, rubbing his fist over his eyes.
I should have had the radio on, but we were already past the local on-the-hour news.
“No, that’s all right,” I said. “Let’s leave it on for now.”
I usually didn’t watch morning television, but I wanted to see if anyone had reported finding Voss’s body.
Jimmy meandered down the hall, his slippers scuffing against the floor. Like Laura, he woke up slowly. He would go through his routine relatively quickly though, especially since he knew bacon awaited him.
When WMAQ finished its sign-on, Sister Rosemary Connelly started a meditation. I almost shut the television off right there, but she was done before I could hurry across the room.
By the time the health report began, Jimmy was back, wearing a sweater Laura had given him for Christmas, new pants he had professed to hate when we bought them, and boots that the Grimshaws had given him. The clothes were much more suited toward fighting than the clothes he had worn the day before.
Which reminded me: I needed to check Jimmy’s clothes for bloodstains as well. At least I could wash his. I didn’t dare
keep mine in case evidence of my encounter with Voss was on them.
“You got back late,” Jimmy said.
“Marcus Welby was still on,” I said.
He shrugged. “We didn’t really watch nothing. Marvella wanted to talk.”
I handed him a plate loaded with scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. He grabbed a glass of already-poured orange juice and sat at the table.
“She said you told her about your mom.” I hoped that didn’t sound accusatory. I was about to apologize when Jimmy talked over me.
“I didn’t—it was an accident, Smoke. I forgot she didn’t know.”
“We can’t forget,” I said. “And now we have one more thing to add to our lists of don’t-talk-abouts. We can’t talk about exactly what happened to Lacey. We’re just going to tell people that she got hurt, okay?”
He hunched over his food. He had been shoveling it in, but he paused for a moment. I knew why. We had too many secrets and I hated adding another.
“Can I tell Laura?” he asked after a minute.
“I’m going to tell her,” I said. “You can talk to her about it though.”
“Okay.” He went back to eating and not looking at me.
“But you can’t talk about it with anyone else who doesn’t already know. Just Keith, his parents, and Marvella. Okay?”
“And you.”
“And me.” I brought my plate to the table. It felt weird to have the television on, almost like we had another guest in the room.
Jimmy finally looked at me. He had an orange juice mustache, which made me smile. The smile faded when he spoke.
“I gots worried. You didn’t come back. That guy, he hurt you?”
“No,” I said truthfully. “He didn’t lay a finger on me.”
“You found him, though, right?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Jimmy asked.
“No,” I said.
He nodded, as if he had expected that. “But he’s not gonna do nothing to nobody anymore, right?”
“He’s not going to come near you or Keith or Lacey or the school ever again,” I said.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded. “Good,” he said. “Thank you.”
He sounded so adult, as if Voss had been his responsibility. I was about to say so, when the television announced that the next program would be in Living Color.
I held up a finger, then leaned back in my chair.
“Good morning, Chicagoland,” one of the anchors said. I had no idea who he was. I never watched television this early. “More drama in the courtroom of Judge Julius Hoffman yesterday as Mayor Richard J. Daley testified in the Chicago Seven trial. The Chicago Teachers Union plans a strike if the city doesn’t meet their demands by next Wednesday, and below zero temperatures will continue throughout the week. We’ll have all this and more on Today in Chicago, right after these messages.”
I let out a small sigh. Usually the television news liked to start out with the discovery of a dead body, even on the South Side.
“You listening for something special?” Jimmy asked. He knew me too well.
I got up and turned the television off. Then I flicked the radio on as I returned to my chair.
“For the next few days,” I said, “I’ll be picking you up and driving you to the after-school program.”
“I thought you said the guy wasn’t going to hurt us none,” Jimmy said.
“He won’t,” I said. “I’m mostly doing this for Franklin.
He’ll take you to school this morning, by the way.”
Jimmy used the last of his toast to sop up the bacon grease. “He’s pretty upset, you know.”
“We all are,” I said.
Jimmy got up and put his plate in the sink. “When you got news about Lace, you’ll tell me, right?”
“I promise,” I said.
“Okay.” He slipped out of the kitchen and headed for the bedroom.
I had half-expected him to ask for the day off school, and then I remembered what Franklin had said that morning. Jimmy had decided to become a scholar, and that required a commitment I didn’t expect of a kid his age.
But then, I didn’t expect a lot of things from a kid his age, things he had already done.
He was less upset than I expected as well. But chaos and turmoil were constants in his life, more than they’d been in mine, and he seemed to deal with them.
I wished I could do the same.
I finished the last of my breakfast, and listened closely to the radio news. Black stations covered the Panther inquest, even thought WMAQ didn’t. But no mention of dead bodies anywhere.
I set my plate in the sink.
As soon as Jimmy left, my morning would start. And as usual, when I was on a case, it would start on the phone.
I leaned against the edge of the sink. A case. That was how I would look at this. I needed to figure out the answers to the two questions that had come up yesterday. I needed to know who the us was, and I needed to know if this had happened to other girls. I needed to know those answers fast.