“You were.”
“He was a blacksmith.”
“The best around these parts. Never wanted for work.” She sighed again, said, “I need to take a nap.”
“I know the feeling,” I said, putting the car in gear.
We rolled back toward Loupe Street and the bungalow with the car windows down. Along the way, we passed Rashawn Turnbull’s house. There was a gleaming, cream-colored Cadillac Escalade parked out front.
I spotted three people on the porch. A tall man with iron-gray hair wearing a blue suit and a blond, sharply dressed woman in her fifties were engaged in a furious argument with a sandy-haired younger woman in cutoff shorts and a red T-shirt.
The younger woman sounded drunk when she shrieked: “That’s bullshit! You never gave a shit about him alive! Leave my house and stay the hell out of my life!”
Chapter
34
Bree and I waited almost an hour, had lunch, and made sure that Nana Mama had gone to take her nap before returning to Rashawn Turnbull’s house.
“So that was definitely Cece?” Bree asked when I pulled in where the Escalade had been parked.
“Sure fit the description,” I said, getting out.
We went up on the porch. A trash can had been turned over and was surrounded by broken beer bottles and old pizza boxes. Inside, a television blared the music from one of the Star Wars movies, Darth Vader’s theme.
I knocked, got no answer. I knocked again, much harder.
“Go the fuck away!” a woman screamed. “I never want to see you again!”
I yelled, “Mrs. Turnbull? Could you come to the door, please?”
Glass smashed inside before the television went quiet. Then the ratty yellow curtain on the near window was pulled aside. Rashawn’s mother peered blearily at us through the screen. You could tell at a glance that she’d been beautiful once, but now her hair was the color and consistency of loose straw, her yellowed teeth were ground down, and her skin was sallow.
Her sunken, rheumy hazel eyes drifted when she asked, “Fuck are you?”
“My name’s Alex Cross,” I said. “This is my wife, Bree.”
Cece lifted a cigarette, took a drag with contempt, said, “I don’t go for none of that Jehovah’s shit, so get your ass off my porch.”
Bree said, “We’re police detectives.”
Rashawn Turnbull’s mother squinted at us, said, “I know all the cops in Starksville and for three towns around, and I don’t know either of you two.”
“We’re from Washington, DC,” I said. “We work homicide up there, and I used to be with the FBI.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
I hesitated, then told her. “We’re looking into your son’s case.”
“What for?”
“Because my cousin is Stefan Tate.”
You’d have thought I punched her. Her head snapped back and then shot forward in rage. She hissed, “That evil sonofabitch is gonna die for what he did. And I am going to be there to see it happen. Now get off my porch before I find my granddad’s shotgun.”
The curtain fluttered shut.
“Mrs. Turnbull!” I yelled. “We do not work for Stefan. If my cousin killed your boy, I’ll be sitting right there beside you when they execute him. I told Stefan the same thing. We work for only one person. Your son. Period.”