Not wanting to be rude, not to mention having respect for my elders, I went inside. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Phillips was slow getting around, but she led me into the living room and offered me a seat. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I wouldn’t want you go to any trouble,” I said and tried to hand her the envelope again, but she wouldn’t take it.
“Nonsense. It’s no trouble at all. What would you like?”
“Whatever you have is fine.”
“I just made a pitcher of iced tea, or would you like something a little stronger?”
“It’s a little early in the day for me,” I lied. Lately, I’ve been waking up to Johnnie Black.
“I usually have a glass of brandy around this time of day. One drink in the morning and one before bed, it’s the secret to living a long life.”
Since I wasn’t about to argue with her wisdom, I accepted. “That’ll be fine. Can I help you?”
“No. You relax and be comfortable,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen.
When Mrs. Phillips returned with our drinks, she sat down in a chair by the window. “Come sit by me,” she said and pointed to the chair closer to her.
“I want you to know how sorry I am about your granddaughter,” I said as I came toward her.
“That’s her in that picture,” Mrs. Phillips said and pointed to a picture frame.
I picked up the frame. “She was very pretty.”
“And smart too. Wasn’t like so many of these young girls her age. Out there runnin’ these streets, doing God only knows what. She was a good girl. Going somewhere, had a future ahead of her.”
I saw a tear run down Mrs. Phillips face and I felt her pain.
“Do the police have any idea who shot her?”
Mrs. Phillips laughed. “Do they ever?”
“Not in this neighborhood,” I laughed too.
“Zakiya called me that morning, like she always did. I mentioned that she didn’t sound like herself. Zakiya was one of those bubbly kinds of people. Always smiling, always had something nice to say, but that day she just didn’t sound right. Didn’t sound like herself. She said that she was meeting somebody at that place and that she was a little nervous about it.”
“Did she say what she was nervous about?”
“No, and when I asked her about it she just said it was nothing and changed the subject.”
“What else did the police tell you?”
“They said it was drug related, but that’s a lie. They said that the boy she was with was a drug dealer. They said those kind of people don’t need a reason to kill; probably killed my baby for kicks or for some type of initiation.”
“But you don’t believe that, do you?”
“No. Zakiya would never be involved with drugs or drug dealers. I told you, she had her life planned out. Knew where she was going and was on the road to getting there.”
For the next hour, Mrs. Phillips and I sipped brandy and talked about Zakiya. Naturally, she mostly talked and I mostly listened. Mrs. Phillips raised her after shooting heroin consumed her mother’s life. Zakiya never knew her father.
Mrs. Phillips told me how Zakiya went out of her way to avoid drugs and not get in with the wrong crowd, so she could get an education. She was determined to be somebody, because she refused to turn out like her mother, a teenaged mother strung-out on drugs. Zakiya had a bachelor’s in sociology with a minor in psychology. She was about to attend law school in the fall. “Does that sound like the type of woman who was involved in drugs?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“You damned right it doesn’t.”