Here Comes the Sun(76)

“Ah kill someone,” he says. “Ah hear dat police aftah me now. Mama Gracie warn me.”

Verdene regards him closely. His frame appears small and wilted in the light of the kerosene lamp. He doesn’t look like a murderer, though his confession looms large inside the house, moving and shifting things. Something in the house braces. After a second or two, Verdene grabs a chair. “You what?” she asks.

“Ah kill someone,” he repeats. “Him rape my girlfriend.”

This time Verdene lets his statement fall inside the quiet like a single hair landing on the wooden floors. Not since she knelt by her father’s stiff body on the kitchen floor after she watched him suffer a heart attack has she felt so paralyzed by ambivalence. She peers at Charles through the cloud of this memory, thinking how she had hurt with guilt for days, and how there were no remedies to quell the agonizing pain that she never expected to feel for the person who she thought deserved it. Verdene gets up and kneels in front of Charles. Her instinct is to grab him and comfort him, but instead she says, “Do you know for sure that he’s dead?”

Charles nods. “Yes.”

“Maybe you didn’t kill him. Maybe he’s just hurt.”

“Ah know for ah fact dat him dead. Dat me kill him.” His jawbone clenches. “When me look pon him face an’ see him smiling like di devil himself, knowing dat him rape my girl, all ah wanted to do was to kill him. But ah didn’t know when or how dat force tek ovah me. Next t’ing me know, me see Mama Gracie an’ she tell me how dey pronounce him dead at di hospital.”

“Oh, Charles . . .”

“Me neva mean fi kill him.”

“I know you didn’t mean to.”

Charles looks at her. His face is colorless. Verdene has a feeling that if this man is really dead, then so is Charles. Not because of how the police treat criminals, but because of the guilt she senses has already begun to wear him down. Verdene wants desperately to ease his anxiety, so she decides on logic. “If you can prove that he raped your girlfriend, then maybe you can argue that you did it in defense.”

Charles shakes his head and covers his face again. “There’s no proof. It ’appen years ago.” Verdene rubs his back, feels his muscles tense up again. “I can’t stay here,” he says suddenly. “I can’t stay in Rivah Bank. Ah must get going.” Verdene silently agrees, though she would never think of saying this out loud. She would have offered him a hiding place, but then she would have to explain to Margot when she drops by after her shift at the hotel and sees a boy—an alleged killer—inside the house. And besides, Margot can never be seen here by anyone. So Charles must go.

“At least change off first and eat something before you go,” Verdene tells him.

“Ah can’t eat anyt’ing.” He takes off his bloody shirt and puts on the one Verdene gives him. “Thank you for this,” he says, smoothing the fabric over his chest, his fingers trailing the University of Cambridge letters. He folds his soiled shirt, and Verdene offers to bury it outside, next to the dead dogs. She thinks of things to say to convince him that justice might still be on his side, but cannot come up with anything. “You must really love her. That girl?” she says as he heads toward the door. He pauses with his hand on the handle. The darkness is thick outside, since it’s overcast and there are no stars or a moon tonight. One would think it might finally rain; but Verdene won’t hold her breath. “Yes. I do,” Charles replies.

“I would’ve done the same thing,” she says.

Charles lets go of the knob. He leans against the doorpost and looks Verdene right in the eye. “Yuh know, ah used to be afraid ah witches.”

With that, he leaves her in the dark. She looks around the house. Not since she returned to it, wanting to be closer to her mother, has she felt so alone. How repelled she is tonight by the floors, the walls, the curtains, the burglar bars by the windows through which most days she can barely see the wide expanse of the sky.





30


ALPHONSO CALLS MARGOT TO THE VILLA, WHICH HAS BECOME their meeting place. Sweetness is with her, because she happens to be on the schedule for tonight’s soiree. But when they get there, the developers are frenzied. Alphonso is pacing, blowing cigarette smoke through his nostrils.

“What’s going on?” Margot asks Alphonso as soon as she enters.

“The f*cking police.”

“Why are they involved?”

“A murder happened in the development area. They decided to shut down the whole f*cking project until they find the killer. They think the activity from the construction could give the guy cover.”

“What?”

“We’re losing money, Margot. The longer the police make us wait as they investigate this crime, the more we suffer. Tourists aren’t going to want to come to a high-crime area. The investors are shitting themselves as we speak! I got a call from Virgil. He’s threatening to pull out.”

“Calm down, I can fix this.”

“How?” he almost shouts.

“Let me think.”

An idea, which was really a thought uttered too loudly, too prematurely, surfaces from Margot’s mouth; materializes into sound waves that halt the developers in the room, bringing them closer to the table where Margot sits. Alphonso too listens, his arms folded across his chest, visibly amused. “Where would we get the money to pay the reward?”