Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(66)
As they stood there talking, Sidney asked Benjamin if he’d ever had a civilian job as a mechanic. “Appliance repairman, garage mechanic, or working on airplanes maybe?”
“No, sir,” Benjamin laughed. “Just in the army.”
“Shame,” Sid said thoughtfully, “because you sure are good at it.”
They finished up the Coca-Colas and talked for another twenty minutes, but Sid never once mentioned the thought that had come to mind.
Carmella
Prudence Wentworth is a trouble-making busybody. I know it’s not right to say such things about a neighbor, but she is someone who truly deserves it. I have never heard that woman say a kind thing about one single person.
Why, she even complained when little Nancy Kellerton came knocking on her door to sell a few boxes of Girl Scout cookies.
I know she’s lonely and unhappy being by herself all the time, but maybe if she’d be a bit nicer people would be more inclined to stop by for a visit.
She’s never even laid eyes on little Isaac, but she’s up in arms about him being here. Well, as far as I’m concerned she can just kiss my butt. I don’t care what color that little boy’s skin is, he’s a damn sight more pleasant to be with than Prudence Wentworth.
I haven’t mentioned this to Sidney or anyone else, and I don’t intend to.
The truth is I like having Isaac here, and I like teaching him. The way he wriggles around and tries to get past answers he doesn’t know makes me laugh. If I ask him to spell a word he doesn’t know, he’ll say he’s got to go to the bathroom or ask for a cookie. It’s a game we play; I give him the cookie, then ask him the same word all over again. He starts giggling; then I start giggling too.
I can tell you this. The moon would turn blue before Prudence Wentworth said anything worth so much as a snicker.
A Simmering Situation
On Sunday evening Prudence Wentworth stood at her front window watching for Martha Pillard’s return until well after midnight. She tried telephoning several times, but still there was no answer.
It made no sense. Martha was retired and did little more than putter around the kitchen. Once a week she went grocery shopping and there was the occasional Tuesday night bingo game at the church, but Prudence could not remember a time when Martha was gone for more than a few hours. Monday morning she returned and rang the doorbell again but this time when there was no answer, she circled around to the back and peered through the kitchen window. There was little to see. A yellow dishtowel folded across the rim of the sink, everything neatly in place, but no Martha.
Prudence began to worry. She and Martha were both widows. Widows were easy prey. Any stranger in the neighborhood would have been cause for concern, but a Negro stranger was doubly so. Anything could have happened. She walked around to the side of the house and stood with her foot in the flowerbed to peer into the bedroom. No signs of a struggle. Prudence returned to the front, tried the doorbell one last time, then decided to call the police. She was starting back across the street when Darlene’s car pulled up and Martha stepped out.
“Where in God’s name have you been?” Prudence shrieked.
“Visiting Darlene and the kids,” Martha replied.
With a begonia petal still stuck to her shoe, Prudence exclaimed, “I’ve been calling since yesterday, and when you didn’t answer I assumed the worst!”
“What worst?”
Grabbing hold of Martha’s arm and leaning in, she whispered, “There’s a big black Negro living next door to me, and he looks a lot like the one who stabbed poor Tommy.”
Martha’s face turned white as a sheet, and her expression was just as flat. “That’s not one bit funny,” she said. “You know that man was sent to prison.”
“For twenty years,” Prudence replied. “It’s been almost twenty-five.”
Martha let out a huge whoosh of air and clutched her hand to her heart. For a moment she swayed like a woman about to faint, but Darlene got there in time and grabbed her mama’s arm. She turned to Prudence with an angry glare in her eye.
“What have you done to Mama?” she shouted.
“I told her the truth,” Prudence answered. Then she explained about the Negro who had moved in with the Klaussners. “They have no idea who he is or where he came from,” she said, “and from what I’ve seen of the man he could easily as not be the same one who stabbed your brother.”
Hearing it for a second time made Martha feel woozier than ever. “I’ve got to go inside and sit down,” she said.
As Darlene helped her mama through the door, Prudence followed.
“I don’t like upsetting people,” she said, “but people have a right to know what’s happening to our neighborhood. If we’re not careful…”
Martha listened to the words trailing off and thought back to the night Tommy was killed. He was barely eighteen and as far as she knew not much of a drinker, yet they’d said it happened in a bar fight. Five Negros and a white bartender all claimed Tommy was drunk and fairly belligerent when the fight started, but she’d doubted the validity of that story. Tommy wasn’t the type. Despite the testimony of all six witnesses, Martha believed then and still believed her boy was simply a victim. A white boy killed for the money in his pocket.