As the Wicked Watch(56)

Ellen shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, I’m just saying.”

“Gotta go. Talk to ya later,” I said, and hurried to my desk. By the time I sat down and picked up the phone, I’d decided who to call first. I reached into the side pocket of my purse and pulled out April’s business card.

Let’s see what you’re all about, Ms. April Murphy.

I dialed the mobile number handwritten on the back of the card.

She picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Is this April?” I asked.

“This is April. Jordan?”

News Channel 8 must have popped up on the caller ID.

“Yes, this is Jordan Manning. Sorry about last night. Pamela Alonzo left the area right after she spoke.”

“No problem. That poor woman was in no shape to meet anybody last night. Honestly, I don’t know how she got her words out. I was awestruck, frankly.”

“I know. I was as well,” I said.

“The depth of the loss she has suffered, the way it happened, it’s enough to stop a mother’s heart,” she said. “No matter how long I do this type of work, even with my own personal experience as a benchmark, I’m still amazed by the way survivors deal with trauma. I always say, though, the day I get used to it is the day I’m no longer effective as an advocate.”

“The women against violence group . . . do you do that full time?” I asked.

“I used to, oh, about the first seven or eight years. But in the last three to four, after my divorce, I had to go back to work. I renewed my life and accident insurance license with the state. The good thing is, I’m able to make my own schedule.”

I surmised from her emphasis on had to that April’s lifestyle changed after her divorce. She might yet be affluent, to a degree, but certainly not like before.

“Oh,” I said.

“I have to tell you, full disclosure, I watch a lot of court TV shows. I’m obsessed, really. I’m a little embarrassed to say how much,” April said.

She need not be embarrassed around me. Not about that. I understand women’s attraction to those types of programs, especially the ones that are based on true crime stories. My theory is that women are drawn to such shows because no matter how strong a front we present, we harbor a fear of something horrible happening to us. The nagging question “What would I do if I were ever put in that position?” is always in the back of our mind. The what-if motivates me to walk up eight flights to my apartment. It’s why I took the stairs from the rooftop last night instead of the elevator. The feeling nags me, perhaps more than most, because I confront other people’s misfortunes for a living. I’ve watched people dig through memories turned to ashes in a fire and searched my soul, wondering, What would I grab if my home were ablaze? What if I lost that one picture of my now-deceased grandparents that I keep in my living room? Or the one of Stephanie and me standing by an ice sculpture wearing those itchy lavender lace bridesmaid’s dresses from our cousin Thelma’s wedding?

“I’m still interested in meeting Pamela,” April reiterated.

“And I definitely want to connect you two, but I can’t say right now when that will happen. She still has a funeral to get through, and after last night, I don’t know her state of mind,” I said.

“Understandable,” April said. “I can wait.”

I approved of the way our conversation was flowing but was wary of becoming too casual with her, so I switched into my work voice. “Something Pamela said to me the day before the vigil makes me think you won’t have to wait long,” I said. “She told me that her mission in life is to catch her daughter’s killer. My heart sank hearing her say that, because I know how cold cases can, far too often, stay cold. Where does the average citizen get the time, money, and resources and even the media attention required to keep a homicide case on the front burner?”

I said average citizen, but I really meant that cases involving Black victims go cold and stay cold, and don’t get the same level of media attention, something April alluded to last night. It was a leading question I hoped would help me better assess April’s intentions.

“That’s where my organization comes in,” she said.

Elbows on my desk, I leaned into the phone as if I was talking to April in person.

“Last night, do you remember when you asked me if I was looking for other members of my group to join us?” April asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, in fact, I was scanning the crowd for anyone who looked suspicious, hanging around the family, doing a little too much, being a little too helpful. A lot of times, a killer will come back to the scene of the crime to see how people are reacting to what he’s done. Or they’ll hang around the victims’ family in an attempt to eliminate themselves as a suspect. Some will sit back and get off on watching the people whose lives they’ve destroyed pick up the shattered pieces.”

I didn’t want to interrupt April, but I was familiar with the pattern she was describing. People kill people they know. Serial killers hunt where they live. The boogeyman doesn’t drop out of the sky upon his victims. He walks out of his house and kills usually within a three-to five-mile radius, a fact crime shows don’t reveal very often. Instead, I listened and waited for an opportunity to ask the question that was burning me up.