Dead to Her(75)

Thankfully, he came fast.





45.

Keisha hadn’t slept all night. Not because of the unfamiliar bleak surroundings and the unforgiving excuse for a bed—in fact the bare cell had been almost comforting; it was almost a relief to find herself back in the gutter where she belonged—but because she could no longer trust her own memory. Her mind had never been her friend, but now that her head was clearer thanks to some proper medication, the thick dark storm clouds had evaporated and left her facing a sea of doubts. What was real and what wasn’t?

The past few days were a haze. A terrible dream made up of disjointed moments. Yesterday the police had spent so much time talking to her about what they thought she’d done, they’d half-convinced her that she had poisoned William. She’d wanted him dead, yes. She had wished him dead. She could see the bottle of coolant in her mind’s eye, the syringe, the coconut water, her hands at work. But that wasn’t real, it was just her crazy brain making truth out of the detectives’ fiction, her mind trusting them more than it trusted itself. No, she hadn’t tried to kill William in any normal way, but she had wished for his death, surrendered her desire to Old John Bayou, and in that she was guilty. Who knew what she’d caused by bringing that bad juju on them? She could barely look at the items on the desk in case they sang of her guilt.

Say nothing, her attorney had repeated when he’d arrived early again this morning. He needn’t have worried. She’d never felt less like talking. She stared at the two items on the desk that the detectives had just referenced for the tape and swallowed hard. The two dolls, one male and one female, were coarsely hewn and small, but the female one was weighty all the same. Detective Anderson might not feel that, but Keisha did. The dolls were made from her clothes and William’s, she knew that, but the weight in hers was what disturbed her. What was inside it? The other detective, Washington, he kept looking too. Perhaps he had some grit in his soul, a history of night and earth, maybe some relative somewhere in the city still practicing the old ways.

Maybe she had tried to kill William, she thought, staring at the ugly charms. But if she had, then she’d been hexed into it, and if she hadn’t, then she’d been hexed into taking the blame.

“You say you found one of these dolls in your drawer on the morning of July eighth, is that correct?”

Keisha looked at her attorney, who nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly. “When Elizabeth woke me up and said Billy had had a stroke or something. I rushed to get dressed and found it on top of my underwear.”

“Did you react?”

“I didn’t want to touch it. I wanted . . .” She bit her lip. She couldn’t finish what she’d been about to say. I wanted Marcie to come and make it better. I still want Marcie to come and make it better. She couldn’t mention Marcie. She’d promised her. That memory wasn’t jumbled.

“Because you recognized it as a voodoo doll?”

“Something like that.”

“The second doll—the male doll—we found with the victim, on the desk in your husband’s study. Where he collapsed. Did you see that one?”

Keisha shook her head. “No. I was too worried about Billy.”

“Did you tell anyone about the doll you found?”

“I’m not sure. I think so. Iris maybe. It freaked me out. It wasn’t the first thing like that . . .”

“Ah yes. There was a ball of some kind in the house, is that right? Made of mud. You found it on the stairs and caused a bit of a scene.”

“Billy said it was made of mud. But it was a conjure ball. They’re made of blood and grave dirt.” She flinched slightly remembering it. The thud on the steps.

“We’ve been speaking to the police in London about your family,” Detective Anderson said.

“Are they coming here? My aunt and uncle?” Keisha asked. She couldn’t deal with that on top of all this. Their disappointment.

“They can’t get visas,” Washington answered. “They both have criminal records.”

“And they were neither very forthcoming about your family relationship nor very concerned about your predicament. The English police, however,” Anderson continued, “have been very helpful.” She paused and leaned back in her chair. “You had a difficult start in life, didn’t you? Your mother killed herself when you were five, is that right?”

“Yes.” She could barely remember her mother. A ghost. Always ghosts.

“She had a history of mental health issues and alcoholism, and after her death you went to live with your uncle and aunt.”

“Yes,” she said again.

“Your uncle is a scam artist, isn’t he? Advertises his services as a witch doctor and promises to solve people’s problems for cash. A lot of cash. Some of which clients are coerced into paying against their will for fear of repercussions.”

“I don’t know what my uncle does.”

“Oh, come on.” Anderson smiled. Her front teeth were crooked, but the expression suddenly made her pretty. “You wrote text for his website.”

“I know he provides a service. I don’t know about any scams.”

“My colleagues in London tell me their house—your old home—has lots of these kinds of items in it. Voodoo or some equivalent. Books. Charms. It must have been very unusual growing up there.”