Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(86)

“She’s sixty-four.”

“Doesn’t look it. And still really young to have grown grandchildren.”

“I was seventeen when I had my girl. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Teesha said as she came back. “I’ve rocked a lot of babies in my time. Rocking babies soothes the soul, and keeps the wrinkles away. I can fix something for you to drink,” she offered. “Cold day like this, maybe you’d like some tea, or coffee. On the police shows they sure drink a lot of coffee.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Peabody told her. “We’re fine.”

“Miss Hilly won’t mind, so if you decide you want something, just say. I was seventeen,” she repeated as she sat, neat and tidy as the room. “I was just stupid in love, the kind of stupid you can be at that age when it isn’t love at all. But when you think you are—why, a boy can talk you into most anything. Sixteen years old when I got pregnant, and scared to death. I didn’t even tell my mama until I couldn’t hide it anymore. I told the boy, and he was gone like the wind. My mama stood by me, even when my daddy went a little crazy. But he came around. I learned when you do something foolish sometimes you spend your life dealing with it.”

She sighed, looked toward the window. “I loved my girl. Love my girl still. I’m good with babies, with children. It’s my gift. I did my best for my baby, and my mama helped. I worked, earned money, finished school at home, tended my baby. I raised her to know right from wrong, to be responsible and kind and happy inside her skin.”

She sighed again. “It just didn’t take with Mylia. She seemed to run wild no matter what I did, and she hated that I worked with other children to put a roof over her head, food in her mouth, to give her some fun or something pretty to wear. Anyway, she was barely older than I’d been when she started Shashona. I stood by her. I helped every way I knew. She took off awhile with the boy, but he left her, and she came home to me, had the baby a month later. That didn’t take either. She just didn’t have the gift.”

“So you raised Shashona,” Eve said.

“I did. Mylia, she’d come and go, leave for weeks, then come back. We had some fights over that, I’ll tell the truth. Then another man, another baby. And she’s off and gone again as soon as she could get out. Beautiful babies, Shashona and Leila. I did my best by them, too. I had to go to court after a while, and they made me legal guardian. The people I worked for then, nice people, sweet children, they were both lawyers, and they helped me.”

At the slightest mew, Teesha’s gaze shifted to a little screen on the table where Eve saw the baby sleeping on pink sheets in a white crib.

“She’s just dreaming,” Teesha said with a smile. “The truth is Shashona took after her mama. Had a wild side nothing seemed to tame. Smart girl, clever girl. I prayed on it, prayed she’d grow out of the wild some, make something of herself.”

She took a long breath. “She was smart, ma’am, like I said. I believe in my heart she’d’ve turned that wild into a passion for something, maybe she’d’ve done something important one day.”

Teesha pressed a fist to her heart. “That passion, that important? It was just hidden inside her, waiting for her to grow up a little more.”

In all the pretty young girls, Eve thought. The life yet to come had been hidden inside them.

“What happened the day she went missing?”

“She went off to school just like usual, but she didn’t come home that day, not after school, not after dark.”

“Was that usual?”

“No, ma’am.” Teesha shook her head slowly from side to side while her eyes trained on Eve. “She loved me, even with the wild, she loved me. I know that in my heart, too. She always let me know she wouldn’t be home awhile, whether I said okay to that or not, she’d tell me. Not that day. I couldn’t find her. She had a ’link, but she didn’t answer. The crowd she ran with didn’t know, said they didn’t, even after the police came into it. She was seeing a boy. Thought I didn’t know about him, but I did.

“Pretty girl like Shashona,” Teesha said with a sad little smile. “Well, there’s going to be a boy. He wasn’t a bad boy either. Smart like her. I talked to him myself, and he said how they were going to the vids that weekend, on a date. How they’d gone and had some pizza after school the day she didn’t come home, even though I’d asked her to come straight on home that day. And he’d walked her to the corner, gone his way. And hadn’t seen her again.”

“I have his name from the Missing Persons report,” Eve said.

“He’s a loan officer now, works in a bank. He’s engaged to be married next spring to a fine, well-mannered young lady. We keep in touch. I knew he never hurt her. Do you know who did?”

“We’re investigating,” Eve said.

“Did she know the other girls? Do you know?”

“You might be able to tell us. We’re not releasing their names yet. I have to ask you not to mention them to anyone.”

“I can promise that.”

Eve handed her a list. Peabody offered her photos. Teesha studied them, shaking her head.

“I don’t know these names, or these sweet young faces. There’s only eleven names here.”