Crown of Thorns Read online

  Her face was swollen and smeared with blood. Not because Elder Mason had beaten her after arriving at to the shed later in the afternoon; no, he would wait to do that when Junior was nearby to watch and learn. Her blood was smeared where she’d slapped at the mosquitoes that had been attacking her in a frenzy all afternoon.

  Retha’s fingers were bloody, too, raw from pulling at the door hinges. It wasn’t that she wanted to escape for herself. It was that Billy Lee was in the trailer. Sometimes Elder Mason cut the air-conditioning because he said it was a waste of good money. If he’d shut if off during the afternoon and if the trailer was now too hot with Billy Lee as sick as he was . . .

  Retha tried not to think about it. She was frantic to know that Billy Lee was still all right, and useless as it was to claw at the hinges, it was the only thing she could do to try to reach him.

  Much as Retha dreaded explaining to Junior why she’d been locked in the shed, she hoped he would get back soon from fishing. She had to know how Billy Lee was doing. She had to get to the trailer to hold Billy Lee.

  And there was the new Wal-Mart doll.

  She had to get back into the trailer to hide it before Elder Mason happened upon it under a pile of Billy Lee’s clothing. Elder Mason hated a mess, and first he’d yell about Retha not folding those clothes and not putting them up on a shelf. Then he’d ask questions about the doll and explode about wastefulness. After that, Retha knew, he’d begin shouting about giving any boy a doll, let alone his grandson who was supposed to grow up to hunt deer and fish for bass and maybe be one of the Chosen, unlike Junior who had no guts or real strength. Worst of all, after knowing she’d tried to escape with Billy Lee, Elder Mason might actually figure out why she’d bought the doll. Elder Mason was not a stupid man.

  Buying the doll at Wal-Mart the day before had been part of Retha’s plan. Pushing a cart down the aisles was about the only time she had to herself, because Junior just sat in the truck waiting for her to finish the list he gave her.

  At the cash register, Retha did her best to hold back sniffles. She was in the ten-items-or-less lane, stuck behind a man in a baseball hat whose cart was half full. Not that Retha was going to criticize him for having more than ten items. Things like that always happened to Retha, and she accepted them meekly, the way the Bible said. Besides, she didn’t trust her voice to speak, not when she was thinking about her plan.

  In her own cart, with Billy Lee sitting lethargically in front of her, Retha had put a big package of toilet paper along with the dog food she’d been sent in to buy for Elder Mason’s hounds. She’d picked up the toilet paper because she knew it would take a big bag to wrap it and that would give her the best chance to hide the doll.

  When it was her turn, the woman behind the till gave her the standard greeting, and then grinned at the size of the doll in Retha’s arms. “I’ve seen a few of those go through,” the woman said. Her name tag read “Candy,” but she looked anything but. “That one’s almost as big as your own boy. The doll looks healthier than your boy, though. Girl, has he seen a doctor?”

  “Running a bit of a fever,” Retha said and put her cash down. Junior didn’t know about the money she made sewing for neighbors in the compound. It was against Shepherd Isaiah’s rules for women to keep any money, but most of the wives found a way to hide some from their husbands, if only to be part of the tiny black market within the compound.

  “Yeah,” Candy continued, either unaware of Retha’s red eyes or uncaring. “Tell you what, these dolls look like the real thing.”

  The real thing. Which was why Retha was buying it. But she wouldn’t have to if Billy Lee weren’t so sick. That brought more tears.

  Of course, Candy couldn’t understand Retha’s renewed tears at that comment. So Candy shook her head slightly and concentrated on the keypad. Candy didn’t know the reason that Retha was going to such efforts to sneak the doll into the trailer.

  “I need the doll on a separate receipt,” Retha finally blurted, scared to trust her voice.

  “I just scanned it in,” Candy complained. “With the other stuff.”

  Normally, Retha wouldn’t have put up a fuss, but this was too important. The Elders reviewed all purchases because it all came from the church treasury and there were rules about what was deemed necessary and what was deemed luxury. A doll was definitely luxury, and more than that, Retha had another pressing reason to keep its purchase hidden.

  “I need the doll on a separate receipt,” Retha repeated, amazed at the hint of anger growing inside her.

  Candy caught her tone and went through the hassle of obeying, which, strangely enough to Retha, also gave her a sense of satisfaction.

  As for sneaking the doll into the trailer, that part had been no problem either. As Retha had anticipated, Junior maintained his habit of ignoring the packages that Retha bought. He always let her throw them into the back of the truck from her shopping cart, and when they got to the trailer, he always went inside to watch the auto-racing channel on satellite while she unloaded the truck with one arm, holding Billy Lee in the other.

  So the first part of Retha’s plan had worked; the doll was there and waiting for part two.

  Except all of it had failed when she’d been caught escaping in Junior’s truck and then been dragged into the shed by Elder Jeremiah. Thinking about Billy Lee alone in the trailer, Retha wanted to cry but was afraid if that dam burst, the tears might never stop.

  All she could do now was wait for Junior to return.

  Retha kept slapping mosquitoes as the dusk became night.

  **

  Angel sat by Maddie’s hospital bed, stroking her sister’s forehead.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, pulling up a chair. The room was a private one, and the bill was to be sent directly to my half brother. I was looking forward to hearing him moan at how I chose to squander a tiny part of our shared inheritance.

  “I’m doing good.” Angel turned her green eyes toward me. “Except . . .”

  “Except?”

  “I’m tired of explaining to people about my mama and daddy. You ain’t gonna ask the questions everyone else been asking, right?”

  I was curious, but this was an effective warning. I shook my head no.

  “And you ain’t gonna look down your nose at me cause I’m mochachino or because my daddy ran out when I was a baby or because Mama met another man who was black not white and was gonna have Maddie with him, except she died when Maddie was born and that other daddy run off, too?”

  So she did want me to know.

  “Angel, it doesn’t matter to me where a person comes from. Only the direction he or she chooses to go.”

  “Alright then,” she said, relaxing some.

  “Maddie’s doing better?”

  My heart broke to see the little girl in a hospital bed in the children’s ward. She was on an IV drip. Asleep. Breathing evenly. The sheen of sweat no longer clinging to her forehead.

  “Maddie’s doing better. They figure it might be a couple of days here. You still gonna pay the hospital like you promised?”

  I nodded.

  “What if you can’t find the man that told Grammie Zora he’d buy that painting? Or if you can’t find no one else to buy it and it happens I won’t be able to pay you back?”

  “I’ll pay no matter what happens with the painting.” I tried to hide the extent of my interest and asked casually, “Painting look good?”

  “Doesn’t seem like a real painting. Too small. Smaller than

  a computer screen. And the guy on it is dressed funny.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Who would think that someone would pay twenty thousand dollars for it.” She watched my face, probably to gauge my reaction to that astronomical figure.

  I whistled, feeling guilty about playing dumb. This explained why she’d marched into the antique shop with such confidence and refused to sell it to Glennifer and Elaine for any less. “Twenty thousand! Some man promised your
grammie that much for it?”

  “About two months ago. Except she said no to him that night. Yesterday, though, I called her. See, she’s at her sister’s out of town and that’s okay ’cause my friend Camellia stays with me at night. When I told Grammie yesterday that Maddie was sick and I needed to take her to the hospital, Grammie Zora changed her mind. She said it’d be a good idea to sell that painting after all. So all we got to do is find that man who was going to buy it.”

  I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  “Camellia’s got a brother named Leroy,” she said, “and Leroy’s friend Bingo knows where the man is, but if I ask Bingo, and if Leroy and Bingo get any idea the kind of money they could get for the painting, they’ll steal it from me. Leroy and Bingo steal plenty. Bingo’s got a car, and Leroy hangs with Bingo ’cause Bingo’s got wheels. That cell phone I gave you? That Rolex? They’re the ones who stole ’em.”

  “They gave you the phone and watch?”

  Angel shook her head at my stupidity. “I didn’t say they gave them to me.”

  “Oh.”

  “And that’s another reason I need to stay away from them. Leroy, he’s okay. But Bingo, he gives me the creeps. He ain’t said nothing, but I think he knows where some of their stuff goes. When he’s at Leroy’s, what me and Camellia do is rock his car until the alarm goes off. Him and Leroy go running out from the house, and then we steal any stuff they got hidden under Leroy’s bed. Bingo would love to find a way to prove to Leroy it’s me and Camellia. ’Course if he tries anything on me . . .” Angel paused and grinned. “See, they stole a TASER–”

  “TASER?”

  “Stun gun. From a cop car. Only now they can’t find it, if you know what I mean.”

  I nodded again. This girl had turned a ballpoint pen into a terrifying weapon. The thought of her with a police-issue stun gun . . .

  “Don’t look at me like that.” Angel stuck her chin forward in defiance but spoke quietly so as not to wake Maddie. “She’s all I got. And I’m all she’s got. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Maddie.”

  “Kind of figured that,” I said, “from the way you took the guard hostage.”

  “If I could have sold Grammie Zora’s dusty old painting to those bags on King yesterday, I wouldn’t have needed to. But they acted so strange, I was afraid to take it anywhere else to sell, so I went straight home.”

  She glared at me as if it were my fault. “And not only that, some weird little guy followed me, so now I really want to make sure I keep it safe.”

  I nodded noncommittally, my guilt compounding at the knowledge I concealed from her.

  “I figure my best chance is if you can help me find the man who wanted to buy it from Grammie Zora. I ain’t bringing the painting out in public again.”

  I cleared my throat. “It is your grammie’s to sell, right?”

  “What, you think Grammie Zora stole it?”

  “Not her.”

  “Now you’re saying I stole it.” Angel straightened her back and shoulders in a perfect picture of indignation.

  “I need to be sure. I don’t want to spend time in prison for trying to sell stolen property.”

  “So you are saying I stole it.”

  I smiled. Her indignation was so perfect I knew it wasn’t real. “Where did you get the cell phone you sold me this morning?”

  “That’s different. I didn’t know you then.”

  “You lied to the cabbie. You stole the cell phone from Leroy and Bingo, along with that fake Rolex . . .”

  “Fake! Couldn’t be.”

  “Nice try.”

  She grinned. “So it’s fake, it’s still worth something. Don’t forget how happy you were to take a stolen cell phone and fake Rolex off a helpless little girl like me.”

  Helpless, I thought. Sure. “Did you steal the painting?”

  “There you go again. Any dog that ever tried fighting you for a bone would lose, I bet. ”

  “What I already learned about you today shows you don’t mind bending the truth and that sometimes things stick to your fingers. So did you steal the painting?”

  She grinned. Her teeth were a beautiful white. Someone had shown her dental hygiene and cared enough to make sure Angel made it a habit. “Sometimes things stick to my fingers, huh? Like it isn’t my fault. Sticks to my fingers.” Angel held a hand up in front of her and wiggled her fingers. “Look, sticky.

  So sticky I can’t help bringing all that stuff home.”

  She frowned as suddenly as she had grinned. “Don’t think Bingo will believe that if he sees I got some of his stuff, do you?”

  “So the painting didn’t stick to your fingers? It belongs to your grammie?”

  “All you rich people always talk this proper? Biting off each word so clean?”

  “Don’t change the subject. The painting isn’t stolen, right? That’s what I need to know before I help you out.”

  “Grammie Zora had it before I was born.” Angel pointed

  at the top of her left cheekbone. I saw a small triangular scar beneath her eye. “Happened when I was playing with it when I

  was five. I was running with it and fell on the corner of the frame.”

  I didn’t know if I was prepared to believe her, but there was no point in disagreeing until I found out otherwise. “It wasn’t stolen and your Grammie Zora had it a long time then,” I said. “Suddenly some man shows up and wants to buy it. How was it this man knew she had it?”

  “Grammie Zora had him fetched.”

  “She sent for him, but when he came over, she didn’t want to sell it to him. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I said she had him fetched. I didn’t say she had him fetched to sell it to him. But then when he was there, he asked to buy it off her.”

  I asked the obvious, feeling like a Keystone Cop. “Why did she have him fetched then?”

  Her eyes shifted away from mine slightly. She blinked before answering. “Don’t know.”

  Interesting, I thought. I chose not to pursue it. “How did he know she had it?”

  “He saw it on the wall in our living room, I guess. While they were talking. Must have decided he wanted it.”

  “Know who he was?”

  “Only to see him again. White skin, white hair. Talks like you, so he must be rich, too, especially to pay all that for a stupid old painting. He leaned on a cane but walked like he didn’t need it. Old. Older than you. Acted like he owned the world. After Grammie Zora had him fetched, someone drove him up in a big black Cadillac with dark windows—not the car Cadillac but a soovey one—and waited in the truck the whole time the guy talked with Grammie in our house.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Don’t know. Bingo can tell you where to look.”

  “Bingo?”

  “I already told you it was Bingo that Grammie sent to fetch the man. And I already told you I don’t want to ask Bingo anything. ’Cause he’ll ask me why I want to know. Like I said, in case you weren’t listening to that part either, if he thinks I got something worth something . . .”

  “So you want me to ask Bingo where he went to fetch the white-haired man. Why not just call your grammie at her sister’s and ask her?”

  She shook her head again and sighed at my lack of intelligence. “Grammie Zora just told me it was okay to sell it. She didn’t tell me it was okay to sell it to the man she didn’t want to get it in the first place. What Grammie don’t know won’t hurt her. When she gets back, it will be sold and gone. She don’t have to know who bought it. Weren’t you listening when I told you I’ll do what it takes to help Maddie?”

  “I do recall.”

  She stared at me and let the silence build. I was the one to break it with yet another question. “So I just go ask Bingo where to find this white man who showed up in a black Cadillac SUV with dark windows?”

  “Exactly. But without Bingo knowing it was me that sent you. Remember that part. Him and Leroy, they hang out at the Velvets for Gents o
n Saturday nights. They’ll be there right now. I’ll tell you what his car looks like, so it won’t be no problem to find them. They sit in the car waiting to sell stuff that they stole. That’s what they always do at night. Me and Camellia know, ’cause we follow them sometimes and watch people buy stuff off them there.”

  “You want me to ask Bingo tonight.”

  “Before he gets into a bar and drunk enough to fight.” She spoke matter-of-factly, like it never occurred to her that there were places and lives where this was out of the ordinary. “Any next day Bingo could be dead, especially any next day after a Saturday night. It’s never too soon to ask Bingo something, believe me on that.”

  There was a simple flaw in her request.

  “From what you’ve told me,” I said, “I see no reason why Bingo would bother telling me how to step off a pier and drown.”

  “I wrote up a note for you to give Bingo,” Angel said. She flashed me that wonderful rogue smile as she pulled a folded envelope from her back pocket. “Once you get him to read it, he’ll answer anything you ask. I licked this envelope shut and you gotta make sure this envelope ain’t open when you give it to him. You can’t read it first, because if it’s open when it gets to him, he ain’t gonna be afraid of what’s inside. And be careful with the envelope. It’s got needles inside. You sit on it, you’ll jab your rear.”

  “Anything else?” I said, amused.

  “Yeah. Bingo’s a bully. That’s why he gets drunk before he fights, and mostly he loses. Much as he pushes me and Camellia around, he’ll be scared of someone as big as you. He’s like a dog that barks but won’t ever bite as long as you don’t turn your back and run.”

  She searched my face to see if I understood. My expression must not have reassured her. “What I mean,” she said, “is that when he pulls a knife, you can’t let him know you’re scared.”

  “I don’t like knives,” I said. “I don’t like holes in my skin either.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Angel answered. She stared at the wall in thought before turning back to me. “Then just go ahead and tell him the envelope is from Grammie Zora.”