When I was a student, the war in Vietnam was just winding down. Students with pinched faces were often worrying about the draft, but it didn’t seem like today’s kids cared much about their own war eight thousand miles away. The thought gave me another idea about Lamont Gadsden. Maybe he’d forgotten to tell his mother he’d been drafted. His bones might be rotting in a jungle in Southeast Asia.
I detoured to Lionsgate Manor before going to my office. Miss Ella opened the door the length of the chain bolt but didn’t invite me in. I asked her about Steve Sawyer.
“You knew he’d been sent to prison when you gave his name to Pastor Karen, didn’t you?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, young woman. You wanted the names of Lamont’s friends, and I told you I didn’t approve of them. Now you see why.”
It was an effort not to scream at the client. “What about Lamont? Is he in prison, too?”
“If I knew where he was, I wouldn’t have asked you to look for him.”
We went back and forth for a few more fruitless minutes. She didn’t know where Steve Sawyer was now or she wouldn’t admit to knowing, I couldn’t tell. I finally left, cursing her and Pastor Karen-and myself, for agreeing to get involved in their quagmire.
Still, just to cross every t, I called the Pentagon when I got to my office to see if they had any record of Lamont. I wasn’t expecting any information, so I was surprised when the woman on the other end said Lamont had been called up and told to report to his local draft board in April 1967. He was still officially absent without leave.
“You didn’t try to find him, did you?” I asked.
“Oh, honey, I wasn’t even born then,” the Pentagon’s public-affairs woman said, “but I expect, from what I’ve read, that they guessed he was one of ten thousand boys hiding out, either in Canada or somewhere deep inside his own neighborhood. Unless they crossed the legal system somewhere, applying for a driver’s license or a loan, or if someone turned them in, we never saw them.”
Which left me back where I’d started, with zero information. Actually, that wasn’t true: I had Johnny the Hammer to add to the mix. And I knew what had happened to Steve Sawyer-at least, until January 30, 1967.
IN THE DETECTIVE’S ABSENCE II
“THE DETECTIVE LADY WAS HERE AGAIN TODAY.” ELLA held her sister’s left hand, pressing it to make sure Claudia was listening to her. “White girl. I think I told you that.”
The gnarled fingers pressed against Ella’s own hard palm. Yes, I’m listening to you. Yes, you told me she’s white.
“She’s pretty much used up all the money I agreed to, finding out nothing.”
The left side of Claudia’s mouth trembled, and tears slid down her face. Since the stroke, she cried easily. Claudia had always been emotional. “Such a warm person,” was everyone’s favorite description, making Ella feel colder, more bitter against the world at large. Claudia had never been a crier, though. She’d learned early in life, like Ella had herself, that tears were a luxury for babies and the rich. Her heart might break over a dead sparrow in the road, but she wouldn’t cry her eyes out.
Now, though, you had to watch what you said. And sometimes Ella felt herself slipping back in time, back to when she was five and Claudia was the darling baby of the block, those soft brown curls, that winning smile, so cooed over in church that Ella would steal Claudia’s dolly or slap her when Mama was off at work and Granny Georgette wasn’t looking. Pure meanness. She knew it then and she knew it now. But sometimes you got tired of always being the responsible one.
“Everything all right here?”
One of the nurse’s aides had bustled over. The sisters were out on the sunporch, a kind of enclosed roof garden that held plants and a tiny fountain. The dog that some well-meaning do-gooder brought during the week was drinking from the fountain, to the delight of several of the other stroke patients, but Ella wouldn’t let them bring it around Claudia when she was there. She couldn’t abide dogs. Cats, either. Why feed and spoil some animal when children were going to bed hungry?
She looked coldly at the aide. “If I need help, I’ll let you know.”
The aide, black herself, stared pertly back at Ella. “Your sister needs her eyes wiped. That’s something you could learn to do for her, Miss Ella, if you don’t want me here. But, since I am here, I’m happy to oblige.”
She knelt next to the wheelchair, dabbing at Claudia’s face with a tissue.
“What’s troubling you, honey? You need something I can bring you?”
Just like everybody else on the planet, soon as she talked to Claudia, she was crooning and singing. Jesus did try His saints, that was certain.
When the aide finally left, Claudia worked hard, forced herself to speak clearly. “Who ’tective talk to?”
“I told you the names I gave her. She went through them. I’ll say this for her, she’s thorough, she’s a hard worker. She found Mr. Carmichael-you know, Lamont’s science teacher at Lindblom-and he says he never heard from Lamont after the boy graduated. She talked to Curtis Rivers, who says he can’t remember when he saw Lamont for the last time. She can’t find Steve Sawyer. She knows he got arrested for killing Harmony Newsome, but she says there’s no word of what became of him. She says she’s been through all those prison records but can’t find any trace.”
Ella’s mouth worked. She hadn’t liked the way the detective looked at her, as if she felt sorry for Ella. No right… No right to hand me pity, white girl! You think maybe Steve Sawyer was the only black boy who went through those prison gates and disappeared?
“Not ’Teve. ’Member, Ella? Not ’Teve. New name. Wha’ name?”
“What do you mean, not Steve? Of course it was Steve Sawyer who got arrested. I remember how his mother carried on at the trial, even if you don’t.”
Claudia’s good eye drooped. She was tired, too tired to argue, too tired to be sure her memory wasn’t playing tricks on her, the way it did since she’d had the stroke.
She took another breath. “ ’ Hite girl talk Pa’tor?”
“Oh yes, this detective went to see Pastor Hebert. Of course, he isn’t talking any more than you these days.” Ella paused. “She says Rose saw Lamont.”
The left side of Claudia’s face came alive. A shadow of her old smile broke through. “ ’ Hen? ’Ere?”
“That same night he left us. After church, Rose was walking home and saw him go into a bar. With Johnny Merton.” Ella folded her arms in grim satisfaction. “I always told you he was hanging out with those Anacondas.”
“No!” Claudia cried. “Not drug deal’r. ’Mont not!” She was breathing hard from the effort of making the words come out right and from anger at her sister. “Wron’! Wron’! Wron’!”
The young aide hurried back over, Pastor Karen in her wake. Ella hadn’t seen the chaplain arrive on the terrace.
“What’s wrong, Miss Ella?” Pastor Karen asked while the aide began fussing with Claudia.
“I talked to your detective this morning and I’m trying to explain to my sister what she reported. It’s not easy. I told Claudia before you ever brought in this detective it wouldn’t be easy.”
“Did Ms. Warshawski find Lamont?” The pastor pulled a chair up so that she was sitting between the two sisters.
“She found someone who saw him go into a blues bar with the head of a street gang the night he disappeared. My sister has never wanted to believe Lamont could have been dealing drugs.”
“Not drugs!” Claudia, anxiously following the dialogue, shouted the phrase. “Oh! Can’t talk, can’t ’splain. ’Condas, gang, yes! Bad, no. Not bad, not ’Mont.”
She began crying again, tears of rage and frustration at her inability to speak.