Of Things Unseen Read online

  Barrington sat back in his chair to give her some space. When she finally opened her eyes, she fixated on something behind him. “My brother was...violent with me when I was little. I guess in my mind I always felt like he was the type of person who liked to hurt other people. Especially girls. And then when I got involved with these cases and I saw the sketch, I put two and two together.”

  “So you think he killed the little girl?”

  “Yes...maybe.” She continued to stare past Barrington, picking her fingers absentmindedly.

  “Did Andre know her?”

  “He had to. I never saw them together but he definitely knew her.”

  “So it was just a hunch?”

  “It was a feeling. A strong feeling.” She finally looked at him. “This is probably gonna sound crazy to you but...I can be very intuitive. I see and feel things about other people. It’s called being an empath.”

  He smiled again. “I’m familiar with the term.”

  She looked embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be condescending. I read about it online.”

  He waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Look, you don’t sound crazy. I understand what you’re saying. I’m the same way, at least when it comes to this job. I had to learn how to read people and a big part of that is learning how to trust your feelings. Gut instinct.”

  “What did your instincts tell you about my brother?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  Barrington sighed. “I’m sorry your brother hurt you.”

  She looked down again and it took him a minute to realize she was crying. Without saying a word, he left the room and procured a box of tissue from the receptionist. Her head was still down when he returned. He sat in the chair beside her and held out the box. Without lifting her head, she reached over and pulled out a few sheets. They sat in silence, the ticking of the wall clock punctuating every second.

  He studied her movements. They were fluid, almost as if she were underwater, and not a single one was wasted. In fact, there was nothing superfluous about her. Her hair, her clothes, her makeup, everything was just enough. Just right. And she had a softness about her. He was transfixed. There were beautiful women everywhere, especially in Atlanta, but she was a rarity.

  Barrington considered himself progressive. He absolutely believed in equality of the sexes and he marveled at the strength and power of women, especially the black women he knew. They were all smart and independent, including Fallon, and he liked that, he really did. He was always proud to see women doing their thing. It was sexy. But those women often had a hard edge, one that was necessary to survive in a man’s world. He had nothing but respect for them but there was a small part of him, deep down in a place hidden even from him, that hungered for the kind of vulnerability and neediness that was on display in front of him at that moment. It stirred something in him. He had a fleeting moment of guilt for thinking about it before he silenced the internal criticism and gave in to his urge to roam her body with his eyes. She was physically soft too, all dainty curves, starting with those full lips, tainted pink and glossy. Her skin was brown and smooth and her thick black hair that rested on her small shoulders. Her face, body, mannerisms, and presentation were a striking combination. If he was single, he definitely would—

  “Mr. Dunn?”

  He snapped to attention, slightly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”

  “I asked if you had more questions for me.” Before he could answer, she continued. “I just realized I called you ‘Mr.’ Should I call you Detective Dunn?”

  “Actually, you can call me Barrington.”

  “Barrington. I like that name. It’s interesting. Very distinguished.”

  I like the way you say my name. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  It was an odd moment. He was looking at her and for the first time, she was looking back at him. Is she flirting with me? No, couldn’t be. He thought he saw her glance at his chest and told himself it was in his head.

  “So listen. I don’t have any other questions for you but I wanted to tell you I think what you’re doing, helping the families, is a good thing. A very good thing. I also want to keep the lines of communication open with you and your team. You mentioned you were working with a journalist?”

  She looked away again. “Uh...yes, Nikki Thomas. Well, Reese now.”

  “Right. I would like to extend the invitation to you and your team to call if you have any further information. My department will disseminate information to the media when we feel it’s necessary and I will personally try to ensure that your people are in the loop.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  He watched her carefully, sensing that she was holding back. He decided not to push her. “I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time today,” he said.

  “You didn’t.”

  He stood and extended his hand to her. She extended hers and they shook. Her hands felt like silk. He shook his head as if that would help get the thought out of his head. She didn’t seem to notice. He continued to hold her hand, pretending to help her stand. “Let me walk you out. It’s like a maze in here.”

  He exited his office and she followed behind. As they passed the rows of cubicles, heads popped up and out of the square spaces and eyes strained to catch a glimpse. Barrington laughed to himself and enjoyed the moment. Her husband must have felt like a king parading her around. When they reached the elevators, he slowed to allow her to walk in front of him and instantly regretted it. The sway in her hips was unreal, like—

  Ding!

  He had never been happier to see the elevator. “Okay, you want to go to L if you parked on the street and B if you parked in the deck.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Alright, take care.”

  She pressed the button and he turned to walk away before stopping short. “Tamara! I forgot to ask. Do you remember Leah’s last name?”

  She reached out quickly to stop the doors from closing. “Boyd.”

  “Thanks!” he yelled, already halfway down the hallway. He had an idea.

  Chapter 22

  WE FOUND OUT ON A FRIDAY, of all days, the day that promises rest, fun, happiness, or at the very least, a respite from the stress of the days that preceded it. On top of me being shut out of the case, not talking to my mother, and the police thinking Andre was innocent, the worst that could have happened did.

  Tony didn’t get tenure.

  The committee had cited him for a lack of productivity in the field, which Tony said meant he hadn’t published enough journal articles. According to him, his book didn’t count even though it had sold fairly well for an academic monograph.

  I had never quite understood it. A person goes to graduate school to become a professional and then spends his entire career writing materials for other professionals to read. Those professionals then decide if the material is up to their standards and if so, they release it to the public at large, but those people will never get to read it because journals charge regular people hundreds of dollars to access their esteemed collection of works. It all seemed like a big circle-jerk to me.

  It was a shame, really. Tony wasn’t perfect but he was smart as hell. I’d read almost everything he’d written, and I’d sat in on a couple of his classes. He seemed to have good reviews from his students, so the whole thing was a mystery to me.

  He’d spent the rest of Friday after the phone call alone in his office and I left him alone. It was now Saturday, though, and I needed to put together a game plan. It was a delicate balance, being supportive but not to the point of fake and obnoxious. There were nuances about the process I didn’t and couldn’t understand so I had to tread lightly. He would see through any attempts to build him up at the expense of reality. There’s nothing worse than supporting someone into misery.

  I cooked a beautiful breakfast for him. Bacon almost burnt just the way he liked it.
Toast with heavy butter. Scrambled eggs with cheese, onions, and red bell peppers. A bowl of grapes, and two cinnamon waffles—Eggo, but he didn’t know the difference. His appetite was normal, a good sign, but I was still wary. He’d thanked me for the meal and complimented my cooking. So far, so good. Then came lunchtime. I asked him if he wanted to go out to eat and he simply grunted so I backed off and ordered a pizza.

  For dinner, we ate the leftover baked chicken and roasted potatoes I’d made the night before in complete silence. I was growing tired already but I pressed on. As many times as he’d nursed me through my illness, I could certainly nurse him through his defeat.

  Men are scary when they’re defeated. Some stomp and yell about the indignity of their loss while others go inward. I’m not sure which is worse. All those long pregnant silences and pained expressions and the way they snap at the slightest thing, barely suppressing the urge to take out all of their anger and hurt on the people who love them most. And those people—us—we trip all over ourselves to absorb the verbal and emotional blows, telling ourselves it will all be worth it once he gets his bearings. Just a little more time and things will be back to normal. Just hang in there. But by the time he’s better it’s too late, the resentment has taken root inside us like a virus.

  When Tony’s parents died, his mother first, of cancer, and his father, only three months later of a heart attack, he went deep inside himself and it took months for him to come out. I understood, or tried to, and gave him time and space, and it was easy to do because we were both working at the time. He grieved, I nurtured, we worked, and he slowly got through it.

  This was different.

  Death is organic, an inevitable phase of life. Rejection, on the other hand, is peculiar. It’s something most of us spend our lives trying to avoid, especially men. Parents teach their children that they won’t get everything they ever want, that “no” is unavoidable, but then the world tells us if we work hard enough, we can do anything we want. Those two ideas are hard to reconcile sometimes. Even those of us who are taught we must work twice as hard—we still believe it will all matter in the end. And sometimes, many times, it doesn’t.

  It had to be a punch in the gut. To overcome so many obstacles, work your ass off, and then be told “no. You’re not good enough.” We all hear no but there’s something about the ego, or maybe the way boys are socialized, that makes rejection particularly hard for some of them to handle. No is never just no, I don’t want to hire you or play with you or give you my phone number or have sex with you. It’s also no, I don’t respect your manhood. And what does that even mean? It’s such a flimsy, esoteric premise. Manhood, I mean. You can’t see it or use any of the senses to detect it. But it means something. It means a lot. Especially to black men. People suffer and die every day because of it. And I had no idea how to navigate it.

  I had cooked Tony’s food, three meals a day, made love and given him head four days in a row and nothing was working. I was officially out of my depth. He came home with a bottle of Hennessey yesterday and I felt pain in the pit of my stomach. Tony only drank in extreme circumstances...to celebrate something major or to wallow. He didn’t like how alcohol made him feel, the lack of control and lowered inhibitions, but apparently, he was willing to let go. He was freefalling. This was serious.

  Chapter 23

  “LEAH BOYD WAS 11 YEARS old at the time of her disappearance. On the day she went missing, July 23, she had been playing outside with several other children from the neighborhood. At some time during the evening hours, her mother Glenda noticed the child’s bike lying on its side in the driveway and began to worry. After searching the neighborhood, Glenda called the police.

  Two patrol officers were dispatched to the Boyd home. A search was not initiated at that time as the officers determined it was likely a runaway situation.

  On July 30, a week after she disappeared, civilian searchers found Leah’s body in the woods about half a mile from her home. She was fully clothed and in a state of partial decomposition. An autopsy revealed that she was sexually assaulted and the cause of death was manual strangulation. The victim’s front tooth was also knocked out. The medical examiner estimated that she likely died between three to seven hours after she was last seen.

  The police interviewed several male persons of interest, including the child’s stepfather Sam Boyd. He was eventually cleared, along with other adult and young adult males in the neighborhood. The case remains open.

  Leah Boyd is described as a black female, 11 years of age, medium brown complexion, black hair. On the date of her disappearance, she was last seen wearing a black and yellow cheerleader uniform, white tennis shoes, and white socks with yellow pom-poms on the back. One of the pom-poms was missing and has never been located. ”

  BARRINGTON CLOSED THE file and stifled a yawn. He glanced at his watch, saw a blur, rubbed his eyes, then looked again. It was almost 7 o’clock. Time to go home. He wasn’t even sure why he had stayed so late. He had spent the last hour reading Leah Boyd’s case file and taking notes in what he knew was a pointless endeavor. It was an almost 20-year-old cold case, after all.

  Still, something about it was weighing on him and he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it. Tamara had held back when she spoke on it, he was sure of that. But why?

  Tomorrow, he would call on Leah’s mother.

  THE DRIVE TO THE BOYD house was pleasant enough, although traffic was beginning to pick up. Atlanta rush hours seemed to start at 3 pm these days and it was getting worse every year.

  It was a secret mission, one that he should have handled on his own time. Price would have a fit if he found out and demand that he explain himself, but Barrington was tired of explaining. Besides, he had leeway.

  Ms. Glenda had sounded happy on the phone, if a little confused. She explained to him that her daily calls to the police had become bi-yearly check-ins that were met with exasperated sighs from the police. Both of the original detectives had retired and nobody else was interested in solving the case of a dead black girl.

  He straightened his tie and took a deep breath before ringing the bell. The door opened and an older black woman greeted him with a smile. “Hello young man!” she said.

  “Young man? I don’t know about that,” he said, chuckling. “Ms. Glenda?”

  “That’s me. Come on in.”

  He entered and was immediately hit with the smell of home. It was pleasant, like the leftover smells of every meal cooked there were still floating in the air. A family had lived in that home.

  The two sat on a beige sectional in what looked to be the family room. Board games filled the underside of the coffee table, but the boxes were covered in a layer of dust that hadn’t been disturbed in a long time.

  “I was very surprised to get your call, Detective. Are you reopening the case?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. I’m on my own with this. It isn’t a full-scale investigation. I guess you could say I’m revisiting the case in hopes of finding new leads.”

  She looked disappointed. “Well, I suppose that’s better than nothing. How can I help?”

  “First, I want you to tell me about Leah.”

  The joy that spread across Ms. Glenda’s face seemed to brighten the whole room. “If you wanna get a feel for who she was you need to see her room.”

  Leah’s bedroom was a time capsule of the late 90s. As soon as Ms. Glenda opened the door, Barrington was greeted by at least a dozen posters on the opposite wall. Jodeci, Monica, Brandy, Boyz II Men, TLC, Usher, Xscape, Silk, and several others stared back at him, frozen in time. Young, gifted, and black.

  Leah’s twin bed sat neatly beneath the posters, a flowery multicolored pastel comforter covering it. To the left, a white dresser with gold foil stencil sat against the wall, and to the right was a white desk with a bookshelf hutch. The room had a slight stale smell, but it wasn’t altogether u
npleasant.

  “I’ve pretty much kept everything the same in here,” said Ms. Glenda, shaking him out of his thoughts. “Leah loved music. I didn’t let my kids listen to rap much, especially after the real hardcore stuff got popular, but R&B was allowed and it was her favorite.”

  A Walkman, headphones, and several cassette tapes sat neatly on the desk. Ms. Glenda gently touched the Walkman. “She would be up here with these headphones on making up dance routines. Whenever we heard stomping up here we knew she was dancing around.”

  He turned to reply and for the first time, he noticed the opposite side of the room. It was like a completely different area. There was a small mahogany desk with a laptop computer and several books sitting on top. A spiral notebook and a stack of mail sat on the corner.

  She followed his eyes. “Oh this, well I put my desk in here. I actually went back to school. I’m working on my master’s right now.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Mm-hm. In Social Work. Once my youngest left home I didn’t have much to do so I enrolled. I like to work in here because...it might sound silly but I feel like Leah is cheering me on. She’s my motivation.”

  “That doesn’t sound silly at all.”

  She nodded. “I’ve served as a child advocate for the last ten years. You know CASA?”

  “I do.”

  “I enjoyed doing that but I figured I could do more with a degree. I feel like I’ve found my calling. Helping children.”

  “I bet your family is proud of you.”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  He smiled warmly. He was proud of her, too. “What else can you tell me about Leah.”

  “Oh, she was a good little girl. I know every mother says that but it’s true. She was a sweetheart, always helping me around the house. She loved to vacuum, that was her favorite chore. She was a quiet girl but once you got to know her, you couldn’t shut her up.” They both chuckled.