He was getting annoyed with her assumptions. “There weren’t any white ones missing today, so we drew straws.”
She gave him a sharp look. “You’re not funny, young man.”
“I’m not a racist pig, either.”
She locked eyes with him for a moment, then nodded as if she’d made up her mind about him. “For goodness’ sake, sit.”
Will finally did as he was told, sinking so low into the old chair that his knees were practically around his ears.
He tried to get to the point. “Cedric called me.”
“And how do you know Cedric?”
“I met him this morning. I was out here with a detective from the Atlanta Police Department investigating the death of the young woman who lived upstairs.”
“Young woman?” she echoed. “She was forty if she was a day.”
Will had heard Pete Hanson say as much during the autopsy, but hearing the old woman say it now somehow gave it more resonance. Aleesha Monroe had been at least twenty-five years older than the other victims. What had made the killer break from his usual target group?
Eleanor asked, “Why is the GBI mixed up in the death of a drug-addicted prostitute?”
“I’m with a division that reaches out to local law enforcement when help is needed.”
“That’s a very fine response, young man, but you’ve not really answered my question.”
“You’re right,” he admitted. “Tell me when you realized that Jasmine was missing.”
She studied him, her gaze steely, lips pursed. He forced himself not to look away, wondering how she had been in the classroom, if she was one of the types who let the dumb kids sit in the back or if she would have dragged him by the ear to the front row, yelling at him for not knowing the answer to the question on the board.
“All right,” Eleanor decided. “I assumed Jasmine was in her room doing homework. When I called her for supper, she didn’t come. I looked in the room and she wasn’t there.”
“What time was this?”
“Around five o’clock.”
Will glanced at his watch, but the digital clock on the TV told him the actual time. “So, to your knowledge, she’s been gone about five hours?”
“Are you going to tell me I need to wait another day before it matters?”
“I wouldn’t drive all the way down here to tell you that, Ms. Allison. I would just call you on the phone.”
“You think she’s just another black girl run off with a man, but I’m telling you, I know that girl.”
“She wasn’t in school today,” Will reminded her.
The old woman looked down. Will saw that her hands were like claws in her lap, arthritis twisting them into unusable lumps. “She was suspended for back-talking a teacher.”
“Cedric, too?”
“This is turning adversarial,” she noted, but she still kept talking. “I don’t get around very easily, especially since they took my Vioxx away. Their mother has been incarcerated for more than half of Cedric’s life. She’s a heroin addict, just like Aleesha Monroe. The only difference is that my Glory got caught.”
Will knew better than to interrupt.
“I laid down the law with Glory. Stayed up nights, followed her whenever she left the house. I was that child’s skin, I was so close to her. She hated every minute of it-still hates me now-but I was her mother and that’s what I was going to do. Same with them.” With difficulty, she lifted a hand, indicating the closed bedroom door. Will saw a shadow move underneath and guessed that Cedric was listening.
Eleanor continued, “Glory pretty much let those two run wild. She didn’t care what they did so long as she didn’t get into trouble and could still keep putting that needle in her veins.” The woman sighed, lost in her own memories. “Jasmine’s as wild as Glory was, and I can’t keep up with her. It took me five minutes to walk to that doorway tonight to see what Cedric was running on about.”
Will wanted to say that he was sorry, but knew she would only correct him, remind him that her condition, the miserable way she must have spent her life trying to do the right thing while the walls fell in around her, was not his fault.
Eleanor told him, “Cedric was a baby when Glory lost custody.” She managed to lean forward. “He’s a smart boy, Mr. Trent. A smart boy with a future if I can keep him out of this mess long enough for him to grow.” She pressed her lips together. “There’s something he’s not telling me. He loves his sister and she loves him-loves him like a mother because that’s what she had to be when Glory was busy shooting that trash into her system.” She paused. “I think I have more influence on him. And there’s no denying Jasmine loves him. She doesn’t want him mixed up in the life around here, the thugs and the gang bangers and the hoodlums. She embraces it, but she knows her baby brother can do better.”
Will asked, “Has Jasmine run away before?”
“Twice, but always because there was a fight. We didn’t fight yesterday. We haven’t fought all week, for a change. Jasmine wasn’t angry with me, or at least no more angry than any teenager is at the person in charge.”
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Boy? He’s fifteen years older than she is.”
“What’s his name?”
“Luther Morrison. He lives on Basil Avenue, about three miles from here, in the Manderley Arms. I already called him. He says she’s not there.” She explained, “Each time she ran away before, I called him. Both times he told me she was there. Luther pretends that he believes Jasmine is seventeen, but he knows that child’s age just as sure as I’m sitting here and he’ll do anything I say to keep me from calling the cops on him.”
Will had to ask, “Why haven’t you called the police on him? She’s thirteen, he’s almost thirty. That’s statutory rape.”
“Because I learned with her mother that a girl who’s set on destroying herself will not be stopped. If I get this one arrested, she’ll just go to the next one, and he’ll be even worse than this Morrison, if that’s possible.”
“Gran?” Cedric asked. He was still in the bedroom, peeking around the edge of the door. “I finished cleaning the room.”
“Come here, child.” She reached out her arm for him and he came. She told Will, “I called the police as soon as I realized Jasmine was missing. I’m sure you can guess their response.”
“They told you to give it twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight if they know she’s run away before.”
“Correct.”
Will addressed his words to Cedric. “You sounded pretty upset when you called me. Can you tell me why?”
Cedric looked at his grandmother, then back at Will. His shoulders went up into a shrug.
The old woman stirred, reaching into the front pocket of her house-dress. “Walk Mr. Trent out and check the mail for me, baby. Mr. Trent?” Will struggled to get out of the chair. “Thank you for your concern.”
“Please don’t bother,” he said, noticing that she was trying to stand. “I’ll let you know what I find out.” He reached out to shake her hand, remembering at the last moment that the arthritis would make it too painful. She grabbed his hand before he could stop her, and he was surprised by the intensity of her grip. “Please,” she begged. “Please find her, Mr. Trent.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, knowing that she was proud and that it took everything she had to ask him for help.
He followed Cedric down the stairs and out into the parking lot. The overhead lights cast a strange glow over everything and Will realized that it was only a few hours past the time that Aleesha Monroe had been murdered on Sunday night. Cedric walked to the grassy area by the mailboxes where Jasmine had jumped him this morning.
Will watched the boy slip his key into the lock, waiting until he’d retrieved the mail to tell him, “This is serious, Cedric.”