Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [103]
“Pictures?” the silver-haired one asked.
Mae cleared her throat again. She told herself to stop clearing her throat. “Ugh, Vie, the case manager, I’m sure she has pictures.”
“Describe them, please.” The bald-headed one said this and flipped open a top-spiraled bound notebook. “And also, if you know what they were wearing, that would be real helpful.”
Suddenly Mae couldn’t remember a single item of clothing those girls owned. She couldn’t even remember the color of their everyday coats. “Funny what you remember at a time like this,” she said.
“Excuse me,” the bald one said.
Mae looked at him with his pen poised over his pad. She’d expected a tape recorder. Didn’t the police use a tape recorder on Perry Mason when they thought they were close to a confession? What confession? The girls! She let the words burst in her head. They were here for the girls, not for her, not for Donald Booker. “I’m just saying I don’t remember what they might be wearing. That’s all. And of all times, this time when they done turned up missing, I should remember.”
She thought she heard the silver-haired one clear his throat as if he were signaling his partner. Probably getting ready to ask me what was I doing eighteen years ago that September afternoon, she thought. She decided then that she’d call them out on it, shit, who did they think they were messing with? Didn’t they know that some of the best card sharks in the city had tried to mess with her mind and lost? “Look,” she said. This time she deliberately didn’t clear her throat. “Don’t act like I’m saying something strange or acting strange. I see the way you and your bald-headed partner signaling each other like I got something to hide.” She looked from one to the other. Let her drooping eye blink out of sync with her good one the way she’d always do at the top of her game. “I mean I could tell you what my only child was wearing in September some eighteen years ago. A navy pleated skirt, sky blue nylon knee-highs, a sky blue cotton blouse, and her new maroon oxfords from Shapiro’s. Now. I can tell you that, okay. And I can’t tell you what those girls was wearing yesterday. Is that so strange? Well, if you think that’s strange, all I got to say is fuck you and your mommas.”
“They got on plaid fleece-lined coats.” Ramona’s voice was calm and efficient floating down the stairs. “And their pictures were just in the Tribune when their daddy turned up missing a couple of months ago. I have that issue; I’ll get it for you.”
Now the two beefy men did clear their throats and look at each other and at Mae. “Your mother’s tough,” the silver-haired one said.
“Yes, siree.” The bald one half laughed, “Why she got to bring our mommas into it?”
“Um, the shock, you know the girls missing.” Ramona pushed the robe sleeves up on her arms and then smoothed at the back of her French roll. “She has a perfect record in foster care, you know. Isn’t that right, Mommie?”
Mae was just staring straight ahead, fighting to focus on the police, on Ramona, on the melted snow seeping into her new wall-to-wall. But Ramona had just called her Mommie, hadn’t called her Mommie in almost two decades. Mae’s focus was distracted at the sound of that word. And the air in the living room was going quickly from gray to green.
“Um, come with me, please.” Ramona rushed her words to the police when she noticed Mae just staring into space like that. Even guided the silver-haired one by the elbow, curled her fingers to the bald head, “Come, come,” she said. “I can show you the girls’ room just the way they left it. I’ll bring you the newspaper with their picture in it. Coffee? Or water? Anything I can get for you? Um, please don’t mind my mother; you can’t imagine