“Jeremiah had been shot, too, but it didn’t slow him down. He saw I wasn’t hurt and dropped to his knees next to his brother. I don’t remember much of what happened next. Ezekiel was talking a lot between groaning and passing out. Jeremiah had to keep his brother alive on his own. He stuffed a piece of torn shirt into Ezekiel’s wound and kept him from bleeding to death then and there, I believe.”
Her breathing starts to sound wrong, like taking a breath underwater.
I touch her hand and massage her knuckles. “Are you comfortable talking about this? We can finish later.”
“I ain’t got manylaters left, Sawyer.” Her face darkens into hues of brown and gray.
“Okay. Tell me the rest, if you want. I’m all ears.”
“We girls stood there. Didn’t even scream—didn’t have time, everything happened too fast.”
“Did he die? Did Ezekiel die that day?” The question sounds heartless, but I need to know. “We found a death certificate for every member of the Bailey family, except for Ezekiel.”
“You can rest assured he’s dead now. That man couldn’t outlive me.”
She had a point. It seemed she had an endless stream of points. “How about Honoree? Did she die? Now, we didn’t look to see when she passed since we didn’t realize you weren’t her.”
“I didn’t let anyone talk about her around me once I changed my name. It didn’t matter much. Everyone who knew her had died or run away, anyhow.”
I searched for a sign of sadness or a hint of sorrow in a quivering cheek. Bessie Palmer had made up her mind long ago; regret would never be her friend.
“Lula and I found only a few news articles about the shooting. The first story in a black newspaper ran in February. The article was about the police search for Bessie Palmer. They wanted to question her about the murder of Dewey Graves. No mention of Ezekiel or Honoree.” I pause to let that settle in.
“They stopped looking for me after that. Women were never that important. If a man, white or Black, said they saw something or done something, they’d be believed before a colored woman, most of the time.”
“We found Jeremiah’s name in an AME church record. It was his obituary. He died unmarried but with a fiancé. That was you?”
She stirs in the bed. “That was me. We never married. He was kind, and things might’ve been different if he’d lived longer and helped raise Margaret. He was such a young man when he passed.”
She groans, and I gently squeeze her fingers. “You want to stop and take a nap?”
“I don’t want to stop. I want to stay awake for as long as I can be awake.” Her eyes darken, making a point of looking me in the eye like I anchor her to this world.
“Dewey’s murder was never solved, from what Lula and I could find.”
Honoree laughs out loud. “The police were looking for the wrong girl.”
“They had an eyewitness. Someone saw her commit the crime, according to the article, but they never mentioned who.”
Honoree looks at me, eyes wide and bright. “The coppers were looking for a girl who looked like me, but I was a blonde by then, a colored girl with bleached hair. Like Trudy. She dyed my hair.” Honoree smiles. “The coppers weren’t looking for Trudy, though; she was working at the Plantation Cafe. Under the protection of Capone’s gang. But most likely, she was spying on him for Hymie Weiss.” She shakes her head slowly. “We might’ve been best friends if I wasn’t Honoree’s best friend.”
“So, is that why the police didn’t know you?”
“Coppers didn’t care about finding who killed Dewey. They had their hands full with Capone. He went crazy in 1926, and every police department in the city, even in Bronzeville, was busy fighting mobsters.”
Honoree smacks her lips, creating a loud popping noise. “The folks who worked at Miss Hattie’s moved to another speakeasy a block over from Miss Hattie’s. Even Miss Dolly relocated. Miss Hattie’s had been her mother’s place before Archie came along, but after Archie died and Honoree vanished, the joint wasn’t what it used to be.”
The wretched coughing drags through her body; even her legs lift beneath the sheet as she gags, the color vanishing from her face, her eyes blood-soaked from the pain.
“Should I get the doctor?”
She pants for a few horrific seconds, catching her breath, holding out a pleading hand. “Don’t leave me, Sawyer. Stay. I’ll be okay. Just tired.” She squeezes the railing of her hospital bed.
“Let’s get someone in here.” I move toward the Call button.
“Don’t bother. I’m almost done,” she says; the finality in her words tears through me. “We were all broken, Sawyer. Broken hearts, broken bodies, broken dreams.” She laughs. “You never know how shit will work out, though. I did live to be one hundred and five years old. That’s something, ain’t it?”
CHAPTER 49
