“Are you defying my order, Johnson?” Fritz asked with an undertone of anger in his voice.
Charly knew she had stepped in it. “No, sir,” she said. “But--”
“There’s no but,” Fritz said. “Then again, yes, there is. Get your butt over to the Brown house and extend our condolences. That is all, Dean Johnson,” he said, and then hung up the phone with what even Charly could feel was force.
She exhaled, and hung up too. And that feeling of dread, of drifting, of being a woman alone in this brutal world, reemerged. And she knew, if she was smart, she’d better add another chore to her to-do list: to start looking for another job. Her days in Hemingway, Kentucky, she was now convinced, were numbered.
But then she realized what was being asked of her, and that now that she had a direct order she had no choice but to obey that order, closed the folder, got up, and took off.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The same red Ferrari that was parked in her parking space at Saint Christopher’s when she first arrived in town was parked in front of Rita Mae Brown’s family home when Charly drove up. She now knew, after seeing it at the restaurant he took her to last week, that it belonged to Chief Ryan.
To her own shock, she felt an odd surge of excitement at the thought of seeing him again. Odd because of his lack of contact with her since they met up at that restaurant. She therefore rationalized her joy, knowing that being “excited” was too strong a word. She decided that she was pleased to know that he might be at the Brown house, too, because he had been so kind to her. She rationalized that to be the case, rather than any misplaced affection she might think she had for a man she hardly even knew.
Besides, maybe somebody else owned a red Ferrari in that town.
But when a young lady answered the door and invited her in, the first face she saw, sitting on the sofa beside an older African-American woman, was Chief Ryan himself. And although inwardly she couldn’t deny that she was glad to see him, she could tell on his face that the feeling wasn’t mutual. To her surprise, he, like everybody else in that town so far, looked upset by her presence.
All the other eyes of the African-Americans staring at her, from the various family members sitting around in the crowded living room, to those sitting around the dining room table in the adjacent room, weren’t exactly friendly eyes either. They looked upset by her presence too. But Charly had a duty to perform, and she aimed to perform it.
Boone saw her when she first walked in, and she was right in her perception: his anger did flare. What on earth was she thinking, he wondered? Didn’t she realize the last person on earth those people wanted to see was a dean from Saint Chris?
But somehow Boone knew Charly would not have made that move on her own. She was a smart girl. She knew better than that. He’d bet the farm those clowns on the board put her up to it. They wouldn’t do it themselves, but they gladly put her in the line of fire. It angered Boone that they weren’t looking out for their brand new dean better than that.
“I’m here to see Rita Mae Brown’s mother,” Charly said after entering the home.
Stephanie Brown, Rita Mae’s mother and the woman seated next to Boone, looked at Charly. “Yes? May I help you?”
Charly smiled and walked over to the woman. “My name is Charlene Johnson,” she said, extending her hand.
Although the mother seemed leery of Charly, she shook her hand anyway. “Did you know my daughter?” she asked her.
“No ma’am,” said Charly. “On behalf of Saint Christopher Academy, I want to extend my condolences to you and your family for your tragic loss.”
A collective sigh of disbelief filled the room all at once. Apparently there were many in the room who knew where she worked, but many others who didn’t. “Are you for real?” a young man with dreadlocks asked her: one of the ones who apparently didn’t. “You’re from Saint Chris? Are you kidding me?”
Charly looked back at the young man. He was one of the ones seated at the dining room table.
“Why would you come here?” asked a young lady seated at that table too. “The vice-principal of that school killed Rita Mae, and you have the nerve to offer condolences?”
“Is there no shame over there?” asked yet another young person. “We don’t want you here. We don’t want to have anything to do with you!”
Boone could hear the pain in their voices, but he could see the pain in Charly’s eyes. He rose to his feet, buttoning his suit coat.
“You’re so wrong for even coming here,” said the guy in dreads. “You’re just another sellout!”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Boone said with force. All eyes turned to him, including Charly’s. But when Boone spoke, with those intense eyes and deadly serious look on his face, nobody said another word. It was one thing to pile on a school dean. It was another thing altogether to take on the head of what they viewed as a racist police department that could harass them no end if they disrespected the chief.
“She’s a brand new hire,” Boone continued. “She had nothing to do with what Amos Yerkson did. She was ordered to come here,” he added, although he didn’t know that for a fact. “You’re jumping all over the wrong person, so cut it out!”
It was obvious to Charly that the family members were upset, and wanted to lash out at the chief too. But they didn’t. And although Charly appreciated the fact that the chief stood up for her, she felt she needed to make her intentions clear to the family herself.
Instead of addressing the young people who had addressed her, she turned her attention back to the mother. “I didn’t come here to add to your grief and pain,” she said to her. “And I do apologize if my presence has done that. That’s not my intention. I wish you well. I wish your family well. And I will leave you alone.”
“Are they afraid?” the mother asked her.
Charly didn’t understand the question. At first she glanced at Boone, but then she looked at the woman. “Afraid?”
“Are they afraid I’m going to sue Saint Christopher’s?”
Boone stared at Charly as if her answer would answer a lot of questions for him. Would she come clean, he wondered, or recite the company line?
“In a word,” Charly responded to the mother, “yes,” she said. “That is probably their concern.”
Boone inwardly smiled. That’s my girl, he thought. Then he frowned. His girl? What in the world was he talking about?
The others in the room looked at Charly, too, as if she could give them some insight on the enemy.
“Do you think I have a good case?” the mother asked her pointblank.
But before Charly could say a word, Boone intervened again. “She’s not answering that,” he said.
“If the vice-principal did what the police has accused him of doing,” Charly answered despite Boone’s comment, “then yes. You have a very good case. If he didn’t do what he’s been accused of doing, then your case, I imagine, would be most difficult.”
The mother stared at Charly, and then nodded. And then she extended her hand. “Thank you for your condolences,” she said.
Charly smiled and shook her hand. “You’re welcome,” she said, and then made her way for the exit.