truth of Jet’s life as she told it to me last night.
The maid tilts her head to one side and regards me with fresh suspicion. “I reckon you know who Mrs. Jet loves, don’t you?”
“Tallulah . . . I’m going to ask you one more hard question. Maybe a stupid one. But I would really appreciate an answer.”
“You done used up your time, Marshall. I need to get back to work.”
“Wait—please. I was told that Max raped Jet. That that’s how he fathered Kevin.”
Tallulah’s gaze settles on me with gentle but insistent pressure. “Who told you that?”
“Does it matter? I want to know if that’s what you believe.”
Tallulah looks down at a flower bed filled with Louisiana iris. “It’s gon’ rain this evening. These flowers need it.” When I don’t respond, she looks up and says, “I’ll tell you this. Mr. Max been with a lot of women over the years, white and black. He’s a hard-dick man. He broke a lot of hearts over the years . . . but I ain’t ever known him to force nobody. He never had to.”
How closely her words echo Nadine’s. “Maybe this time he did,” I suggest. “Maybe he had to. To get Jet to submit.”
Tallulah nods slowly. “Mayhap that’s how it was. But I ’member that time pretty good. Wasn’t but thirteen years back. Hard times in this family. Paul was takin’ pills, smokin’ that reefer. Drinkin’ every morning, passed out by dark. Mrs. Sally was having health issues. Female troubles, but worse things, too. Terrible diverticulitis. But Mr. Max? He was his same old self. Heck, he wasn’t but fifty-three back then.”
“What are you telling me, Tallulah?”
“Nothing. I don’t speak ill of nobody. All I’m saying is things had a funny feeling ’round here for a month or so.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing! I’ll swear that on the Bible. I never saw nothing untoward.”
“But you felt something.”
She shrugs her big shoulders. “Like I said . . . things just felt funny for a bit. Then they settled back down. And next thing I know, Jet had the big belly. Then she was bringin’ li’l Kev into the world. After that, it was like a rainbow coming out after a storm. Everybody got better. Whole house had a glow in it, all coming from that boy.”
The memory has lightened this woman’s heart. “And now?” I ask.
Another heavy sigh, and her lips pooch out. “This house done gone dark again. Darker than before, even, ’cause Mrs. Sally gone. Now . . . you’ve kept me too long. I need to go.” She puts her hand on the doorknob and starts to close the door.
“Did Paul ever sense anything?” I ask quickly. “This is important, Tallulah. I’m trying to avert bloodshed.”
She stops, looks back. “Paul’s smarter than people think. A lot smarter than his daddy ever give him credit for. He has a lot of Mrs. Sally in him.”
“I know that. What about my question?”
“If Paul sensed anything, he shoved it way down deep, with all the other stuff been killin’ him all these years.”
That’s the Paul Matheson I know. But what she’s suggesting about Jet goes against everything I know about her. And I know her better than anyone alive. Yet what reason could Tallulah have to lie? As I stare at the anxious maid, an answer comes to me. It’s not a pleasant one, but it’s grounded in hard reality.
“Tallulah, Max’s murder alibi rests on you. He told the police you told Sally you caught Max with Margaret Sullivan. You and I know that’s not true. If the police ask you that question . . . what will you tell them?”
She sighs heavily, then looks at my feet. “I don’t know. One thing’s for sure, nothing I say gon’ help Mrs. Sally now. She’s with Jesus. Long past these earthly travails.”
“But you’re not. Do you feel you owe it to Max to protect him?”
She looks up, and I see harsh truths written in her lined face. “Owe him? Boy, that’s like askin’ me why I still work for Mr. Max, when he coulda killed Mrs. Sally.”
I don’t even blink as I stare at her. “Will you answer me?”
Tallulah closes her eyes, then shakes her head with a sadness that has a centuries-old provenance. “This be where I stay at, Marshall. Who else gonna give me my own house to sleep in? Bills paid, water paid, ’lectric paid. Health insurance, even. I got no choice, have I? Body my age? You know that.”