Of Blood and Sorrow: A Tamara Hayle Mystery - Hardcover

Wesley, Valerie Wilson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345492714 ISBN 13: 9780345492715

Publisher: One World/Ballantine, 2008

Synopsis

Valerie Wilson Wesley’s private investigator, Tamara Hayle, whom the Houston Chronicle calls “smart, sexy, tough but tender,” has earned enthusiastic acclaim from reviewers and readers alike. Now Newark, New Jersey’s savviest detective confronts the one case she never saw coming–and discovers how ties that bind can easily become a noose.

Tamara Hayle can’t believe that her life is this good. New York’s most powerful businessman wants her to work for him, her new lover seems caring and supportive, and her son, Jamal, is thriving. But as Tamara sardonically observes, “When things stir that easy, there’s always something lumpy at the bottom of the pot.”

Enter Lilah Love, an old acquaintance who begs Tamara to find her missing child. Tamara, however, is wary of Lilah, who attracts mayhem and murder like an alley cat attracts fleas. Next up is Basil Dupre, Tamara’s outlaw ex-lover, who always brings passion–and chaos–when he strolls into Tamara’s life. Suddenly Tamara’s safe world isn’t so secure, especially when Jamal witnesses a brutal murder and becomes the prime suspect.

As the body count rises, Tamara and Jamal will follow a long-forgotten secret into a terrifying confrontation with love gone bad, trust turned lethal, and a past hungry to claim more lives.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

One

I smelled her perfume before I saw her. It was heady and sweet, like ripe peaches left out in the sun to rot. The lady sitting next to me at the funeral this morning had worn the same scent, and I’d wondered then what madness would drive a woman to wear something that smelled so bad. I guess if you tack a fancy enough name on a perfume, hype it big, sell it high, some poor soul will drench herself in it, even if it sends dogs howling into the night.

First came the perfume, then the tapping of heels and tinkling of bells as she sashayed her way to my office. She walked like somebody who knew where she was going, which surprised me since I’m the only tenant on the floor and didn’t have any appointments.

Business had been slow, as it always is in midsummer. Luckily, I’d scored some good-paying clients in the past two months along with the usual losers who darken my door and waste my time. A hotel chain had hired me in May to catch the light-fingered thief swiping money from the till, and they were keeping me on retainer. In June, a local she’s-all-that had set me on the trail of her no-good fiancé, who was doing the do with her father’s ex-girl. I had two assignments lined up for the end of the month. And this afternoon, I had an appointment with Treyman Barnes II, a big-time mover in my small-time town.

For once in my life, things were sweet. I had a nice man named Larry and money in my pocket. My son, Jamal, bless his heart, was plucking my nerves with teenage angst but was doing okay despite some recent traumas. Except for this morning’s funeral, the day was going fine.

I’d opened the door because my air conditioner was broken, and I’d grimly accepted the fact that a cracked window and an open door would be my only relief against the summer’s heat. But an open door is an open invitation—any old thing can come crawling through.

When I first smelled the perfume, I half expected to see this morning’s funeralgoer. The funeral had been for Wayne Peters, who had been Johnny’s mentor when he first joined the force. The woman was Molly Holiday, an old girlfriend of my long-dead brother. She was a gentle soul with a soft, aging face that reminded me how young he had been when he killed himself. I’d be the same age myself in a couple of years, and that thought choked me up bad when I saw her. We hugged like good friends and promised we’d meet for a drink sooner rather than later. I prayed she’d change that perfume before we met again.

But it wasn’t Molly Holiday who came through my door.

“Well, here we are, Miss Tamara Hayle with a y, you and me together again, just like them Delany sisters or somethin’. I know you remember me from all them years back. You spend all that money I gave you?”

If I were a smoking woman, I’d have lit a cigarette.

She had a pretty, nut brown face and a mop of fake red hair that screamed twenty-dollar hooker. Her build was slight yet muscular, and she rocked her compact body back and forth like a bantam fighter eager for a match. Except for her voice, which pops up in my nightmares, I might not have known her.

“It’s Lilah Love, isn’t it?” I said after a minute.

“In the flesh. You don’t look as happy to see me as I am to see you. What’d you do with all that money?”

“Do you want it back?”

She threw back her head and laughed, a cackle midway between a crazy old lady’s and a kid high on meth. When she was finished, she glanced back at the man in sneakers who had crept in behind her.

“This here is Turk,” she said, and the man lifted his head like a dog does when his master whistles. He was taller than Lilah by a foot, and thick, like he’d spent a few years working out in the gym at Rahway prison. His thin, sallow face was marked by a long, droopy mustache that crawled down to his chin—the source of his name, I assumed. His white armless muscleman fit him snugly, the better to show off biceps that were roughly the size of my fists.

She snatched out a chair and plopped down in front of my desk.

“You can go now,” she said to Turk. “I just wanted her to see you.” He nodded with a smirk, then skulked down the hall, obedient hound that he was.

When he’d gone, Lilah gave me a wide, crooked grin, revealing a gold crown in the back of her mouth. “I’m just wondering how you spent all that money I gave you, that’s all,” she said again.

I saw where she’d spent her money. A nice chunk of it hung around her neck in the shape of a chain sprinkled with emerald chips meant to match the ring on her finger. Her lime green silk suit sure wasn’t retail, and those Jimmy Choos were roughly the cost of a case of Moët. The one odd touch was a gold anklet adorned with tiny bells, the source of the tinkle when she walked down the hall.

When I’d met Lilah Love “all them years back,” she wore a cheap red swimsuit, pink-tinted sunglasses, and an innocent grin on her teenage face. We were staying at a run-down hotel called the Montego Bay about six miles from the nearest beach in Kingston. She seemed a clueless kid trapped between a husband who beat her and a lover who didn’t give a damn, and her vulnerability, along with my drunken boredom, had drawn me into her web.

I’d gotten the round-trip ticket to Kingston from Wyvetta Green, payment for keeping her baby sister Tasha out of the slammer. There wasn’t much to do except drink, and the rum punches were tasting pretty good. But things got hot quick. By the end of that week, five men were dead, a dear friend lay dying, and Lilah Love, suddenly a very rich woman, had bought herself a first-class ticket to Rio.

I never figured out the role she played in those deaths. She had an explanation for everything that happened: her lover had killed her husband; the bad guys had killed her lover; all that money “just fell” into her hands. Truth belongs to the person left to tell it, and, except for me, she was the only one standing. But one of her “truths” was actually true. That was the thirty grand “plus a little extra for my troubles” she left for me in a Cayman Islands bank account.

I didn’t touch that money for years, then, bit by bit, I dipped into it. The first dip was Jamal’s braces. Then Wyvetta Green, who owns Jan’s Beauty Biscuit downstairs, got into some trouble with the IRS and almost lost her shop. Naturally, I had to dip in to lend my girl some cash; she’d saved my butt more times than I care to remember. The dipping stopped for a while, then Jamal started spending more time on the street than he should, and I dipped in and sent him to a fancy computer camp in South Jersey. Only eighteen thousand dollars was left, and I was determined to save that for Jamal’s education. It meant the difference between sending him away to school and having him live at home. The streets of my hometown were turning bad, and I wanted my son gone while the going was good.

No doubt about it, Lilah Love’s money had come in handy. Yet every time I whispered the password “Montego Bay” to the banker in the Caymans, a chill went through me. I knew sooner or later the girl would show up looking for something I didn’t want to give. Now here she was, “in the flesh,” asking about those ill-gotten gains.

“Not talking? Well, that’s your choice, Tamara Hayle. You a woman who keeps her business to herself. I liked that about you from the get. You ain’t changed none.” Her grin told me she had; there was no innocence left, just sharp little teeth.

“What brings you to my office this afternoon?” I pulled out my professional voice.

“Don’t look like you spent too much of that money here, do it? How come you didn’t get yourself a big fancy office with some of them thousands I gave you?” She added a wink, as if it were a joke between us, but she was back to the money, and that worried me.

“Because I like my office the way it is,” I said, at best a half truth. Nothing has changed much over the years, and I’ve stopped apologizing for it. My walls remain the same dreary off-white color. The sun shining down on my intrepid orphan aloe still dims from the film on my windows. The red filing cabinet, despite the recent paint job, still looks as shoddy as homemade sin. The one recent addition is my brand-new computer with its wireless connection. I can be online in seconds, and I need to be able to do that in the business I’m in. I was as proud of it as I am of anything I’ve ever bought. I gave it a proud glance; Lilah’s eyes followed mine.

“Well, wait a minute! Just look at this,” she said. “You ain’t as backward as I thought. You part of my generation. Did you know you can find out anything you want about anybody you want on the Net? I go online and talk to all kinds of people any time of the day or night. That’s how I found out your office and address. I know where you live, too. Did you know I could do that, Miss Tamara Hayle?”

“When did you get back in town?” I said, ignoring her question.

“It was time to come back. I got some business to take care of.”

“May I ask what it is?”

“I got to get back something that belong to me. Something important. Stolen property, you might say. It’s mine, and I want it back.”

“And what brings you to my office, Lilah?” I kept my voice neutral.

She studied her long, sculptured nails tipped on the ends with tiny daisies. “I need your help, Tamara Hayle.”

“Tamara will do. We both know who I am.”

“I need your help, because the...

From Publishers Weekly

The desperate search for a missing child makes Newark PI Tamara Hayle's eighth outing (after 2005's Dying in the Dark) a chilling, thought-provoking read. Gold-digging Lilah Love gave Tamara $30,000 years earlier after some shady doings in Jamaica. Now Lilah's sister, Thelma Lee, has Lilah's daughter, Baby Dal, and refuses to give her back. Lilah threatens harm to Tamara's son, Jamal, unless Tamara takes on her case. Tamara doesn't want to help Lilah, who sees Baby Dal as a bargaining chip, so she lets Treyman Barnes II, the child's wealthy, powerful grandfather, hire her instead. Then Thelma Lee disappears with the baby, and Lilah is found murdered in her car with Jamal's backpack in the rear seat. Tamara realizes she must find Lilah's child in order to protect her own. Wesley recounts Tamara's struggles with equal parts irony, compassion and insight. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: One World/Ballantine
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0345492714
• ISBN 13: 9780345492715
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240