dry, I wiped them roughly on the sides of my jeans. “Chester, this is not funny!” I touched his side with the toe of my shoe and he still did not move.
“We have to call the police,” Desiree wailed, looking toward the telephone.
“And tell them what? That we just killed a policeman?” I yelled over my shoulder.
“We? You are the one who hit him,” Desiree squawked, waving her arms, shaking her head.
I gave her an incredulous look. “I was trying to keep him off of you!” I reminded her. “What was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to come over here in the first place. If you hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Well I didn’t tell you to hit him. And in the head? With that piece of steel? You of all people should know better than to hit him on his soft spot.”
“It—it was—self-defense,” I stuttered. “You saw everything. He’d already hit us both,” I replied quickly, in a defensive voice, smoothing back my wild hair. I felt like a rag doll somebody had stuck pins in.
Desiree leaned down to pick up the telephone, but I slapped it out of her hand again. “Didn’t I tell you to leave that telephone alone?”
“We have to do something, Carmen. The longer we wait, the worse it’s going to look.” Her lips quivered and then, with her head bobbing, she blurted, “We’ll say he fell.” Her eyes blinked frantically. Her mouth was still moving, but no words were coming out.
“And how will we explain your fucked-up face?” I asked, rotating my neck, my arms, and my eyes.
“Nobody has to know he hit me. Nobody has to know you came over here. I swear to God I won’t tell,” Desiree replied, shaking her head so hard, snot splashed out of her nose onto my chest.
“Regina knows,” I said calmly, shaking my head to keep it from ringing.
“What?”
“Will you calm down?” I told her, holding my hand in front of her tear-stained face.
“What all does Regina know?” Desiree asked in a low, hollow voice.
“Nothing. Uh…I mean, all I told her was that you and Chester were having a problem and that I was on my way to help you.”
“Oh, that’s great,” Desiree yelled, flapping her arms like something getting ready to fly. “That was a smart thing for you to do. That bigmouth bitch will blow everything. Why did you call her?” Desiree roared, stomping her foot so hard the pictures on the wall rattled.
“I didn’t call her. She called me right after I talked to you,” I snapped. I shook my head, hoping it would help me organize my thoughts, but there was too much going on up there and it was too late, anyway. Everything seemed to blend together into one big ball of confusion.
“I can’t go to jail,” Desiree muttered pacing back and forth. “I’ll go crazy in some jail. I’ll die.”
“I can’t go to jail, either.” I was surprised at how calm I sounded. Inside, I felt as raggedy as a bowl of sauerkraut.
“If you hadn’t been so busy yip-yapping with Regina you could have made it over here before Chester got back and I’d be on my way to California by now.” Desiree sighed and blinked, her eyes shifting from side to side. Just trying to follow her eyes made me dizzy.
“You can still go.”
Desiree gave me a blank look. “What?”
I leaned toward her and whispered, “Nobody knows what happened here tonight. You can still go to California.”
Desiree let out a restrained chuckle and then gave me an incredulous look. “Well, with me gone and Chester stretched out on the floor with a knot the size of a shot glass on his head, it won’t take them long to put two and two together!” she blasted. Her voice suddenly softened. “I wouldn’t feel right knowing you were in jail.”
“Oh, I’m not going to jail either,” I said through clenched teeth. I put my arm around her shoulder. I didn’t even realize what I was saying. The words slid out of my mouth like a serpent. “I’m going with you.”
“Wh—what?”
I sniffed and said firmly, “If you still want to go to California, you can go. But I’m going with you.”
Desiree pulled away from me and moved back a few steps. “What about your wedding?”
I shrugged. Marrying Burl Tupper was suddenly the last thing on my mind.
“If you go, I am going with you,” I said firmly before I let out a breath that was so deep my chest hurt. Staying out of jail was all I could think about now. It even overshadowed Chester’s death. Missing out on my own wedding paled in comparison.
“Do you realize what you’re saying, girl? When they find Chester, and if we run, it won’t take them but a minute to figure out we had something to do with all this. I told you that already. You’re talking crazy, girl,” Desiree said, shaking two fingers in my face.
A feeling of extreme anxiety consumed me. I couldn’t tell Desiree then, but Chester’s murder was not the only crime I wanted to put behind me. Running away from the burdens that I had carried like a yoke around my shoulders for so many years seemed like the best way out for me. The only way out for me. A warm feeling crossed my face as my thoughts continued to roam. By running away, I could finally lay all of my burdens to rest at the same time. A wide smile I could not control took over my face.
Puzzled over my odd behavior, Desiree frowned at me. “Carmen, are you having a nervous breakdown?” she asked gently.
I shook the smile off my face and gave her a serious look, my lips forming a tight line.
“I’m all right,” I told her, barely moving my lips.
Desiree shrugged and cleared her throat. “You’d be willing to leave Burl? Even if they don’t figure out we did this, what about Burl? You’re supposed to marry him tomorrow. Don’t you love Burl?”
I sighed and bleated like a lamb, “I guess I do. But Burl got along all right before he met me; he’ll get along all right without me,” I said thoughtfully.
Desiree just stood there staring at me with eyes that had started to swell and darken even more.
“Say something!” I barked, stomping my foot.
“We’d better hurry and get up out of here.” Desiree motioned with her hand for me to follow her.
Once we made it back to the kitchen, she snatched a yellow nylon windbreaker off the back of the chair she had been sitting in when I arrived.
“Do you have any money?” I asked. “I have about three hundred I pulled from the ATM on my way home from work.”
“I closed out my savings account yesterday. It wasn’t much. A little over five hundred. I got that, and about a thousand in emergency money we keep in the house,” Desiree announced, buttoning her jacket. “Oh, that nigger was slicker than a politician. I found out he emptied our joint savings account this morning.” I followed Desiree back to the living room where she dropped to the floor and started rooting through Chester’s pants pockets.
“What are you doing?” I asked, pulling her up.
“He got paid today. He keeps two, three hundred on him all the time. Besides, he must have some of the money he took from our account on him.”
“Well, we can’t take his money, too. It…it wouldn’t be right.”
Desiree gasped in horror and then gave me a look of extreme bewilderment. “Right? Well, it’s a little late for you—us—to be thinking about what’s right.” Desiree slapped my hand and it stung like a bee. I didn’t try to stop her when she squatted over Chester again and removed a wad of bills from his wallet.
“Only