Black Water Rising by Attica Locke Read Free Book Online

sister-in-law. “Maybe we shouldn’t have left her out there,” Bernie said softly.
    She fiddled with her paperback, sliding a bookmark back and forth between the same two pages. He saw she was upset, but in some way he didn’t recognize or understand. “We didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.
    Outside, by the thin light of a nearby streetlamp, Jay reads the newspaper article again. The date at the top of the page makes his stomach turn. The article, he sees, is from today’s paper, which means the body was discovered yesterday, the day after their boat ride. He wonders if his wife read these same words, and if she did, why she didn’t say anything to him about it. Maybe she read the article and thought nothing of it. Hell, there must be a couple of shootings a week in Fifth Ward, Saturday night being the favored day for mischief making. The gunshots they heard on the water and the report of a shooting death in the area are surely no more than an uncomfortable coincidence. Still, the whole bit bothers him enough that he takes the time to tear the page from the newspaper, folding the article two, then three times, and sliding it into his pants pocket.
    Bernie’s awake when he comes into the apartment.
    She’s standing in her house shoes and a faded brown robe that won’t close over her belly. She stares at Jay standing in her kitchen, smelling of smoke, newsprint stained on his fingers. She looks him up and down, lingering about his face, trying to read his expression, why he’s breathing funny.
    “I heard you go out,” she says.
    “I was taking out the trash,” he says.
    Bernie nods. This makes sense to her, makes her feel better. “You gon’ put another bag in?” she asks.
    “I always do.”
    “No, you don’t, Jay.”
    He reaches under the sink and pulls out a black trash bag,
    snapping it open to make his point. “You gon’ fight with me about trash bags?”
    “I’m just saying. Sometimes you don’t.”
    She’s mad with him about something. He doesn’t know what, and he doesn’t think she knows either. They’ve been kind of short with each other since Saturday night, their nerves slightly on edge, their collective, unspoken anxiety masked as ill tempera ment. Jay closes the lid on the trash can, deciding then and there he won’t tell her about the newspaper article. It’ll only upset her, and for no good reason he can think of. Besides, he’s still hoping it’s nothing.

Chapter 3
    Eddie Mae pokes her head into Jay’s office, where he’s been working since seven o’clock this morning. She leans against the door frame, kicking at a piece of carpet that’s coming up on the floor, holding a stack of pink message slips. Her wig is red today. Which means she’s in a bad mood. Or a drinking mood. Or she’s got a date to play dominoes after work. Jay can’t remember which, can’t keep up with Eddie Mae’s changeable temperament. He wants her to leave the messages on the left corner of his desk like he’s taught her to and leave him to his work. He does not want to give her the idea that he’s gon’ stop everything every time she walks into the room. Eddie Mae is cheap labor—no paralegal training and not a day spent in secretarial school—but she’s costly in other ways. She won’t let him alone half the time, always checking up on him and henpecking about what he eats for lunch. She’s a black woman and a grandmother, no matter the tight polyester tops that tug against her chest, and she treats him like a son or a nephew. She seems to sense something in Jay that needs caring for.
    “Your father’s on the phone,” she says.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Mr. Boykins. He’s waiting on line two.”
    His father, right.
    Jay sets his pencil down. “You find the witness in the Cummings thing?”
    “I’m working on it,” she says, scratching at the wig’s scalp, getting to hers underneath. “I know where she work, but the dude at the club won’t give me her phone number, and she