Chasing Sophea: A Novel Read online

  Percival Tweed had tried to maneuver the conversation toward other events, other pieces of the puzzle, but Michael wouldn’t let him; the boy didn’t miss a thing. How could he tell the story without admitting his truth and owning the part he had played in altering the lives of the only real family he had ever known? He walked back toward the living room, his mind racing, remembering, reclaiming yesterday’s reality. And as fate would have it, there was now more than one person in his house waiting with bated breath for a mystery that had been buried for more than forty years.

  “Don’t keep us waiting any longer, Mr. Tweed,” the man said calmly. “I’ve been waiting my entire life to hear what you have to say about me.”

  Energy is a tangible force that ebbs and flows through people, places, and inanimate objects fluidly and without hesitation. This life force, often referred to as the exhalations of God, can’t be seen by the naked eye, but casual intuitives can feel it swirling around them pushing, pulling, constant like rain. It shifts and reconfigures itself every moment of every day, affecting those in its path whether they realize it or not. It constantly seeks balance and expands naturally toward the greater good. It can easily be manipulated, and thus, it always pursues truth—the native tongue of the universe.

  The energy pulsating through the Culpepper estate had transformed yet again into something Lucius did not recognize. It was alive and carried with it a certain foreboding, and to him, it smelled like trouble. The vibrations around him were unfamiliar, and he inhaled deeply, unafraid and with a heavy heart. Lucius wasn’t anywhere near as gifted as his grandmother, Oceola Moon, or his daddy’s baby sister, but some force that he couldn’t identify inside the house caught his attention. He could feel it seeping from the walls attempting to bore into his pores, and it was strong and determined. He walked around inspecting nothing in particular and tried to isolate the cause of the shift, because he knew there had been one. He had always known when something didn’t feel right; however, this was the first time he had actively sought the source of his discomfort. He had made a vow to the Almighty earlier. “I’m through running, Lord,” he’d promised, prostrate in the corner of his office like a child, and this time, he swore he would live up to his word.

  It was after six, and there were no services scheduled for the evening or for the next two days. He had sent everybody home at half past five, and now he found himself wandering through the halls as if he were a toddler searching for something to do, some complicated task to occupy his time. There was one body left in the cold room, but it didn’t need to be fully prepped until Thursday of next week. He had thought that odd when cockeyed Freddy had told him about the instructions but not odd enough to find out who was spending their “done-gone” days lounging in his funeral home. He preferred to move the dearly departed in and out, and that was all—no extra-lengthy services and no lingering visits from the dead who still longed to be attached to their physical bodies. There were enough of them hovering around the house already, causing a commotion from time to time, turning the lights on and off, and messing around with the thermostat. He’d thought he heard somebody walking around upstairs a while ago in the attic room with the round window, but nobody ever went up there anymore, so he assumed the haints were rabble-rousing and having some type of spook party. All the more reason he didn’t want to tease any poor soul by hanging on to their body for too long. He wasn’t superstitious per se; he just didn’t believe in taking any unnecessary chances.

  He chided himself for not knowing who lay there on cold steel waiting for a once-over from the boss. He’d been so busy wrestling with his own thoughts that he’d neglected his duties. There was a family somewhere in Dallas who needed his kind words to carry on or maybe a widow in distress who would appreciate consolation during her time of bereavement. He needed to be preoccupied, and work would keep his mind sharp and focused. Now had not been a good time for Mercy to fall apart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, didn’t she know that he had enough to worry about without ripping her clothes to pieces and carrying on like a natural-born fool? Hell, she had been hysterical—damn near woke the dead with all that commotion. What else was he supposed to have done? Slapping the shit out of her seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Wasn’t that what you did when someone became crazy in the head, hollering and acting like they didn’t have the sense God gave them? He sighed and massaged his temple; he would have to deal with his wife at some point, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Staying busy sounded like a viable option.

  He reached into his pocket for the familiar brown folded slip of paper, the one Aunt Baby had left, the same one with Dahlia’s address and phone number scrawled on it. He picked up the phone to call and placed it on the receiver again for the eighth time in one day. He couldn’t call her, not quite yet. Everything there had to be all right. He hadn’t heard otherwise from Baby, so he figured an interruption—his kind of interruption—wasn’t warranted.

  He glanced at the paperwork hanging on the back of the door and prepared to give a Mrs. Leezel Diezman some special attention. Clearly, she’d been waiting long enough. Diezman—he’d never heard that name before. It turned out that she was being embalmed here and laid to rest out back with the colored folk. This was a special request from the late Mrs. Diezman herself, and Lucius was immediately puzzled. He’d accommodated special requests before—that in itself wasn’t unusual—but he normally knew the family or they had known his father. Freddy reported that the uppity white family had been none too happy about dropping their mama off at the black funeral home, but Leezel Diezman had left strict instructions in her will. From what he could tell, Mrs. Diezman had amassed quite a fortune, and her children didn’t want to run the risk of losing one dime by not honoring her bizarre request. Maybe she was someone he’d met at a conference, or perhaps she’d heard of his work. Lucius opened the refrigerated compartment that held the mystery woman and pulled down the sheet. She was a pale woman indeed, appeared to be in her seventies, and didn’t have a defining mark on her face that he could see. Strange, though, she looked vaguely familiar, but he knew that was impossible because he had never seen her before and he never forgot a face. He scanned the paperwork again, unable to ascertain why she was here instead of at a funeral home in North Dallas, where she belonged.

  It’s not that he didn’t embalm white people; he just didn’t normally embalm them in the family establishment. When he was younger, he and his father often traveled to white funeral homes all over Dallas County and Fort Worth when there were special cases, disfigurements, reattachments, and so on. The Culpeppers were the best in the business, and were often sent for by white morticians who were not as endowed in the field of dead bone reconstruction. His father charged triple the fee for services rendered, and the two of them always had to enter through the back door so white family members wouldn’t see them and know that brown hands were stitching up their loved ones. Sometimes they even took Percival Tweed along for the ride. His grandfather, Marcel, always said that Percival scared the bejesus out of white folk, which allowed him and his grandfather to do their job in peace—what with nobody wanting to be in the same room as a disfigured dead person and a black albino. Of course, Percival waited outside soon after they arrived, usually right after the white flight. He never did get used to being around dead folk, though, disfigured or otherwise, and Lucius never got used to him being there.

  Lucius pushed number two on his compact disc changer, and “A Love Supreme” filled the room and immediately began to calm his nerves. ‘Trane had that effect on him, always had. Jazz acted as a powerful drug without the nasty hangover. The tension in his neck subsided, and he grabbed the requisite white latex gloves and removed the sheet covering the rest of her body. He had never seen burned tissue quite like hers. Scarred flesh completely enveloped the bottoms of her feet and crept up the sides of her ankles, much like ivy would on the face of an abandoned building. There were also burns on her hands, but none anywhere else on her body. Leezel Diezma
n was an enigma, and Lucius became more and more curious about who she was and why she was laid out in front of him. Maybe she was trying to tell him something. He racked his brain and scanned his files most of the night searching for any clue that might jump-start his memory. He recalled several years of families and funerals, and still her identity eluded him. Perhaps she was a stranger after all who had become familiar with his work through word of mouth. Or perhaps he was making something out of nothing—simply stalling, so he wouldn’t have to go upstairs and have a conversation with his errant wife. True, there were other things, other people he could be attending to, but Leezel Diezman held him where he was. Something about her nagged at him, and he was loath to let it go. There was a puzzle here, and as God was his sacred judge, he was determined to solve it.

  After hours of staring into a face that he now realized he must have seen somewhere, Lucius was more determined than ever to figure out why Mrs. Diezman had chosen him to groom her for glory. He reexamined her file for the eleventh time and called one of her daughters, but the girl seemed just as perplexed by her mother’s unusual request. “Did she ever mention me or my grandfather, Marcel Culpepper?” he’d asked, and “Did she attend a service here perhaps?” “No,” the daughter had replied emphatically, “not to my knowledge,” to every question he’d asked.

  Finally he stood over the body and interrogated Mrs. Diezman as if he expected her to rise up and answer him. “Who are you?” he pressed. “And what are you doing here?” Lucius stroked the burned skin on her hands, admired the soft lines of her face, and the way her top lip protruded to the left just so. He’d seen a mouth like that before, and he’d seen this particular injury on someone else, but it was much worse then. It had been a long time ago, when he was a boy, but he remembered it like it was yesterday. And then a thought came to him, a thought so unbelievable that his mind could barely contain the possibility. The sheer force of it blew through his body and knocked him clean off his feet. He had to think, but focusing was difficult, as so many memories, conversations, and feelings were converging at once surrounding his one clear thought. It was insane, but then insanity had always been a part of his family, so why should now be any different? It had to be so because he felt the truth, her truth, twisting and prancing in the pit of his stomach, flirting with his demons. He sat down for a spell and closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he knew with certainty where he had seen her face before. It was a few hours ago when he looked into the eyes of his little brother. Lucius smiled a bit, relieved that, for once in his life, he had figured something out before it was too late. Have mercy, Leezel Diezman wasn’t here for him at all.

  Mystery solved, he was prepared to spend time with her remains, for the rest of the night if he had to, alone and in deep thought, until she was perfect. But he immediately realized that any form of introspection wasn’t going to happen just yet. He recognized his brother’s footsteps coming down the corridor and hurried to cover the body. He turned up the music and wished that he were riffing in a jazz club in New Orleans. But he wasn’t; instead, he was planning on stopping his brother from getting any closer to the mother he would never know. In that moment, Lucius made a decision for Dante. If he had never seen his biological mother alive, it sure as hell didn’t make any sense for him to see her dead. What purpose would that serve? They had both had enough pain in their lives, he and Dante, and Lucius wasn’t going to invite any more agony to the party.

  He began rereading old paperwork and waited somewhat annoyed for Dante to enter the room. He had to send him away from this room and away from her. Maybe if ‘Trane were blowing loud enough, Dante would walk the other way and leave him to work alone. No such luck, though. The double doors swung open, and this time, he was ready to protect his family.

  “Hey, you’ve been down here for hours. Need any help?” Dante asked.

  “No, Brother. I think you’ve done enough helping for the day.”

  “Lucius, I—”

  Lucius stopped him in midsentence. “It’s okay, Brother. I’m glad you were there for Mercy. I don’t know what got into her. It was bad, you know, but it could have been a lot worse. You’re always there when I need you, and I appreciate you. I want you to know that.”

  Dante paused before answering. “Lucius, you know I love you, and I would never do anything intentionally to hurt you.”

  “Yeah, yeah—how many women have you told that line to?”

  “Not many, man. Only one,” Dante responded, and lifted the sheet, admiring his brother’s meticulous preparation of the body on the table.

  “Well, I hope she fell for it. Move outta the way, Brother,” Lucius said, and stood in front of the body. “You’re blocking my light.”

  “Who is this lady, anyway?” Dante inquired. “And how did she end up here?”

  “What? Are you inferring that our fine establishment isn’t good enough for her?” Lucius quickly re-covered Mrs. Diez-man’s feet and glanced at his paperwork. “Her name is Leezel Diezman, and she requested that we handle her remains, okay? That’s all.”

  “Really? Do we know her family? Does she have some kin around here?”

  “Look, I don’t have an FBI file on the woman, Dante. I’m just trying to work here, not write a biography,” Lucius snapped.

  “All right, all right,” Dante responded, and put his hands up. “Well, is there anything I can do to help you finish? Clean her up, grab another trocar? It looks like you’ve got your hands full.”

  “Yeah, now that you mention it, there is something you can do.”

  “What?” Dante questioned. “Whatever you need.”

  “Get the hell outta here, man. I’m okay … I just need some time to myself.”

  “Understood. I’m gone.” Dante turned to leave. “Come find me if you change your mind.”

  “Brother.”

  “Yeah?”

  “One more thing.”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “One of these days, boy, the devil’s gonna win you over.”

  Dante froze, unable to respond.

  “No, seriously, man—could you check on Mercy for me be fore you go to bed? I’m going to be a while down here. Leezel here needs me.”

  “Sure,” Dante managed to reply without turning around. “I think I can do that.”

  Dr. Kelly clutched the receiver and repeated himself for the third time in five minutes. “I’m asking you if you’ll consider coming in with your aunt.”

  “She’s not my aunt. What are you, deaf? I’ve told you that already.”

  “All right, I’m sorry. Who is she to you, then? Tell me again, … Phoebe, is it?”

  “Jesus, I can’t believe you actually make money doing what you do. Aunt Baby isn’t anything to me. She’s Dahlia’s aunt, that’s all. We’re not related in any way.”

  “I see. It sounds to me like she only has your best interest at heart.”

  “Really, and you were able to ascertain that in the five-minute conversation you had with her? You’re a lot smarter than you look.”

  “Phoebe, you can come to my office alone or with her. The important thing here is that you come in to see me now.”

  “I’ll think about it, but don’t hold your breath, Doc.”

  Phoebe slammed the phone down and glared at Aunt Baby. “I know you. Don’t think you’re going to hold me here like some hostage. Don’t get any crazy ideas, old woman, because I’m on to you, and by the way, I’m not drinking any more of your damn tea or anything else that you put in front of me. You’re always trying to fix somebody. I ought to have you put away.”

  “Listen here, girl, if anybody’s going to be put away, it’s not going to be me. I’m not the one who has lost my damn mind … yet. One of us here has a screw loose. You either go with me to that fancy doctor or I’m going to make a phone call, and by the night’s end, you’ll be in a nuthouse somewhere in the desert with metal straps around your ankles calling for a mama that you never had.”

  “You can
’t be serious. You can’t keep me here, Baby.”

  “You’re right, I can’t, but I sure can make it hard for you to go anywhere else. I went through all of your personals while you were sleeping. I took your money, your keys, and anything else of value you had wedged in that there shiny, overpriced bag. I know where you live, and I know what I’m willing to do to make sure you can’t get there. I don’t know how you’ve managed to get by this long without being discovered—renting apartments and doing God knows what. You think you’re slick, girl, but you’re just a common thief, trying to steal a life that doesn’t belong to you. Oh, I’ve got your number, Phoebe. I might be old miss thing, but I’m wiser and stronger than you’ll ever be.”

  Phoebe reached for her bag, examined the contents, and threw it against the wall in disgust. Baby had indeed taken everything except her journal, which she had probably read thoroughly. Nosy witch. She knew it would be futile to search for her belongings in this big house, and she also sensed that Baby would brain her with a stick if she tried. She sat heavily on the couch and kicked her Prada bag laying on the floor.

  “Tell me something, Baby—if you’re so damn smart, what took you so long?”

  Baby sat on the couch and thought a while before she answered. “Well, I figured that question would come up sooner or later.”

  “And?” Phoebe pushed.

  “Fear—simple as that. I can admit that now, before you—before God. I know you’ve been around for a long time, Phoebe. I know exactly the moment when you were born. I just didn’t know how to fix you, fix Dahlia, and make all the pain go away. I didn’t want you to be my first real failure. So I did nothing but watch from the sidelines, and you have survived because of my fear, my inability to take a chance. You see, Phoebe, I couldn’t attack an illness that I didn’t understand.”