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.Michael highlighted the paragraph about Howard and called Denise over to lookat it.He was intensely aware of the warmth of her body as she stood be-hind him, and felt a jolt of pleasure when she rested one hand on his shoulderwith easy intimacy. I remember her, Denise said. She s only.She s living with her kids in61a subdivision in Southwest Durham.Her son s at Duke Medical Center, do-ing well for himself.She s got an apartment over his garage.She s got astake driven very deeply into the high moral ground. Do you think she d talk to me? Probably.You want me to call her? Would you? I m thinking the white man she s talking about might beMitch Antree. Mrs.Prentiss was at her clerical job at Durham Regional Hospital.She had a lunch break at11:30, she told Denise, and they were welcome to join her.Her o ce was one of several that encircled a waiting area.Radiology out-patients would come in, give her their insurance information, and she wouldroute them to the proper destination.She was ve-ten, solidly built, withshort hennaed hair in a kind of pageboy cut.She had a strong nose andcrinkledlewis shiner76eyes, and she was one of the privileged few hospital employees who got to weara business suit instead of scrubs.When she shook Michael s hand, she looked at him oddly, he thought.She seemedto shrug it o and said, Let s eat.I m starving. They got cafeteria salads and settled at a table near a window that gave ontothe lawns at the back of the hospital. I can see, Prentiss said, you re aPage 60 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlpolite young man that knows how to be kind to old ladies.Go ahead and askyour questions.You don t have to butter me up with chitchat. She had a remarkable face, Michael thought.He doubted many had thought herbeautiful, but her eyes ashed with sass and her mouth fought o one smileafter another. I m mostly interested in Barrett Howard, Michael said. In your oral his-tory you mentioned a girlfriend? Lord, yes.Miss Mercy Richárd. She pronounced the last name ree-shard. Short for Mercedes, though she was more of a Dodge Dart if you ask me.Thatwas a car anybody could drive.At that time I was living on EastBeamon Street, Hayti, North Carolina.I was number108, she was109. That woman had so many contradictions it was impossible to know what tothink.She was what they used to call a high yellow gal, skin light enoughthat she could have passed if she wanted to.Long wavy black hair.Looked likeone of those Italian actresses, Sophia Lollapalooza or whatever.Some said shehad a double life, that she was passing in her day job.Some said she waswhite, passing for black, though why in the world anyone would want to do thatis beyond me.Here she is going around with Barrett Howard, who was black asthe ace of spades and shouting from the housetops about black power, and atthe self-same time she s messing around with a white man. Michael had brought the printout of the Antree obituary. Is this the whiteman she was messing with? No.I might have seen this man around at one time or another.She did havesome wild parties there.But that s not the white man that was more or lessliving there with her. Can you describe him? I don t have to describe him.Go look in the mirror, you ll see him. Michael tried in vain to press her for details.Over the next minutes15his own emotions began to boil until they felt like a slow, muted screaminginside his skull, until he could barely hear what she was saying.She had moved out in the summer of1968, she said, long before the neighborhood went under the bulldozers.The rsttime she had seenMichael s father at Mercy s house would have been the summer before.SheBlack & White77had no idea what had become of Mercy or where she had gone.She had never seenMichael s father again either. He was your father, wasn t he? she asked, and Michael numbly nodded.As for Barrett Howard, she hadunderstood that he had sold out to the white man and gone to Mexico until shehad seen his name in the paper on Tuesday.Michael drove Denise back to her o ce with white knuckles and a blank stare. Michael? Denise said. Michael, please say something. I don t know where to start. You think this Mercedes woman could be your mother, don t you? And my father could have killed Barrett Howard over her.It s the missingmotive. What are you going to do? I m going to make him talk to me.I don t know how, but he s going to talk. Do you want me to come with you? He saw nothing in her face beyond concern for him. That s sweet, he said,Page 61 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html but this is going to get pretty ugly. Honey, I m from Queens.You don t know from ugly. He reached over to squeeze her hand. Thanks.I ll call you tonight and tellyou what happened.If you re available. Call after ten.I ll be waiting. He d brought his computer when they went to lunch, not wanting Charles to getup to mischief, so he had no excuse to go inside.He parked long enough forDenise to get out, walk around to his side of the car, and put her hand on hischeek. Good luck, she said. Luck hasn t been getting it, he said. I want some answers. He spent half an hour on the Internet at the Regulator, then made a call fromhis cell phone.Based on that information, he got the supplies he needed at adrugstore across the street.Then he drove to the va.His parents were just back from walking Robert up and down the halls.Ruth was tidying up the plastic containers from lunch, and Robert was in thebathroom.Ruth saw the determination in Michael s face and re ected it backto him as fear. What? she said. What is it? I ll tell you when he comes out, he said. Your father just had his exercise.He needs to get to bed and rest. This won t take a minute. She walked warily over to her armchair and sat down.The toilet ushed,lewis shiner78water ran, and Robert came out of the bathroom.Looking at him, Michaelthought:Not long now. Hello, son, Robert said.Michael nodded.Robert made his painful way to the bed and got in. I should have done this a week ago, Michael said. As soon as all thesequestions started coming up. He reached into the Kerr Drugs bag and took outa package of sterile cotton swabs, the hospital kind, with the long woodenhandles. Two sticks each.Swab the inside of your cheek and give them back. He held out two swabs to Robert, who shrugged and took them.He o ered twomore to Ruth.His hand, he saw, was trembling visibly. No, Ruth said
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