Free Tangled Roots by Angela Henry

tore up the apartment looking for him. Hoping that maybe he was trying to trick me, I even looked under my bed. No Timmy, and no note explaining where he’d gone. I sat on my couch to calm myself down and hit redial on my phone to see if he’d made any calls. Mama answered the phone and I quickly hung up. She was the last person I’d called before I left for the funeral. I was not up to listening to her scold me about Reverend Rollins. Timmy hadn’t made any calls and there was no note. Where the hell was he? Why did he leave?
    It was getting late and I still needed to get over to Inez’s before the apartment was packed up. I changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and headed out the door and down the steps. My landlady, Mrs. Carson, was sitting on her porch in her usual striped housedress. Her hair was braided into a crown that sat regally atop her head.
    “What have you done now, missy?” she asked me, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Her Siamese cat, Mahalia, was draped across her lap and looking at me with her usual disdain.
    Mrs. Carson is Mama’s best friend and I wouldn’t have been surprised if Mama had told her all about the interaction between Morris Rollins and me at Inez’s funeral. Renting from my grandmother’s best friend had its advantage by way of reduced rent. The disadvantage was that Mama always seemed to know my business. I didn’t have time to be scolded by my landlady, either, so I hurried down the steps, hoping to get away before she could pull me into a conversation.
    “Nothing, Mrs. Carson,” I said, starting to walk past her on the way to my car.
    “Then why them police officers come by to see you?” I froze and turned to face her.
    “What police officers?” I felt my palms get sweaty. Did they know Timmy was hiding out in my place? Did they take him away?
    “That hatchet-faced white woman and her fat sidekick. They was knocking on your door a couple a hours ago. I told ’em you was at a funeral. They said they’d come back.” She stroked Mahalia, who purred with pleasure.
    “I have no idea why they were here,” I told her, feeling relieved that they hadn’t hauled Timmy away. What did Harmon and Mercer want with me now?
    “Well, you be careful wherever it is you rushing off to in such a hurry, you hear me?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” I got into my car and took off, convinced that Timmy had left because he thought I’d told the police where he was.

Chapter 6
    I t was after five by the time I got to Inez’s place. I got out of my car and looked around. I love Linden Avenue. It’s a historic street that used to be one of the places the wealthy citizens of Willow lived. The large mansions of yesteryear have been transformed into apartment buildings and two-family dwellings. Very few of the houses were single-family homes anymore. It was always cool and dark on Linden Avenue due to the massive elm trees that lined the street on either side; their branches met and made a canopy that kept the sun out in the summertime. Now, the trees were beginning to lose their leaves making the street feel naked and exposed.
    Inez’s apartment was located in the basement of a large Victorian mansion that had been recently restored back to its original lavender, pink, and green exterior. The house reminded me of a fancy wedding cake with colored fondant icing. I was standing by my car trying to figure out how I was going to get into Inez’s apartment when the front screen door to the house opened and an elderly white man walked out onto the porch. He spotted me and nodded hello before sitting in a rattan chair. It was now or never. I walked up on the porch.
    “Hello, sir. Do you know if the landlord is in?” The man looked up at me with watery blue eyes. He ran a trembling hand over a white tuft of hair that was sticking straight up from the front of his bald, pink head. He must have been in his eighties and looked like an elderly Kewpie doll.
    “I’m the landlord. How can I help you?” His