Chapter 3 - Poison on the Porch
The small wood-frame house on South Aberdeen Street had stood through fifty brutal Chicago winters, its yellow paint peeling slightly around the eaves, but the porch flowers bloomed bright red and purple every summer. Keisha parked her beat-up sedan in the alleyway and walked up the front steps, her body humming with exhaustion.
She pushed open the screen door to the scent of chicory coffee and toasted cornmeal. Sitting by the front window, wrapped in a faded crocheted shawl, was Odessa Dunmore. At seventy-eight, Odessa’s hair was a crown of spun silver, her dark skin lined with the maps of a lifetime spent working in the laundry rooms of Chicago’s grand hotels and private mansions.
""You look like you wrestled a bear, baby,"" Odessa said, peering over the top of her reading glasses.
Keisha collapsed onto the sofa, groaning as she kicked off her boots. ""Worse. I wrestled six tons of downtown garbage, and then I met the wicked witch of the Gold Coast.""
Keisha told her the whole story—the frantic bride in her ruined dress, the hours in the transfer station, the finding of the ring, and the venomous threats Genevieve Ashford had spat across the counter.
Odessa listened quietly, her fingers tracing the rim of her coffee mug. When Keisha mentioned the name Ashford, the old woman’s hand paused. Her back straightened, stiff and alert.
""Genevieve Ashford?"" Odessa asked, her voice suddenly devoid of its usual warmth. ""A tall woman? Thin nose, eyes like cold river stones?""
""That's her,"" Keisha said, sitting up, noticing the strange tension in her grandmother’s posture. ""Do you know her?""
Odessa didn't answer right away. She turned her head toward the sunlit street outside. ""Her father was Walter Ashford. Back in the sixties and seventies, they owned half the department stores on State Street. My mother—your great-grandmother Martha—worked thirty years as their head domestic. She raised Walter’s children when his wife was off in Europe playing socialite.""
""I thought Martha worked at the Palmer House.""
""She did that too,"" Odessa murmured. ""Martha worked two jobs until her feet bled to put shoes on my feet. And when Walter Ashford died, Genevieve was just a girl of twenty, but she was already poison. She had my mother dismissed without a single penny of severance because she claimed a silver tea set went missing from the pantry. My mother never stole a button in her life. She died two years later, brokenhearted.""
Keisha felt a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the morning draft. ""The ring, Ma... It had an inscription inside. I caught a glimpse of it under the floodlights before they called me into the office. It was too dark and dirty to read clearly, but it had initials. M.B. to W.A.""
Odessa dropped her mug.
The ceramic cracked against the hardwood floor, spilling dark coffee across the boards. The old woman didn't move. Her face had gone completely gray, her breath shallow and caught in her throat.
May you like
""Grandma?"" Keisha scrambled off the sofa, dropping to her knees beside the chair. ""What is it? What’s wrong?""
""Martha Bell,"" Odessa whispered, her voice trembling with an emotion Keisha had never heard in her life. ""My mother’s maiden name was Martha Bell. And Walter Ashford loved her. He loved her before his father forced him into an arranged marriage with high society. He gave her a ring, Keisha. A ring he bought with his own money before he ever inherited the Ashford fortune. And when Walter died, Genevieve took it from my mother’s bedroom drawer and called the police.""
