by Kiki Swinson
“Who do you think that is?” he asked me.
“I don’t know.”
“Answer it and then put it on speaker.”
“Hello,” I said after I took the call.
“Misty, this is Mrs. Faye, Terrell’s mother. Have you seen or heard from Terrell?”
My freaking heart sank to the pit of my stomach. “No, ma’am. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days,” I lied, but at the same time trying to keep a straight face in front of Agent Sims.
“Well, that’s strange because I talked to him the other night and he said that he was going over to your house to talk to you about something.”
Listening to her tell me what Terrell told her got me hot around the collar. It felt like I was falling into a trap. But I knew I couldn’t, especially with Agent Sims standing right there in front of me. I also knew that I had to hurry up and get this lady off the phone before I triggered Agent Sims’s mind to think back to that smell inside of my apartment. “Listen, Mrs. Faye, I haven’t talked to your son in a couple of days. But if he calls me I will let him know that you’re looking for him. Okay?” I finally said.
“But—” she started to say, but I cut her off.
“Have a nice day.” And then I disconnected her call. “I can’t believe she had the nerve to call me, especially after she’s shown me on many occasions that she doesn’t like me,” I explained, hoping to throw Agent Sims off track. I needed him to focus only on this Amir and Ahmad case, not Terrell.
“So, you were saying,” I said, giving him the floor back so he could tell me what he brought me out in the hallway to say.
“I think it would be best if you stay with your grandmother tonight while myself and the other agents can figure out how we’re going to move forward with this investigation. And besides, I’m sure your grandmother is going to need someone to keep her company now that you guys lost your cousin and granddaughter.”
“I had already decided that I was going to stay with her tonight. My cousin was all she had. And the fact that my mother and my grandmother don’t have a relationship, it’s a no-brainer for me to be with her.”
“Are you going to let your mother know what happened?
“Yes, I’m gonna call her in a few minutes,” I told him. “So, tell me, when am I gonna be able to get my car? Remember it’s still at the pharmacy.”
“One of the city’s tow trucks is gonna bring it here before the night is over,” he told me.
“What’s gonna happen with the pharmacy?”
“We’ve closed it down. And all the prescription drugs that Amir tried to take out of there today will be sent to our evidence department so that it can be processed and evaluated.”
“What did you guys do with my cousin’s car?”
“It’s been towed to our government garage to be processed too.”
“But why?”
“Because it was used in the commitment of a crime.”
“Will we ever be able to get it back?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
While Agent Sims and I continued to go back and forth regarding this fucking case, someone started knocking on the front door. I gotta admit that it startled me because my grandmother never has any guests. I looked through the peephole and saw that it was Jillian’s boyfriend, Edmund. And boy, was I dreading to see or talk to him.
“Who is it?” Agent Sims whispered.
“It’s my cousin’s boyfriend,” I reluctantly replied.
“Are you gonna answer the door?”
Without responding to his question, I reached for the doorknob and opened the front door. Edmund stood there looking like a lost soul. He didn’t hesitate to ask me about Jillian. “Is she all right?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “No.”
“So, it’s true? She’s dead? I saw her car all banged up on TV.”
“Yes,” I replied softly, barely opening my mouth.
“Oh my God! Nooo! Don’t say that, Misty. Where is she? I need to see her,” he said as he paced back and forth on the front porch while he rubbed his head in circular motions with both of his hands. He looked like he was about to unravel.
“Edmund, just come in the house and go in the den with my grandmother,” I insisted.
Edmund took my advice and came into the house. While he was walking down the hallway toward the den, I heard him starting to cry. A few seconds later, I heard him say, “Mrs. Torrey, what are we going to do without her?”
“God will make a way, baby. It will be all right,” I heard her tell him.
“Look, Agent Montclair and I are going to leave for now. But I will be calling you in the morning,” he assured me.
“All right,” I replied.
“Montclair, let’s get out of here,” Sims called out.
Moments later, Montclair came walking down the hall toward us. “Take care of your grandmother,” he said.
“I will.” I opened the front door for them to leave.
Agent Sims looked back at me and said, “If you hear from Ahmad, call us immediately and let us know.”
“Do you think he’ll try to call me, especially after everything that happened today?” I wondered aloud.
“You never know.”
“Well, in that case I guess I will.”
“Just be careful.”
“I will.”
I locked the front door after the agents left and then I went back into the den where my grandmother and Edmund were. He had his face buried in the palms of his hands when I entered the room.
“I know your heart is heavy, but God is going to carry you while you can’t carry yourself,” my grandmother said.
“Mrs. Torrey, we were gonna get married,” he announced.
“But that wasn’t in God’s plan for you two. So, just count it all joy,” she concluded as I took a seat on the sofa next to Edmund.
“What happened, Misty? The news said that she was at your job and got shot while she was sitting in her car. And then they said that somebody she was with tried to drive off, but the police stopped him by running into her car.”
“Edmund, I don’t know all the specifics. We’re still trying to figure out all of that stuff now.”
“The news said that she was with Tedo. And Tedo was the one driving her car.”
“Who is Tedo?” my grandmother asked.
“Some guy she knows,” I answered.
“Why was he driving her car?” My grandmother pressed the issue.
Edmund looked at me like he was waiting for me to answer my grandmother’s question. And when I hesitated to speak, Edmund blurted out, “Because they were going to rob Misty’s job and take a shipment of drugs that had just been delivered.”
My grandmother looked at Edmund and then she looked at me. “Is he telling the truth?”
“No. That’s not entirely true,” I managed to say.
“What do you mean that’s not entirely true? Everything I just said was true,” he yelled at me, and then he turned his attention toward my grandmother. “Mrs. Torrey, Misty and Jillian made plans to rob the pharmacy with a couple of guys. I told Jillian not to go. Just let the guys do it. But no, she wanted to be like a getaway driver of some sort. So, after arguing with her about going, I finally gave up because she said she had to be there. And now look at her. She’s dead! And no one can bring her back.”
“Is that true?” my grandmother asked me. Her eyes grew in size and it looked like she could see through me.
“No, he’s lying, Grandma. Jillian and I didn’t plan anything. It was all her idea,” I protested.
“I don’t care whose idea it was. You should’ve stopped her. She’s the little cousin, not you. And I am so disappointed in you right now. I can’t believe you let your cousin go out there in a line of fire like that.”
“But Grandma—”
“But Grandma, nothing. You are just like your mother. All you care about is yourself.”
“That’s not true. I loved Jillian. She was like my b
est friend.” I started sobbing all over again.
“Oh, don’t feed me those tears. Best friends and family don’t do what you did to your cousin. You knew what she meant to me, and now you take that away? I want you out of this house right now!” she roared.
I swear, I’d never seen my grandmother like that. She never got that angry when she and my mother stopped talking. So, I didn’t know where this was going to end.
“Why don’t you tell him to leave? He’s the one that got her hooked up on prescription drugs.” I pointed toward Edmund.
He jumped up on his feet. “That’s a lie. You did that. Bringing her all those different drugs from your job.”
“Edmund, so you’re gonna stand there and point fingers at me? Let’s talk about how you used her to buy prescription drugs and how your lazy ass don’t work in a pie shop. You’re the reason why she couldn’t kick her drug habit. You got her running around here like a freaking crackhead. Doing favors for other people so that y’all could get high. But you wanna blame me,” I snapped. This loser had me pissed. Got the audacity to act like I was bringing my cousin down. She was my heart. I tried on many occasions to get her to stop using drugs, but this loser always talked her out of it.
“Misty, just get out of my house. I’m done with this conversation,” my grandmother spat. Hearing her tell me to leave, hurt me to the core. She was like my second mother, so for her to choose Edmund over me was heartbreaking.
Without saying another word, I grabbed my purse and walked out of the house. I didn’t have any mode of transportation because my car was still parked at the pharmacy. I did have Uber, though. So that’s what I used to get as far away from this place as fast as I could.
I got my Uber driver to take me to my mother’s house. But I asked him to make a detour to Colonel Street to see if my car was still there. Surprisingly, it was, so I got the driver to leave me there. He made sure I got into my car safely before he pulled off. I thanked him and then we went our separate ways.
The drive to my mother’s house was short. I dreaded going over there for fear that she was going to blame me for what transpired earlier today. If I had to go through another verbal beating from a family member, I would lose my damn mind. I’d also leave the state and never come back.
When I pulled up curbside to her house, I called her from my cell phone. “Hey, Ma, it’s me, Misty. Are you in the house?”
“You know I am.”
“I didn’t see your car. That’s why I asked.”
“It’s parked in the garage.”
“I’m outside. Open the door,” I instructed her while I was getting out of my car. She met me at the front door. She seemed happy to see me.
“Are you okay?” she asked me as I entered the house.
I waited for her to close the door and lock it and then I said, “Jillian was shot today and now she’s dead.” My eyes teared up and then the floodgates opened. My knees started buckling so my mother grabbed me by the arm to prevent me from falling. “Hold on, I gotcha,” she said and held on to me tight. “Come on and let’s go to the living room,” she continued and escorted me down the hallway. Her boyfriend was in the living room watching TV when we entered.
“Hey, what’s up? Is everything all right?” he wanted to know, taking his full attention away from the television.
“My niece Jillian was killed today,” my mother told him.
“Did this happen on Colonel Street?”
“Yeah,” I finally said, tears saturating my face while my mom helped me sit down on the love seat across from her boyfriend.
She sat next to me. “What happened?” she asked while she wiped my tears from my face with the back of her hands.
I knew I couldn’t tell her the whole truth, for fear that she’d treat me the way my grandmother did, so I fabricated my story a bit. “Jillian came up to my job to see me. And when she got there she had a couple of guys with her. Next thing I know, both of the guys tried to rob the pharmacy with guns they had, and Jillian got caught up in the crossfire.”
“What would possess her to bring guys to your job and rob it?” my mother wanted to know.
“Mom, I don’t know.” I lied once again.
“Misty, do you know anything about the robbery?” My mother pressed the issue.
“No, Mom. The only thing I can think of is that they talked her into doing it. That’s it.”
“So, who shot her?”
“Two guys from the pharmacy,” I said, leaving that answer with a huge gray area. I mean, I can’t say the owners were involved with a mafia group. She would lose her mind if I did.
“Why would two guys from the pharmacy shoot her? That’s strange.” She wouldn’t let up.
“Mom, I don’t know. The police are investigating it now,” I told her, giving the impression that I didn’t really wanna talk about this subject.
“How’s your grandma taking the news?” my mother wanted to know.
“She’s upset. Jillian’s boyfriend told her that it’s my fault that Jillian got killed.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She told me that she was disappointed with me and for me to leave her house now.” I continued to sob.
“So, she believed him?”
“Yes, Mom, she believed him and that hurt me to the heart.”
“I told you how she was. She’s treating you just like she treated me when she had to choose between me and my brother.”
“But that’s not fair, Mom.”
“She’s not fair, Misty. I’ve told you how she was from day one.”
“I know. But she shouldn’t be like that to me. I go to visit her and do things for her that Jillian didn’t do.”
“She doesn’t care about that,” my mother interjected.
“What am I going to do about Jillian? I’m not gonna ever see her again.” I changed the subject, sobbing more intensely.
My mother embraced me hard. “Go ahead and cry. Let it out,” she encouraged me.
I sat there in her arms for what seemed like forever. For the first time, I had my mother sober and alert. Not only was she showing me love, she made me feel like I was a priority. It couldn’t get no better than this.
For the next hour or so, she continued to talk to me and offer me words of wisdom to make me feel better. I had no idea what direction my life was going to go, but for right now, things were okay because my mother was in my ear telling me that things would get better.
38
FLESH & BLOOD
I ended up staying at my mother’s house the rest of the night. I slept in my old bedroom and it felt good to do so. When I woke up her boyfriend had just come in the house from his overnight shift, so he spoke to me and then he disappeared into my mother’s bedroom.
“Want something to eat?” she asked me the moment I stepped foot into the kitchen.
“I really don’t have an appetite. But I could definitely use a cup of hot tea,” I told her.
“Coming right up,” she replied and grabbed a coffee mug from the cabinet. She had a teapot on the stove that was already prepared, so she poured me a cup. When I tasted it, it was the green tea that I loved.
“Thank you, Mom,” I said after I swallowed it.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to fix you an egg sandwich or some oatmeal?”
“No, I’m good,” I assured her.
“When you talked to your grandmother, did she say when she was going to start the funeral arrangements?”
“Mom, she was just killed yesterday.”
“Well, are you going to call her and find out?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me. Why don’t you call her?”
“I’ll call her if you want me to. But if she starts bitching about you having something to do with Jillian’s murder, then I’m gonna unleash the venom on her. I’m warning you now.”
“Mom, please just try to get along for Jillian’s sake,” I begged her.
“I’ll try. But I’m telling you
right now, if she starts going on and on about you, then I will remind her that Jillian was the drug addict, not you,” she vented.
I let out a long sigh. I tried compromising. “Please try not to say that. Do that another time.”
“I’ll be nice for you. But she needs to be nice as well.”
“All right, Ma. Just try . . . please. That’s all I ask.” I just wanted this conversation to be over with.
She and I continued to talk about how I was going to move forward with everything going on, and then my cell phone rang. When I looked down at the caller ID I noticed that it was Agent Sims calling me. “Hello,” I answered.
“Good morning,”
“Good morning.”
“What time do you think you could meet me downtown at my office? We have a ton of stuff to go over and your presence is needed.”
“Give me a couple of hours and I will be there.”
“Okay. I will see you in two hours,” he agreed and then we disconnected our call.
“Who was that?” my mother asked me.
“The detective that’s investigating Jillian’s murder,” I lied.
“What did he say?”
“He wants me to come to the police station so that they can talk to me further about what happened yesterday.”
“Are you up for it? Because if you’re not, then you need to call him back and tell him you’ll have to do this some other time.”
“I’m fine with it. It’s for Jillian.”
“Want me to go down there with you?”
“No. I’m good. I can handle it myself.”
“All right, well, if you change your mind, just let me know.”
* * *
It didn’t take me long to go home, take a shower, and get dressed to go to the DEA’s main office downtown. DEA Agent Sims was waiting for me in the lobby. He stood up and greeted me when I approached him. “How was your drive?”
“It was okay,” I responded nonchalantly. This is not a social visit, so I wanted to get in and get out as quickly as possible.
“How was the traffic?”