Ride or Die

by Solomon Jones

  And with that, Lynch and Harris walked out of the operating room, armed with the testimony of a dead man.

  Now, Lynch thought as he approached the preacher at the center of it all, the commissioner would finally be able to rest in peace. And so would Ishmael.

  Shortly after she received the call, a detective showed up and transported Sarah Anderson to police headquarters.

  There she heard the news that was spreading through the department like wildfire. Ishmael Carter, the man who’d shot and killed the police commissioner while trying to kill her husband, John, had died in the emergency room at Jefferson Hospital. But not before making full confessions in the murders of the commissioner and Emma Jean Johnson.

  John was all right. He was waiting for her at the hospital, along with Lynch and some other law enforcement officials. Sarah didn’t care about that. All she wanted to hear about was Keisha.

  She was still haunted by the dream, and still wondering if Keisha hated her in reality.

  Sarah walked down Eighth Street toward the hospital, taking in the summer breeze as she passed the spectacular mural on the wall adjacent to police headquarters. It depicted adults and children of many races, all striving for some unseen goal, breaking through impossible barriers, reaching ever higher for their dreams.

  Sarah could remember when she was one of those people, striving for something beyond what she could readily comprehend. Now she was just a mother and a wife—roles that didn’t seem quite as important as they’d been made out to be.

  Crossing Arch Street, she walked under the bridge toward Market and passed by Strawbridge’s, where she sometimes met Keisha for lunch, back when her daughter still loved and respected her. Back when the two of them were still friends.

  Sarah wanted that back, she thought as she crossed Market Street and headed toward the hospital. She wanted that back more than anything in the world. If only they would find her daughter, everything would be okay again.

  They would be able to go before the people of God and share a testimony that would go well beyond what God did for them in days gone by. They would be able to share how God had blessed them, even in the face of impending death. They would be able to say that they’d been delivered from their enemies.

  Yes, she thought as she arrived at the hospital, that would be quite a testimony. It might even be enough to heal the wounds in their family.

  “Can I help you?” said the woman at the information desk.

  “I’m Sarah Anderson. I’m here to meet my husband, John, and Detective Lynch.”

  “Oh, certainly, Mrs. Anderson,” the woman said, getting up and pointing down the hall. “They’re right back there in the waiting area outside the emergency room.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah said, walking slowly down the hall while she watched her husband and Detective Lynch huddled together in a corner.

  The closer she got to them, the more it looked like John was upset about something. And the detective’s questions—if that’s what they were—seemed to make him even more upset.

  Lynch saw her just as she got within earshot. John put his hand on his head and turned away, as if he didn’t want to look her in the eye.

  Lynch greeted her warmly. “How are you, Mrs. Anderson?” he said, taking her hand in both of his. “Thanks for coming down.”

  “I got a call that there was some news about Keisha,” she said, craning her neck to get a look at her husband.

  “There is,” Lynch said gravely. “But it’s not good.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “Like I was explaining to your husband, she’s still alive,” Lynch said. “And from what we can tell, she’s still with Jamal. But we’ve got two more witnesses who say Keisha held them at gunpoint, and that she and Jamal carjacked them, shortly after leaving Margaret Jackson’s house.”

  “So, where are they now?” Sarah asked anxiously.

  “They were last seen at Bridge and Pratt,” Lynch said. “We’ve had officers searching for them, but we haven’t turned up anything so far.”

  “John, you said you went looking for her,” Sarah said. “Did you find anything?”

  “No,” he said, turning around to reveal the swelling on the left side of his face.

  “What happened to you?” she said, reaching out to touch his face.

  “I was attacked by a man with a gun,” he said. “Turns out it was the same man who killed the police commissioner.”

  “I heard something about him being shot by the police,” Sarah said. “But I had no idea that he was fighting with you.”

  “Seems I’ve been his target all along,” John said, holding his jaw as he spoke.

  “But why would he want to kill you?” said a bewildered Sarah.

  Lynch looked at Reverend Anderson, who sat down on the couch in the waiting area and stared into space.

  “John?” Sarah said, walking over to her husband and repeating the question. “Why was he was trying to kill you?”

  “Sit down, honey,” he said softly. “We need to talk.”

  As Sarah sat down next to her husband, Lynch and Assistant DA Harris exchanged knowing glances and walked to the far end of the hall.

  “Sarah,” John said, reaching out to take her hands in his, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

  His grave expression made her nervous. “What is it, John?”

  “I love you, Sarah,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “I always have. I want you to know that.”

  “I love you, too,” she said, more out of reflex than anything else.

  She watched him with narrow eyes, silently urging him to go on. But for the first time in a long time, John Anderson didn’t know what to say.

  “What is it, John?” she asked, growing impatient.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said nervously.

  “Just say it.”

  He took a deep breath before he continued. “Before he died, the man who tried to kill me said someone I knew had put him up to doing it.”

  “Who?” Sarah asked eagerly.

  John looked at his wife with an apology in his eyes, and her heart began to break even before he spoke her name.

  “Nola Langston.”

  Sarah’s eyes began to fill up with tears. She thought of all the lonely nights she’d spent without him, of all the sacrifices she’d made over the years, of all the times she’d longed for his touch.

  She was hurt, and defiled, and angry. But she needed him to say it aloud. She needed to hear it from his lips.

  “Who’s Nola Langston?” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

  John squeezed his wife’s hands as if it would ease the pain. “We had an affair.”

  With tears streaming down her face, Sarah pulled her hands away from her husband’s and stood up. Then she slapped him as hard as she could and stormed down the hallway.

  John’s shoulders slumped and his head bowed down as he watched his marriage crumble before his eyes.

  Lynch and Harris watched it, too. They felt sorry for John. But more than that, they felt empathy for his wife.

  “Let’s take Reverend Anderson back to Homicide,” Lynch said, walking toward the door. “And then let’s bring Nola and Frank together in one room.”

  “What about Keisha and Jamal?” Harris said.

  “We still need to find them,” Lynch said. “And sooner rather than later.”

  Keisha and Jamal stood at the door, waiting nervously for Joe to come up the stairs and tell them what they already knew.

  They didn’t have to wait for long.

  Joe opened the door and walked inside, and saw in their faces that they didn’t want to stay there any longer.

  “We gotta go now, Joe,” Jamal said, speaking quickly. “We can’t wait ’til five.”

  Jamal was tying a belt around the baggy sweats he’d found in Joe’s closet. The sweats were the only clothing belonging to the short, pudgy man that would fit on Jamal’s six-foot frame.

  Keisha
was already dressed. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a modest top belonging to Joe’s girlfriend, whose dimensions were roughly the same as hers, albeit a little less curvaceous.

  “Before we go, Jamal, I think you better turn on the television,” Joe said.

  “For what?”

  Joe walked over to his table, picked up the remote control, and turned on the television. As he flipped through the channels, they saw pictures of Ishmael Carter on every station. And every picture was accompanied by words spoken in the same grave-sounding tone.

  Joe settled on Channel 3, and put down the remote so they could watch.

  “And again, for those just tuning in, thirty-five-year-old Ishmael Carter, in an apparent deathbed confession, has admitted to the murders of seventy-one-year-old Emma Jean Johnson and forty-nine-year-old Police Commissioner Darrell Freeman. Sources familiar with the investigation say that Carter implicated former model Nola Langston, pictured here, as his accomplice in a murder plot against Reverend John Anderson of North Philadelphia. Our sources aren’t yet sure of the motive behind the alleged plot.

  “And in a related story, Jamal Nichols, initially wanted in connection with Commissioner Freeman’s murder, is still at large. Keisha Anderson, pictured here, was at first believed to have been kidnapped by Nichols in a feud between the two families.

  “But CBS Three has learned that Anderson is suspected as a possible accomplice in several crimes committed in the aftermath of the commissioner’s murder, including the murder of Officer Jim Hickey of the Twenty-fifth Police District.

  “Stay with CBS Three for continued coverage of this stunning crime spree, and the two families at the center of it.”

  Joe turned off the television, put the remote control down on the table, and looked at both Keisha and Jamal.

  “Are you sure you still wanna do this?” he asked.

  Jamal and Keisha looked at one another, and they were sure of only one thing. They wanted to be together, no matter what the cost.

  Lynch watched two detectives lead a handcuffed Frank Nichols into the interrogation room. Frank’s lawyer and Assistant DA Harris were close behind.

  Nola and her lawyer, on the opposite side of the room, watched with open mouths as a wincing Frank Nichols sat down.

  Frank saw them looking, and tried to contort his face into the haughty expression Nola was accustomed to. But when she looked at him, all she could see was defeat.

  His expression was haggard, and his grimy clothing made him look more like a homeless man than a drug lord.

  After the initial shock of seeing him that way, Nola found herself smiling. Whatever happened to her from that point would be okay, she thought. She could rest in the fact that Frank was already ruined.

  Nichols saw her smile, and though his expression remained impassive, he inwardly wondered what Nola had told the detectives. More importantly, he wondered what it would mean to him.

  “Mr. Nichols, aren’t you going to say hello to Ms. Langston?” Lynch asked with a slight smile.

  Frank glanced at Lynch and said nothing. He didn’t want to tell or show them anything they didn’t already know about his relationship with Nola.

  “I’m sorry,” Lynch said. “What was I thinking? You probably wanted to apologize to her first, for sleeping with her daughter last night, and taking a shot at her today.”

  Nichols raised his middle finger.

  Lynch smiled at the vulgar gesture.

  “You’ll have men wanting to do that to you soon enough,” Lynch said. “Right now, I think we ought to focus on the business at hand.”

  The assistant DA handed Lynch a folder, which he opened and began skimming through.

  “Mr. Nichols, this is the testimony that Ms. Langston’s offered to us so far,” he said.

  Nichols shot a murderous glance in Nola’s direction. She responded with a single raised eyebrow that infuriated Nichols all the more.

  “She says that you gave orders for Jamal to kill John Anderson, and to kidnap Keisha,” Lynch continued. “Of course, Ms. Langston has every reason to lie to us.”

  “What do you mean, lie?” Nola said heatedly as her lawyer tried to calm her down. “Everything I told you was true, right down to—”

  “Right down to cleaning out the Alon Enterprises bank account this afternoon,” Lynch said.

  Frank’s angry expression turned to outright rage as he lunged across the table and tried to grab Nola. The two detectives in the room grabbed him by the shoulders and sat him down in his seat.

  “Counselor, I suggest you keep your client under control,” the assistant DA said, speaking for the first time. “This type of violence won’t help him when this thing goes to trial.”

  “You mean if this thing goes to trial,” Nichols’s lawyer said. “From what I can see, all you’ve got is Ms. Langston’s word, which, in light of her attempted theft of a million dollars, isn’t worth a whole hell of a lot.”

  “Actually, counselor, we’ve got a little more than that,” Lynch said. “We’ve got phone records, notes, and most of all, we’ve got something that neither one of these fine people counted on.”

  He flipped a page in the file and stared at it thoughtfully.

  “We’ve got videotaped testimony from the man who shot the police commissioner this morning,” Lynch said.

  He looked around the room, knowing the lie he was about to tell was a tremendous gamble, but one that he was willing to take.

  “In that testimony,” he said gravely, “he implicates Ms. Langston and your client.”

  He turned to Nichols and his lawyer.

  “Now, you can take a chance and let us go forward with that testimony,” Lynch said. “Or you can tell us the truth about your client’s role in this whole thing.”

  “And what about me?” Nola said. “We had a deal.”

  “The deal was, your testimony leads us to a conviction, and you get a slap on the wrist,” Assistant DA Harris said. “But your testimony, while entertaining, won’t lead us to a conviction by itself.

  “Now, if you can fill in the holes,” Harris said, “maybe we can honor the agreement. But as it stands, considering that we’re talking about a conspiracy that led to the murders of three people, including the police commissioner and a Twenty-fifth District officer, I’m sure your lawyers will agree that you’re both looking at the maximum.”

  “Which is?” Nola asked.

  Harris looked her directly in the eye.

  “Death.”

  There was a moment of deadly silence as everyone in the room reflected on that reality. Nichols’s lawyer turned to him and whispered something about a conference. But Frank didn’t need to talk to his lawyer.

  Even the prospect of the death penalty was too much for him to risk. Especially to protect Nola Langston.

  “You was supposed to be so damn smart,” he said to Nola while shaking his head.

  “Shut up, Frank,” she snapped. “They don’t know anything. They’re bluffing.”

  “You told me all I had to do to get to John was get to Keisha,” he said.

  He turned to Lynch and told him the truth.

  “All I wanted John to do was stop fuckin’ with my business,” he said. “I didn’t want him hurt, I didn’t want him killed. I just wanted him to stop.”

  “So why were there people taking shots at him?” Lynch asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nichols said. “All I know is that I told Jamal to have a talk with John’s daughter, scare her a little bit.”

  “That’s a damn lie, Frank, and you know it,” Nola shouted. “You ordered the kidnapping, and you wanted her killed if John didn’t agree to stop the antidrug stuff.”

  “Okay!” Frank shouted. “I told him to snatch the girl! But I never told him to kill nobody!”

  “What about when the girl was attacked and John came down to your bar?” Lynch asked. “I mean, he disrespected you in front of your men. Weren’t you angry about that?”

  “I never told anyone t
o kill John Anderson,” Frank said. “No matter what you say, I’ll never admit that, because it never happened.”

  “And I guess you never told anyone to kill his father, either, right?” Lynch said.

  Once again, the room went silent as everyone looked at one another and waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “I loved his father,” Nichols said solemnly. “Things happened the way they happened, and I’m sorry. But I loved John’s father, and I hated to see him die that way.”

  “Yeah, right,” Nola said. “You could care less, Frank. You ordered his murder the same way you ordered Jamal to kill John. That’s why Jamal gave them the confession, because he knew you’d be all too willing to talk.”

  Lynch and Harris looked at each other. Then they looked at Nola.

  “I never said Jamal was the one who gave the confession,” Lynch said.

  “But Jamal was the one who was shooting at John,” Nola said, looking confused. “It had to be Jamal!”

  “Actually,” Lynch said, “it was a man named Ishmael Carter.”

  Frank looked confused. “I don’t know no Ishmael Carter,” he said, looking at his lawyer.

  “Neither do I,” Nola said, her eyes darting about the room.

  “Sure you do, Ms. Langston,” Lynch said. “He looks just like Jamal.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nola said.

  “Ms. Langston, don’t say anything else,” her lawyer said. “Let me handle this.”

  “There’s nothing to handle!” she shouted. “I don’t know any Ishmael Carter.”

  “You slept with him to get him to murder John Anderson,” Lynch said. “It was the perfect setup to make it look like Jamal and Frank Nichols were behind it.”

  “That’s a lie,” Nola said.

  “You did it so you could walk away with that drug money.”

  Nola tried to calm down. When she spoke, she enunciated every syllable.

  “I don’t know any Ishmael Carter, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because Ishmael said you told him to murder John Anderson,” Lynch said calmly. “It was the last thing he said before he died.”