by Angela Henry
“I’ll do that, Dr. Kirkland. And thanks for having lunch with me.”
She simply nodded and then walked out of the cafeteria, leaving us both staring after her. Paul gave me a questioning look. I just shrugged and left too, realizing I’d forgotten to ask her who the other woman in the photograph had been.
As I was getting into my car to leave, I noticed the white SUV next to mine was rocking and all the windows were fogged up. Someone was either getting busy or getting strangled. The SUV’s car doors opened just as I’d turned my ignition on. A man and woman quickly got out. Both wore hospital scrubs and were adjusting their clothes. They looked around the lot to make sure no one was watching before giving each other a quick kiss. The man headed towards the back entrance of the hospital and the woman the front entrance. They were both average-looking and not anyone I’d have otherwise noticed. I had to wait for the woman to pass by to pull out of my spot and when she turned to smile at me, I got a look at her name badge, Dr. Sarah Cordell. Why did that name sound so familiar?
Then it hit me. This was the woman Rhonda’s husband left her for. And then I smiled, because the man she’d been getting up close and personal with in the SUV had most definitely not been Dr. Daniel Hammond. Maybe there was hope for Rhonda’s marriage after all.
I decided to take advantage of my bodyguards being MIA and called work to tell them I’d be late getting back. I wanted to go and check out Brenda’s apartment, because I didn’t know when I’d get another chance after they caught up with me. But first, I swung by the Kingford College library and checked out Dr. Kirkland’s dissertation entitled, Sex Work for Fun and Profit: A Feminist Perspective. The librarian at the circulation desk raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down. She checked it out and handed it to me with a smirk like I was going to use it as a guide to make illicit money on the side. I sat in my car and skimmed through it.
There wasn’t much in it that I didn’t know. It was a case study of four black women in their late twenties working as escorts in a small town. They were referred to by their gem names and each woman specialized in certain areas. The twins, Ruby and Pearl, specialized in threesomes, but they also each had their own client list. Diamond specialized in role playing, S & M and humiliation, whatever that meant. Emerald was the only one who didn’t always have sex with her clients. She mostly went on dates with rich men who needed a beautiful woman on their arm at fancy events, usually out of town or at conventions. However, she did occasionally sleep with clients who made it worth her while. The only thing new I did discover was that while the four didn’t answer to a pimp or a madam, Diamond, who was the oldest, and had the strongest personality, became the natural leader, scheduling and screening clients. Everything seemed to come back to Diamond.
Brenda lived in an apartment on Victory Lane, a street that didn’t exactly live up to its name. There was nothing victorious about a street filled with potholes, no sidewalks, and numerous vacant lots where houses used to be. And most of the rest of what were left probably should have been torn down, too. Brenda’s apartment was in a large brick building that somehow managed to outclass the rest of the neighborhood while still being an ugly eyesore.
I parked and headed inside without a clue in hell as to how I was going to get into her apartment. But it turned out I didn’t need to worry. The door to her sixth-floor apartment was slightly ajar when I arrived. The crime scene tape that had crisscrossed the door had been ripped down and lay in front of the door. I stepped over it as I pushed the door open and went inside, pulling it shut behind me. The small studio apartment was bathed in semi-darkness, with a stream of light coming from a window over the kitchen sink. Dust motes danced in air that was thick with the reek of a trash can that never got emptied. From my vantage point I could see the entire apartment. And it was quite clear that it hadn’t been fumigated for roaches. No one had been in this apartment for weeks.
There was a queen-size bed in the back left corner covered in a black satin spread. Faded pink terrycloth slippers lay on a colorful woven rug in front of the bed, and a long low chest of drawers separated the bedroom area from the kitchen on the other side. The right side of the room was a small living room area with a tired-looking brown tweed couch and a round coffee table dotted with cigarette burns. A small TV sat on a stand against the wall directly in front of the couch. Along the far wall in the very back was a kitchenette with a sink, refrigerator and stove set into a short stretch of counter with cabinets overhead.
I noticed there was no table to sit and eat at and surmised that Brenda must have eaten all her meals in front of the TV—if she ate at home at all. A quick peek into her fridge showed it to be mostly empty except for a carton of curdled creamer, a bottle of white wine, a small package of hotdogs, and a box of pepperoni pizza with one dried up piece left inside. The kitchen cabinets were mostly bare and held a few plates, cups and mugs and half a dozen cans total of fruit cocktail, peaches, and sardines, along with a box of saltine crackers and a jar of instant coffee. The kitchen drawers revealed silverware that was heavy on spoons, with a couple of forks and a single knife. There was a small coffee maker with a filter full of cold coffee grounds, plugged in and sitting on the counter by the stove. There was a pot of something moldy and unrecognizable sitting on the stove.
This was so beyond sad. And I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting to find. But then I noticed the picture frames sitting on top of the chest of drawers next to her bed. There were six in all. One showed Brenda and her twin, Betty, when they were toddlers, both dressed in the same frilly pink dresses and white patent leather shoes, their hair in pigtails. The only difference was that one twin wore yellow barrettes in her hair and the other green. There was one of a smiling older woman who was probably their mother. The rest were of people I’d never seen and must have been relatives. None of the pictures were recent. There was also a ceramic jewelry box in the shape of an owl full of cheap costume jewelry. Inside the drawers were clothing and underwear. No hidden drawers or compartments. And a check of the small bathroom next to the bedroom area was also a bust and did nothing to sway my opinion that Brenda Howard had led a sad, lonely existence since her twin died.
But as I was on my way out, I noticed the picture of the twins was askew in its frame. I’d apparently knocked it loose when I’d picked it up. It must have been too small for the frame it was in. I picked it up and flipped it over, sliding the back of the frame off so I could straighten the picture. That’s when I discovered the second picture hidden behind the first one. This was a more recent pic of Brenda in a bikini sitting on the lap of a man I instantly recognized even though he wasn’t looking directly at the camera. It was taken on a balcony overlooking a beach. Brenda was looking rather smugly into the camera with a pair of sunglasses on her head, holding a fruity drink with an umbrella in it. Her other arm was draped loosely around the man’s neck and his eyes were on her ample chest in her barely-there bikini top.
I had to admit, she looked amazing in that bikini for a woman her age. She was also wearing the ruby necklace she was wearing in the pic I found, the same one I’d found at Lewis’s apartment. Was it still there? And was this the man her coworkers had referred to who’d dumped her a month ago? If so, one thing was for sure, they were right about him being married. He was a prominent man. I imagine Brenda wasn’t very happy when he dumped her. And I had to wonder what he’d have been willing to do to keep her from telling his wife.
I put the original photo back in the frame and tucked the hidden pic into my purse. Then I removed the other five photos from their frames to see if there was anything hidden there. There wasn’t. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have other hiding places. I searched through the few purses in her tiny closet and the pockets of her pants and skirts as well as all the shoeboxes. Nothing. I searched the Band-Aid box in the bathroom cabinet, as well as a box of hair dye. Still nothing. I sat down on the edge of the tub and noticed the lid to the toilet tank was askew.
“Are you re
ally going to look in someone else’s toilet?” I asked myself aloud. I got up and walked over to it debating on just how far I was willing to go to get some information and concluded I was willing to go as far as it took. After all, I’d once searched a dumpster, so this should be a piece of cake.
I lifted the lid and looked inside the tank at the murky water, rusted walls, and slimy-looking, ball-shaped float and grimaced. There wasn’t anything inside the tank. I put it back and quickly realized the reason why it wouldn’t sit over the tank properly was because there was something taped to the underside of the lid, encased in plastic. I pulled it out and then sat down heavily on the side of the tub when I realized what it was.
It was a photocopy of the Gem’s ledger. Brenda must have known Lewis had the ledger. How? That must have been why she was dating him. Poor Lewis. On my way out the door, I noticed Brenda’s cordless phone wedged into the side of the couch and pulled it out. I hit redial on the last number she called and listened as it rang and rang. Finally it picked up, but it was a voicemail recording with a very familiar voice asking the caller to leave a message. It was Dibb Bentley’s voice breathing into my ear like he was right next to me. Beyond spooked, I dropped the phone on the couch and left.
I was all kinds of confused as I headed back to work with both the photo and the ledger copy in my purse. Dibb and Brenda had been working together? It had been him I’d seen that day in the hallway at the Pullman Apartments when I’d gone to Lewis’s apartment. But if he knew where Lewis was, why bother me? Did he follow me there? And if it had been the ledger Dibb had been after, then why hadn’t Brenda given it to him? Unless, it wasn’t the ledger he’d really been after. If it wasn’t the ledger he was after, then what else could he have left in Lewis’ apartment while he was hiding out after he shot Otis Patterson? So many questions swirling through my mind. So many, in fact, that I didn’t notice the black SUV that had been following me until it was too late. I pulled Rosetta’s car into the lot, parked, got out. And before I could even turn to walk into the building, something hard poked me in the back and hot breath hissed in my ear.
“Don’t move. Don’t scream, or you’re dead.”
Five minutes later, I was sitting in the front seat of Sam Pierson’s black SUV too scared to even look at him, let alone move or scream. He had one hand on the steering wheel; the other held a gun jammed into my ribs. I stole a glance out of the corner of my eye to see him staring grimly ahead with his lips pressed so tightly together they were bloodless. He wore jeans and a black hoodie that was pulled up over his head, making him look exactly like the man he was, shady and dangerous. How could I have thought this man had looked like Carl—Carl with his beautiful panty-melting smile and his warm brown eyes? I assumed in my terror that he was looking for a secluded spot to kill me. Imagine my surprise when he pulled in the alley behind Mama’s house and turned into the carport in her backyard. What were we doing here?
“Shouldn’t you be at the airport getting ready for your flight to Canada?” Instead of answering, he got out of the car and dragged me out behind him by the hood of my coat and frog marched me across the yard and up the steps to the back door.
“Open it,” he commanded. My sweaty trembling fingers slipped as I tugged at the zipper of my purse, which was slung across my torso. “Hurry up.” He shoved the back of my head so hard my forehead bounced off the doorframe, opening a small cut. A trickle of blood ran down my face. I saw stars and stifled a whimper. I’m betting he’d been dying to do that since we’d first met.
“I can’t open the door if I’m unconscious,” I said, finally getting my purse open and pulling out my ring of keys.
“Just do as you’re told and be quick about it.” This time there was no accompanying shove, just the hard unmistakable feel of a gun’s barrel being held against the back of my head. I moved faster.
Once the door was unlocked, he impatiently reached past me, turned the knob and pushed me through the door in front of him. I stumbled and fell against the kitchen table where a paring knife rested on a cutting board alongside a bowl of apples. I quickly grabbed the small knife and shoved it inside my bra, praying I didn’t cut my boob. But better a cut up boob than a bullet hole in my head.
“What is it you want?” I straightened. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the TV room.
“I lost something when I was here last week.”
“You mean besides your cool when I wouldn’t give it up?” He got right in my face and I could smell his funky breath and see how dry and flaky his lips were. Eww! I’d kissed that mouth.
“Do not think for a single second that I won’t decorate this tired, shabby-ass wall paper with the inside of your head if you don’t shut the fuck up and help me find what I’m looking for.” I knew he’d be judgmental about Mama’s house. Asshole.
“Which is?” The tip of the paring knife was dangerously close to cutting the soft flesh of my left breast. It was somehow keeping me alert.
“A key. And I need it now!” He yelled and his spittle landed on my cheek. My stomach roiled. “It was in my coat pocket when you brought me to this dump. I didn’t realize it was missing until I got home. I had it when we left the restaurant and the only other place I went before going home that night was here. It has to be here somewhere.”
“But you broke in and looked for it already and didn’t find it. Why do you still think it’s here?”
“Didn’t get a chance to look too hard because that fucking dog of yours kept barking and trying to bite me. Shoulda just shot the damned thing,” he replied through gritted teeth. Good old Queenie. She was a guard dog after all. She had a new rawhide bone coming to her if I got out of this alive. My forehead was throbbing. A steady ribbon of blood trickled from the cut and ran down my face, dripping from my chin onto the front of the white coat I’d gotten for Christmas from Mama. Damn him.
“Don’t just stand there! Start looking!” The crazed tone of his voice and his obvious agitation got me moving. This was a desperate man, and desperate people were dangerous.
Even though he had only been in Mama’s living room briefly that night on his way upstairs to my bedroom, I got down on my hands and knees and got busy searching through the carpet and along the baseboards. It was entirely possible the key could have fallen out of his pocket and ended up somewhere in this room. I noticed my captor wasn’t searching himself. He had the gun trained on me while he shifted nervously from foot to foot. A car backfiring somewhere down the street made him jump and rush over to the nearest window and look out. I pulled the paring knife out of my bra and shoved it up my right shirtsleeve.
“You know, this would go a lot faster if you helped me.” It occurred to me that if we did find the key, he’d most likely kill me anyway, as I was a witness and he’d have no more need for me. Plus, he just plain didn’t like me. When the time came, I had to use the knife.
To my surprise, he started helping me look. Not on his hands and knees crawling around on the floor looking. More like looking behind the TV and furniture while keeping the gun trained on me. Mason and I had done a pretty good job of sweeping up after this bastard had broken in and trashed the place. There hadn’t been a key on the floor. If Mason had found one, he’d have given it to me or at the very least asked me about it. Dwayne was reaching behind Mama’s fake ficus tree and had dislodged one of Queenie’s balls. It rolled silently across the floor and I grabbed it before he could see it. Frustrated, he knocked the planter over and kicked it.
“What’s this a key to?”
“None of your damned business.”
“And why did you cut my brake line? If you’d have just called me and said you lost a key, I’d have looked for it and saved you the trouble of trying to kill me, then breaking in and trashing the place.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you. I was trying to get you out of the way long enough for me to get in here and find my key. I wasn’t even planning to trash this dump. But when I couldn’t find my key I got mad, re
al mad.”
“You still could have just asked me if it was here.”
“You turned out to be a huge, broke-ass waste of my time. I didn’t want to be bothered with you anymore when I had a bigger fish on the hook.” A bigger fish? I wondered who this unfortunate woman was.
He hadn’t bother looking at me as he was telling me this. And I used the opportunity to lob the ball hard into the front room at the large picture window, making a loud thud. Dwayne jumped and headed into the living room, walking right past me.
I quickly let the knife fall from my shirt sleeve into my palm and when he was right next to me, I plunged the knife deeply into the side of his left thigh. He roared in pain and instantly dropped the gun and clutched his thigh. He tried to pull the knife out. But it was in to the hilt and not easily coming out.
“You bitch!” he lunged for me, and I kicked the knife, driving it even deeper into his thigh and making him fall onto his back and scream even louder.
His gun lay on the floor on the opposite side of his prone form, and I wasn’t going to risk trying to get past him to get it. But he noticed where I was looking, and even in his obvious agony, began pushing himself across the floor towards the gun, leaving a trail of blood behind him. I ran in a blind panic back through the kitchen, out the back door. I frantically looked back to see that he hadn’t somehow gotten to his feet and was following me. Not watching where I was going, I completely missed a step on the way down the back porch steps. I fell straight into the waiting arms of Detective Blake Mason.