“Get down on the ground,” yelled the second uniform with his weapon drawn. “Now!”
The driver, who bore a striking resemblance to Chris Tucker, dropped face first to the ground.
“Gee whiz!” Bob said. “This some serious drama. If I’d known this much action would pop off, I’d never eaten that second sandwich.”
“Bob, I’ll bet you ten he won’t catch him,” Tasha said.
“Bet.”
After the uniform handcuffed the driver, Bob and Tasha peered inside the Monte Carlo. Dried bloodstains and small glass fragments littered the front passenger seat.
“Well, lookie here,” Bob said. “Looks like this window has been shot out.”
“What happened in this car?” Tasha asked the driver.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Why you asking me?”
“Because you were driving it,” Bob said. “Is this your car?”
“Yes.”
“Where the blood come from? Why did Jessie Owens take off like he did?”
“I don’t know Jessie.”
Bob got within inches of the man’s face, the brim of his Stetson brushing the man’s forehead. “Your friend? The guy who took off? What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else in the house?”
“Nobody but my father.”
“Maybe we should have a talk with him. What’s his name?”
A lone tear streaked down his face and dropped to his red-and-white tennis shoe. “He don’t know nothing. He’s an old man, leave him alone!”
“Okay,” Tasha said. “Deal true with us and we’ll pass on your dad.”
He stared at his tennis shoes, mulling over the proposition.
“Your name?” Tasha asked.
“Barry Grayson,” he mumbled.
“Your partner?”
“Paul Richardson. Everybody calls him Babyboy. He’s the one who shot her…I was just in the car…riding.”
Bob shook his head. “Okay.” To Tasha: “Take him in. I’ll stay here and secure the car.”
Tasha read Barry the Miranda rights, then led him to the backseat.
“Why you arresting me?” Barry wailed. “I didn’t do nothing. I just told you who shot her.”
Tasha slammed the door, drowning him out.
“Look,” Bob said, pointing.
The first uniform walking back, empty-handed, head down.
“Pay me now or pay me later,” Tasha said.
“Tash, you mind if I bought you lunch, instead?”
“Red Lobster?”
“No. I was thinking you’d like something fancy. Popeyes.”
“Okay. Let’s see, I’ll take a four-piece dark, a large order of mashed potatoes, corn-on-the-cob, a medium-sized coke, a large order of Spanish rice, a small order of beans and rice, an apple pie…and…uh…a jalapeno pepper.”
Bob pulled out his wallet and took out a ten. “Here you go.”
Barry Grayson started crying when Tasha pulled the Taurus into the station’s parking lot. Tears streamed down his sunk-in cheeks and he made a gurgling noise, which gave Tasha the creeps.
Tasha wanted to tell him to shut up. When she opened the door for him, he fell to the ground in a knot.
“I’m not wrestling with you,” she told him. “When you feel like standing up and going inside, let me know. I’ll be standing over here smoking a cigarette.”
Barry struggled to his feet. “I don’t wanna to go to prison! Babyboy shot her--I didn’t!”
“Who said anything about prison? If your story stands true, you’ll be back on the street in no time.”
“Really?”
Tasha led him to an interrogation room and unlocked the cuffs. “Tell the truth you’ll have less to remember,” and left him there.
Twenty minutes later, Bob came in with the runner. “Got him,” he said.
“Bob, you actually caught him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t have caught him if he spotted me. A K-nine unit found him hiding under a porch.” Bob escorted the suspect to an interrogation room next door to Barry Grayson.
“Well, what we got?” Tasha asked.
Bob smiled. “A forty-four semi-automatic found in the glove compartment. Blood on the seat, door, floorboard, which I’m sure the DNA will match the vic. The ballistic report, I’m also sure, will match the gun. We need to peg the shooter. My guy says your guy is.”
“My guy insists your guy shot her.”
“Figures. Which one you want to take?”
“I like my guy. He’s real sentimental, started crying when we drove up.”
“My guy did the same, got the backseat all wet and sticky.”
Tasha returned to the interrogation room, where Barry Grayson was looking out the barred window. “Freedom,” Tasha said, taking a seat.
“Can I go now?” Barry asked.
“We’ll see. Let’s clear a few things up, okay?”
Barry sat down. “I didn’t get a chance to feed my dog. He’s probably hungry.”
“Okay, Barry, you’ve been read your rights and you understand them, don’t you?”
Barry nodded.
“I need you to sign this.” Tasha slid a sheet of paper toward him and he signed it without reading. “I need you to tell me what happened today with you and your partner, Paul Richardson.”
“Well, I got out of bed at--”
“Hold up. No need to tell me about your dog or what you had for breakfast, okay? Just the part about you and Paul. How you guys met up today? How you guys met with whatsherface?”
“Babyboy, I mean, Paul, called me early, said he just got his income tax refund. See, he don’t have a car, so he needed me to chauffeur him around. I picked him up at…I wanna say one o’clock, but it could’ve been two.
“We picked up a couple chips and smoked them in the car. Babyboy said, ‘Yo, let’s pick up a freak, get a eight ball and go to my place.’ I didn’t have anything else to do I said okay.” He stopped, rubbed his throat. “Can I have some water?”
“Sure.” Returning with two Styrofoam cups of water, Tasha said, “Was Paul referring to your place or his?”
Barry gulped the water. “His place.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“We went and got a eight ball and then we saw this girl, she was walking down Broadway, and she, you know, looked the type we were interested in. I’d seen her around before, I knew she got high. Babyboy asked if she wanted to ride with us and she said something stupid, you know, ‘For a price,’ or something like that. We were headed back to Babyboy’s place when I said I needed cigarettes and something to drink. We stopped at Seven-Eleven and everybody got out--”
“Excuse me. What’s this girl’s name?”
“I think it’s Linda…Linda Faye, I believe.”
“Okay. Now all of you guys are at Seven-Eleven, right?”
“Right. We went in and got some stuff and got back in the car. We were riding, Babyboy started patting his pockets and said, ‘Where’s the rock?’ We stopped the car and Babyboy started going off on the girl, you know. ‘Bitch, give me my shit!’ She said she didn’t have it. We tore the car up looking for it…couldn’t find it. We drove off.
“Babyboy told her she had sixty seconds for the rock to appear or something bad was gonna happen to her. She started crying and Babyboy hit her a couple times with the gun. She tried to jump out the car…All a sudden--Boom!--the window exploded. Blood everywhere and the girl just sitting there with this big hole in her…It was…I couldn’t believe it!”
A hand covering his eyes. “It was terrible…just terrible!” peering at Tasha through splayed fingers. “Can I go now?”
“Where did the gun come from? The one found in the glove compartment.”
“It belongs to Babyboy. I don’t know where he got it.”
“Who’s driving the car while all the commotion is going on?”
“I was…Babyboy started…you see, I was high, so I let him
drive a little while.”
“Your partner, Babyboy,” Tasha said, “can assault a passenger, discharge a weapon at close range, and still keep the car between the lines?”
“He surprised me, too.”
“By the way, that’s a nice car you have.”
“Thank you. I try to keep it clean. We were on our way to wash it when y’all stopped us.”
“A car like that,” Tasha mused, “is not the kind you let everybody drive, is it?”
“You got that right. People will tear your shit up if you let em. Why I don’t let nobody drive mine.”
“Unless you’re high, remember?”
“Yeah.”
Tasha crossed to the door. “Let me check on something. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Can I go when you get back?”
“We’ll see.”
When she entered the adjacent room, Paul stopped talking.
“Go ahead,” Bob urged him.
“I was scared after he shot her ’cause I was thinking he might shoot me, too. He kept hollering, ‘Chill out! Chill out!’ I told him to let me out, but he wouldn’t. He said we had to figure this out. I told him we didn’t shoot her. He did! Next thing I know he stopped and kicked her out the car.”
“At Thirteenth and High Street?” Bob asked.
“I guess. I’m not really sure. We’d been smoking most of the day.”
“Then what happened?”
“We went and got some more dope and then we went to his house and…”
“Go ’head, son,” Bob said.
“When we were getting out the car, the rock fell out.”
“The one Jenno thought Linda had stolen from him?”
Paul nodded. “That’s what makes it so messed up. We both thought she stole…I guess it slipped between the seat when we went inside the store.”
“That is messed up,” Bob agreed. “What did you do after the discovery?”
“We smoked the dope. What else could we do?”
“Give us a few minutes, will you?” Bob said. Tasha followed him out the door.
“Your guy sounds more credible than mine,” Tasha said.
“I’m taking him down on accessory after the fact. He’s not walking.”
“Let’s wait for ballistics and forensics. If all the dots connect, let’s hit Barry with first degree.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. You know, at first I thought this was headed to a cold case file. It was easier than Sudoku. Good work, Tash.”
Barry had resumed his vigil at the window when Tasha returned. “Can I go now?” he asked. “You said I could go when you got back.”
Tasha shook her head. “I didn’t say that. Sit down, Barry.”
He sat, slouching in the seat.
“Barry, we seem to have a problem.”
“What!” standing up. “What problem?”
“Calm down. I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t work out. Your road dog, Babyboy, recalls a different version of events. He says it’s your gun and you shot Linda. He says you shot her…and then you kicked her to the curb.”
“He’s lying and his breath stank! He’s lying on me! I didn’t shoot that girl, and he knows it!”
Tasha pinched the bridge of her nose. “The gun, Barry…” She paused for effect. “It has your prints on it, not his.”
Tasha knew if Barry had wiped the gun clean, he would know she was bluffing, and he might ask for a lawyer, which would end further discussion.
Barry collapsed in the chair, eyes twitching, lips trembling, hands going to his face, the table, back to his face.
“I-I didn’t mean to kill her,” he mumbled.
“Say again?”
“I didn’t mean to kill her. I was just trying to scare her. She stole my dope…She didn’t have to do that. All she had to do was ask…I would’ve gave her some.” He covered his face with his hands and let out a muffled moan. “Oh God! It was an accident. I was only trying to scare her.”
Tasha silently observed him as he sniveled, though she wanted to say, “Yeah, butthead, and after you shot her and kicked her out the car you found the dope and smoked it.”
She checked that and said, “I sense your pain, Barry. I think you’ll feel better you write down what happened.” She slid her pen and pad toward him. “I also need you to sign it.”
Chapter 2
Derrick, Tasha’s eight-year-old son, and Neal, her ex-husband, were watching television when she arrived home that evening. They didn’t even look up when she walked in. She picked up the remote and clicked off the television.
“Hey!” Neal and Derrick protested.
“Derrick,” Tasha said, “go find something constructive to do.”
“What?” Derrick snapped.
“Young man, you better check your mouth.”
“What’s to do, Momma?”
“Find something. Anything but television.”
“What about me?” Neal said. “What you want me to do?”
“You can go home.”
“You must have had a bad day,” Neal said.
“Neal, what would you know about a bad day? In order to have a bad day you must first have a job.”
“That was low, Tasha. Real low. Dump on me if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Neal, I’ll feel better when you go home.”
Neal snatched up his baseball cap. “Okay then, I’m gone. You don’t appreciate what I do for you.”
“What is it, Neal Montgomery, you do for me? I’d sure like to hear it.”
“I watch your son while you’re at work. Apparently that doesn’t matter much to you.”
“Neal, he’s your son, too. If you want me to pay you to watch your son, I will. Of course, if I do I’ll be forced to demand child-support. Let’s see…fifty dollars per week times eight years of non-support. That’s twenty thousand and--”
Before she could finish, Neal stomped out without closing the door. Derrick stood in the hallway, staring at her.
“You got a problem?” Tasha asked him.
He started to say something, thought not, and disappeared.
Tasha dropped on the couch.
Didn’t have to talk to them that way. Didn’t have to. How many times have I told Neal not to let Derrick watch TV all day?
Yes, Neal, I do appreciate you watching Derrick while I work. I don’t appreciate you using that as an excuse for not getting your stuff together. For Pete’s sake, buck up or grow up!
Nothing’s changed. It’s the same old crap. Derrick looking at me like I’m some ogress or something. Say something about his no-account daddy and he hits you with his evil eye.
If Neal and I were dangling from a cliff and Derrick could save only one of us, I bet he’d pick Neal. ‘Sorry, Ma, Dad’s more fun. He lets me watch television all day.’ Where’s dear old Dad when your stomach is growling? Where was dear old Dad when you wanted an Ipod?
Derrick entered the room carrying a book. “Momma, tell me what this word means?”
“Bring it here.”
Amazing how much he looks like Neal. Brown puppy-dog eyes, just like Neal’s…Funny-shaped head that, like Neal’s, can’t quite fit into a baseball cap…Slightly chubby frame, just like Neal’s. Derrick’s a little darker, though, more to my complexion.
“What word you’re talking about, sugar?” He pointed to a word in the book. “Mendacity?” Tasha asked.
“Yeah,” Derrick said. “What does that mean?”
“It means--wait a minute, what in the world are you reading?” She took the book and closed it. The title: The Divorced Child. “Who gave you this?”
“Daddy.”
“Why?”
“I asked him for it.”
This revelation stunned her.
She had not fully considered the negative ramifications of divorce, though warned repeatedly by her mother that the dissolution of her marriage would undoubtedly cause Derrick unnecessary mental anxiety.
“Tell you what, sugar,” Tasha s
aid, tucking the book under her armpit, “let Momma read it first. I’ll pick out all the hard words for you.”
“Okay, Momma. You gotta give it back. Daddy borrowed it from the library. He might want it back soon.”
“Don’t worry. Your daddy will definitely get it back.”
* * * * *
The phone rang just as Tasha entered her cubicle. “Homicide. Detective--”
“Detective Montgomery!” the caller said, “I’m so glad I got you on the phone.”
“Hello, Mrs. Davis,” recognizing the voice. “How you doing?”
“I’m doing fine if you can call having your son’s murderer go scot free as doing fine. Detective Montgomery, would you please look into my son’s death? Please! I’m begging you. Please! Just look into it, please!”
Tasha sighed. “Mrs. Davis, your son’s death was ruled accidental. I’m sorry, that’s all there is to it. There’s really nothing more that I or anyone else can do. I’m sorry.”
“Detective Montgomery, if what you say is true, what strain on your eyes if you look into it? You think I’m a silly old woman who can’t let go after her son’s death. Trust me, when I say my son was murdered, he was murdered.”
“Tell you what, if I take a look into it, will you accept my decision?”
“Thank you, Jesus! I had a special feeling about you the moment I talked to you.”
“Mrs. Davis, don’t set your hopes too high, okay? And like I said, once I check into it--”
“I’ll be praying for you. You pray, too, ’cause you’re ’bout to come in contact with pure evil. The woman is evil, Detective. You be careful.”
“You’re talking about your son’s wife, right?”
“Right. I hate to say her name without a Bible handy.”
Tasha grabbed a pencil. “Okay, what’s her full name?”
“Perry Davis. She’s evil, Detective.”
“You told me. Do you know Perry’s social security number?”
“Yes, let me go get it. Hold on, okay?” Moments later: “You ready?”
Tasha wrote the number down. “Give me a few days, Mrs. Davis, and I’ll be in touch.”
Tasha hung up the phone before the woman could rant further. She typed the name and the social into the National Crime Information Computer Bank and, as she’d expected, nothing.
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