The Dirty Red Series

by Vickie M. Stringer

  “Curious, huh?” McDonald inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Nuñez. Internal Affairs don’t just show up because they’re curious.”

  Detective Nuñez didn’t acknowledge his remark. Instead, he asked, “Get anything from the people downstairs? Anyone see anything?”

  “No. Most of them gave the same story. Just heard something and got the fuck out.”

  “Punks,” Nuñez replied.

  The two men shared a laugh.

  “The person who made the call . . . do you know who it was or where they could be? I’d like to ask a few questions.”

  “Thomas made the call,” McDonald confirmed and went on to explain, “He called for backup and EMT when he found the victim.”

  “Yeah.” Nuñez looked around, then spoke again. “Thomas, huh? Why was he here?”

  McDonald shrugged. “Not sure, but from the looks of it, if he didn’t come when he did, this would be a murder scene instead of attempted homicide.”

  Detective Nuñez paced slowly. He noticed that everyone seemed to have slowed down doing what they were doing, trying to listen to his conversation. Everyone knew that when he was around, something was bound to pop off. This time, it was just a matter of what. He walked back to McDonald and looked up at him.

  “I have a question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You and Thomas are partners, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, why was he here without you?”

  McDonald looked at Nuñez. He knew something wasn’t right. “Man, what’s going on in that little mind of yours?”

  Fixing his eyes on McDonald, not liking the “little” comment, he answered harshly, “Answer my question.”

  Before McDonald could open his mouth to speak, Nuñez curtly cut him off. “You don’t know what the fuck he was doing here. This is why I’m IA and you’re a street detective, Detective.” Nuñez looked around and saw the overanxious rookie who had been scouring the scene for the past hour. “Ey,” he called out, “go find Detective Thomas and tell him to come see me.”

  Happy to take an order, the rookie scurried away.

  • • •

  Detective Thomas held Chass’s car door open and she slid in. After closing it, he took out one of his business cards from his wallet and wrote down his cell and home numbers.

  “If you need to get in touch with me, you don’t have to call the station. You can call me anytime,” he told her, handing her the card.

  “Thanks.” She took it and stuck it inside her cup holder.

  “Are you okay to drive?”

  “Not really, but I have to get to the hospital. Quentin needs me.”

  “I promise you, Ms. Reed, we’ll find whoever did this and will bring them to justice.”

  Mechanically, Chass started her engine. “Make sure you find them before I do,” she told Detective Thomas. She backed up, put the car into drive and pulled off.

  Detective Thomas headed back down the block to the apartment building. He wanted to talk to his partner about what he had learned about Zeke’s death and, hopefully, tie it into Q’s shooting. Both cases smelled of the beautiful blackbird, Raven, and as soon as he could prove it, she would be arrested for murder and attempted murder . . . if Q survived.

  When he walked back into the building, the rookie he had been trying to avoid bumped into him.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Detective Thomas, but you’re wanted upstairs. Pronto!” He smiled with a gleam, showing off his pearly whites.

  Pronto? Where do they get these kids now? Detective Thomas thought. He walked to the elevator and pushed the “up” button. When the car came, Thomas got on and noticed that the rookie was trying to assert his authority in the lobby. Thomas repeatedly pushed the “close” button on the panel. By the time the young officer turned around, the doors to the elevator car were sealed shut. Thomas didn’t want to imagine riding up all those flights with the rookie.

  Once the elevator reached its destination, Thomas got off and entered the loft. He saw his partner and walked up to him.

  “’Sup, man? You lookin’ for me?”

  “Aye, man,” McDonald acknowledged. “Naw, not me, but that little Puerto Rican muthafucka over there.”

  Thomas looked around and saw Nuñez in his traditional dark suit and stunna shades.

  “Shit! Not that asshole.” Thomas ran his hand across his head.

  “He’s been all up in here asking questions. You know the smell of fresh blood brings that muthafucka out, and he’s been crawling up our asses.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  Just then, the rookie barreled through the front door and walked quickly over to Nuñez, who turned around and looked at Thomas and his partner.

  “I don’t know what kinda shit he’s on today,” McDonald told him seriously, eyeing Nuñez, “but I don’t like how it’s smellin’. He’s asking too many questions about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. Let me go get Lieutenant. Something tells me we gonna need backup.”

  Just when he walked off, Nuñez sang, “Detective Thomas,” walking up to him. “I didn’t see you come in.”

  “I’m sure. It’s hard to see from down there, isn’t it?” Thomas joked.

  Nuñez laughed with him. “Got jokes, huh? Well let’s see how funny this gets.”

  “What the hell you doing here, Nuñez?” Thomas asked. “You know IA doesn’t get involved unless—”

  “Unless there’s probable cause of foul play suspected within the force.”

  “And there is none!”

  “I understand you made the call to Dispatch,” Nuñez told Thomas.

  “What was I supposed to do? Yell out the window until someone came?”

  “You made the call from your personal cell phone.”

  “And?”

  “What were you here for?”

  “Police business.”

  “What type of police business?”

  “Police business,” Thomas repeated in a lower octave than before, “that doesn’t concern you.”

  “Well, what concerns me is that this is the second homicide in this apartment within weeks and you’re intimately involved in both.”

  “How in the hell do you figure that? I’m not intimately involved in anything.”

  “Ezekiel Morrison and now this? Both in the same apartment and you’re assigned to both cases? If that’s not intimate, Thomas, I don’t know what is.”

  “So what? I was lead detective in the first case. I am a detective and I was doing my job.”

  “Okay, so what were you here for?”

  “I wanted to talk to Mr. Carter about the Morrison case.”

  “On Morrison’s closed case? Right.” Nuñez bobbed his head up and down. “And Mr. Carter just happened to be shot when you arrived?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Any idea who did this?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “You know he was a known drug dealer.”

  “And?”

  “Were there any drugs in here when you searched the place?”

  “I wasn’t looking for drugs.”

  “What? You knew he was a drug dealer and you didn’t search the place for drugs? That’s kinda fishy, Thomas. Did you fire your weapon, Detective?”

  “What’s going on here?” Lieutenant Connelly asked, walking up on the two men with McDonald right beside him. “Nuñez, are you badgering one of my men?”

  “No, Lieutenant, I’m simply asking a few questions,” Nuñez answered. “When an officer calls from a crime scene, not using his department-issued communication device, it raises questions. Not to mention, Mr. Carter was once a well-known drug dealer and your detective didn’t search for drugs.” Nuñez paused and looked from one man to the other. “Detective Thomas, are you a drug dealer, too? Is that why you were here, to kill Mr. Carter and take his drugs? You in the game, too?”

  “You’re way out of line!” Lieutenant C
onnelly barked.

  “You slick-haired muthafucka!” Detective Thomas stepped aggressively toward Nuñez only to be held back by his colleagues.

  “Chill, man, he ain’t worth it, man,” McDonald said.

  With a sly smile on his face, Nuñez knew he hit a nerve.

  Angry, Detective Thomas backed off.

  A cocky Nuñez replied, “I’ll need your service weapon for ballistics.”

  “Whoa!” Lieutenant Connelly interjected. “He said that he didn’t fire his weapon and you have no reason to ask for it.”

  “With all due respect, sir, they all say that,” Nuñez countered.

  “Fuck this!” Thomas reached toward his side and pulled out his service weapon and handed it to Detective Nuñez. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been told,” Nuñez shot back.

  “You’re completely out of line!” Lieutenant Connelly told Nuñez. “My unit is clean, and I resent your line of questioning. As a matter of fact, this interrogation is over. You want to talk to my detective, I’ll make him available to you at the station.”

  Nuñez closed his notepad. “I’ll be in touch, Detective. Don’t go too far.”

  “I’ll go as far as I want to go,” Thomas retorted.

  “I know, Detective,” Nuñez told him. “But the question is, just how far are you willing to go?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  For three days, with the heat on full blast, Red slumped over in the chair she was tied to like a rag doll. She tried to move her chair away from the blast of the heat, but after pretty much going nowhere, she decided it was best to conserve her energy. Red sat in three days’ worth of her own shit and piss. Not only was she dizzy and light-headed, her mouth was bone-dry and the smell of her fresh urine on top of the old, stale urine almost knocked her out. She was very weak and at times, chills overcame her. Classic signs of dehydration.

  Just two days ago, when she was in her right mind, Red knew that no matter how mad Bacon was at her, he wouldn’t leave her for too long. Not her. She was wifey. Now, three days had passed and he still hadn’t been back. She thought over what he’d said.

  Ain’t nobody coming for you. Ain’t nobody coming to save you and that’s because nobody gives a fuck about you. You so fucking shady that the only way people are going to know you missing is when they ain’t got nobody fucking them over. They gon’ know you missing when they lives is better. That’s a fucking shame . . . a real fucking shame. You done fucked over everybody and now nobody gives a fuck about you. If nobody gives a fuck about you, then you may as well be dead.

  She was certain that his plan was for her to die, and now she welcomed it.

  Two days ago, she thought she was going to lose it. Not because she was hot or because she was sitting in shit and piss. It was because she saw rats the size of small cats nibbling on her Jimmy Choo stilettos. She tried to scoot the chair over and kick at them, but stopped when she almost toppled over. Neither screaming at the top of her lungs nor stomping her foot at the rats fazed them. They were too big to give a damn about what she was doing. She was on their territory.

  The fluids that escaped Red’s body attracted roaches that were the size of playing cards. Not sensing a threat, the rats and roaches battled for space on her body. It was on the second night, when they began to crawl on her face and into her hair, that Red flipped.

  The combination of shit, piss and heat made the room smell like a sewer. On the first two days, Red was sweating like an Olympic track star; but on the third day, not too much water escaped her pores. She was hungry, dehydrated and in deep shit no matter how you looked at it. Red’s stomach felt like it was touching her back and she didn’t know how much longer she would last. By now, her mind was floating on the brink of insanity.

  Red’s mind raced through her past, like a roller-coaster ride through memory lane. The flashing faces of her mother, Jerome, Blue, Bacon, Catfish, Terry, Sasha, and Kera seemed to be automatic.

  “I’ll get you,” Red mumbled incoherently, then laughed. Her lips stuck together because they were dry. “I’ll get you, and you, and you, and you, and you and you, too.”

  Red wasn’t always a dirty bitch. Her life was good until her daddy died. The path of heartache and pain that she traveled had been created by none other than her mother’s child-molesting, son-of-a-bitch boyfriend, Jerome. Red looked up to him as a daddy but he certainly didn’t treat her like his daughter.

  Red’s head bobbed to the other side and she thought back to the first time her mother left her alone with him. She remembered her mother putting a drink down on the coffee table just as she was about to leave the house, looking at her as if she would never see her again. She remembered hurt in her eyes but it was something else that at six years old, she couldn’t read. She was just an innocent child and Jerome took advantage of that.

  As soon as her mother left the house, Jerome was all over her. Red remembered like it was yesterday, his hands inching up her dress until he located her panties. He started massaging the front of them, then moved his hand to her ass.

  “No,” Red called out in a childlike voice, as the memory seemed real again.

  Red remembered him continuing to rub her clit with his thumb over and over again. She remembered struggling against him, but that seemed to turn him on even more. When Jerome licked the side of her face, he stuck his finger inside of her virginal vagina. It hurt like hell. When Red’s mother returned he quickly pulled his finger out, hurting her even more, but she was afraid to tell.

  “Why didn’t you believe me, Mommy?” Red said in a high-pitched voice. She remembered learning in daycare about good and bad touches. What Jerome was doing was bad touches. All of the kids were told to tell their mothers if someone was touching them in a place they weren’t comfortable with. When Red told her mother, she ignored her.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” Red mumbled to herself. “Mothers are supposed to take up for their daughters. Protect them. Daddy would have kicked his ass.”

  Red thought about how easy it was for Jerome to get into her panties. At ten years old, he enticed her with material things. Only then did her mother start taking notice. She was wondering why Red got gifts and she didn’t.

  Red remembered when Jerome presented her with her first pair of diamond earrings.

  “Do you want to continue to get nice things?” he asked. He led her to the mirror in the living room and told her to look at herself as he started running his fingers through her hair.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He took a minute to respond but told her that she was the second most beautiful woman he had ever seen, with her mom being the first.

  “Don’t you ever let a nigga get something from you for nothing. You so pretty you can make a nigga crawl. Come on, Red,” she remembered him begging, sounding like niggas her age while groping at her.

  “This is wrong.” She tried to twist away.

  “If you don’t I’ll tell your mother you kissed me.”

  Red knew that her mother would believe him over her. Jerome gave her the most evil smile she had ever seen. They both knew that he had her where he wanted her, so Red went to her bedroom and lay down on the bed.

  “Stand up,” he told her as he pulled out a Black and Mild, and unzipped her pants and let them fall on the floor.

  Jerome kept rubbing on her like she was a grown woman and commenting on how big her breasts were—like a woman’s.

  He positioned himself on top of her, kissing and touching her. Red felt something on her leg and then he got up and started unbuckling his pants. Jerome stood in front of Red with his underwear on and she noticed something trying to break out of the cotton fabric. It was her first exposure to the penis.

  “What you doing?” she asked, confused.

  He pulled his dick out and began to stroke it.

  Red’s eyes got b
ig. “That’s too big to go in me.”

  He ignored Red’s words and lay on top of her, kissing her neck at a hurried pace.

  “Oh, God,” she remembered herself saying. But God didn’t help her. He didn’t hear her and He never came.

  A strange pleasure came over Red’s body with Jerome’s repeated touches and eventually, a moan escaped her lips. Jerome took that as his sign to move further.

  “Can I have sex with you?”

  Instead of waiting for her to answer, he spread Red’s legs and tried to enter her. When she cried out in pain, he stopped, but she couldn’t move.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said softly. “I’ll go slow. I’m gon’ make it feel real good, okay?” he said in a gentle tone. “I love you, Red.” Then he kissed her again. Red was disgusted that she liked those words. When he finally made his way inside her, he kept giving her deep kisses and saying things she wanted to hear. Jerome sickened Red, but she loved the attention so she gave herself to him without reserve.

  Red’s innocent introduction to sex by a man who couldn’t have cared less about her, but who gave her things, turned her into the bitch she was today.

  “I’m going to kill you, Jerome!” Red shouted, this time crying without tears falling. “I swear, I’m gonna kill you!” She wanted to pay him back for everything that he had done to her and for everything that he took from her. He took her innocence; he took away her belief in a world that was good. He took away her trust, her smile and her youth. He took away her happiness, and he gave her a hell of a lot of baggage to carry with her for the rest of her life.

  “How could you?” Red screamed. “How could you!” She thought of her mother who allowed everything to happen.

  As Red grew up, she looked at a man as nothing but a mere trick. Of course, their main thing was to get the pussy, but she made them do tricks before they got the pussy. Having men eating out of her hand was simple for Red because she was a dime, but when she got what she wanted from them, like a piranha, she chewed them up and spit them out. No man was safe in the path of Red’s destruction.

  She cut off the low-end niggas who had nothing to lose and graduated to the big ballers who had everything to lose. She went from innocent Raven, a gullible, abused girl, to Dirty Red, a bitch who took no shit from nobody and didn’t give a fuck about nobody.