by RM Johnson
An hour later, Nate, Abbey, and Lewis were in the small, dark living room of Freddy’s Uncle Henry’s home.
Nate was exhausted, and in a fair amount of pain, so he was sitting. Lewis sat as well. Mrs. Ford walked in from getting the glass of water Nate wanted. She handed it to him, then was met by Abbey, who stepped directly in front of her.
On the drive over, Nate had told Abbey that she should be the one who questioned Mrs. Ford.
“Ford’s ex-girlfriend did apologize for what she said, but I do believe she would prefer me dead,” Nate said. “I imagine his mother has even stronger feelings, so it’d probably be best if you do the questioning.”
“Yes, sir,” Abbey said as she drove. “What should the tone of the questioning be?”
Nate thought for a moment. “Whatever tone you think will get the information we need.”
Now, standing in the living room with Mrs. Ford, Abbey smiled thinly and said, “My name is Abbey Kurt. Like Mr. Waters told you, we’ve come to you with just a few questions regarding your son.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Ford said, seeming very nervous.
“Good,” Abbey said. “As you know by now, your son is responsible for the shooting of two individuals. The police are trying to find him. He’s obviously in hiding. Do you know where he is?”
Nate stared intently into the older woman’s eyes, hoping he would be able to tell if she was lying.
“I don’t know nothing.”
“When was the last time you saw your son?”
“Four nights ago, I think. I don’t really remember. It was late, like midnight. He said he had to go. He did something bad. The police would be looking for him. I told him I ain’t want to know.”
“Where would he go?”
“I don’t know. Only friend he had was Lewis, right there, and ya’ll ain’t talking no more, right?”
Lewis shook his head.
“So you have no idea of where your own son is? That’s what you’re trying to have us believe?” Abbey said coolly, pacing before Mrs. Ford.
“I ain’t trying to have you believe nothing. I’m just telling you what is.”
“He hasn’t tried to contact you?”
“No.”
“You haven’t seen him since that night?”
“No.”
Abbey stopped her pacing and stood directly in front of Mrs. Ford.
“Do you love your son?”
“What kind of question—”
“Just answer it.”
“Yes.”
“Even though he killed your husband in his sleep?”
Lewis stood. “How you gonna ask—”
Abbey held up a palm, quieting Lewis.
Mrs. Ford looked shocked, as if thinking that was information that only she knew.
Abbey continued. “I don’t have to inform you that your son is a violent, remorseless killer. The police know he has a gun, and they consider him armed and dangerous. There is a good chance they will shoot him on sight when they find him. Is that what you want, Mrs. Ford?” Abbey said, raising her voice.
“No.”
“Do you want your only son to be gunned down in the street?”
“No!”
“Then tell us where he is!” Abbey yelled.
“I don’t know where he is!” Mrs. Ford cried, tears in her eyes. “Then when they find him, they will kill him, and they will come and get you, lock you up for obstruction of justice, and you will have nothing. That’s what you’ll have. Nothing.”
“That’s enough,” Lewis said, stepping over to Freddy’s mother, comforting her.
Mrs. Ford dropped her face in her hands, bawling. “I don’t know nothing.”
Abbey was about to take another run at her when Nate touched her on the arm, shook his head.
Nate stepped over to the sobbing woman. “Mrs. Ford, I’m the man your son shot.”
Mrs. Ford looked up, tears running down her face.
“You’re the man that took my husband’s house from me.”
Nate was silent. “Yes. I took your house, then your son came and shot me and my wife, and took my three-year-old son. Wherever he is, whatever he’s going through, he’s taking my son through it, too.”
Mrs. Ford lowered her head. “I’m sorry. Your baby shouldn’t be involved in this.”
“And I’m sorry for you.” In a soft voice, Nate asked, “Is there anything you think you can tell us that will help us find your son and mine? Anything. Even if you don’t think it’s important.”
Mrs. Ford shut her eyes, shook her head.
“Anything, Mrs. Ford.”
Finally, Mrs. Ford said, “Right before I stopped him from telling me where he was going, he said he was leaving.”
“That’s what he said, just like that? He was leaving?” Nate asked compassionately.
“Yeah. Not like he was just leaving home, but like he was going far away. You know, leaving Chicago.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ford,” Nate said, reaching into his suit pocket and pulling out his business card. “If your son happens to contact you, do you think you can please let me know?”
Mrs. Ford took the card, wiped tears from her cheeks, but did not answer.
38
It was one A.M. Freddy pushed the blankets off himself. He was fully clothed.
He got out of bed. He had not slept at all, knowing what he must do.
He had told Joni good night two hours ago as he was standing outside her bedroom door with her.
“You okay?” Joni had asked, smiling.
“I’m alright.”
“Are you having an okay time? Are you glad you came?” Joni was holding his hand again. It was a habit she had picked up over the last day. He didn’t hold her hand back, so her grasp on his fingers was weak.
“I’m glad I came.”
His answer was not enthusiastic, but it was sincere.
Joni smiled wide, tightened her grip on his fingers. “Why don’t you prove it? Sleep in my room tonight.”
“I can’t, Joni.”
“You don’t love me anymore?”
“Joni.”
“You don’t even care about me?”
“You know I care about you, but this isn’t the time. I told you that.”
“Okay. But you’re here now. We’re gonna find the time, right?”
Freddy had done his best to smile. “Yeah. Sure.”
Freddy pulled the blankets back up now, set the pillow neatly on top of them at the head of the bed.
He quietly snuck out of his room and into Nathaniel’s. The boy was sleeping heavily, as usual.
Freddy slid open the dresser drawer and took out only the clothes that Nathaniel had been wearing the day Freddy brought him here. In the drawer, he left the four outfits that Joni had bought for him at the mall. Freddy slipped the tiny pair of jeans onto Nathaniel, sat him up, and stretched the T-shirt over his head.
He lifted Nathaniel from the bed, cradled him in his arms, then carried him out of the room.
Once Freddy laid Nathaniel in the backseat of the car, he climbed into the front and slid the key into the ignition. Without starting the car, he shifted it into neutral. He got behind the car, pushed it down the slight decline of the hill. It rolled a good hundred feet, then came to a stop.
Freddy sadly looked back toward the house, up at Joni’s window, then lowered himself into the car. He started it, then drove away.
After driving only ten minutes, Freddy braked at a stoplight. Waiting for it to change green, he realized he still had no plan. He was behind the wheel of his car, the boy in the back, but he had no idea of what direction his car was even pointed in.
Freddy left because he felt that the police and Nate Kenny would find him and take him down. And when they did, they most likely wouldn’t care that Joni was innocent, and they would take her down, too. As much as he was trying to fight it, Freddy was developing feelings for the girl again. He couldn’t allow himself to let her fall with him. The light turned
green. Freddy kept his foot on the brake.
He had less money than when he had left Chicago. He had no other friends. There was nowhere else he could think to go.
He pressed gently on the accelerator and pulled the wheel hard to the left, making a U-turn.
Fifteen minutes later, Freddy walked back through Joni’s front door, the boy still sleeping in his arms. All the lights were still off, the house quiet. He was glad Joni had not been awakened. Freddy nudged the door closed with his shoulder, walked across the living room toward the stairs, and mounted them.
“I wish you would’ve at least told me you were leaving.”
It was Joni. When Freddy turned, he barely saw her there, in a corner of the room, sitting.
“Whatever you did must be really bad,” Joni said, her face and body cloaked in shadows. “You ain’t got nowhere else to go.”
39
Daphanie was disappointed after walking into Nate’s hospital room the next day and finding nothing but an empty bed. She stepped out of the room, walked down to the nurses’ station.
“Was Mr. Kenny moved to another room?” Daphanie asked a nurse with graying hair and glasses.
“The man in 312?”
“Yes.”
“No. He discharged himself two days ago.”
“Thank you,” Daphanie said.
Why hadn’t he told her? He could’ve at least called. She could’ve given him a ride home. Suddenly Daphanie thought about Monica. Had she awakened? Had Nate taken her home with him?
Daphanie turned and hurried down the hall. When she approached Monica’s room, through the glass window in the door she saw that Monica was still there, still in a coma. But there was someone in the room with her. It was a man, brown-skinned, handsome, with unruly black hair.
He was sitting in a bedside chair. With both his hands, he held one of Monica’s, his face pressed to it. It looked as though he were praying, or crying. Maybe both. Trying not to be seen, Daphanie stood by the door and watched.
Who was this man? Judging by his younger age, and the way he was dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt, he couldn’t have been an acquaintance of Nate’s. This had to be Monica’s friend. But by the look of grief he was displaying, he looked to be more than just a friend.
After another five minutes, Daphanie saw the man stand. He pushed the chair to the corner of the room, stepped back to the bed, then appeared to be saying something. He wiped at his cheek, then leaned over and kissed Monica lightly on her lips. Yes. He was far more than a friend, Daphanie thought, stepping away from the door and walking off the ward. The door to the elevator she stood by opened and closed three times while she waited for the man to appear. Finally she saw him walking down the hall toward her.
He walked up to the elevator, punched the down button, then stepped back. He smiled briefly at Daphanie, then turned away.
When the elevator door opened, the man allowed Daphanie to enter first, then he stepped on.
On the ground floor, when the door opened again, Daphanie stepped off and allowed the man to walk a few paces into the hospital’s lobby before she said, “How do you know Monica Kenny?”
“Who are you?” Lewis said, turning.
“Daphanie Coleman. As of a month ago, I was Nate Kenny’s fiancée.”
When Lewis heard that, he started speaking hurriedly and harshly about what an evil man Nate was. Daphanie told him that if he didn’t mind walking across the street with her to the café there, she would buy him lunch.
Forty-five minutes later, Daphanie had learned everything. From how Lewis and Nate had first met when Lewis plowed into the back of Nate’s Bentley, demolishing it, to how Nate had blackmailed Lewis’s best friend Freddy and set Lewis up to be sent to prison.
“So Nate knew the man who shot him?” Daphanie said.
“Yes, he knew him,” Lewis said, a sandwich and chips before him that he had not touched. “Nate brought all that on himself, and he’s acting like the victim.”
“And you and Monica were supposed to marry, until Nate came back in the picture?”
“That’s right. She was raising my child, but now Nate has her, and won’t give her back to me.”
“What?” Daphanie said, shocked.
“I tried to get her back, but I couldn’t. I’m kinda afraid to, but I think I gotta go to the police.”
“No,” Daphanie said, not knowing exactly why she said it.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know yet. But you still love Monica. I could tell by seeing you in that room with her. You want her back?”
“I do.”
“And I want Nate. I think that maybe we just might be able to help each other.”
40
Nate walked between the desks at the downtown police precinct, Abbey two steps behind him. He stopped at Davis’s and Martins’s desks. Only Martins was there, filling in blank lines on a police report.
“Detective Martins,” Nate said.
Detective Martins stood up, extending his hand to Nate, and both men shook.
“Davis told me he spoke to you, and I’m sorry this case isn’t moving faster, but—”
“You’re not going to find Ford in Chicago. He’s left.”
“How do you know that?”
“I spoke to his mother this morning, and—”
“We spoke to her, and she said she knew nothing.”
“She thought it was nothing. Ford is gone, Detective Martins, trust me. Please expand the search to include the entire country, and I’ll raise the reward to a hundred thousand dollars. Will you do that?”
“Mr. Kenny, maybe if—”
“Detective Martins, will you do that, or is there someone with more authority I need to speak to?”
“No. I’ll go back, speak to the mother again, and do what you’ve asked.”
41
Lewis sat at a table in an Arby’s Restaurant. Eva sat across from him eating some curly fries and sipping from a strawberry shake. Lewis hadn’t ordered food. He had come back to the DCFS building after meeting that Daphanie woman, hoping Eva took her lunch at that time. He didn’t know why he had felt compelled to come back. He knew there was really nothing she could do for him until he found out for sure if Layla was his. He just needed someone to talk to.
“It’s like you’re the only person I can tell this stuff to right now,” Lewis confessed.
“What stuff?” Eva said. “You didn’t come back the other day. Is everything alright?”
Lewis looked up at Eva. “I don’t know if she’s mine.”
“If who is yours?”
“Layla. My daughter. I ain’t come back because my name wasn’t on the birth certificate,” Lewis said, dropping his head. “I found the guy who was on it. He don’t want nothing to do with Layla.”
“You gotta find out if she’s yours. You gotta take a paternity—”
“I know, I know. I’ll do that tomorrow, I hope.”
“Good. Once you get the results, then you can start the process of getting her back.”
Lewis looked up sadly. “But what if she ain’t mine?”
“When you think about her, about all the time you two have been together, in your heart do you feel like she’s yours?”
Lewis thought for a moment, and the answer was an undeniable “Yes.”
Eva reached across the table, grabbed Lewis’s hand, squeezed it, and smiled.
“Then the test will prove that.”
42
Freddy paced back and forth across the living room, worried.
Joni had taken Nathaniel to the mall and the grocery store. That had been five hours ago.
He hadn’t wanted her to go. Early this morning, Freddy had woken up to what he thought was talking. He propped himself up on his elbows in bed and listened. His bedroom window was open. He climbed out of bed, walked to the window, and peered out.
It was still dark outside. Freddy wasn’t able to make out the words, but he heard the sound of Joni’s voice. He knew the
other voice belonged to Sam.
He wasn’t able to see either of them. They stood under the porch roof. But sitting in front of the house was Sam’s old Impala.
By the time Joni stepped back into the house and closed the door, Freddy was standing in the center of the living room, his arms crossed over his chest.
Joni turned, jumped, startled to see Freddy there shaking his head.
“He beat you and you’re still talking to his ass. What the fuck, Joni?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, really. You two weren’t just talking,” Freddy said, feeling the slightest bit of jealousy.
“I was telling him I can’t see him anymore, because I’m seeing someone else.”
“And who is …” Freddy caught himself before he finished asking the question, just realizing what she was saying.
“I know we ain’t really talk about getting back together. And I know you was just trying to sneak out last night.”
“I wasn’t trying to sneak out. There’s just some things that’s happening, that—”
She stepped quickly to him, pressed herself against him.
“Then tell me. You can trust me. I want you back, and it seems to me that you need me. We can be together, right?”
Freddy had wrapped his arms around Joni, realizing just how right she was. He did need her. “Yeah, baby. Maybe.”
Now Freddy was standing in the front doorway, looking out the screen door, wondering where in the hell that girl was. He had tried calling her several times on her cell, but all his calls went straight to voice mail.
Freddy was about to walk back into the house and close the door when Joni’s black Celica slowly pulled up in front of the house. Freddy pushed through the door and stood on the porch, waiting for Joni to exit with Nathaniel, but she did not. She just sat behind the wheel of the car, staring down at the floor.
“Joni,” Freddy called to her. She didn’t respond, so Freddy hurried down the steps.