by Roy Glenn
“Hey what’s up with that? You just messed up a Kodak moment,” he joked.
“Look, I love you and all, but I need to go gargle with mouthwash or something. I just woke up,” she stressed.
“Baby; that just adds to your flavor,” Marcus teased as he made another failed attempt to kiss Panthea.
This time she was able to get away, and when she did, she got up from the bed and made a dash for the bathroom.
They spent the remainder of the morning ravishing each other. But Marcus wouldn’t have the chance to relive those fabulous hours, because before he could reach out and touch her silky skin, his daydream was shattered.
“Garrett is here,” Janise’s voice told him over the speaker.
He knew the interruption was needed. It was actually necessary because had it not happened, he’d stay suspended in that dream.
“What’s going on, man?” Garrett asked.
“Just lagging a bit today. Nothing to worry about though,” Marcus assured as Garrett took a seat.
Garrett filled him in on what he had learned about the case authorities and what they were building against Panthea. “I’m telling you, Marcus, their whole case is based on circumstantial evidence. They arrested her because they figured she was their most likely suspect. I mean think about it,” he started counting down on his fingers. “Here’s this lonely, ignored, married broad, who learns her husband’s got something else on the side that’s got his interest.”
Marcus tried to hide his flinch when he listened to Garrett reduce Panthea to such insulting adjectives.
“So, they’ve got no physical evidence linking her to the crime scene?” Marcus asked.
Before Garrett answered, the intercom on Marcus’s desk rang to life again.
“Olivia’s here. Do you want me to send her in?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” Marcus said.
“Gentlemen, have I got news for you,” Olivia said proudly the moment the door swung open and she sauntered in through it. She captured both Garrett and Marcus’s attention instantly. “It seems our little Ms. Abril was a busy, busy girl.” She walked around to stand between Marcus and Garrett. “Not only was she seeing, Scott Daniels, I talked with a witness who says there were even more men in her life.”
“What?” Marcus asked trying to figure out just what they were dealing with.
“Yes, it seems she had quite the lucrative business going,” Olivia smirked.
“Business?” Garrett’s eyebrow elevated.
“Oh yeah, not only did Abril have the gift of gab, but combine that with her taste for the finer things in life and her hypnotizing beauty, she was literally a man-eater,” Olivia reported. “And from what I’ve seen, no man with a sizeable bank account was safe.”
15
Marcus and Garrett made their way through a packed JFK airport. Once at curbside, the two stood in a long line for a taxi. They were there to follow up on a lead that had been furnished to them by Olivia. After talking with Ms. Brown, Olivia called her contact in the department. He granted her access to all of the evidence collected from Abril Arrington's apartment, which included a copy of her cell phone bill. Then she contacted a friend of hers that worked for Verizon. She was able to provide Olivia with Abril Arrington's phone records for the last six months. During that time Abril Arrington only called five numbers. Those numbers belong to Pascal Larrieux, Harrison Fuller, David Harrington, Leonard Smith and of course Scott Daniels.
Abril Arrington's records revealed that six months prior to her death, she was in contact with Leonard Smith, Harrison Fuller and Pascal Larrieux. She stopped calling Leonard Smith over five months before. About a month after that, she began talking to Scott, which was about the same time that she stopped talking to Harrison Fuller. A little more than a month after she began dealing with Scott, Pascal Larrieux dropped out of the picture. David Harrington only started calling a month before her death.
Olivia began to look into each of the men and found that other than Abril Arrington, they all had money in common. Each was successful in his chosen field. Pascal Larrieux was an investment banker in New York. Scott Daniels was in construction and property development. Harrison Fuller was a popular movie producer who lived in Los Angeles, and Leonard Smith owned a good bit of property in the metropolitan Atlanta area as well as several nightclubs. David Harrington, the new addition, was also the pauper in the group. He operated three Subway franchises.
“Which explains why she stopped returning his calls; his pockets weren’t fat enough for this broad,” Olivia noted as she studied her records.
Over the weekend, Olivia spoke to Leonard Smith and David Harrington. Smith told Olivia that he had known Abril Arrington for about a year. During that time, he was paying the mortgage on her condo and paying her car note. He cut ties with her when she began trying to get him to give her twenty thousand dollars for a land deal.
“Excuse me for being so blunt, but the sex wasn’t that good for me to just up and give her twenty grand,” Smith told Olivia.
Then she paid a visit to David Harrington. According to Abril Arrington's records, he was still calling her cell at least twice a day. He had no idea that she was dead. “When was the last time you spoke to her, Mr. Harrington?”
“I guess it was two weeks ago,” Harrington said, obviously shaken by the news of her death.
“What happened then?”
“She said she was behind on her mortgage and asked me if I’d loan her twenty-five hundred dollars until some deal she was putting together paid off. I told her I didn’t have that type of cash.”
“How did she take it?” Olivia asked.
“Fine, I thought. After I told her that, we—you know, so I thought everything was fine. But I didn’t hear from her after that.”
I guess you didn’t pass your first money test so she had no more use for you, Olivia thought as she left Harrington.
Harrison Fuller was on location in Africa filming a picture and Pascal Larrieux simply refused to talk to her. Marcus recognized the pattern and knew how important this was to Panthea’s defense. Any of those men would have a compelling reason to kill Abril Arrington. When Marcus told Garrett that he planned to fly to New York to talk to Larrieux, Garrett insisted that he needed to tag along.
“Where you headed?” the cabby asked over his shoulder.
“We’re going to the Hearts Tower,” Marcus answered. He looked down at the card he had. “Fifty Seventh near Eighth Avenue.”
“I know it well,” the driver said and took off.
Nearly two hours later, the taxi pulled up in front of the forty-six-story, triangle-shaped building. When Marcus stepped out and paid the fare, they walked inside and looked around. The lobby's floor was made of stone. After checking a nearby directory, Garrett said, “Let’s take the escalator up to the second floor, and then take the elevator up.”
On the ride up they marveled at a three-story sculptured waterfall.
“This Pascal Larrieux must be loaded to be able to afford this address,” Garrett commented.
“He’s French, an investment banker with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta. And, he’s married.”
Marcus and Garrett were seated in a large conference room, waiting for Larrieux, who said he could only spare a few minutes to meet with them. When he finally came into the room an hour after they'd been there, Marcus wasted no time getting started.
“Thank you for seeing us, Mr. Larrieux. I promise not to take up a lot of your time. Do you know a woman named Abril Arrington?”
“No, I’ve never heard of her. What is this about gentlemen?”
“We have information that not only did you know her, but up until three months ago, you contacted her at least twice a day,” Marcus pressed.
“Obviously, gentlemen, your information is incorrect. I don’t know who the woman you are talking about is, so there is no way that I could call her twice a day. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work attend to,” Larrieux said and s
tarted to get up.
Garrett slid a picture in front of him. “Have you ever seen this woman?”
Larrieux picked up the picture and glanced at it. When he did, his entire facial expression changed.
“You do know her then?” Marcus asked, noting how Larrieux stared at the picture.
“You said her name is Abril Arrington. This woman I know as Adina Banks.”
“Adina Banks?” Garrett questioned as he wrote down the name.
“What can you tell me about your relationship with Adina Banks?” Marcus asked.
“I met Adina, maybe two years ago while I was in Atlanta on business. She presented herself as a financial reporter from some small magazine and wanted to do a story about me. I usually don’t do things like that, but she was beautiful, so I agreed to be interviewed.”
“Did you ever see a copy of the magazine with the story she did on you?”
“No. Adina told me that her editor turned it down so she quit. She told me that she wanted to start her own magazine, and she convinced me to back her in it. For the last two years, I’ve been seeing her when I was in Atlanta. I was giving her money for her condominium and her BMW as well as the start up cost for the magazine.”
“What happened to change all that?” Marcus asked.
“I stopped seeing her recently when through methods of my own, I found out she never worked at the company she said she did, and then I discovered that there was no magazine she was working on.”
“When you found all this out, did you ever confront her about it?”
“No,” Larrieux said and his eyes drifted back to the picture. “I just stopped returning her calls. After a while she stopped calling.”
“Thank you, Mr. Larrieux. I think we’ve taken up enough of your time,” Marcus said. He and Garrett got up and were preparing to leave when Larrieux stood up.
“You never did say what this was all about.”
Garrett turned to face Larrieux. “The woman you knew as Adina Banks was murdered in Atlanta.”
As the two men walked out of the conference room they heard Larrieux say, “Am I a suspect?”
Garrett stopped and turned to Larrieux as Marcus continued down the hall. “No, sir, you're not a suspect. When the police come talk to you, then you should consider yourself a suspect. Have a nice day.”
In the cab ride to their hotel, Garrett looked over at Marcus. “So our girl was getting her hustle on to the fullest, huh?”
Marcus nodded. He knew that Larrieux’s statement improved Panthea’s chances of walking away from this murder charge. “So basically there are about five men who could be viable suspects in Abril’s murder,” he said.
“Not only them, but let’s think if they too had spouses. That just broadens the pool of suspects,” Garrett said and Marcus couldn’t imagine receiving any better news.
“Certainly makes for interesting conversation for the prosecution, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does. I’ll meet with Detective Silver when I get back, let him know what we’ve turned up.”
Marcus sat quietly accessing the situation and weighing his options carefully. “Okay, so here’s what we need to do. When you get back to Atlanta, I want you to go and talk to Scott. We need to learn as much as possible about his relationship with Abril or Adina. We’ve got one man basically saying she was running serious game, now we need to know what the nature of her relationship with Scott was all about.”
“You think he’ll admit he was being scammed?”
“Do you think he even knows?” Marcus inquired.
As if he was pondering the question for the very first time, Garrett gazed out of the window.
“If Scott found out that she was, not only scamming him but these other guys, he might just kill her for it.”
“If the pattern continues, the same could be said for any of the men she was seeing. I mean, she was targeting these fat cats and basically milking them for tens of thousands of dollars.”
“Yeah, but notice her approach. I mean she could’ve been the type to just charge for the goods up front, you know like most women,” Garrett spat.
Marcus frowned at his comment. “Damn, Garrett, who you been running with?”
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Garrett promised. When the taxi pulled up in front of his hotel, Marcus looked at Garrett and asked, “Are you going back right away?”
Garrett nodded, “Yeah, I ain’t got no reason to hang around here in the Big Apple.”
“I’ve got some additional business here,” he lied. “But I’ll be back in the office in a few days,” Marcus assured him.
“Cool, I’ll call you after you’ve talked to Scott.”
Marcus paid his fare and stood as the taxi took off to take Garrett back to the airport. He felt like a kid about to get ice cream he knew he damn well didn’t deserve. He could hardly wait for an elevator to come, so he could rush to his room and call Panthea. He missed her, and that he couldn’t deny.
Tucked away in his big ass empty room, Marcus called Panthea’s cell phone for the seventh time. “Where the hell could she be? Did she go back to that bitch-ass husband of hers?” he said, fussing out loud.
That’s how he felt about men who put their hands on women in any way other than a loving manner. He was just about to give up when Panthea finally answered. “Hello?”
“Hello, Panthea,” Marcus said.
“Hi baby,” Panthea said when she realized it was him on the other end.
“Hi yourself. I’ve been looking for you,” Marcus informed her.
“Well, you’ve found me, baby. Now the question is what exactly are you going to do with me?”
Marcus laughed. She didn’t really want him to answer that question. His mind could think of quite a few positions he’d like to see her in. But instead of saying so, he told her how he was going to make it happen.
“Why don’t you join me here in New York and find out? I can show you far better than I can tell you.”
“You want me to come to New York?” Panthea clarified.
“We could get you on a flight tonight. I just want you here,” he said and meant every word of it.
“Maybe I should call and make arrangements, and call you back,” Panthea offered, trying her best to mask both her surprise and her excitement.
“No need. I’ve already arranged for you to take a first class flight on Delta. All you need to do is show up at the airport an hour before your flight.”
“You are so good to me,” Panthea sang. “So very, very good to me.”
Marcus wondered if she could even begin to understand just how much she was beginning to mean to him.
16
When Panthea arrived at JFK, she saw a man holding a place card with her name written in small block letters. “Panthea Daniels, that’s me,” she said as she read the card a nice-looking Asian man was holding.
“Great. Follow me,” he instructed.
Panthea slipped into the backseat of the black town car and tried to relax in the deep bucket seats. She was more than excited to get Marcus’s call to join him. Although he had only been gone for the day, Panthea missed him terribly and planned to show Marcus why he should never leave town without her again.
As the driver made the trip in to Manhattan, Panthea gazed out the window. She always loved coming to New York, there was so many things to do, and the food was usually to die for. Panthea hoped that she would have a chance to get in some shopping while she was in the city. After all, what trip to New York City would be complete without hitting the stores? She planned to go to Bebe’s on 5th Avenue and Prada Broadway and then Le Corset to pick up some sexy lingerie for Marcus to peel off her.
When the limo pulled up in front of their hotel, Panthea really felt special. The driver got out and opened the door, but to Panthea’s surprise, Marcus got in. “I’m so glad you’re here, baby,” Marcus announced.
Panthea threw her arms around Marcus and kissed him like she hadn’t seen hi
m in months.
“I am so glad to be here,” she said between kisses. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you, Marcus.”
She loved the way she felt when she was with him. Marcus Douglas knew how to treat a lady and for that, she was grateful. Being with Marcus made her wonder just how she had survived so long, so many years without him. But then Panthea realized; she’d never known real love until she’d started loving him. Like now, sitting in the back of the limo, hugged up like they had a right to be together. Panthea couldn’t remember a time when she felt better.
The limo turned down 45th street and pulled up in front of Frankie and Johnnie’s Steak House. The driver rushed to open the door for his passengers. “Enjoy your evening. Please call when you’re ready,” he said to Marcus who slipped him a tip.
“This place was voted the number one steak house in the city. And it’s close to the theatre district,” Marcus said as he held the door open for Panthea to walk into the elegant two-story townhouse that once belonged to the legendary actor John Barrymore. Panthea didn’t have a problem accepting the lady-like treatment she felt all women deserved.
The restaurant’s burgundy and mustard color scheme provided a soothing backdrop for a romantic evening. Panthea couldn’t decide if she wanted to sit on the first or second floor. When the hostess led them upstairs to a romantic little table near the fireplace, she decided that’s exactly where she needed to be. The Barrymore room had stained glass ceiling panels and dark wood walls. Once the hostess walked off, Marcus took Panthea’s hands and held them to his lips.
“I’m hoping you’ll enjoy your evening,” he said in that dreamy voice he often used in Panthea’s presence.
“I don’t think you need to worry,” she informed him and then leaned closer to him. “Besides, you know when I’m with you things are always better for me.” Panthea smiled and he kissed her hands again.
“Well, I hope you’re up for a really good time. I thought we’d go to the theatre, catch a play then go dancing if you’d like.”