by Lolah Lace
“Hi.”
Misty had moved to sitting on her bed. The TV was on, but she wasn’t watching it. The volume was barely audible.
“Hey Brian. Close the door.”
Brian closed the door and took a few steps into the room. He noticed how clean and orderly it was. Misty was very tidy and organized at the video store. She was the only one that ever really vacuumed and cleaned the windows.
“I thought you might need some company?” Brian laid his backpack on the bed and sat next to Misty.
“I need a lot of things.” She sighed holding back the words she really wanted to say.
“I was really concerned about you. Are you feeling better today?”
“A little.” She shrugged. Pretending to feel better was hard, but she was managing to at least fool her parents.
“Do you want to talk about Christy?”
“No. Please don’t start making me feel sad.”
“No never.”
“I don’t want to cry right now.” She warned.
“Okay, we can just sit, talk … not talk, whatever you want to do.”
“You know what’s so messed up?”
“What?” Brian leaned back on the bed to get a better look at Misty.
Misty ran her hands across her collarbone. She grasped a platinum, heart shaped locket that hung around her thin neck.
“Now, I’m an only child. When you’re a twin you never are the only child. Not for a year, a few months, never. It’s like you’re born with a best friend right from the start. I don’t know if I know how to be an only child.” Misty released the necklace. “When my sister was dying I didn’t feel anything at all. When those twin shows come on, they always talk about how they could feel the other twin’s pain. She was being stabbed to death and I felt nothing. I didn’t feel shit, not a damn thing. What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, but nothing might be the feeling you should’ve felt.”
“You think?” She inquired.
Brian was not equipped to answer her cryptic question. “I bought you a present.” Brian opened his backpack and removed a large white glass bottle. “Peaches and cream flavored Malibu Rum. I know it’s your favorite.”
Brian handed the bottle over to Misty. He pulled two red plastic cups from his backpack along with a small plastic container of orange juice.
“You want to get wasted?”
“Hell yeah. I want to check out of this fucked up violent world. I have a damn good reason.”
It was true she did, but Brian wouldn’t dare say it. He handed both red plastic cups to Misty. He twisted the cap on the orange juice. Brian poured a little juice into both cups. He placed the juice on the floor and grabbed the rum bottle out of her lap. He topped off both cups with the rum.
“You need to pour everyone that lives in this house a damn cup. Well of course not my dad.” Misty handed Brian one full cup and took a long sip from hers.
“So what did the police say?”
“I don’t know. I can’t ask my mom and dad anything. One minute my dad is mad. At who, I don’t know. Then he’s sad and crying. I’ve never seen my dad cry.”
“The police don’t have any suspects?”
“I don’t know. All I know is they questioned Matt.”
“Who’s Matt?”
“He lives next door.”
“I don’t think I know him.”
“He’s my age so you were out of high school before we even got there.”
“What’s his last name? Maybe I know his brother or sister?”
“Mathers, he doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. He was my sister’s boyfriend, but no one thinks he did it. I grew up with him. He would never hurt my sister.”
“Well if you think he’s innocent than he probably is.” Brian shrugged.
His words gave her something to think about, but thinking it could have been Matt was just too much to take in at the moment. She preferred not to think at all. Thinking made her heart hurt.
She preferred to drown her sorrows in rum. She realized that she would probably never hear the words Christy and Misty together ever again. That was how it had always been. Two names bound together instead of the one.
CHAPTER 11
Detective John Turner strolled across the vast greenery with one hand in his pocket, and the other holding the lens on a digital camera. John walked past a few gravestones until he happened upon a late model, black, four-door Chevy Impala. He went to the driver’s side and leaned against the back passenger door.
“How long have you been here?” He asked.
“About twenty minutes.” Detective Mike Crane peeked his head out of the open car window.
“Any developments?” JT asked, sure there wasn’t any of note.
“Not yet. Tami told me she doesn’t think the boyfriend did it.”
Detective Turner smirked to himself. “Huh, so you’ve been talking to Tami.”
“Briefly.” Mike wanted to sound professional. Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned Tami, but it was too late now. He didn’t want to give her another thing to be furious about with him.
“Well, he doesn’t have motive to kill your girl at the mall. That is for certain.”
“Yeah, but he might’ve killed his girlfriend because she was pregnant. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.”
“And it won’t be the last. I’m going to try not to speculate this early in the game.”
“JT, I have a feeling the killer is here.”
“Shit, Mike.” Turner snickered. “The killer could be at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You watch too much crime TV.”
“Every cop should watch reruns of Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, and The Shield.”
“Yes, if you’re going into acting.”
“It feels like it’s one hundred degrees out here.”
“It’s a scorcher. At least, it’s not raining. I hate going to funerals in the rain.”
Mike grabbed the binoculars from the passenger seat. He raised them to his eyes. “I’m telling you JT, I got an eerie feeling about this one.” Mike adjusted the binoculars without removing them from his face.
“An eerie feeling huh? You might feel that way because we are surrounded by dead bodies.” Mike removed the binoculars. He stuck his head out the window to give John a puzzled look.
John flashed a grin at Mike and looked out at the cemetery.
Mike lifted the binoculars and focused on the burial site. He noticed the priest holding the Holy Bible close to his chest. He spotted Christy’s parents standing near the casket. Mrs. Toliver was visibly crying as her husband desperately tried to console her. An older Black lady had her arm around the teary eyed Misty.
Mike’s eyes panned across a cluster of six people that looked like relatives. His lens drifted across a pack of five White people dressed like high school teachers. He noticed Matt Mathers. He had only seen him in pictures. His parents surrounded him. There was another guy that was an older looking version of Matt, maybe an uncle.
“Looks like everyone is here,” Mike said to JT, after they had been silent for too long.
“You see anything interesting?”
“Nope.”
“You see anything suspicious?”
“Nope.”
“You want some gum?” Detective Turner placed the gum in front of the binoculars. Mike’s vision got blurry.
“No thanks.”
John pulled the pack of gum back. He removed a piece, unwrapped it, and placed it in his mouth. John put the remaining pieces in the inside jacket pocket of his suit.
Mike resumed his search through the funeral party.
“So what’s the deal with you and my partner?” Turner asked. Mike wasn’t ready for this line of questioning. He wished he could just tell JT to mind his business, but he had too much respect for him to say such a thing.
“There’s no deal.” Mike wasn’t sure if that was true.
“I thought you gave up.”
&nbs
p; “Never. I mean I still care about her.” Mike focused his binoculars on the video store employees. He had thoroughly gone through all of Tami’s files. He spotted Brian, the store manager; Jason, the first person of interest in his case—a Hispanic guy, a Black guy, and a redhead with glasses.
“Two months ago, I questioned one of the kids that worked at the video store with the dead twin’s sister. He is here.”
“Yeah, a kid named Jason something.”
“Right, Jason Kramer.”
“He was one weird kid.”
Mike panned the binoculars through the crowd and stopped at a group of eleven girls dressed in identical cheerleader uniforms. The cheer squad started tossing red, white and black roses onto the casket as it was being lowered into the ground. Mike got a lump in his throat. Seeing that had gotten to him.
“So you’re ready to torture yourself with Tami for the fifth time.”
“Fifth time?”
“You break up every five minutes. It is five, right, maybe six? I lose count.”
“You are so funny.”
“Look over there.” JT pointed his finger. “Your girl showed up.”
Off in the distance, Mike spotted Tami and Lt. Meyers standing under the shade of a single tree. Mike cut Lt. Meyers out of his binoculars sight. He only wanted to see Tami. He missed her. Why was being with her so hard? Why would she only give so much of herself to him? He feared he would never get the answers, or his girl back. He feared that this was really maybe the end for them.
CHAPTER 12
The hip-hop, rap music was unbearably loud that night. The fraternity house was full of African American frat brothers. The barely furnished house’s color scheme was the boldest color of purple and gold.
The Gama Phi Alpha symbol covered one of the golden painted walls. Scattered all around the house were about ten young black men dressed in purple Tshirts with Gama Phi Alpha’s Greek letters ironed on across their chest. The party housed mostly Black college students. Several partygoers drank booze out of purple plastic cups. Some danced in small vacant areas in the room. A number of students smoked marijuana, while others mingled in clusters trying to have strained conversations.
Keisha, a golden haired biracial college student, stood alone in a corner of the room holding a red cup. Her head bobbed to the music. A young Black male rushed over to Keisha. She could smell the alcohol on his breath before he opened his mouth.
“What you drinkin’?”
Keisha raised her half empty cup. “Cranberry juice and vodka.”
“What’s your name?”
Keisha rolled her eyes quickly before he noticed. She could already tell he was not her type.
“Keisha.”
“What?” He leaned in a bit too close.
She wondered if he had heard anything she said, or if he was just ignoring her. “Kei-sha!” She yelled. The music was too loud for conversation, but she was trying to be nice.
“You didn’t ask me my name?”
He didn’t get the hint. She hadn’t asked him because she didn’t care. This was exactly why she hated coming to these frat parties. There were too many drunken assholes.
Keisha noticed her boyfriend Marcus Dixon. He appeared from almost out of nowhere. Panic quickly set in her bones and rumbled in her heart. Marcus’ skin was a dark chocolate brown. He was bald, muscular, athletic and a member of the fraternity. Marcus, in his purple T-shirt, sprinted across the room and stopped inches from Keisha.
“Keisha, who the fuck is this?”
Keisha’s fear provided her with a name instead of an answer. “Marcus!”
“Marcus what? Who the fuck is this motherfucker.” Marcus looked his competition up and down.
The other guy watched the dispute without moving. Maybe he was too drunk to understand the mess he had caused. He chuckled like he was entertained by the spectacle he had triggered.
“Marcus, Marcus I don’t know him!” Keisha pleaded. She was aware of her boyfriend’s nasty temper.
Marcus yanked Keisha by her arm.
“Damn man, chill out!” The guy was bold enough to say.
Marcus looked away from Keisha to stare directly at the stranger. “Look, bro, you don’t know me!”
“Marcus please, I don’t know him. Marcus, you’re drunk!” He was, but Keisha soon realized it wasn’t a good time to point that out.
Marcus glared menacingly at Keisha. Her heart picked up at a frantic pace. He slapped her hard across the face knocking her down into a wooden magazine rack that doubled as a telephone stand.
Some of the party patrons, who heard and saw the commotion, began to take notice. Marcus towered over Keisha, while she lay helpless on the floor. The cranberry juice spilled all over her tank top before it tumbled out her hand.
“No!” Keisha yelled.
“You, you shut the fuck up. You keep fucking with me, and I’m going to kill you!”
“Dude you need to chill.” The flirty guy tried to defend Keisha with a few words. He reached down to help her off the floor. He addressed Marcus. “Dude, what’s your problem?”
“You’re my problem bro. This is my mutherfuckin’ girlfriend.”
Another guy took notice and rushed over to the trio. The guy had a rough and thuggish look, and didn’t seem like he could be a student at this or any college for that matter. He had a thin build and hair braided from his forehead to the nape of his neck.
“G, what’s going on over here?” He addressed the guy that helped Keisha off the floor.
“This college dude is trippin’ over ole girl!” The flirtatious guy pointed to a crying Keisha.
“Ole girl? That is my muthafuckin’ girl!” Marcus proudly boasted.
“Nah dog, her?” The guy with the cornrows pointed to Keisha. “This hoe, she ain’t your girl.” He taunted.
His trivial words infuriated Marcus. The alcohol along with the stranger’s phrase fueled his suspicions. “Keisha, you fuck him?”
“Marcus I told you. I don’t know them.”
“Did you fuck my girl?” Marcus addressed the tough guy. The new addition to the group refused to back down as he stepped up close to Marcus’ face.
“Yeah stud. Straight up, me and my boy fucked that hoe. Now what brother?” The thug squared his shoulders.
Marcus’ face swelled with anger. One after the other, Marcus bellowed out three deep husky dog barks. It sounded like a call of the wild because it was precisely that.
A confused look was etched on the thug and his friend’s faces. From different directions in the house, Marcus’ frat brothers swarmed onto the scene like an ill-advised swat team.
Marcus balled his fist and cocked it back. He threw the first punch just as the G-Dogs arrived on the scene to wreak havoc. His fist landed on the tall thug’s cheek. The thuggish guy stumbled backward and almost fell. He didn’t weigh much, and Marcus had nearly punched him off his feet. Marcus snuck in a right hook that connected with the thug’s nose.
The guy that approached Keisha was down on the floor being frantically kicked and punched by three of the frat brothers. A fourth frat brother was trying effortlessly to make the thug fall by kicking him in the shin repeatedly.
Keisha screamed in the background of the melee, while every uninvolved person gawked. Soft hands wrapped around Keisha. Her friend, Brittany, was comforting her. Brittany stood out at the party; she was a pretty, petite, and blonde. She was one of the few White students at the predominantly Black house party. The girls had backed themselves into a corner hoping that they were out of harm’s way.
A lightning fast kick connected with the thug’s knee. The magnitude of the kick forced him down to the cranberry juice-stained carpet. Marcus and his frat brothers stomped and kicked the rough guy with their purple-laced, spray painted gold combat boots.
The young thug choked on and then spit up some blood. He refused to lose this battle. He reached back and pulled a small 9mm handgun from the small of his back. The sight of the gun coaxed Marcus
and his frat brother to step back immediately.
The rough guy pointed the gun upward into the sky. He blasted two consecutive warning shots up into the ceiling. POP! POP!
Chaos erupted. The sound of the shots sent all the partygoers into pandemonium. The students quickly dispersed in all directions stampeding and toppling over one another on a quest for safety. They scattered all throughout the fraternity house running for exits and cowering for cover.
POP! POP! The young thug fired two additional shots as he staggered onto his feet.
“Come on G, get the fuck up.” The hood yelled out to his friend. They were there to meet some dumb, tipsy college girls, and things had gone sour pretty quickly.
The flirty guy rose from the floor holding the left side of his torso. His ascent to his feet was slow and painful. Blood gushed from his broken nose and saturated his white, hip-hop designer T-shirt creating the brightest crimson.
The party-crashing duo ran in the same direction as the majority of the partygoers. The two guys lagged a few paces behind the crowd. Their injuries would only let them move so fast.
They staggered out the front doors of the Gama Phi Alpha house. They ran across the lawn past a few parked cars and stopped at a navy blue ‘99 Buick Park Avenue.
The guy with the gun unlocked the doors and jumped into the driver’s seat. His injured friend was only one step behind him. He clumsily fell into the passenger seat. The car doors slammed as the driver tossed the hot gun over into his friend’s lap. The thug fumbled to remove the car keys from his front blue jean pocket.
“Hurry up, G! Hurry up!” The passenger yelled as he hastily used his t-shirt to wipe his fingerprints off the gun.
The two troublemakers breathed a brief sigh of relief when they heard the sound of the engine roar. The tires screeched as the thug maneuvered from the parallel parking space. The vehicle sped down a one-way street and nearly plowed into a couple fleeing the scene half way down the block.
CHAPTER 13
The gym was a place Tami took solace in. She took pride in keeping in shape. She refused to be one of those detectives that loaded up on sugary snacks all throughout the workday. She went to the gym regularly, and she was on her way to a kickboxing aerobics class. Her best friend, Patricia, talked her into joining the class.