Clutching the steering wheel tighter, hoping his firm grip would be the action that would ultimately save his life, he desired to live. At this current moment, in the space between life and death, incarceration and freedom, he began to value life fully. The reality of it should have made him vomit, and he would have vomited if the urge to shit wasn’t controlling the contents of his stomach. The fried bologna on nearly moldy bread that he had smothered in leftover mayonnaise from little packets he found in the back of his utensil drawer hadn’t been a good idea. It became edible only when he realized it was his last day eating scraps for the entirety of his being. It was his farewell to the bottom, and he had hurriedly swallowed it in two greedy bites. Punishment for his greed was the meal flipping around his stomach as he pressed on the gas pedal and flew through red lights. The task was done now, and all he had to do was get away with the shit.
“Here I come, D,” he yelled. Then he said softly, “I’m on my way, Calvin. See you soon.”
He hit the gas and ran over the detective who was hot on Devin’s tail. Once he was sure he had turned the man into roadkill, he jumped out of the car and shot at the group of police who were headed their way. He wanted to put a bullet in one of them before the series of bullets pierced through his body from the neck down, but he didn’t get the chance. J. Seed hit the ground, dead.
Devin ducked between the cars, taking a different direction to catch up to William. He heard the bullets sound off behind him. Some headed toward him, and the others headed at his boy, who had taken out the detective who was closing in on him. From the sound of the new civil war that was taking place around him, he had just lost his brother. The thought made his chest tighten as he rolled over the back of a Lincoln to dodge the shots headed his way, but he’d known there might be casualties even before they arrived in Savannah. He refused to be killed before he got his prey.
It must have been meant to be, because two cars ahead of Devin, William came darting out from behind a car. Devin let off the rest of the rounds in his gun. It didn’t matter that out of four bullets he sent toward William, only one hit him, because Devin had met his goal. The bullet went diagonally through the back of William’s neck and came out his right eye. William was dead. Devin quickly dropped the gun and threw his hands up in the air before the approaching police officers could kill him next.
He was tackled to the ground, and the ski mask he was wearing was snatched off his head. With handcuffs on his wrists, he was brought back to the emergency entrance and thrown in the back of a squad car, but not before passing J. Seed’s dead body. Devin wanted to run over to him, scoop him up in his arms, and cry, but something about pulling the trigger and killing William had made him numb to everything. His mission was accomplished.
One of Devin’s arresting officers took a picture of him with his cell phone as Devin sat in the backseat of the police car, and then brought it over to Meagan and Angelo.
“Do either of you know this man?” the officer asked.
“Yes. His name is Devin,” Meagan said, speaking up when Angelo didn’t. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But with all the death that had hit him directly and indirectly, she was sure that he was feeling a combination of anger and pain.
“I’ll need both of you to stay here for a moment. Then you’ll be brought in for questioning and a written statement.”
Angelo pulled out his phone, retrieved the telephone number his mother had given him, and called his aunt.
Meagan’s mind couldn’t comprehend the conversation he was having, because she couldn’t take her eyes off Devin. The longer she stared at him, the more she could tell he was losing his soul. He never looked at her; nor did he seem sad about the turn of events. He just sat there, unbothered, like she was invisible. She broke down in tears.
William was dead. Clara was dead. J. Seed was dead. And even though she had never met him and knew nothing about him, Angelo’s father was dead too. All the lies of the past had resurfaced, and she was left to cope with the traumatic effects on her mental health that the terrifying events had produced.
When the crime-scene investigators arrived, she and Angelo were taken down to the police station and placed into two separate rooms. Before the detectives could say a word to her, she asked for her lawyer. They let her call Tommy back in Atlanta, and he promised that he was on his way. She sat in the room for close to four hours before the detectives returned with him.
“Mrs. Tolliver, I’ll advise you which questions of theirs to answer. Otherwise I urge you to stay silent,” Tommy said as he took a seat next to her.
The detectives introduced themselves. She had already met Detective Hollenback at the crime scene, but this was her first interaction with Detective George. Judging by the scrunched-up facial expression she wore, she was a pissed-off black woman who was in need of a good fuck.
Detective Hollenback started their questioning session by showing Meagan crime-scene photos. He asked her to identify all the individuals she could. They started with a picture of Angelo Sr.
“Can you identify this man?”
She looked at Tommy, who nodded for her to speak.
“No, I cannot. I was told by Angelo, my limo driver, that he was his father. The first time I saw him was when we exited the hospital’s elevator, and he was dead,” she said and then waited for the detectives to move on. Next, they showed her a picture of Patrice.
“What about her?” the female detective asked, speaking up for the first time since she had entered the room.
“No, I cannot identify her. I saw her in the restroom when we first arrived at the hospital this morning. I was washing my hair, and she handed me a stack of napkins to dry it with. The next time I saw her, she was being held down after killing Angelo’s father.”
“Did you see her murder him?” Detective Hollenback questioned.
“No. As I said before, he was already dead when we got off the elevator.”
Detective George went through the photos again and laid J. Seed’s picture in front of her. “How about this man?”
“I’ve met him twice. He was Devin’s friend. The only thing I know about him was that they called him J. Seed from College Park.”
“I’m glad that you mentioned Devin Montgomery. At the crime scene, you told my partner here,” she said, making reference to Detective Hollenback, “that you knew him. How?”
Meagan looked at Tommy, knowing that once she answered the question, all the respect he had for her would instantly dissolve.
“Devin . . . Devin is my ex-lover. We had a sexual relationship that lasted a little over eight months.”
“Is that why he killed your husband, William?” Detective George asked, placing a picture of William’s dead body in front of her.
That was the first time Tommy had been told that William was dead, and the news sent him to his feet.
“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t informed that Mr. Tolliver is dead until now. I need to speak with you both in private.” Tommy didn’t wait for the detectives to walk out of the room. He was standing in the hallway before they could get out of their chairs.
Tommy disclosed to the detectives the conversation he had had with William hours earlier, and provided them the telephone number for the security company so that they could hear the recording themselves.
Meagan wondered what was going on outside the door to the room, and worry struck her when she realized that they had been gone for more than an hour. When the door opened, Detective George walked back in by herself.
“Due to a conflict of interest, Mr. Hunt has declined to take you on as a client. I can take a written statement from you now. Or perhaps you would like to take some time and get a lawyer?”
Meagan didn’t understand why Tommy was refusing to be her lawyer, but she assumed the death of his close friend was the cause of it. She stood up. “No. I prefer to give a statement once I have a lawyer.”
“Whatever you feel is best,” Detective George said as the door opened and a
uniformed cop walked in. “Meagan Tolliver, you are under arrest for conspiracy and solicitation of murder—”
Meagan cut off the detective. “What? I didn’t hire Devin to kill William. He did it—”
“I gave you the opportunity to give a statement on your behalf, and you refused,” the detective said, talking over her. “You will have the opportunity to tell your side of it in court, and you will be judged by a jury of your peers. Please take Mrs. Tolliver away.”
Through teary eyes, Meagan devoured the beauty of the scenery on her way to getting booked. She knew it would be months, maybe even years, before she’d see the beauty of freedom again.
Part Seven
Disrespectfully Yours
Epilogue
“Today marks the two-year anniversary of the case that is known throughout the world as Disrespectfully Yours, and it is also the day that Devin Montgomery will be sentenced for his hand in a murderous, almost three-decades-long bloodbath in southern Georgia. If you haven’t been following the case, it started back in the fall of nineteen ninety with what was ruled at the time as the accidental deaths of Rita Glover and Clara Tolliver.” A photo of Rita was displayed for TV viewers before one of Clara was shown.
The crime reporter continued. “The two women were reported to have died in a car explosion, which the detectives determined was caused by a gasoline leak, but two decades later the world would learn differently. Although Ms. Glover was killed in the explosion, Mrs. Tolliver did not perish. She fled to Savannah once she realized that an attempt had been made on both of their lives by her husband at the time, William Tolliver, who was known for his famous soul-food restaurant chain, Georgia Peach’s.” A picture of William standing outside his California restaurant was shown.
“Mr. Tolliver wanted his wife dead so he could pursue a relationship with Meagan Tolliver, Rita Glover’s minor daughter at the time, whom you may remember from her modeling days. Here is a picture of her from her layout in Kings Magazine in two thousand five. It took twenty-one years of marriage between William and Meagan Tolliver before Clara would return to tell what really happened on the day she fled for her life. Dying of cancer, she wrote out her confession in what investigators are calling a bestselling nonfiction novel, if it ever was published, giving details as to what led William to soak the car’s engine in gasoline before setting the vehicle on fire.
“But this nonfictional tale doesn’t end there, as Clara’s return marked the beginning of a new string of murders. Her new husband, although there aren’t any legal documents to verify their marriage, Bishop Angelo Hurley, who Clara secretly birthed a child with in her late teens and gave away at birth, had his own murderous intentions in mind. He hired a hit man to murder his wife so he would no longer have to struggle to pay for her cancer treatments. The contracted murder attempt failed, but not before Clara found out about the attempt. She prevented her own murder by writing a check to the hit man for twenty thousand dollars to kill Bishop Angelo Hurley instead, which the hit man did successfully. On the same day that Bishop Hurley was murdered on the first floor of St. Joseph’s/Candler Hospital here in Savannah, Georgia, Clara Tolliver lost her battle to cancer, but not before disclosing the truths of her past dealings with William to his new wife and her goddaughter, Meagan.” The reporter paused for effect.
“But not-so-innocent forty-year-old Meagan Tolliver had secrets of her own, as she had been engaged in an eight-month sexual relationship with twenty-five-year-old Devin Montgomery,” the reporter revealed. Devin’s mug shot was displayed. “Devin was on his way to stardom, as his first rap single hit the charts with a bullet, but his jealousy and frustration from being a boy toy got the best of him and turned him into a cold-blooded killer. With detectives and police officers covering the floors of the hospital after Bishop Hurley’s murder, the rap star had his close friend, thirty-year-old Jason Seed, distract the police with a shoot-out, one that cost him his life, as Devin chased William Tolliver down with a gun and killed him in the hospital’s parking lot.”
The reporter took a second to take a breath and shake her head. “I know it sounds like I’m reading a movie script, since this story seems too unreal to be true. But all the events are factual, and William knew they would unfold. He had contacted his lawyer before making the trip from Atlanta to Savannah. He had provided his lawyer with information hours before his death that pointed a finger at Meagan as a conspirator to his murder. But after months of incarceration, the subpoenaing of phone records and voice messages, and Devin Montgomery testifying that she had no involvement in the murder, the conspiracy charges were dropped. She was later sentenced to seven years of supervised probation for not reporting the conspiracy to murder her husband. The jury felt that although she was not involved, the recording the security company had of Mr. Montgomery saying he would commit the crime against her husband and limo driver Angelo Jr., the son Clara had given away, proved she had reason to believe her husband was in danger and chose to do nothing to stop the tragedy that would follow.” The camera then panned around the outside the courthouse.
“As you can see, we and other media sources were not permitted entrance to the courtroom for Mr. Montgomery’s sentencing. He was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing William Tolliver, and under the felony murder rule, he was found guilty in the murder of Detective Mark Thomas, the detective who was run over by Mr. Montgomery’s accomplice, Jason Seed. We will report Mr. Montgomery’s sentence as soon as it comes in. We know the question on everyone’s mind is: Will all the lies and murders cause Mr. Montgomery to die by lethal injection? We’ll have the answer to that for you soon. I’m Samantha Whiterspoon, reporting live from outside the criminal courts building. Now back to Kim Miles in the studio.”
Kim Miles of Crime TV had a few questions of her own. “Samantha, as you mentioned earlier, we here at Crime TV have been following this case for the past two years, and we’ve heard rumors about a paternity test being included in this case. Do you know anything about it?”
“Well, there were actually a few paternity tests surrounding the case, but they have nothing to do with the crime or the sentencing itself. The most buzzworthy of the three tests in the case was the one done on William Tolliver to determine if he was not only Meagan Tolliver’s husband and godfather but indeed her biological father as well. The world held its breath for those results and didn’t release it until it was confirmed that he was not her father. I’m sure waiting for those results to come in kept Mrs. Tolliver on the edge of her seat.
“Kim, there was another test done on a stripper that attacked Meagan Tolliver, because of her relationship with Devin Montgomery, but that, too came back stating that he wasn’t the father. But if you recall, Kim, we showed footage of a five months’ pregnant Meagan Tolliver being released from jail months back. We were privileged to interview Mr. Montgomery after he was found guilty, and he wasn’t at liberty to speak on the murders until sentencing, but he did inform us that he underwent DNA testing with a few other men to determine who fathered Meagan Tolliver’s child . . .”
Meagan turned the television off because she couldn’t take any more. Devin’s trial and all the media coverage had prevented her, her now one-year-old son, Denali, and Angelo from moving on with their lives. Once she had been acquitted of her conspiracy to murder charge, she had received what was rightfully hers from William and had quickly sold everything she could, including Georgia Peach’s. Then she had packed up and moved back to Albany, Georgia, with Angelo.
The months she spent in jail had been easy on her, seeing that they’d been spent mostly in the infirmary. There hadn’t been any problems with her pregnancy, but due to her age and her mini bout with post-traumatic stress, her doctors had felt she was at a high risk for a miscarriage and other complications. Surprisingly, treatment for her PTSD had started in the holding tank the first day she was arrested. She thought back on that day.
“So what did you do, pretty girl? You don’t look like the jail type,” the
stud said as she twirled a lock of Meagan’s hair. They had been sitting in the holding tank together for close to an hour, both adjusting to their new loss of freedom.
“I really don’t know. One moment I’m visiting my dying godmother, and the next I’m a witness to murder and then headed to jail for witnessing it. I really don’t know.” She paused. “But can you please stop touching my hair?” she demanded, finally noticing her surroundings.
Meagan was zoned out. Nothing about her arrest felt real. Honestly, nothing felt real once she left Atlanta. All those years of thinking her mama and Clara were dead, to find out one of them wasn’t and that she was catching feelings for her godmother’s son Meagan didn’t know she had birthed. Pain, that was all she felt, and it was all that she was left with. Everyone she was close to was dead or in jail, and she felt like she was the cause of it.
Her mother would still be alive if William hadn’t called that meeting so many years ago. Clara wouldn’t have had to hide if William hadn’t fallen in love with Meagan and decided to end his marriage. The truth that bothered her the most was, none of this would have ever happened if she hadn’t flirted with William the night of her prom. Being hot in the ass was what had caused her grief since that day. There wasn’t anything good that had come out of her union with William. He had been beating her ass before he said his vows and had never stopped.
“I don’t know why I’m here, either,” the stud revealed. “My bitch hit me and called the cops, saying I hit her, when she knows she’s the only one doing the fighting in our relationship. I told myself to leave her alone a long time ago. Fight, fight, fight. That’s all her ass ever does, and guess who ends up in jail? Man, look at my face.”
Disrespectfully Yours Page 21