by Kiki Swinson
A couple hours passed and I was still trying to mull over ways that I could make a successful escape. But that all went down the drain when I got a knock on the door. “Coming in,” I heard a woman’s voice say. I immediately turned my attention toward the door and in came my mother. She rushed over to my bedside and gave me a big hug and a kiss on my forehead.
“Ah, baby, look at you. Are you all right?” she asked as she looked at me while combing my hair with her hand.
“Mom, I am so glad to see you,” I told her.
“I’m glad to see you too, baby girl. How are these people treating you in here?”
“All right, I guess. I like that pink fingernail polish on your nails.”
“Thank you,” she replied, and then she switched the subject. “So, what is going on with you that would make you attempt to commit suicide?”
“I just got a lot on my plate, Mom, and I was tired of dealing with it.”
“You know I was hurt when I got a call from that agent telling me what you tried to do.”
“I know you were. And I’m sorry, Mama, but I’m tired. I just want to live in peace. Look at what happened to Jillian and Grandma. They didn’t have to get killed like that.”
“You’re right. But there’s other ways to work through obstacles that come into our lives.”
“So, what’cha want me to drink my problems away like you do?” I replied sarcastically, because who is she to try and give me advice? Her life was more fucked up than mine. She can keep her advice to herself.
“Really, Misty, did you have to go there?!” my mom said. I could hear the hurt in her voice.
“Ma, I’m sorry for saying that.”
“It’s okay, darling. I know you didn’t mean it,” she said, trying to cut through the tension I had just created. “Carl says hello and that he hopes you get well soon.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s downstairs in the waiting room on the first floor. Seeing all the cops standing outside your door made him feel uneasy.”
“You are staying with his family, right?”
“We haven’t officially moved in with them yet. But don’t worry, most of our things are in his car, so as soon as we leave here, that’s where we’re heading.”
“Mom, please do. If I lose another person I am going to lose my mind.”
“Don’t worry about me. Carl and I can take care of ourselves. You’re the one that needs to be looked after.”
“Have you thought about who’s going to help bury Grandma and Jillian?” I asked her, forcing her to talk about my grandmother, since she hadn’t mentioned her from the time she walked into my room up until this very moment.
“Misty, I can’t deal with that right now. You’re asking too much of me. I’ve already agreed to leave my house because of something you did. And now you want me to take on the task of handling my mother’s burial arrangements. Now, how selfish is that?”
“Mom, do you hear yourself?”
“You damn right, I hear myself. I will not take on that responsibility. That woman didn’t love me. She only loved my brother and his damn daughter.”
“Mom, will you please give it up? It’s not about you anymore. Your mother was killed by the people that are looking for me, so have some freaking compassion.”
“Didn’t you just say that she was killed by people that were looking for you?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to hold back my tears.
“Then you take care of their funeral arrangements because I’m out of here,” she replied, and then she kissed me on my forehead and exited the room.
After the door closed, I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. The hurtful words she uttered from her mouth stabbed me like a dagger in my heart. I mean, how heartless could she have been? She acted as if my grandmother hadn’t given birth to her. Despite what my mother had said all her life, my grandmother was a good woman. And she was selfless. So to see my mother carry on like she just did sent me into a deeper depression than I was already in.
“Are you okay?” a black guy asked me. I suspect that he was one of the agents Agent Sims had sitting in on my watch. He was dressed in casual clothing from head to toe and was a clean-cut–looking guy.
“Who are you?” I asked him while I wiped the tears away from my eyes.
“I’m Agent Taylor. I’m assigned to protect you during your stay here at the hospital.”
“Where is Agent Montclair?” I wanted to know, trying to figure out how many agents were standing outside my room.
“Agent Montclair is downstairs in the cafeteria getting us something to eat.”
“How long are y’all supposed to watch me?”
“I’m not sure. Our details change every minute, it seems like,” he said.
But I didn’t believe him. He was full of shit. I knew he knew what his schedule was for my detail. He just didn’t want to tell me, for fear that I’d try to hang myself again. “Did you hear my mother get upset before she left?”
“Yes, I did. But that’s family business. That’s where I draw the line.”
“Do you know when I am getting out of here?” I asked him, testing whether or not he was going to spill the beans.
Once again, he kept tight-lipped. “No, I’m afraid not.”
“What the hell do you know?” I snapped, because I knew he was lying to me.
“All I know is that I was told to keep an eye on you, that’s it,” he replied.
“Yeah, right. You’re a bullshitter, just like Agent Sims.” Agent Taylor smiled. “I’m sorry that you feel like that, ma’am.”
“Please, you could care less,” I told him. “I’m done talking. You can leave now.” I continued while I grabbed for the TV remote to change the channel.
Thankfully, he listened to my instructions and exited my room. If he would’ve given me a hard time, then I would’ve done something extreme, like yelling out to hospital staff, accusing him of screaming at me and causing me mental anguish. Believe me, it would’ve been classic, to say the least.
Immediately after he left my room, I stopped sifting through the television channels after seeing a very familiar face plastered around the TV screen. I turned up the volume to listen: “My son Terrell would not get up and leave town without telling me or his family. We all have a good relationship. People tell me all the time that he was a mama’s boy, so if he hadn’t said anything to anyone else, he would’ve at least called and told me. But I do have a strong suspicion that his ex-girlfriend named Misty Heiress had something to do with his disappearance. The police tracked his phone and the last pinging alert was a cell phone tower only a mile from her apartment. Now I’ve talked to her a few times and she’s done nothing but lie. So I’m standing here and pleading to anyone that knows his whereabouts, please call the police. You don’t have to leave your name. Just call us if you heard or seen anything,” she said as the tears from her eyes flooded the cheeks of her face.
I instantly saw the pain in Mrs. Mason’s eyes. She was doing everything in her power to find her son, and if that included throwing me under the bus, then so be it, I’m sure she thought. After the news break ended, I got sick to my stomach. All I could think about was what were the chances of them getting a search warrant to search my apartment? And what if they gained access to my apartment and found traces of blood on the living-room floor or my bathroom left by Terrell’s body? The thought of that happening consumed me. Fear stricken, I closed my eyes and started praying silently. At this point, that was all I could do. No one could save me now but God. He was the only one.
Of course, God knew that I had killed Terrell, but He also knew that He had forgiven me for the act. But getting arrested for it right now isn’t in the plan. My grandmother told me that I had several jobs to do and confessing the murder wasn’t the first thing on my list. What I needed to do now was concentrate on helping these loser-ass agents so they can convict Ahmad and his family. After I’m done with that, then I’ll wait on God to tell me w
hat I needed to do next. But in that order.
3
ON PINS & NEEDLES
I swear shit can’t get no worse than it already has. I hate not being in control. This mess is running me crazy. Why can’t I just snap my finger and disappear from this place? I would go off to a far land, where no one would be able to find me. Ever!
A few hours had gone by and I had a total of six visits inside my room, all of them where hospital staff checked my vitals and monitored my blood pressure. I even got a visit from the resident psychiatrist. She introduced herself as Dr. Mary Gleason. She was an older white woman that looked to be in her late fifties. She had a small frame, but she looked like she had a lot of fire in her. She came in my room, asked me a few questions, like “Have you ever tried to commit suicide before this last time?” Then she asked, “Do you have plans to do it again?” I told her no. I was done with it. She also asked me if I had a family that would come here and talk to her. I told her no. And she asked me why. So I told her that I had just lost my grandmother and my favorite cousin, and the only person left in my family was my mother and we weren’t on good terms as of this moment. “Is there something you want to talk about?” she asked me.
“No, not really,” I told her after she sat down in a chair near my bed.
“Well, can we talk about the incident that happened last night?”
“What? About me hanging myself?”
“Yes.”
“There’s nothing to really talk about. I did it and now I’m here because of it.”
“Are you having thoughts of doing it again?” she asked, pressing me.
“No, I’m not.”
“Would you tell me how you felt when you regained consciousness?”
“I didn’t feel anything,” I lied. I was not trying to open up a can of worms so she could dig around in it. I really wanted her to get lost because she was wasting my time.
“Well, I was told by Agent Sims that when you were away from us for those two to three minutes, that you saw and spoke with your grandmother. Was that true?” She kept on, pressing me.
“Yes, I told him that.”
“Was it true?”
“Yes, I saw my grandmother, and I spoke with her too.”
“Do you mind telling me what you two talked about?”
“She told me she loved me, and that it wasn’t my time to come where she was, and that I had to come back.”
“Were you disappointed?”
“Of course, I was. I didn’t want to come back to this godforsaken place.”
“Did she tell you why it wasn’t your time to stay where she was? And I’m presuming she was talking about heaven.”
“No, she really didn’t.” I lied to her once more. I wasn’t going to divulge my conversation between my grandmother and me. Was she insane or what?
“Did you talk about anything other than you not being able to stay with her in heaven?”
“If you want to know if she and I sat down, had a cup of hot tea, and talked about how great the weather was, then that’s what it was. I mean, come on, I wasn’t with her that long.”
“I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you, but I have to ask you these questions so I can get a sense of where your state of mind is,” she tried to explain.
“But I didn’t ask you to do that. I told you that I was fine.”
Dr. Gleason paused for a moment and then she said, “Will you please help me so that I can help you?”
“What part of ‘I don’t need your help,’ don’t you understand? I am fine!” She was wrecking my nerves. I swear, I wanted to wrap my hands around her neck and choke the shit out of her.
“Listen, Misty, all I’m here to do is help you overcome any issues that you may have. I want to see you well or at least heading in that direction.” Dr. Gleason wouldn’t let up.
“Will someone come in here and get this fucking lady out of my face! She’s getting on my nerves!” I yelled at the top of my voice.
She immediately stood up. “Misty, there’s no need for that. I’ll leave, but if you change your mind and want to talk, then have the nurse page me,” she said as she was walking toward the door.
When she opened the door, Agent Taylor bumped into her. “Is everything all right in here?” he asked, looking at me and then at Dr. Gleason.
“She was harassing me, so I told her to get out, but she wouldn’t listen. So that’s why I yelled for help.”
“Don’t worry. I’m leaving,” she told Agent Taylor as she stepped by him.
“She’s leaving, okay,” Agent Taylor said as if he was trying to defuse the situation. But he didn’t do anything but tell me what I had already witnessed.
“Will you close my door?” I instructed him, and then I turned my attention back toward the television.
* * *
Approximately thirty minutes after the psychiatrist left, Agent Sims came storming through the door, looking like he was mad at the world. “Have you seen the news?” He didn’t hesitate to ask me.
“Yes, I did. Why?” I asked him. But I knew where he was going with this.
“What’s this I hear about your ex-boyfriend being missing?” he continued after he stood next to my bed.
“What about it?” I replied nonchalantly. I knew I had to control my actions around him. Didn’t want to let on that I had something to do with Terrell being missing.
“Misty, don’t play games with me. Your ex-boyfriend’s mother was just on TV asking if anyone knows anything about her missing son. So, if you know something, I suggest you tell me right now.”
“I don’t know anything,” I told him, trying to hold on to the same facial expression.
“You better not be bullshitting me! Because if I find out otherwise, I’m going to personally give local authorities permission to bury your ass in a maximum-security prison for the rest of your life!” he roared, looking like he was about to lose his mind.
“I told you I don’t know anything, so leave me alone about it.”
“When was the last time you saw him? Because if my memory serves me, he was visiting you when Agent Montclair and I stopped by there.”
“That day you stopped by was the last time I saw him,” I lied. “And when he stopped by that day, he came without an invite,” I continued, talking with the utmost sincerity.
“Well, tell me why I found footage of Terrell from the cameras inside the pharmacy?”
“Once again, he came by uninvited. And if you saw the whole thing, you’d see that he and Ahmad were having words with one another. Terrell was being really disrespectful to Ahmad, so Ahmad told him to leave.”
“Is that during the time Ahmad grabbed for his handgun?”
“You saw that on camera?”
“We kind of knew what it was, when Ahmad took a step toward Terrell.”
Hearing Agent Sims say that he saw Ahmad reach for his gun, while confronting Terrell, gave me an idea. “Think he may have had something to do with Terrell’s disappearance? I mean, Terrell did say a lot of slick shit out of his mouth toward Ahmad.” I threw that out there, hoping Agent Sims would take the bait.
He stood there a moment and then he said, “That’s a good possibility.”
“Do you remember the last thing Ahmad said to Terrell?”
“I remember Ahmad telling him to leave the pharmacy.”
“And what did Terrell say to him?”
“Terrell tried to act tough, but after he saw that Ahmad was packing a gun, he told Ahmad that he wasn’t trying to make any trouble and left.”
“Was that all the dialogue they had? Because they were talking for at least two minutes, so I believe that you’re not telling me everything. You’re leaving something out, so I want you to think long and hard—and not to leave anything out this time.”
“What do you mean? That was everything.”
“Tell me what Terrell said to Ahmad, after Ahmad walked into the pharmacy?” Agent Sims asked me. He gave me this stern look. Somewhere inside his mi
nd told him that I could be bullshitting him. “Think long and hard.”
“But I told you everything.” I tried to reason with him, but he wasn’t falling for the whole banana in the tailpipe.
“Misty, think long and hard.” He wouldn’t let up.
It felt like I was carrying a lot of weight on my shoulders and I wanted it off. And the only way I’d be able to do it was to tell Agent Sims everything. I took a long sigh and then I said, “When Ahmad walked in the pharmacy and noticed how Terrell was harassing me, he asked him to leave, but Terrell told him in so many words to mind his business because I was his girlfriend. So I interjected and told Ahmad that I wasn’t Terrell’s girlfriend and that I wanted him to leave. Ahmad turned toward Terrell and told him to leave, and Terrell asked him, ‘Who are you?’ Ahmad told him that he was the owner of the pharmacy. Immediately after Ahmad said that he was the owner, Terrell said, ‘Oh, so you’re the one selling prescription drugs out of here?’”
“What did Ahmad say?”
“I’m not sure Ahmad understood what Terrell said, because he asked Terrell to repeat himself. But I prevented Terrell from saying anything else by grabbing him and escorted him to the front door of the pharmacy.”
“Do you really believe that Ahmad didn’t hear or understand what Terrell said?”
“There’s a possibility that he could have.”
“Why had you not told me this before?”
“Because I didn’t think it was important.”
“Every word of dialogue is important when it’s coming out of the mouths of those mafia guys.”
“Well, you should’ve mentioned it.”
“Misty, we’ve been telling you this from day one.”
“Yes, you have, but you didn’t spell it out to me this way.”
Agent Sims turned his attention to the birds flying outside of the window. After they disappeared around the building, he turned his attention back toward me. “Are you prepared to tell the detectives the same thing you just told me?”