Officer Duncan then gently pushed Rodney back and gave him a sinister grin. “Now, do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?”
Before Rodney could answer the question, Officer Duncan was opening the back of the cruiser and roughly shoving him inside.
“Man, y’all can’t do this to me,” Rodney yelled, just before the door closed.
“You wanna bet?” Officer Duncan said.
Frank nodded in satisfaction as he watched the cruiser disappear down the street. He turned back around to see the victim, Felicia Gray, sitting on her steps rubbing the side of her face. He walked up to her and knelt in front of her.
“Ms. Gray, I’m going to ask you something and I need you to be completely honest with me, okay?”
Felicia didn’t answer verbally. Instead, she just nodded.
“Has Mr. Sims ever put his hands on you before?”
Felicia took a deep breath before answering. She’d known in her heart that this day was coming. On at least three other occasions, Rodney had gotten jealous for little to no reason and assaulted her. She swore on her mother’s grave that the next time he did it would be his last. Well, the next time was finally here. She had to decide. Thankfully, they didn’t have kids together so that wasn’t an issue. She also earned a decent salary, so she didn’t have to depend on him to take care of her. Right then and there, Felicia Gray decided that she’d had enough. Rodney Sims would never again use her as his punching bag.
“Yes Detective, he has.”
Frank nodded knowingly. He was also cautiously optimistic. He’d seen how this movie played out a thousand times before. More times than not, the woman would recant her story, and the man would get off scot-free. Sadly, when the curtain was pulled on love stories of this ilk, quite often either the woman or the man was residing in a casket. He hoped this would end differently.
“Then you know what you have to do, right?”
“Press charges?”
“Exactly. So, do you need a ride down to the police station?”
“No, I’ll just get Vincent to take me.”
“Vincent. His brother?”
Felicia nodded and ran her hand across her face. When she looked back at Frank, he was staring at her quizzically.
“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I have no romantic interest in Vincent at all, and he doesn’t have any in me. As a matter of fact, he’s been talking about proposing to his girlfriend.”
“Actually, that’s not all I was thinking,” Frank said. “You mean to tell me that Rodney Sim’s own brother would take you to the police station so you can press charges against him?”
“Yes, he would. Truth be told, Detective, Vincent has been trying to get me to leave Rodney for the last year. They’ve gotten into quite a few arguments about his treatment of me. They may be brothers, but they are total opposites.”
“That’s good to hear. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve seen end up in a coffin because they refused to let go of a man who didn’t have her best interest at heart. I pray to God that you stand by your decision to leave him. Do you have somewhere to go while he’s locked up?”
Felicia looked at Frank and smirked. After glancing back at the front door and then back at Frank she said, “Detective, I don’t need to go anywhere. This is my place. My name is one the deed, so I don’t need to move. Rodney is the one who’s going to be moving. How long is he going to be locked up?”
“That all depends. He’s going to be in jail at least seventy-two hours, but if he can’t make bail when you press charges, he’ll probably be locked up longer than that.”
“Good. That will give me more than enough time to get his crap out of here and get the locks changed.”
Frank looked deep into Felicia’s eyes in search of sincerity, and although he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, he believed that this was a woman who’d reached the end of her rope. Even so, he had to make the next statement to make sure that she got the message.
“You know, Ms. Sims, it makes absolutely no sense for you to press charges against this man, then turn around and take him back.”
With steely eyes and a confidence that he didn’t see in her a few minutes ago, Felicia Gray said, “I’m not going to take him back, Detective. I’m done.”
“Good. Now, do you need medical attention?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Okay. What I need you to do now is call Mr. Sim’s brother, tell him what happened, and ask him to take you to the police station to fill out a report and file charges.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. The sooner you do that, the sooner we can get this situation resolved.”
“Okay. Thank you, Detective. If you weren’t here I don’t what he would have done to me.”
“No problem ma’am. Just doing my job.” Frank then helped her up and into her house. After she closed the door, Frank made his way back across the street. He looked around saw that there were still people mulling about, whispering to each other and it annoyed him.
“Okay, people, let’s go. Nothing to see here. go on about your business.”
“Is there a law against us standing here?” a young man with a white Du-Rag wrapped around his head asked. He had a look on his face that said he wanted to argue, and Frank was more than willing to give him his money’s worth.
“As a matter of fact, there is. It’s called loitering, smart ass.”
“Wow, for real? With all the crime in this city, you’re gonna bother us for loitering?”
Frank slowly walked up to the young man until he was right in front of him. “You know what, youngster? You’re just like a lot of other citizens in this damn city. You’d rather stand around and watch a crime being committed than to get involved and try to prevent it.”
“I didn’t see any crime being committed.”
“What if you had? Would you have gotten involved if I weren’t here? Would you have stepped in and possibly saved that young woman’s life when that asshole started beating on her? Because make no mistake, he was about to pummel that poor woman, and you and all the rest of these fine people out here weren’t going to do a damn thing but pull out your cell phones and tape it. Now, like I said, move along before I run your ass in.”
Frank turned on his heel and continued walking to his house. As he was walking away, he heard the young man mumble something inaudible under his breath. He started to turn around and say something but decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble. As he reached the sidewalk, he turned to his right and saw Rhonda strolling down the sidewalk. She had a disturbed expression on her face, which caused Frank to stop dead in his tracks.
“You okay, honey?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little ticked off. Now I have to go inside and wash my hair before this milky smell settles in.”
Frank threw his arm around his daughter and hugged her tightly. He knew that young ladies that age were terrified of being embarrassed and getting milk poured in her hair would certainly qualify as being embarrassed.
“Okay, honey,” he said, sitting on the steps. “Why don’t you tell your old man what happened.”
Rhonda took a seat beside him. “But I thought you already knew. Wasn’t you at the school today?”
“Yes, I was, but I want to hear I from you. That way I get the story from someone who was actually there.”
“Well, I was still sitting down and eating with some of my friends, when that jerk Harold came over. He was with some of his stupid friends, so I guess he was trying to impress them. Anyway, he asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with him this weekend. When I told him no, his friends started laughing at him. I guess that embarrassed him, so he started talking about he was doing me a favor, and that I was lucky someone even asked me out. Then he had the nerve to call me ugly, so I told him that his mother was ugly.”
Frank wanted to laugh so badly, that it was killing him, but knew he would be setting a bad example if he did, so
he held it in.
“That’s when he got mad and poured milk in my head. Dad, I was so embarrassed. I wanted to get up and smack the taste out of his mouth. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Five minutes later Jr. showed up and beat the crap out of him.”
A small smile slid across her lips as she said this. She was obviously proud of her brother for taking up for her.
“Yeah, I saw him when I came up to the school. Jr. really put a whipping on him.”
“Dad, is Jr. in trouble? I mean, he was taking up for me, so any punishment you’re going to give him, I’ll take for him.”
Frank’s eyebrows shot up. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew that his daughter was grateful to her brother, but he didn’t think that she would be that grateful.
“Is that right?”
“Yeah,” Rhonda said, shrugging her shoulders. “I mean, he did protect me.”
Frank leaned over and kissed his daughter on the forehead.
“Tell you what. We’ll talk about it when I get in the house, okay?”
“Okay daddy.”
Rhonda got up and went inside the house, leaving her father sitting there. When he was sure that she was inside, Frank smiled. He loved the fact that his children were looking out for each other. The thought alone made him swell with pride.
“You have two very special kids there, Frank,” Sadie said. She’d been so quiet; Frank had forgotten that she was still sitting on her porch. “Hopefully neither of them grows up to be like those two fools across the street.”
“Well, hopefully she doesn’t have to be bothered with that dude anymore.”
“If you ask me, they had no business being together anyway. I’ve seen them argue on more than one occasion.”
“Really? Have you ever saw him hit her?”
“Now you know better than that, Frank. Don’t you think I would tell you if I’d seen something like that?”
“You’re right, Sadie. Sorry. It just galls me to no end from a man to beat up on a woman. I hope she was serious when she said she was through with him.”
“So do I. Those two are like chocolate and vanilla.”
Frank laughed for five seconds before stopping abruptly. The realization hit him like a sledgehammer. That was it. The thing that had been nagging him about the case he and Amber had been working on. All along, he knew that he was missing something and now he knew what it was.
“Chocolate and Vanilla,” he mumbled to himself.
24
Amber made a right into the cul-de-sac of a semi-affluent neighborhood. Since her son wasn’t answering her calls, she decided to make a trip to her ex-husbands house and pay him a visit. It wasn’t like him to ignore her and aimed to find out why he was being so evasive. She was worried sick about him and was beginning to wonder if she’d made an error in judgement by allowing him to go live with his father. Because of the nature of her job and hectic work schedule, Amber felt that it would be better if Ryan was with the parent that could spend the optimum amount of time with him.
A hint of envy bit into Amber as she took in the surroundings of the distinguished looking single-family homes. Every single lawn was immaculately manicured. Beautiful flowers protruded from fresh mulch, making each house look like the All-American home. Most of the houses were fenced in so that the couples who had children had no reason to worry about them stumbling into oncoming traffic. The entire community was friendly and peaceful. Amber shook her head as she pulled into Roger’s driveway. It had only been a year since she and Roger’s divorce had become final. Amber would never admit this to Roger, but she missed living in the large house. It was a far cry from the two-bedroom apartment she now resided in.
After cutting the engine, Amber took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. She was pissed that her son hadn’t returned her phone calls and aimed to tell so but didn’t want to go overboard.
She got out of her car and walked up the stoned walkway to the front door. She was just getting ready to ring the doorbell, when she heard laughter coming from the back of the house. She listened closely to see if she could pick up anything. When she couldn’t, Amber proceeded to slowly make her way around the side of the house.
She stopped just before she got to the edge of the grass and peeked around the domicile. Her face twisted as she saw her ex-husband lying on a lounge chair. Lying next to him was a young lady with curly black hair and a curvaceous body. Her back was facing Amber, so she couldn’t get a good look at the woman’s face. What really got her blood boiling, however, was the activity she saw going on in the swimming pool.
Standing in the shallow end of the pool was her son Ryan. The smile on his face was so wide, it looked like it would crack at any moment. The reason for his jubilation, a young lady with fire-engine red hair had her legs wrapped around his waist. She was smiling just as hard as he was. The two of them were just about to share a kiss when Amber’s piercing voice sliced through the air.
“Ryan Davis, what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Ryan jumped at the sound of his mother’s voice. Slowly, the young lady peeled herself off Ryan and pushed away from him. Not knowing what to do, she sank into the pool until only her head was above the water.
“Ma! Uh, what are you doing here?”
“I should be asking you the same damn question. Your father said that you were having migraines again, but from the looks of it, you’re doing just fine!”
Ryan glanced toward his father, who had a smirk plastered on his face.
“Don’t look at your father! Get out of that pool, right now! I want to talk to you!”
Without waiting for a response, Amber stormed toward the entrance to the back of the house. Embarrassment overtook Ryan. It doubled when he heard the girl in the pool snickering. He climbed out of the pool and grabbed his towel that was lying on a nearby chair. After drying off, he slowly made his way into the house. Ryan looked back toward his father. It puzzled him why he hadn’t said anything.
“Uh, Dad? Are you coming inside to help me deal with Mom?”
“I’ll be in there in a minute son,” Roger said, his eyes glued to his companion’s chest.
With a deep sigh, Ryan trudged forward. He knew what was about to transpire but was powerless to stop it. He’d been ducking his mother’s calls. He’d begged his father not to tell her about the headaches, but Roger told him that he had little choice. When Amber agreed to let Ryan move in with his father, one of the few conditions she gave him was that he was to notify her about any and all health-related problems Ryan may have. Both of them knew that he was prone to having migraines, but the medication that the doctor had given him had been working so well, Ryan hadn’t had an episode in quite some time. Because of this, Ryan had mistakenly thought that he was cured of the migraines and had ceased taking his medication. As soon as Ryan entered the house, he felt his mother’s hot gaze on him. Amber stood there with her arms folded, leaning back on her right leg.
“Look Ma, I know what you’re about to say, but—”
“Why in the hell have you been avoiding my calls?” she cut him off.
“I haven’t, Ma. I mean, I just been busy, that’s all.”
“Busy with what?”
“School,” he lied. Amber looked at him for two seconds and shook her head. It was all the time she needed to pick up on the fact that he was lying.
“So that’s what we’re doing now? We’re lying to each other?”
Ryan opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it. His mother had always been able to read him like a book, and just because they didn’t live together anymore, that hadn’t changed.
“I’m waiting Ryan. Why have you been avoiding me?”
Ryan didn’t want to tell his mother that he had been becoming increasingly interested in girls and that he didn’t have time for her because he was busy chasing them. It would hurt her feelings and he didn’t want to do that. Ryan was stuck. He didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, he didn’t ha
ve to say anything.
“Amber, you really need to call before just showing up like this,” Roger said, coming into the house.
It was easy to see why Amber fell for Roger. He was a handsome man, standing six foot two, with a shaved head and smooth cocoa-colored skin. He wasn’t overly buffed up, but he did have a physique that made most men envious. An electrical contractor by trade, Roger had owned his own business for the last fifteen years. Had he been able to keep his penis in his pants, he and Amber would probably still be married.
“Call? My son lives here! I don’t have to call you every time I want to see him!”
“Oh, is that right? Why, because you’re the police?”
“Me being a cop has nothing to do with it!” Amber yelled. She was getting louder by the second.
“First of all, Amber, you need to calm the hell down. Now, if you want the truth, Ryan is starting to get interested in girls. That’s why he hasn’t been as available as he normally is.”
Hurt flashed in Amber’s eyes. Roger saw it immediately. He knew the look well, mainly because he’d inflicted his share of pain on her.
“And don’t look like that. The way he’s feeling has nothing to do with you. The boy is growing up Amber. It’s only natural that he’s interested in girls.” Amber took a deep breath. She hated to admit it, but her ex had a point. Ryan was growing up. She still didn’t like the fact that some girl had her legs wrapped around him in a swimming pool, and she aimed to tell both of them about it. For now, however, she wanted to let her son know that she understood. Amber walked over to Ryan and threw her arms around him. She closed her eyes and hugged him tightly.
“I’m sorry baby. I know you’re growing up and I guess I’m just going to have to get used to that. Look, your father told me that you were having migraines again. That’s why I’m here. Are you still taking your medication?”
“Yeah, I mean, I was.”
“Wait a minute. What the hell do you mean, you ‘was’?” Roger asked. He had no idea that Ryan had stopped taking his mediation.
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