by Kiki Swinson
“Don’t get smart with me, girl! I know your mama taught you that you’re supposed to respect your elders.”
“Mrs. Faye, I don’t know where your son is. Now is that all you called me for?”
“I’m telling you right now, Ms. Thang, if I find out that you know something or had anything to do with my son going missing, I’m gonna make sure you rot in jail,” she threatened.
“Are you done?” I asked her.
“Yeah, I’m done, you slick-mouth bitch!”
“Okay, great. Have a nice day.” I disconnected her call. I even blocked her number. I will admit that when she threatened to have me rot in jail if she found out that I had something to do with Terrell being missing, my heart rattled a bit. Just the thought of going to jail scares me. But I have to keep my composure if I wanna last out here on these streets. And I will say this too, I’m sorry that Tedo got murdered, but it was for the best as far as I can see it. Now I don’t have to worry about him ratting me out. Oh, but wait, that chick April is still out there roaming around. Fuck! And I still owe her money for getting rid of Terrell’s body. Damn, I hope she doesn’t come out of the woodwork with huge demands. I just hope she didn’t rear her ugly head. If she did, she would rock my world to the core. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! God, please keep her at bay. At least until I can get out of this mess with the DEA. After that, I will see what happens.
“Who was that on the phone?” my grandmother wanted to know.
“The mother of my ex-boyfriend.”
“What did she want with you?”
“She’s been looking for him for two days. She thinks that he’s gone missing.”
“How old is he?”
“My age. She needs to be calling his other women. There’s at least a dozen of them. So, wherever he is, I say good riddance.”
My grandmother gave me more choice words about life and how I should be living. Aside from the hang-ups she has with my mother, she’s a very wise woman. I knew she loved Jillian more than me, but it didn’t matter to me because I knew that she still loved me.
40
WE HAVE A CRISIS
I left my grandmother’s house later in the evening when it got dark. While en route to my mother’s house, I decided to make a detour to my apartment. I wasn’t going to go drive up to the building, so I decided to cruise the neighborhood to see if my apartment was being watched by Ahmad or anyone that looked like him.
I can’t lie when I say that my anxiety level shot through the roof. I’d never been so fucking scared in my life until now. The thought of someone stalking me with intentions of killing me wasn’t a nice feeling to have. In fact, it’s killer on your heart and your mind. I just couldn’t wait to get past it.
The streets that led to my apartment building were semi-quiet. But the anxiety inside of me intensified and roared like a lion the closer I got to my apartment. I wanted to drive slowly but I didn’t want to bring any attention to my car so I drove at the posted speed and hoped that no one was out there looking for my car.
Once I was within twenty feet of the building, I was able to see my apartment, but I couldn’t see any of the windows to my place, so I continued driving. Another few seconds into the drive, the windows in my living room became visible. It was dark in my apartment because I turned off the lights before I left that morning after changing clothes. So, another seven seconds, I was able to see my bedroom window. It was dark in there too. But then after I drove two more yards in, I saw the light of a flashlight bouncing off the walls in my bedroom. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. “Oh shit! Somebody is in my fucking apartment,” I said, my words barely audible while I continued to drive farther in. But then, I saw another flashlight bouncing off the walls in my living room too. “What the fuck is going on? There are two people in my freaking apartment.” I cursed as my heart pounded.
Without thinking about it for another second, I sped out of there. I had to get away from my place as quickly as possible. And while I was driving away, I couldn’t help but wonder who was in my apartment. Were they there to rob me? Or were they there to murder me? Whatever it was, I wasn’t gonna stick around to find out.
As I drove to the opposite end of my street, I couldn’t stop wondering who were those two people in my house. After narrowing it down to about three people, I still couldn’t come up with a definitive answer, and that was driving me crazy. “Ahmad, you did say that you knew where I lived, so was it you and another mafia member from your organization?” I continued to speak low. “But then it could’ve been April and some guys she and Tedo knew, searching my spot thinking I had something of value to pay her for the work she put into getting rid of Terrell. So, was it you?” I mumbled.
Trying to figure out all the possibilities of who could be behind the break-in was starting to beat me up mentally, so I pulled out my cell phone. I needed to talk to someone. I knew it couldn’t be my grandmother, because she’s old-school. If I’d asked her for advice about this situation, she’d either tell me to call the cops or get on my knees and do some praying. And if I called my mother, she’d tell me to call the cops too. So, I guess that’s what I was gonna do. I called Agent Sims’s cell phone number first, but it went straight to voicemail. I called Agent Montclair second, and thank God he answered his cell phone. “Hi, Agent Montclair, this is Misty. Is Agent Sims around?”
“He just took off to go home. Did you call his cell phone?”
“Yes, I did. But it went straight to voicemail.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll try getting ahold of him and have him call you back. But let me ask you, are you okay? You sound a bit alarmed.”
“I just drove my car by my apartment building and saw two people walking around in my bedroom and my living room in the dark with flashlights.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Like a minute ago.”
“Did you go inside your apartment?”
“No, I didn’t get out of my car. I saw them from the street.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m on my way to my mother’s house.”
“Okay. Go straight there. And I will get Sims to call you back in a few minutes,” he told me and then he disconnected our call.
When I pulled my car up to my mother’s house, I saw two Caucasian detectives wearing cheap-looking suits standing at my mother’s front door, talking to her. She must’ve told them that I was in the car because everyone turned around to look at me at the same time. Of course, I wondered who they were and why they were there, but I knew that I wouldn’t get the answers to those questions until I talked to them.
While I was walking toward them I couldn’t stop thinking about the two people that were looking around my apartment with flashlights. The feeling of not knowing, was driving me insane.
“What’s going on?” I asked as soon as I stepped onto the front porch.
Both cops extended their hands and introduced themselves to me. “I’m Detective Hollings,” the first one said.
“And I’m Detective Richards,” the second one said.
“They’re here because your ex-boyfriend Terrell is missing,” my mother blurted out.
“Well, he’s not here,” I said.
“I told them that. But they still wanted to talk to you,” my mother continued. I instantly noticed that she had to have had a couple of glasses of wine, because she was starting to be a little too talkative.
“Can we go inside?” they asked me.
“No, you can’t. Whatever you gotta say, say it out here. Because I’ve got a lot of shit on my mind and you came at a bad time,” I told them.
“Can we ask you when was the last time you spoke with Terrell?” Detective Richards asked me.
“Mom, please go in the house. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“As you wish,” she said as she chuckled and closed the front door.
“Look, like I told Terrell’s mother, I haven’t seen or talked to him, so just please leave me alone.”
“Can you tell us exactly when you last saw or talked to him? We need like a day and time, if you can remember,” Richards asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe a few days,” I told him, trying to give him the right answer, but I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t get the images of those flashlights out of my head.
“Can you tell us when was the last time you two argued?” Detective Hollings interjected.
“I don’t remember,” I snapped. “Terrell and I broke up a while ago. I cannot tell you where he is, because when two people break up they go their separate ways. Now is that clear enough for you?”
“Well, can you tell us if he had any enemies? Or girlfriends that would like to see him dead?” Detective Richards started his questions again.
“No, I cannot.”
“Would you tell us if you knew someone who would like to see him dead?” Detective Hollings interjected once again.
“Are you guys serious right now? I don’t know shit. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve gotta go.” I walked by them onto the front porch.
“Did Terrell have a hand in that botched robbery that took place at your old employer’s?”
I stopped in my steps and turned around. “You don’t know shit! I lost my favorite cousin in that gun battle. Everyone else who lost their lives don’t matter to me. So, get your facts straight.” I gritted my teeth and then I walked into the house.
“Your mother has our card, so call us if you hear anything,” one of them yelled after I closed the door in their face. Fucking bullies!
41
GET ME OUT OF HERE
Minutes after I walked into my mother’s house, I found her sitting in the den watching TV with a glass of red wine in her hand. I started the conversation after I sat on the sofa across from her. “Mom, we need to talk.”
“What’s wrong now?” she asked me.
“Mom, are you drunk?”
“No, I am not. You always think I’m drunk. Did you get a chance to talk to the cops?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Do they really think he’s missing?” Her questions kept coming.
“Listen, Mom,” I started off, and then my cell phone started ringing. I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Agent Sims returning my call.
“Hi, Misty, this is Agent Sims. You need to talk to me?”
“Yes, I just drove my car by my apartment and from the outside I could see two people walking around my in bedroom and living room with flashlights. The shit scared the hell out of me. And I think it was Ahmad because he told me that he knows where I live.”
“Where are you now?”
“At my mother’s house.”
“Okay, I’ll check it out. Can you meet us back at the federal building downtown within the hour?”
“What’s gonna happen?”
“We’re gonna have to put you in witness protection.”
“Why can’t you just put me in a hotel out of town for a while until all of this blows over?” I suggested.
“Look, we’ll talk about all of that after you get downtown.”
“All right,” I said.
“Who was that?” my mother asked after she took another sip from her wineglass.
“Mom, you can’t stay here.”
“Whatcha mean I can’t stay here? This is my house. Your father bought this house for us.”
“Mom, some bad people are looking for me. And I’m afraid that they may come here looking for me. So it would make me feel so much better if you would leave here for a few days or maybe a week.”
“What’s going on?” My mother’s boyfriend walked into the living room while I was talking to her. He looked like he was on his way to work.
“Carl, I’m in a bit of trouble with some very bad people and I think that they are gonna come here looking for me. So if they come here and don’t find me, they’re gonna make you or my mom pay for the shit I got myself into. So will you please take my mom somewhere safe for a week or so? It would tear my heart apart if anything happened to her because of some dumb shit I did.”
“What happened?” he wanted to know.
“I really don’t wanna get into it right now.”
“Does it have something to do with what happened at your job?” He pressed the issue.
“Yes, it does.” I said.
“I’m not going anywhere. This is my house and I’m not letting anyone run me out of it,” my mother protested.
“Carl, please talk some sense into her head. I’m getting ready to get out of here in a few minutes and it would make me so happy if you took her out of here too,” I pleaded with him.
He stood there for a moment and then he said, “Don’t worry. I will get her out of here.”
After Carl promised to get my mom out of this house, I grabbed my purse and a bottle of water from her refrigerator and exited through the front door. My drive downtown would only take fifteen minutes, so I sped off toward the highway and headed in that direction. One minute into the drive, I remembered that I needed to call my grandmother. This situation with this drug case and murder case was becoming too much to bear. But I knew that I needed to get her to safety as well. So it relieved me when she answered my call. “Grandma, I’m gonna need you to leave your house for a few days until this case with the people who killed Jillian is over.”
“Misty, are you out of your mind? I’m not leaving my house for nobody.”
“But, Grandma, this could end up being a bad situation.”
“Listen, honey, I know you’re worried about a lot of stuff that’s going on in your life, but I don’t have that same testimony. I’m a child of God and I don’t fear no one.”
“Nana, I understand all of that, but would you do this for me? And for Jillian? Would you just come with me for a week or so until all of this blows over?”
Before she could answer, she told me to hold on because someone was at the front door. “Who is it?” I asked her. No one really visited my grandmother, so who in the hell could be at her front door?
“I don’t know. But I’m about to find out,” she told me.
My heart started jerking around in my chest while I heard each footstep walking toward the front door. “Who is it?” she yelled.
“It’s me, Edmund,” I heard him say on the other side of the door, so my heart rate slowed down a little.
I heard her open her front door. “It’s Edmund and another fellow with him.”
“Grandma, ask them what do they want?” I shouted through the phone. But she didn’t reply. So I repeated the question.
“Misty, I can’t listen to you and these two guys at the same time. Let me call you back,” she told me and then she disconnected the call. Just like that, she hung up.
“Fuck! She hung up!” I growled and punched my steering wheel with my fists. “What the fuck does Edmund want with my grandmother? Jillian is not there anymore. So, why the fuck is he going to her house? And then he brings a plus one. What type of game is he playing? Was he there to rob her so he could buy himself some fucking prescription drugs, since Jillian wasn’t around to purchase them for him? Whatever it was, I needed to stop it now.
I called my grandmother’s number again. But she didn’t answer. And I became furious. The fact that she didn’t have a cell phone and only had a landline got underneath my skin because I knew that after she hung up the phone with me, she set the receiver down on the table in the foyer. “Ugghhh!” I snapped.
After calling her about five more times, I finally gave up. When I got down to the federal building, I walked straight into the office and didn’t waste any time telling Agent Montclair what was going on at my grandmother’s place. “I need you to send some agents there right now to put their asses out before they rob her. I need you to bring her down here so I can convince her to go with me.”
Agent Montclair had to get approval from his and Agent Sims’s boss before they could send agents out to my grandmother’s house. It took about thirty minutes to do so, which was too long
in my book, but at least he got it to happen. He also went along for the drive just so that my grandmother would be okay with speaking to him after she recognized who he was.
When Agent Sims walked into the large office, he asked me to go over what happened when I drove by my apartment, so I gave the story to him in more detail. And when he felt like I had given him enough information, he took it to his boss.
He returned a couple of minutes later and told me to grab my purse. “Me and a couple of agents will be taking you to a hotel until we can figure out our next course of action. Now are you ready for that?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Have you spoken to your mother?”
“Yes, I stopped by there, told her and her boyfriend what happened, so he’s taking her somewhere safe for a few days.”
“Okay, great. Let’s go,” he said, leading the way.
42
MORE BLOOD ON MY HANDS
The drive to the hotel only took thirty minutes. I imagined that people going into witness protection would go straight to a halfway house or a house tucked away on a couple of acres, tucked away on some farmland. Agent Sims assured me that we wouldn’t be there long. My time there didn’t concern me. What did concern me was how quickly I could get my grandmother here to safety. I hoped that when the other agents got to her house that she’d be willing to come and join me.
The hotel room was spacious, but plain. I sat on the left side of the sofa bed and kicked my shoes off so I could . . . relax wasn’t quite the word. I felt numb inside from Jillian’s death and scared of what could come next.
“Is there anything in particular you want to watch?” Agent Sims asked me after he grabbed the remote control from the coffee table.
“I don’t care what we watch,” I told him and laid my head back on the sofa cushion.
I heard him sifting through the channels while I kept my eyes closed. My mind wasn’t on anything that had to do with the television. The fact that I lost my cousin in a senseless robbery would always haunt me. I mean, how the hell did I let that happen? I told her to stay home and wait for the guys to bring the drugs to her. But no, she wanted to be the damn getaway driver, like they were committing a bank robbery. I also knew the other reason why she wanted to come with them. She wanted to make sure that the guys didn’t take more drugs for themselves. Look what happened. She’s gone. My favorite cousin is gone.
