Hold Me in Contempt

by Wendy Williams

  One of the detectives who’d just been at the meeting chatted with Paul as they led us into the observation room, where we could watch King’s interrogation through the one-way mirror. The room was dark and as small as a walk-in closet. Four chairs were lined up in front of the glass.

  I kept my eyes on my feet to avoid looking at King, whose presence I immediately sensed. Even in my nervousness, I could smell and feel him. Memories of our every second together made the scene surreal and what I knew I should be thinking about and feeling at that moment. The stranger on the other side of the glass was my enemy. The lover on the other side of the glass was no stranger.

  Paul and I sat beside each other, leaving two seats for Reddy and Norman Delli, the Eighty-Fourth’s Egyptian psychologist who used to sit in on interrogations in Manhattan before he transferred to Brooklyn. He’d once told me that people always thought the traditional one-way mirror was a joke—cops spying on suspects, as other cops played “good cop, bad cop,” taking turns trying to push a confession. But the one-way mirror was no failure. Its success, he’d said, was about the psychology of what happens when someone knows he’s being watched. Most guilty people looked away from the mirror when they felt anxious or trapped in the small interrogation room. Sometimes they’d lash out or curse at whoever was spying from the other side. The innocent always looked right into the glass, as if they were looking for allies or some support system, someone to witness what they were going through.

  “Motherfucker ain’t look over here yet,” Paul said, elbowing me to get my attention when Reddy and Delli came and sat beside Paul, signaling that they were about to start the interview. Paul leaned over to me. “Always a bad sign when they don’t look up at the mirror,” he whispered.

  I quickly rolled my eyes over to Paul to avoid the spotlights on King. “Yes. It is.”

  Paul turned from me and started talking to Reddy.

  The door in the interrogation room opened and slammed close. I raised my eyelids just enough to see Strickland’s shoes walking toward the table where I knew King was sitting.

  He pulled out his chair and sat down. I kept my eyes on his feet the entire time.

  “Some weather out there. Looks like it’s going to be a hot summer.” He used his feet to drag the chair closer to King, and it scraped loudly against the concrete floor. “I don’t care if it’s hot. I prefer the heat. I hate those rainy summers. I was raised in Seattle. Moved to New York to escape all that rain.” He paused. “You ever been to Seattle?”

  “I’m not in Seattle right now?”

  I heard King’s voice, and without any internal agreement on the matter, my eyes went to find him. He was smiling at the detective. Had pulled his chair to the table and was sitting back, holding a coffee cup in his hand like he was meeting a friend at a café.

  “Do you think you’re in Seattle?” Strickland said. He was holding a folder in his hands. He slid it onto the table slowly.

  “Come on, Strickland. You know we’ve been on this date before. What you want from me?” King asked in the deep voice that rang with more authority than the detective’s bassless tone.

  “Can you believe this motherfucker?” Paul said, crossing his arms.

  “What do you think I want?” Strickland asked.

  “Fuck I know? Dick?” King put his cup down and leaned toward him. “You know I don’t get down like that.”

  They laughed. King tilted his head back and looked at the detective smugly.

  “Y’all brought me in here. Got me in this room for two hours by myself. You come in here to talk about Seattle?” King said.

  “He’s annoyed,” Delli whispered.

  “I know you’re from Seattle, Strickland. You already told me that story about your wife and moving to New York to escape the rain. Fine. We’re friends. What the fuck do you want from me?” King asked.

  Strickland sat back in his seat too, leaving more space between himself and King.

  Delli stood and walked to the mirror. “Strickland’s messing up.”

  “LaVonnte Russell,” Strickland started, but then he paused.

  “La—who?” King looked confused.

  “LaVonnte Russell,” Strickland repeated.

  “I don’t know who that is. Is that what this is about? Why you have me down here?”

  “You know who he is. We both know you know who he is. Vonn—one of your boys. He hangs with you at the club, Damaged Goods. You have him doing your dirty work. Right?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Strickland. I really don’t. I know Vonn, but I didn’t know his name was LaVonnte Russell. We’re just cool. That’s it. Why? What did he do? He got locked up? Baby mama tripping again?”

  “No, McDonnell. He’s dead. Vonn is dead.” Strickland plucked the folder from the table and handed it to King.

  King took the folder and leafed through it. From the look on King’s face it was clear that he’d found pictures of Vonn’s dead body inside.

  “Nigga fucked up. Shit. Who did it?” he asked coolly, looking at the pictures with a detachment I knew Delli was looking for. People who are guilty usually focus on one part of the picture, the victim’s eyes or some piece of the crime scene they remember or wish to recall. The innocent look at the entire puzzle with clear detachment. Their eyes bounce around at everything they don’t know or haven’t seen as they try to understand what they’re looking at.

  King’s eyes were bouncing.

  “He wasn’t there,” Delli confirmed, looking at us over his shoulder.

  Strickland exhaled and stretched his arms and neck as if he’d heard Delli or knew the same thing. “We’re trying to find out who did it. You know anything about it?”

  “I didn’t even know Vonn was dead,” King said, sliding the folder and picture back onto the table like an old newspaper he’d read.

  “Seems unlikely. A member of your crew goes missing. Body washes up in the East River and you don’t know anything. Give me something.”

  “Nothing to give. I’m a businessman. I keep telling y’all that. I don’t have a crew. Whatever Vonn was doing to get himself killed and thrown in the East River was on him,” King said. “I actually heard he had a pretty long rap sheet. Y’all look into that? Shit, all the tips I’m giving y’all, maybe I should be the detective.” King looked at the mirror. “Who back there watching? Reddy? Fucking Delli? LaPaze? Williams? All y’all sitting around watching me like I got the answers. I don’t have any answers. I’m a businessman. I told y’all that.” He smiled at us, and when his stare came closer to where I was sitting, he peered more directly into the glass.

  “McDonnell, where were you the night before last? The night Vonn was murdered?” Strickland asked.

  “No—ain’t no old heads watching me right now,” King said, seemingly in a trance at what he saw in the mirror. He wasn’t listening to Strickland. I knew he couldn’t see me, but that wasn’t how it felt. “New people. Who’s watching me? Hunh?” He smiled slyly and winked.

  Paul and Reddy looked at me like they thought King could see me too.

  “Stop fucking around!” Strickland shot. “Where were you that night? You let me know and we can be done with this. You say you had nothing to do with Vonn’s murder? Prove it. Where were you?” Strickland leaned in toward King again.

  “Busy,” King answered, looking back at him.

  “Busy doing what?”

  “Busy out. Doing shit I always do,” King said.

  “Where?”

  “I was at home.”

  “Were you with anyone?” Strickland asked, and the blood circulating in my body turned to ice. I couldn’t move. The only thing of use inside of me was my heart, which pounded with so much fear.

  King paused and looked at the mirror again.

  “What night were you asking about?” he asked, looking perturbed. “Oh yeah. Two nights ago? I wasn’t home. I was out.” King looked down and to his right.

  “Were you with anyone? Can someone confirm th
at?”

  “He’s lying,” Delli said. “Covering something up.” He looked back at Reddy. “He doesn’t want us to know something—​something about his home.”

  “No one can confirm where I was. I was out alone.” King kept his eyes down. “Riding on my Hayabosa—the Queen. It was a nice night. Wanted to take her out. Open her up.”

  “The night your boy was killed you were out on a motorcycle alone? No alibi anyone can confirm?”

  “Nope. Just me and the wind.” King looked at Strickland and sighed dramatically before straightening his shirt like he was getting ready to stand up and walk out the door. “We done here?”

  “Done?”

  “Yeah. You’re not charging me with anything, right? Just a chat.” King chuckled. “If I was going to be arrested, you boys would’ve charged me with something by now. I think I’ve said enough without a lawyer or some reason I need to be here. Anything more and I might incriminate myself. Wouldn’t that be a shame?”

  Strickland looked at the mirror. He had no choice but to let King go. He stood, picked up the folder, and signaled for King to follow him out.

  When he opened the door and King exited, I felt like my body of frozen veins had been thrown into a pot of boiling water. Everything I’d witnessed flashed before me in a fury of accusations and questions about where I’d been and how I knew King and how long we’d been sleeping together. I heard all of these things and imagined it like I’d been sitting in the room beside King and Paul was the one asking the questions. My back started hurting immediately, and the pain was so bad I was afraid to stand.

  Strickland walked into the room with his head lower than mine had been when we’d arrived.

  “He’s hiding something,” he said. “I know it. I’ve interviewed this guy, like, three times, and as cool as he seemed, this was the most nervous I’ve ever seen him.”

  “What do you think it is?” Paul asked.

  “Something about where he was,” Delli tried. “Who he was with. Maybe that’s who killed Vonn. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to say anything.” He looked at me. “What do you think, Kind? McDonnell looked right at you—seemed to anyway. What did you see in his eyes?”

  All of the men with their arms crossed over their chests looked at me for a response.

  I struggled not to look down or to the right, signs they’d be looking for if they thought I might have any reason to lie. I kept my eyes glued on the person asking the questions.

  “Didn’t seem like he knew anything,” I said to Norman’s eyes. “I think we might be overthinking this.”

  Outside the Eighty-Fourth, I had to refuse three of Paul’s offers of rides back to the office by saying my back was hurting.

  “No, I’m fine. I’m just going to hop in a cab and go home to get into bed. I’ll get up in a few and start working on the case,” I said.

  “Great idea! I’ll come with you. We’re cocounsel, right?”

  “Paul, you know we can’t do that,” I said, looking behind him to be sure King wasn’t anywhere around. “Let’s not even start that way. I’ll go and read over the rest of the files and meet you at the office tomorrow.”

  “Why do you keep doing this, Kim?” he asked.

  “Doing what?”

  “Putting this barrier between us like you don’t know what’s happening.”

  “What’s happening?” I looked at a silver car behind Paul that turned out to be a Chrysler 300.

  “I’m doing this for you. For us. If I become mayor, you know what that means. I’m done with my old life. We can be together.”

  I looked Paul in the eye. “Be together? Don’t make me say it again, Paul. You know the deal. You’re mar—”

  “She signed the papers this morning,” Paul revealed, cutting me off. “I didn’t want to tell you we’d decided to move forward with the divorce until it was final. Didn’t want you to think I was lying or trying to get you into bed again. This is it. I’m signing the papers tomorrow.”

  “A divorce?” The new panic sprang up in me. “You’re getting a divorce?”

  “Yes!” Paul chuckled gleefully. “God, yes! I’m divorced—well, when I sign the papers.”

  “I don’t get it. What about the kids? The house? How did you come to an agreement on all of that? You two had a life together, and you—”

  “I gave her everything, Kim. She’s keeping the house. The cars. We’re sharing custody. I get a new life though.” He smiled at me and cupped my chin in his hands in a way he never would have in public before—and definitely not in front of a precinct where officers we knew were walking in and out and waving at us. “A new life with you.”

  I stepped back to remove my chin from his hold.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I need to think about this,” I said.

  “Think about what?” he spat out. “This is what we wanted, right?”

  “Before . . .  ​but now you . . .  ​and I . . . ” I couldn’t complete one thought without my mind going back to King with a confusion that actually led to clarity about my feelings. “I can’t do this right now. There’s too much going on.”

  “With that other nigger?” Paul asked, pulling me to the side of the door. “With the motherfucker you were with the other night?”

  “I wasn’t with anyone. There is no one,” I said.

  “You say that, but that’s not how you act. You cut me off and I was okay with that. I thought it was because you wanted something definitive, and now I’m giving you that and you don’t want to talk about it? What the fuck, Kim? How is it not another motherfucker?”

  “Just stop,” I said to Paul as Reddy walked out with Strickland and nodded to us. “We can’t do this here. Not here! I’m going home and I’ll talk to you about it later. I just need to think. That’s it. There’s no one else. I just need to think.”

  Chapter 11

  “I need you to meet me at that cheap rental-car place on Adams by Borough Hall. Can you be there in an hour?” That’s all I said to Tamika when she answered her phone. All I had to say. Her response was just as direct: “I got you. I’ll tell Leah to get Miles from fencing. Walking out of the job in ten minutes. See you there.” She hung up without saying good-bye. It was the always satisfying result of the emergency response system we’d been taught as children growing up in the ghetto in New York. When someone called you and uses a certain voice, no matter what you were doing, you asked where they were, slid on a hoodie and Timberland boots, and set out in less than five minutes. If you had a car, the gun would be under the front seat, the music would be down, the windows would be up, and you’d be on your way to scoop whomever from wherever they were, ready to do whatever was next. And that really meant whatever—stalking, tire slashing, breaking and entering, breaking up, or moving on.

  Tamika wouldn’t let me down. Though we were a few feet out of the ghetto and it was only a little after 5 p.m. and the new summer heat would make showing up in a hoodie and Timbs look ridiculous and suspicious, she rolled up in front of the car-rental place in less than an hour.

  I’d already gotten one of those dated compact cars with roll-down windows, powerless-locks, and an actual CD player. I’d requested a low-key color, something black or gray, but the thing was white with absolutely no tint on the windows. I don’t know why I thought the tint would be of use or that the car needed to be a dull color. I wasn’t even sure of why I was renting the car yet. Or whether that was a bad move or could be seen as one by someone later on at some point. What was I about to do? After I’d gotten away from Paul, I’d thought back to the nights I’d spent at King’s place. Who knew I was there. Who’d seen me and could confirm that I’d been with King. There was Baboo and Frantz. They didn’t know who I was, and if it came down to it, neither could say how long I’d been at King’s place. Then I remembered the video cameras all over the Clocktower. On the corner, in the lobby. They’d been watching and recording everything since I’d walked in the door the
first time. Delli and his suspicion about where King was the night of the murder, and why he’d switched so quickly from talking about being at home during his interrogation—it was only a matter of time before he passed his speculations on to the detectives, and that would lead them back to the Clocktower and those video cameras.

  I was parked outside the car-rental place going over the plan when Tamika got out of her cab. I beeped so she could find me.

  “What’s up?” she said, getting into the car wearing a silk navy Lauren dress and the Louboutin flats I’d bought her for her birthday. It wasn’t the emergency-response attire for what I had in mind, but it would do.

  “It’s bad, Mika. It’s really, really, really bad,” I said, keeping my hands on the steering wheel though we weren’t moving. I looked at her. “It’s King. He’s a . . . ” I searched for the words to describe what I’d just learned about the white man I’d been sleeping with. “He’s a drug dealer—a kingpin.”

  Without interruption, I sped through the details of the slide show in the conference room, King looking through the one-way mirror, the fact that I was on the other side of his stare and that I was the one he’d been with the night Vonn was killed. No one could ever know that. No one.