Detective Thomas realized she was talking about her man now instead of her mother’s boyfriend, when she mentioned money. “Giving away your money?”
Red nodded. “I swear, I haven’t given away a dime. I told him a long time ago that money was missing from my account, but he didn’t believe me and today he just went crazy.”
Thomas shook his head. “Have you contacted the bank?”
“I did but it’s the bank that’s doing it.”
“The bank is taking your money?”
“Well, not the bank.” Red sniffled. “There’s this girl who works at the bank. I know that she’s the one taking my money.”
“How do you know that?” Thomas asked.
“Because she hates me, and she basically confessed to doing it.”
“Did you go to the bank with this?”
Red nodded her head. “I already did, but they blew me off in a major way the first time.”
“What about the police? Have you contacted any law enforcement?”
“I don’t know any law enforcement!” Red wailed. “You’re the only cop that I know.”
Detective Thomas exhaled. “Let me see what I can do. I have a friend in the bureau who may be able to help.”
Red glanced up at him with her sparkling eyes. “You would do that for me?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Nobody needs to be taken advantage of.”
Red smiled softly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, but in the meantime, you’ve got to get away from this guy,” Thomas told her. “Domestic abuse usually ends one way, and one way only—with the funeral of the woman being beaten.”
“I’m going to leave him. I need to straighten out my banking business, and then I’m going to take my money and leave him.”
“Good.” Thomas nodded. He rose from the arm of the chair. “I’m going to get with my buddy, and I’ll get back to you today.”
Red smiled her thanks.
“You get some rest,” Thomas told her, walking to the door. “I’ll let myself out.”
Red watched as he closed the door behind him. Again, she had gotten through an interview without a single question being asked. And best of all, she thought, she now had a detective in her pocket. Life was beautiful.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Red strolled into the bank, carrying an envelope filled with cash. She stood in line and waited patiently for Kera to wait on her. She even allowed two other bank patrons to go ahead of her, just so that Kera could be the one to help her.
“Next!” someone called out.
Red strolled up to Kera’s window.
“I saw what you did, Red,” Kera huffed when Red was in her face.
“What are you talking about?”
“You let those other ladies go ahead of you, just so I would have to be the one to wait on you. Why are you messing with me and trying my patience?”
“I’m not trying anything,” Red told her. “I’m a customer and I have more than fifty thousand dollars in this bank. I can go to any line that I choose.”
“Yeah, but why this one?” Kera asked. “What is it now? What else do you want to tell me? I’ve been through too much torture for you to tell me anything else that will bother me, Red.”
“Kera, you aren’t worth torturing.” Red smiled. “Everything that has happened to you, you did to yourself. You deserve the life that you have.”
“My life is filled with Christ,” Kera told her.
“You sacrilegious bitch. You committed the worst sins by sleeping with another chick’s man, getting pregnant and then not taking care of yourself. You stupid heifer, that’s child abuse. Your kid is retarded because of you and you were going to let Terry take the blame. Here I was, feeling sorry for you because she threw your monkey-ass kid and fucked him up, but you were the cause of the whole thing. Maybe dropping his ass helped him.”
Kera began shaking, then spoke evilly. “Get out of my line. Now!”
“You are a servant, bitch. Serve me.” Red threw her money on Kera’s counter. “Now, count it, and you better not take one single penny of it like you did before.”
“I didn’t do shit,” Kera claimed.
“Wanna bet? I got the receipt and your teller number is on it, Kera. I’m sure it won’t match what was in there at that time. Now, if you want to challenge that, let’s get your manager over here.” Red looked around. “Manager!” she yelled.
“Shut up, Red!” Kera hissed. She held eye contact with her nemesis. Kera hated her more with each passing second.
“Count it,” Red demanded.
“You need to fill out a deposit slip.”
“I ain’t filling out a damn thing. You fill it out for me,” Red told her. “You helped yourself to my shit before. Do it now.”
“Red, don’t make me . . .”
“Bitch, don’t make you what?” Red asked, cutting her off. “Don’t make you lose your job and get yo’ ass whooped all in the same day?”
“Account number please?” Kera asked, not wanting to draw any more attention to what was happening.
“You know it already.”
Kera looked at her and squinted her eyes. “I need to see your ID.”
“It’s a cash deposit, you dumb bitch. Deposit, get that? You don’t need an ID with a deposit. And I’m in your face . . . that’s all the ID you need.”
Kera huffed, and counted out Red’s money. It was $10,000. “You are aware that deposits over seven thousand dollars have to be reported to the IRS?”
Red shrugged. “Do your job, teller.”
Kera printed up Red’s receipt and handed it to her. “Thank you. Have a nice day.”
Red snatched the receipt, spun and marched out of the bank. Back at her Navigator, Detective Thomas was waiting for her.
“So, how did it go?”
Red nodded. “It went okay.”
“What do you think is going to happen?” Thomas asked.
“We’ll see.”
Red and Thomas climbed into her Navigator.
“While we’re waiting, I have some questions to ask you about Ezekiel Morrison,” Thomas told her.
“Go ahead.” Red nodded.
“You were the last one to see Ezekiel alive, were you not?”
Red shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I thought that Q would have been.”
“Q? As in Quentin Carter?”
Red nodded.
“Why do you assume Mr. Carter saw him last?”
“Q supposedly found him, right?”
“Why do you say supposedly?” Detective Thomas shifted in his seat. “What are you trying to say, Raven?”
“I’m just saying.” Red became frustrated and exhaled. She rested her forehead in the palm of her hand.
“What, Raven? What are you saying?” Thomas asked, putting on the pressure.
“Okay, look. I’m not saying that Q did anything, but me and Q, we were together back then.”
Thomas nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, Zeke, he was jealous, and he wanted to get with me.”
“Are you saying that you had a relationship with Ezekiel?”
“Fuck no!” Red declared. “I don’t even roll like that.”
“Okay . . .”
“He came over that day and tried to grab my ass,” Red told him. “He was drunk, and things got out of hand. He got violent and like all the men in my life, he tried to beat me up and force himself on me.”
Thomas sat quietly and waited for Red to continue.
“Q called him, and I snatched his phone and told him that Zeke was trying to rape me. I assumed that Q was on his way, but I managed to get away from Zeke before Q got there.”
“So you left, and Quentin rushed there to save you from a drunken Ezekiel?”
“Yes.” She looked him in his eyes.
Detective Thomas exhaled. It all made sense to him now. He was suspicious of Raven, when he should have been looking at Quentin, but he and Ezekiel were friends, supposed
ly. Had Quentin been mad enough to kill Ezekiel? Wouldn’t the average man be mad enough to kill over his girlfriend? Quentin had had enough time before the police arrived to do something to Ezekiel. The case had definitely taken a twist, that was for certain, Thomas thought.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Kera punched out at the time clock and headed for her car. She was now rolling in a Toyota Camry, thanks to the money she had been stealing from Red. And now, she was about to help herself to another nice chunk. Listening to Mary Mary’s “God in Me,” she drove to another bank branch to make a withdrawal. She didn’t realize how easy or how addictive it would become. She remembered when Bacon rolled up on her asking about Red. She was nervous to give him the money from Red’s account, but when she saw how easy it was, it became a habit to skim.
When Red came into the bank and began depositing money again, Kera assumed she was back with Bacon, so Kera started taking her percentage off the top. Kera called it a handling fee.
She zipped her car into a parking space and headed inside, hoping that none of the employees recognized her from the other branch.
Then she filled out her withdrawal slip and waited patiently in line. Red had deposited a total of $10,000, and she was going to sting her for two g’s. Twenty percent of the take. A fair fee for her.
Kera felt a twinge of satisfaction when she realized how much she had gotten away with. She knew not to take too much, but just enough. That bitch got so much money, she can’t even tell it’s gone, Kera said to herself as the second person in front of her went to a teller. Kera knew that Red didn’t check her account often because she relied on what the bank statement said as truth and kept steppin’, so Kera felt no remorse in doing what she was doing. Kera remembered how Red taxed her for living at her home and then put her out. She deserves everything she gets, Kera’s mind told her. She owes me for a lifetime’s worth of misery and she wasn’t even my real friend. I hope she dies broke, that bitch.
Kera was next in line and pulled out the fake ID she had made with Red’s name on it. She made it on her computer and laminated it as if it were the real thing. Kera was proud of her skills.
“Next!” a teller called out.
Kera nonchalantly stepped to the window. “Good afternoon,” she said, trying to divert the teller’s attention.
“Good afternoon,” the teller replied.
Kera continued to make small talk as she handed over the withdrawal slip and her ID. This was the moment of truth and it always made her nervous, no matter how many times she did it. She found herself shaking slightly.
“Thank you, Ms. Gomez,” the teller said, handing the ID back to her.
The teller counted out $2,000 in front of Kera and handed it to her in an envelope, along with a receipt.
“Anything else I can do for you?” the teller asked.
“No, thank you,” Kera said. “You have a blessed day.”
“You, too,” the teller replied.
Kera turned and headed for the exit. Happily, she bounced toward her car.
“Ooh, excuse me,” she said, bumping one of four men in dark suits. She tried to maneuver around them until one of the men spoke.
“Excuse me, miss. FBI.” He flashed a badge. “May I have a word with you?”
“Oh, my God!” Kera proclaimed. Her knees almost buckled.
“Could you step back inside the bank with us, please?” another agent asked. Kera wanted to run but she was surrounded.
She was led back into the bank amidst stares and into a side office where her purse was confiscated.
“May I see your identification, please?” an agent asked.
“Um . . . It’s in my wallet,” Kera said nervously. “May I ask what this is about?”
An agent handed Kera her wallet and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know whether to pull out her own ID, or the fake one. She decided that since she just made a withdrawal, her receipt and ID should match, so she handed the agent the fake ID.
The FBI agent handed the ID to another gentleman, who examined it briefly.
“It’s a fake,” Detective Thomas told the agents.
“No, it’s not!” Kera protested.
“What’s your name, young lady?” he asked.
Confidently, she said, “My name is Raven Gomez!”
Detective Thomas laughed. “If you’re Raven Gomez, then who is this?”
The men stepped aside, and Red walked into the office, smiling at Kera.
“You always wanted to be me, didn’t you?” Red pursed her lips and shook her head.
Kera looked between the men and Red and began crying.
“The rest of the identification in your purse has another name,” an agent advised her.
“Miss Gomez”—an agent looked at Red—“did you give this person permission to use your name or give her access to your personal banking information?”
“Hell no,” Red answered.
The agent turned to Kera. “Miss, are you aware that it’s a felony offense to impersonate another person and steal money from his or her bank account?”
“I’m sorry,” Kera wailed. “Please don’t take me to prison. Red, please tell them it was a mistake!”
“I want to press charges to the fullest extent of the law,” Red said, a satisfied smirk on her face. “Who do I give my statement to?”
“You can do it with me, downtown,” Thomas told her.
“What’s going to happen to her?” Red asked.
“She’ll be arrested and taken to a federal detention facility until she can be arraigned by a federal magistrate in a day or two,” an agent explained while handcuffing Kera.
“Oh, so she is going to jail?”
“She’s going to prison for a long time,” another agent said. “We got her on surveillance making the transaction, we caught her with the fake ID and we detained her with the money. This is a rock-solid case.”
Kera lowered her head and really started bawling now.
Red turned to Kera. “All of this is because of you. If you would have left that letter where it was, none of this would have happened, but you couldn’t leave well enough alone, you jealous-hearted bitch. I hope you have fun in prison, you self-righteous whore. You’ll be praying to the Lord, all right, in there. Just give it up freely, Kera, it’s less painful.”
Red strutted out of the office. One bitch down.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Kera’s deception gave Red an idea. She needed to square her business with Triple Crown, because she had Bacon signing contracts and too many people in the mix. She needed to set things up so that only she could talk to Triple Crown, and only she could negotiate and sign contracts. There were too many Lisa Lennoxes in the mix, and she needed to limit the number to one.
Since the idea hit her, Red had hit the library, the video store and a few other places and established IDs and accounts under the name Lisa Lennox. She needed to get hooked up with a connect so that she could get a fake ID under that name as well. The fake ID wouldn’t pass muster with the cops she knew, but for ordinary people in everyday situations it would work just fine. But first, she went to the county courthouse to get a doing-business-as license (DBA) under the name Lisa Lennox.
Then she would be able to open a bank account in that name, and get a debit card. That would open up a whole other line of identification that she would be able to access. Phone bills, utility bills, you name it . . . all under the name Lisa Lennox. She would become the real Lisa, and thus cut everyone else out. It would help to have a second identification when she did the things that she was planning to do—especially if she decided to change locations and needed to hide her true identity.
Red filled out the DBA form and waited patiently for the clerk to call her to the counter.
“May I help you?” the clerk asked.
Red stepped to the counter, and slid the form to the clerk.
“You want to establish a DBA?” the clerk asked.
“Yes.” Red nod
ded.
“Five dollars,” the clerk told her.
Five dollars, Red thought. It was only going to take five measly dollars to change her life around and become another person? It wasn’t a legal name change, but it was good enough for what she needed. She was going to be able to legally conduct business and enter into contracts under the name Lisa Lennox.
Red handed the clerk a $5 bill and watched as he typed the info into his computer, legally registering her to do business in that name. Her plan was well on its way to succeeding. Kera was out of the way and Bacon would be soon. By the time she was finished, she was going to be even with everyone on her shit list.
The clerk handed Red the papers and her receipt. She gathered up her documents, slid them in a folder and flounced out of the county clerk’s office. She was going to secure her TCP money and her new career as an author, and she was finally going to be able to give herself the life that she wanted, without having to depend on a man to give it to her. She was now using her head instead of her body, and it felt good to her.
• • •
Detective Thomas strolled into the rehab facility and found Chass sitting with Q, who was now using a cane but was still walking with a limp.
Q’s recovery had taken everybody by surprise.
“Well, well, well,” Thomas told him. “You look like a new man.”
“I feel like one.” Q smiled, turning around slowly and sitting down on his bed.
“And how are you doing?” Detective Thomas asked Chass.
“I’m fine.” Chass smiled, proud of Quentin’s ongoing recovery. “What brings you by here?”
“Actually, I’m here to see Mr. Carter.”
“About what?” Chass asked. She went from smiling to serious in 15 seconds flat.
“Just some questions about Mr. Morrison.” Thomas smiled.
“You came down here to see my client without my permission?” Chass frowned.
“I’m still a detective,” Thomas told her. “I have a job to do.”
“And I’m still his attorney, and the law is still the law, and you can’t question him without me being present.”
The Dirty Red Series Page 56
