Stepping Down

by Michelle Stimpson

  She could only hope that Mark’s drugs would fog his memory or recreate her faux pas in a way that left him second-guessing what had just transpired.

  She lowered her visor and flipped up the mirror. Makeup still flawless, not a hair out of place. “Come on, girlie. Get yourself together.” The pep talk did little to calm her nerves, but it did strengthen her resolve. She needed to take action. The hospital financial counselor had said that there was no way to stop or delay the bills or collection actions from coming before the police investigation was complete.

  Even though Sharla felt strongly that the insurance would kick in sooner or later, she didn’t even want to see a six-figure “amount owed” with their names next to it unless it was for the dream house.

  For whatever reason, Detective Rozanno and his alleged team seemed to be dragging their feet on her husband’s case. Every time she called, all the detective could say was, “We’re asking questions and following up on leads.”

  Well, she certainly planned to give them a lead that would bring this whole thing to a close soon and clear Mark of any wrongdoing.

  She waited on a bench outside the secured doors for Rozanno. He’d have to escort her behind the fortress. Sharla couldn’t help the jitters crawling around in her belly. The last thing she needed was to be talking to anyone in law enforcement about Bria Logan.

  That chapter of her life was supposed to be over. She couldn’t afford to open it back up now. Maybe after Amani was an adult, but not while there was still the possibility that someone might probe into things too deeply.

  She heard a buzz, then Detective Rozanno stepped into the waiting area while keeping the door ajar. “Mrs. Clark, come on in.”

  “Carter,” she corrected him.

  “Right, Carter. Sorry about that.”

  He was a short, dumpy man with pronounced male pattern baldness who had probably once been a young, energetic officer. Sharla imagined that maybe he’d taken a bullet to the leg, which caused him to be unfit for the streets. He’d been assigned to a desk job and started eating too many jelly donuts. All downhill from there.

  She’d surmised all of this not only from his appearance, but from the way he slumped down the hallway toward his office, where he asked her to sit. “How are ya?” He said it like a disgruntled cafeteria lady might ask, “What’ll you have?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” she answered.

  His office boasted several plaques and certificates acknowledging dedication and selfless service. As Sharla suspected, none of the awards had recent dates.

  “I’ve got some information you might find helpful in your investigation.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You doin’ my job for me?”

  “No,” Sharla denied, “I just thought I’d help.”

  “We don’t need your help,” he very nearly lectured her. “We’ll catch the bad guys.”

  The first time she’d met the detective, he seemed nonchalant. Today, however, he was just being downright rude. “Detective, I’m not trying to overstep my boundaries, but I do have a vested interest in resolving this case quickly. Are you going to take what I give you or not?”

  He gave her a condescending scowl, grabbed a pen, and prepped to write in the margin of his desk calendar alongside several other hastily scribbled, nearly illegible notes.

  “Don’t you have some kind of file for my husband’s case where you need to record this lead?” Sharla insisted.

  “I got this. What’s the information?”

  “The man who was shooting at my husband’s car was Bria’s boyfriend, I think. His name is Boomie, or at least that’s what they call him.”

  He wrote the name on the pad. “Anything else?”

  “Well, aren’t you going to find out if he’s in the system? Run an alias check?”

  “Lady, you’ve been watching too many crime TV shows.”

  Dumbfounded, Sharla’s jaw fell open. “Are you kidding me right now? I’m giving you a lead on my husband’s case. It may not mean anything to you, but we’re trying to save his reputation and keep from going bankrupt.”

  “Ma’am, your husband’s lucky to be alive. Be grateful. And for your information, I’ve already been in touch with the other victim’s family. The moment she wakes up, if she confirms this Boomie character, we’ll have reason to move forward. But like you said, you’ve got a vested interest in clearing your husband. I don’t. I only want to get to the truth. I want to know who was shooting at his car and why, and if he was involved in any criminal activity that led up to the crime.”

  “Alrighty, then.” Sharla bit her tongue. “How long do you think this will take?”

  “I don’t know. We’re understaffed, underpaid, all that. But…” he swiveled in his chair and focused his attention on his computer screen. He clicked a few buttons. “Wait a minute. Your husband is the pastor, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He clicked a few more times. “Looks like you’ve saved me a trip.” He pressed a red button on his phone, then dialed four numbers.

  “Yes, Detective?” a raspy female voice came through.

  “Do we have an interrogation room open?”

  “Number six,” she replied.

  “Thanks.”

  Interrogation?

  “Mrs. Carter, I need you to come with me.”

  “For what?”

  “Got a few questions for you.” He snapped the pen and placed it in his shirt pocket. And now he wants to get up and pull a file from a cabinet, Sharla snarled to herself.

  Sharla stayed glued to her chair. “Why do you want to question me?”

  “To clear you as a suspect…if I can.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sharla barked back.

  Rozanno raised his sagging belt back to its long route around his stomach. “Ms. Carter, Bria’s family has advised us that you were at the hospital staked out in the waiting room, which raises a flag.”

  Sharla couldn’t believe her ears. What did her being at the hospital have to do with the investigation? “So, what if I was there?”

  “What reason would you have to be there?”

  She countered, “Why does it matter?”

  “Someone was shooting at the car…” he alluded.

  “Uh, everybody knows it was some criminal guy. They even said so on the news. Plus, Bria’s family said it was a man named Boomie.”

  He crossed his thick arms. “Those reporters don’t know what they’re talking about. They get all their news from bystanders tryin’ to get on the news and say something outrageous so they can become the next YouTube star.”

  Detective Rozanno might have been right about the spectators’ motives, but if Bria’s family concurred with the news report, why would the police divert to a wild goose chase—especially one where she was the goose? “This is ridiculous. I’m not speaking to you without a lawyer present.”

  His lips dripped with contempt, making Sharla wonder if it might be better to cooperate rather than wait for her attorney. Maybe if she answered his questions now, he’d show mercy. She had an air-tight alibi for her whereabouts that evening. There was no way they could prove she was anywhere else but home the night of the accident.

  “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  As she shadowed the officer down to what was presumably room six, Sharla mentally replayed as many episodes of the crime show, 48 Hours, as possible. Detective Rozanno was treating her like a person of interest, which was right up there next to suspect. The suspects always broke down when the interviewers suggested that they might spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Even the toughest, hardest criminals changed their tunes when prison hung in the loom.

  But I’m not guilty of shooting into my husband’s car, Sharla reminded herself. She had nothing to hide. If the detective started to sound like he was trying to trip her up, she’d end the interview and call her lawyer without another word crossing her lips.

  To Sharla’s surprise, a dark-haired, frail-looking woman was w
aiting for them in the interrogation room. The lady didn’t speak. She didn’t even offer a hint of a smile. She just sat there in a chair on the far side of the table. Rozanno joined her while Sharla sat alone on her side.

  “Who is this?” Sharla felt she had a right to know.

  “Monica,” Rozanno barely replied.

  “What’s she doing here?”

  “Observing. Training.”

  Sharla didn’t like the idea of being somebody’s case study, but there was something about having a woman’s presence in the room that offered some sense of female camaraderie, taking the scary edge off the cameras and sound equipment conspicuously placed throughout the room.

  Monica set up her notepad with its little keyboard and began typing something or another.

  Rozanno jumped right in. “State your full name.”

  “Sharla Denise Everson-Carter.”

  She answered a few more run-of-the-mill staple questions before he got to the pertinent ones. “Where were you on the night of your husband’s accident?”

  “I was at home watching television while my son, Amani, was upstairs playing video games with his friend, Jadan,” she answered with a slight upward tilt of the chin. Once she’d given him an account of herself, that should have been the end of the interview, as far as Sharla was concerned.

  But the detective pushed on, “What time did Jadan arrive at your house?”

  She guesstimated, “Six, six-thirty.”

  “And what time did he leave?”

  “Around eight-thirty. His mom came and got him.”

  He poked out his lips. “Were you there when his mom arrived?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Did you see her?”

  “Yes…I mean, no, I didn’t see her see her. She blew her horn. Jadan came downstairs. He left.”

  “So, you were downstairs while they were upstairs.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see Jadan when he left?”

  “No, but I heard him come downstairs.” Sharla grew impatient. “You can verify all this with Jadan and my son, you know?”

  “No, I can’t,” he said with a faint smirk on his mouth, “because if you didn’t see them, then they obviously didn’t see you for those two hours.”

  “I’m not an irresponsible parent. I wouldn’t leave two teenage boys in my home alone for two hours,” she smacked.

  Rozanno started with the second round, “Mrs. Carter, where do you park your car?”

  The momentary flicker of Monica’s eyes set off warning bells in Sharla. “No more questions without my attorney. This interview is over.”

  Chapter 21

  Wherever Sharla went, she sure is taking a long time to come home. If she doesn’t come through that door in a heap of sweat from working out and with a couple of bags of something-or-another as evidence of shopping, I will have to check with the IRS to make sure she doesn’t have a job I don’t know about.

  He hoped no one from the media had stopped her. Mark had gone so far as to turn off all ringers on the house phones. The reporters and ambulance-chasers somehow actually thought he would give them an inside scoop for a story or a scenario that might lead to a wacked-out lawyer representing him. No matter how many times he told them that there was nothing to report, they kept calling. “What’s your relationship with Bria Logan?” “Is Bria Logan your child’s mother?” “Pastor Carter, why would anyone want to kill you?”

  He could end the phone calls with the simple flip of a switch. But the blogs were merciless. There was no way to stop people from slandering him in cyberspace. People were comparing him to fallen ‘80s televangelist, Jim Baker, calling him a “pulpit pimp” and saying he had to be a con artist because he’d also been an insurance salesman. Someone, perhaps one with sense, had linked an aerial photo of his house, saying that obviously the Carters weren’t “rich”. To which, there were several replies from other people that pastors often have more than one house.

  People posted that they knew for a fact he drove an Escalade, but there was no mention that the car was going on ten years old or that he’d bought it before he was ever a pastor. Comments ranged from “leave God’s people alone” to “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was gay or one of those black-power reverse racism preachers.” Of course, several women posted that if Mark was gay, they wanted the opportunity to “turn him back straight.” To which one man wrote, “Please don’t. He’s hot! LOL!”

  They laughed, they joked, and applauded the accident as though it were punishment from God. They made nasty comments about Sharla’s curvy thighs and even made fun of Amani, saying he looked like an alien. An alien?

  He’d read a lot of stupid stuff online, but that one took the cake. Who did these people think they were to read an article full of speculation and then comment so negatively? What gave them the right to judge him and his family from clear across the country? And these weren’t all the watch-dog types, either. When he followed their profiles back to their Facebook pages, most of them claimed to be Christian. They had families of their own. Children Amani’s age. Why were they—his brothers and sisters in Christ— slandering him instead of praying for him? Really, even if he were guilty, prayer would still be in order.

  Even if they weren’t Christians, whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? The American way?

  Out of curiosity on one semi-intelligent blog post about the Pastor Carter incident, Mark left an anonymous comment stating that people should not hold pastors to a higher standard. He added, “God will, of course, but the most important thing for a Christian to do is to grow in the knowledge of God through Christ.”

  In just a few moments, the replies started pouring in: “Pastors are shepherds”, “Pastors keep the flock in order”, “Pastors have to be held to a higher standard, or else they’ll lead the people the wrong way.”

  He politely thanked them for sharing their thoughts, then exited off the web. Mark promised himself for the fifth time since Rev. Jackson left the other day that he wouldn’t go back on the internet and research himself. But with his best arm still healing and no way to get out of the house, he didn’t really know what else to do with all his free time. Even ESPN had gotten boring to him—a sure sign that he was going down.

  Examining the books on Sharla’s bookshelf, he hoped to find one that might pique his interest. Nothing. He’d read all the magazines twice. He even got the urge to make dinner, but gave it up when he couldn’t open a jar of mayonnaise for the sandwiches. He’d have to ask Sharla or Amani to put mayonnaise in an easy-to-open plastic container.

  The list of things he needed her for was growing every day. Earlier, he’d done his very best to shave with his left hand. He stopped halfway through the massacre, so frustrated that a few choice words slipped out. He needed an electric shaver. It wouldn’t cut as close, but it would have to do.

  Of course being right-handed, Mark had known that it would be hard to cope without his dominant side. But he had underestimated how difficult it would be to make concessions with his left. He looked forward to rehab so that he could get his life back.

  Mark carefully positioned himself in the corner of the couch so he’d stay upright. He turned off the television and sat in silence for a moment before it occurred to him that he was actually home alone with no Sharla, no Amani, no distractions from church, nothing pertinent on the to-do list. He’d already done the micro-exercises the physical therapist printed off and recommended he do on his own, since it was clear he wouldn’t have insurance to pay for services any time soon.

  Now what was he supposed to do with himself?

  And where on earth was Sharla?

  Mark got a text from Jonathan: Get well soon!

  He decided to return with a phone call because, God knows, he desperately needed to interact with a human being. “Hey, Jonathan, how is everything?”

  “Great, Pastor, just great.”

  “Uh huh.” Mark wondered how could that be, especially since the founding p
astor was officially on reduced-pay, in light of a bogus scandal. “Jonathan, could you email me the week’s numbers?”

  “Oh,” his voice dropped, “Pastor Carter, I really don’t think you want to see those.”

  “Yes. I do. That’s why I asked.”

  Jonathan sighed. “Yes, sir.”

  “When’s the next advisory meeting?”

  “Tomorrow. Ten a.m.”

  “Why are we meeting on a Friday?”

  “Sir, I can’t answer that question.”

  “Listen,” Mark said, “I’m going to check with my wife’s schedule to see if she can bring me. If she can’t, you come get me.”

  “Awesome. But sir, your arm. Should you be out?”

  “Thanks for your concern, Jonathan, but it’s an arm, not a brain. Anyway, First Lady keeps me in tight bandages and a sling. I couldn’t move it if I wanted to.”

  Jonathan managed an uneasy laugh. “Yes. I understand. I’ll wait to hear from you about whether or not your wife is bringing you.”

  It sounded like a good plan until later when he told Sharla about it. “Absolutely not.”

  “What?”

  “No way are we going to risk infection. Honey, you have metal screws in your arm, you’ve got a section that’s still an open wound. The less you get out in public and risk infection, the better.”

  “But baby, I’m getting cabin fever here,” he came close to whimpering.

  “No. I’m not taking you, and you can tell Jonathan to save his gas money. I’m not going to have you going to the meeting, then your arm starts hurting and you have to take a pill, then you need to hurry up and get back home because you’re getting sleepy and you need to lie down. Absolutely not.”

  She swished on back to their bedroom. Mark noticed her empty hands and perfect hair. Again, he wondered where she’d been—especially since she’d returned with such a nasty attitude.

  “I won’t hold it against you if my arm falls off!” he yelled to her.