by Nikki Turner
When it was all over, she’d fondled and fucked herself, along with peeing on herself, and Eric was completely satisfied.
“Damn, I’m starving. You want to grab something to eat before you leave? I saw a Waffle House across the street from the airport.”
“Sure. Let me jump in the shower first.” They both got cleaned up, carrying on small talk with each other to fill the awkwardness of two strangers. They rode in Eric’s rental car. While Rachida waited for her waffle and eggs and he waited for his steak, eggs, toast, and grits, she learned that he was originally from Alabama but was living in Maryland. He tried hard not to discuss his wife and kids, so he focused on talking about the fraternity instead. Rachida learned everything she’d ever wanted to learn about Gamma Alpha Psi. The entire conversation bored her, and she couldn’t wait until the heavyset blond waitress with a missing front tooth and dirty apron set their plates down in front of them. The Waffle House had a minimal crowd of people leaving the nightclubs who wanted a bite to eat before going home. There were also a few street hustlers in there who were probably finishing up shifts of their own and had the munchies after smoking weed. Besides, they served the best waffles and eggs one could buy at two a.m.
Eric and Rachida ate their food quietly, and before long she could hear police sirens in the distance. The sound got closer and closer, and it was hard not to notice the group of police cars speeding into the parking lot of the Red Roof Inn across the street. Everyone in the Waffle House looked through the windows trying to get a peek at the event. The sight of the officers made Eric nervous, since he was out in public with a woman who wasn’t his wife.
“You ready?” he asked abruptly. She gulped down the last of her orange juice.
“Sure.” By the time they’d walked outside, a crowd had started to form on the Waffle House side of the street, and the cop cars were coming from all directions.
Before they could reach Eric’s car, Rachida heard someone calling her name.
She squinted and noticed a woman in a burgundy uniform coming toward her. She realized it was Tandy, a friend who worked at the Red Roof Inn. Tandy ran across Williamsburg Road to where Rachida and Eric were standing.
“Rachida! You have to come quick. My coworker Jenny said she saw the body and it’s Abie,” Tandy said, trying to catch her breath.
“What?”
“Abie, she got shot. You need to come now.” Tandy grabbed Rachida by the arm.
“I’m sorry, but I have to see what’s going on. I think my best friend may be in trouble. I’ll get a ride back to the hotel. Don’t worry about me.” Eric jumped into his car so quickly it was a wonder he let Rachida finish her sentence. Tandy pulled Rachida across the street through the crowd and up a back stairwell so they could bypass the police perimeter. Since Tandy worked at the hotel, she had access to the rooms so she was able to get into the room next to the one where Abie had been killed. The police were still gathering in the parking lot waiting for the crime-scene investigators to arrive so this gave Tandy a window of opportunity to sneak Rachida in. Tandy opened the door slowly and they entered the room. It looked like a massacre had occurred there. Blood splatters were on the walls, the bedspread, even the dresser and TV. Abie’s lifeless body was on the floor naked right by the entrance, between the dresser and the bed. Rachida almost fainted at the sight of her friend.
“Abie? Oh, my God, Abie! Abie, what happened? Oh, my God! Tandy, what happened to her? Who did this?” Rachida went to kneel down beside Abie but Tandy pulled her back.
“You can’t go over there, Rachida. You might contaminate the crime scene. I just wanted to make sure that was her. I’m so sorry. Come on, we have to go before the police come back in.”
“Tandy, who did this? Why? Why? Oh, God, why? Abie, noooo!” The sound of the door opening sent Tandy running through the access door to the adjacent hotel room. Rachida just stood there, frozen, screaming.
“Hey, what are you doing in here? You’re not supposed to be in here. Who are you and how’d you get in here?” Rachida was numb. All she could do was stand there and scream uncontrollably. What was Abie doing here? She was supposed to be on an airplane long gone by now. Who did this to her? And why?
Whodunit?
The days after Abie’s funeral were a blur to Rachida but somehow she made it through without breaking down. She’d become a bit of a recluse since Abie’s death, and working was the last thing on her mind. Madam gave her two weeks off to get herself together, and she used those weeks to find the strength to start her own search for Abie’s killer. Initially Scoot had been questioned by the police as a possible suspect, but they’d had to let him go because he had an ironclad alibi. They told Rachida that there were no leads in the case and no witnesses. No one saw Abie go into the hotel room. The room was not registered to anyone. Abie’s car was found at a park ’n’ ride at the airport. None of it made sense. What they could tell her was that it seemed like Abie had met her killer at the airport and was abducted there. There was evidence that supported this theory that the police weren’t able to disclose to Rachida.
Rachida was ready to find Abie’s killer. The first thing she had to do was talk to Scoot to see what he knew about what Abie might’ve been involved in that day. It was still hot outside even though the sun was just setting, putting a haze over the city. Rachida jumped into her car, opened the sunroof, and let the farmhouse get farther and farther behind her. It didn’t take long for her to reach the city, but by the time she reached Scoot’s house, the sun had completely set. Scoot’s Cadillac was parked in the driveway and music was blaring from inside. Rachida parked her car and walked through a shabby, chain-link fence down an uneven paved walkway. When she walked up the porch steps to the screen door, she noticed that the front door wasn’t closed all the way. She didn’t see any more cars in the driveway, so she assumed Scoot was there alone. The door squeaked as she slowly pushed it open. She peeked inside and scanned the living room. The music was so loud it felt like the bass was coming from inside her head.
“Scoot!” Rachida yelled but she knew it was impossible to hear over the music. She waited a minute or so to see if he’d come out but he didn’t, so she went in and turned the music down. The living room was a mess with empty fast-food containers, Styrofoam cups, and other trash strewn about. It smelled bad too, probably from the trash in the kitchen. The house didn’t look like it had been cleaned in days, maybe even weeks.
“Scoot!” Rachida yelled again, this time walking down the hallway toward the bedroom. When she reached his bedroom door, it was closed, so she knocked.
“Scoot?” she said again. No response. She turned the knob and opened the door. Her eyes got as big as lemons. He was lying in a pool of blood on his bed, faceup, his wife beater stained with blood, and several bullet holes in his chest. She inched away slowly, not sure if she should call the police or run like hell out of the house.
“What the fuck is going on?” Rachida paced and rubbed her forehead to stop herself from throwing up. She’d cried so many tears for Abie that she didn’t have any more left, and quite frankly, she didn’t care that Scoot was dead. All she cared about was that she hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him before he was murdered. As she stood there, confused and a bit numb, she gathered her composure and decided to search Scoot’s room to find any evidence that could prove whether he’d killed Abie. Rachida hurried to the front door and locked it. She looked through the tattered miniblinds to make sure no one was outside. Then she went back to Scoot’s bedroom and tried to avoid looking at him. She rummaged through his drawers, his closets, and even under his bed looking for anything that might prove guilt. The room was already in shambles, so it probably didn’t make much difference that Rachida was searching it. She kicked through several piles of clothes on the floor looking for anything that would help her. One of the piles covered a small plastic trash can, inside of which was a TracFone and some sheets of paper with pictures and personal data on someone named Karen Jefferson-
Duvall. Jefferson-Duvall was the pastor of Missions of Faith Baptist Church, a megachurch in Atlanta, Georgia. Rachida had heard about the church from its Sunday TV broadcasts, and the pastor of the church was a spiritual advisor to a lot of celebrities. Why did Scoot have information on her? Rachida wondered. It didn’t make sense, especially because Scoot was far from spiritual. The TracFone looked brand-new. Rachida turned it on and hit the MENU button, looking through the call history. Only two outgoing calls had been made, both to a number with a “678” area code. Rachida dialed the number to see who answered.
“Thank you for calling Missions of Faith Baptist Church. This is Pastor Karen Jefferson-Duvall. I’m unavailable at the moment, but your call is very important to me. Please leave a detailed message and I’ll call you back at my earliest convenience. Thank you for calling and have a blessed day.”
Rachida’s legs almost buckled. That voice. She knew it anywhere. That same southern drawl, oozing with sweetness. It was the madam’s. Rachida was 100 percent sure of it. Pastor Karen Jefferson-Duvall? Madam Celecia was a pastor? That just didn’t make any sense. How was that possible?
“Come on, Scoot. I know you’re dead, but you have to give me more here. I need more.” Rachida spoke to the corpse as if it would answer her. Then she dug through the rest of the papers from the trash can and read each to see if there was anything else that might help her with the puzzle. Then she saw it, the very last page—the script Abie had written and given to Scoot. It all started to make sense.
Pastor Duvall, if you want to keep your identity as a madam a secret, I suggest that you meet my associate at the park ’n’ ride at Richmond International Airport with $250,000 cash tomorrow at 4 p.m. This will give you plenty of time to make travel arrangements to get from Atlanta to Richmond. Don’t tell me you don’t have that kind of money, because I’ve been privy to information stating that you do, thanks to your brother, Bernard Jefferson, or should I call him Brick? Two hundred fifty thousand dollars cash. No questions asked. You’ll see a white Infiniti G37 in Parking Lot G6, Space #15. If you don’t show up with the money, my associate will go straight to the authorities and share how you’ve been spending government money running a prostitution ring. Oh, by the way, your husband, the famous Bishop Cleo Duvall, might not like the idea either.
So that’s what Abie had been up to. She’d tried to extort money from the madam, who just happened to be a pastor. What kind of twisted mind could have been living such a double life? But did the pastor kill Abie or hire someone else to do it for her? Then it hit her—the emergency meeting the day Abie was killed. The background noise on the phone call could have been from the airport. Could the madam be so cold, though? Was she capable of brutally murdering Abie? Rachida couldn’t believe it. She shook her head over and over again, tears rolling down her cheeks. With all she knew, the evidence was clear, so Rachida decided it was the right time to call the police. She called Detective Wilson, who’d been working on Abie’s case.
Rest in Peace
It was all over the news about Pastor Karen Jefferson-Duvall. They called her everything from the “Anonymous Madam” to the “Perverse Pastor.” When Rachida broke the story to the detective, he didn’t believe her initially. But as she handed over the evidence (after he promised he wouldn’t bust her for prostitution) and told him everything she knew, he worked out a deal that would put her into a witness-protection program and prevent her from doing any jail time.
Jefferson-Duvall’s duty at the church was to minister to battered and homeless women by taking them off the street and giving them a roof over their head, food to eat, and access to programs and classes that would help them get on their feet. That was supposed to be the extent of her ministry. But somewhere along the line, it had turned into something criminal and sinister, all because of greed. Jefferson-Duvall had used her husband’s power and celebrity to build up a clientele for the prostitution ring.
At first she thought she hadn’t done anything wrong. She told the cops she was just trying to help these women by getting them off the streets. They didn’t have anywhere to go, and she gave them classes, taught them social skills, provided good doctors for them, and gave them twenty-four-hour security. They had the freedom to leave whenever they wanted, so why was she being charged with a crime? The women had willingly been prostitutes. Her calling was to minister to women and help them better themselves, and that’s what she’d been doing.
Well, just like everyone else who heard the story, the Atlanta Police Department didn’t buy it. In fact, while Jefferson-Duvall was in a small session ministering to a few battered women, Atlanta PD burst into the church and arrested her in front of her husband and parishioners. After she was read her rights, Jefferson-Duvall asked what she was being charged with. The officer said two counts of first-degree murder and twenty counts of solicitation for prostitution. They also told her she’d be extradited to Richmond as soon as possible. Even though she didn’t pull the trigger, she’d hired the man who did and she’d witnessed the execution.
Around the same time Jefferson-Duvall was arrested, the farmhouse was raided and the women there were charged with prostitution, while Uncle Brick, aka Bernard Jefferson, was charged with one count of first-degree murder for Scoot’s death and one count of being an accessory after the fact for Abie’s murder. It turned out that he’d murdered Scoot in a rage over his involvement in the extortion scheme involving his sister. He hated the fact that Abie had used him, and he wasn’t sorry she was dead. It wasn’t hard for him to pump those bullets into Scoot’s chest and watch him die. Jefferson-Duvall refused to name the triggerman who’d actually killed Abie, but there was enough evidence to nail her as the mastermind behind the murder.
When the news broke, Councilman Sullivan was forced to step down after he was named as a client of the Southern Girls’ Escort Service. And he wasn’t the only one revealed. The press was given a list of all the clients, which caused even more turmoil in the community.
Rachida changed her name and moved to an undisclosed location. Since Jefferson-Duvall never named her accomplices, Rachida was sure there was probably someone out there who’d been paid to finish her off. It didn’t matter to her, though. She realized that Abie had been looking for a way out of a life that had become too much for her to bear. Abie had grown tired of being used by everyone she knew, and she just wanted to go away somewhere to get away from it all. Rachida was just happy that justice had been served for her best friend and that Abie was finally at peace.
MONIQUE S. HALL
Ms. G-Stacks
How It All Went Down
“You have a call from Stacks at the Fulton County Jail. Do not use three-way or conference calling or your call will be terminated. To accept the call, press 1. To decline, press 2,” the automated message stated.
Damn, I thought. What the hell has happened now? I had that fucked-up feeling deep in the pit of my stomach, the one where you know something is wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on it.
I quickly pressed 1 and waited for the operator to connect the call. I hadn’t seen or heard from Stacks, my live-in boyfriend of the last four years, all day, which was totally out of character for us. Although he was a hustler who worked on the streets, we always communicated and knew each other’s whereabouts.
Earlier that day, I’d texted him more than ten times, and the messages had gone unanswered. That had bothered the hell out of me and made me feel queasy.
“Babe, it’s me. I’m at the County on Bankhead!” he shouted through the phone.
“What for? Babe, what happened?” I asked.
“Some niggas from Decatur set me up. Jetta and me were over there handling bid’ness with some major cats. Before we had a chance to make good on the drop, the po-pos stepped in.” He sounded defeated and exhausted.
I braced myself before I asked the next question. “How long until you get a bond?” I already knew the answer but I asked anyway.
“There ain’t gonna be a bond
. I violated my parole. Even if I beat the drug rap, they caught us red-handed with the guns. I’m gonna get an automatic five years. There ain’t no way to beat it—not even if Johnnie Cochran came back from the dead. They caught me dead in the wrong on this one.”
My stomach went from queasiness to a simmering boil. Everything stood at a standstill. Stacks was my man, my lover, my every-fucking-thing. He had been holding us down for years.
Not only was Stacks a bona fide hustler, he was also a hell of a provider. The world was ours, and he made sure to serve it to me on a silver platter. We had it all: Benzes in every color, iced-out jewelry, condos, and various waterfront properties. If money could buy it, we had it.
My baby had so much money, the streets called him G-Stacks. He had truly earned his moniker and lived up to it, although he’d moved beyond the G-marks to millionaire status. He kept it real and he kept it gangsta.
“T, I’ma need you more now than evah to keep shit tight for me. I can’t say much over the phone, but come down to visitation tomorrow and see me. I’ll explain everything. I need to see you face-to-face. Now ain’t the time for tears. I need you to man up,” he said.
“Okay, baby, I got you,” I said. I know I had to be strong. My nigga needed me to be mentally right for the task at hand. Whatever it was he needed, I was prepared to do it. I was his “Ride or Die Chick.” Him being behind bars was not going to change that.
I took a deep breath, gathered my thoughts, and put my psyche in check. My man was a boss, and I was a boss bitch. Whatever he needed, I was prepared to handle. Knowing Stacks, it was not going to be anything simple. The truth is, there ain’t nothing simple about him, or me either, for that matter.
