Murder on the Down Low

by Pamela Samuels Young

  Special kept fidgeting in her chair. “This is ridiculous. They know I didn’t kill that man. They’re just messing with me ’cause they can.”

  “No, they’re messing with you because you made it known to the world how much you hated Eugene, which gives you a clear motive for killing him.”

  “And don’t give them any more ammunition.” Nichelle was just as perturbed.

  Special slouched further down in her chair. “I thought you told them I had nothing to say.”

  “I did,” Vernetta replied. “But they’re still going to try to bully you or perhaps trick you into talking. And like we told you, don’t say a word unless we tell you to.”

  “Okay, okay.” She turned to Nichelle. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Just because Eugene’s dead doesn’t mean we have to drop the lawsuit, does it?”

  “Nope, but it’s a lot more complicated. We’re going after his estate. But right now, the only legal case you should be worried about is your own.”

  The door opened and J.C., followed by two men, walked in.

  “I’m Detective Jessup,” said a white man with macho written all over him. Vernetta noticed his swagger even though he’d only taken a couple of steps into the room. “This is Ray Martinez from the D.A.’s office,” he pointed to an attractive, well-dressed Hispanic who was on the short side. “I understand you already know Detective Sparks.”

  Vernetta nodded at J.C.

  “We’d like to ask Ms. Moore a few questions,” Detective Jessup announced. “But before we begin, I want to make sure you’re comfortable with Detective Sparks being here.” J.C. looked as if she wanted to slug him.

  “Why wouldn’t we be?” Vernetta asked.

  “I understand you all are pretty close. I just thought—”

  “The lieutenant gave me the okay to be here,” J.C. said to Jessup. “Just start the interview.” She folded her arms and leaned against the wall.

  Detective Jessup pulled out a chair from the table and straddled it backwards. He slapped a notepad down on the table. Vernetta tried to read it upside down, but his handwriting looked like a three year old’s.

  “I’d like to begin with your whereabouts last Saturday morning,” Detective Jessup said.

  Vernetta smiled in a way that communicated that she was about to get nasty. “I’ve already told you, Detective, based on our legal advice, Special isn’t saying a word. You gave us very little notice. We’d like to cooperate with you, but we need time to conduct our own investigation first. Perhaps you can share with us the specific charges against Ms. Moore.”

  “There aren’t any charges at the moment. For the time being, your client is a person of interest in the murder of Eugene Nelson.”

  “I didn’t kill that man,” Special said. “This is crazy. The only person I know guilty of murder is Eugene.”

  “Special, please don’t say another word.” Vernetta sounded like an impatient parent scolding a naughty child.

  “I’m not going to just sit here and not defend myself,” she fired back. “I didn’t shoot anybody.”

  “The way I hear it,” Detective Jessup said, egging her on, “you stood up at your cousin’s funeral and told the entire church that that was exactly what you planned to do.”

  “I never said anything about shooting the man. I only said—”

  “Shut up!” Vernetta grabbed Special by the upper arm, then turned to Detective Jessup. “We need a few seconds alone with our client.”

  Vernetta caught J.C.’s eye on the way out. Her unspoken message advised Vernetta to get a grip on their friend.

  As soon as the door closed, Vernetta let Special have it. “When I said you weren’t supposed to talk, that’s what I meant.”

  “But they’re trying to—”

  “Do you understand that you could be facing a murder charge?” Vernetta said. “We’re not talking about you attacking Eugene with pepper spray. They’re trying to pin his murder on you.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing! You asked us to represent you and that’s what we’re trying to do. But if you say one more word, we’re out of here and you’re on your own.”

  Special looked to Nichelle for support.

  “And I’m leaving with her,” Nichelle said.

  Special stuck out her lips. “That man gets to kill Maya, and everybody treats me like I’m the criminal. I was just—”

  “Special,” Vernetta said, “all I want you to do is be quiet. Do you understand?”

  “Fine.”

  Nichelle went to the door and signaled for them to return.

  Detective Jessup led the procession back into the room. “I see you’re having some client control problems.” He chuckled. “Anyway, where were we?” He remained standing and flipped open his notepad. “Let’s see . . . oh, yeah, last Saturday morning I understand you admitted to a Ms. Belynda Davis that you had been stalking Mr. Nelson.”

  Special flinched, but otherwise obeyed orders.

  Vernetta could tell that J.C. was dying to interject. But Vernetta knew she couldn’t. Too bad she had to work with such a jerk.

  “Detective,” Vernetta said, “I think we’ve made it clear that Ms. Moore isn’t answering any questions at this time.”

  He acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “Perhaps I should treat you all to a little preview of what we have so far.” He flipped past a few pages in his notepad. “We know for a fact that Ms. Moore physically assaulted the victim with pepper spray. Luckily, we have that on tape.” He winked at Special. “Let’s see here. We’re also close to figuring out how she hacked into his law firm’s computer system. And if that wasn’t enough, she vandalized his house and threw nails in his driveway. We happen to have an eyewitness to that last incident.”

  Special’s eyes blinked in a way that spelled guilt more clearly than any words could have.

  “I think you’re bluffing,” Vernetta said. “Exactly who’s your witness?”

  “We aren’t at liberty to disclose that information at this time.”

  Martinez moved from his position near the door. He pulled up a chair and sat down at the table, directly in front of Special. “You’ll find out the evidence we have at the appropriate time.” He directed his words to Vernetta. “You know how this game is played. It would behoove you to let your client answer our questions. If we’re going after the wrong suspect, her responses will tell us that.”

  Vernetta simply could not allow Special to talk. In a case where she knew her client was innocent, she would’ve been far more cooperative. But she couldn’t do that here. Even though Special denied any role in the other attacks against Eugene, she didn’t believe her. Having committed those crimes, however, didn’t mean she was also guilty of murder.

  “We’ll answer your questions,” Vernetta said, “but at the appropriate time for us. For now, our client has nothing to say.”

  “It’s always the guilty people who’re afraid to talk,” Detective Jessup muttered.

  “We don’t have time for these little head games.” Vernetta stood up. Nichelle and Special followed her lead. “It’s obvious that you don’t have any basis for charging Ms. Moore with Eugene’s murder. And since you don’t, we’re out of here.”

  Chapter 67

  Vernetta made it back to the office with twenty minutes to spare before her meeting with Haley and O’Reilly. The Vista Electronics case was finally heating up. This was the worst possible time for her best friend to be charged with murder. She prayed that didn’t happen.

  Sheila, her secretary, stuck her head in the door as Vernetta scanned her incoming emails. “I hate to deliver bad news, but Haley was nosing around here looking for you.”

  “When?”

  “About thirty minutes ago. I told her you had a meeting out of the office. She tried to pump me for more information, but I played dumb. So how’d it go with Special?”

  “Not good.” After Sheila closed the door, Vernetta gave her a quick recap.

  “I know Sp
ecial was hella mad at that guy. I would’ve been, too. But do you think she was angry enough to go gunning for him?”

  Vernetta didn’t like the fact that Sheila was even asking that question. “I know my friend,” Vernetta said. “She didn’t kill Eugene.”

  “I hope she knows how lucky she is to have you in her corner. If she gets charged, is the firm going to let you defend her?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, though O’Reilly had already made his feelings quite plain. “Just keep everything I told you under your hat.”

  “You got it,” Sheila said, then left.

  Vernetta was already waiting in the conference room when Haley and O’Reilly strolled in together. Perhaps she was imagining things, but both of them looked as if they were in their own little world of bliss. Vernetta had been trying her darnedest to get along with Haley, but it wasn’t going well. She decided to get in some more practice.

  “I love that suit you’re wearing, Haley.”

  “Thanks,” she replied. “I bought it at Neiman Marcus.”

  Which meant it cost a grip. Haley sat down across from her, on the same side of the table as O’Reilly.

  “Give me a minute before we get started.” O’Reilly scrolled through his BlackBerry.

  Haley grinned at Vernetta from across the table. “So how was your morning?”

  Vernetta’s internal antenna shot straight up. “Fine.”

  “This case is going to be quite challenging. I’ve been analyzing that report from our expert. Looks like the employees haven’t been taking meal breaks, and on top of that the company isn’t computing overtime correctly. I’ve been here since seven o’clock this morning going through the records.”

  Good for you.

  “So how’d your friend’s interrogation go this morning?”

  Vernetta felt her brain short-circuit. “What?”

  “A friend of mine is a deputy D.A. He saw you down at Parker Center this morning. He said you’re representing Special Moore. The police apparently believe she murdered that guy, Eugene Nelson.”

  O’Reilly looked up from his BlackBerry. “I thought we already had this conversation,” he said sternly. “You’re not permitted to be involved in any outside legal work without the firm’s permission. If you make some misstep, the firm could be on the hook for a malpractice claim.”

  Vernetta folded her hands to keep from reaching across the table and strangling Haley. “I’m not doing any outside legal work,” she lied. “As Haley just explained, Special is a very close friend. I was only there this morning for moral support. She’s being represented by attorneys from Barnes, Ayers, and Howard. Nichelle Ayers, another close friend of mine and one of the firm’s name partners, was also present at the interrogation.” No need to explain that Vernetta was the one running the show.

  “Okay,” O’Reilly groaned, “let’s just keep it that way. But I have to say I’m concerned about your using firm time to do this.”

  “I wasn’t using firm time,” Vernetta said, her voice taut. “I charged my time out of the office this morning to personal time.”

  That didn’t seem to satisfy him because he continued to lecture her. “The Vista Electronics case is going to take up all of your time and then some. From this point forward, I’d like you to clear any involvement in your friend’s case—or any other outside case—with me. In advance.”

  “Fine. But I only—”

  “Let’s get started.” He handed a document to both of them.

  Haley smiled at Vernetta. She smiled back. O’Reilly was about to say something when his cell phone rang. “I need to take this,” he said, then stepped outside.

  Vernetta tried to read the document O’Reilly had given them, but she was too steamed to concentrate. She knew she should just ignore Haley, but the girl deserved a piece of her mind. “Thanks for bringing up my friend’s case in front of O’Reilly.”

  “I’m sorry. Was it a problem for me to mention it?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I have no idea why you’re so upset.” Haley ran her fingers through her hair. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but you have a very big chip on your shoulder.”

  Vernetta was just about to tell Haley to kiss her ass when O’Reilly came back in. “I need to finish taking this call in my office. We’ll have to postpone our meeting for about an hour.” He picked up his folder and left.

  Haley stood up to leave, but Vernetta stopped her.

  “We weren’t through yet,” she said. “If you want to sleep your way to partnership, that’s your business. Just stay out of mine.”

  The deep red that settled along Haley’s cheekbones told Vernetta that she was dead right about their affair.

  “Exactly what do you mean by that?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.” Vernetta gathered her belongings from the table. “You can fuck O’Reilly or anybody else around here. I don’t care. Just stop trying to screw me.”

  Chapter 68

  Special thought about going home after leaving Parker Center, but she couldn’t afford to be docked for missing another day’s work. As much as she’d been absent lately, they were probably on the verge of firing her anyway.

  From the moment she stepped into the lobby of her office building, she felt stares from every direction. The guard at the main desk usually waved at her, but averted his eyes when she sauntered past. A woman on her way out of the building was staring so hard she almost plowed into the glass doors. When Special stepped into an elevator car that was about to close, three women who’d been chatting away suddenly stopped.

  Special kept her focus on the elevator light as it ascended from floor to floor. This whole thing was one big nightmare that she prayed would hurry up and blow over. All the police had on her was the pepper spray attack. Despite what Vernetta and Nichelle told her, she refused to believe she would actually be charged with Eugene’s murder. Her friends were just trying to scare her into keeping her mouth closed. Lawyers were always so pessimistic.

  When she finally made it to her office, Special turned on her computer and pulled up her unopened emails. She quickly scrolled down and was surprised to see a long list of new emails from people whose email addresses she didn’t recognize. The subject lines for all of the messages were blank. She assumed they were spam and was about to delete them, but decided to open the first one.

  You homophobic bitch! I hope you get the death penalty!

  “Oh, my God!” Special opened a few more of the emails and the messages were equally malicious.

  She picked up her phone to call Vernetta, but noticed that her message light was lit. She punched in her voicemail password and heard the automated voice advise her that she had sixteen new messages.

  “Oh, my God!” she said again. She figured that the same nut or nuts who had emailed her had also called her office. She timidly listened to the first message.

  You vicious cunt. You think you can go around—

  Special slammed the phone down and clutched her chest. Fear caused her to peer over her shoulder, down at the street four stories below. Who was harassing her? For all she knew it could have even been someone she worked with. There were two guys who worked in the mail room that Special always thought were suspect. She wondered if one or both of them were behind the threats. They would have access to both her email address and office number.

  She got up and marched to Human Resources.

  “Margaret, I need to speak with you,” she said, walking into the HR manager’s office.

  Margaret smiled her trademark infomercial smile. “I’m glad you’re here. I was about to head down to your office.”

  “Okay,” Special said, “you go first.”

  As usual, she was dressed like a 1960’s sitcom mom. Long skirt, frilly blouse, pearl necklace and matching earrings. “No, it can wait. Tell me why you’re here.”

  “I received some harassing emails and voicemail messages this morning,” Special began. “I’m hoping we can turn them over
to security so they can find out who sent them.”

  “We can do that.” Margaret did not show the level of concern Special had expected. “Is there anything else?”

  “No, that was basically it. So what’s the first step? Maybe we should call somebody in security right now.”

  “Sure, but first . . .” Margaret moved her coffee mug from one side of the desk to the other. “What I wanted to discuss with you is somewhat related to those messages you received. Of course, you know everyone’s aware of the problems you’ve been having. It’s been all over the news.”

  Special stiffened. “Yeah, and . . .”

  “We don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be in the workplace until this whole matter regarding the murder of that gentleman blows over.”

  Special locked her arms across her chest. “First, he wasn’t a gentleman. And second, I didn’t kill anybody. Nor have I been charged with killing anybody.”

  “Yes, but you did assault the man. I gather you’ll be facing criminal charges in connection with that.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. He’s dead now.”

  Margaret refused to look at her. “You’re a supervisor here. You know how disruptive something like this can be. We think you should take a leave of absence until this matter’s been cleared up. This explains everything.” She extended an envelope across the desk.

  Special did not reach for it.

  “Your medical benefits will remain in effect as long as you continue to pay the employee portion of the premium.”

  Special glowered at the woman. “So is this a paid leave?”

  “No, I’m sorry. We aren’t able to pay you under these circumstances. That wouldn’t be consistent with how we’ve treated other employees who’ve been in trouble with the law.”