Beautiful, Dirty, Rich

by J. D. Mason

  Desi had sold this house for next to nothing to a young couple from out of town who weren’t afraid of ghosts. It had taken everything in her to finally let it go, but if she was going to move on with her life, then selling the house was a good place to start.

  * * *

  Blink, Texas was a small enough town that he couldn’t help but drive past this old place from time to time. Ida Green’s house had been shut up tight until her daughter, Desi, moved back in. But she had moved out of it as soon as she had gotten all of that money, and slapped a FOR SALE sign up in the front yard before the ink had dried on that check. Of course, nobody who knew the history wanted anything to do with the place, so it wasn’t surprising when some folks from out of town snatched it up for almost free.

  He’d heard gossip that she was back. Desi Green had pulled into town driving one of those fancy European convertible sports cars like she was a movie star or something. But unlike everyone else in town, Tom Billings was just curious. That’s all. Curious to see how money could change a convicted felon into whatever she was now. The two of them had a history that went beyond both of them being born and raised in Blink, Texas. He’d never mistreated her, though, despite what she might’ve thought at the time. He had been firm, but never abusive. Ultimately, everything had worked out for that girl in the end. In a strange way it had worked out for her better than it had for anybody else.

  “Desi.” He stood in the front yard and greeted her as she was coming out of the house.

  She’d just closed the door and stood on the porch, staring down at him. Tom didn’t like that.

  “Heard you were in town.” He smiled.

  She looked good. Real good. She looked rich and nearly brand new. Desi Green had a few years on her now the same way they all did, but she didn’t look the same way she had when she first moved back here. Standing there in some of those skinny jeans that all the women wore nowadays, and high heels, wearing fancy sunglasses, she did look like she ought to live in Hollywood. Her long, pretty hair, thick and glossy black hung loose and straight, past her shoulders. She looked so much like Ida, only fancier.

  “Sheriff Billings.” She crossed her arms and curled her lips at the corners, making it clear that she wasn’t happy to see him.

  He chuckled. “Nobody’s called me sheriff in years, Desi. I’m retired now.” He waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. She just looked at him.

  “Sold the house, I see.” He motioned his head toward the obvious SOLD sticker across the front of the sign.

  She shifted her weight from one expensive shoe to the other. Gone was that shy and awkward teenager, so full of tears and fear. And gone was that insecure and confused woman fresh out of the pen. Tom had been a cop for forty years and he prided himself on his prowess for observation. He’d always been good at reading people. That Desi Green, the younger one, the poorer one, was the one he liked. This one—he didn’t know what to make of.

  “Is there something I can do for you?”

  Her tone threw him off balance. Tom was sensitive to the tone of voice people took when they spoke to him. He shook it off this time.

  Life hadn’t been fair to that girl when she was younger. Obviously, he thought, looking her up and down, it had taken a turn for the better. “You doing alright?” he asked. “You happy now?” He waited for an answer but didn’t get one. “The Lord worked things out in your favor. From dead last to first place.” He laughed. “I’d call that a blessing.”

  She stared down at him and Tom began to feel uncomfortable standing at the bottom of those stairs. She had the advantage, visually, strategically, and in more ways than he cared to admit to. But he couldn’t give in and let her know that.

  “So, you came here to tell me how blessed I am?” Desi asked, unemotionally.

  He didn’t like her attitude. “I came to see about you, that’s all.”

  Desi took a fearless step forward. “What’s there to see?”

  It was too bad that he was a retired cop. It was too damn bad.

  “It wasn’t that long ago when this house was all you had, Desi,” he said, coolly. “Sometimes a person gets so caught up in where they are that they forget where they came from.” His tone turned menacing. “I know you have more now than you used to,” he chose his words carefully, “and I’m happy that things turned around for you the way they did, but don’t forget how you came by it.”

  “Everything I have, Sheriff, I got from my mother.”

  “Who got it from the man you killed, Desi,” he said, reminding her of that part of the truth that she’d conveniently left out.

  “Doesn’t matter.” She stared defiantly at him. “I got it honestly.”

  Was she being sarcastic or disrespectful? “I’m here to tell you to be careful and don’t ever take what you have for granted, because just as easily as you got it, it could be gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

  She slowly descended the steps. “I was a kid the last time somebody took anything from me,” she said threateningly. “And I don’t plan to let it happen again.”

  He glared at her as she walked past him toward her car.

  “Careful, girl,” he warned. “I’m retired, not dead.”

  Desi stopped with her back to him. “I’m not dead anymore either, Tom.”

  Desi climbed in behind the wheel of her ghost-gray Aston Martin, revved the engine, and smiled at him one last time before finally backing out of the driveway. He watched her disappear down the road and turn the corner. Having money, Gatewood money, had gone to her head and it had made a fool out of the rest of them. “Take the money and run, Desi Green,” he muttered. “You just go on.”

  My Soul, Sistah

  A million dollars buys a lot of house in Texas. Too bad it had nothing in it. The only piece of furniture she’d bought since she’d had the place built was a king-sized bed. So, Desi confined herself to sitting on a blanket spread out on the floor in her massive living room.

  “You can take the girl out of prison, but you can’t take the prison out of the girl.”

  Coming from anybody else, a statement like that would’ve hurt Desi’s feelings. But Lonnie wasn’t just anybody.

  Yolanda “Lonnie” Adebayo was a year younger than Desi, and when Desi was sent to the pen, Lonnie sent her a letter out of the blue, and just that quick, Desi, the convicted murderer had a fan.

  Dear Desi,

  I’ve never written to a prisoner before. I live in Omaha and I saw you on the news. You remind me of a girl in my biology class and you looked scared. I’d be scared too if I were you, but you are not alone. I feel bad for you and will be praying long and hard for God to watch over you. I know you had to have a reason for doing what you did. But he probably deserved it. I don’t expect for you to write me back. I just wanted you to know that there is somebody out here who is on your side no matter what.

  Stay strong!

  Lonnie

  Desi did write her back.

  I didn’t know that what’s happening here was on the news all the way in Omaha. I appreciate your prayers and your letter. The only thing I can tell you is that, to me, he didn’t deserve to die. But what I say doesn’t matter. So I try not to say anything.

  Lonnie was the outgoing one, the one that lived her life to the fullest, who took chances. She wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone and shared every private and forbidden detail of her life with Desi through her letters.

  Dear Desi,

  So I finally hooked up with James, and it really wasn’t all that. That boy kisses like a fish. Too much spit and he had no idea what to do with his tongue. It was all over the place, girl. But that’s okay, because I met his friend Steven and Steven saw me and I think that he’s probably a much better kisser than James. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.

  Dear Desi,

  Prom night! Remember Isaac? I went with him and I finally got laid. It hurt, but I think I’m going to like it.

  Dear Desi,

 
I got accepted into Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Momma doesn’t want me to move that far away, but I can’t wait to get out of Omaha. The world is bigger than Nebraska. I keep trying to tell her that. She looks at me like I’m an alien from another planet. I feel sorry for her.

  Dear Desi,

  Todd proposed, but I turned him down. I don’t think he’ll ever talk to me again, but it’s a relief if he doesn’t. We’re too young to get married, and he’s made it clear that he wants a house full of babies. Kids are cool—other people’s kids are cool. Marriage and babies sound like they’d be heavy and you know me. I like to travel light.

  It got to where Desi not only looked forward to hearing from Lonnie, but she came to depend on those letters. She could escape her surroundings through Lonnie’s letters. Desi experienced everything that Lonnie did, from what it felt like to get accepted into and to graduate from college, to the joy of getting her first real paycheck from her first real job, and even the pain and pleasure of falling in and out of love.

  Lonnie wrote regularly, except when life got in the way and she was too busy living it to think about stopping long enough to write to anybody. Those times were the hardest times for Desi, waiting and wondering if maybe Lonnie had had enough, and had decided that she’d outgrown Desi. But eventually, Lonnie came through like a champ and wrote page after page of every single thing that had happened to her since the last time she’d written.

  A few days before Desi was to be released, Lonnie wrote asking for Desi’s address in Blink, Texas. A month after Desi made it home, Lonnie knocked on the front door and officially introduced herself.

  “I got a place in Dallas,” she’d told Desi. Dallas was about a hundred miles northeast of Blink. “I would’ve found a place here in town, but—” She turned up her nose. “I’m just not a Blink, Texas, kind of girl, you understand.”

  Seeing Lonnie poured into those expensive jeans, stiletto thigh-high boots, and silk blouse, Desi nodded. “Oh, yeah. I understand.”

  Less than a year later, Lonnie lay sprawled out on the floor in Desi’s expensive living room. Desi leaned back against the wall. Between them was a nearly empty pizza box with a couple of half eaten slices left. On the floor around them were two empty beer bottles, and what was left of a bottle of Patrón Silver tequila.

  Lonnie was five-eight and shapely, with smooth, dark skin, and a smart bold fade that complimented beautiful high cheekbones and almond eyes. Her exotic features reminded Desi of someone who should’ve come from someplace in Africa instead of Nebraska.

  Lonnie’s unconventional beauty turned heads everywhere she went, and she played up her image wearing bright colors, huge earrings, and six-inch heels, making sure to leave the kind of indelible impression in people’s memories long after she’d left the room.

  Tonight she wore a simple maxi sundress, covered in pretty yellow daisies. Desi had on a pair of black, Capri leggings, and a white tank top. To anybody on the outside looking in, they were just two friends, hanging out together and getting drunk on the living room floor. And neither one of them had spent more than half of her life in prison.

  “I heard from my friend today,” Lonnie said, rolling over on her side to face Desi. “The one that works for the city.”

  Lonnie had friends in high places, and friends of friends who had friends in high places.

  “Yeah? What’d he say?” Desi slurred.

  “Well, the place does have an address. It didn’t just sprout up from the ground like a rose bush.” She laughed.

  “It’s a business?”

  Lonnie shrugged. “Don’t know. But he gave me the name and number of the owner. It’s in my purse.”

  Lonnie was a photojournalist, but not just any photojournalist. She didn’t just take pictures of weddings or babies. Lonnie traveled the world, snapping pictures of everyone from the queen of England to war-torn cities in the Middle East. Her stories and pictures had been published in Time magazine, Life magazine, and she’d even gotten one photo of a prominent politician sitting at a stoplight and kissing on a woman who wasn’t his wife. Lonnie had framed that one and proudly displayed it in her living room. A few weeks after she took it, the scandal about his infidelity broke, and eventually he had to step down from his position.

  Of the two of them, Desi gave Lonnie credit for being smarter, and she knew every damn body. Through the years, they’d become not only friends, but best friends, which was odd considering the circumstances of how they met.

  * * *

  Lonnie was the one who knew how to look at something objectively to analyze a situation and find the solution to the problem. She was the one who solved puzzles when all Desi could see were pieces scattered all over the place. Lonnie could pick out opportunity in a mountain of bullshit, and make something out of nothing. She knew how to take the jumbled chaos of everything Desi felt, and put some order to it. And she gave Desi permission to cry, curse, and scream without condemning her.

  So when Desi casually explained a brief encounter she’d had recently with someone from her past, Lonnie’s eyes lit up like high beams.

  “I’d just finished meeting with the realtor at the old house and was on my way back to Dallas when I saw the judge that presided over my trial, Judge Fleming,” she explained to Lonnie one afternoon over coffee.

  “You hadn’t seen him since you went to prison?”

  Desi shook her head. “He looked as old now, as he did back then. Like time had stood still for him.”

  “How’d it feel to see him again, Desi?”

  She paused before answering. “It scared me, Lonnie. It scared me just as much to see him now as it did to sit in the courtroom across from him back then. I felt like if he saw me, he could sentence me all over again.”

  “Any other judge sitting up here on this bench would give you the death penalty. You should thank God that I’m not any other judge.”

  “He stopped at the light and I pulled up alongside him. I don’t know why I did that, but, I couldn’t stop looking at him. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “He glanced at me, but he didn’t act like he knew who I was. When the light turned green and he pulled away, I followed him.”

  Lonnie’s eyes widened. “Why?”

  Desi shrugged. “I don’t know. I just … I don’t know what I expected to happen or where I expected him to go. Even if he just went to his house, I had no idea what I would do when he parked. I just did it.”

  Desi explained how she followed him on a stretch of road leading into the next county, and how he nearly ran off the road at one point.

  “I think he must’ve known that I was following him. I think he almost ran into that ditch because he saw me behind him.”

  “So you think he did recognize you?”

  “Maybe.”

  The judge sped up, but Desi was careful not to. Eventually, he slowed down and turned off onto a dirt road, but Desi kept going.

  “I doubled back,” she explained.

  “Where’d you think he was going, Desi?” Lonnie asked, concerned.

  “I don’t know, Lonnie, but I went back and turned down that same road. It didn’t look like it led to anywhere. I thought I was going to drop off into some ravine or something.”

  She drove for a few miles before she finally stopped and saw a one story, brick building, surrounded by tall trees, and the judge’s car parked out front. He’d stood by and watched as the valet, or whoever it was, drove away in his car, and then he walked up to the door and waited to be let inside.

  Lonnie’s curiosity was on fire. “Was there a sign on the building? An address that you could see?”

  “Nothing. Not even windows. But quite a few cars were parked on the back side of it, and when the judge went inside, I heard music.”

  Lonnie leaned back and relaxed. “A good ol’ boy’s club,” she said, sighing. “Did you go up and knock on the door?” Lonnie asked the question, knowing the answer already.
>
  Desi looked surprised. “Of course not.”

  Lonnie was disappointed. “Still afraid of the big, bad, wolf, I see.”

  Desi stared at her. “Something like that.”

  She told Lonnie about the place and where it was. Lonnie contacted her friend who had a friend working in the County Planning Office, and now she had an address and the name of the owner.

  Desi stared at the piece of paper Lonnie had pulled out of her purse and handed to her.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” she said, tossing back another shot of tequila.

  Lonnie was her usual cool and unflustered self. “You’re going to call the owner and ask him or her about the property at that address. Maybe tell them you came across it and you’re interested in buying it.”

  “It’s not that serious,” Desi said, tossing the paper aside.

  Lonnie picked it up. “Old judges don’t drive down dirt roads to go to unmarked buildings in the middle of the afternoon for nothing, Des. He’s hiding something. I feel it in my bones.”

  “Even if he is, what’s that got to do with me?”

  Lonnie stared, stone faced. “I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

  “So what are you implying, Lonnie? That I should dig up dirt on that old mother fucker and what?”

  Lonnie sighed. “You expect me to give you the answers to the test, Desi? Really?”

  “I don’t give a damn about what that old fool was doing out there in the middle of the woods. How’s that?”

  “Then why the hell did you follow him?”

  “To see … him! It wasn’t about anything else but to look at him, and to see him. I still had that picture of him in my head that was twenty-six years old. I guess I was hoping to see something different.”

  “I see an opportunity, Desi. That’s how my mind works. Every scenario, every situation, is an opportunity to discover something more.”