Family of Lies

by Mary Monroe

  “Good morning. You look a lot better than you did when they brought you two nights ago. And I am happy to say that you’re going to be all right.”

  “My head hurts,” I mumbled, sitting up. I was so tired and weak I could barely move. It took me a few seconds to realize I was in a hospital bed and there was an IV tube attached to my right arm. “I can’t hear out of my left ear,” I reported. I touched my ear, which had a bandage on it, and it tingled.

  “You were shot. The thick, stone-filled earrings you had on saved your life. The bullet ricocheted off of it and only pierced your earlobe. You were very lucky.”

  “I don’t know about that. I sure don’t feel so lucky,” I muttered.

  The doctor, whose name tag identified him as Dr. Louie Choy, nodded. “You may have some minor problems with hearing for a few days. But other than that, you’re going to be as good as new.”

  “Did Curtis Thompson get shot too, Dr. Choy?” I asked.

  He responded with a weak nod.

  I looked Dr. Choy in the eyes and said, “My husband did this to me. Bohannon Harper. His cousin Cash Booker was with him when he did it. I remember them kicking in my boyfriend’s front door and coming into the apartment with a gun. And . . . my stepmother was in on the whole thing. She was the ringleader. They planned to commit murder days ago. I overheard them with my own ears. Call the police so I can tell them everything I know.”

  Dr. Choy gave me a sympathetic look. “Ma’am, all three of the perpetrators are in custody and they’ve all confessed.”

  “What? Oh my God,” I moaned. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do now. “My life will never be the same again.”

  Just knowing that three people I had lived with for years and had some feelings for were willing to kill a man—and me and anybody else who’d been with him—was almost more than I could stand. That was bad enough. But the fact that I had known about the crime before it happened and chose to let them do it said a lot about me. Bo, Cash, and Vera not having any regard for human life, except their own, was one thing. They were heartless monsters! But with me not warning Curtis and then choosing to sacrifice my own life, was the same true of me? Had I lost my way so severely that I no longer had any regard for human life either? Had I died, my poor daddy would have been devastated!

  “You’re a healthy and strong young woman. Take life one day at a time. I’ll refer you to a good therapist and after a few sessions, you’ll be just fine.”

  “Yeah. I’ll get over this, but it’s going to kill my daddy. Bad news like this is going to be real hard on him,” I muttered. I didn’t like the sad look on the doctor’s face. “He’s been so sick lately he’s in the hospital too. Does he know about what happened to me?”

  “Uh, Mrs. Harper, I am so sorry.”

  “What? Tell me!”

  Dr. Choy moaned like a sick man himself. He removed his horn-rimmed glasses and massaged his forehead. When he looked at me again, he shook his head and took a deep breath. I knew that whatever he had to tell me was bad, so I braced myself. I took a deep breath too.

  “Ma’am, I hate to tell you this, but the sooner you know the better. You are Kenneth Lomax’s daughter. Unfortunately, you no longer have a close relative available to tell you this, but . . . your father didn’t make it.” Dr. Choy gently patted my arm. “When he got the news about what had happened to you . . .” The doctor paused. For a second I thought he was going to cry. That’s how sad he looked. “The news was too much for him. He immediately suffered a massive heart attack. We did all we could.”

  “My daddy’s dead,” I mumbled. “My daddy’s dead!” I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. Dr. Choy handed me a tissue. Before I knew it, I was crying and shaking so hard, I wanted to die more than ever now. I was glad that I had visited Daddy before I went to Curtis’s place to meet my fate. At least I got to say good-bye to him. But I never thought that he’d be the one to die.

  I stopped crying and blew into the tissue. After taking a few deep breaths, I was able to speak again. “I was supposed to die with Curtis. I overheard them talking about how they were going to kill him and leave no witnesses. I loved him and I was going to leave my husband to be with him. I went to Curtis’s place because I wanted to die with him. That was the only way we were going to be able to be together,” I said, staring at the wall.

  “With all due respect, ma’am, that part of this tragedy is none of my business. But whatever you and Mr. Thompson decide to do now, I wish you all the best.”

  I turned sharply to look at Dr. Choy. “Is Curtis really going to make it? Can we be together after all?”

  “Yes, he is going to make it, but he’s in critical condition.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Only relatives are allowed to see him.”

  “How is he doing? Is he going to be all right?”

  “Mr. Thompson will live, but I predict that he will have some problems in the future. I’d rather not say any more about his condition at this time. Now you get some rest.”

  How in the world could I rest knowing that Curtis was in the same hospital in critical condition and my daddy was dead?

  I rested for about an hour. After a nurse with cold hands gave me a sponge bath, I called the hospital operator to get Curtis’s room number. I was pleased to hear that he was on the same floor I was on, just four rooms down on the opposite side of the hall.

  I sat up and carefully removed the IV cord from my arm. I didn’t know if I was causing myself any physical harm or not. But under the circumstances, I didn’t care if I lived or died. I scrambled out of the bed and didn’t bother to try locating my street clothes. It dawned on me that they were probably covered in blood anyway, so even if I had them in the room, I couldn’t wear them. I snatched a hospital robe off the hook behind the door and put it on. I was light-headed and my legs were kind of wobbly, but I managed to make it to Curtis’s room in a couple of minutes. As soon as I got inside, I regretted what I had done. First of all, he looked worse than I expected. They had shaved off all the hair on one side of his head and a bandage covered his left eye. His other eye was closed so I assumed he was either in a coma or asleep.

  A scowling, middle-aged black woman with a frizzy wig sitting sideways on her head occupied a chair by the side of the bed. I had never met Curtis’s mother before, but I knew that was who she was.

  “I’m . . . I’m Sarah Harper,” I stammered.

  “I know who you is. You Kenneth Lomax’s daughter,” Mrs. Thompson snarled, folding her arms. “You the reason my boy got shot up!”

  I remained by the door, in case she got so hostile I had to bolt from the room. She looked like she wanted to wring my neck. “Ma’am, I’m so sorry about what happened. But I love your son and he loves me. I wanted to spend my last moments on earth with him. That’s why I was there that night.”

  Mrs. Thompson’s jaw dropped and she gave me an incredulous look. “So you knew what was going to go down, huh?”

  “Something like that. I had heard my stepmother and my husband plotting to kill Curtis. But there was nothing I could do to stop them. And I figured that if I told Curtis, it would make the situation worse.”

  “So you let them niggers shoot my child? You must not have ‘loved’ him that much! As far as I’m concerned, you just as guilty as the rest of them devils and your black ass ought to be up in that jailhouse right with their asses! If the police don’t arrest you for something, I’m going to hire me a smart-ass Jew lawyer and sue the shit out of your rich ass!”

  “What’s done is done and I can’t change it!” I didn’t care if this woman was Curtis’s mama or not. I was not going to let her bully me. “You can stop talking that shit right now!”

  Right after I stopped talking, Curtis opened his right eye. It was severely bloodshot. A black shadow had formed a ring around it that looked like a bull’s-eye. He looked at his mother first, then at me. From the grimace on his face, I could tell he was still in pain. But he m
anaged a smile anyway.

  “Hello, baby,” Mrs. Thompson said. She stood up and leaned over the bed. “You look way better today than you did the other night when they brought you in.” Mrs. Thompson had attractive features and without that scowl on her face now, she was almost pretty. But as soon as I got closer to the bed, she got ugly again. Her evil-looking black eyes glared at me. Her thick lips quivered as she balled up her fists. For a moment, I was afraid that she was going to punch me in the nose. “You ain’t supposed to be in this room no how, Miss Girl! You ain’t even no relative!” she yelled.

  “Mama, please,” Curtis managed with a weak cough. He shook for a few seconds like he was having a spasm. Then he looked at me with his eye fluttering and pooled with tears. “Sarah, you can let your husband know that when I get up out of this hospital, his butt is mine,” he told me with a tortured laugh and another cough.

  “Son, you ain’t got to worry about that motherfucker! He’ll be doing some hard time,” Mrs. Thompson shouted with glee, glaring at me some more. “And I hope you don’t be fool enough to waste any more of your time with this woman!”

  “Mama, this is the woman I love,” Curtis declared. I was surprised that he was able to speak in a much stronger voice this time. “If she still wants me, I’m going to be with her.” He turned to me with such an endearing look on his face it made me feel more loved than I’d ever felt before in my life.

  “I love you, too, baby. And everything is going to be all right for us now,” I assured him.

  “I know it is,” he agreed.

  CHAPTER 67

  VERA

  THE MINUTE THEY LOCKED THAT CELL DOOR BEHIND ME, I REGRETTED every wrong thing that I had ever done in my life. Even little things like cheating on a test in high school and sneaking into the movies through a side door so I wouldn’t have to pay when I was a teenager. My mother had frequently told me that “God don’t like ugly,” and every time I’d heard those words I had laughed. I had laughed because I had convinced myself that I was too slick to get caught doing anything wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for the mess I’d gotten myself into now. And there was no way out of it.

  Everything had happened so fast that night, but it was a poorly laid out plan from the beginning. Cash had driven his SUV and parked six blocks from Curtis’s building. He and Bo had walked the rest of the way. Wearing the shabby clothes I had picked up for them, they probably looked just as much like a couple of middle-aged punks as the real ones. I had checked out Curtis’s unit the same day that I’d visited his neighborhood to gather information about him from his neighbors. His place was exactly what I had expected—dreary and at the end of a long, dark, musty-smelling hallway on the fourth floor. The door to the stairwell was right across the hall from the door to his apartment. I had told Bo and Cash to get off on the floor below Curtis’s and then take the stairs up to his floor. I had made it clear to them that they were not to put on their masks until just before they bolted out of the stairwell. After they had accomplished their mission, they were supposed to leave by the stair well.

  I had briefed them one last time that afternoon when I made a quick stop at the store and ushered them into one of the storerooms. “As soon as you duck back into the stairwell, put the masks and the gun in a plastic bag. Take the stairs all the way to the ground floor. When you exit the building, don’t do anything to attract attention. If somebody says something to one of you, ignore them,” I said, looking from Bo to Cash. They looked like a couple of scared rabbits and for a brief moment I had second thoughts about going through with this crime. But I ignored that thought. We had come too far to back out now. “Do not run—walk back to the car. Bring the plastic bags with the gun and masks to me and I will dispose of them.”

  “I just hope none of them punks over there jump us before we can even get up in that place,” Cash said.

  “Or after we get back out of the building,” Bo added, nervously raking his fingers through his hair.

  I rolled my eyes in exasperation and gave them an impatient, dismissive wave. “Well, if that happens, use the gun on them too. And then run like hell!” I snapped. “But I wouldn’t worry about any of that happening. This job should be as easy as a walk in the park. Curtis won’t know what hit him.”

  But Curtis had not been an easy target.

  After Bo and Cash had arrived at his place and kicked in his door, there was a fierce struggle, and Bo dropped his wallet. During the struggle, somebody had inadvertently kicked the wallet under the couch. Bo didn’t know he’d dropped it until it was too late. The cops found it and that was why they had shown up at the house shortly after Bo and Cash had made it back home.

  From that point on, things fell apart like a straw house in a hurricane. Bo still had the gun in his pocket and my fingerprints were on it too. The plastic bag with the ski masks, with Curtis’s blood on them, had been found on the floor of Cash’s SUV. To this day, I ask myself how I could have been stupid enough to initiate such a serious crime with two stooges like Bo and Cash.

  And those stooges had left no stone unturned when they made their confessions. They threw my ass under the bus with both hands. I had admitted to the cops that I had been foolish to orchestrate such a heinous crime. But I’d tried desperately to minimize my involvement by falling back on the “I’ve been having senior moments lately” defense. “Women my age do a lot of irrational things!” I pointed out, waving my hands and shaking like a lunatic in front of law enforcement officials who had already made up their minds about me. I had even tried to claim that a hormonal imbalance had affected my actions. Unfortunately, that had only made me look even more foolish. The bottom line was, I was going to be held accountable for my actions no matter what. Bo and Cash had been easy to manipulate and it had been their downfall. But for me, plain old greed had destroyed me.

  My lawyer, Monty Klein, advised me to plead no contest to avoid a nasty trial and possibly get more time if a jury found me guilty. I eagerly took his advice.

  I was facing some serious jail time and that was bad enough, but my standing in the community and my reputation were dead in the water too. For the first time in my life, I regretted not having a support system of my own. I had avoided people who had attempted to cultivate friendships with me. Kenneth’s friends had become my friends by default, but under the circumstances, I didn’t expect a single one of them to offer me their support. And none of them did. Not even the few women I’d associated with who had probably had way more sinister tendencies than I! However, two days after my arrest, I got a brief visit from Shirley Biddle, the woman I’d given one of my former lovers to as a Christmas gift a few years ago. She had worn dark glasses and a hat pulled down over her head when she came to see me. All she’d had to say was, “I’m sorry you’re in the mess you’re in—but please don’t tell anybody anything about me and that boy you gave to me, or any of my other romantic activities! I don’t want to end up losing everything I’ve worked so hard for.” Shirley’s desertion didn’t even faze me. I was already depressed beyond belief.

  Despite the hot water I was in, I had at least one cushion to fall back onto. I had a substantial amount of money in my bank account to use until I got whatever Kenneth had left for me in his will. I thought that would make my grim situation a little easier to deal with. My bail was high, but I had enough in my account to cover that and a place to stay when I bailed myself out. I knew I couldn’t return to the mansion, so I needed a place to stay until they sentenced me.

  I had been behind bars for twelve days and that was twelve days too many. Just being let out of that dank cell to meet with my attorney in the visiting area was like a breath of fresh air. I was going to get myself out of this mess no matter what. If things looked too bad for me, after I’d bailed myself out, I’d bolt. I’d use the rest of my money to relocate to a country that didn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States.

  I was wrong. That plan wasn’t even going to get off the ground.

  Des
pite the fact that this was the most serious situation I had ever had to face, I was able to smile at Monty. He didn’t smile back. Instead, he gave me a profound look of pity and didn’t hesitate to tell me why. What he told me next made my head spin like a top. “I hate to tell you this, Vera, but Curtis Thompson has retained an attorney. He’ll be filing a massive civil lawsuit against you. And you need to know now that his attorney is a very aggressive one who has never lost a case.” Monty could barely look me in the eye as he spoke. “Your stepdaughter has canceled all of the credit cards and frozen all of her father’s bank accounts. She’s the only one who can access them. And I really hate to tell you this, but the personal bank account you opened in your name a few years ago, the court has frozen it pending the lawsuit.”

  “What do you mean ‘frozen’? That’s my money!” I yelled. “It’s not in a joint account with Kenneth or connected to his business! How can the court do that?”

  “For the record, it’s not just the court. You never filed taxes to report the interest on this account. That interest is considered income. One thing I’ve learned is that you don’t want your name to be added to Uncle Sam’s shit list when it comes to money. Some folks get away with it, some don’t. But your name is all over the news these days, and Uncle Sam has eyes and ears everywhere, especially in the banks. I have a client sitting in federal prison right now because he went for years without filing . . . just like you. Even if the court releases the freeze, which will only happen if Mr. Thompson stops the lawsuit, Uncle Sam will refreeze it until he gets his piece of the pie. And I’m sure you know how slowly their wheels turn. With penalties, fees for late payment, and possibly a charge against you for income tax evasion, it could take years before this issue is resolved. And let’s pray that the state doesn’t jump on the bandwagon too.”