“Yeah.” The man’s face seemed to light up at the mention of Penny’s name.
“You and Carla?”
A sad sigh escaped the man’s lips. “Carla was the love of my life, man. I mean, I was as much in love as a nineteen-year-old young hustler could be. And she was just a little high school freshman.”
“That’s statutory, man—” Jason began.
“I know. Trust me, her mama threatened to have me locked up when Carla ended up pregnant. I wanted to do the right thing. Even went and asked if I could marry her.” The man chuckled uneasily. “Her mama said hell no, and threatened me with a gun. She said she was gonna have me locked up for messing with her child. And I think she would have, if they hadn’t gotten me on that bum murder rap before she got the chance.”
“You did time for murder?” Jason started to get an uneasy feeling. Given Carla’s history, he would have pegged the man for a former drug dealer. But murder?
“Yes. But they just let me out after DNA testing proved I was innocent all along. I might just sue. Them damn cops should have looked harder for the real murderer.” He must have realized that he was riding with a cop. “I mean, I got nothing against cops and all. I just feel like the whole system did me dirty, you understand?”
Jason could have gone into a discussion on the merits of the Paterson Police Department. But he knew sometimes the wrong people got locked up. Just ask Rubin “Hurricane” Carter…So he nodded to encourage the man to keep talking.
He was beginning to think he knew who this man was—and that there might be a connection between this man’s recent release and the newest cold-case file to come across his desk. If there was, then there might be some clues to be gained that could lead him to figure out who the real murderer was.
“Anyway, I realize all cops ain’t bad. I mean, you seem like a cool dude. Maybe with some younger cats on there, some brothers, maybe the Paterson Police Department has changed some since I been gone.” The man glanced out the window as he spoke.
The tone of his voice and the fact that he wouldn’t look in Jason’s direction, let him know the man hardly believed what he’d just said.
Jason could sniff out a lie a mile away. That’s why he wasn’t going to let Penny leave again until he got the truth out of her, once and for all.
Jason cleared his throat. “My name is Jason Hightower, by the way.”
“Yeah. I’m Gerald McEarly.”
Bingo. Gerald McEarly was the man who’d originally been convicted in the case on his desk. He’d recently been cleared of a double murder—a married couple who had been prominent community activists on a crusade to rid the streets of drugs and crime. Now Jason knew he had to try to find out as much about the man as he could. Finding out about him might offer up some clues that would help him solve the case.
“Well, Gerald, welcome back. I grew up with your daughter, and we dated throughout high school before we both went away to college.”
“Oh, really?”
Jason could feel Gerald’s eyes on him as he drove. He turned quickly and found the man studying him intently.
Jason offered a little of his own history to make Gerald feel comfortable. “We grew up in the same church, and played together as kids. Me, her and our friend Terrill used to be inseparable.”
“Umm…what happen?”
“Times change. People change.” Jason had no desire to rehash the past with Penny’s dad. The point was to get Gerald to open up. It would be nice if he could gather some insight into who might have had the biggest motive to set Gerald up for murder, or who might have had an even bigger motive to commit the crime.
Gerald probably wouldn’t offer up that information if he flat out asked him tonight. But he might offer some insight unknowingly, if Jason could get him talking. It was surprising how many cold cases were solved just by detectives talking to people, reinterviewing old witnesses, that kind of thing. Time could help the truth come out, at least in some cases.
“So when did you get out? And what made you decide to stop by their place tonight?”
“I just wanted to see my daughter. I’d only ever seen the baby pictures and pictures of her as a toddler. And then, for a minute when she was dancing in them videos, I saw some of them when the guys would watch them in jail. But you know, the last thing a guy wants to do is listen to a bunch of horny jailbirds commenting on the video girls and know one of them is his daughter.”
Jason nodded. The last thing a college student wanted to do was watch music videos with his new college buddies and listen to them rave about that hottie with the body and the copper eyes. His college years had been rough thanks to Penny’s stint as a video vixen.
He pulled up to the address on Temple Street that Gerald had given him and made a U-turn so he could drop him off right in front of the weathered gray house.
“Thanks for the ride, young man. I appreciate it.” Gerald opened the door and slowly stepped out. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
Oh, you can count on that.
Until Jason found out who had really committed those murders, and whether this man was any threat to Penny, Gerald McEarly would definitely be seeing more of him. He nodded as Gerald shut the door. Instead of heading home, Jason went to the precinct. He had a sudden urge to find out all he could about Gerald McEarly, and to dive into the latest cold case to land on his desk.
The downtown precinct of the Paterson Police Department was unusually busy, even for a Friday night. Jason tried to take that as a positive sign, since it meant many more criminals were off the street, at least for the night. But a crowded precinct meant there was more crime out there to begin with.
Ideally, he’d be home watching a game with his brothers or out on a hot date on his night off. Ideally, he wouldn’t even be concerned about the drama going on in the life of his cheating ex-girlfriend. Too bad ideal situations seemed to be lacking, and all he was left with was this obsessive and overwhelming need to protect and serve Penny.
The fact that her father was the man cleared of murder in a just-reopened cold case wasn’t lost on him. He didn’t believe in coincidences.
“Hey, Jason. What are you doing here tonight? I thought this was your night off.” His brother Lawrence eyed him as he chugged coffee out of Jason’s Pace University alumni mug.
Jason had gotten his BS in forensic science from Pace’s stellar program. Once he was done, he’d moved back to Paterson and joined the Paterson Police Department, like his father and other men in his family—the ones who weren’t firemen, anyway. The desire to serve the community just seemed to run through the blood of Hightower men, and he was no different. It had never really occurred to him to do anything else.
He was tempted to snatch his mug away from his nosy older brother, but he decided it wasn’t really worth it. “What are you doing here? I thought you all but moved into the satellite trailer on Governor Street since the McKnight twins were released.”
It was rare that their paths crossed, since Jason spent the bulk of his time going through old reports, retesting old evidence when newer, more cutting-edge tools became available and interviewing old witnesses for new clues. As a narcotics detective, Lawrence spent the majority of his time in surveillance mode, stalking dealers and getting them off the streets.
Lawrence shrugged. “Somebody has to keep the riffraff in line. But that still doesn’t tell me what you’re doing here.”
“I just wanted to do a little research.” Telling Lawrence he wanted to do research on Penny’s father would no doubt earn him an earful that he had neither the time nor the inclination to listen to, so Jason left that out. “The release of the guy cleared of the double murder of that community activist couple means more work for me.”
Lawrence nodded knowingly. “Pouring yourself into your work might be just the ticket until Penny goes back to Los Angeles. You don’t want to end up doing anything stupid.”
If by stupid Lawrence meant hounding Penny for answers and digging through her fa
ther’s records to make sure the man wasn’t a threat, he was way too late.
When it came to Penny, Jason realized, he bypassed stupid and went headfirst into crazy.
“Yeah, well, a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.” Jason shrugged and started to walk away. “And make sure you clean out my mug and put it back. I don’t know why you always take my mug, with all the dang mugs there are in this place—including three of your own.”
Lawrence grinned and held up the mug in a mock salute.
Jason kept going and didn’t stop until he entered the records room.
After several hours reading up on Gerald McEarly, Jason felt he didn’t know the man any better than he had before he started. Nothing in the man’s past seemed to scream that he’d be a threat to Penny. But Jason couldn’t say for sure he wouldn’t be.
And there was also nothing about Gerald McEarly’s past that seemed to point to who the real murderer was.
Who had done it? Someone had killed the couple and hadn’t had to pay for it. Nothing in the court records, or Gerald’s police records, gave any hint of a lead.
Gerald McEarly had made bad decisions in his past. Decisions that would have landed him in jail eventually even if he hadn’t been found guilty of the crime he’d recently been cleared of. That meant he had to be watched carefully, as far as Jason was concerned.
If Penny weren’t involved, he might not have been so obsessed about Gerald. But she was, and Jason had to come to grips with the fact that it made all the difference in the world.
Jason rubbed his head in frustration and leaned back. There were times when his stubborn streak paid off. Unfortunately, tonight didn’t seem like one of those nights.
It took a certain amount of tenacity to be a good detective, and even more to be a cold-case detective. What other kind of person would think he could solve crimes that were sometimes decades old?
He stood and walked over to the only window in the small room. The sounds of the still very busy police department seemed miles away, and the pounding of his heart seemed way louder than normal.
Cars zoomed down Martin Luther King Boulevard. As he watched them, he tried to process his feelings.
Penny was back for a short time. The very beautiful woman was the same very beautiful girl who’d lied to him and stomped on his heart. Why the heck was he spending his Friday night trying to make sure her deadbeat dad meant her no harm?
Because it’s related to your case, he told himself. But he knew that was only a fraction of the reason why.
Given Penny’s deceit, maybe she and her parents deserved one another. He should really leave them to their sordid little lives….
Then he thought about Penny. His Penny… His copper-eyed angel…
She’d been as sweet and innocent as they came back then. She’d given him her heart and her virginity, and no one could tell him they hadn’t been soul mates.
So what had made her stray?
And what had made his other best friend, the only man outside his family he’d have trusted with his life, the one he’d thought would always have his back, want to destroy him without any regard?
Those questions had overwhelmed his detective’s mind for the past fifteen years. Now he had to complicate it with Penny and Terrill’s reappearance, questions about Penny’s father and the reopened murder case.
He groaned out loud and moved away from the window. Nothing would be solved tonight. But he knew he wouldn’t rest until at least one fifteen-year-old mystery was laid to rest. He would find out why Penny and Terrill had betrayed him.
Chapter 5
The adult choir always sang on the second Sunday at Mount Zion, and Penny was happy for it. Not that she didn’t appreciate the staid and steady songs sung by the elders in the senior choir, which Big Mama used to belong to, but they did seem to make church service drag on just a little bit longer whenever they sang.
And with every single member of the Hightower family, including Jason, sitting in church this afternoon, she wanted the service over quickly, so she and Terrill could get out of there without having to have yet another uncomfortable, awkward encounter.
Determined not to draw attention to herself, Penny didn’t even stand up and sing along with the choir.
“Speak to My Heart” was one of her favorite songs. Today, calmness came over her spirit when she heard the song. It almost seemed as if, by sitting still and listening properly, she’d be able to figure out the right thing to do.
She did manage to clap as the choir finished singing. The soloist had a voice like an angel, and Penny could see the wheels turning in Terrill’s record executive head. Since there was no way they’d be able to have him try to connect with the potential next big thing and get out of the church without running into the Hightower family, Penny hoped he’d turn his star-finding mode off. She thought about shooting up a silent prayer. But given her track record since she arrived home, she had an inkling of how that prayer would be answered.
She was starting to regret her decision to come to service. She should have been spending the day going through Big Mama’s things and deciding what to tackle first at the start of business on Monday morning. The sooner she wrapped things up, the sooner she’d be able to go back to Los Angeles.
The last time Penny spoke to her business partner, Maritza Morales, she had said she had everything under control. However, Penny still felt the need to get her life back to normal as soon as possible. Last night with Jason had been a close call. She didn’t think she could take much more of his probing.
Then there was the fact that she was still very much attracted to him…. If that kiss they’d shared was any indicator, the man still sparked her fire.
Lord, look at me lusting after the man. And in church, no less. Forgive me.
She took a small peek toward the ceiling and hoped lightning didn’t come down and strike her.
“Ahhh, speak to my heart. Speak to my heart!” The pastor stood behind the podium and pounded it with his hand. “Oh, some of us bid the Lord to speak to us and tell us what to do, but we don’t listen…. Y’all don’t hear me…”
The pastor turned as if he were going to walk away, only to be called back by the responses of “Preach!” and “Tell it!” from the congregation.
“It never ceases to amaze me how God’s children can see signs of His desires for them all around them. Know in their heart what the Lord wants them to do. Hear the soft sweet voice of Je-sus whispering the right thing in their ear, and still go off and do what they want to do. Still go off and do things their own way. That’s disobedience, church!”
“Sure is! Tell it, Pastor!”
“Mmm…hmmm…. Preach!”
The amen choir was in full form today, ready to amplify and agree with everything the pastor said. The man had just started preaching, and already they were dead on with the call and response.
The sun shone through the beautiful stained-glass windows of the church, each one a superb artistic rendering of a key moment in Jesus’s life, from his birth in the manger to his death on the cross. The bold colors of the stained glass refracted the light and dispersed it around the church in such a way that even the glass seemed to be in accord with the pastor’s powerful voice.
Penny felt an odd stirring deep inside of her, and she looked down at her hands in an effort to find something to do besides listen to the pastor. She recognized the feeling coming over her for what it was.
Big Mama used to say you knew it whenever the Word was speaking to you, knew it when you came to church and got the message God was trying to send to you, knew it when the word was meant for you.
“Some of y’all think you know better than the Lord. You think you have a better plan for your life than God does!” The pastor slammed his hand on the podium and did a little spin. “And some of you so high and mighty, you think you have a better plan for others’ lives, too. You’re not just content to ignore God’s plans for you. You’re so tough, you think you know what�
��s best for everybody. You’re busy messing with God’s plans for others. Some of y’all are busybodies, always in other folks’ business.”
“I know that’s right, Pastor! Mmmph.”
Was that Sophie’s voice? I know that wasn’t Sophie.
Penny shook her head at the fact that not everyone was ready to hear the message. Truth be told, she wasn’t ready to hear it, either. But she wasn’t hypocritical enough to act as if she didn’t have the faults the pastor was preaching about.
“Preach on it! Preach on it!” One of the deacons waved his right hand in the air in agreement with what the pastor said.
“See, but I’m gonna tell you something you might not know.” The pastor leaned forward on the podium, as if he were letting them in on a secret. “You can’t mess with God’s will.” He stepped back and shook his head. “No. What God has planned for a man, no other man can mess with. His will be done. On Earth as it is in Heaven.” He pointed his finger at the congregation. “You can’t mess with God’s will!”
“Sure can’t!” a younger woman shouted.
Another man clapped and stood. “Tell ’em, Pastor. You betta tell them!”
“And even if you ignore the voice of God, speaking to your heart and telling you the right thing to do, you can’t ignore it for long. God isn’t going to let you cause havoc and strife in the lives of His children for long, either…”
Penny started thinking about her role in Jason and Terrill’s broken friendship. She had decided at the time that deceit was the best route to take, even though everything in her heart told her it was wrong. She had thought it would be best for Jason if she was no longer a part of his life.
She hadn’t meant for Terrill to become a casualty of the fallout.
At the time, she’d decided to ignore everything she knew was right, even her own love for Jason. But she’d done it so he could have a better life. Didn’t that count for something? It wasn’t as if she’d done it to be cruel.
“Not even your best intentions can measure up to the Master’s plan. And if you truly let God work through you, then you’d know that…” The pastor’s words seemed to be a direct response to her thoughts.
Protect and Serve Page 7
