Sheila closed the door behind her shaking her head.
"Lord... Sylvia... how the hell you be getting the men you end up with?" Sheila went into her kitchen and sat at the table thinking. Wondering if Sylvia knew? She also thought about her time with Shawn. The person in that film and the man she met were not the same. Maybe the same person physically, but otherwise... he was different.
"Shit... what do I do? Do I tell Sylvia? But... if I tell her and she don't know... shit she may never bring her ass home. Then, if she does know, then she'll know I seen her man...ALL of her man. And that shallow ass, skank hoe Edwina! I can't believe her ass! I'm staying out of it! Staying - my - ass out of it! Not my goddamn problem! Girlfriend... you need to get your ass home!"
No sooner had she said that when the phone rang again. Sheila whimpered. "LEAVE ME ALONE YA'LL!!!" She stood and walked to it, staring at it, making a face. Finally she answered it, "Hello?"
"Sheila... it's me... Vivian."
Sheila whimpered and groaned. "What's up?"
"I took today off, I've decided to look for a place to stay. I ain't paying shit else on this place. What time is Shawn suppose to be there today, I have something I need to give him belonging to Jake."
Sheila sighed, "Their not coming, something came up at home... so they going straight back to Wisconsin."
"Oh... what happened? Sylvia okay?"
Sheila's lip rolled out and under, she was fighting it... but she didn't call Vivian, Vivian called her. "Yeah Sylvia okay, its something to do with Jake."
"JAKE?!" Vivian blurted his name, her heart stirring with nervous tension with just the mention of his name, especially connected to an emergency. "Is he... alright?" She asked with her ears ringing.
"Well... it all depends, um - the woman he was seein' - somebody name Doris, she commit suicide yesterday... killed herself. Listen... don't you dare tell Dennis that I told you! You cannot be over here asking me a lot of shit about it either, or else he'll know. 'Side's I'on know shit else."
"His girlfriend committed suicide? Dead?"
"Well yeah... last I heard, if its suicide... that mean you dead."
"Oh wow." Vivian felt her heart squeeze thinking about Jake, what he must be faced with now. She couldn't help but wonder what drove this woman to that? To actually killing herself. Was it something Jake did? Or something else. She held the phone and was quiet thinking about it. "That's sad. What makes a person so up against the wall, that they could actually go through with killing themselves? You think he pushed her to it?"
"Girl I don't know... that's hell though ain't it? Can you imagine what he must be going through? Who wants to have to deal with shit like that?"
"I guess under the circumstances, I'll just mail the money to him. I'll call his mom and get his address, I won't bother him, he's probably turned inside out right now."
"You think she did it because he might be splitting up with her? And if he was, why?"
"Don't really matter now does it? If he any kind of decent person at all, its gonna be a while before he shakes that off."
"True... let's get off that. So you moving out hm?"
"Yeah... I've had time to really think about it, I need to get my life in order, and I can't even begin as long as I'm living in here. It's not the same anymore, it was my home, now its like - something that's keeping me connected to Chan. So, I'm taking your advise and looking at apartments today. Can you do me a favor?"
"Ah shit... here we go... I knew it was coming."
"I got some places circle to go check out, but I don't wanna be riding the bus to do that. Please... can you take me around today? I'll put gas in your van."
"Why don't you get your ass a car!?"
"I can't give up that goddamn much money every month! Cars are expensive, shit... car notes and insurance... nooo, I like money in my pocket too much! Please Sheila... please!"
"DAMN GIRL! Yeah... you know I'm gone take yo' ass! You ain't got to beg! Shit... been here for your ass since you was a lil'nappy head ass peahen ... running after us! What time you want me to pick you up?"
"Oh thank you Sheila! You know you my girl! You know that don't'cha?" Vivian grinned happily.
"Look! You better tell me what time to pick you up!?"
"I'm ready now!"
"I'm tellin' you now... if I'm gone be out all day with you apartment huntin', you gone have to buy my family dinner! I got the gas - but I ain't gone be able to cook!"
"You got it baby... we gone get the works! Okay, come pick me up."
L. A...
Deidre sat up in bed listening to the doctor following an examination, he'd pulled the curtain back so that her visitors could now return to their visit. "You're recovering very well under the circumstances, I couldn't be more happy with how you're healing up. It's a good sign that you took very good care of yourself prelude to it all. You're a quick healer."
"Any hopes of me going home soon... like... today maybe?"
"Let's give you another day or two here... just to be sure nothing suddenly occurs."
"Oooh... I can lay in bed at home just as well as here."
"Not with everyone monitoring and protecting you - you can't. Come on... you've been such a good patient-..."
"That's because I was knocked out most of the time." Deidre grinned, Jeremiah and Terra both laughed as they stood and returned to her bedside.
"Well... I'll let you get back to visiting. You make an emergency team proud Ms. Wherrington."
The doctor departed with Terra joining Deidre by sitting on the side of her bed, with Jeremiah standing at the end of it. "I don't know what I would do if I didn't have you two here for me. Thank you so much."
"Hey... its the least that we could do." Jeremiah spoke up first.
"Hello? We are best friends... are we not?" Terra reminded her.
"Yes... the best ever."
"Well there you go, what good is a friend if they're not around when you need them most?"
"I needed you big time this time... and you came through for me Terra."
"Not to interrupt this, but detectives Johnson and Gleason are here. They have more on the case and questions to ask you." Jeremiah reminded her, walking to the room door and opening it to get the waiting detectives attention.
They both entered with their recorder, pen and pads, standing close to Deidre on either side of her bed. "It seems the doctor has given you a clean bill of health." Johnson was the first to address her.
"Not clean enough to go home today." She smiled.
"They know what's best... we feel better having you here until you can make arrangements to further the security." Gleason added.
Deidre looked at her, she was a mid-tone black woman with close cap cut hair. Tons of curls twirling about her scalp, tufts curling out from her side burns. She looked tough and Deidre knew that was intentional. She looked to be in the region of a size 14 more or less, with very direct brown eyes and dark full lips, shades deeper than her dark olive complexion so they really stood out.
"So you think I need further protecting?" Deidre asked.
"What do you think?" Johnson inserted.
Deidre looked towards the end of the bed where Terra and Jeremiah stood. "If she will agree, I know a place that's safe and very secure... at least until she's fully recovered." Jeremiah informed all. Deidre gazed at him, wondering where. "We'll discuss it after you've gone through the interview with the police. You all might wish to begin that now." He directed them, irritating the hell out of them both.
Gleason rolled her eyes at him, and turned to Deidre. "Ms. Wherrington, is there any reason that you can think of, why anyone would wish to kill you?"
Deidre was quiet and thinking, then shook her head. "No... I mean, well... I was feeling pretty paranoid a week or more ago."
"Why?" Johnson pressed.
"I was feeling disgusted, disgruntled toward my family... mainly, my mother and father. More so at my mother than anyone, but my father as well."
"
Why?"
"Things they'd done... to me, wrecking my first marriage. I suppose, the majority of that could be blamed on my mother."
"Things like what?"
"She's slept with my ex-husband."
"While you two were married?"
"She tried to. She did everything in her power to destroy our marriage, and succeeded. I was carrying my husband's second child, she did away with it as well."
"How?"
Deidre went on to explain as they jotted down all she said. Jeremiah was stunned, standing and listening to her, he realized just how despicable they were - which only strengthened his resolve to ruin them.
"Is this theory, or fact? That your mother had the child aborted?" Gleason asked.
"I believe with all my heart that it's fact! I of course have no hardcore proof of it."
"When did this happen? What hospital were you taken to? Where did you wake up?"
"A little over three years ago. At Rayomerre Dalton Clinic & Hospital. It's a private elite hospital, where our family doctor works, where my mother goes, my father. All of my family as far back as I can remember."
Gleason jotted that down. "We'll be paying them a visit." She informed Deidre. "What's the name of the doctor who attended you? Your family physician?"
"Dr. Valinchissvysik."
"How do you spell that?" Gleason looked up making a face.
Deidre spelled it out for her smiling.
"Has anything come back on her vehicle yet?" Jeremiah asked.
They both cut him a barely tolerable look. He was un-fazed.
"As a matter of fact it has, it's been tampered with, battery cables gone."
Jeremiah crossed his arms over his chest with a look of satisfaction. "I see... so let's consider this. Someone from Crenshaw, for whatever reasons, saw her Mercedes, decided to disable it - instead of stealing it - so she would be forced to take a taxi?! End up there, and in a gang war that almost... killed her. That what you think?"
"We're not stupid you know! We have finally concluded that this case is beyond that scenario!" Gleason interjected. "So you mind gettin' the hell off of our back so we can get to the bottom of it!" She finished.
"You'll have to excuse me if I fear getting off of your backs! If it weren't for me, this would have been written off with the wrong people setting up court dates for doing time! Like my brother for instance... irrelevant of the fact that they saved her life! I don't see any news reports highlighting that little detail! But the negative sure got out to the masses quick didn't it?"
"When we have all the facts, and its all wrapped up in a neat little package to be brought before a judge, there will be a news report stating the facts!" Johnson included his voice.
"Oh I guarantee it! You better believe there will be!" Jeremiah returned.
Deidre lay watching him. His confidence, his stand. His aggressive, fully informed presence could not be ignored. He was a man equipped to do legal battle with anyone. The extent of his knowledge and intelligence was inspiring to behold. She couldn't help it, she compared him to Shawn. Shawn was more street wise. While he was indeed a talented artist, a passionate man, a lover of children and family. He fit more of the stereotypical black man than Jeremiah. As much as she had loved Shawn, he had been a bit of a street brawler. No not lacking in intelligence, because she knew that he was highly intelligent, was a reader, a planner, a thinker, but - he was more of a reactionary. If his heart was touched, he attacked.
Jeremiah was different. His attack, his weapon - was his mind; was his genius. His knowledge. His confidence. He posture, eloquence and dark gaze. So different from Shawn. Shawn was more raw... gritty, ultra-aggressive and masculine. Yes, handsome to a fault, and could clean up and shine like the best of them, that was a certainty.
But Jeremiah Franklin, was in a class all by himself.
All by himself!
Those that had dealings with him, knew this as well. Deidre noted that as she listened and watched his affect on the detectives. She noticed that Terra was even watching him with admiring eyes. She must have felt her gaze, because she pulled her eyes from Jeremiah and looked at her and smiled, her eyes wide with a secret message to her. Deidre knew the message was, 'Wow... isn't he something?' Deidre smiled, because she agreed. That he was.
"Anyway, is it okay with you if we continue this interview, then be on our way to looking into the things we've listed?"
"If you weren't so easily distracted, you'd be done by now. That's been diagnosed by the way... A.D.D - I think there's something you can take for that."
Gleason flashed him her middle finger as Johnson ground down on his teeth, deciding to ignore him from then on. They went on to get from her the point to point events of that evening, with her getting to the point of standing in the alley.
"There I was, screaming my head off... realizing that I was most certainly going to die-..."
"Can I stop you for a moment? I need to ask you to focus a bit more on the cab driver, you said... he ignored your questions? I want you to focus on him, give us a little bit more on his behavior... really think about it before you answer." Johnson asked her.
Deidre took a deep breath thinking back to that night, back to sitting in the back seat of the taxi. Seeing and hearing all that took place, it was a bit fuzzy, but the more she thought it through, the more she remembered. Suddenly she looked up at them. "He said - Wait!"
"What do you mean... he said wait? Who said wait?"
"The man driving the taxi - they started shooting at it - and I distinctly remember him screaming out, 'Wait!' As if... he knew them - understood what was to happen, because he panicked trying to get away from them, then turned to me and yelled - get out get out get out! As if I were the main reason they were shooting at him."
Johnson and Gleason looked at each other and sighed.
"Okay... let's get back to you standing in the alley screaming... what happened then?"
"Suddenly, this small car speeds up to me, the door was thrown open and the girl inside yelled at me! She said if I wanted to live, to get in! I did... she tried to get me out of there, but they were all over us."
"So they went from shooting at the taxi you were in, to shooting at the car you jumped in."
"Yes... everything started happening in a loud blur after that. There was so much noise, and then I felt stinging burns here and there on my body. I wasn't sure, but I thought I'd probably been shot. At some point, I passed out. That's all I remember."
Johnson and Gleason took the last of their notes, looked up at her saying, "That's all for now. At some point in the future of this investigation, there will probably be more questions." Johnson informed her.
"I understand... no problem." She answered.
They both departed walking down the hall through the hospital and out through a door leading to the parking lot where their vehicle was parked. Climbing in, Johnson was the first to ask, "So what do you think? Are her parents capable? If so, did they plot it together? Or alone?"
"Hmmm, well... although her mother may be guilty of some scandalous acts, does that make her a murderer?"
"Depends on if you believe while pregnant she carried a child or an inhuman fetus?" Johnson pointed out.
"Good point. However, abortions are now legal depending on how early the pregnancy is - so regardless, that could be her reasoning."
"Yeah... maybe, but - she took her daughter's right away by possibly having a child aborted that she had no legal claim or right to do. Does that make her a murderer?"
"Well we're jumping the gun here. We have no proof that it actually happened that way. Maybe she miscarried and only believes her mother is responsible."
"True... okay... what about the father? What would be his motive?"
"To know that, we're going to have to dig into the family business... see who has greatest gain over whom? Who is it that holds the bigger piece of the pie, sort of speak." Gleason stated.
"Why do I feel like we're on our way to opening a nast
y can of worms?!" Johnson asked starting their car and pulling out of the parking lot.
"Because that's the business we're in... hunters of worms and maggots!"
Chapter 93
With the detectives gone, Deidre leaned back and relaxed a bit as Terra resumed her place by her bed, with Jeremiah giving them both a smile. "Ladies, I really would love to stick around, but I have a court appearance in an hour, I'm going to have to leave you two to your own devices." Jeremiah informed them, reaching forward, he squeezed Deidre's toes. "See you later. Do what the doctor says, they'll be releasing you in no time. I'll be back later to discuss that with you... okay?"
She smiled and nodded her head. "Sure... see you later." She beckoned softly.
Jeremiah turned to Terra and winked, "Take care of her, I'll be finding out who's next on the list to stand out here." He stated heading for the door, waving at both of them. When the door closed behind him, Terra turned to Deidre. "You are so lucky!"
"Me? Lucky... ah... yeah - sure I am, with six bullet holes healing in my hide. My daughter is happier with her father and Sylvia! My parents are lunatics! And I have security outside my hospital room! Sure... I'd call that lucky." Deidre summed up sarcastically.
"okay okay... well, maybe not that lucky. But hey... things are looking up - wouldn't you say?"
"Meaning what?" She asked, grinning as if she didn't know what she meant.
"Oh give me a break already! Look what just strolled out the door! I'd call that a turn for the better!"
"He's something isn't he?"
"Are you kidding me? You didn't get to see him in action! I did... he's more than something! Deidre... wake up! Don't blow it! Shawn... that's history... a closed chapter. You know it, I know it!"
"Yes... I do. It was so nice to see him here - I will admit that, it made my heart glad. To see Angela. She was so happy Terra. I've never seen her so animated. So joyful, considering all that's happened, it's a good thing she was with her father and not me."
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