by Erica Hale
Neither one of my parents had any idea why I was really here and they would have shot down the idea of me uprooting Anthony to chase a lead. So, my endless string of lies continued.
“You always were head strong like your momma. Never taking no for an answer. I just knew that one day you would up and leave and start a life somewhere else. Maybe while you are out there, you could find a nice young man to bring home, so the family can humiliate you in front of him. When a man thinks your family is crazy, and it doesn’t bother him, that is a man that you keep.”
“I will keep that in mind while I put on a safari hat and hunt down a man. Don’t know if I told Mom or not, but Anthony and I will be back for Christmas, unless there is a foreign or domestic terrorist situation that I need to cover.”
“Don’t be funny. I’ll let you go, and give my grandson a kiss for me and tell him that I love and miss him so bad that it hurts,” he said.
“I’m sure that he already knows, but I’ll tell him. Love you, Dad."
“Love you too, Lo.”
It was always a wonderful feeling to know that somewhere out there in the world people love you. That people missed your presence when you’re not there. So why did I feel like a pile of trash?
My mood took a deeper dive when I looked at my laptop. I had set my homepage as my old paper’s website. A photo of Thomas James Clay, handcuffed and handsome as he wanted to be. The beast didn’t even have the decency to bow his head going into the courtroom. He faced the camera head on, grinning from ear to ear.
The photo of him was a color one, showing a perfect set of white teeth and forest green eyes. They had labeled him in some new reports gorgeous and ruggedly attractive, even though the man was a monster and a creature that stepped into a pretty suit and walked among innocent people. The headline read, ALLEGED MURDERER, CLAY MAY TAKE THE WITNESS STAND.
No, this couldn’t be happening. I skimmed the paper. They were planning on having this piece of human waste take the stand next two weeks. I was running out of time and a surge of panic began to take over.
I took the phone off the bed and dialed.
“I thought you would be in bed by now.”
“Erron, why didn’t you tell me that the trial had already started?” The back of my nightshirt was starting to stick to me. “Hell, I talked to you today. What are you going to do to stop this?”
I don’t remember standing or when I began to pace around my room. The carpet was going to wear out in the semi-circle that I had made around the bed.
“Regardless of what this guy has done, this is still America and he has the right to a speedy and fair trial. I still have to do my job, Lauren. As we stand, the prosecution has nothing, nothing solid, anyway. Clay can be a free man by the end of July.”
Erron had stalled without suspicion and it was going to have to deliver and soon for his client.
The man was doing his job but a little too well and I couldn’t fault him. “Damn, Erron. You know what this means, right? The Marks family will be forever altered if we don’t do something.”
Corey Marks, age thirty-four years old, a truck driver coming down from Canada made one stop that ended his life, leaving behind a wife and a two-year-old son.
His mother sat in silence at Clay’s arraignment. The young man’s father had tears met under his chin. An older sister from Oregon drove to see the man, if you can call him that that killed her baby brother in cold blood.
Clay had no right to be alive, let alone to be smiling at a damn camera.
“I’m doing the best that I can, Lauren. You have to believe me,” Erron whispered. When I’d first met him, he was this overly confident, poor man’s Morris Chestnut wannabe. And that was just in high school. By the time we got into college, Erron was every girl’s dream, he came from money, he was highly intelligent and had ambition.
Through the cockiness, which was well deserved, he had met his match with Clay. The sexy smile that he wouldn’t hesitate to glow at me while I was in the courtroom with him. Days before I left for Planters, everything about him became dim and faded. Everything about him had been washed out or sunk. The mental hell that had been placed on him I would only wish on Clay.
Erron never cared if his clients were guilty or not. If what they had been accused of didn’t mess up his golf game or create scratches on his black on black Maybach, he lived to see another day. Then came Clay. “Did you know that there are women outside the court house with signs that say SLAY ME, can you believe that shit? This man is a killer and…Lauren, I just don’t know.”
I guess it was my turn to become the comforter. “Erron, we are going to nail him. I don’t know how or when we are going to get him, but we are. Time is something that you and I don’t have, but I’m going to get everything together to get this guy. You believe me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then say it, say that you believe me that we are going to get him.”
“I believe you.” He was no more convinced than I was, but it was worth the shot. I needed more time to think. “Stay of good courage, my friend. We haven’t lost yet.”
Putting the phone back on the charger, I cut off the laptop and lay in the dark. The ceiling fan whooshed around and around like the thoughts in my head. My restlessness was taking over, so I began to make a list of priorities. Find more on Clay, the asshole was from Planters and killing Marks wasn’t his first. Find out why Anthony had a bee in his bonnet about me getting a man. Lastly, who was this Leland character?
★★★★★★★★★★
“You what?” Ernest tossed his beer clear across the room. “You bought her dinner? Do you remember the plan at all? Weren’t you there when we talked about it?”
“Nigger lover,” Forrest scoffed.
Leland was on his feet with a fist full of Forrest’s police uniform. “You have one more damn time to call me that, you hear? I don’t give two hells about that badge or that gun. You call me a nigger lover again and I will bury you right next to one.” Leland took his time in letting the officer out of his grip. Addressing Ernest, “I heard everything that was discussed. I should have called you to let you know that she was on her way home.”
Checking the buttons on his shirt, Forrest said, “I had a good little speed trap set up for her. With that mouth of hers, I’d have her in county.” Forrest gave Leland a hard look. “Mouth like that could find all kind of duties for it, you know what I mean. Put it to work and use that gal for what she’s use to.”
Leland was forcing himself to keep his feet on the ground and not lunge at Forrest. “Like I told both of you before, I need to get her good and soft. I need for her to let her guard down and then we can strike. I saw her at work and she works for the paper, so with that being said we don’t need any more heat.”
Cracking another beer open, Ernest sat back down on the couch in the basement. “Heat? Hell you mean. We have fanned the flames the hell away from us. What we are doing here only a hand full of people know about.” He waved his hand. “Now that other mess is not even on our coast, stop worrying about that. “
Forrest put down his beer and belched. “I gotta get back on duty. You boys hear a peep out of her, you call me.”
He shifted around his belt and wobbled up the basement stairs.
Once Forrest was well and gone, Ernest stretched out on the couch. “Now, you gonna tell me what’s really going on with you and the ‘coon cross the street? Or am I gonna have to beat it out of ya?”
Giving his ball cap a tug and taking another beer, he answered, “If I can remember correctly, you are the one that wanted to take revenge on her; I didn’t have anything else to do so I joined in. I’m playing my part.”
“Yeah, and you said you just want to watch her.”
The conversation was fuzzy at best when Leland tried to recall it, but he didn’t put up a fight about it. “I just want to get into her head is all.”
Unstable and unbalanced, Ernest stood and walked towards the man that he had known for
the last two and half years.
“If you want a piece of it, I’m not going to look down on you. I mean I saw her this morning coming out of her house. Tight skirt, blouse not buttoned to the top. Hell, any man would want to tap that. You just be careful that you don’t start to fall into some feelings about her. You do that…well then.”
He shook his head.
Leland took it as a sign that he would be cut off from his group of friends and the severances would be more than a few beers with buddies. Planters would turn its back and life was hard all by its self without risking the little that he had here for a piece of black girl ass.
“Never wanted to take my act that far in trying to bed her.”
Ernest’s work boots shuffled back to the couch, kicking the leg of the coffee table in the process. “I don’t see why not. She reeks of loneliness; woman like that probably hasn’t had a man in months. She’s begging for it.”
“I don’t see her like that”
“Then maybe you are playing the wrong position. Maybe I should be the one over there, talking to her and getting inside her head like you say. I’ll have EJ invite the boy over so her and I can be alone.” A sick smile slowly rose on Ernest’s face. “Take my time with her, ya know? Make her beg.”
Leland had to take a step back from Ernest’s sitting position; his breathing was coming like short burst from his nostrils and his fingers dug inside of his palms. “I’m playing my part, Ernest. I got it.”
“Do you? I’d have that nigger on her knees.”
Leland saw his friend’s eyelids become lazy as he struggled to keep them open. There was no need to announce that he was going home. By the time his boot hit the top of the stairs, Ernest was already snoring.
Almost in the exact same posture, EJ sat on the living room couch and instead of beer in his hands, he held the remote. “Hey kid, check on your daddy. He’s passed out in the basement, and take a mop down there with ya.”
The kid mumbled something that he couldn’t hear. He didn’t blame him; all boys at that age hated their fathers. Boys began to realize that their fathers weren’t what they were all cracked up to be. Those superheroes didn’t exist and the line of discipline and love often tittered and blurred. And following direction and the sense that authority was something you couldn’t run away from made life at that age a living suffocation.
“I think that Anthony will be coming with us fishing this weekend,” EJ said to Leland, following him to the door. “I even told him that I thought that you liked his mom, too.” The boy seemed so pleased with himself with his stupid smile. “I thought, you know, if she thought you kinda dug her or whatever, she would let him come.”
Like father like son, he thought.
Nobody was staying in their lane.
“Thanks kid, but I think I got it handled,” he assured him, stepping out on the porch.
“So, what do you and the guys have planned for them?” He asked, eyeing the Neilson home as if it were ready to strike out at them both.
“Your dad is playing mastermind; you should ask him.” The kid buttoned his lip at his statement. He said, taking one step off the porch. “Don’t forget your dad in the basement. You know what will happen if you leave him down there.”
Leland almost felt like an asshole for bringing that up. Last time the kid didn’t take hold to a responsibility that wasn’t his, his father beat the crude out of him. The beating had left him with a chipped, fanged tooth in the front. Ernest Sr. had the money to get the tooth fix but refused. He said the boy needed to learn. Learn what exactly Marvin, Forrest and he had no idea of knowing.
His father was a cruel and dangerous son of cuss. Sure as shit from that day forward, when his father passed out in the basement, the kid had better get him and put him upstairs in the bed or he wouldn’t have any front teeth left.
Sitting in the cab of his truck, Leland looked up at Lauren’s place. “Why did you have to come here now?” he questioned, speaking to the dark windows of her house.
The engine came to life as he manually rolled down the window, wishing that he could get just another whiff of her. He wanted to be reminded of the way that she smelled as he hung over her this afternoon at the deli. Slowly driving past her house, he wished that she would run out telling him that she needed him. Whether it is to fix a faucet, rub out a kink in her neck or…His mind refused to go there. There was no need to think of Lauren like that, it wouldn’t happen in this lifetime, or even the next.
He would go to his empty house four blocks away. He would take a shower alone and lie in an empty bed. In the morning, he would wake up and rehash the same old same. Unfortunately, he would go to a job and hang out with people that he pretended to enjoy. All the while, passing himself off as another person had made his head spin and his body tired. Only element that stood real and tangible was Lauren and she would never know it.
★★★★★★★★★★
“Hey Francine, where is your archives?”
“Why do you want to go down there? It’s all creep and dark. And it smells like old people.” Her nose wrinkled, and by the way she looked, she was talking about herself with the old people reference.
“Nothing happens here in Planters. I’ve already done my bigger cover on state criminal activity.” I had started it two weeks before I got here. “Just need something to do. If I have to cover another DUI, I’m gonna scream.”
“Downstairs, next to the elevator, on the main floor, there’s a storage door to the left. Go right on in. The newest stuff will be closest to you. The old stuff in the rear. It’s all in order by year.”
Throwing my purse over my shoulder, I hollered a thank you, and prayed that she wouldn’t tag along. I caught a glimpse of Frank on the phone and prayed that he wouldn’t be asking my whereabouts. My office was located on the third floor. It was a skyscraper compared to the other offices in Planters. What I knew of the building was that there were editors resided right below us. The fourth floor was currently vacant and the first floor, right off the lobby. Housed a very low budget ad agency. The agency oversaw all the billboard placements around the city.
I finally made it to the first floor, which was just an empty lobby. Making the turn, I saw the storage room door. The groan of the weighted door gave me that haunted house feel. Nudging off Francine’s exaggeration of a tomb, I kicked on the lights that fizzled when they turned on. The lighting wasn’t all that bad. I’d been in worse places. Tiny dust balls circled and danced over my head in the light and I picked up the pace.
A valley of file cabinets which seemed as far as the eye could see lay before me. “Let’s get to it.”
I started at 2000, thought that would be good place to start. Clay was currently thirty years old, and from my knowledge of killers, they often started in their teens. Pulling out the ‘C’ drawer for that year, I began to dig.
★★★★★★★★★★
“Hey, what you doing?” Ernest Jr. asked. “I know that you’re not still sleep.”
Anthony pulled the cell phone away from his head and looked at the time. “Come on, man. It’s eight thirty in the morning. The dew is probably still on the roses. Call me later, let’s say about noon.”
Anthony’s thumb hovered over the END button.
“Are you going to sleep your whole life away? Look, my dad is going to be at the site like all day and he left me some money. I’m thinking maybe you and I should check out Planters, ya know. We should try to find some shit to get into.” Ernest heard his neighbor’s heavy sigh over the phone. “Maybe we can hit up the mall. I don’t know about you, but I need to see some girls.”
The mention of the opposite sex gave Ernest all the attention he needed from Anthony. “How far is the mall? I Just want to be home by the time my mom gets in.”
“Man, it’s not even nine and you are squealing about your mom being home. Look, do you want to go or not? “
“Yes, let me throw on some clothes and I’ll meet you outside.”
/> Deep down, Anthony knew that there couldn’t be that much excitement going on here in Planters. He knew that there was no way this place could ever compare to Seattle. When his mom showed him the map of where they were going, his first thought was that they were a million miles from the coast. Living in Seattle, you were never far from some sort of body of water. Plus, there weren’t any mountains here.
Throwing the Superman shirt in the dirty clothes, he milled through his drawers and found the perfect shirt. Anthony headed to the shower and adjusted the head to full blast.
Finally, I’m going to be out this house.
Ernest looked at his neighbor’s home across the street and a pain of guilt struck him.
“You having second thoughts, boy? You know doing this would make your father really proud.” Forrest rested his sweat meat hook on the boy’s shoulder. “Do everything that I tell you to do and it will be fine. Do not tip him off in any fashion, you hear me?”
Forrest couldn’t just see the worry on the boy, he could feel it rolling off of him.
Ernest took a step forward, letting Forrest hand fall. “I know what I got to do.”
“All you got to do is take him out and have a good time. Be back here no later than five, you understand?” Forrest dug back into his pocket and pulled out his swollen wallet. “Here, take another hundred. Catch a movie or something.”
“Does Dad know?”
“Like I said, he’ll be proud that you stood up to that boy that beat you.”
Ernest took a sharp intake of breath.
“It’s got to bother you still. That boy whipped you in your neighborhood. This is a way that you can just get back at him a little. I’m not gonna hurt him. Just put the little bastard on notice not to mess with anyone in his town. Especially, Ernest McCall’s only son.”
EJ had thought about the fight every night since it happened. He constantly thought about how unprepared he was against Anthony. The kid was just stronger and faster than he had expected. They are the same height, but the boy took him down with ease with one to the jaw.
