Criminal

by Terra Elan McVoy

  I took it, but all I could see, as the detective put it in his jacket pocket, was Dee’s handwriting on that letter: You’ll be my wife.

  ALL THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON, MY HEAD WAS FULL OF my love and forever and Nicole. That, and what would happen when the police got to Bird. Today she was at her KFC job that she did two shifts a week—Jamelee was at her auntie’s—but I hadn’t told them about that. All they wanted was her address, so that’s all I’d given them. But they would be by. And all I could do was text her to call me, even though I didn’t know what to tell her when she did.

  I texted Dee too. He hadn’t been able to call me yet, only texted a couple times since he left my driveway Sunday afternoon. It was hard, but I understood. The silence. There was a reason. This, though, he needed to know. They were here, was all I said. After an hour of not hearing from him, though, even that seemed like too much. Would I give him away somehow? Mess things up? And when he did finally call, how on earth was I going to ask him about that letter?

  I nearly burned off a client’s left eyebrow I was so distracted, and at one point the fumes from the bleaching chemicals almost made me pass out. When everyone ordered lunch from Zaxby’s across the way, I didn’t eat. My mouth was full of ashes.

  • • • •

  Bird still wasn’t home when I got back to the house, and she hadn’t called me. Neither had Dee. I let myself in, but then I didn’t know what to do with myself. I stared at the living room, at Jamelee’s toys on the floor and a big basket of laundry that I should fold on the card table. Mostly I had a crazy thought to pack my things, leave here, and run away with Dee, but it was like I couldn’t move. I was just dumb, standing there, not even thinking anything really. Just hearing those shots coming from behind and to the side. Seeing Dee running between those houses, his knees high and his face blank. Picturing his handwriting, so tiny and careful, scratching out love messages to a girl who wasn’t me. I’d known about someone else—one from when he and I were broken up before. But he’d never told me her name. That it started with an N too. Almost the same as mine.

  The sound of Bird’s key in the lock pulled me out of it. I heard Jamelee babbling and the rustle of bags and went to help Bird at the door.

  “What’s got you?” she asked right away, almost mad-sounding in her concern.

  Which is when I started to cry.

  “Lord, girl,” I heard her mutter. I tried to reach for some of the bags to help her but she moved too smoothly past me.

  I didn’t follow her into the kitchen. Instead I plopped down, put my head on what clear space of table there was, and wept. I’d kept everything pretty well together since Saturday, but now the stress and the plain fear of it was leaking out. Bird moved around in the kitchen behind me while I sobbed, not even asking for an explanation. I remembered her face when she’d gotten home from her shopping trip Saturday afternoon and how hard it had been to not tell her right then. Dee beside me on the couch, his hand clamping down on my knee, the main thing keeping me quiet.

  I knew it would make me feel better to say something to Bird now. For a lot of reasons. And yet I also knew I couldn’t. Bird’d just go straight to the police. Or tell them when they questioned her, anyway. I didn’t really know what might happen to Bird if they found out about us using her car, but I definitely knew what would happen to Dee if she told. The more Bird didn’t know, the better it would be for everyone.

  What I wanted—so bad—was to talk to Dee. He would be able to calm me down like he always did. He was always so reasonable when I wasn’t. But I didn’t know where he was or when he’d come back for me, and I had no idea what he was really thinking. After the news report, the questioning, and that awful letter, I needed Dee’s strong arms holding me, his face filling up my vision, his body filling up everything else. He was the one who’d brought all this, and he was the only—only—one who could take it away.

  BIRD FINALLY FINISHED WHATEVER SHE WAS DOING IN THE kitchen and brought two beers into the living room. Thinking about Dee, and knowing he needed me to be strong, had helped me stop crying. I’d smoothed my hair and I was sitting up, folding the laundry, trying to take deep, slow breaths. My hands were still shaking a little, and I was afraid if Bird saw, she’d come and say it out, straight: Dee killed that cop, didn’t he? but she had her attention mainly on Jamelee, who was guiding herself along the edge of the couch. She looked over her shoulder every step or two to make sure Bird was watching.

  “You gonna come out with it?” Bird asked me, still looking at the baby.

  I stared at the side of her face a minute, not certain she’d actually said it out loud. And then she turned to me, eyes wary, but also worried.

  Worried for who I didn’t know.

  “The police came to work today,” I said slowly, hearing each word the way it might sound to her.

  Her jawline tightened. That was all.

  “They had some questions for me about . . . Dee. And”—I couldn’t look at her, I couldn’t—“I think they want to talk to you.”

  “Why? I don’t know nothing about him.”

  Her voice dripped disapproval. Which meant I really couldn’t tell her, no matter how scared I was. Telling Bird would mean terrible things for Dee. What Bird doesn’t know, I forced myself to chant in my head, isn’t going to hurt her.

  “There isn’t anything you need to know,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm. “It’s just that we were here a lot over the weekend, and—”

  “What did he do?”

  Just like that. Accusing. Not asking me did he do anything, but straight-off knowing he was guilty. Automatic. Even if she didn’t know what.

  “He didn’t do anything.”

  Even I knew it sounded untrue.

  Her eyebrow went up.

  And I don’t know if it was the pressure of lying to her or of everything else, but that doubtful look on her face made me crack. I started crying again. At least there was one thing I could tell her about why.

  “Bird, I know you don’t like him, but can you just listen to me? For a minute? They had a letter. A letter from him. In his handwriting. And it was to this other girl. A girl Nicole. N, like me. And it said he—” It was hard to talk. “It said he was going to marry her.”

  I covered my face with my hands, finally really thinking about it now that I was saying it to Bird. Saturday, of course, but also all the other things leading up to Saturday. Things that hadn’t made sense then but started making too much sense now. Dee gone for days this summer, me not knowing where he was. And then showing up without telling me, being angry, demanding. The strangeness of him showing up at all again in May—after we’d been broken up for almost six months. Saying, suddenly, “Baby,” and “I was wrong.” But never looking at me the same way he had before. Or at least not as often. How I felt, sometimes, that even when he was with me, he was somewhere else. Looking for someone else.

  Now I knew it was her. He’d told me he’d gotten together with her after he and I broke up last year but that she’d ended things with him, and it was over. He mentioned her existence only once. And then, “She don’t have nothing to do with us.” He brought me that rose. He took me to get dinner. He spent the night here with me and Bird and he squeezed me close. He told me he loved me. Showed me his new tattoo. He’d gotten it for me—or so I thought—so I’d always be right over his heart. Forever. He was mine.

  Now, sitting here, afraid and sad, with everything feeling wrong inside, I wondered if all along she’d known he was still hers.

  I WOKE UP ON BIRD’S COUCH. MY CLOTHES WERE STILL ON. The coffee table was crowded with beer bottles—mostly mine. My eyes were half-glued together. It was starting to be light, but Bird wasn’t up yet, and neither was the baby. We’d all stayed up late, thanks to me and my bawling. There was so much Bird could’ve said—would’ve had every right to. But her not saying it, and instead staying quiet, massaging my shoulders and neck while I sobbed—it almost made me feel worse. I didn’t know how long
I’d cried or how long she’d worked her slim, strong fingers into my muscles. I just know that, for a good while, every knot she worked seemed to undo more tears.

  I shuffled to the shower, every part of me wishing I didn’t have to go to work. But I didn’t want to stay at Bird’s either, in case the cops came. I didn’t want her to feel like I was hovering around, listening. Or trying to influence her answers. And I didn’t want them asking me anything else. Seeing that I was nervous. The honest truth was, she didn’t have anything to tell them except that yes, we’d been here. That was what I kept telling myself. She’d left the house before we did, and we’d gotten back before her. So she couldn’t say much. Still, Bird’s dislike of Dee was sure to come through no matter what she said.

  Thinking about what we’d told them, though, I started to wonder if maybe it was too convenient, me and Dee hanging out at her place all day, without her there. Maybe we could say we’d gone out somewhere that afternoon. The movies, maybe. Somewhere.

  Dee. Had he talked to the police again himself? I still hadn’t heard anything from him, even after I left for work. Panic squeezed me, picturing him arrested. In trouble. Why hadn’t he called? I didn’t know. I needed to see him. This was just too much. Seeing him would help me know. To know that I was overreacting, making up crazy thoughts, and that this—none of this—was really about that other girl.

  NIKKI: They talkin’ to B 2day

  NIKKI: I 4got we went 2 the movies

  NIKKI: Rmembr?

  NIKKI: U ok?

  NIKKI: D whre r u?

  NIKKI: Can u call me at work?

  NIKKI: I need 2 tlk 2 u

  NIKKI: D?

  NIKKI: Did u tlk to them?

  It took him an hour to say anything back, and I was so high strung, I nearly dropped my scissors when the phone buzzed in my apron pocket.

  DEE: Breaking Hell

  I was so shocked to hear from him, it took me a full minute to realize that was the name of the movie we were supposed to have seen.

  • • • •

  Of course the cops came later. To work. Of course they did. They talked to Bird around ten—she texted me after they left: POLICE WAS HERE—and then they came straight over to find me, ask me to answer some more questions. It wasn’t much before eleven, I don’t think. They weren’t wasting any time. And they wanted me to come with them to the station.

  I looked at Alessia and told them I had to work. They asked me when did I get off. I said four, and they asked could I come in then. Just some more questions, they said.

  But their faces were harder than they’d been yesterday.

  DETECTIVE: Miss Dougherty, we’re going to need to record this interview so we can refer to it later if we need to. Do you have any objections?

  ND: No, sir.

  DETECTIVE: Now, Miss Dougherty, yesterday you told police that on Friday, August twenty-third, Denarius Pavon picked you up from your place of employment, Fit to Be Curled?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: Can you tell us please the nature of your relationship? With Mr. Pavon?

  ND: He’s my boyfriend.

  DETECTIVE: And how long have you been together?

  ND: Almost a year. But we were broken up for some of that.

  DETECTIVE: Broken up for how long?

  ND: Six months. Maybe less.

  DETECTIVE: And you’ve been back together for . . . ?

  ND: Since May, sir.

  DETECTIVE: Three months, then. All right. Thank you, Ms. Dougherty. Now, back to the twenty-third. He told us that on that evening, he took you to pick up some beer and then got some food, and then you went to your friend Bird’s, where you were all night. Is that correct?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And Bird is Ms. Shondeana Brown, living at 173-A Harper Drive?

  ND: That’s correct.

  DETECTIVE: Also, to the officers yesterday, you described the vehicle belonging to Denarius Pavon as a “black pickup truck, with black-tinted windows,” is that correct?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And what kind of car do you drive, Miss Dougherty?

  ND: [Inaudible on tape]

  DETECTIVE: Miss Dougherty, I need you to speak up, please.

  ND: I don’t . . . have one.

  DETECTIVE: You live close enough to walk to work?

  ND: The bus, sir.

  DETECTIVE: I see. Thank you, Miss Dougherty. Now, after spending the night at Ms. Brown’s home—do you do that often, Miss Dougherty?

  ND: She’s my best friend.

  DETECTIVE: So would you say, you spend the night at her house more than . . . once a week?

  ND: Yes.

  DETECTIVE: More than . . . four times?

  ND: It depends. Sometimes.

  DETECTIVE: You work with Ms. Brown out of her home, don’t you?

  ND: Sometimes, sir. I help with hair, if her customers need it.

  DETECTIVE: So would you say you spend a lot of time there?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: More than at home?

  ND: You could say so, yes.

  DETECTIVE: And does Denarius Pavon spend time there with you as well?

  ND: Sometimes. Not always.

  DETECTIVE: More times than not?

  ND: I wouldn’t say that.

  DETECTIVE: But on the evening of August twenty-third, he was there with you?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And also, according to your last interview, he was there with you all day on Saturday, August twenty-fourth?

  ND: He went to the gym.

  DETECTIVE: Is that a habit with him?

  ND: He works out a lot, yeah.

  DETECTIVE: Every Saturday?

  ND: Mostly. Other days too. He likes working out. It calms him down.

  DETECTIVE: And what time does he go to work out? More specifically, when did he go this past Saturday?

  ND: In the morning.

  DETECTIVE: Do you remember what time in the morning?

  ND: Maybe like ten thirty? I don’t know exactly.

  DETECTIVE: And when he came back, according to his statement to police on the twenty-fifth, you went to get some more beer, and cigarettes up the street at the QT, and were at Ms. Brown’s the rest of the day until you went to get dinner. You spent the night again. Is this correct?

  ND: That’s what I remember.

  DETECTIVE: Well, Miss Dougherty, there are some things here that aren’t lining up with what we’ve found. You’re aware we went to speak with Ms. Brown this morning?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And that she told us she was gone on the afternoon of Saturday the twenty-fourth, so she couldn’t say whether you had been at the house all day or not. It seemed to her, however, when she left with her grandmother and her aunt, that the two of you were also preparing to go somewhere?

  ND: No, sir.

  DETECTIVE: “No, sir,” you didn’t leave that afternoon, or “no, sir—”

  ND: No, sir, I didn’t know she told you that. Until just now.

  DETECTIVE: All right. You and Ms. Brown, you’re good friends, is that so?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And being good friends, she would want to help you out, correct?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: So, do you know why, when we spoke to her this morning, she couldn’t verify the story you gave us? About you being at her house? But that she had the impression, from your behavior Saturday afternoon when she returned home, that something unusual had happened? That you seemed . . . excitable and out of breath?

  ND: [Inaudible on tape]

  DETECTIVE: Pardon me, Miss Dougherty, but like I said, you’re going to need to speak up a bit. This isn’t the newest technology, I’m afraid.

  ND: I forgot we went to the movies. And to get something to eat. The movie was intense. I guess we were excited about that.

  DETECTIVE: You went to the movies on Saturday, August twenty-fourth? And to eat?

  ND: Yes,
sir. After Bird left.

  DETECTIVE: So, when you told the officers that you were at Ms. Brown’s house all day on Saturday the twenty-fourth, you had forgotten that fact?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: Miss Dougherty, had you been drinking on the twenty-fourth?

  ND: Y-yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And the night before?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And, as you’ve said, your memories of that weekend are a little unclear?

  ND: I don’t—

  DETECTIVE: Forgetting the movies, for example?

  ND: I guess so, sir.

  DETECTIVE: Do you remember what movie you saw that day?

  ND: Breaking Hell.

  DETECTIVE: Was it good?

  ND: It was all right.

  DETECTIVE: And when you went to eat, was that before the movie or after?

  ND: It was . . . before.

  DETECTIVE: Can you tell me where that was?

  ND: There was a McDonald’s nearby.

  DETECTIVE: Nearby the theater? Can you tell me which one?

  ND: The big one. With . . . purple neon.

  DETECTIVE: On Shallowford Road?

  DETECTIVE: Miss Dougherty, because of the recording, I need you to say out loud “yes” or “no” when you’re answering instead of nodding your head.

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And do you remember when you got home?

  ND: It was . . . maybe . . . five? Four thirty? We got back to Bird’s and then she came back, and after a while we had to get dinner. So, about then. I think.

  DETECTIVE: Well, that certainly helps us, Miss Dougherty. At least with a few things. Clears up what Ms. Brown told us this morning, anyway. Now, about the QT station that Mr. Pavon mentioned. Remind me when you were there?

  ND: Um. After the movies. Sometime . . . six?

  DETECTIVE: So, early in the evening, then?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: And this is the QT station by Ms. Brown’s home? On Memorial Drive?

  ND: Yes, sir.

  DETECTIVE: Because see, that’s another difficulty. After Mr. Pavon told us you went there on Saturday, we went by there to check out their in-store video recordings, and unfortunately during the course of the entire day on the twenty-fourth, there’s absolutely no record of either you, or Ms. Brown, or Mr. Pavon coming onto their premises.