by David Skato
“I’m on my way” She hangs up. She whips the car in a fast-and-furious U-turn, tires screeching, white smoke following.
Dontae’ rocks Sandy back and forth as he talks calmly, trying not to upset her. “You are going to be fine. Help is coming. Just stay with me.” Dontae' wipes blood from her mouth and for the first time in his life, prayed to God. “God, please, please, help her. Please.” Tears were now rolling down his cheeks in tracks that were unfamiliar and unused for a long time. In the front room, he could hear the door open with footsteps following. “Jessi,” he thought. To his surprise, six uniformed officers barge into the room, guns drawn.
“Help help! Get an ambulance here!” he begged.
“Let me see your hands!” One shouted.
Confused by their orders, he tried to make them understand. “My girlfriend is dying! Get a fucking bus here now!” Dontae demanded.
“Let me see your hands motherfucker!” another officer demanded with his gun pointed at Dontae’. It only took Dontae a moment to see what was happening.
He wasn’t able to reach 9-1-1. Who called the police? They even beat Jessi to the scene, and she couldn’t have been no more than a few blocks away.
Dontae’ lays Sandy down. He slowly raises his hands and stands.
“Dontae' Wade, you are under arrest for murder.” One of them informs him.
The officer grabs the cuffs from his belt and heads towards him. Dontae’ takes one last look at Sandy, whose eyes are now lifeless.
His love was gone.
The officer grabs his wrist, and with a burst of speed, Dontae twists the officer’s arm and puts him in a chokehold, grabbing his gun from the holster and placing it against the officer’s head.
“Back up.” He directed. “I didn't do this.”
“Put the gun down!” The officer demanded
“I will, but first tell me how’d you know my name.”
One of the officers shoots Dontae's hostage in the dead center of his forehead, causing his body to slump. Dontae’ pushes the body into the group. They all stumble, giving him just enough time to run and jump out of the window, landing hard on the concrete below. He manages to roll behind a car before the cops fire a hail of bullets in his direction. He runs, ducking behind cars as bullets ricochet all around, breaking glass and causing alarms to blare.
A block away, Jessi can see the commotion and see Dontae’ on the move. She spins through an alley just in time to cut him off. “Jump in!” she ordered as she pushes the passenger door open. He complies, and they speed off into the distance.
CHAPTER VIII
Jessi and Dontae’ speed down an empty street, making sure to put enough distance between them and anyone that could be following. She glances in her rearview to make sure no cars were in sight, then begins to slow down.
“What happened back there?” Jessi asked.
“Something killed Sandy. The police tried to kill me.”
“Shit man. This has gotten crazy,” She responded
“She told me to let it go and now she’s dead. This is my goddamn fault. Damn it!”
He starts to punch the ceiling repeatedly. The anger and rage embedded so deep to a level that Jessi had never seen in him before.
“It’s not your fault. You were doing your job.”
“Fuck that! I’m going to kill Roland Walsh! Him, that fucking thing, this fucking cult bullshit! What the fuck Jessi?! He breaks down sobbing relentlessly.
“Wow. Dontae’ is human.” Jessi thought. She had never seen him do anything more than a polite frown at anything disturbing, and now he was all out weeping. She felt his pain but couldn’t wrap her head around what was happening. It was clear that Sandy was dead and someone tried to kill him. But what did he mean by “thing”? She assumed that someone killed Sandy with an object that Dontae’ was not able to describe. That has to be the thing he’s referring to.
“Slow down. Let’s figure this out before we go on a rampage.”
Dontae’ knows that he has to clear his head and get out of his feelings for now. He was vulnerable, but he felt that it couldn’t be with a better person than Jessi. She had just seen him sob, but he felt relieved that she was there in a time when he would have felt embarrassed with anyone else. He wiped his tears along with the black sludge from his face with his shirt.
“You’re right. We have to find somewhere to go and lay low until I can think clearly.”
“I know a place.” She suggests.
“Maybe a cheap motel. Not even friends or family can know where we are. This runs deep.”
“Trust me. I know a place.”
They drive on.
The road is twisty and hilly, but Dontae’s is too busy thinking about what just happened to pay attention. The full moon lights the landscape as the wind from the car blows fallen leaves that have been untouched for days, upwards in the air for a brief moment of freedom from the cold shoulder of the dark country road. In the distance, a small house, whose lights were on, sat atop a hill reminiscence of a Bob Ross painting even having a little tree on the far-left side. This part of the countryside was beautiful. Dontae’ didn’t get out this way too much. Besides, he was a city boy. He loved the smell of the city, good or bad. He knew the people and the surroundings. He could probably walk to this favorite coffee joint with his eyes closed. The cashier was named Margret. He had always thought she was too old and too intelligent to work there but not in a judgmental way, but in the way that he saw the potential in people and didn’t like to see it wasted when they could do so much more. His barbershop was only a few blocks from his home, and he had just gotten a new kid to cut his hair. His old guy was retiring and recommended the kid. He was a little skeptical at first, being that he likes to stick with what works. The poor little kid was so nervous his first time cutting the detective's hair. I mean, could he be locked up for a bad cut? But to Dontae’s amazement, the cut was superior to his old’s guys. This kid had skills. The Gym where he and Sandy had a membership was a few blocks in the other direction. They would go and be that couple, always pushing each other to do one more rep.
Sandy liked to visit this Thai vegan place up the street and always argued that it was healthier. He would contend that the shit was filled with salt, and that was the only way that it was even eatable. This was their neighborhood, and they loved it. Eventually, they would move out to a country place like the little Bob Ross house on the hill. They would have a few children and go to the farmer’s market on Sunday. They were going to grow old together. But someone had taken their lives on a night like any other night, with the full moon illuminating the landscape. Sandy was dead.
Jessie pulls a device from under her seat and presses the button. A gate opens, and the two slowly pull into a driveway of a huge house. The place was on a scale unimaginable to a person like Dontae’ that lived in a basic condo most of his life. The driveway circled from the gate back to the gate in a magnificent round-about. In the center was precisely cut hedges in the shape of a circle. The fifteen or so steps from the driveway started wide and decreased steadily upward until they were lined perfectly with the glorious wood double front doors. Dontae’ looks at Jess as if this could not be the correct address.
“Okay. Don’t judge me.” She states.
“Judge you?” He turns and looks at her with one eyebrow raised. “Who are you?”
“This is my father’s house. He’s out of town for a while so we should be good. Nobody knows this side of my family. I don’t trust many people.”
“Damn. Who is your father, Tyler Perry?”
Jessi shrugs, “Just a guy.”
The outside of the mansion does the inside no justice. The solid black and white marble floors shine, leading to the double staircase that centers the room and is accented with a beautiful crystal chandelier hanging roughly thirty feet from a super vaulted ceiling. Dontae’ walks in, in awe of the place.
“Now what is it that your father does?” he asks, looking at the chandelier.
“He’s a developer.”
“Computers?”
“No. Land. He builds subdivisions and other stuff. I don’t know the details. He and my mom were never really together.” Jessi states as she walks into the bathroom.
‘Sorry to hear that.” Dontae’ says, not knowing what else to say.
“Don’t be. He took good care of me. I never wanted for anything.” Jessi walks out with hydroperoxide, a towel, and a roll of gauze.
“Let’s take care of those cuts.” Jessi offered.
They walk to the kitchen, where he takes a seat at the barstool. Dontae’ takes his shirt off, revealing a body that’s a bloody mess with old bruises from the accident and knew ones from the fight with the demon. He grimaces as she applies the first touch.
“Don’t be a baby.” She smiles.
“So why didn’t you just follow in his path? Or do something besides this?”
“I wanted to make my own way. Make myself proud for once. I went through the academy without him knowing it. Became a detective and he still doesn’t know,” Jessi admitted.
“Wow. So what does he think you do?”
“Work at an office. I told him I was working as a file clerk with the state.”
“Good and safe job I guess,” Dontae’ grimaces as Jessi wraps his wounds.
“He doesn’t really care. He knows that I know, he will take care of anything I need when and if I need it.”
“Must be nice.”
“If you like that type of thing.”
“Which most of us in the real world would.”
“Let’s just say some things are more important than money,” She states.
“Get some rest., it’s been a long day. There are seven bedrooms. Take your pick. I’ll sleep in my old room. Upstairs, first door on the left if you need me.” She states as she stands and heads towards the stairs.
“Thanks Jessi. I owe you.”
“We are partners. Whatever happens, we’ll get through it.” She continues up.
Outside of the gate, headlights approach. An old man stares at the residence as he passes in an unmarked white van. He slows down at the gate but briefly looks at the house but continues to drive off into the distance.
Dontae awakes to the sound of running water and the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen. He looks at his hands and the gauze wrapped around his tattered body. “It wasn’t a dream.” he thinks as he rubs his eyes. The sun was a different type of bright this morning. It shined but with a dull haze that left a bad mood in the air. Dontae’ rises and heads towards the kitchen. He walks in to see Sandy standing over the stove cooking. For a tiny moment in time, he is relieved. He snaps out of the short fantasy, and the woman cooking was Jessi all along.
“Mornin’. I’m making breakfast. Have a seat and I’ll fix you a plate.” She states as she places the last of the bacon on the holding dish.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“You fell asleep on the couch. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No.”
She finishes preparing two plates and sits with Dontae’ who is now at the kitchen table.
“I was thinking last night that if Wilcox is involved, we have to find a way to get past him and directly into internal affairs. The only problem is --
Dontae’ cuts her off “-We have to go through him to get to I - A.”
“Yes. Unless we file a complaint at another precinct against him, that should get them to sniff around.”
Dontae’ looks at his food with no appetite. Jessi, holding a piece of bacon between her teeth, notices and puts it back on her plate.
“And I was the person that didn’t believe in conspiracies.” Dontae’ states as he pushes the plate away. “Did you find out anything on the person that hit Sterling?”
“Oh yes, the person that hit him is Angela Coker, an evangelist that runs a church over in College Park. No priors. No noticeable affiliations with sterling, Walsh, or Quest, except a profile. She’s a regular backwoods Bible thumper. Seems like a legit accident.”
Dontae’ takes a moment to think. “She’s all I got for now.”
Jessi takes out her phone. “I’m gonna text you the church’s address.”
“I don’t have my phone. I dropped it when I was fighting that – that monster. “
Jessi walks to a counter, opens a drawer, pulls out a pen and paper, and begins to write. “Here’s the address.” She states as she slides the note in his direction. He stands and walks towards her and takes the note.
“Jessi, something killed Sandy.”
“Some-thing? When you said that last night, I thought you were just confused.” Jessi admitted.
“There was no confusion. It was-” he stammers, “It was- I don’t know what it was. “
Suddenly the phone rings. “It’s Wilcox.” She mouths, holding up the phone in the view of Dontae’.
“Answer it.” He urges.
She swipes to answer the phone. “Hello,” She pauses for a moment, “I’m about to leave the Gym. What’s up?” Another pause. “What? You’re kidding me! Wow. That’s sad. What can I do?” She pauses to listen for a moment. “Okay. I’ll do all I can to help bring him in. Yes. OK. I will. OK. Great.” She hangs up.
“What’s the verdict?” He asks.
“They have a warrant out for your arrest. He made it clear that it’s to be handled internally. Some bullshit about we got to protect our own.”
“They can’t risk anyone else taking me in alive,” he adds.
“I kind of got that. The good news is, I'm off leave.”
“You can’t go back there,” Dontae insisted.
“But wait, they didn’t see me. I can play it cool and on their side. That way, I will be on the inside and closer to finding who’s behind this.”
“Jessi listen to me. If they are setting you up to get you into the building to kill-” He stops as his voice quivers, and a tear starts to build in the wells of eyes. He closes them for a second to regains his composure. He then continues. “If they are setting you up, and you are in the building, there’s nothing I can do to help.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take em,” she smirks
“This is not a joke!” He shouts.
“And I’m not joking!” she countered. “I’m not going to argue with you! I’m going to go back to work; Say some bullshit about you and keep it moving.”
Dontae’ calms himself down. “I can’t lose you too.”
“You won’t.” She takes his hands. “I’m here. Look at me. I’m here. Whatever has happened, we will figure it out together. That’s what partners do. They don’t abandon each other because shit gets real.”
He takes a deep breath. “Thank you. I need you to be very careful and watch your back at all times. The minute it looks like something is off, get the hell out of there.”
“I’m sure they will trace my calls and put a tail on me, but we can use that against them. Dontae’, I’m on your side. No matter how it looks at times. Remember that.”
“I trust you. You're all I got.”
“That’s not very reassuring.” She said, giving him some serious side-eye.
“You know what I mean.” Dontae’ smirks.
“I’m going to get dressed and go. I’ll have to stay away from you for a while. There are clothes in my father's room, take whatever you need, and I’ll shoot my father a text to let him know I took the car. The keys are in that little bowl thing by the door.”
“Jessi, I owe you.”
“Don't get all mushy. How do we stay in contact?” She asks.
“Just lay low. I’ll find you when I need to.”
She heads up the stairs.
CHAPTER IX
Jessi walks into the precinct, trying to be as normal as she possibly could. She talked a little shit to Jordan, the young receptionist, before heading up the stairs to the detective quarters. She walked into a room of a thousand eyes: all on her. This was an atmosphere of paranoia at a level she had never encountere
d. For an ordinarily cool person under pressure, this environment caused a small bead of sweat to build just above her left brow. She continued walking, soon passing Farreti, who was always a bit of a dick. His chipped, gapped teeth usually held a nasty chewed toothpick that he would switch out hourly, but that wasn’t nearly enough. He always wore Cortez Nikes with dirty busted jeans and carried what Dontae’ referred to as a man purse. He came from the drug world of investigation and was now in homicide due to a mis-staffing that caused an uproar with the local media. Wilcox promoted six rookies to detectives because they had criminal justice degrees. After an explosive expose’ done by the local newspaper, Wilcox reneged and filled the spots with seasoned detectives leaving only two rookies. Even though she thought she deserved it because she was at the top of her academy class, Jessi was proud of the bootleg promotion.
She finally made it to her desk, where she plopped down and sucked in a deep breath. It wasn’t long before she could see Wilcox approaching with two gentlemen in suits. “Here we go,” she whispered to herself. She plays it nonchalantly by pecking at her computer’s keyboard. To her surprise, when she logs in, the record of Adonis was still open. She quickly closes it before the three made it to her desk.
Wilcox, now being nice in front of the new white folks, speaks first. “Hi Mason. Can you step into my office for a quick minute?”
“Sure,” she replied as sunnily as possible. She stood and followed Wilcox. The two men walked closely behind her. She gave one the “evil” eye as he got a little too close. They all made it to the office, and she took a seat. One of the men closed the door while the other closed the blinds. Without the protection of her service weapon, Jessi needed a defense. She eyed the Louisville slugger on the wall, autographed and encased in glass. That piece of shit was Wilcox’s most prized possession. It was Babe Ruth’s at one point, up until Wilcox bought it for $162k. And boy did he tell anyone that would listen about it. Dontae’ called it “house money.” He would always say, “Wilcox fucks around when it comes to pay raises and bonuses, but he got that house money hanging on his wall.” At first, Jessi just laughed along, not knowing what that meant. She found out that it’s a direct reference to being enough money to buy a house.
