“Sadd, I’m not playing with you on this. I know you spelled it the way you learned to in school at an early age long, long ago. I did the same at first, but I had to think about the type of flashy narcissistic father you described our vic as being. So I asked just to be sure. Now please write this down so there won’t be any issues with the arrest warrant,” Detective Allison explained, and then paused to give him a moment to find his pen. “N-O-E-E-K-W-O-L! It’s almost spelled the way it’s pronounced.”
“No shit. That’s some good junior detective work!” Sadd said, surprised by her thoroughness but also impressed. “I got this. Good night, partner.”
Tabitha didn’t even look back at her stubborn good-for-nothing partner as she climbed behind the wheel of her car and headed home. She silently prayed that he did not mess up, because she really did need to get this case closed ASAP so she could catch up on some much-needed rest and relaxation.
Forty-five minutes later the truly exhausted workaholic was dragging herself through her kitchen door. Tabitha headed straight on into her bedroom, where she was happy to find her boyfriend, Bret, of almost four years asleep in bed.
Any other night, Tabitha would be stripping out of her clothes while waking up Sean with a hot slutty blowjob so he could make her cum until she passed out. But not this time. Tabitha was trying her best not to wake him. But Sean opened his eyes as soon as her butt touched the bed after her quick shower.
“Ummm, hey!” he groaned, reaching out for her.
“Hey yourself,” she said before giving him a brief peck on the lips. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.” She yawned.
“Hon, you look beat. Just get yourself comfortable, and I’ll be right back with what you need.”
Sean was up and out of the room before she could think to protest. A short time later he returned with a plate containing two microwaved ham, egg, and cheese English muffins in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other.
“Here! Just eat what you can. It’ll help you sleep better.”
“You know I love you, right?”
She gave him a real kiss before wolfing down one of the breakfast muffins and all of the cold juice. When Tabitha’s head hit the soft memory foam pillow, the last thing she remembered before falling off into dreamland was Sean’s arm draped over her bare slim waist.
FIVE
Beysik Bondz was crossing the southern Indiana state border alone in a shiny black Mazda Miata hardtop convertible with the top up. He had just swapped cars with his cocaine connect’s driver in the small town just before the border. Beysik would not usually be the one making the trip. But since the only two people that he trusted to do it were out of state at the time the call came in, he decided to make the trek himself. Beysik connected his phone to the radio and pulled up his playlist, because the quiet car was making him feel extra paranoid.
The young thug relaxed a bit and cranked up the radio when his father’s new favorite song, “7 Years Old,” by Lukas Graham came on.
Once I was 7 years old,
My mama told me
Go make yourself some friends
Or you’ll be lonely.
Once I was 7 years old . . .
Beysik sang along, and the touching lyrics always made him think of his mother before she took her own life. Unlike the words of the song, when he was a young boy, his mother told him always to watch closely the ones who called themselves his friends.
It was a big, big world,
But we thought we were bigger
Pushing each other to the limits.
We were learning quicker,
By eleven smoking herb
and drinking burning liquor
Never rich so we were out to make
That steady figure . . .
Beysik did not remember much about his birth mother, but he did remember her words and how she was always on her hustle. Passion had always gone out of her way for Mercy Bondz and her son. Beysik knew it was his mother’s way of showing them her love.
Once I was eleven years old,
My daddy told me
Go get yourself a wife
Or you’ll be lonely.
Once I was eleven years old . . .
When Beysik went to live with his daddy and Felisha, the truly heartbroken pimp told him to make money off his wife and marry the game because “whore money is for-sure money.” Beysik took in all of what he was told and applied it to his young life. Now twenty years old he was in love with the dope game. He learned that hoe money was slow money and came with too much stress. But the ten thousand grams of soft white blocks in the trunk were fast and for-sure cash.
“I only see my goals, and I don’t believe in failure!” he sang before replaying the song as he crossed the Wisconsin border.
Beysik let the music envelop him as he floated down the highway toward his exit. He took Three Mile Road when he got off the highway, all the way to the safety of the stash house that he kept in a cozy apartment building in Racine.
The first thing he did when he walked inside the stuffy, muggy apartment was turn on the TV so he could watch the replay of his big brother’s fights. Beysik had set the DVR before he left, but he forgot to turn on the air conditioner, and now the warm place was unwelcoming. Not wanting to power through the heat, Beysik tossed the duffel bag of drugs into the safe that he had hidden in the back of the closet. He then walked back outside the apartment to give it time to cool off, as well as to pick up a few things from the store and something to smoke.
SIX
Noeekwol stood apprehensively in the baggage claim area of the crowded air-port, looking for his bags to come around. His anxiety had him feeling a bit suffocated and irritated by the others that were also standing in front of the carousel. He dreaded what he had rushed back to Milwaukee to face, especially at a time when he should be enjoying the shine of his hard-earned accomplishment just hours before.
The champ kept telling himself his parents were not dead. It was just Heaven misunder-standing what was really going on, or his mother just trying to get him home sooner so she could celebrate with him. But then Heaven’s very distraught voice kept replaying in his mind.
“Noe, you gotta get here. You gotta come home now! Somebody killed Pops and Mama right in front of the house!”
“Bitch, don’t play with me like that!”
“I’m not, Noe! I’m telling the truth. I was watching your fights when I heard the shooting. I was scared to look out the window at first, but something didn’t seem right. So I looked and I seen ‘em. Noe, I can’t! Just please get here now!” Heaven begged.
“Shut up! I’m on my way. You know what to do, Heaven. Don’t talk to nobody, and don’t let nobody talk to the kids either. Call Jake and tell him I said for him to come over there right now. And don’t go nowhere until I get there!” he instructed her before ending the call and trying his parents’ cell phones with no luck.
Noeekwol was retrieving his bags when he suddenly got the feeling he was being watched. His mother had always told him to trust his gut when he did not have anything or no one else to trust, so he did. As he turned to scan the faces, a trio of TSA and MPD officers quickly app-roached and surrounded him.
“Noeekwol Bondz?” the MPD officer asked, stopping in front of him.
Noeekwol knew that if he was asking, he already knew who he was. Further, his name and face were just plastered on the sports channels and news sites everywhere because of his new status in the world of MMA. So the champ did not attempt to hide his identity from them, and since he had not done anything wrong, he guessed they were there to escort him to his parents’ house.
“Yeah, that’s me! What’s up, Officers?” he answered clearly.
“I have a warrant for your arrest. Please drop your bags and turn around slowly,” the officer exclaimed, with his hand resting near his gun.
“Whoa, wait! I ain’t done shit! I don’t have any warrants. Y’all must be misunderstanding something here,” he e
xplained, dropping the bags like he was told.
Before he could turn around, they were all over him. At first, Noeekwol continued to try to explain, but he shut up quickly when one of the TSA officers drew his gun and pointed it in Noeekwol’s face.
“Don’t make me do it, champ!” the officer pled with his gun slightly shaking in his hand.
Noeekwol dropped his head and held his breath as they slapped the cold, plastic, black handcuffs tightly around his wrists. From that moment on, he did not have any doubt in his mind that the call that he had received from Heaven was real.
“So you won all of your matches, huh? Looking at you right now, one couldn’t tell,” the MPD officer said, trying to make small talk.
“Yeah, just think of what them other guys’ faces look like right about now,” another officer said to his friend before he turned back to Noeekwol. “I bet you weren’t expecting a welcome home party like this, were you, champ?”
Noeekwol said nothing. He just allowed them to parade him through the busy airport. While walking, he thought of all of the most gangster scenarios his dad may have gone out in. From the way he was being treated at the moment, he just knew his parents had gone out in an all-out gun war with the Feds or the MPD SWAT team.
He suddenly found himself being shoved inside the back of a black-and-white squad car by the officer escorting him. Without another word, the champ was hauled away to the Downtown Milwaukee police station.
Once they had him there, he was instantly fingerprinted and tossed alone inside a surprisingly clean cell. With nothing to do but wait for his lawyer, Noeekwol lay his sore body on the hard, unmade rubber mattress and closed his eyes. He knew he would not be able to sleep, but he just did not want to stalk the cell’s window.
SEVEN
Sometime around mid-afternoon, Tabitha was snapped out of her sleep. Her annoying co-worker was relentlessly ringing her phone while simultaneously pounding on her front door like a nutcase. Sadd did all of this to wake her up and get her out of bed.
“Yeah! What do you want, Sadd?” she snapped, throwing the warm plush covers off of her. “Are you at my home right now banging on my door?” Tabitha inquired, noticing that the pounding had stopped when she answered the phone.
“Yeah, it’s me, so don’t shoot,” he chuckled. “It’s time to rise and shine. Our boys picked up Mr. N. Bondz two hours or so ago. Now, Allison, before you start bitching about needing your beauty rest, you’ve slept for six hours, and if you throw on a little eye shadow, I promise no one would be the wiser,” he teased and laughed.
“Sadd, answer this honestly. Does anyone in your life really like you?”
She ended the call without allowing him to answer.
Just like any other day of the week, Bret was already up and gone. Tabitha knew he had already left bright and early because he left her a sweet note on the bathroom door. It read for her to text him when she found it, and he wished her a safe day at work. He closed the note with a smiley face and a heart he had drawn. She texted him like he had asked her to, while she prepared to take a shower just to make her partner suffer and wait.
More or less than 30 minutes after hanging up on Sadd, Tabitha rushed out of the house with a breakfast sandwich between her teeth. She held a case file and a banana smoothie in one hand and used the other to lock up the place.
“What? Nothing for me?” Sadd asked, look-ing up from some hot female profile pictures that he used to pass the time when he had to sit around.
“Just drive and let me eat in peace, please!” she begged as she took a big bite out of the egg, ham, and cheese muffin.
“Pushy, pushy!” He smirked, putting the car in gear and pulling into traffic. Sadd filled in Tabitha on what he had been up to while she was sleeping. “Would you believe the Bondz kid is a champion MMA fighter?”
“That’s interesting. Do you think that and the homicides could be linked somehow?” Tabitha inquired, wondering what made Sadd tell her that bit of information about Noeekwol.
“I really hadn’t thought about it. The guys at the station are all excited about having him there. I wonder if I can get him to give me his autograph on a confession when we talk to him, so we can close this shit case. This is one of those cases where the world is a better place without the pimp formerly known as Mercy Bondz.”
Just two and a half hours earlier, Detective Sadd had returned to the scene of the double murder to do some looking around. All that was left for him to see were chalk circles of where a few spent shell casings had fallen, and discarded strips of crime scene tape. But the reason for Sadd going back was to see if he could persuade Heaven into talking to him. But all he received was the repeated words she had told him the first time before slamming the door in his face. The trip was not a total waste of time, because he did get a look at another female that was not around on his first visit.
“Try telling that to those children that just lost their mom and dad. Better yet, repeat that to Noeekwol Bondz and see how that works out for you,” Tabitha retorted.
It did not take the detectives long to drive to work, but the Bondz’s family attorney had beaten them to the station by half an hour. They found out quickly that he had been busy. The lawyer had gotten the small traffic tickets that Noeekwol was detained on dropped, and paid the $1,000 fine, which was the only thing needed to have him released. So until the release paperwork could be processed, the lawyer had the champ moved to a conference room so he could stall time. It was also a good way of keeping the detectives from questioning his client.
Jake Sharps was shiftiness in the flesh. Many people thought he reminded them of a gay Judge Joe Brown, all dressed in an expensive, flamboyant, plum-colored three-piece suit.
As soon as the detectives eyed him, they knew he was not going to allow Noeekwol to give them the interview for which they had hoped. An hour after receiving the all-clear call to take the champ home, the lawyer and his client emerged from the safety of the conference room and attempted to make their way toward the exit.
“We would like to ask Mr. Bondz a few questions,” Allison stated, blocking their path through the hallway, with her angry partner by her side.
“I’m sorry, but my client is too upset from the loss of his parents to talk right now,” Sharps responded in a polite tone. “I’m sure the two of you understand in your line of work how extremely difficult times like these are, even without having to sit in jail on a silly arrest warrant. While in need of medical assistance, I may add.”
“Bondz, you do know we are trying to catch your parents’ killers, right?” Sadd asked, ignoring the undertone of threat from the lawyer as well as his instruction not to talk to Noeekwol.
“Please don’t address my client. As a matter of fact, please do not return to his home. It’s my understanding that you’ve collected all of the evidence and have had it removed from the scene in front of the home. So the next time you want to speak to any of my clients at that residence, you will need a warrant,” Sharps explained while pretending to be reviewing a legal file that he was holding as a scare tactic.
“Okay, how about you tell us where your client was at the time of the homicides?” Sadd asked before getting in the lawyer’s face and trying his best to let him know that he did not frighten him nor did he like him.
“That’s simple, Detective. All you have to do is pull up any sports news media source you like, and you’ll have your answer while seeing him become the new light heavyweight champion.”
“I’m sure there are no cell phones allowed inside the ring. So can you tell us how your client here learned of the shooting so soon?” Tabitha asked, just to back up her partner.
“I’m pretty sure you were given that answer when you interviewed my other client at the home, but I’ll play along. Mr. Bondz was sent a text from a family friend who is staying at his parents’ home. That friend was at the home babysitting at the time of the shooting. He then directed the friend to call me and not to talk to anyone until I arrived. Sin
ce you had him arrested at the airport, you already know how he got here as well as the time of his arrival.”
“Both of his parents are dead, and the person or persons who did it are still out there somewhere. Doesn’t he have any questions for us about their case?” Tabitha asked in disbelief.
She really could not believe the way the interview was going.
“My client knows if you had anything worth saying, you would be saying it now instead of trying to question him,” Sharps answered using a more serious tone of voice. “Now unless you two have something to say about the suspect or suspects, or if either of you would like me to go against Mr. Bondz’s wishes and file a harassment grievance with the judge, please move! My client has some arrangements to take care of.”
All the two frustrated detectives could do was step aside and watch them stroll out of the building.
“Shifty punk!” Tabitha mumbled while sha-king her head and biting her lip the way she did when she got upset or was thinking really hard.
“I’m thinking asshole, but what you said works too.”
“I don’t understand why he won’t talk to us when we’re trying to help him,” she exclaimed as she followed Sadd back to their work stations.
“It’s like I told you, that whole family is bad news waiting to happen. They will die by the code of the streets before they help us to help them.”
“That’s just fucking crazy!”
“Tell me about it. I’m going to look into the family some more. I am 50 percent sure that’s not the same Bondz kid that I crossed paths with in the past. I’m also going to look into that Arizona stay. I wanna know exactly what time he checked in and out of his hotel and who was there with him. The punk might’ve hired someone there to take out his old man, so he could take over the family business or get from under Mercy’s thumb—or both.”
Scarred Knuckles Page 3
