Blind Delusion (55 page)

Odessa recalled the moment she realized that Jerome was not going to play footsie with her like Hector had reluctantly done in order to save his job. She had ordered her flunky, Alonzo to come to her office and let her know the minute Jerome had returned from his afternoon run. She had waited all day for him to get back from his Thursday afternoon deliveries. Odessa watched him at the break room entrance for several minutes like a lioness stalking her prey. She saw that Jerome relaxed and joked around with the other guys in the break room. Not one to hide her robust figure under a tent-sized, muumuu or loose clothing, she sashayed up to him wearing a tight, too-short skirt and matching polyester-blend jacket in shouting tomato red. She had planned to make a move on Jerome that day so she purposely wore red since red always made her feel hot. Underneath the suit, she wore a white shell in stretchy fabric that revealed her large, dark nipples. Odessa knew she had failed the managerial professional dress code miserably that day and didn’t give a damn. She easily recalled their conversation in the break room.

“I need to talk to you for a minute, Jerome,” said Odessa, standing over him and trying to sound professional in front of the other workers.

“My load ran late and I’m waiting out my time, Miss Dillon, since I didn’t get to take lunch,” Jerome explained.

“I understand Jerome. I just wanna speak to you for a minute in private before you punch out,” she said.

Jerome followed his boss to her office and she locked the door once they were inside.

“Sit down, Darlin’,” said Odessa in a sweet voice and pointed to the couch.

When he did, she sat in a chair across from him and crossed her legs. Her skirt rode up her thighs when she sat down. She knew it would. She could see that Jerome had tried not to stare at her big legs but couldn’t help looking. She knew her legs were her best feature. She rubbed her hand down one bare leg, pleased that he hadn’t been able to look away. That’s when she told him that she never wore stockings even in winter because stockings chaffed her thighs when she walked. She gave him a red lip-glossed smile and puckered up her lips in an air kiss.

“Like what you see, Sugar? I know I do. Lawd, I declare, Brother, you are so fine.” At first she mistook Jerome’s gawking at her as one of desire but he soon made his true feelings known when he abruptly rose from the sofa. “If that’s all Miss Dillon, I wanna get back to my break time.”

That’s when Odessa’s smile abruptly faded. She was humiliated by his rejection and even worse, she feared he might make fun of her to his buddies. Her flirtations had worked with Hector Gonzales, but it hadn’t worked with Jerome Johnson. She could tell Jerome wasn’t afraid of her the way Hector had been. She walked over to her desk and opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out his employment record. She showed him a list of customer complaints that said he was too slow making runs and where it said that customers didn’t like his attitude.

“Who said that about me, Miss Dillon? ‘Cause I get along with everybody as far as I know.”

“You know I can’t divulge that information, Sugar. They responded to the satisfaction survey anonymously. Looka here, Honey, this whole misunderstanding with those silly customers can be forgotten. I got an opening for a feeder driver and I see here in your file where it says you got your CDL license before coming here. If I was to recommend you to Mr. Clarke upstairs you know the job’s as good as yours, Darlin’.”

“No thanks, Miss Dillon. I like my route and I don’t mind working extra shifts if I have to.”

Then his face turned serious. “I hope you dig where I’m coming from and we can act like this never happened. If you think I’m just gonna play along with the game you worked on Hector, you messin’ with the wrong dude. I’m here to do my job and that’s it.”

Jerome unlocked the door to her office and left, leaving Odessa standing with her arms folded and a scowl on her face. Odessa recalled that’s when she decided to come in late one night when no one was there and install a hidden camera in the break room so she could watch and listen to see if he made any slipups. But after several days of monitoring the hidden camera and not seeing anything incriminating, she hatched her plan to have Jerome tested for drugs so she could have grounds for firing him. Realizing that he would more than likely pass the drug test, she made Alonzo switch his urine sample for Jerome’s and trick the technician into believing it was Jerome’s sample. That way Jerome was certain to fail since she knew Alonzo had a serious substance abuse problem.

Odessa knew the technicians checked driver’s license as a form of valid ID before collecting the sample. So the first step was to get her hands on a fake D. C. Driver’s license with Alonzo’s picture on it and Jerome’s name, address and other identifying information printed on it. Odessa was able to easily find everything she needed from the Internet.

She ordered the fake driver’s license online made to specification with Jerome’s information that she wrote on the order form and a photo of Alonzo that she provided. The license arrived in no time, shipped right to her door, next day air. When she received the so-called novelty driver’s license in the mail, she was amazed at how authentic it looked. The hologram was flawless, and even the bar code and magnetic stripe worked. Jerome took the drug test that day as scheduled and so did Alonzo. As she suspected, Jerome’s results came out negative but Odessa destroyed them and printed out Alonzo’s positive test result that matched with Jerome’s ID.

The ID card was the only loose thread that could tie her and Alonzo to Jerome. She had to follow-up just to make sure that idiot Alonzo destroyed the fake driver’s license like she had told him to do. Odessa paged Alonzo and ordered him to report to her office immediately. She paced the floor nervously until he knocked lightly on the door before entering. Before he had a chance to get through the door, she pounced on him.

“What did you blab to that homicide cop with your big mouth?”

“Nut’n. I threw him a bone about the girlfriend and his mother-in-law always givin’ Jay the blues, that’s all, Boss. Oh yeah, and I may have mentioned a phone call he got a few weeks ago while we was in the break room. Some bad ass dudes who wanted the loot he owed ‘em,” Alonzo explained, “But I swear I ain’t say
nada
‘bout you, Boss.”

He wiped the sweat from his brow. “Miss Dillon, you know how hard I tried to get Jay to go along with the program like Hector did but Jerome wasn’t buying.”

“Yeah, well, I tried to convince him too but the Brother just didn’t want no parts of this. And he would have liked it too. Unless he was gay. Yeah, I bet that was it, Jerome Johnson had to be gay. Why else would he turn down all this good lovin’?” said Odessa, reflectively.

“Yeah, I’m sure that was it, Boss. You never know nowadays when a Brother is on the down low. Just ‘cause he got a wife and kids at home or a girlfriend, that don’t mean shit.”

“That’s right, and I don’t have any problems with that. But when he told you he was planning to file a sexual harassment claim against me as soon as his uncle got back from vacation, that was going too damn far. You know I had no choice after that,” she said with a wild-eyed expression. “No way could I let that weasel destroy my empire I spent over 20 years building.”

“Alonzo, you did get rid of the fake driver’s license right away, didn’t you? That ID had your picture on it so you could take the drug test using Jerome’s name and information. That means it ties you and me to the crime.”

Odessa dazed out the window to reflect again on her brilliant plan and how everything had worked like clockwork. She didn’t notice Alonzo’s face had turned red and he was still stammering some explanation that she wasn’t listening to until she heard him say “I lost it.”

Odessa lunged at him. “You did what?”

“I think I lost it in the parking lot outside. I’m sorry, Boss,” he stammered.

Alonzo described what happened the day he took the drug test while he was leaving work. He put the license in his coat pocket but at some point while he was walking across the lot, maybe after he reached in his pocket to get a cigarette, the ID fell out without him realizing it. As soon as he got home he felt inside his pocket for the ID so he could cut it up and throw it away, but it wasn’t there. So he drove back to work and searched the entire lot but didn’t find it. He figured somebody turned it into lost and found. Then the mail clerk must have dropped it into Jerome’s mailbox since his name and address was on it. If the person who found it didn’t know Jerome personally, they wouldn’t know the picture wasn’t him. Alonzo admitted he was too scared to tell Odessa about his blunder.

“You are such a fuck up, Alonzo Woods!”

She picked up the telephone and called the security guard. “Fletcher, I need you to go by Lost and Found in the mailroom and see if Jerome Johnson has anything sitting in his mail slot. Bring me whatever’s there, you hear?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I already done that just now and I found an envelope with Jerome’s name on it.”

“Good, then bring it to me immediately. It’s probably his driver’s license that I need to turn into DMV,” she said, silently giving thanks to the Lord that Fletcher found it in time.

“You know Miss Dillon, come to think of it, that envelope did feel sorta like it had a plastic card in it—somethin’ like a driver’s license,” said the guard.

“Just bring the goddamn envelope to my office right now, Fletcher! I don’t have all damn day to sit here and listen to your simple mumblings.”

“I can’t do that right now, Ma’am.”

“Fletcher, I’m giving you a direct order. You don’t want me to write you up for insubordination do you?”

“No, Ma’am. What I mean is I already gave that envelope to Dr. Hayes. She and the Detective said they came in to get Jerome’s things to return to his family. I didn’t know what was in the envelope but since it had Jerome’s name on it, I gave it to the lady doctor. The Detective had already gone and I just caught her in the neck of time before she got in the taxi to go home. You didn’t say nothin’ about giving you Jerome’s things. You told me they came to get his stuff so I gave it to ‘em.”

“Never mind,” she snapped and hung up. “I’m surrounded by incompetents.”

Odessa grabbed a D. C. directory and frantically looked up Dr. Renee Hayes’s residence.

“There it is. Foxhall Crescent Estates in Northwest Washington. I know exactly where that is,” she grinned.

“If she hasn’t looked inside the envelope yet, I’ll sweet talk it out of her and tell her that it’s a company ID badge and we don’t release those to terminated employees and she will have to return it so that the badge can be deactivated. Yeah, that sounds good,” she said to herself.

“But what if she’s already opened the envelope and looked inside, Miss Odessa, Ma’am?” said Alonzo. Odessa jerked her head around to glare at Alonzo. She had forgotten he was still standing there. “Then she’s one dead pigeon,” said Odessa and slammed the phone directory down on her desk.

“I’m not gon’ hurt Dr. Renee for you or anybody, Boss.”

“Fine, I’ll do it myself. You’d probably screw it up anyway.”

“I don’t like this,” he said, shaking his head, “Dr. Renee’s a nice lady. I don’t know how I lit Jay up with that gasoline. Musta been so fucked up on that shit I didn’t know what I was doin’.”

“That sorry excuse won’t even buy you a pack of Kools, Idiot,” said Odessa. “No jury’s gonna feel sorry for you just because you happened to be doped up at the time.”

“I can’t let you kill Dr. Renee, Boss.”

“Look, Dimwit, let me spell it out for you. We don’t have a choice because you screwed up. If Dr. Hayes finds out what’s in that envelope, she’ll show it to those Detectives and they’ll be on our asses like flies on shit,” said Odessa. “I’m going to get that envelope back. With any luck I won’t have to off anybody else to do it. But I will if I have to.”

“Now go home and stay put. If anybody asks you anything keep your stupid mouth shut for a change,” she snarled, “Wait for my call. I’ll let you know when we’re in the clear.”

Odessa snatched her coat off the hanger and ran out the door.

Chapter 41
 

W
hen Renee walked in the door, she heard her telephone ringing and ran through the hall to pick it up. It was the adoption attorney who told her that he was able to get the court to grant her legal guardianship of the border baby at George Washington University Hospital. As soon as her attorney uttered those words Renee nearly dropped the phone. She covered her grinning mouth with one hand and held onto the phone with the other as her eyes grew moist from happiness. She felt lightheaded listening to the attorney run down all the details so she sank down into the closest chair. He told her that he had had no problems convincing the Court since Renee had a past history working with CASA and Child and Family Services. The attorney said he had been working with a licensed child-placing agency to ensure that they satisfied all the Court’s requirements. It also helped that she had already gone through background checks, attended counseling, and parent classes over the summer when she had re-initiated adoption procedures to try and adopt a child with her husband. Not only that, her colleagues had given her glowing recommendations for guardianship. Renee nearly laughed out loud at being on the receiving end of so much good news all at once, after just a few days ago hearing nothing but distressing news. This time she had finally completed the adoption process—alone.

However, Renee was disappointed, but not surprised to learn that the closed adoption records contained very little information on baby Jane Doe. Belinda, the baby’s biological mother, had no last name that anyone knew of, and the records noted that she was deceased. Under father, the adoption records indicated unknown. The last piece of information her attorney needed for the birth certificate was to record the child’s name.

“Have you thought of a name for your baby, Dr. Hayes?” her attorney asked, “We’ve been referring to her as baby Jane Doe but now that the paperwork is practically complete, I’d like to request that a name be put on her birth certificate.”