King Divas (22 page)

“W
e got her.”

My head snaps up from my desk and I stab Lieutenant Fowler with a look. “We got who?”

He steps into the room, grinning from ear to ear. “Qiana Barrett. Her tire tracks came back a perfect match for the Yolanda Terry–Tyneshia Gibson case.”

I pop out of my seat and retrieve my service gun from the top drawer. “Don't fuck with me. Are you fucking with me?”

Fowler slaps the tire forensics report on my desk. “I wouldn't fuck around with something like this. We
need
a win.”

About a month ago, Fowler and I paid that mouthy Qiana Barrett a visit after a tip from Tyneshia Gibson's parents. They grew suspicious when their daughter's supposed
good
friends failed to come to the funeral. After I did some digging, I discovered that whenever Tyneshia was arrested, the same three girls the Gibsons named were hauled off to jail with her: Adaryl Grant, Shamara “Li'l Bit” Moore and Qiana Barrett. Everything about Qiana—and her brother, Charles—rubbed me the wrong way. Finally, it looks like we can close a case around here.

There's been so much murder and mayhem since I first got the case that I do feel a little guilty that it hasn't remained on the top of my list. Now we can get justice for Terry and Gibson. I only hope that we're not too late to save the baby who was cut out of Yolanda.

I scan the report and flash Fowler a smile. “Good work.”

“I do what I can,” he says, winking.

“You think that she'll turn over on her accomplices?” Fowler asks as we head out of my office.

“We sure as hell are going to find out. Let's get that warrant.”

Fowler holds up the warrant. “I'm already ahead of you. Judge Oxford signed off a few minutes ago.”

I pause in surprise, but then force a smile on my face. “Well, let's go pay Qiana Barrett a visit.”

 

Thirty minutes later, Lieutenant Fowler and I lead a train of police squad cars over to Ruby Cove. Heads turn and neighbors spill out of their houses when we roll to a stop at the Barrett residence.

My adrenaline pumps petro as Fowler and I climb out of the car and then hammer on the front door. It takes a full ten minutes before it's opened. Charles Barrett's imposing physique fills the doorway.

“You again.”

I wave the warrant in front of his face. “Gotcha a gift.” I slap it against his chest and shove him back from the door.

“What the fuck is this?”

“What does it look like? It's the warrant you wanted. Qiana is wanted for the murders of Yolanda Terry and Tyneshia Gibson.”

His head snaps up. “Tyneshia?”

I nod. “If she's caused harm to Ms. Terry's baby, there'll be a third count.”

“Baby?”

“Yeah. Ms. Terry's child was sliced out of her belly the night she was killed.”

The color drains from Charles's face.

“Where's your sister, Qiana?”

Before answering, he glances over the warrant. When he looks up, he shrugs his shoulders. “No idea. She's not here.”

“Right.” I wave the rest of the team into the house. “I'm sure that you won't mind us taking a look for ourselves.”

“I mind—but do what you got to do.” He slaps the warrant back against my chest.

Out of reflex, I grab his wrist and twist that muthafucka behind his back and jam him up against the wall. “Careful. You wouldn't want me to bring you in for assaulting a police officer.”

“Like I said: Do what you have to do,” he growls.

“If you insist.” I go for my handcuffs when he bucks. I put a knee to his groin, which drops him like a stone. I'm not the bitch to be fucking with.

“What the hell is your goddamn problem?” he yells.

“At the moment: you.” I turn to my team. “Search this place from top to bottom.”

They get to work.

Within seconds, a woman's high-pitched screams fill the house.

“What the hell?” I hand Charles over to another officer and then go and check out what all the commotion is about.

An older woman wrapped in a dingy bedsheet races down the hall.

“Ma'am, ma'am. Calm down.”

She looks far from calm—she's close to being hysterical. “What the hell are you cops doing here?” she screams, with her lace-front askew.

An even older man, in a wheelchair, powers down the hall spitting and yelling at us too. “You dirty pigs get the fuck out of my house! You ain't got no right. Y'all need a fucking warrant to be up in here.”

I turn back and swipe the warrant up from the floor by the door. When I slap the warrant into his lap, he stops yelling in midsentence.

“What the fuck is that shit?”

“We're looking for Qiana Barrett. Are you her father?”

“Yeah. I'm her damn daddy. What's it to you? Qiana ain't here, so get the fuck out.”

This family is already riding my last nerve. “Where. Is. She?”

“I. Don't. Fucking. Know. Now get out.”

“Keep searching,” I tell everyone, but I suspect that her family is telling the truth.

“All clear,” the officers shout as they finish searching each room of the house.

Fuck.
With the element of surprise gone, Qiana's family now has the advantage. Qiana Barrett will likely stay in the wind for a long damn time.

I
rewind the tape in my mind several times and I still can't process Qiana catching fire and then running through the back screen door, screaming. Her voice is still ringing inside my head.

Once the shock subsides, the other Flowers finally rush to help their blazing member. By the time Mack gets the water hose going, Qiana has stopped moving and her screams have stopped.

Stunned, everyone freezes in their tracks and stare down at the smoldering body.

She's dead.
There's no doubt in my mind. Everyone tends to die around me. Instead of joining the crazy scene out back, I drop to my knees.
This can't be my life.

“This bitch is gone.” Mack's declaration wasn't necessary.

“
This
is going to be some fuckin' shit right here,” Dime adds.

They all stand over Qiana's body, equally shocked.

I have no idea how long we all stay like this because time seems suspended.

Eventually, Romil asks, “What the fuck are we going to do?” She looks at Dime. Dime looks to Mack and Mack stares at GG.

GG turns in my direction and stares as if it's the first time she
truly
sees me. “You. You're just as fuckin'
evil
as your damn sister!”

I smile as if it was a damn compliment.

GG charges toward me, but before she gets one foot back into the house, two gunshots ring out.

I jump, shocked.

GG hits the concrete patio face first.

The only sounds in the backyard were the water soaking into the ground from the water hose and a couple of crickets serenading each other.

When my eyes travel in the direction from where the shots were fired, they clash into Dime's determined face.

“I owed you one,” she says simply.

“Holy, fuckin' shit,” Mack says. “What the fuck . . . ?” She moves her mouth some more, but she's at a loss as to what to say.

“Tombstone is going to fucking kill us,” Romil says, blinking out of her trance.

“How in the fuck are we going to tell him that we killed both his sister
and
his girlfriend?”

“I ain't telling that nigga shit,” Mack says. “Fuck. I'm not even sure what the fuck happened. I just reacted. Besides, that muthafucka ain't gonna hear shit we got to say.”

I shrug. “Qiana was an accident.”

Mack laughs. “How in the hell is bashing the bitch over the head with a bottle of liquor and then shoving her ass into a table full of candles a fuckin' accident?”

My face heats. “I didn't knock her into those candles. Her clumsy ass did that shit.” Even as I say the words, I'm not sure whether I believe them. If I hadn't hit her over the head, her ass wouldn't have backed up. Simple as that. “She had that shit coming. She had my best friend killed,” I add.

“By
your
sister,” Romil tosses in.

“And?” I challenge. “My sister and I are two different people—and on opposite sides of the color lines—or did you forget?”

They shrug.

“Then tell him
I
did it. If he has a beef or a problem with it, he can come see me or Profit about it.” For the first time, I'm actually cloaking myself in Profit's protection—and by extension, Mason's and Lucifer's. Who was Tombstone any damn way—Lucifer's driver? I've only been an official Flower a couple of damn months and I have more power than he does.

Mack holds up her hands in surrender. “Calm down before you get an internal war going. I'm saying what other muthafuckas are going to say. Regardless, I don't think that it's going to make a damn difference to Tombstone.” She looks over to Dime. “GG brought her here for help.”

“GG also knew that the bitch killed one of our own. I knew Tyneshia. I used to babysit her ass. When the girl turned up missing, Qiana never said a muthafuckin' word. Who the fuck makes a deal with the head bitch of the Queen Gs any damn way? A muthafuckin' traitor.”

That
shut the fuckin' conversation down.

Dime and I stare at each other. At the end of the day these two dead bitches' blood is on our hands.

“We get rid of the fuckin' bodies and we keep our fucking mouths shut.” She finally shifts her gaze to Mack and Romil. “Y'all got a problem with that?”

Mack's gaze rakes Dime up and down. “Don't come at me sideways. Ain't nobody said that they had a problem with shit. We're all in this together, regardless.”

“Does anybody else know that they came here?” Romil asks.

Mack shakes her head. “We'll find out sooner or later. Right now we got some fuckin' cleaning to do.” She storms back into the house, stops in front of me, and offers me her hand.

Another understanding flows between us and I know without a doubt that she has my back. They all do. My heart swells with emotion. Yes, I've already been accepted as a Flower, but now I'm a part of a real sisterhood.

It feels good. I accept her hand and she pulls me up to my feet.

“A drink first—and then we clean this shit up.”

Everyone agrees. But one drink turns into three.

Hours later, Mack and Romil show Dime and me where they keep the cleanup kit in the garage. Clearly, this isn't the first time that Mack has cleaned up a crime scene. Her kit even includes the type of body bags forensic teams and emergency responders use to transport bodies.

There is no time to ask a lot of questions. After packing the bodies, we load them in GG's whip.

“You drive,” Mack says, tossing me the keys.

“To where?”

“I'll tell you when we get there,” she says.

I climb in behind the wheel.

“You do know what this means, don't you?”

“What?”

“We now know exactly where LeShelle will be Saturday night.”

“Y
ou look as though you could use a drink,” Fowler says, propping himself up against my office door.

“I can always use a drink,” I tell him and then hold up more police reports. “Two more homicides. Care to guess their names?”

Fowler sighs. “Someone I should know?”

“Yep. Adaryl Grant and Shamara Moore.”

“Holy shit!” He straightens up.

“Exactly.” I slap the reports back down onto my desk. “It's like playing Whac-A-Mole with all these cases.”

“Was Qiana Barrett with them?”

“No. But get this: There was a child's car seat with a baby doll and a sack of baby clothes found at the scene.”

“But no baby?” he asks, looking as confused as I feel.

“Noooo baby.” I shake my head. “You gotta love this city.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“You tell me and we'll both know. However, don't dismiss Ms. Barrett completely. One of the guns found at the scene has her fingerprints all over it.”

“So she
was
there?”

“Seems like a safe bet. Won't know until we find her.”

“So was it a car accident or a shooting?”

“Apparently both.” I pull a deep breath and then look at my empty coffee cup. I really could go for a drink, but the paperwork keeps calling my name. “Just when you think you have one case figured out, the muthafucka unravels in front of your eyes.” Realizing that I'm about to go on a tirade, I clamp my mouth shut. Fowler is no longer one I can vent my frustrations to. I look up and finally notice the package in his hand. “What's that?”

“What? This?” He holds up what looks to be a King James Bible.

“Yeah.”

“It was found at the Carver crime scene. I was about to take it back down to the evidence room.”

“And the Bible is evidence of what?”

“That she carried one.” He looks at me and then back down at the holy book. “You think your father would want it?”

“If he doesn't curl up and hiss from the sight of it.”

Fowler laughs. “Still not buying that ‘turned over a new leaf' spiel, huh?”

“I learned a long time ago to believe nothing I hear and only half the shit I see.”

“That's a good policy.” He walks over and places the good book on my desk. “I doubt that it'll be missed. You should give it to him.”

“Yeah?” I'm tempted.

“I think it'd be a nice gesture.”

“All right. Thanks.” I open my desk drawer and place the Bible inside. If anything, it'll give me an excuse to drop in on Isaac again.

“So about that drink?”

I hedge.

“C'mon.” He winks as he backtracks toward the door. “My treat.”

“I don't know. I got a lot of work I need to get done—and I have a husband who would probably like to see me every once in a while.”

“Hydeya, I hope that regardless of what goes down that me and you are still cool.At the end of the day, we're friends. Right?”

I nibble on the inside of my bottom lip.

“We've been partners for a long time—and we've been through a lot of shit to let this situation bust us up.”

He's right.
Damn it.
We've saved each other's ass too many times to count, but it's hard knocking that damn chip off of my shoulder.

“Say yes and I'll buy the first
two
drinks.”

“Two? Hell. In that case . . .” I stand from the desk and grab my jacket. “Let's go.”

 

Twenty minutes later, we're hugged up at the bar at Alex's. The age-old bar isn't really my taste. The split-level establishment was once a brothel and is now known for its greasy burgers and dingy vibe. This place, with a jukebox loaded with rock 'n' roll classics, isn't exactly my sort of bar. So, of course, most of the cops at the precinct love the place. By default, we come here a lot.

Fowler throws back shots of tequila and I order an old-fashioned.

“Not that you asked for my opinion,” Fowler says, jump-starting the conversation, “but I think that you're being hard on yourself.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah. We both know that we can't control what the hell goes on out here in these streets. The city is flooded with illegal arms, people are crunked up on one drug or another. And the city officials keep promising Joe Citizen that they can fight the war on drugs with no money and fewer officers—then they throw up their hands as if they're shocked—shocked, I tell you—that the shit doesn't work.”

“True.”

“Our problem out here isn't gangs, it's capitalism. Plain and simple. Supply and demand. I read the other day that the global drug trade is a 321
billion
dollar industry. These gangs out here don't own any fuckin' poppy fields or ships or subs—however the fuck they manage to get the shit over here. All we do is lock up muthafuckas at the low end of the totem pole and think we're doing something. How the hell do we ask folks who ain't never had shit and that we block every way we can from getting shit to walk away from the only damn thing that put money in their pockets? That's the damn dilemma.

“People are only looking for an escape from their shitty lives, and frankly, there are times I don't blame them. But then the same people riding our asses about making shit safe are the ones with brothers, sisters, mommas, daddies, and cousins contributing to the problem. The damn war on drugs has been going on since the damn
Nixon
administration. Do you realize how long that shit is?

“Nah. These streets were bad
with
Captain Johnson and the streets are bad without his ass. If you ask me, the chief is just spinning her wheels, looking for someone to blame so that the damn mayor stays off her ass. You're hard on yourself because you take this shit personal when
none
of this shit is personal.”

“Is that your roundabout way of telling me that when you take my job, it's not personal?” My face heats.

“And when the next muthafucka takes it from me, I won't take it personal,” he says, shrugging.

“Nice try.” I drain my drink, but it does nothing to cool me down. “I know that you gotta do you and everything, but I don't think none of this has anything to do with our high homicide numbers. The chief didn't get twitchy until I told her about where my investigation into the Johnson case was headed. She shut me down before the investigation ever got started.”

“Perhaps.” He nods, his eyes drooping low with his fifth tequila shot. “But let me ask you this: What does taking on the department actually look like to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you hope to achieve? What's victory? Even if what we allege is true and Captain Johnson was neck-deep in the game, think about all the politicians with their photo-ops and media kits, shaking that man's hand. You don't think, as the young kids say, that they are going to feel some kind of way about letting you bring down his heroic image? You can't do that without dragging them down. And to what point? The man is dead. You want to dig him up just so you can put his corpse in a jail cell?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“No. I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. I know you want to make your mark—or get your own shine—but as your friend, I'm telling you that you're going about it all wrong.”

He's right. And I know that he's right—but damn.

“Look. I don't have a dog in the fight. But I know what happens to cops when they don't toe the line.” He pauses to take another shot. “My father was a cop down in South Carolina. His partner got snatched up in an excessive-force charge after gunning down an unarmed black kid. My pop agreed with the charge and told his higher-ups that he believed that his partner was out of line that night and murdered that defenseless kid.

“The hell he caught for being willing to testify against his partner also put our whole family at risk. They came at him with every fucking thing that they could think of for going against one of their own. Just like a street gang, loyalty means everything. You
know
this.”

I do.

“Then one night the pressure really got to my father. He drank a whole bottle of Jack Daniel's just so he could get enough nerve up to eat his gun. He'd rather do that than actually get up on that stand and testify.”

I watch Fowler and feel his pain. I knew that Fowler's father was a cop, but I'd never heard this story before. “You always said that your pop died a hero in the line of duty.”

“In my book, he did. I don't care about the lies they told about him after the fact. He tried to do the right thing and where did it get him?” He shakes his head. “If you really pursue tryna find where Captain Johnson's rabbit hole leads you, you're just asking for trouble.”

I soak in Fowler's warning while grudgingly admitting to myself that he's right—again. I hardly have the kind of power to protect myself from any potential blowback. Yet, Captain Johnson's case still keeps me up at night.

“Let it go,” Fowler says. “Take it from me, it's not worth it.
And
you'll get to keep your job.”