Murder on the Down Low (11 page)

Nichelle rolled her eyes. “I know how to dress, okay?”

Special only hoped so.  At the moment, Nichelle was wearing leopard-skin jeans and a black chiffon blouse with way too many ruffles.

J.C. slid onto the stool next to Nichelle. “Where’s Vernetta?”

Special yawned. “Couldn’t make it. Billable hours.”

“How’s everything going with you and Clayton?” Nichelle asked.

“Okay, I guess. But it’s not easy dating a man who lives way across the country.”

“I thought Vernetta was fixing you up with Jefferson’s cousin,” J.C. said.

Special flicked the air with her hand. “That man wasn’t even out here a week before some hoochie secretary at his office snagged his ass. It’s Vernetta’s fault. She took too long to set it up.”

Nichelle laughed. “Girl, you—”

“Shhhhh! This is it!” Special seemed more excited about the story than Nichelle. “Hey, Keith,” Special called out to the bartender, “can you turn up the volume for just a sec?”

The bartender hit a button on the counter and the anchorman’s voice drowned out the soft jazz from the restaurant’s speaker system.

In one of the first such cases filed in L.A. county, a local attorney is being sued for wrongful death for allegedly infecting his fiancée with the AIDS virus.

The anchorman tossed to a reporter in the field who gave a brief summary of the lawsuit. A photograph of Eugene filled the screen.

“How’d they get that picture?” Special asked.

Nichelle smiled. “Eugene’s law firm website.”

The three friends watched in rapt attention as the scene switched to Nichelle’s office.

Special squeezed Nichelle’s arm. “You look good, girl!”

Nichelle sat behind her desk dressed in a conservative, dark blue pinstriped suit. The camera moved in for her sound bite.

African-American women are being stricken with the AIDS virus at a faster rate than any other group. And the majority of these women are being infected through heterosexual sex. They are innocent victims who know nothing about their men’s secret homosexual lives. One of my closest friends, Maya Washington, died because of her fiancé’s deceit. The purpose of this lawsuit is twofold. First, to obtain financial compensation for Maya’s family, and second, to let Eugene Nelson and other men like him know that they can’t endanger women’s lives and get away with it.

“You go, girl!” Special cheered when the report was over. She gave Nichelle a high five, followed by a big hug.

“Nice publicity,” J.C. said. “How’d you swing that?”

“A friend of mine runs the assignment desk at Channel 2. I have interviews with two radio stations tomorrow.”

“Cool!” Special beamed. “I hope this case gets so much publicity Eugene can’t even find a closet to hide in.”

“I heard you’ve been pretty busy lately.” J.C. leaned forward over the bar to make eye contact with Special. “I got a call from Eugene earlier today.”

“He called me, too,” Nichelle said. “I already read her the riot act.”

Special picked up her Long Island iced tea and took a noisy sip. “I have no idea what y’all are talking about.”

“Special, you better back off,” J.C. warned. “And you better hope nobody saw you toss those nails in Eugene’s driveway and that his firm isn’t able to trace that email back to you. I promised him that you weren’t going to bother him again.”

“Wasn’t me.” She picked up one of the nachos they had ordered and crunched on it.

“Eugene sent me a copy of that email,” Nichelle said. “How in the world did you even come up with such a spiteful idea in the first place?”

“That man is a pathological liar. That’s part and parcel of being on the down low.”

“Just leave him alone, or I’ll arrest you myself.” J.C. signaled the bartender and ordered a Sprite. “So what’s the next step with the lawsuit, Nichelle?”

“Eugene has to answer the complaint. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to get it dismissed.”

Special stopped mid-crunch. “He won’t be able to, will he?”

“I doubt it. At least not this early on.”

“Good. I can’t wait for you to put that boy on the witness stand.” She pointed a finger at the now-muted TV screen. “At least that brother right there got what he deserved.”

J.C. looked up and saw a photograph of Nathaniel Allen, the star running back at Fox Hills Junior College, flash across the screen.

“Special!” Nichelle glared at her. “How can you be so mean? The man was murdered.”

“I know for a fact that brother was on the down low, too. No telling how many women he infected.”

J.C. put down her Sprite. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. That brother was all up in the closet.”

“How do you know that?” J.C. asked.

“’Cuz I just do.  You know Shawnta, my braider? Well, she knows this guy named Donte who was one of Nathaniel Allen’s boys. Or I should say,
girls
.”

Nichelle folded her arms over her ample bosom. “I don’t believe that. You think every guy you meet is gay.”

“You don’t have to believe it. Shawnta didn’t believe it either until Donte showed her a picture of the two of them together.”

“A picture of two men together doesn’t prove anything,” Nichelle said dismissively.

“It does when it’s taken with a hidden camera and shows two you know whats. Shawnta told me Donte was in the shop yesterday crying like a baby.”

“He must’ve really loved him,” Nichelle said sadly.

“Loved him?
” Special crinkled up her nose. “Hell, nah. Donte’s a major whore. He was waiting for that boy to win the Heisman trophy and go pro so he could confront him with the photographs. He kept extra copies of ’em in a safe deposit box at Bank of America. Donte was crying over all that blackmail money he won’t be getting.”

“That’s awful,” Nichelle said.

“It is what it is.”

J.C. drained the remainder of her Sprite and hopped off the bar stool. “Gotta go.”

“Already?” Nichelle said. “They should have a table for us soon.”

J.C.’s face glowed with excitement. “I think Special may’ve just given me some information that might help me solve not one murder, but three.”

N
ichelle arrived at the O’Reilly & Finney offices just before seven o’clock the following night. Vernetta had agreed to help Nichelle work out a trial strategy for the lawsuit against Eugene. Wrongful death wasn’t her area of expertise, but she knew lots of tricks of the trade that might be useful at trial.

“So Jamal isn’t helping you?” Vernetta asked.

Nichelle pulled a stack of cases from her satchel. “Nope. His managing partner vetoed that. They’re concerned about the type of publicity this case is likely to attract.”

“Well, you’ve got Sam.”

“He’s not about to help me. He doesn’t even think we should be suing Eugene. But don’t worry. It’s been a while since I litigated, but I have a pretty good handle on everything. I just wanted to bounce a few ideas off of you.”

They discussed several recent negligence and wrongful death cases involving HIV and AIDS and made a list of the legal elements Nichelle would need to prove. It was close to nine when they finally decided to pack up.

“I need to drop off a document for O’Reilly’s secretary,” Vernetta said. “I’ll be right back.”

When she reached the secretary’s cubicle, she heard laughter coming from O’Reilly’s office. Male laughter
and
female laughter. She stood there, eavesdropping through the closed door.

Vernetta saw the doorknob turn and dashed into the secretary’s cubicle and pretended to be writing a note. When she turned around, Haley was standing behind her, white as a sheet.

“I . . . uh . . . I was . . . just looking for a document in O’Reilly’s office,” Haley volunteered.

Vernetta had not asked a question, so her unsolicited explanation made her sound guiltier than she looked.

Her blond hair was mussed and her red lipstick was smeared to the left of her lower lip. Haley noticed Vernetta examining her untidy state and quickly wiped her mouth and raked her fingers through her hair.

“O’Reilly forgot to give me some documents I needed for the Vista Electronics case,” Haley offered, again without solicitation.

But he hasn’t left the office yet
.

Vernetta’s mind raced.
Was O’Reilly stupid enough to be messing around with Haley? And here in the office of all places?
Men were such knuckleheads when it came to sex
.

“Which documents were you looking for? I might have copies.”

“Uh . . . the . . . oh, never mind. It’s late and I’m exhausted. I better be getting home.”

“Are you okay, Haley?”

“Yeah, of course.” She ran her fingers through her hair again. “Why do you ask?”

“You just seem a little flustered.”

“I’m fine.” She started walking away.

“Good night,” Vernetta called after her.

Haley turned back and flashed a syrupy smile. “Good night to you, too.”

Vernetta was dying to charge into O’Reilly’s office and bust him. He was probably inside with his ear pressed to the door. Instead, she scampered back to her own office.

She closed the door behind her and rushed over to her desk, her heart beating wildly.

“What’s the matter?” Nichelle asked.

“I have the gossip of the century.”

“Do share.”

“You know that little witch, Haley?”

Nichelle nodded.

“She’s messing around with the managing partner.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I just caught them.”

Nichelle stood up. “You caught them? Here? In the office?”

“Yeah—I mean no. I didn’t actually
see
them. But I heard laughter coming from O’Reilly’s office and then Haley walked out with her hair messed up and her lipstick smeared.”

Nichelle sat back down. “I don’t think that evidence would hold up in a court of law, counselor.”

Vernetta plopped down behind her desk. “I’m telling you, he’s screwing that girl. I could tell by the look on her face. The same guilty look both of them had when I saw them here late a couple nights ago.”

Nichelle apparently wasn’t buying it. “That doesn’t make sense. He would not take the risk of messing around with her in the office.”

“We’re talking about sex,” Vernetta said. “Men take stupid risks for a five-second orgasm all the time.”

“If they wanted to mess around, why wouldn’t they go to O’Reilly’s place? Or hers?”

“Haley lives in the same apartment building as two other associates. And O’Reilly has a live-in girlfriend.” O’Reilly’s significant other was a fortyish interior decorator whom everyone at the firm was predicting would finally get him to the altar.

“Well, it’s not like they couldn’t afford a hotel.”

Vernetta shrugged. “I can’t explain why they’re screwing around here. I just know they are.” The firm had a strict policy prohibiting dating between employees in a direct or indirect reporting relationship. Partner-associate liaisons were a definite no-no.

Nichelle stubbornly shook her head. “I just can’t see O’Reilly being that stupid.”

“I can,” Vernetta said adamantly. “Those two are having an affair. I just know it.”

S
pecial circled the lower level of LAX for the third time, trying to keep an eye on the car in front of her and dial her cell phone at the same time. Clayton had promised to call the minute his plane landed. His flight was obviously late. Special just needed to know how late.

“Whatever happened to a human being answering the friggin’ phone?” she said out loud, as an automated voice gave her a menu of options. She had to make four selections before finally learning that Clayton’s plane wouldn’t be landing for another twenty minutes.

Special found a spot in the short-term parking lot across from the Delta terminal. She was glad to have the additional time before Clayton arrived. She’d been on edge all day long and knew she had to get her act together. She was excited about seeing him, but still hadn’t been able to quell her concerns that her man might be a fraud.

She reached underneath her seat and pulled out her worn copy of J.L. King’s book,
On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of “Straight” Black Men Who Sleep with Men.
Over the past month, she had devoured the book and then scoured the Internet for anything else she could find about men on the down low.

She’d also read two books on the subject written by women,
Faith Under Fire: Betrayed by a Thing Called Love
by LaJoyce Brookshire, and a book written by J.L. King’s wife, Brenda Stone Browder,
On the Up and Up: A Survival Guide for Women Living with Men on the Down Low
. Special’s heart went out to those sisters. She was determined to learn from their mistakes.

She turned on the overhead light, quickly flipped to Chapter 13 of King’s book and reread it for the umpteenth time.

In this chapter, King described various categories of DL men. Some were quintessential family men and presented themselves to the public as the ideal boyfriend or husband. If she were right about Clayton, he would probably fall into that group.

Turning the book face down on her lap, Special closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest. She had been back and forth all morning long, mulling over the factors that said Clayton might be perpetrating. Then, minutes later, she would come up with a longer list that contradicted each one of them.

She checked the time on the dashboard clock, turned the key to the alternator position, inserted her Queen Latifah CD, and hit track seven. Queen Latifah’s remake of
California Dreamin’
had a way of chilling her out better than three glasses of Merlot.

Thirty minutes later, Special slowly drove along the airport walkway, leaning her head down to peer out of the passenger window, hoping to spot Clayton. She stopped at the sight of a wiry man in a bright, flower-print jumpsuit and a closely cropped auburn Afro. He was prancing down the sidewalk with a pronounced feminine gait.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about.” Special watched the man swing his hips from side to side. “Why can’t you down low assholes give a sister a sign like that brother right there?”