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Authors: De'nesha Diamond

Boss Divas (6 page)

BOOK: Boss Divas
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8
Hydeya
T
hirty hours. I've been up for over thirty hours, working this new case. My hubby has long since crawled into bed, probably annoyed that
once again
I've brought my work home with me.
Not because I want to make an impression with the new police chief, Yvette Brown, but because the horrific idea of someone cutting a baby out of a woman's body has pushed all of my buttons. I've been a cop a long time and I've never seen no shit like this before. I've heard of a few cases in other places, but I never had one hit my desk.
Sighing, I fish out the forensic photos of the two women discovered way off Peebles Road in south Memphis in advanced stages of decomposition—two months according to the coroner. The ex-pregnant woman's corpse still has a bag over her head and plastic cuffs locked around her wrists.
There's very little skin left or biomass for insect colonization. It's mostly bones and connective tissues. Crows and other animals had their feast and destroyed most of the crime scene evidence.
I've lost track of the number of homicides I've worked, but this heinous crime will be forever burned into my memory.
On the surface, this case looks like a hard nut to crack, but so far, the forensic team has been phenomenal in getting good tire-track molds, fingerprints, and footprints. The discarded silver Terrain is registered to a Yolanda Terry. There was also a cell phone with a strange text that read: Ticktock.
We traced the number the text came from back to one of those cheap disposable phones that could be purchased from any big-box store.
Yolanda Terry was no stranger to the Memphis Police Department. When I typed her name into the system, a lengthy arrest record scrolled onto my screen and ran for at least five minutes. Off the bat, one of her addresses was on Shotgun Row. That told me that she was gang affiliated: Gangster Disciples to be exact. Her previous arrests consisted of charges for trespassing, prostitution, and narcotics.
In her mug shots, she was an attractive girl, but in the end, she was a product of her environment. It takes a lot to overcome your station or circumstances in this world. When I talked to Yolanda's mother earlier, a Ms. Turner instead of Terry, I was stunned by her total lack of reaction. If in anything, she gave me the feeling that I was annoying her by interrupting
Family Feud
. I glanced around the room and noticed that there were no pictures of her only daughter. The place smelled like mothballs and Bengay. When I asked her whether her daughter had any enemies, Bettye claimed not to know anything about her daughter's business. She added that whatever trouble Yo-Yo, as she called her, got into, she probably brought it onto herself. “God don't like ugly,” she kept preaching to me. Evidently Yolanda had chased off her mother's man a few decades back, and she'd never forgiven her for it.
I got lost in her conversation and logic, but I went ahead and nodded like she made all the sense in the world. Only when I was about to head out the door did the older woman ask, “What about the baby?”
I froze with my hand on the doorknob, a sudden sickening dread curdling up in my gut. Ms. Turner said that Yo-Yo had been nine-months pregnant. I got back on the phone with the forensic team and we took another look at the body and crime scene. Time and the environment had done away with a lot of evidence and we couldn't find a corpse of a baby anywhere.
The coroner called back and said that, upon another review of the body, they had discovered there were crude knife marks around the pelvis of the handcuffed corpse. The baby had been cut out.Was that the reason for the murder?
And what about the other body? Cause of death: a single bullet in the center of the skull. No ID. Time, environment, and scavengers had done a number to her body as well. For now, she'll be toe-tagged as Jane Doe until we get lucky. If I had to put money on this shit, I'd bet my pitiful salary that this whole mess was gang-related—like everything else in this city.
There's a lot of shuffling going on at the department. The accelerated crime rate and angry citizens demanded change. For the first time in more than twenty-five years, the polish on Captain Melvin Johnson's shield had tarnished and to the surprise of the whole department Mayor Wharton tossed his beloved super cop into early retirement.
If Captain Johnson can go down, then that means none of our jobs are safe. I came to Memphis from South Chicago, which is in worse condition than Memphis—that includes the gangs
and
the politicians. I review the reports over again. At some point I must've fallen asleep because the next thing I know, I jolt upright, disoriented.
Riiinnnggg.
My gaze falls to the smartphone lying on the paper-covered table. I rub the sleep from the corners of my eyes and try to remember how to answer my new fancy phone.
Riiinnnggg.
“You want me to answer that for you?” Drake asks, sounding irritated and amused at the same time.
“I got it,” I tell him, swiping the screen to answer the call. “Hello.” My voice is scratchy so I cough to clear it. “Yeah. This is Lieutenant Hawkins.” I reach for my coffee cup, and then groan at finding it empty.
Drake, like the sweet angel I've always believed him to be, appears by my side, coffeepot in hand, and pours me a refill.
Thanks
, I mouth to him, while taking a moment to appreciate the black silk boxers hugging his V-cut hips. At six-one, my Italian husband is at an average height, but he definitely has that Harlequin cover model look with his shoulder-length, ink-black hair.
We pissed a lot people off when we got married. My black militant stepfather refused to walk me down the aisle and, to this day, my mother still has a bet going on with my aunts on how long our marriage will last. It's been five years and counting.
Silence hangs over the phone. I'm embarrassingly aware that my caller has stopped talking and I have no idea of what was just said. “I'm sorry. What was that again?” I sip my coffee for the caffeine kick.
“We need you to come in. We have a one-eight-seven out at 530 Frank Road,” the officer repeats.
One-eight-seven—homicide.
Of course there's a homicide. This is Memphis. “I, uh, where is—”
“It's been a busy night, Lieutenant. The chief knows that you've already worked a double shift, but she requested that you come in on this one.”
“All right.” I look around the table for a pen. “Give me the address again.” When the officer repeats it, an odd feeling comes over me. “Why do I know this address?” I whisper, but the caller hears me.
“Because it's Captain Johnson's home. He and his wife have been murdered.”
9
LeShelle
P
ython's dick game put a bitch to sleep—a deep sleep.
What's troubling about this shit is that I'm not dreaming about him, but about his shady-ass, honey-coated cousin with the
waaaay
too damn pretty eyes. In my fantasy, his ass gives Python a run for his money in knowing how to tear up my pussy. I'm clawing at this muthafucka's back like a panther in heat and growling nasty-ass shit in his ear. I don't even like this nigga so the dream doesn't make sense—but the shit feels so damn good that I'm coming in my sleep.
A phone trills somewhere in the background and then slowly sinks into my consciousness. “Somebody get that,” I murmur between gasps of Diesel's deep strokes. The ringing persists and fucks up our flow. “Get the goddamn phone!”
“All right. Shit,” Python snaps, stretching across my body.
Jarred, I pop my eyes open.
Holy shit. Was I talking in my sleep?
“Yeah. What is it?” he moans into the phone.
Yawning, I roll over, hoping to get back to the exact spot I left off in the dream.
“Come again?” He sits up. “You gotta be fuckin' shittin' me,” he barks.
I grab a pillow and stuff it over my head.
Diesel. Diesel. Come back, baby.
Python snatches the sheets off our bodies and swings his legs over to perch on the edge of the bed.
What the fuck?
I snatch off the pillow and hiss, “Who the fuck is that?”
Ignoring me, Python's face drains of color.
This can't be good news.
“She's
alive
,” Python croaks. “That's what you're telling me?”
“Who's alive?” I crawl across the bed to him.
“How is that possible? Where has she been?”
“Who?” I rock his shoulder to get his attention, but he swats me away.
“The cops are there with her?” He huffs out a long breath. “Shit.”
Anxiety rolls around in my gut as my imagination takes flight.
“All right. All right. I'm coming, but . . . I need to figure a few things out first. Yeah. Call me back if her condition changes. A'ight. Bye.” He disconnects the call.
I wait two seconds and then bark impatiently, “Well? Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“Momma Peaches,” he says. “She's alive.”
Silence explodes between us while I try to process what he's saying. I know that no one ever found a body, but I wrote her old ass off. Charged whatever the fuck she was involved in to the game and was keeping it moving. “I don't understand. You said—”
“I know what I said! I don't understand it either, but Vicious's sister working at Baptist Memorial called him and said that Momma Peaches showed up at the emergency room tonight all banged up.”
“What?”
“He said her and some white chick claimed that they'd been kidnapped. They're running all kinds of tests and even had to pump her stomach because she was filled with so many toxins.”
“Is she going to be all right?” I ask, only mildly concerned.
Python brushes his hand over his low-cropped hair. “She doesn't know.” He visibly struggles to keep his shit together.
Python and Momma P are as thick as thieves. Although she's his aunt, she raised him like he was her own when his mother bailed on him to feed her crack habit. Hell. Everybody loves Momma Peaches. She's an old-school gangsta and has taught most the bitches on Shotgun Row the real rules of the street game. Clearly, she's still a survivor. I just wish her ass liked me half as much as she liked that retarded bitch Yolanda.
“I gotta go see her,” Python announces, grabbing clothes from the floor.
“Whoa.” I hop off the bed and snatch his jeans from his hands. “What do you mean that
you gotta to go see her
? Is that smart right now?”
“Probably not—but she's my people.” He jerks the jeans back.
“I get that, but the minute you stroll into that hospital every law enforcement officer in the tri-state area is going descend and lock your ass up!” I go for the jeans again and then get locked into a tug-of-war.
“Stop it, Shelle. I ain't got time for this shit right now.”
“Make time because your ass is about to fuck up.”
Again.
“I mean, how do you know this shit ain't a trap? Huh? Vicious called, so what? That nigga ain't nobody.”
He pauses.
“Call the hospital yourself. Check it out, but don't do something this stupid. You're the most wanted muthafucka on the streets right now and you're going to just go stroll your ass up in the hospital where they got cameras and shit? What—are you gonna call a damn time-out with the damn cops because your aunt may or may not be up in that bitch? C'mon. Think.” I let go of his jeans. “I don't know what the fuck happened to your head after you drove off that bridge, but it must've knocked a few screw loose cuz I swear your ass done lost it.”
“Shell—”
“You asked him whether the police were there. Well, are they?”
The muscle in his jaw twitches, which tells me all I need to know. I suck in a deep breath and then approach this shit another way. “I know you love her,” I say softening my voice. “You're concerned—but if you go down there, everything is going to go left. The FBI or the cops probably have her surrounded because of her association with you. They gotta be hoping that you pop up down there.” When I can't tell whether I'm getting through to him, I reach up and mush him in his thick head. “Wake the fuck up, Python. You're smarter than this!”
“ARRRGH.” He spins around and punches another hole in the wall.
POW!
Then, as if realizing the pointlessness in him beating up the wall, his shoulders deflate and he props his head against it instead.
Exhaling a long breath, I ease up behind him and slide my arms around his waist. “I understand you're upset,” I tell him. “But isn't it good just to
know
that she's alive—that she's going to survive whatever hell she's been through?”
No answer.
His back muscles flex and knot during his internal war. Feeling for him, I pepper kisses across his broad shoulders. “There's plenty of ways to get word to her, Python. She'll understand why you can't go and see her. When she gets better and is released from the hospital,
then
we can arrange a meet-up.” Kiss. “But you gotta be patient.” Kiss.
Finally, he relaxes.
“It's going to be all right. You have her back now. That's all that matters.”
Python nods. “I still need to get word to her though. The sooner the better.” He turns around and faces me. “And you're right. I need to do it with someone I can trust—and someone Momma Peaches trusts, too. Family.”
“Oh, shit.” I drop my arms and step back. “Don't say it. Python—”
“I know you don't like him—but Diesel is the best man for the job.”
Diesel. Diesel. Diesel. I see right now that I'm going to have to get rid of this muthafucka.
BOOK: Boss Divas
12.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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