Murder on the Down Low (47 page)

“How could you? You’re a man of God! What a disgrace!”

“It’s not how it looks.” The reverend’s voice shook and he was close to tears. “Yes, I was at Eugene’s house that night, but nothing like that happened. And I didn’t kill him.”

“You’re a liar!” Belynda screamed.

“I had dinner with Eugene and later, at his house, he came on to me, but I pushed him away.” The reverend absently rubbed his hands together. “And that’s all that happened. I swear to God I didn’t kill him.”

“You should burn in hell!” Belynda yelled. She shrank away from him and stepped closer to the door. “You knew Eugene was trying to turn his life around and you seduced him anyway! I knew you’d been up to no good. But I didn’t want to believe it.”

“I swear I didn’t kill him!” the reverend cried.

“What about this?” Belynda reached into her purse and took out the lapel pin. She held it toward J.C.

“I found this in Eugene’s bedroom,” she said, weeping now. “I gave it to the reverend and he wore it all the time. It ended up in Eugene’s bedroom because the reverend was
in
Eugene’s bedroom.” She whipped around and faced Reverend Sims again. “Engaging in that perversion!”

“Are you crazy? What are you talking about!”

Belynda’s eyes were ablaze with condemnation. “Then tell me, Reverend, just how did this pin end up in Eugene’s bedroom?”

“I have no idea,” the reverend whimpered.

“I don’t believe you. You’re a sick, sick man!”

“Everybody just calm down,” J.C. commanded. “I want everybody out of here, except for the reverend.”

This time Nichelle willingly headed for the door. Belynda and Vernetta followed.

J.C. pulled handcuffs from her back pocket. “Reverend Sims,” she said, “You’re under arrest for the murder of Eugene Nelson.”

J
.C. handcuffed Rev. Sims and forced him into one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“Good Lord, please have mercy on me!” Reverend Sims sobbed. “This is going to kill my wife. I swear to God I didn’t kill Eugene!”

“I need all of you to leave the building,” J.C. bellowed into the hallway where Vernetta, Nichelle, and Belynda stood staring into the office. “Right now!”

J.C. turned her back to them, pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her jacket and dialed Lieutenant Wilson.

“I’m coming in with a suspect,” she said breathlessly. “It’s Reverend Sims. He lied about not being at Eugene’s place and—”

The lieutenant cut in. “You’re off base. Way off base. We already have the killer. Ken Landers, the boyfriend of Lamont Wiley.”

“What? Are you sure?”

J.C. stared over at Reverend Sims who continued to wail. She stepped into the hallway hoping the lieutenant couldn’t hear his sobs. Despite evicting them, Vernetta, Nichelle and Belynda still hadn’t left.

“Ken caught Lamont cheating on him with Nelson and he wasn’t very happy about it. He admitted to breaking into the house through the kitchen window.”

“So he admitted killing Eugene?”

“No, not yet. But he will.” There was a cop’s assurance in his voice. “He claims there was a big confrontation and Eugene was alive when he and Lamont left. But he’s lying. We just picked Lamont up and we’re bringing him in now. So Reverend Sims ain’t our guy.”

“But we can’t be sure just yet, Lieutenant. I think there could actually be two killers at work. Reverend Sims lied about being at Eugene’s place and—”

“Do you have any idea what kind of backlash we’re going to get from the black community when they find out we arrested a minister from Ever Faithful? I’m not taking that heat. Not without some solid evidence.”

J.C.’s mind was a jumble. “I think we should at least bring him in for questioning.”

“No,” the lieutenant barked. “You don’t have nearly enough to bring him in.”

“But Ken hasn’t confessed yet and maybe he won’t. What if you’re wrong? What if another man dies in the meantime?”

Lieutenant Wilson didn’t answer. She could feel his uncertainty. “I’ll place him under 24-hour surveillance,” he said finally. “We’re not arresting him without more. Now get back to the station.” He hung up before she could say another word.

J.C. stared at the phone before sliding it back into her pocket. She peered into the office at the still sobbing Reverend Sims. She finally walked over to him, bent down and removed the handcuffs.

Belynda approached the open doorway. “You’re not arresting him?”

“No,” J.C. said. “There’s another suspect already in custody.”

“I told you!” the reverend cried out. “I had nothing to do with Eugene’s murder.”

J.C. watched as he massaged his wrists. Something in her gut told her the lieutenant was wrong. Dead wrong. This man was a vicious killer.

“You’re a sick, sick man!” Belynda shouted. She pulled a gun from her purse and pointed it in the direction of Reverend Sims and J.C.

In a flash, J.C. snatched her own gun from its holster, and when she did, Belynda swung her weapon in the direction of Vernetta and Nichelle. “Drop your gun, Detective, or I’ll shoot both of them.”

A frightened Reverend Sims stumbled backwards into a corner and slouched to the floor. “Belynda, please, please, put that gun away!”

“Shut up,” Belynda screeched. “You deserve to die just like all those other perversions against God.”

Vernetta and Nichelle were wrapped in each other’s arms now, too scared to even breathe.

The crazed look in Belynda’s eyes told J.C. that the woman could easily pull the trigger. “Please put the gun down,” she said softly. J.C. kept her gun pointed at Belynda with one hand and her other raised, palm out, as if to keep her at bay. “There’s no reason for anybody to get hurt. Just put the gun down.”

Belynda glared at J.C., but her gun remained pointed at Vernetta and Nichelle. “Drop your gun, Detective, or I’ll blow their heads off.”

When J.C. failed to obey, Belynda took a step backward, out of J.C.’s line of vision. She fired a warning shot at the ceiling, then turned her gun back on the cowering women.

Vernetta and Nichelle screamed and collapsed into a clump on the floor.

“I said give me your gun!” Belynda’s now-shrill voice reverberated down the hallway.

Moving slowly, J.C. bent down, set her gun on the floor and pushed it out into the hallway with her foot. “Belynda, don’t do anything stupid. Nobody needs to get hurt.”

J.C. moved into the hallway.

“Get back!” Belynda shouted.

J.C. stopped, but stayed planted just outside the open doorway. She was about five feet away from Belynda. “How did this happen, Belynda? So
you
killed all those men?”

“They deserved to die. Every single one of them.”

Belynda stared past J.C. “You’re lucky to be alive,” she said to the reverend. “If I had known for sure that you were having an affair with Eugene, I would’ve killed you, too.”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” the reverend sputtered.

“Shut up! You’re a liar!”

“So you killed Eugene, too?” J.C. asked

“Yes,” Belynda said proudly. “After Special came to my house that morning and tried to show me that picture, I went straight to Eugene’s place to tell him about it. When I got to the door I heard a man’s voice, but it wasn’t Eugene’s. I went around back and peered into the kitchen window. When I saw a man wearing nothing but a towel, I knew Eugene had broken his promise to me. And to God. But I had no idea the other man was Reverend Sims.”

“But it wasn’t me!” the reverend cried.

“Shut up, you liar!” Tears streamed down Belynda’s cheeks. “I went back home and prayed for the rest of the day. God ordered me to kill both of them. But by the time I got back to Eugene’s house, it was after midnight and he was alone.” She stared in disgust at the reverend. “All of you are sick, sick, sick.” Her hand shook so violently it seemed the gun might easily go off.

“Belynda, please put the gun down.” J.C.’s voice was as serene as she could make it. “There’s no need to hurt anybody else. I understand how you feel.”

“You don’t understand how I feel!” Belynda shrieked. “Your mother didn’t die because some scum gave her AIDS. Don’t tell me you know how I feel. You couldn’t possibly know how I feel.”

“Killing more people isn’t going to change anything. It’s time for us to think about the goodness of God.”

J.C.’s words seemed to reduce some of Belynda’s rage, but only for a few seconds. “It’s not right for these sick men to do this to us,” she sobbed.

“You can’t take the law into your own hands, Belynda. Let the police handle this.”

Belynda wiped the sweat from her forehead with her free hand. “I was willing to give Eugene a second chance to turn his life around. But he spit in God’s face and went right back to that perversion. He deserved to die.”

“And you deserve to die, too!” She lunged toward the reverend.

“Belynda!” J.C. shouted. “Noooooo!”

Vernetta and Nichelle shrieked in unison as two ear-shattering gunshots rocked the building. They remained crouched together on the floor, bonded by fear.

Everything was completely still.

After seconds that seemed like minutes, Vernetta untangled herself from Nichelle, who was whimpering like a petrified puppy. “J.C., are you okay?”

J.C. stood staring down at Belynda, who lay on the floor in a pool of blood.

Vernetta walked over and put a hand on J.C.’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” she asked again.

“I’ve never shot anybody before,” J.C. said in a whimper.

“How’d you get the gun away from her?”

“I wasn’t able to. I had another gun in my ankle holster.”

Vernetta turned and spotted Reverend Sims slouched in a corner of his office, blood splattered on the floor and walls. “Oh, Jesus!”

Vernetta’s scream seemed to bring J.C. out of her trance. She knelt down and took Belynda’s pulse. “She’s dead.”

J.C. then dashed into the office and examined Reverend Sims’ limp body. “He’s still alive!” she shouted, as she tried to stop the bleeding. “Call 9-1-1!”

W
hen J.C. escorted Special out of the county jail, Vernetta and Nichelle ran to embrace her, almost knocking her down. They were locked in a big emotional huddle for a good five minutes.

“Can we please just get out of here?” Special pleaded, as she tearfully reached out to hug her mother, then her father.

“We’ve planned a special celebration for you,” Vernetta announced. She turned to Special’s parents. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Sure it is,” her father grinned. He was a tower of a man, while her stylishly dressed mother was barely five feet. “We’re going to let you girls go out and have a good time. We owe our daughter’s freedom to all of you. I can’t thank you enough.”

The four women made their way to J.C.’s Range Rover.

“I still can’t believe Church Girl killed all those men,” Special said. She sat in the backseat, sandwiched between Vernetta and Nichelle. “I told y’all that heffa was missing some screws. She had some nerve calling me the killer. She deserved a friggin’ Academy Award for that performance she did for those TV cameras outside Eugene’s house. She was setting me up big time.”

They quickly filled Special in on everything that had happened at Ever Faithful.

“I can’t believe she’s dead.” Special shook her head. “Thank God J.C. killed her before she killed y’all.”

No one said anything. It still unnerved Vernetta to recall the image of Belynda aiming her gun at them. Nichelle had called her twice in the middle of the night after having nightmares about the shootings. J.C. had yet to talk about it, but Vernetta knew she was having a difficult time with her first shooting in the line of duty.

“So is Reverend Sims going to make it?” Special asked.

“Looks like it,” Vernetta said. “He was really lucky. Belynda’s bullet landed an inch from his heart.”

“Not lucky,” Nichelle corrected. “Blessed. Just like we were.”

Special shook her head again. “There’s still one thing I don’t understand. If Church Girl was so in love with Eugene, why did she kill him?”

“I’m not sure she really was in love with him,” J.C. said from the front seat. “From what she wrote in her journal, they never had an intimate relationship. She truly believed that gay men could be converted and that was her mission with Eugene. According to her journal, if a man refused to change, he deserved to die. When she saw Lamont half-dressed at Eugene’s place, she felt Eugene had betrayed both her and God.”

“Wait a minute,” Special said. “So the man I saw in Eugene’s kitchen was Lamont, not Reverend Sims?”

“No,” Vernetta interrupted. “It
was
the reverend, but he swears nothing happened between them. He claims Eugene tried to kiss him, but he stopped him.”

“It’s possible,” Special said. “As soon as I saw Eugene lean in to kiss the man, I snapped the picture and got the hell out of there. So Reverend Sims isn’t gay?”

“Apparently not,” J.C. clarified. “He swears he left Eugene’s place not long after you took that picture. That squares with Lamont’s story. He came over later that same night.”

Special was still having trouble piecing the story together. “So why didn’t Belynda kill Lamont, too?”

“Belynda went to Eugene’s place twice on Saturday. The first time was right after you tried to show her that picture Saturday morning. That’s when she saw Lamont. She ran back home and started praying. She wrote it all down in her journal.”

“This is hella confusing,” Special said. “So where does Lamont’s boyfriend Ken fit in?”

J.C. chuckled. “Now this is where it gets even more confusing. Lamont and Eugene spent Friday night and most of Saturday together. They went to a movie at the Howard Hughes Promenade Saturday night. Someone saw them together and called Ken. He drove over there and followed them back to Eugene’s place. He climbed in through the kitchen window, and made such a scene that Lamont ended up leaving with him. Belynda came over about an hour later, after they had gone. We think it was sometime after midnight. We’re not quite sure whether she broke in or Eugene let her in.”

“Lamont was lucky his boy Ken came over there and acted a fool,” Special said. “If he’d still been there, Belynda would’ve killed his ass, too.”