Smooth Operator (3 page)

“You’ve had a busy week,” Lorenzo murmured
with a smug expression.

“Hmm, yes. Action packed,” Charmaine
replied.

Keisha glanced at Lorenzo sharply and then
back to Charmaine. “Time to quit messing around. My husband likes
to play poker with his old pals at this seedy dump of a night club
once a week. Make it look like he got caught up in a drive-by, an
innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe a
street robbery. That’s it. He was mugged a couple of years ago and
he fought back. This time he’s going to lose that fight. Yeah, I
like that better. That’s going to be very believable.”

“Clever plan. Except I’m not going to do
it,” Charmaine said.

“You will,” Keisha shot back.

Lorenzo sat forward and stared at Charmaine.
“Four years ago Diamond’s abusive boyfriend disappeared. He’d
broken her oldest kid’s arm, and beat him senseless. The kid is
still a cripple. The guy only got a couple of years in jail for it.
Diamond lost custody of the kid.”

“We know where he is, and he ain’t
breathin’,” Keisha snapped. “And here’s something even more
interesting. Your second step-father went “poof!” back in the day.
His family hasn’t seen or heard from him for almost sixteen years.
About the same time you and your baby sister ran away from home.
With her violent history I’m thinking the police will be very
interested in this story, especially one Officer Deon Morehouse.
He’s vindictive and mean as hell, still mad at Keisha for reporting
that he demanded a blow job during an arrest. She should have kept
her mouth shut.”

“I gotta figure out how to get that crook
off the police force. But I’m not going to kill your husband. Do it
yourself.” Charmaine stood.

“Maybe another trip to the infamous Orleans
Parish lock-up for little Jessica will convince you. I don’t think
she can take another overnight stay, much less a week or a month.”
Keisha stood as well and glared at Charmaine.

“You’ve told me some very colorful stories.
You have no evidence, just two overactive imaginations. Go look in
the woods off River Road in Chalmette near the Murphy Refinery.”
Charmaine watched their expressions go from smug to shock. “The
body they dig up will be an older woman named Marian Durocher. She
went missing and so did eighty thousand dollars from her bank
account. Keisha, you worked as her caregiver but used a different
name. Both her kids died years ago, and nobody cared enough to
check on her. That’s a real whodunit, huh?”

Keisha stumbled back and almost fell over
the chair. She reached out for Lorenzo, but he’d moved back from
her. “How the hell did you... Lorenzo, do something!”

Lorenzo held up both hands. “Like what?”

Charmaine wore a razor sharp smile. “So it
seems we have a stand-off. No hard evidence on either of us, but
enough to make life very unpleasant if the cops start asking
questions.”

“We’ll fix you, bitch. Just wait and see.”
Keisha grabbed Lorenzo’s arm and pulled him along behind her as she
stomped out of the door.

Scotty came into the office from the hallway
leading to Charmaine’s house. He went to the window and watched
Keisha’s red BMW sedan speed off. “Is that the end?”

“I think so. Keisha is a ruthless black
widow, but she’s not stupid.” Charmaine joined Scotty at the
window. “I have another problem. Jessi has disappeared.”

“She’s been pulling those vanishing acts for
a good long time.” Scotty let go of the curtain and turned to
Charmaine. “But this time something is different, huh?”

“Something’s very different, and in a bad
way. She’s outta control, Scotty.” Charmaine looked at her friend
with a worried frown.

“Then we’ll find her.” Scotty gave Charmaine
a big brother type hug.

“I have a feeling we better find her soon,”
she said quietly.

****

Charmaine drove through three stop signs and
narrowly missed a slow moving car that pulled out from a driveway.
She saw flashing lights from a New Orleans police cruiser behind
her. Slowing down she pulled her Chevy Equinox along the curb. Her
throat tightened until she gasped with the effort to swallow. When
the cop car blew by her and kept going, Charmaine hissed out the
breath she’d been holding. She trembled with relief that another
poor sucker would get stopped this time. Then she began to shake
all over. What if that cop was on the way to the same address
Charmaine had?

“No time, girl. You got no time to freak
out,” Charmaine shouted at herself.

She gulped in three deep breaths, let them
out to steady her nerves, and then drove on. Two and a half miles
later she turned on the dimly lit street. The GPS on her phone
chimed three times. Charmaine pulled up to the house. When she
recognized Scotty’s SUV, Charmaine jammed her car into park and
jumped out. In seconds she walked quickly up the cement walkway to
the front door. When she pressed a lighted button the bell seemed
to clang way too loud. A series of clicks and snapping sounds
preceded the door inching open. Then it swung wide. Scotty unlocked
the storm door covering the solid wood one.

“Come on in. She’s okay,” he said and
smoothly stepped aside to allow Charmaine in. He glanced up and
down the street before shutting the door and locking it. “Go down
the hall, second bedroom on the left.”

Charmaine nodded and followed his
directions. Jessi lay across a full sized bed that took up most of
the tiny room. Diamond sat in a stuffed chair staring at a small
television with the sound on mute. She pressed a fist to her mouth
when she saw Charmaine. Tears rolled down her face.

“I did it this time, Charmaine. You can’t
keep saving my psycho ass. I killed that dude.” Jessi looked
strangely calm. Her voice was steady. She stared at the bedroom
wall, her eyes glassy and her expression blank.

“She’s been like this since we got here.
That’s makin’ me more crazy than if she was screaming and bouncin’
off the walls,” Diamond said softly and started crying, a hand over
her mouth to muffle her sobs.

“You need to pull it together. We all gotta
think straight. Go get you some water, or coffee, or something,”
Charmaine replied, sounding more composed than she felt inside.

“’
Kay,” Diamond said. She
swiped at her face and left the bedroom.

Charmaine gazed at her sister for a few
minutes. She tried to coax Jessi into talking, but got nothing. So
she headed back to the living room.

Scotty murmured into the Bluetooth headset
looped over his right ear. “Yeah, a quick clean up job. Right,
right. Cool. Call me in one hour to check in.”

“How bad is it?” Charmaine dropped her car
keys into the cross-body bag she still wore.

“Keisha’s husband is dead in a motel room on
the West Bank. Jessi was with him. I’d followed her after getting a
tip from a buddy. I bribed a motel maid and got in the room. Front
was on the bed naked from the waist down with his throat cut wide
open. Jessi was so high we couldn’t get her to make any sense. My
buddy and me moved fast and got her outta there.” Scotty shook his
head. “How the hell did they set that up?”

“Keisha said she’d deliver some payback.
Damn!” Charmaine paced in a circle while raking fingers through her
hair. “Damn!”

“I’m pretty sure we weren’t followed,”
Scotty said. He strode to the windows and looked out once
again.

Diamond came in carrying a tray with cans of
soda, a tray of cheese and crackers. “Y’all might as well snack.
I’m not sure we can get anything delivered in this
neighborhood.”

“Whose house is this?” Charmaine asked and
waved away the can of soda Diamond tried to hand her.

“My cousin. She’s visiting relatives in
Atlanta, and I told her I’d check on the place. I’ve got a key.
Sure you don’t want something on your stomach?” Diamond said. She
picked up a cube of pepper jack cheese and nibbled on it.

“No way. I’m close to puking from stress as
it is,” Charmaine replied and looked away from the tray.

“At least we got a few hours to take a
breath and think about our next move. My other buddy went over to
check out the motel,” Scotty said. He was about to go on but his
cell phone vibrated. He answered and listened.

“I’ve got relatives in Trinidad. We can go
there, me, my baby and Jessi.”

“What in the hell kind of dumb idea is that?
You don’t have passports,” Charmaine blurted out. Then she sighed.
“I’m sorry, it’s just... I’m losing my grip right now.”

“It’s okay, Char,” Diamond said. Then she
grinned at Charmaine. “But we do have passports. Me and Jessi got
‘em last year. We’ve been talking about a trip to my homeland for
almost two years.”

“Sweetie, I doubt that’s a workable plan
now,” Charmaine said as she tucked a braid behind Diamond’s
ear.

Scotty walked over and broke into their
conversation. “Right. You probably won’t get out of this
neighborhood, much less past airport security. The police are
looking for all of us.”

“Shit,” Diamond hissed and tightly wrapped
both arms around her curvy body.

Charmaine pulled out her cell phone. “I got
a text from Keisha.”

“What’s she sayin’?” Scotty frowned.

“Gloating,” Charmaine replied through
clenched teeth and read the message aloud. “Little sis going 2 jail
for murder. Got u bitch lol.” Then the phone rang, this time
playing Charmaine’s favorite Jill Scott tune. She hit the green
button and put it on speaker. Keisha’s raucous laughter scraped
Charmaine’s eardrum.

“Every one of you is going to prison.
Bye-bye-eee,” Keisha sang and hung up.

“Uh-uh, we can’t let her play us like this,”
Diamond burst out. She jumped up and down like a kid having a
tantrum while her hands flapped wildly. “Let’s call my brother
Jon-Jon and ‘nem. His boys will take her out.”

“No,” Charmaine said forcefully. She grabbed
Diamond by the shoulders forcing her to be still. “We can’t run
around doing stupid stuff because we’re in a panic. That’s the best
way to make things worse.”

“Besides, the cops are already looking for
Jessi; they’ve got her name and description. By now they know her
family and friends, and their friends and relatives.” Scotty strode
to the window, peeked out and came back to stand next to
Charmaine.

“I gotta think,” Charmaine said.

She resumed pacing for another ten minutes.
Diamond slumped onto the floral sofa and stared ahead at nothing in
particular. Scotty kept working his cell phone as he prowled
through the house. He checked the backyard through the kitchen
window and looked at the houses in the neighborhood. Finally
Charmaine stopped pacing. She glanced at her phone again, cursed
and threw it on the sofa. Then she covered her face with both
hands. Seconds later Charmaine’s head jerked up and her hands
dropped. She found Scotty in the kitchen sucking down a beer and
nodding as he listened to a voice on his Bluetooth headset.

“Hold on a minute, Raheem,” he said when
Charmaine walked up to him fast.

“Have the cops gone to that hotel yet?”
Charmaine asked.

“Hell yeah. We barely made it before they
did. My boys say they pulled up about ten minutes after we left.”
Scotty hit his cell phone’s mute button. “What are you
thinking?”

“Can you find out what time the 911 call got
to the cops, and what time they got there?” Charmaine reached out
and clutched his arm. Her heart beat so hard her chest seemed to
vibrate.

“Yeah, but what’s that gonna do?” Scotty
blinked at her rapidly.

“Just find out. I’m going to talk to Jessi.
Be right back.” Charmaine spun around and raced to the bedroom.

“Okay, but...” Scotty called out.

Charmaine kept going. Forty minutes later
Charmaine and Jessi came back to the living room. Scotty walked in
from the kitchen with a grimace on his dark, handsome face. Diamond
stood up.

Charmaine wrapped an arm around Jessi.
“We’re going to give ourselves up to the police.”

****

Three hours later, just after midnight,
Charmaine sat on a hard chair in the Seventh District Police
Station on Dwyer Road. Jessi had been taken to a separate room.
Obviously the police didn’t want them getting their stories lined
up as they were questioned. Charmaine knew they’d sized up Jessi as
the weakest link. Charmaine was worried about Jessi, but not for
the reasons the police probably thought. This was a risky move, but
they didn’t have a better alternative. Jessi seemed beaten down and
numb, as if all the years of misery had suddenly overwhelmed
her.

Detective Harrison wore a powder blue NOPD
shirt tucked into his black slacks. He gazed at her from his
position in the chair opposite Charmaine. His expression seemed
sympathetic. “Look, your sister is a little bitty girl. She must
have felt threatened.”

“She always feels threatened, detective. You
get that way from being beaten and raped repeatedly before you make
your sweet sixteen birthday.” Charmaine glanced to her left at the
wide mirrored glass set into the wall like a window. “Keisha Front
on the other side, huh?”

“I know you and your sister had it real
rough. Maybe this is a way you can get her some help,” Detective
Harrison replied, ignoring her question.

His words pricked at Charmaine. She let out
a shaky sigh, but managed to hold onto her emotions and not cry.
She wanted more than anything for Jessi to stop hurting, to live
without drugging herself into oblivion. Charmaine stiffened her
spine and steadied her breathing. She gazed back at him.

“You’re hard-core. I get it,” Detective
Harrison said. He started to speak again, but stopped when the
interview room door swung open. A tall white officer came in.

“The story checks out. Every detail,” the
police officer said and glanced at Charmaine.