Wrongful Accusations - Chapter 6
Surprise in the Fridge
Cole knocked on my apartment door at exactly 6:30 pm looking all frazzled. “Are you ready? I need about six shots of Jose Cuervo to calm my nerves?”
“Jose Cuervo? Do you mean no Tootie fruity daiquiris? What’s going on with you, girl?”
“Marcus asked me to marry him and I told him yes, but now I’m not sure if I want to or not.”
I was not the best person to seek marriage or relationship advice from but I did the best I could. “If you love him and you know he loves you, what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I will have to sleep in the same bed with the same guy for the rest of my life. He says he wants kids. Would I be a good mother? A woman that chases down pimps and petty thieves, what kind of example would that be?”
“Cole Slaw, calm down. Marcus is a good man, and you know I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it. Just try to see this through. If you don’t like it, you can always get a divorce.”
“I’m never getting a divorce, if he gets sick of me he’ll just have to sleep in the other room. Or we’ll get bunk beds,” Cole giggled.
“Now there’s the Cole Slaw I know,” I hugged her.
“Ladies, ladies, ladies,” I heard coming from behind me. It was Neil the Neighbor.
“Is it alright if I join this group hug?” he asked, approaching us with his arms stretched out. Cole and I immediately broke our embrace.
“Hello, Neil, we were just leaving,” I said as Cole and I descended the stairs and made a mad dash to the car.
“Man, that guy is creepy. If a guy like that lived near me, I would have moved months ago.”
“I’ve just learned to pretty much ignore him. Besides you know I keep this baby on me at all times,” I said removing my taser from my jacket pocket.
As we drove to the Happy Mexican, we passed groups of people dressed in their Sunday best. It was COGIC time in Memphis and the Church of God in Christ saints were all over downtown. Church services had convened for the day so some of the members were headed to Beale Street. Others went to patronize other businesses within walking distance of the Peabody Hotel.
The Happy Mexican was right at the end of Second Street before you got to the Lorraine Motel Civil Rights Museum. We found a decent parking spot right in front of the entrance. There was a nice mixture of people inside. Hispanics of course, blacks and whites, all either enjoying the authentic Mexican food or getting their drink on at the bar. Cole Slaw chose to sit at the bar because it looked like all of the tables and booths were occupied.
Cole got her Jose Cuervo and I ordered a shot of Petron. We both ordered the shrimp, steak, and chicken fajitas. While we waited for our food, I pulled Shannon’s file from my bag and handed it to Cole Slaw.
“Take a look at this and tell me your thoughts. I’m at a standstill right now.”
I sipped my drink as she looked at my interview notes, the police reports, photos of the scene, and the coroner’s report. There was a photo of the deceased before he died in the very back.
“I know this guy from somewhere,” Cole said.
“Do you remember where? At Kroger’s, McDonald's, county jail…?”
“That’s it, he was one of my skips, but his name is Abdul Muhammad.”
“Okay, well that explains why I couldn’t find any information on him. Now, I need to run a trace on Abdul Muhammad and see what pops up. “
“Well, I can tell you one thing that will pop up.”
“What’s that?”
“He had a domestic violence charge.”
“Now to have domestic violence charges, it has to be against someone that you live with. From my understanding, he and Shannon never lived together... flippity flying fudge!”
“What’s wrong?”
“If this guy went by a different name, Shannon has no idea who he is. He has another girlfriend or wife somewhere. He may even have other kids.”
“Man, that’s some bull. Are you gonna tell Shannon?”
“I have no choice. We have a meeting tomorrow and there’s no way I can just sit in her face and not tell her the truth about her daughter’s father.”
There was a note taped to my front door when I got home. I opened it and read: “You will not continue to ignore me.” Was that supposed to be a threat? That damn Carl, I wouldn’t help him after that little stunt for all the rice in Hong Kong. I had a funny feeling when I walked into my apartment. My gun was in a shoe box under the couch, so I listened for any type of movement as I made my way over to retrieve it.
With my gun in hand, I slowly walked down the hall to the kitchen and flipped the light on. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so I walked into the bathroom. I walked over to the tub and pulled back the shower curtain, nothing was there.
When I reached the bedroom, I took a deep breath and turned on the light. There was Jerry, lying in the bed. Sleeping like the dead. I walked over to the bed and poked him in the side, he grunted and rolled over. There was no sign that he was hurt or anything so I walked back to the door and turned out the light before closing the door behind me.
All of that excitement made me want a drink. I had no gin but I’m sure there was orange juice in the fridge. When I opened the door, the most horrible thing looked out at me.
Since I was a Halloween baby, I wasn’t easily scared, but seeing a dead cat sitting on top of a container of sliced turkey wasn’t a nice thing to look at. I pulled a plastic grocery bag out of one of the nearest drawer and put it over my hand. Then I picked up the cat and all of the food it could have touched. Everything was then stuffed into a 10-gallon garbage bag and dropped on the floor in front of the sink.
Jerry wasn’t the type to pull tricks like this but I had to ask. I went back into the bedroom and sat on the bed beside Jerry.
“Sweetie, wake up. I need to talk to you for a minute.” He didn’t respond so I shook him.
“What?”
“Baby, did you look in the fridge when you came in?”
“No, why?”
“There was a dead cat in there.” He sat up and looked at me like I was crazy.
“A cat? You’re drunk, come on and get in the bed.”
“I ain’t that damn drunk,” I said walking into the kitchen to get the bag. When I dropped the bag beside Jerry, he got up and looked inside.
“Damn,” he said as he dropped the bag to the floor. “That was in the fridge? Who could have done this?”
“Don’t know.” But I had some ideas.
Neil the Neighbor was also the maintenance man for the complex. He was probably the one who left the note too. But how did he know that Jerry wouldn’t see the note first? Because he was always watching, the crazy bastard had probably been monitoring my and Jerry’s comings and goings. I planned to get to the bottom of that before the weekend was over.
Saturday morning I woke up feeling the effects of Friday night’s festivities. I could blame it on the Patron, but I had put a smile on Jerry’s face so wide that he would remember when he was 90.
My mouth was dry and I was hungry but I didn’t want a heavy breakfast, so I grabbed a bag of grapes from the fridge. I examined them closely. They didn’t look like there were any dead cat cooties on them. I placed a bunch of grapes in a bowl and ran water over them.
I remembered that I had an appointment, so I called Shannon to see if it was still on. There was no answer. I waited for the voicemail and left a message. It was Saturday and I wasn’t in the mood to talk about murdering cheating boyfriends. For that reason, I didn’t bother to try to reach her on her cell phone.
Paula Dean was doing her thing on the Food Network when I finally got a call back from Shannon.
“Hello, Sassy, how are you?”
“I’m fine. Are we still on for today?”
“I’m sorry sweetie, but I’m on the road with Pearce. We won’t be back in Memphis until Wednesday or Thursday.” Yes, finally a day off.
“Okay then, well have fun and let me know when you get back.”
“I will. Thursday is the day that Kadijah comes to clean my house, you’ll finally get a chance to meet her. “
“I’m looking forward to the meeting.”
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