Murder in Germantown Read online

  "And, Daddy R, can I have my pizza, too? I waited up in your bed, fell asleep there and all of a sudden I woke up in my car."

  He flashed me large, bubbly, brown eyes like his horrible mother's and tiny white teeth. For a five-year-old, Brandon was beyond normal comprehension. He was not a child prodigy, but beneath his tight curly hair, a prodigious development loomed.

  "And, Daddy D, you fell asleep on my favorite part of March of the Penguins," he added and sipped his pineapple/orange juice.

  Was this five-year-old, going on 35, chiding us? He probably was, knowing him. “'Pizza too,” as if I was going to get my ass kicked if I didn't buy him pizza. Brandon thought being enrolled in boxing and Judo class meant that he could beat the world.

  I reminded him, "King B, we went there last week. How 'bout a different one?"

  "Besides," Dajuan added. "We are going to see Dream Girls with Beyonce in it and then the arcade."

  "But I don't want to go to those places and I have a good reason. Last week, we missed the basement Egyptian part, Dad," Brandon reported to us.

  He had a whine in his voice, but the adults at the table were not fooled one bit.

  "King B, next week we are going to see a play at Freedom Theater about Egypt," I reminded him. "You'll get to see it live then."

  "Will I get to see Nefertiti," he asked, excitedly. "I'm going to marry a girl just like Nefertiti when I turn 13. Right, Daddy D?" he asked, and looked for confirmation.

  "Eighteen," Dajuan told his son, which informed me that they had already had this chat.

  And I really wanted to know why my five-year-old was looking forward to marriage and not second grade.

  "But I thought African boys had the rite thing at 13. I'm African, so I'll marry then."

  "Slow down, Casanova," I interjected. "You're an African living on American soil and American law does not allow you to marry at 13 unless you have my permission. And there's no way I am condoning a marriage for you that young."

  "Screw, President Bush."

  "What?" I said in shock. "Watch your damn mouth. Where the hell did you learn that, Brainiac?" I asked with a wicked eye on Dajuan.

  I did not promote profanity in front on my child, nor did I assault him. I have a powerful mouth that gets through to him without beatings. He was the kid. I was the parent. We're not pals in the school-yard sense.

  "CNN," Brandon confessed. "The Venezuela president called Bush and America devils. I thought that was mean, but Bush is being a devil if I can't marry at 13, Dad."

  He was very calm and oblivious to the depth of his ideology.

  "CNN is your work," Dajuan told me, pointing a bite size square of bacon and cheese omelet on his fork at me.

  He had that one-of-a-kind stupid grin on his face.

  "I'm smart, Dad. I remember everything that I hear," Brandon confirmed.

  Thanks for the heads up, I thought.

  "But how did you remember, Venezuela?" I asked and totally wanted to know.

  Brandon replied, "My Spanish teacher's name is Victory. Venezuela begins with V, so I remember it as if Victor said it."

  "Ooooo-K!" Dajuan said. "I guess he's going to Harvard like his dad."

  "I have two daddies," Brandon said smiling. "May I be excused?"

  "Yup, but can you tell me six times six?" Dajuan asked.

  That was their little game, which I was not invited to. Before Dajuan discovered that he had a voice, he wanted to teach math. It was his favorite subject and Brandon was his favorite student.

  "Thirty-six, Daddy D," he replied and dropped his dish into the dishwasher. "Believe me, I think I know the whole times table chart," he said with the analytical flair of Pythagoras.

  His tiny feet slapped the marble floor as he left the kitchen.

  I heard the telephone ringing and snatched it up in the living room and greeted the caller.

  A smooth, husky, unidentifiable voice asked, "Are you watching the noon news, Ravonne?"

  "No," I said and then asked, "Who is this?"

  "You ought to be! Channel Six Action News," the female said.

  The line then went dead.

  I immediately picked up the TV remote and the projector displayed the news on the very white wall above the love seat. Newscaster Calvin Bridgeford and his brown toupee were showcased with the Dave and Buster's entertainment mecca as a back drop. I only caught the tail end of his report:

  “...Police are currently searching for Destiny Fernandez of the North Philadelphia Bad Lands area for questioning about the robbed Dave and Busters. She went missing, either voluntarily, or at the hands of bandits who have made off with an undisclosed amount of cash late last night at the gaming establishment. Anyone with clues should contact Crime Stoppers at...”

  The anchor moved on to a story about the murderer, Mr. 357 being back in Philadelphia for seconds and already responsible for the death of Dorothy Kincade. I would've bet dollars to donuts that Mr. 357 was responsible for the shipment of her body to the FBI office and the robbery, as well. I was in a state of confusion.

  For starters, I needed to know who had just called my home and advised me to catch the broadcast, and, why? I dialed *69 to activate the call-back feature. The caller was out of the area. I then consulted the caller ID, which proved useless.

  Belatedly, I wondered could I, or my family, be in danger. I typically did not panic, but my life had been threatened on occasion. Although, I may have been acting prematurely, I activated Operation Disappearance.

  CHAPTER 19

  He was built like a V-12 engine and tested his legs horse power in downtown Philadelphia, totally having forgotten the slaying of Dorothy Kincade. She had done salacious sexual acts utilizing an aerobics Swiss ball in her law office. She performed the same acts for the senior partner of her department and received a bonus. Mr. 357 rewarded her with a sliced throat, decapitating her prior to tearing her body into parts and FED-EXing her to the local FBI office.

  He would have enjoyed having an odometer showcase the kilometers that he had walked in search of gainful employment. Mr. 357 had covered the radius from Front Street up to 22nd and from Vine to South Streets. That far, he had been sans good luck.

  The winter air was biting, and justified his husky jacket. He waltzed down Chestnut Street and weaved in and out of weekend shoppers, watching everything around him. He wore a faux set of teeth and a faux groomed goatee. His tan was painted on. Onlookers spotted his lanky gait a block away. He was methodical and confident, so why was his pursuit of gainful employment an upstream expedition. Probably because the moment he signed the W-2 tax form, he would robotically put in a plan to effectively rob the joint.

  Everything else in life would be secondary. He wouldn't taste food. He'd ignore sleep. And sex would not be pleasurable. He would be consumed with the business at hand: finding the company's weak links.

  He walked into the Lord and Taylor department store and strolled steadily, smiled, and nodded professionally: a Brazilian gentleman out looking for a job, or a bargain. He passed carousels of perfume and make-up before he arrived at the women footwear department.

  Mr. 357 eye-fucked a sexy pair of legs on a woman. Her hair looked naturally long and was pulled into to ponytail, which allowed her face to glow.

  He knew that he was to approach her. She was his target. He did a general assessment. She didn't look wealthy, but successful. No engagement ring, but she was undoubtedly married. A former cheerleader and easy bed mate, he thought. But he had instructions not to fuck her or even attempt to. Her normal boobs exuded confidence, considering a tit raise was quite cheap. She glided across the department and wore a whiff of authority and power.

  The woman tried on a pair of navy pumps that were dull for the suit she wore. She caught him looking and he made his move.

  "Are you shoe shopping as a hobby, or looking to compliment your suit?" he asked in a heavy South American accent.

  She raised a shoe with a broken heel.

  "Broke it trying
to jump over a puddle of water from the melted snow."

  "Where's a gentleman when you need one?" he asked, charmingly. "The shoes you have selected are well...cute...but these," he held out a pair of crimson pumps, "would definitely do your suit justice."

  She looked deep into his eyes and became enveloped by his sexy baritone voice beneath the chit-chat surrounding them. It seemed for a moment that they were all alone.

  Intimately, he said, "Just try it."

  She sat and tried on the display. When the salesman returned with the mate, Mr. 357 grabbed the box, kneeled in front of her and slipped the shoe onto her feet like a seasoned salesman. When he looked up, he caught her admiring him. That was what she was supposed to do. She knew he'd be coming. That was the way it was supposed to be. Both of them pretending to be oblivious to this meeting.

  "This works better," she said and sashayed to the mirror. "Your interruption was smooth and inviting," she said and complimented him as she was instructed to do. "How long have you..."

  She froze in front of the full length mirror. She was speechless. A seductive twist and twirl, very mode-lesque, before she walked back toward Mr. 357, but he had vanished. She searched for him when he tapped her shoulder with a matching bag.

  By the way that she tucked the bag under her arm, a photographer should have been there to snap a Vogue cover. Her eyes gleamed as if he was a gift from the fashion God--a gambit that could label her a fashionista. Mr. 357 had a look in his eyes that a vampire had when it wrapped it's fangs into the throat of some unsuspecting dame. She trusted him, he thought. She knew that he was full of authority, business and power--all of the things that her husband lacked. That was their common interest; her husband had wronged both of them.

  She dug into her purse and he spied a flask. She retrieved a gold plated business card holder and proffered her claim to fame.

  "You must be new to this city," she said and waved a flamboyant hand in the air. "Men like you were not made in this tired town."

  Just like that, she was off to the register to purchase her shoes.

  Neither of them knew that they were participating in a game to destroy her husband. With his duty done, Mr. 357 made his way to the Market Street exit of the store. He looked at the business card, knowing that Ariel Greenland believed that he was a transplant from another city and he made no attempt to correct her. He would also take her up on her offer to give her a call. Why else would she have passed along her business card--written in a cute script with a black and white photo of her on the back? He would get with her and she would believe that he was new to the city. Problem was, the masterful Mr. 357 had no idea that he would be believing all of her lies, as well.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Jones-Lemmelle family had gone to the Egyptian exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, despite my protests. We followed that up at the Please Touch Museum, where Dajuan and I had to chase Brandon around in tyke fashion. We had a mock Boston Tea Party with the cast of Alice in Wonderland, and, we played supermarket clerks in the museum’s mock grocery store. Afterward, we had brick oven pizza at Bertucci's and by 8 p.m, I was sprawled out on my luxuriant bed with Brandon curled under me drifting to Lala Land. Usually, I would have sent him to his room, but with that morning's phone call flashing before my eyes all day, I was very protective of mine. The only reason I detailed my Saturday was to assure you that I did not chase crime every minute of the day. I did have a life outside of my ami de cour.

  For the life of me, I could not fathom a solid ground for the call. Could it have been a wrong number? No, the caller said my name. Hadn't mentioned anything else to identify me. I was taking no chances, though. Earlier I had Clinton Armond, security chieftan for all of the Prudential Building, install tracer and recording devices in my home. I had also left several messages for agent Quadir Gibson to contact me. I grabbed my cordless and decided to give him another try.

  "Gibson." He came on the line as if I had interrupted a meal consisting of carbs, protein, and creatine. He was a man as stiff as a Rodin bust who wore slim suits to showcase a steroid-induced physique. Word around was that he was a terrible ladies man who needed to be spaded.

  "Ravonne Lemmelle, here--"

  "What the hell do you want?" he said, recognizing that I was that new barrister in town that reduced him to squash the only time that I had the honor of battling him during a mock trial at Germantown High School.

  I was a freshman and he was a junior and that made it all the more devastating.

  "I tried reaching you a few times. Left a couple of messages, to no avail."

  "I am on a big case. What you want?"

  "I know. The Dave and Buster robbery."

  "If you're thinking of defending that case, I will bury you alive, Lemmelle, I swear."

  "I love being threatened, Quadir--"

  "Agent Gibson. I have earned that."

  That guy was a study in egoism, but I let him relish in his glory without rebuttal.

  "Agent Gibson at exactly 12:09 this afternoon, I received an anonymous call informing me that I should tune in to the midday news."

  He did not reply for what seemed like an eon.

  "Funny how you could nail down the exact minute of the call. Would you happen to have the seconds, too?"

  I didn't tell the asshole that as an attorney I paid attention to small things like that.

  "Listen, the time was displayed on the goddamn screen during the news along with the temperature. It was 32-degrees. I was a little concerned that I'd received a crank call on my home number, which is unlisted."

  "You have resources. Find out. I do not handle pranks."

  "You're the resource and despite us being on different sides of the fence, don't ever forget that. If I receive any other calls telling me to tune into a broadcast of a crime like I did for the Dave and Buster's caper, I'll be sure to use the media as a resource and start a whole shit storm over there. I'm sure SAC Lemeux will love that. Chow, China!"

  I hung up and was pissed. I know he hated being called China in those days, having left the hood and all that jazz.

  Dajuan stood in the bedroom doorway.

  "Let me guess. No one cares about the call because you're a defense attorney, as if you're not a citizen."

  "This is very crazy," I said. "Take him to his room."

  Dajuan tossed Brandon over his shoulder, and took him to his room. He quickly returned.

  He said, "Tomorrow we are getting guns." Dajuan sat next to me. He turned on the TV to Sports Center as if what he said was logical and normal conversation.

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "We need precaution protection, PP," he said and smiled.

  He made a gun with his hand.

  "No guns in the house. So Brandon can play with it. Hell no!"

  "Man, Brandon is not going to play with a gun. Carry it when you're out. Keep it in the trunk when you park in the garage here and at work."

  "I can defend myself, Dajuan."

  "Dawg, Judo black belts and boxing do not stop bullets."

  "You're jumping the gun," I said and chuckled. "This may all be a mistake," I said and leaned on his shoulder.

  "Aiight. You're right. Maybe. But. Okay, not yet. One more incident of any kind and we're handling business. I'm itching to bust a clown’s ass for playing on my phone. Yup, that small."

  "Yeah!"

  "And you better tell me. In fact, promise."

  "Why?"

  "Promise."

  He then stacked on top of that, "I know you'd try to save the day on your own not to worry about me. You have priors."

  "Okay, I promise, dammit!"

  "Why didn't I get a prank call?" he asked and huffed.

  "You could get one," I said and rolled on top of him. I lay between his legs.

  "Really!"

  "They'll be obscene," I said kissing down his chest.

  When I reached his belly button, he asked, "When do I get the first call?"

  I licke
d along the waistline of his boxers and used my teeth to pull them down his legs and over his feet. They landed on the floor, and I then said, "Right now," and began to place my call.

  CHAPTER 21

  Anyone who missed that party would go mad. One-hundred-seven of Philadelphia's finest converged center stage, dressed to impress. Quite a few were stoned out of their minds like any party goer who had been drinking, smoking, and snorting at that hour of a Saturday night. The crowd was busy eating, laughing, two-stepping, and spitting game to get themselves into someone's bed.