Alibi II (8 page)

“Beverly, you okay?” asked Uncle Ray Ray, noticing that 
Beverly
 was still sitting upright on the sofa as if nothing had happened. Ray saw the whites of her eyes as they shut, and then, slowly, she slumped to the side and rolled off the sofa and onto the floor. The first bullet that had come through the left window had grazed the back of her head as the bullet passed her, piercing the wall behind her. Beverly never had a chance to take cover. The only thing that saved her was angle and location. A few more inches to the right and Beverly would have been shot in the center of the head. The second bullet hit her in the back above her shoulder blade, lodging inside.

“Beverly!” Uncle Ray Ray yelled. He got up quickly and ran over to her side as everyone in the house could hear the drive-by’s tires screeching down the block.

“Oh, my God!” screamed Crystal, still cradling a crying Dayanna through all the commotion.

“Call 911!” yelled Uncle Ray Ray to Chris, who was standing there in shock. “Call 911, I said, don’t just stand there,” he yelled at his son again. The sight of blood stopped Chris dead in his tracks and he couldn’t move. All he could see was the dark black blood soaking his father’s shirt.

“Chris, call 911, I said!” Uncle Ray Ray hollered as Crystal, still cradling a screaming baby, dialed 911.

“I need an ambulance, Ms. Beverly’s been shot, please, please send somebody quick, I don’t think she’s breathing, she don’t look like she’s breathing,” screamed a sobbing Crystal, her nerves shaking as she nervously held the phone and spoke to the 911 operator. Of course the 911 operator began to ask a series of questions, and Crystal could be heard answering with a series of I don’t knows.

“Is they sending an ambulance?” questioned Uncle Ray Ray, holding Beverly in his arms.

“Yeah, the lady says one is coming, it’s on the way.”

“Chris, what the hell you standing there for like a frozen statue? Boy, get your ass upstairs and get me some towels out the closet. We got to do something to try and stop all this bleeding,” said Ray Ray, covered in the dark black blood that was coming from his niece’s head wound and the back of her shoulder.

It would be another fifteen minutes and two more 911 calls before the police or an ambulance would arrive. But finally, they stormed into the house all at the same time. Uncle Ray Ray broke down at the sight of the paramedics preparing Beverly’s body for transport. The room fell silent as they gently lifted her body onto the gurney and rolled her into the back of an ambulance.

“Don’t let her die, God. Don’t let her die,” Crystal whispered between sobs. A bloody Ray Ray answered a few questions before being offered a ride to Temple Hospital. The entire block was standing outside, eyewitnesses to all the commotion.

“Don’t worry, Ray, she’ll be all right,” shouted Clarence from his porch. Ray just waved his hand at everybody.
I sure do hope so.

Tommy and Vivian were seated in the back of Carmen’s, an Italian restaurant located down in South Philly. Carmen Pangione had been in the food business all his life. He started with a small hoagie shop called Rocco’s. He invented the chicken a la Rocco’s hoagie and sold them all day long in the Reading Terminal Market, making himself a very rich man.

“Hey, guys, good to see you two. How you been, Tommy, how’s the family?” asked Carmen as he greeted them both, hugging and kissing Vivian, then doing the same to Tommy.

“Everybody’s good, Carmen, how’s everybody doing? How’s your wife and kids?”

“Everybody’s wonderful. You want a bottle of wine, let me get you something real nice, on the house,” he said, patting Tommy on the back. “Get my friends here a bottle of water for their table,” he ordered as he rushed off to his wine cellar to fetch a real good year. Within a matter of minutes he was back holding two round wineglasses and a bottle of Fontalloro Felsina in his hand. “For you, Tommy, anything you need, you just let me know.”

“Thanks, Carmen,” said Tommy nonchalantly, as if the extra-nice treatment were completely normal.

“Wow, now he gets an A plus for service, I’d say,” chimed 
Vivian
.

“An old friend of my family,” said Tommy. “He watched me grow up. You know how it is,” assured Tommy. “Trust me, as long as I’ve known Carmen, that guy will be dancing at my wedding with bells on,” smiled Tommy.

Vivian thought of her wedding day. He did say he’d get the ring. Then again, maybe this is all too soon for him. Maybe he can’t handle all this. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him about the baby. But, he needs to know, it’s his baby, too.

“What’s the matter, you don’t like the wine?”

“No, the wine is delicious. It’s just that…I have something to tell you and I don’t know how to say it.”

A waiter quickly set two house salads down in front of them, poured their glasses full of water, and then asked if they were ready to order their main course or if they needed more time.

“I’m ready,” replied Tommy, “you?” he asked, looking over at Vivian. Her face said a thousand words, all of which meant “no.” “Can we get a few more minutes?” he asked the waiter, who politely bowed his head before walking away.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s serious, Tommy, I’m trying to talk to you.”

“Viv, I was just ordering dinner, I didn’t mean to upset you. Come on, tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Vivian, you’re killing me over here, come on.”

“I’m pregnant, Tommy. We’re going to have a baby.”

He was silent as the words traveled through his ears, into his brain, and seeped into the reality of his being. There were many ways to look at the situation. It was good, and in a way it was bad. Bad because he wasn’t ready for fatherhood. Dating Vivian, an FBI agent, was scary enough, marriage and baby had him ready to run for the hills. It was way too much responsibility. He wasn’t even ready to be responsible for toothpaste, let alone a wife or a child. He could feel himself beginning to perspire, the room closing in, and a wave of anxiety hit him like a wave crashing to shore.

“Tommy are you okay, you look like you can hardly breathe.”

He looked at her across the table. She was a good match for him, smart, intelligent, in law enforcement. Her beauty far outweighed her brains, and if you didn’t know any better, you would expect Vivian Lang should have been a pinup model on a poster in an auto body shop. She was the ultimate package, but a baby?

“Do you know how lucky you are?” he joked.

“What, what are you talking about? This is totally serious, Tommy.”

“And at the end of the day, you got lucky?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to be family. You need to plan the wedding, right away, ’cause no kid of mine will be born a bastard and not have a father and not have a name. I’m such a stand-up fucking guy. And you’re lucky, Vivian, really lucky you caught me when you did.”

“Hey, Carmen, we’re getting married…and having a baby!”

“Congratulazioni!”
he shouted in Italian.
“Celebriamo!”

L
iddles parked his car, tucked his gun in his waistband, and with the other hand grabbed an FTD tiger lily arrangement from the front seat. He locked up his dusty old blue van, then walked up the unfamiliar block and into an apartment building behind a young female struggling with several bags of groceries managing two small children.

“Excuse me,” he said politely as he passed by and took the corridor in the opposite direction, toward the stairwell. He began climbing, his lean and toned body built for every step of the twelve flights he would have to climb. And even though the apartment building had an elevator, his diversion served its purpose. Actually, everything he had planned for the last six months would now serve its purpose. A well-thought-out and well-planned purpose.

Liddles was and had always been the thinker, one step ahead. He had the quality of patience and used time, unlike others, who wasted it. He had everything figured out before he made a move. He had watched and followed Lance’s mother all day. From court to the Septa bus to the corner store, to the apartment building, he had seen it all through his binoculars from the driver’s seat of his old dusty blue van as he sat patiently like a jaguar biding time before it attacks its prey.

A little out of breath from the climb and with a rush of pulsating adrenaline from knowing what he was about to do, he knocked at the door. There was no answer so he knocked again and pressed his head closer to the door. He could hear the faint sound of the A Team’s theme music playing from the television.

Mrs. Robertson glanced at the dresser as she slipped her housecoat over her head. Mrs. Robertson was a retired schoolteacher from South Philly High. She had worked with young children from second-graders to tenth-graders, teaching and molding them into young adults. She had dedicated her life to her students. Her husband, Fred Robertson, had died from cancer years ago. So, it was just her and her son, Lance. And now that he had been killed in what the media was calling a botched robbery, she had no one except her cat, Boots. She did have a younger sister who lived in New Jersey with her family. But they didn’t talk much. Her brother had died years ago, in the 1970s. The police said it was gang-related and had no witnesses or suspects. No arrests were ever made.

She looked at her lottery tickets.
Lucky 147, baby. If I hit, I need so much I don’t even know what I’d buy first.

She heard the bell on Boots’s collar jingle as he pranced down the hall, then a wind whispered through the bedroom window.
Let me close this window before I forget and catch cold.
Once she had closed the window and pulled the draperies to and fro so they lay just right, she took a few steps back to examine their timeless beauty. The draperies had been passed down from her momma’s momma’s momma from out of a real-life plantation in Drew, Mississippi, where her kinfolks were from. Then she heard the faint sound of knocking on the door.

Somebody’s at the door, Bootsy. Probably one of them kids from down the hall making noise again.

Then again another knock at the door.

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” bellowed Mrs. Robertson. She finished slipping into her housecoat and made her way to the door. She looked out the peephole.

“Who is it?” said a soft gentle voice from behind the door.

“Floral delivery, ma’am,” said Liddles, hoping this would prompt her to open the door.

“Flowers, I’m not expecting any flowers,” she said as the tiger lilies’ orange petals did their job. Liddles could hear the woman unhooking the chain and unlocking the locks. She opened her door and stared into the eyes of the grim reaper himself who had come for her.

Liddles pointed the barrel of a .38 at the elderly woman and closed the door behind him.

“I’ve been waiting to see…I had a feeling you was coming,” she said, already knowing what he was there for. Mrs. Robertson stood still, facing the barrel of the gun dead on. She didn’t scream, she wasn’t scared, she just wished she had fed her cat, Boots, before her assassin had showed up.

“As I walk through the valley…” she began, her eyes still calmly staring at her fate.

“Don’t nobody want to hear that shit, we ain’t in no valley, neither. Shut up, turn around, and get down on the floor,” Liddles ordered, still standing in the doorway. The woman did as she was told, turned around and bent down as she got on her knees. She felt the heavy metal of the steel gun at the base of her skull.

“I’m sorry for your brother.”

Liddles hesitated for one split second…before pulling the trigger. He watched as the older woman’s body leaned against the wall. She fell to the floor, her blood oozing out of the back of her head into a puddle where she lay.

“I’m sorry for my brother, too,” he said, speaking back to the dead woman.

He picked up his vase of tiger lilies and closed the door behind him as her cat, Boots, walked over to where she lay. He sniffed the small pile of blood next to her head, let out a soft meow, and sat waiting patiently for his dinner to be served.

“Hey, Delgado, and Ross, get in here. Now!” shouted Captain O’Reilly. “Delgado, what the fuck is going on with you? I hear you’re about to be a family man?” asked the captain, patting Tommy on his back, as if he was a proud father.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m getting married and I’m inviting you to my wedding.” Tommy smiled. “You and the chief.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said, before turning to Ross. “Hey, Ross, how’s it going with you?” he asked Merva, not wanting her to feel left out of all the small talk.

“I’m good, Captain, everything is well,” she retorted.

“That’s good to hear. Listen guys, we got two cases I want you to pick up and report back to me pronto. The first is a drive-by on Twenty-third Street off the corner of Susquehanna. Looks like we got a woman in her midforties, shot in the back of the head, in stable condition at Jefferson; her name is Beverly Guess. Take this,” said the captain, passing a folder to Merva.

“And the next case I got for the two of you is an old lady, shot and killed in the doorway of her apartment out in West Philadelphia. There was no forcible entry and no one heard a thing, not even the gunshot,” he said, passing another folder to Tommy.

“I want the two of you to see what you can come up with,” he said, hoping they could solve the case before sundown. “The mayor’s office wants an arrest, so I need you guys to look sharp out there, you got it?”

“We got it, don’t worry about a thing,” said Tommy, patting his back.

“We’re on it, Captain,” added Merva, as she and Tommy walked out of the captain’s office, closing his door behind them.

“So, where should we start, old lady or drive-by?” asked Tommy.

Merva pulled a coin out of her pocket. “Heads old lady, tails drive-by,” she said as she flicked the coin, caught it, and slapped it on the back of her hand, “Tails! We do the drive-by,” she said as she stuffed the coin back in her pocket.

“Tails it is,” said Tommy as he held the door for her to walk through.

Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona

Daisy Mae Fothergill was in the final stages of being relocated and placed into the witness protection program. Her paperwork had been pushed through by none other than Detective Tommy Delgado. And after she testified she was immediately transported to Phoenix, Arizona, where two uniformed officers of the Relocation Unit’s specialized services were waiting for her. A woman by the name of Lori Snelling was assigned to Daisy and responsible for her intake. Her job would only last for ninety days and then she’d be out of Daisy’s life, forever. But, in the meantime, she would transition Daisy and morph her into her new being. Her job included detail for ninety days, processing Daisy’s new identity, home placement, society introduction, job searching, and education, and there was just a ton of paperwork involved for every detail and for every process that Lori was responsible for. But rest assured, when Lori Snelling was done, Daisy Mae Fothergill would no longer exist. She had ninety days and then Lori would be assigned a new case, a new life, a new person to delete from the face of the earth. Some cases required surgery or face-altering. High alert security services were needed in most cases, but not in Daisy’s. Lori was confident that Daisy Mae Fothergill would never be found again when she was done.

Daisy remembered how nervous she was at the airport, her first time flying, and now a new place, and a new home, with complete strangers. She had said good-bye to everyone at the courthouse and had nothing familiar from her past except a picture book of her closest friends and relatives. She thought back to the day she had met Lori Snelling.

“Hi, I’ve been assigned to relocating you. I’ll be picking up where Detective Delgado left off. If you have any questions, you are free to ask them. If I have the answers, I will provide them. If I don’t, I will get the answers for you.” Snelling smiled and helped Daisy with one of her carry-ons. “First, we will go to your hotel and check you in. I will explain the security detail that has been assigned,” she said, noticing the frown that appeared on Daisy’s face. “No, no, it’s just preliminary, all this is, just to get you started and on your way. We’ll be out of your hair in no time,” Lori said, raising her eyebrows and showing a confident smile.

“What’s no time?” asked Daisy, wondering how long no time would actually be.

“We got ninety days, and until then, let’s just say, I’m sort of like your shadow. The good thing, though, is if you need me, I’ll be right here. But, first things first, I need a name, a new name; that’s the only thing Detective Delgado didn’t fill in,” requested Lori, just wanting to get the ball rolling.

“A name?” asked Daisy, never having thought of what she wanted to be called.

“Sleep on it, let me know tomorrow. For the night, you’ll be in Motel 8, but once we get you situated you’ll be in your dorm, a regular ’ol college student like everyone else. Sounds like a lot of fun.” Lori Snelling smiled as if it was just the greatest thing in the world.

“College, no one said anything about college.”

“Detective Delgado pushed your paperwork. These are his instructions. Your new residence, courtesy of the state of Pennsylvania, is at Arizona State.”

Okay, Mr. Detective, since you signed me up for college you can sign me out.
Daisy couldn’t wait to get to a phone, boy, oh, boy, was she going tear into him when she did, and as soon as Lori closed the crappy Motel 8 door behind her, Daisy picked up the phone and called Tommy.

“Why am I in a Motel 8, and why did you enroll me in college?”

“Well, you have to do something, and there are people in place to keep an eye out for you. You’ll be fine. You’ll do great.”

“I need a job,” said Daisy defiantly.

“Doing what? You have no schooling. What, you gonna go back to stripping?”

His question hurt her feelings, because he was saying it to do so and at the same time using her life against her.

“I did what I had to do!” she barked back.

“Okay, fine, now do what you need to do. It’s a great opportunity. I want you to make it out here, Daisy. I don’t want you to end up dead, you hear me, lying in the fucking gutter somewhere!” He caught his anxiety, his frustration, his hostility, and he remembered what his district’s psychiatrist told him to do and quietly counted to four and the anger was gone. He was in control. “Listen, Daisy, you can do this. I know you’re scared, but just give it a try. I hooked you up with Lori, isn’t she great?”

“Yeah,” Daisy sighed with a hint of sarcasm.

“What you say? I can’t hear you, speak up,” Tommy shot back at her, figuring she needed to be bossed around, just like any other woman he had ever dealt with.

“I said yeah, she’s just great, she’s the best.”

“Okay, so you got away with a nice little stash,” said Tommy, knowing all about the arrangement Vivian had made, because he was the one behind it.

“How’d you know about that?”

“Ah, hah, hah, don’t you want to know.” Tommy joked and teased, but he was really serious, and she would do what he said like everybody else. He knew that if she didn’t go, she would limit her chances of surviving, and so far in life, the odds weren’t stacked in her favor.

“Hey, just promise me you’ll give it a chance.”

“Yeah, I’ll give it a chance.”

“Okay, and one more thing, Daisy.”

“What?”

“I’m betting on you, all my money is on you. I know you can do this.”

That was two weeks ago, the night they had flown her in. And as scared as she was, she went along for the unknown ride. Lori Snelling turned out to be one of the nicest people Daisy would ever meet, caring, passionate, and understanding.

The two bonded in an unbelievable way. It wasn’t hard to understand, though. Lori was from a small town in Oklahoma. One night after her seventeen-year-old sister had a fight with their parents, Lil’ Lori, as everyone called her, watched her sister pack a backpack, even though her parents had told her she could not spend the night over her girlfriend’s house.

“But it’s just a slumber party,” she defended, begging like a hungry homeless person. But it didn’t work, the Snellings were relentless and they never budged. After the house was quiet and everyone asleep, Christy tiptoed downstairs and came back into the room wearing her jacket.

“Where you going?” Lori asked a fuming Christy.

“I don’t know, but far, far, far away from here, that’s for sure. I hate it here and I hate them. They never let me do anything. I’m going out.”

“Are you coming back tomorrow?” asked Lil’ Lori, hoping her sister would say no and that she was leaving for good so she could have her room.

Lori watched as her sister fell silent, opening the window.

“I wish never,” said Christy as she climbed out of the window and jumped off the ledge.

“Well, can I have your Madonna poster off your wall?” pint-size nine-year-old Lori asked her seventeen-year-old sister from the window.

“No, don’t be dumb,” Christy snapped in her usual valley girl snobbish way. “Close the window and be quiet.”