Lady Elect (27 page)

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Authors: Nikita Lynnette Nichols

BOOK: Lady Elect
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Lance knew he owed Carlton an explanation. He and Monique had just dropped a bomb. “You're right, Weeks. But I gotta get back to Arykah right now.” Lance looked at Monique. “Tell him everything.”
Monique nodded her head.
Lance stood and said to Carlton, “What she's gonna tell you has to stay here. Absolutely no one else can know. No one.”
“You have my word. Give Lady Arykah my love,” Carlton said.
 
 
Five hours later, on the south side of Chicago, she looked at him with fury in her eyes.
She couldn't believe what he had just told her. “You did
what?
I told you to rough her up. You were only supposed to scare her.”
Streams of blood had dried along the lines of his jaws where Arykah's acrylic fingernails had raked his skin.
“Look at your face. How are you gonna hide those marks?” she fussed. She began pacing her kitchen floor. “Oh my, now what am I gonna do?” She wasn't remorseful that Arykah had gotten raped. She felt that Arykah really deserved everything that happened to her. Her worry was that she could possibly be found out.
“I couldn't help it,” he said. “She was so pretty, and she was naked. I couldn't help it.”
The woman stopped pacing and looked at him. “What the heck do you mean ‘she was naked'? She opened the door with no clothes on?”
He sat in a chair next to the table and rocked back and forth. He was nervous. “I hit her, and she fell. Her dress came open. She was naked. I couldn't help it.”
She rushed over to him and slapped his face. “Do you realize what you've done? You raped a woman. You're so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You can't do anything right. You're dumb and stupid.”
He rocked back and forth again. “Stupid me, stupid me,” he sang.
“Shut up!” she screamed. She began pacing the floor again.
“She wouldn't stop crying and screaming. I had to shut her up.”
“I told you to rough her up. That's it. I didn't tell you to rape her.”
He continued to rock back and forth. “She was so pretty. And she smelled pretty. I told her she was pretty.”
She slapped his face again. “You're a stupid boy. Stop that rockin' and go take your crazy pills.”
Chapter 17
It
wasn't until two days after the rape that Arykah could move her lips and speak.
Lance had been by her side for the past forty-eight hours. He refused to leave her alone.
On the first night of Arykah's hospital stay, a nurse had come into her room and announced to Lance that visiting hours were over.
“I'm not leaving her.”
“She's in good hands, Mr. Howell.”
The only good hands that Lance felt comfortable leaving Arykah in were his own.
“My wife was raped and violently beaten. No one has called to tell me that the guy has been caught. She can't move, and she can't yell out, which means she's extremely helpless. I am not leaving her alone.”
The nurse appreciated a faithful and loving husband. She didn't argue with Lance.
“I'll see to it that a cot, a blanket, and a pillow are brought in for you then.”
“Honey?”
Lance was lying on the cot beneath a blanket when he stirred. He opened his eyes and saw Arykah sitting up in her hospital bed staring at him. He smiled. “Look at you sitting up. How are you feeling?”
The stitches in Arykah's top lip made it difficult for her to speak. The two front teeth that were missing caused her to have a lisp. “Better. Have I ever told you that you snore?”
Lance sat up on the cot. “Yes, you have. Many times.”
“Well, you need to do something about that. I was dreaming about a lawnmower; then I woke up and realized that it was you cutting the grass.”
“Oh, you got jokes.” Lance was happy to see Arykah alert and in a good mood. Since she'd arrived at the hospital, she had been drugged and asleep for most of the time.
“I wanna talk to you about something, Bishop.”
“Uh-oh. Whenever you call me ‘Bishop,' it means that I'm in trouble.” He swung his feet around and placed them on the floor. “What's up?”
Arykah exhaled. “I heard you crying the day I was brought here. I heard you saying to me that you blamed yourself that you weren't home to protect me.”
“I do blame myself. I am your husband, your protector, your bodyguard.”
“But we're not joined at the hip, honey.”
“Well, maybe we should be.”
Arykah exhaled again. Lance was showing signs. The kind of signs she didn't like. He was becoming overprotective. Arykah imagined him nailing all the windows and doors shut at their home. She imagined Lance going so far as to hiring her a personal bodyguard that would sleep in one of their guest bedrooms. Arykah imagined Lance demanding that she quit her job and stay at home where she could be watched twenty-four hours a day.
“Listen, you can't be with me every second of the day.”
“But a personal bodyguard can.”
Arykah shook her head from side to side. “I knew you were gonna go there. You're flipping out on me, but I'm gonna reel you back in. I don't want, nor do I need, to be treated as if I'm some sort of mental patient that can't be left alone. You're not gonna lock me in the house, Lance. I don't need a big, burly, scary-looking dude named ‘The Crusher' living in my guest room. When I get released from this hospital, I'm going home and get my life back to normal. That's what's best for me.”
“But what if that is not what's best for
me?
”
Arykah shrugged her shoulders. “How is me getting my life back to normal not what's best for you?”
Lance looked at Arykah's swollen right eye and the stitches on her top lip. Her nose was still disfigured. Yesterday the doctor told him that Arykah's ribs would heal on their own in time. But when Lance bathed Arykah, he saw purple bruises above her abdomen and on her side. And there was still the baby that Arykah had lost. He hadn't yet told her. “Babe, it kills me that I wasn't home to protect you on Monday. You're not a man, Arykah.”
“Thanks for telling me that. I had no idea.”
“I'm not kidding.”
“You're not kidding that I'm not a man?”
“Cheeks, please. I'm so serious right now. You're not a man. You're not a husband. It's a man's job to protect his wife, his family, and his jewels. When a man fails to protect his jewels from harm, it puts him in a state of panic.”
“And I understand that, honey. Really I do. But you can't hide me from the rest of the world. Life goes on.” Arykah poked herself in the chest with her index finger. “
My
life will go on.”
Lance hung his head. He sat on the cot in a somber mood. Of course he couldn't hold Arykah hostage in their home, but there had to be a way for him to better protect her. He'd have to figure something out.
“I know about the baby.”
Lance's head jerked up. For the longest moment he didn't say a word. “You do?”
Arykah nodded her head. “I was conscious when the paramedics brought me here. I heard and felt everything. I feel like I'm sitting on a rolled up beach towel.”
He wanted to chuckle about Arykah's reference to the super-sized Maxi pads the hospital provided their patients, but Lance felt the matter at hand was a serious one. He tried to read Arykah's mood. If she was sad she hid it very well. “Tell me how you're feeling about the miscarriage.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “To tell you the truth, Lance, there's nothing
to
feel. I mean, had I known about the baby, I'd probably be in a different place. But I didn't even know I was pregnant. I never got the chance to become attached.” She cocked her head to the side and looked at him. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”
“Yeah, I do.” Lance was the one who had always brought up the subject of having kids. Arykah told Lance that she didn't have a strong desire to have any. If she and Lance conceived, she'd be fine with it. If they never conceived, she be fine with that as well.
Arykah heard voices outside her hospital room door. She looked down and saw shadows passing by. “Share with me your feelings about the baby. I know you want children. Are you sad?”
Lance opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.
“You can be honest with me,” she encouraged him.
He gave her a slight smile. “I'm okay.”
“You're not a good liar.”
Of course he lied. Lance wanted children like he wanted his next breath. But Arykah had survived a traumatic experience. He wasn't going to lay his emotions on her. She needed to heal. If he confessed to Arykah that learning that she had miscarried really saddened him, Lance knew she'd feel guilty for her nonchalant attitude.
“No, really. I feel the same way that you do.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Lance said. He was grateful for the interruption.
The female detective pushed the door ajar and peeked inside. “Good morning. May I come in?”
“Absolutely,” Lance said. He stood from the cot and stretched. “Babe, this is Detective ...” It dawned on him that he didn't know her name. He never gave her a chance to introduce herself on Monday when he sped home. He was too anxious to find out where Arykah was. And at the hospital later that day, when she had interrogated him, Adonis, and Carlton, he hadn't asked her what her name was there either.
“Rogers. Detective Cortney Rogers,” she said, coming further into the room. She came and stood next to Arykah and smiled. Arykah's face hadn't healed much since Detective Rogers had first come on the scene in their home. There was so much blood coming from beneath Arykah's head at the time that Detective Rogers assumed she was deceased. But when she pressed her fingers against Arykah's neck, she felt a pulse. “How are you coming along, Mrs. Howell?”
Arykah placed her hand on her side. Her bruised and broken ribs were starting to hurt again. “I feel like I've been hit by a bus.”
 
Lance saw that Arykah was becoming uncomfortable sitting up. “You want to lie down, Cheeks?”
“Perhaps you should,” Detective Rogers encouraged.
“Yes, I do want to lie back,” Arykah said, wincing at every move she made.
Detective Rogers stepped back and allowed Lance to adjust Arykah's bed; then she watched as he fluffed her pillows and made sure that she was as comfortable as she could be. Love poured from Lance. It was evident right then just as it was evident on Monday when Lance demanded to know where his wife was.
“Mrs. Howell, I'd like to ask you some questions about what happened at your home on Monday morning. Do you feel up to talking about it?”
Arykah moaned at the pain in her side.
“Maybe now isn't a good time, Detective,” Lance stated.
“No, it's okay,” Arykah countered. “Let's get it over with.”
Detective Rogers pulled a notepad and a pen from her interior coat pocket. “What do you remember?”
Arykah exhaled. “Well, I was in the shower when I heard the telephone ring. It was Mother Pansie.”
“What did she want?” Lance asked.
Detective Rogers jotted the name on her notepad. “Mother Pansie,” she said out loud.
She turned back a few pages of the notebook and looked at her previous notes. “Mother Pansie,” she said again. She looked at Lance. “That's the same name that Mrs. Howell's best friend gave to me. And you also stated that this woman should be considered as a person of interest.”
“Yes, that's right,” Lance confirmed. “Um, what did Mother Pansie want when she called?” he asked Arykah again.
Arykah looked from Lance to Detective Rogers, then back at Lance again. “Wait. You think Mother Pansie did this to me?”
“Well, Monique seems to think that the mothers may have had something to do with what happened to you. And I do too.”
“Have you had any problems with the mothers of the church, Mrs. Howell?” Detective Rogers asked Arykah.
Arykah wanted to chuckle, but her ribs were singing a song. “Problems? Humph, that's really putting it mildly. They hate me. Both of them.”
Detective Rogers looked over her notes again. “You're speaking of Mother Gussie as well, right?”
“Those old hags have been torturing me ever since the first day I came to the church.”
“And when was that?”
“Almost six months ago,” Lance answered. “But I wanna know what Mother Pansie wanted when she called.”
“The same thing she always wants whenever she calls, Lance. I didn't even give her a chance to tell me what she wanted. I knew she was calling to speak with you. When I heard her voice, I told Mother Pansie that you weren't home and she should call you at the church.”
“And then what happened?” Detective Rogers encouraged Arykah to keep talking.
“She hung up on me.”
“Just like that?” Lance asked.
Arykah looked at Lance. “Does that surprise you?”
“Okay. So,” Detective Rogers started as she was writing, “you were in the shower when the telephone rang. You answered the call, and Mother Pansie said what exactly?”
“She said my name,” Arykah answered.
“So, Mother Pansie said, ‘Arykah.'”
“She said, ‘Lady Arykah?' It was a question; like she was verifying that it was me who had answered the telephone.”
Detective Rogers was writing fast. “What happened next?”
“After Mother Pansie hung up on me, I headed back to the shower, but the doorbell rang. So, I shut the water in the shower off, then put my robe on, and went to answer the door.”
“How much time had passed between Mother Pansie's call and the doorbell?”
Arykah thought about it. “Hmm, I'd say about ten or fifteen seconds. It wasn't long at all. As soon as I put the phone back on the base, I headed back to the shower, but the doorbell rang before I actually reached the shower.”
“How many feet are there from your telephone to your shower?”
“I don't know.” Arykah looked at Lance. “Honey, how many feet?”
“You answered the telephone on your nightstand, right?” Lance asked her.
Arykah nodded.
Lance looked at Detective Rogers. “It's probably about twenty to twenty-five feet from Arykah's nightstand to the shower.”
Detective Rogers jotted down what Lance said. “Okay, so, Mrs. Howell—”
“Please call me Arykah.”
Detective Rogers smiled. “Okay, then, Arykah, I want you to concentrate on what I'm going to ask you next. You can take your time to answer because I need you to be as precise as you possibly can. From the moment you put the telephone back on the base and headed back to the shower, how many steps had you taken before you heard the doorbell?”

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