They questioned me all night. Where did I go? Who was I with? They’d ask me two questions and as soon as I’d answer, they’d ask the exact same two questions in six or seven different ways, searching for the slightest hint of a different answer. My mind was blank. Sorrow and grief are only two of the many life changing emotions that I felt. Things like this don’t happen to me it I thought, they happen to other people. Yet here I stand. Two shots had killed it. Monique and my child that she was carrying. One shot to her upper thigh and the fatal shot to her stomach.
“What was in the safe Mr. Banks?” They asked this question the most. They’d found my safe in the closet. Empty! I had almost eighty - seven thousand dollars in that safe! I remembered the blood. There was so much blood. It smelled like…. Like…. pennies. Metallic. Sickening. An empty safe and a dead girl on the floor screamed out one thing. Robbery! A great feeling of aloneness suddenly overcame me. Death is final. I’d never talk to Monique again. Never again would I hear that wild and crazy laughter that was oh so contagious. Her kisses. The smell of her. I should have stayed home. I was consuming myself with guilt. Someone had taken from me, what I so easily had taken for granted. They questioned me about the check I had in my pocket from Lauryn. I told them I worked for it. After calling to verify, Lauryn confirmed the validity of the check, and then went on to volunteer, after discovering the situation, that we had in fact been together all weekend, and up until just a couple of hours prior. They tested my hand for gun residue. Nothing.
“Mr. Banks.” The same lady detective in the gray suit spoke to me. “Due to the confirmation of your recent where abouts by Ms. Laddell, we feel that you may not have been involved, at least at this time, with the death of Ms. Williams. However, we are going to need to hang on to this check until further investigations are confirmed. I looked around the small dusty room full of detectives and felt like throwing up again. One of the same type rooms that I’d sat in over four and a half years earlier, being questioned in the murder of Big Joe. I wished it was that simple now I thought, as I finally focused in on the words the detective continuously spoke. “Mr. Banks, are you listening?”
“Yeah. Sorry if I’m not enthused.”
“I’m sorry for your loss Mr. Banks. If everything is okay, I give you my word, you’ll have your check back in a couple of weeks maybe less. Now, the front door of the home was kicked in, in what seems to have been a forced entrance. Also, Mr. Banks, found in the fruit and vegetables drawer of your refrigerator, was a nine millimeter Beretta. The gun, after testing, was determined to not have been recently fired. So, although we have eliminated the gun from the possibility of it being the murder weapon, we have been informed to charge you with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Your parole officer is waiting in the hallway.”
“Hold up a goddamned minute!” I shot to my feet. “You mean to tell me my fiancé has been murdered and yall trying to lock me up for this BULLSHIT! That’s not my gun!” I screamed in the face of the stocky white cop with the Hulk Hogan mustache that was suddenly in my face!
“That will be up to the courts Mr. Banks. Once again, I am sorry for your loss, but my job here is done.” The lady detective in the gray suit, who’s named turned out to be Atkins said to me as she closed up her information folder and walked out of the room.