Chapter 16
The best thing in his career finally happened. The night after receiving the manila envelope, Detective Avery’s curiosity seemed to get the best of him. Detective Avery didn’t know who had slid that piece of paper under the door of his office, but he couldn’t say that he cared, either. He did acknowledge the fact that he owed them a big thank-you. At first he was confused about what he would find when he brought a team to the address written on the piece of paper. It led him to an empty field in the middle of a forest. He was discouraged in the beginning because they were out there for hours and didn’t come up with nothing.
“I think somebody was just playing a joke on you, Detective,” said one of the police officers Detective Avery had made come with him. “There ain’t nothing in this forest but raccoon shit. Let’s pack up and go home.”
Detective Avery nodded his head; and just as he was about to agree and tell everyone to get their things together, his eyes fell on a clearing that he didn’t remember checking.
“Over there.” Detective Avery pointed his finger in the direction of the clearing. “Bring the dogs over there with me.”
As soon as the dogs hit the clearing they began barking nonstop at something in the ground. One of them even started growling.
“Get the shovels, boys,” he shouted back at the officers. “There’s something in the ground over there!”
Detective Avery’s heart pounded so hard in his chest that he was almost certain the officers around him could hear how anxious he was. When finally the hole in the ground was big enough the officers got in it and pulled out what it was that the dogs were barking at. It was wrapped in black garbage bags, and when the officer who had spoken to Detective Avery slit it open with a box cutter he instantly turned his head and covered his nose with one arm. The smell was unbearable.
“Looks like we got a body, sir,” the officer said. “The bugs have been having a feast on his face, too.”
“Call forensics!” Detective Avery could barely hold in his excitement. “I need an ID on this body ASAP!”
That same night, Detective Avery stayed in the lab until they got a positive ID from the victim’s mother. He didn’t care that she was sleeping; he needed her to come and ID her son. When she saw the body she broke down in a fit of screams and that was all Detective Avery needed to confirm what he already knew. The address on the paper had led him directly to where Antonio Lesley’s body was buried. The lab also tested some of stains on his clothes along with some hairs found on his body and came back with an immediate match to Davita Mason’s DNA.
“Got you now, bitch,” Detective Avery said to himself and laughed evilly as he looked at the sheets of paper. “I got you now!”
* * *
“You sure you should even be here?” Cane asked, looking up at the building that Day’s apartment was in. “What if somebody is up there waiting for you?”
“Don’t nobody know where I live,” Day assured him. “And if they do they probably aren’t alive anymore. You coming up with me?”
“Nah,” Cane said and stayed parked on the street. “I’ma just wait for you right here.”
“Okay.” She blew him a kiss and got out of the car. “I’ll be right back. I just gotta grab like two things.”
She slammed the door to his BMW shut and jogged to the front door of her condo. She was dressed casual in a pair of Levi jeans and a Victoria’s Secret boyfriend tee. The pink Nike Roshes that Cane had talked her into buying were beyond comfortable, and she made a mental note to go back to the mall and get a couple more pairs. She used her key and opened the secured entry before going to stop at the doorman.
“Hey, Steve!” She smiled at the older man who had always been so kind to her. When he saw her he looked as if he was seeing a ghost. She raised her eyebrow at him. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t think you were coming back anytime soon,” Steve said, playing with his watch. “You haven’t been here for days. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you would come; that’s why I let them in.”
“Let who in?” Day said, backing away from his desk. “Let who in, Steve?”
His wide eyes darted around before he turned them back on her. “Run!” he yelled, startling her, but she did as he said.
She ran back out of the door before even making her way up to the condo but before she had even hit the last step she heard the police sirens. She was surrounded but still she tried to make a run for it. She had only taken a couple of steps when she felt herself being tackled from behind.
“I don’t think so,” she heard a familiar voice grunt; and he put a knee in her back. “Where do you think you’re going, little bitch?”
“Who the fuck are you?” she asked with her face in the grass.
“You don’t remember me?” the voice asked after she was cuffed. He lifted her to her feet and turned her to face him. “Your old friend Detective Avery? I’m insulted.”
“Get the fuck off of me!” she yelled, and tried to jerk her arm away. “You don’t have anything on me.”
Her voice was so confident that he had to laugh at her. “I got you,” he said, smiling and nodding his head. “That little clearing that you had Antonio’s body in was a good hiding spot. But just not good enough.”
The expression on Day’s face dropped instantly and she felt like somebody had just ripped her heart out of her chest. “Huh . . . Huh . . .” She stumbled over her words.
“How?” Detective Avery asked, and pushed her forcefully toward the flashing lights. “An anonymous tip. Davita Mason, you are under arrest for the murder of Antonio Lesley. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. . . .”
His voice trailed off in Day’s head. She looked and saw Cane in his car looking back at her helplessly through the car window. She shook her head at him, letting him know not to do anything stupid. Her mind was reeling because she had no idea who would snitch her out, if he was even really telling the truth about that. She hadn’t told anybody except her dad where she had actually placed his body. She hung her head inside of the cop cruiser. Finally the law had caught up to the Mason name.
* * *
David Jr. sat with his elbows on the kitchen table and with his hands clasped together. He stared at his cell phone, willing it to ring; and whenever it did, if it wasn’t who he wanted to talk to then he would simply ignore the call. Roland had called him a couple times and each time he did David Jr. told himself that he would call him back, but he never got around to it. His head was throbbing and he felt worse than a little kid who had just lost his puppy, because he had lost a lot more. Finally his cell phone began to vibrate around the table, and when he looked at it he saw a number that he did not recognize.
“Hello. This is a collect call from Davita Mason. To accept this call please press one. To decline this call—”
David didn’t give the woman on the IVR time to say anything else before his thumb was jamming the number one on his phone.
“Hello?”
David Jr. heard his twin’s voice on the other line, and he didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to hear it. “Day,” David Jr. said. “What the fuck did you do?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice sounded sad. “They got me.”
Earlier that day he had received a text from a number that he didn’t have saved in his phone telling him that Davita had been arrested. When he tried to call he number back it had already been disconnected. He soon learned that he didn’t even have to call Day’s phone to confirm because her arrest was all over the news. The police had linked a body that they found in a forest to her and were charging her with first-degree murder. He had no doubt in his mind that she did it, but still the last place he wanted her was behind bars.
“We gon’ get you out of there,” David Jr. said, trying to sound believable. “They aren’t gon’ keep you in there if I can help it.”
“You actually sound like you care.” Day laughed a little bit.
“You’re my sister, my twin. Of course I care.”
There was quiet for a moment before Day spoke again. “Maybe Mom was right,” she said, and shocked David Jr. “Maybe we should have just sold everything and moved on with our lives. Look at how we’ve been living for the last week. I don’t want the rest of my life to be in hiding. We have enemies we have never even met because of the lifestyle we were born into. I don’t know. I’ve just been in here thinking about shit these last few hours. I don’t think this life is for me anymore, David Jr.”
David Jr. heard her sniffle and he knew that she was crying. It hurt him to the core to hear her be vulnerable like that and, in a way, he felt that it was his fault. If only he had been the son King David always wanted, then Day wouldn’t have ever felt the need to put on the big boy pants.
“We can talk about it more when you come home,” David Jr. said. “Mac already contacted a lawyer for you. He’s the best in the city, I heard.”
“You have one minute remaining.” The sound of the voice recording let them know that they didn’t have much time remaining to talk.
“Yeah, okay,” Day responded, and he could hear in her voice that she didn’t believe him. “They have too much on me. They holding me in here with no bail. Tell Indigo to take good care of you, all right? And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”
“I’m sorry too,” David Jr. said, exhaling. “I—”
He wasn’t able to say what he wanted to because the voice recording interrupted him and informed him that the call was over. All he heard on the other end of the phone was dead silence.
“I love you, sis,” David Jr. said. He sat still for a moment trying to collect all his thoughts. All of his emotions bubbled together and, just like a bubble, they popped. He stood to his feet and used his strength and flipped the table over.
“Fuck!” he shouted out, and commenced tearing the whole kitchen apart. Throwing the chairs into the walls he left huge gapes in them. He ripped the doors to the cabinets from their hinges and launched all of the fine china onto the floor. He thought about his mother, his father, and his sister. He couldn’t understand how it had all come to this. He had tried his hardest to get away from the life he was currently in, and it had just dawned on him that he would have never been able to run from it. It would have always found him. By the time the big kitchen was completely destroyed he fell to the floor, exhausted.
When Mac found him he was sitting in the middle of the mess he’d made with his head down. David Jr.’s shoulders heaved up and down with each deep breath that he took. Mac looked around his kitchen and, instead of being angry about all the money he had just lost, he knelt down beside David Jr. and patted him on the back.
“It’s gon’ be all right, son. It’s gon’ be all right.”
“How do you know that?” David Jr. asked, staring at his red palms.
“Because you’re still alive. And as long as you are alive then there is hope for all of us.”
“That sounds like some shit from a movie. This is real life.” David Jr. lifted up his head. “You know I spent all this time trying to run from who I am, and now when I look at myself in the mirror I don’t even recognize myself. But when I look at pictures of my dad I see who I am supposed to be.”
“Nah. You always have the option to write your own destiny.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Before my dad died he sent me and Day on this mission to get some money from some niggas who owed.”
“And?”
“I killed somebody,” David Jr. said. “And I’m just now thinking about it. It doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. That night in the bar when those hood niggas ran up in there and tried to kill me just because of who I was. The fact that you are protecting me just because of who I am. I used to wonder how Day could be so merciless and monstrous, but that doesn’t have shit to do with it at all. It’s just who we are.”
“Killers?” Mac rested his elbows on his knees as he knelt.
David Jr. raised his head and shook his head, looking seriously into Mac’s face. “Masons.”
The doorbell sounded and Mac turned his head toward the noise. “That must be the takeout I ordered,” he said, and then looked around the kitchen. “Which was a good call on my end. I’m glad you a millionaire now, little nigga. You gotta pay for all of this.”
He patted David Jr. on the back one more time before getting to his feet and heading toward the front door. He looked out the window and saw no one standing there. Instinctively, he removed his gun from his waist and opened the door, wildly looking around.
“Who’s there? Show yourself!” he called out into the evening breeze and, of course, nobody answered. He turned to step back in the house and felt his foot kick something. Looking down, he saw a manila envelope at his feet.
David Jr. had heard him yelling so he had come to see what all the noise was about. When he saw the expression on Mac’s usually calm face he instantly knew something was wrong. He saw the envelope in Mac’s hand and stepped forward to grab it. Once he had it ripped open he reached inside and pulled out a piece of paper with red ink on it. He felt himself swallow hard. The paper had three capital Ds written on it, but the first two were crossed out.
“Somebody set her up,” David Jr. said out loud. “And now I’m next.”