Chapters 1-3

Prologue

She leaned against the pole that held up the sign for the Southern Inn Motel. The sign slowly started to hum and, after two quick flashes, it showered Anita Johnson with the faint light that would serve as her protection, she hoped, for the rest of that Sunday evening. After all, nothing could harm her if she was in the light.

That was the story that she had been telling herself. Unrecognized by anyone outside the inner city of Baton Rouge, a series of murders had been plaguing the women of Eden Park. Anita had lost at least six of her friends over the last two years. She knew the chance that she was taking, but Eden Park was a place where hope was a memory and dreams didn’t dare exist. She was there because she had no future. She was there because that was what was expected of her.

Sweating from the south Louisiana heat, the emaciated thirty-eight-year old started her nightly ritual of walking the stroll up and down North Street, but never getting very far from the light of the motel.

She wore a sweat stained lime green tube top with a mini skirt that once fit her quite well. She remembered the time when men lined up for just the chance to talk to her. She smiled as she thought about the trail of broken hearts and bruised egos that she had left throughout her life.
As she reminisced, she didn’t notice the set of headlights that turned on from across the street at the Capital City Funeral Home.

The pain radiated from her stomach throughout her entire body, but she wasn’t hungry for food. Food was an afterthought as she waved and feigned a smile as a city police unit rolled past her. Fearful, she rubbed the track marks on her arm, not knowing whom to be more afraid of, the faceless madman who was killing her friends or of Andre James, the man who was going to end up with whatever money she made that night.

She nervously picked at her fingernails as she walked back and forth as part of her mind remained in the time before the drugs, the disappointment, and the hurt. She had a career that she enjoyed and a family that cared for her.

Then she met him.

That was fifteen years ago and everything since had been a blur. She was a different person in a different time.

Car after car passed filled with people who had their own cares and concerns, and none for her. She once thought that he cared. Two months after they met, she started her nightly routine of performing unspeakable acts for depressingly small amounts of money.

She did it because he said so.

Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the large black vehicle until it stopped directly in front of her. The tint on the windows was so dark that she couldn’t see inside. The truck had to have stopped for a reason.

They both knew what the reason was.

She was tired and scared, but she had no choice. To ensure that she didn’t end up like her friends, she only turned tricks with men that she knew.

She didn’t recognize the black vehicle.

Only a few nights ago, she heard screams coming from one of the motel rooms behind her. No one else responded to the call so she did. The door to the room was open so she walked in. There was one of her friends bleeding and crying from a brutal beating. Standing over the girl was a former customer of Anita’s. He pushed Anita out of the way as he stormed out of the room. Anita helped the girl up and called 911. Although the young girl recovered, she would later overdose on heroin.

She wondered who would come to her aid as she walked over and leaned against the front door of the unknown vehicle. The electric window slowly wound down. It was so dark inside that she could only see a faint silhouette of the driver. The light directly behind her did allow her to see the five crisp new one hundred dollar bills that lay in the passenger seat.

“So are you datin’, baby?” she asked as she contemplated grabbing the cash and running as far as her tired legs would allow. She knew that someone who was willing to spend that amount of money would expect an especially heinous and degrading act. That someone was a stranger.

A stranger.

The automatic locks on the vehicle’s doors popped up. The hunger continued to call out to her and overrode all sense or reason. With that much money, Andre could get his share and she would still have enough left over to get well. Before she stepped inside, she remembered the very first time.

She had been picked up by a man in a rusty dark blue van. Being young and relatively inexperienced in the sex trade, she didn’t think it strange when the man drove her down a dark section of Spanish Town Road. She told him that it would be twenty dollars and he stuck his hand down his front pocket. Instead of coming up with the money that would at least partially buy her another fix, he came out with a switchblade. He forced her to the back of the van and violently raped her.

Beaten and bloody, she was able to find her way back home where Andre was waiting. Once there she received an even worse beating for coming home empty handed. She couldn’t even afford to go to the hospital afterwards.

Anita Johnson wasn’t an uneducated woman. She had been reading the local papers, and the few times that she had spoken to her mother, she warned her to get off the streets, and even offered to put Anita in rehab.

Andre would never have allowed that. She knew that she would never be allowed to escape. There was only one way out and she knew what it was. She picked up the cash and sat down in the truck. The windows slowly rolled up and unhurriedly, the black SUV pulled away.

“Turn left at the light?” she said.

But when they reached the corner, the doors of the truck locked and they turned right.

“Didn’t you hear me? Maybe you should just take your money back and drop me off,” she said as threw the cash on the floor of the truck. The dark figure simply continued to drive. “Look! You just need to let me out. My boyfriend knows I’m out here. He was watching you the whole time!” she lied as she tried to open the door, but she knew that she couldn’t escape.

Suddenly, her captor struck her in the thigh. She thought to herself that he hadn’t hit her that hard but the pain made her entire leg burn. Just then, she realized that she hadn’t been punched, but rather injected with something.

Before she had a chance to react, a strange feeling engulfed her body. But it wasn’t the feeling that she expected. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anger.

It was peace.

It was the kind of peace that she hadn’t felt since before her father died. That was the last time that she truly felt accepted. Her eyes started to blur and she could only see faint hazy images through the front window.

A smile stretched across her face and she felt that finally, everything was all right. All fell still and silent as she drifted off into the darkness.

Anita Johnson wondered who would miss her, but her captor knew that no one would.

CHAPTER 1

As the black capital city night released the rising sun, I flipped off my car stereo and began flipping through the morning newspaper until I reached the metro section. The headline read ‘Other Murders Remained Unsolved.’ Under the caption was the picture of a worn woman standing in front of the very building that I had been watching for the last three nights.

Her name was Violet Jenkins and she worked the streets in that particular neighborhood. In the last six months five of her friends had been murdered. All were black and all were prostitutes. For that reason, the police paid little attention. No one seemed to care until white women in the more affluent communities were also being found slaughtered.

In the past five years, twenty-nine Baton Rouge women, not including the women who the police thought lead a “high risk” lifestyle, had gone missing or had been murdered. Although the police tried to deny it, the city lived in fear of a serial killer. The Daily Advertiser displayed the photos of all twenty-nine women on the front page. Number fifteen’s name was Michelle Allen. Her dark brown hair barely touched the top of her delicate shoulders. She had soft alabaster skin with strikingly deep blue eyes. Her beauty transcended the small modest picture. She was easily the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. Michelle was the type of free spirit that loved to dance in the middle of a rainstorm and make love in front of the fireplace afterwards. She loved walks in the park and John Coltrane. She was the reason that I became a private detective.

After all, she was going to be my wife.

On a rainy night four years ago, we were celebrating my graduation from the police academy, my father’s dream more than mine. We had gone through so much and she was so proud of me. I could still remember the look in her eyes. It was going to be the first night of the rest of our lives. Around midnight she started to feel ill. She had the next day off, so I begged her to spend the night with me.

I could still see her waving as she drove out of my driveway. She was wearing a perfect powder blue sweater with a denim skirt that showed off her great legs. No matter what, she always wore a smile that made me feel like my life was actually worth something.

That was the last time that I ever saw her.

I looked over the top of the paper and refocused my attention to the building. The Dreams Alive Foundation had the unfortunate luck of being located next to the Southern Inn Motel, a local haven for dealers, hustlers, and prostitutes.

The Foundation had been recently taken over by my best friend from college, Alex Williams, and his wife, and served as a community center for the neighborhood kids. Eden Park was the type of community that the police didn’t care about and the people who lived there cared even less, so he asked me to keep an eye out for the place on the weekends.

Just as on the previous two nights, nothing had happened. I began to scan the paper again. The first article under the fold was ‘Police have no clues regarding deaths.’ The police were yet again baffled by another series of murders that had occurred at the city’s largest hospital, Our Lady of Mercy. Either through perfect planning or plain dumb luck, the officers weren’t able to make a connection between the five poisoned patients and the staff that worked at those particular times over the past year.

I quickly turned through the rest of the paper before folding it back up and tossing it on my backseat. I struggled through a yawn as I thought about what else the young day held for me. In a few hours I would need to open the small cafe that I owned in the neighboring town of Dunham Heights. Through an interesting set of circumstances I came into enough money to purchase the former Club Cool Breeze a few months after Michelle disappeared.

I became a detective so that I could investigate her disappearance myself, but from time to time when funds were low, I had to accept outside jobs. Even though this one was for a friend, it was about to end.

Just as I was about to start my car, I saw a small female in the grip of a much larger man walking out of the motel parking lot. The sun was barely up, but the yellow glow of the street light gave me an excellent view.

Dressed in a plum colored suit and matching derby, he looked as if he was about to walk over to the Foundation when he suddenly stopped and slapped the young girl. Before he could hit her again, I exited my car and rushed over to try and help. As he lifted his hand I yelled, “Don’t touch her again!”

The broad man turned slightly toward my insignificant voice and again brought his hand down against her heavily painted face. She fell to the ground like a broken baby doll. It didn’t matter who she was, what she had done, or what she was, she didn’t deserve that. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen. She was someone’s child. For that matter, she could have been my own child, Regina.

Before he could make a move on me, I hit him with two quick punches to his meaty midsection. As with most bullies, he didn’t have much fight to him and immediately dropped to his knees. One more shot across his fat face and he was out.

I looked over at the young girl. Her unblinking eyes remained fixed on me as she tried to stand. I took a step towards her and by reflex she covered her face.

“Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me,” she cried with the voice of a child. With her back against the motel wall, she slid back down to the ground.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I tossed it on the ground in front of her and said, “Check my ID. I just want to help you.”

She cautiously reached down and picked the wallet up. In the background I began to hear chatter from the area dregs about the man that I had put down. Apparently his name was Tulow and he was not someone to be crossed.

“If you want my help, you need to come with me now.” I told her, as Tulow was still lying motionless on the pavement. She flipped it open and took out my ID. I didn’t worry about her taking any money because I was flat broke. I had spent my last two dollars on the newspaper and coffee.

“Michael Drake? You a detective?” she asked.

“I’m a private detective. I was working security for the building next door when I saw what happened."

“So what you want now?” she said as she tossed my wallet back to me.

“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure that you were alright. We have to go now!”

She returned my offer with a look of suspicion.

“I don’t want to be around when he wakes up, do you?” I said, pointing to her attacker.

She looked at his fallen body and asked, “Where your car at?”

I gestured behind me and held out my hand for her to take. She took my hand and stood to her feet. She spit on the fat man as she walked over him.

A small crowd had gathered around my car as we approached. I was ready for another fight.

“Where you going? You set trippin’? Fools out here can get a grip for bringin’ you in. You can’t come in our hood like that. This is the park, fool,” said a tall gaunt young man who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He wore faded jeans and an old white t-shirt. His chin was long and covered by a patchy goatee.

I flashed my ID quickly and shoved it back into my pocket and said, “Do you think that I’m stupid enough to be out here by myself? There are five undercover cops that have been watching this whole thing. I can run you in right now if you don’t get away from my car. Move!”

Even though I’m good with my hands and six feet tall and a fairly well conditioned two hundred thirty pounds, I was not in a position to fight with what seemed like the entire neighborhood. The tall youth backed away along with the others that had gathered. They mumbled and whispered about police brutality and lawsuits.

We were in the car before I realized how young she actually was. Her body was that of a twelve or thirteen year old girl, but her face was different. Her overly made up face told a story of a young woman that had to grow up entirely too fast. Eyes that should have sung the sweet song of innocence only rang with the hollow refrain of an old blues song.

“I thought you said you wasn’t a cop?” she asked.

“I’m not, but I don’t carry a gun and from what they were saying, your friend would be ready to pay a high price for the man that brought me to him.”

“He ain’t my friend,” she said as I drove west onto North Street.

“Yeah, I know. Where do you live?”

“Just down on Odell. I can walk if-”

“No. That’s no problem.”

The ride was five minutes of terribly uncomfortable silence. I had many questions running through my mind, but I knew that I didn’t need the answer to any of them. I couldn’t imagine a situation as desperate as to have a girl so young selling her body.

As I turned on Odell, she broke the silence, “It’s right up here on the right.”

The warm glow of the sunrise bathed the inside of my car as I pulled into the driveway. She practically jumped out of the car as soon as it stopped.

Before she closed the door, she asked, “Why did you help me?”

Her voice was so young, so fragile. I asked in return, “Don’t you know about those murders?”
At that moment she actually looked like the little girl that I knew she was as she simply shrugged her shoulders and said, “I guess so.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“LeTrina Miles,” she answered timidly.

“LeTrina, I don’t want to see you back out there.” I took out a twenty-dollar bill that I had hidden in my ashtray for gas money and gave it to her. “Stay out of trouble.”

“Thank you,” she said as she closed the door and walked up the three steps that lead to the small shotgun house. The screen door creaked loudly enough to wake the entire neighborhood and she went inside. As the door slammed behind her, I figured that many more doors would be slammed in her face if she didn’t get help. If she wasn’t alone in the world, she certainly felt like it.

I couldn’t help but think that I was protecting my own daughter by protecting LeTrina. That feeling passed quickly as I glanced at my watch. It was approaching seven o’clock and I had a meeting that I couldn’t miss.

CHAPTER 2

The principal’s office at Southdale Middle School was decorated with posters of famous African-Americans like Martin Luther King, Dr. Charles Drew, Satchel Paige, Fredrick Douglas and Benjamin Banneker.

The office smelled of old magazines and chalk. Just sitting in that office for a few minutes brought back memories of my own long gone schoolboy days. Even with the constant chattering of teenagers right outside the door, I could barely keep my eyes open.

“Mr. Drake? Are you paying attention?” she asked.

I was hoping that she wouldn’t notice me nodding off. It would have been nice to have gone home and gotten a few hours sleep but instead, I was at my nephew’s school trying to keep him from getting expelled.

“Jordan’s behavior has been atrocious,” she barked. “I am so disappointed in his progress. He started the year very nicely, but the last four weeks have been a nightmare.”

I could remember Mrs. Beecher having a similar conversation with my mother about ten years ago. Agnes Beecher was a frail framed black woman with the same thick black-rimmed glasses and polka dot dresses that I remembered. Besides being a bit grayer, she looked the same way she did when I was failing her math class.

Every few minutes, Jordan would look at me sheepishly from across the room. He stood an awkward five feet tall with hands and feet that were growing daily. The way that she had described his behavior, there was a future sex offender hiding behind his soft brown eyes. Even though he had a few problems adjusting, Jordan had been an excellent child ever since my sister sent him to live with me.

She looked over the rim of her glasses with cold black menacing eyes and said, “Thirteen year old boys should not be sneaking off and kissing little girls in a broom closet.”

“Can you just tell me what happened?” I asked. Even though Jordan gave me his version of the incident, it sounded far too innocent compared to the note that he brought home directing me to be at the school promptly at seven a.m.

“Instead of dressing out for P.E., Jordan and his young lady friend met in the custodian’s closet where they were kissing and being very . . . physical. I’m sure that you know exactly what I am talking about. He touched her . . . down there. From what I understand, his hands were on her backside.”

Standing, I said, “Mrs. Beecher, I appreciate your concern and I guarantee that you won’t have anymore problems out of him.” It was amazing that a few hours earlier I was fighting in the street with drug dealers and pimps, but at that moment I was intimidated and caving in to a woman who was barely five feet tall.

“It’s the boys that he is hanging around with. Older boys, you know. He is more than welcome to come back to school Monday morning, providing his attitude is changed,” she responded.

“A week? He’s being suspended for a week?” I said as I also fell back into my chair. That was when I noticed Jordan’s shoulders start to rise and fall and tears soon followed. The situation was worse than I thought, but I never imagined that he would be put out of school for an entire week.

"Normally Mr. Drake, something like this would only warrant a three day suspension, but her parents were threatening a sexual harassment lawsuit. I was quite sure that you would rather deal with the suspension.”

I thanked her and once again assured her that she wouldn’t even hear a peep out of him for the rest of the year. After a menacing glare, Jordan grabbed his book sack and headed with me to the car.

The first five minutes home were total silence. My parents always taught me to never speak in anger, especially to a child. Finally, a few blocks before we got to my parent’s house, I had to ask, “Jordan, why were you in the closet with that little girl?”

“Little? She is older than me. Anyway, she wanted me to. She said that it would be alright because we were just going to talk. It wasn’t a big deal. Suzy was just hatin’. That’s who told. Suzy Reed. I know that she’s the one that told.”

“It doesn’t matter who told, you were wrong. Do you know how much trouble you could’ve gotten in? This is not a joke.”

“Suzy was mad cause I wasn’t talking to her,” he answered with his arms folded and his lips pursed that way that teenagers do.

“You’re lucky that they are even letting you back in school.”

“She was just mad cause Becky was white.”

“If you ever, what?” I slammed on my brakes to keep from running a stoplight. “White? Who was white?”

"The girl, Becky. She’s my girlfriend.”

“The girl that you were in the closet with was white?” I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah,” he answered and looked at me as if I was the one with the problem. The light turned green and we continued home.

“You’re lucky that they didn’t call the police.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” he whined.

“First of all, at your age, you go to school to learn, not to . . . do whatever it was you were doing. Secondly, I don’t care if she told you to; you just don’t do that kind of thing. This is not New York. You’re in a small town in south Louisiana. You just don’t do that sort of thing around here. You can’t go around touching . . . little . . . white girls.”

“Why?”

Why?

How could that one little word have the power to stop me right in my tracks? There was no easy answer. I couldn’t dodge the question so I had to hit the problem head on.

“Ask your grandmother.” I said as I turned into my parent’s driveway. Unhappy with my answer, he just stared out the window with his bottom lip poked out.

“Look, I promise that we will talk about it tonight when I get in. If your grandmother asks, tell her that you have got the flu. You better come down with some symptoms real quick. Unless you want me to tell her the real reason why you’re home from school?”

“Okay Uncle Mike,” he paused. “What time are you coming home?”

“It’ll be an early night tonight. I shouldn’t be late at all. Now I don’t have time to stop so run inside and tell mom that you’re sick and I’ll call her from the cafe later on.”

“All right,” he said.

I grabbed him and kissed the top of his head and he was on his way. He quickly ran into the house. I had no idea what I was going to tell him when I got home. If nothing else came up, I would have the entire day to think about it.

CHAPTER 3
The sun and my outlook were both fairly bright for a Monday, even after the morning that I already had. I agreed to meet with Alex at eight thirty that morning and tell him if anything happened at the Foundation. I usually arrived at the cafe at about ten o’clock, but a few hours early didn’t hurt when your best friend needed help. Being a good friend didn’t have the best hours, and of course, the pay was terrible. With Alex, money was not a problem. He was the star running back for the New Orleans Gamblers of the North American Football League.

My café was in a two-story building was brownish yellow stucco with a balcony that faced the heavily trafficked Summer Street, was only a few blocks away from my home so the location was very convenient for me.

When I took over, I changed the name from Club Cool Breeze to Drake’s Place. We were a small homey café until five p.m. and then turned into the hottest spot for jazz and blues west of New Orleans. Even though there was no sign on the door that read Drake Detective Agency, somehow people always knew to come to me for help. I walked into the rustic old building that had gone through numerous other name changes in the forty years that it had been there, and greeted my early morning regulars.

Jesse was an old shade tree mechanic who always seemed to spend more time talking than working on cars. His best friend, Dunbar, was a retired schoolteacher with a subtle yet commanding presence. Some would say that they were men that time had passed, but the men of that generation had to fight for freedom that was rightfully theirs and that my generation fails to appreciate.

“Alright now. The boss is here so ya’ll got to start paying for your coffee,” my uncle said from behind the bar. That, of course, was my favorite uncle, James, who we affectionately called Uncle Hustler. He acquired that name early in life due to the fact that he always walked around with anywhere from five hundred to a thousand dollars in his pocket, without ever actually holding a real job, though I had my suspicious that he may have worked for the government. He was a tall lean man that resembled a dark skinned Harry Bellefonte. He was wearing a blue suit with thin gold strips and a white shirt unbuttoned down to his chest revealing a gleaming gold chain that was only outshone by his perfectly straight white teeth.

“Ya’ll keep an eye on him.” I said as I pointed at uncle. “I am still trying to run a business here.”

“Alright then, I’m gonna ask him,” Jesse said as he swiveled his bar stool in my direction, “The government uses sports to manipulate the morale of this country, right or wrong?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“This fool is trying to say that the Miracle on Ice in 1980 was fixed,” my uncle answered.

“You the fool for believing. Look here,” he said as he removed his glasses and pointed at me.

“First of all, you got U.S. citizens being held captive in Iran. Next, you got the Russians invading Afghanistan. And by the way, we are the ones that gave them the weapons that they ended up using on us-”

“Now you jumping to something else, Man.” Uncle Hustler interrupted.

“It all goes back to the same thing. There you have, what, fifteen or twenty men who changed the world forever. Nobody is ever going to forget those buildings coming down, but that following January, who won the Super Bowl?”

“The Patriots,” I answered.

“Right. This country needed something to cheer about and in 1980 some college kids gave everybody the ‘Miracle on Ice’ and in 2001 it was the Patriots. It's as simple as that. Think about it.”

Dismissing the conversation, Dunbar asked, “Who you got playin’ tonight?” He was simply changing the topic because by the time the first act took the stage that night, he would be well into a good night’s sleep.”

“Preston, my sax man is going on at ten o’clock. I’ll save you a table close to the stage.” I said with a wink.

As I waited for my friend Alex, I shared light small talk with the guys while going through the usual motions of refilling the bar and running the dust mop over the floor. I propped the front door open to release the lingering musty cigarette smell and to let in some fresh air. After glancing at my watch, I prepared another pot of coffee. Since he had never been one to be punctual, it didn’t surprise me that Alex was running late. My mind couldn’t help but wander back to our days in college. We were both on our way to fame and fortune in professional football.

A bad car accident started a chain reaction in my life, from which I was just recovering. Before getting too far down on myself, I heard a car drive up outside. A quick glance at my watch told me that Joey, the young lady who helps me manage this place, probably hasn’t even rolled over in her bed yet. It had to be Alex.

I poured two cups of coffee and greeted my old friend with a handshake. His hands were big, strong, and worth millions. Though I definitely let myself go a bit when my playing days ended, he had remained in phenomenal shape. He stood almost six feet tall and weighed a muscular two hundred twenty pounds.

His caramel colored skin was just a few shades brighter than his suit. Never one to be out dressed, he wore a crisp white shirt with a brilliantly colored floral tie. If not for the dark shades covering his hazel eyes and gold hoop earring, he would have looked like any enterprising young black executive. Just like in college, he wore his hair very short, almost bald. He had a thin mustache under his full nose with a slight cleft in his chin.

After shaking hands with everyone and revisiting Jesse’s sports conspiracy theory, my old friend and I walked upstairs to my office.

“Have a seat.” I told my good friend. I could almost feel his uneasiness as he sat down in front of my desk. I pushed the cup of coffee in front of him and said, “Well Alex, there is not very much to tell. It was a just a normal weekend in Parktown.”

“Hmmm. Normal.” he mumbled.

"There was a small problem with a working girl and her pimp, but that was it. I don’t think that it will cause you any problems, but I may need to stay away for a while.”

I waited for him to say something, but he just sat there, silently biting his lip the way that he did when he had a problem. He made no effort to speak, so I continued. “The people in the neighborhood seem to respect what you are doing there with trying to help the kids.”

Still he didn’t say a word.

Jokingly, I finally asked, “So do you want to tell me why I’ve only gotten about six hours sleep the entire weekend?”

After nodded his head up and down for a few moments , he asked in his heavy New Orleans accent, “So the building is okay then, huh?”

One thing about Alex was that he had no concept of a poker face. Whatever emotion he had was always obvious. He needed something.

“Come on, A-Dub. What’s going on?” I said, resorting to calling him by his old college nickname.

“I got another job for you.”

“Man, I appreciate you trying to throw some business my way, but this isn’t necessary.”

“Naw, it ain’t even like that. It’s about Allison,” he answered through clenched teeth. “I think that she is cheating on me.”

His words hit my as hard as any linebacker ever had. They had been sweethearts in college and always seemed so happy, but Alex had always been a fanatic about his privacy so he would never let it slip that they were having problems. I stared at my reflection in the black coffee and waited for him to continue.

“I know what you are thinking,” he said. “It just started. She is just . . . different, you know what I’m saying? I can’t put my finger on it, but I know that it is something. She’s just going through the motions. That ain’t like her. Man, I don’t know what else to think,” his voice cracked.

“Are you sure that it can’t be something else. You haven’t been married long enough to start having problems.” I tried to joke. He didn’t find it very funny so I decided to go a different route. “I’m sure that it was an adjustment for her. She was planning on going to medical school after college, but you didn’t want that.”

“No, it’s not like that. It ain’t that I didn’t want her to do nothing, I just didn’t want her to have to put in all those hours studying, for what? We got all the money we need.”

“Maybe she just wants to help people. It’s not always about the money.” I answered.

“I know that!” he snapped. “That’s why she started working at the Foundation. She wanted to help the kids. I’m alright with that."

“I didn’t want to mention it, but maybe it’s the race issue? The real world is not like it was when we were in school. I know how your family is and with her family, I know that has got to be a lot of pressure on her.”

“Don’t pull that psychology crap on me,” he said in a stone cold whisper.

I should have known better. Alex was raised in the Desire Projects of New Orleans and he had seen things that would chill any war grizzled veteran. In my mind, I always figured that he was with Allison to get as far away from his past as possible.

Things haven’t gone well between him and his family since he, as they said ‘brought home that white girl.’ With the exception of his younger brother, Quincy, they haven’t had much to do with him except of course, when they needed money.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Jordan had a little trouble at school with a girl and I guess that was still on my mind. Getting back to you, I just can’t believe that she would cheat.” I believe that my words found their mark as I could see his anger start so subside.

"I know,” he said as he stood up and walked toward the window that faced the street. “I ain’t mad at you. It ain’t your fault. Hell, the truth is, I couldn’t trust nobody but you. If I go to a real detective,” he stopped and turned back to me. “You know what I mean. If I went to someone else and they know who I am, I’ll be on the front page of the National Inquirer as I’m leaving divorce court and I don’t need that, you know what I’m saying?”

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, hoping that maybe he was just speaking out of anger.
He looked at me like I was a child asking him why the sky was blue and then he asked, “What else can I do?”

“Trust her.”

My answer was a bit too simple for his liking.

“Trust her? Are you outta your damn mind? Do you know how much money I’m going to make this year?” Even though I recalled him signing a contract that would pay him at least five million dollars for the upcoming season, I kept my mouth shut and allowed him to make his point. “If I rush for a thousand yards, a stinking thousand yards, I get ten million dollars! Ten Million! I’m going to give her half of that!” he shouted. You know where I come from. She always had money, but I ain’t going back to that. Never!”

“Well.” I responded as I tried to gather my thoughts. “I’m going to have to treat you just like I would treat anybody else that I was working for.” I took out a pad and pencil from my desk and said, “You are going to have to give me some background information. Tell me what she likes, dislikes, you know.”

Aggravated, he responded, “Come on, Man. It’s Allison. You know her.” He walked over and plopped back down in his chair.

Coming from behind the desk, I answered, “So you want me to look at her as a friend instead of the subject of an investigation?”

He removed his dark glasses and answered, “Her full name is Allison Tyler Williams. She is the director of the Dreams Alive Foundation. It’s an after school program that I . . . we started to help the neighborhood kids.”

“What kind of hours does she put in?”

“Normally, she works regular hours, nine to five. About a week or so ago she started leaving earlier and staying out later.”

“A week? It’s only been a week?”

“I guess you just don’t want my damn money, do you?”

"A-Dub, Come on. You don’t think that maybe she is just working late?"

“Look Man, I know my wife. I can’t explain it.” He seemed to deflate like a punctured car tire.

“Something just ain’t right.”

“Okay. Well do you know anything about the people that she works with?” I asked.

“No. Not really. She handles the whole thing. I just hand out checks and smile for the cameras. It’s great publicity,” he said with a half smile.

“Does she have her own money or do you two share an account?”

I could see his hand gripping the arms of the chair before I even finished asking the question.

“What the hell is that supposed the mean?” he asked.

“If you have separate accounts then you really don’t know where she spends her money. That’s all.”

In the beginning his family told him that she was just out for his money. I knew that he thought that was what I was insinuating. It’s ironic. They said that she was only out for his money, but that is the only time that he heard from them.

“We have the same account. If there was money missing, I would know about it.”

“What about the money that goes through the Foundation?” I asked.

He opened his mouth to answer, but then he hesitated. It was something that he had never even thought of. “The board of directors has to approve every cent that leaves that building so that’s not an option,” he answered.

“Have you ever had her followed before?”
I hated to ask, but if she had people following her before, it would make my job that much harder.

“No,” he sternly answered.

“You’ve never suspected her of cheating?”

This time, a hurtful glare gave me my answer. “What about in college?” I asked. Of course, I went one question too far.

"What the hell is this?” he shouted. He rose with enough force to drive his chair to its back. “Are my detective or my damn shrink?”

I had only seen him this upset with me once before and that was the last time that he thought Allison was cheating on him. The whole thing started innocently enough. One day she called our dorm room looking for him. I was sick that day so he went to practice without me. Allison and I ended up talking for a few hours. She brought over some soup and we talked a while longer. I thanked her and she left. When he got home I told him that she had called, but that was it. I knew that I should have told him everything, but what was the need?

I found the need a few hours later when he returned to our room. He didn’t even bother closing the door before he jumped me. We tussled and wrestled for about twenty minutes. Our housemother, Ms. Jessie Mae, broke us up. Jessie Mae was a mountain of a woman, nearly three hundred pounds. The tops of her arms were like huge hams. Her motto was ‘My way is it.’ She brought us down to her apartment and made us make up. When she was satisfied that we wouldn’t kill each other, she gave each of us a piece of sweet potato pie and sent us away.

There was still tension there until we reached the room. We opened the door to survey the damage that we had made and that was when we really made up. We just laughed and began to clean. As we straightened the mess, he admitted why he was so mad.

As hard as Alex appeared to be, he always had a certain sensitivity about him. He explained that he was angry because he felt that Allison had shared part of herself with me. It would have been better if I had just slept with her. A physical act, he could have easily forgiven, but betrayal of the heart was far too much.

“Are you sure that I am the man for this job? I consider both of you friends. Maybe I’m too close to the situation.” I said in my best therapeutic voice.

He then reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a fat envelope and tossed it on the desk in front me, scattering my assortment of bills. “That’s five thousand dollars. I’m hiring you for as long as it takes. I don’t want you working on anything else. At the end of the week, you tell me what the deal is, good or bad and there will be another five thousand waiting for you.”

As much as I wanted the money, needed the money; I didn’t want to take it. How can I in good conscience take money to tell a friend whether or not his wife was cheating?

“Alex, I can’t take this. If you need my help-”

“Look, you are going to need expense money. Following her isn’t going to be easy. She has expensive tastes, and you may need to flash some cash to open a few doors.”

I knew that he was right. I would need some front money. “I’m going to hate to take your money and tell you that your wife is completely faithful.”

I could hear my words. I just hoped that they were true. I couldn’t imagine going back to him and saying that I found out that she had been having an affair.

With a sigh, he returned to the window that looked out over Summer Street. “If you find something before the week is up, just call me. Better yet,” he said turning back to me. “Bring it to me. I don’t care what time it is, you bring it to me.”

The wild look in his eyes would have frightened anyone else, but I had seen that look far too many times to be frightened by it; frightened for myself, anyway. I did fear for the person on the receiving end of that stare because pain was sure to follow.

“I need to know as soon as possible. Training camp is starting in a few weeks and I don’t need this on my mind.”

We walked downstairs and then out to his car. It was early May, but in south Louisiana that was like mid-July everywhere else. The short walk to the car soaked my shirt with sweat.
“How soon can you get started?” he asked

“I’ll start today. As soon as Joey checks in and gets everything settled around here, we can get started.”

“Joey?” he asked, rubbing his baldhead.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to need some help if I’m going to follow Allison and I trust her with everything. This place would have closed down by now if I didn’t have her help running it. And whatever goes down with this case stays here between us. You have my word on that.” After a little small talk, he got into his car, a small foreign job, and sped away. I’m sure it probably cost more than my modest home.

As he left, a few more of my neighborhood regulars arrived for their morning coffee. That morning had already been more profitable than the last few months in business. Maybe being a friend paid better than I thought.