“I totally can. And I don’t think you’re a horrible person. You’re just watching out for yourself. I respect that. Now I need for you to respect me. Give us some time to do what we do. We’ll find out what really happened, okay?”
Jamella thought this over for a moment before she nodded and said, “Okay.”
Then they returned back outside to the deck.
“What you two ladies been jawing about in there?” Calvin asked them.
“I was just assuring Jamella that we’ll figure out who the man is,” Des answered. “And deal with him.”
“It’s me who he’s got to deal with,” Calvin said in a low, menacing voice. “Kinitra’s my little angel. No thug’s going to treat her like trash and get away with it. He’ll pay, all right, but not your kind of justice. My kind.”
“Don’t go making threats in front of us,” the Deacon said to him. “Your girls need you to be around for them. Not back in lockup.”
“You’re right about that, sir,” Calvin allowed. “But I just get so crazy when I think about it.”
“Why don’t you two go get that ice cream?” Des suggested. “And then head on home and relax. There’s an officer at your front gate twenty-four hours a day. And I’m five minutes away.” She handed Jamella her business card. “My cell’s right there at the bottom. Call me day or night.”
“Thank you,” Jamella said quietly. “And thank you, too, Mr. Mitry. Sorry to intrude on you like we did.”
“You didn’t intrude,” the Deacon said. “The door’s always open.”
Des showed Jamella and Calvin out. The Deacon was still seated there on the deck when she returned. “Thanks for playing host, Daddy. Just let me get out of this gunnysack and I’ll be ready to go.”
“Not so fast, young lady,” he growled. “Get back out here and sit yourself down now!”
She sat herself down, blinking at him in surprise.
“What in the hell did you think you were doing calling in the Major Crime Squad in the absence of a complainant?”
“I have a bad feeling about this one. Something very nasty has been going on in that house. Kinitra’s afraid to speak up. She needs me to look out for her. That’s what a resident trooper does.”
“I do not need a lecture from you on the job specifications of a resident trooper. It so happens I’m the man who has administered the entire program for the past eleven years. You have involved Major Crime Squad investigators despite the clear and obvious absence of a crime. You have squandered precious investigative man hours-”
“ Woman hours.”
“To follow up on nothing more than a-a cowboy hunch.”
“Cow girl hunch.”
“Desiree, you’re lucky I don’t pick up the phone this very minute and have a talk with Yolanda’s captain. I can guarantee you he knows nothing about this little adventure and he will not be pleased to find out she… why in the hell are you grinning at me like that?”
“Because this is the first time you’ve acted like you in I don’t know how long. I’ve tried everything. Honestly, Daddy, I was at my wit’s end. And the answer’s been staring me in the face all along-I just had to go rogue.”
“This is not funny, Desiree. There are rules. And those rules-”
“Exist for a very good reason, I know.”
“I cannot believe you roped in Yolanda.”
“She was free to say no. She’s her own woman.”
“Nonsense. She looks up to you. And who in the hell is Toni Tedone?”
“Their first she on Major Crimes. They call her Toni the Tiger. You’ll like her a lot.”
“That’ll be the day.” The Deacon despised the Tedones with every fiber of his being. It was Captain Richie Tedone of IA who’d tried to squeeze him out when he went in for his heart surgery. The asshole would have succeeded, too, if Des hadn’t squeezed back. “I should apprise their captain of what you have them doing. You’re just lucky that, technically speaking, I’m still on medical leave.”
“You could still pick up the phone. Why don’t you?”
He looked out at the lake. “Because I happen to agree with you. This one smells nasty.”
“Jamella has genuine doubts about Tyrone.”
“With good reason.”
“He says he’s cleaning up his act.”
“Not a chance. Men don’t change. They are who they are. He’s been Da Beast for his entire adult life. He’s made millions of dollars being Da Beast. He relishes it. This suspension by the NFL is nothing more than a minor bump in the road for him.”
“You haven’t met him, Daddy.”
“Don’t have to. I’ve known his kind since I was a boy in the schoolyard.”
“He’s complicated.”
“He’s a bully. There’s nothing complicated about it.”
“What did you and Calvin talk about while we were inside?”
“Calvin’s failure to assume responsibility for his own life. He’s filled with regret. And he knows more about this matter than he was willing to let on.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Calvin has spent a big chunk of his life in the yard. A man like that always holds on to a choice morsel or two of information. Information is power.” The Deacon thumbed his chin thoughtfully. “He’s also frightened.”
“Of?…”
“A few months ago the man was scuffing around the streets of Houston. Now he’s living in a waterfront mansion. If Jamella leaves Tyrone over this mess, he’ll be back out on the street again. He’s feeling vulnerable. And a little bit ashamed. It’s no fun for a middle-aged man to be dependent on his daughter.”
“Are we still talking about Calvin?”
The Deacon fell silent. He’d always been emotionally walled off. It had driven Des’s mother so nuts that she’d finally left him after twenty-five years of marriage.
“Daddy, you can go home tomorrow. And back to work whenever you’re ready. The doctor has cleared you. The only thing holding you back is your own uncertainty. Which I totally get. But you’ve still got game.”
“I couldn’t even hold off that piece of dirt Richie Tedone. You had to step in and save me.”
“Which I was glad to do.”
“There was a time when I would have eaten Richie Tedone for breakfast.”
“You were sick. You’re not sick anymore. You’re fine.”
“Sure, I’m fine,” he said in a hollow voice.
“Just let me change my clothes lickety-split, okay? You ready to go?”
“I don’t feel like company this evening, Desiree. Think I’ll just stay here and watch some TV.”
“But you’re all dressed.”
“So I’ll get all un dressed.”
“Please don’t do this to me, Daddy. The Bergers have flown all the way up here from Florida to meet you. They’re nice people. And you like Mitch. Please come to dinner with me.”
He looked down at his big hands. “Sure, okay…”
Des darted into her bedroom with her stomach in knots. Changed from her uni into a white silk blouse and tan linen slacks. She was trying to decide whether or not to dab on lipstick when her cell rang. It was Yolie.
“What’s up, Miss Thing?”
“Just had a surprise visit from Jamella and her father,” Des informed her. “She’s afraid that Tyrone’s the father of Kinitra’s baby.”
“Well, that’s fairly damning.”
“Yeah, we thought so, too.”
“By ‘we’ you mean?…”
“My father and me.”
Yolie let out a gasp. “The Deacon know I’m working this with you?”
“I’m afraid so. But he’s cool. Well, not cool but he won’t say anything to your captain. What’ve you picked up?”
“Toni tracked down Lonnie Berryman through the University of Georgia Athletic Department. I just spoke to him on the phone. He told me Kinitra has been leaving him like twelve, fifteen text messages every day. Keeps telling him how much she loves him and wants to be with him again like when they were together in Glen Cove. Except, hear this, Lonnie swore to me they never were together. He told me he spoke to her for a little while at a pool party. She played him some of her music. And that was that. He never went near her. Just thought she was a cute kid. And now she’s practically stalking him. I asked him if he’d submit to a DNA test should it become necessary. He said he’d be happy to comply. Has no reason not to. The man sounded credible-unless he’s a lying dog.”