Calvin shrugged his shoulders. “So what? That’s no crime, is it?”
“No, it is not,” Yolie said to him. “But murder is.”
His eyes widened. “Who’s talking about murder?”
“Stewart Plotka and Andrea Halperin are dead, Mr. Jameson,” the Deacon informed him. “Someone just shot them in the parking lot of White Sand Beach.”
“Dang…” Calvin exhaled slowly, glancing over at Rondell and Clarence. They sat there in tense silence, staring down at their hands. “Hey, where’s Tyrone at?”
“He’s out getting me some ice cream,” Jamella answered in a small voice. “He’s been gone for over an hour.”
“Don’t take but five minutes to get to that ice cream parlor you like.”
“I know that, Popsy.”
Calvin frowned. “I’m not liking the sound of this at all…”
“Don’t you be thinking what you’re thinking,” Chantal said to him. “My boy wouldn’t kill nobody.”
Des’s cell phone rang on her belt. She answered it and listened to the voice on the other end, then rang off and said, “That was Oly. Tyrone’s home. He just passed through the gate.”
“Well, praise the Lord for that,” Chantal said.
Des heard the slam of a car door outside, then the front door to the house open and close.
“I’m back, girl!” Tyrone called out from the entry hall. “Got your pistachio for you! Yo, what’s up with those police cars parked out in our?…” He trailed off as he arrived in the living room and saw all of them. Stood frozen there in a tank top and spandex shorts, his giant tattooed muscles bulging, rain drops glistening on his shaved head. In one hand he held a bag from Clancy Muldoon’s ice cream parlor, in the other his car keys.
“Good evening, Tyrone,” Des said to him quietly.
“Evening, Trooper Mitry,” he responded guardedly. “Who’s the suit?”
“The suit happens to be my father, Deputy Superintendent Mitry. He and I were having dinner together when I got the call.”
“What call? You got some news for us about Kinitra?”
“They’re not here about Kinitra,” Rondell informed his brother somberly.
“Well, then what’s going on? Somebody tell me, will you?”
Jamella swallowed, her eyes puddling with tears. “Baby, where have you been all of this time?”
“I told y’all I’d be gone for a while. Was starting to feel like a caged tiger. Needed to take a drive and clear my head. You heard me say so. You and Cee both. Right, Cee?”
“True that,” Clarence acknowledged. “I heard you.”
“Where did you drive to, Tyrone?” Des asked.
“What difference does that make?”
“Please answer the question,” Yolie said to him.
“Up into the hills by that Devil’s Hopyard waterfall. Man, it is peaceful up there. I could listen to that waterfall all night long.”
“Did anyone see you there?” Yolie asked.
“ See me? How would I know? I was just kicking it. Minding my own business-until it started to pour down rain. So I came back to town, got my girl’s pistachio and here I am.”
“I called you a million times on your cell,” Rondell said. “Why didn’t you pick up?”
“Didn’t feel like it.” Tyrone’s voice had a definite edge now. “And I’m all done answering questions. Somebody tell me what’s going on right this goddamned minute.”
“Stewart Plotka and his lawyer got themselves shot in the parking lot of White Sand Beach while you were out,” Yolie informed him.
Tyrone seemed genuinely shocked. He breathed in and out for a long moment before he said, “Are they… dead?”
Yolie nodded her head.
“Wait, wait…” Tyrone looked around at everyone. “Y’all think I shot them?”
“Did you?” Yolie asked him.
“No, ma’am. Wasn’t me. You got to believe me.”
“I don’t got to do anything-except get to the truth. Tell me, do you own a handgun?”
He looked at Des and said, “You know I do. I told you I keep a Glock 19 for our protection.”
“Where do you keep it?” Yolie asked him.
“In our bedroom. It’s in my nightstand.”
“Let’s go get it, okay?”
“Not a problem.”
“Hold on a second,” Rondell cautioned him. “Perhaps we had ought to contact your lawyer before we proceed any further.”
“I don’t need no lawyer, little man. I didn’t do anything.”
Yolie went with Tyrone to fetch his gun. Not one word was said while they were out of the room. Everyone just waited in taut silence as the rain whipped against the glass walls.
When they returned Yolie was empty-handed.
And Tyrone had a stricken expression on his face. “My Glock’s gone .”
“When did you last see it?” Des asked him.
“This morning, I guess. When I was fetching my shades out of the drawer.”
“Do you generally keep the weapon loaded?”
“Hell, yeah. Don’t do you no good if it’s empty.”
“Did you have any visitors today?” Toni asked him.
He shook his shaved head at her. “Just y’all.”
“So whoever lifted it, assuming someone did lift it…”
“You calling me a liar?”
“Either lives here or snuck onto the premises,” Toni concluded.
“I fixed that hole in our fence,” Clarence spoke up defensively. “Wired a board over it.”
Des mulled this over, her mind working it, working it. “Are there any other guns in the house?” she asked, her gaze boring in on Clarence.
“What are you looking at me for?” he demanded.
“This is a homicide investigation, son,” the Deacon said in a calm, measured voice. “Best get it all out now.”
“Okay, yeah, I’ve got a Glock of my own,” Clarence admitted grudgingly. “Only, it’s not exactly registered or what have you.”
“Where did you get it?” Yolie asked him.
“A friend loaned it to me.”
Toni let out a snort. “A friend?”
“Go and get it, Clarence.” Yolie nodded at Toni to tag along as he went loping out of the room.
When they returned Toni was wearing a pair of white latex evidence gloves and holding a Glock 19 with a pencil she’d poked into its barrel.
“Has it been fired recently?” Yolie asked her.
Toni shook her head. “Smells fresh as a daisy, Loo. And the clip’s full.” She yanked an evidence bag from the pocket of her rain slicker, tucked the Glock carefully inside and then stuffed it back in her pocket.
Slowly, each and everyone’s eyes returned to Tyrone Grantham.
“I’m telling you, I’m totally innocent,” he insisted angrily. “I didn’t shoot nobody. I didn’t rape nobody. I didn’t do nothing. Go on, tell ’em, baby. You believe me, don’t you?”
Jamella sat there in silence, tears spilling from her eyes.
Tyrone let out a gasp. “My God, you don’t believe me…”
“I believe you, big man,” Rondell spoke up.
Tyrone shook his head at him. “No, you don’t. I can see it in your eyes, little brother. In all of your eyes. You all think I been forcing myself on that sweet little girl. And that I took my gun and capped those two people. You actually think I’d do those things.”
“What I think,” Yolie said, “is that we need to continue this conversation in official surroundings.”
“What, you’re charging me?” he demanded.
“No, but you are a person of interest and we need to have a talk. You have the right to have your attorney present.”
“He’s in New York.”
“I’ll call him right now,” Rondell said hurriedly. “He’ll have Yale’s best criminal defense attorney here from New Haven in thirty minutes.”
“Tell him the attorney will find us at the Troop F barracks in Westbrook,” Yolie informed Rondell.
“I’ll do that. Thank you.”
There was a loud tapping now on the French doors over next to the fireplace. Des turned and spotted Mitch standing out there on the halogen-lit patio in the pouring rain. He was not alone. Winston Lash was with him.
She went to the door and let them in. Both men wore hooded rain jackets but their legs were soaking wet. “Mitch, what are you doing here?”
“We thought we’d get in out of the rain,” he replied, grinning at her in that boyish, maddening way of his. “Hey, we’re not interrupting anything, are we?”