Chapter 6 #3
It wasn’t Junior though, because as soon as I picked up my phone, I saw it was Kal calling. He was who woke me up this morning, talking about we needed to talk. I told him I’d be at the restaurant and gave him the address.
“Yo, I’m outside.” His voice flowed through the speaker of my phone.
I glanced over at the time, then slipped my phone into my pocket and moved toward the front. Kal stood outside the front door with a coffee and a paper bag in his hand. I opened the door and stepped out of the way for him to enter.
“Damn, bro, what, you’re moonlighting as a handyman?” he asked, stepping to the side so I could lock the door.
I laughed. “Nah, nothing like that. Why are you walking around in a sweater vest and chinos? Are you good?”
He laughed. “Real fucking funny, but nah, Pops got sick and died a couple weeks back. Left me the dealership. They are in there wearing polos and slacks. Gotta look the part sometimes.”
I laughed. “I feel you. I’m sorry to hear that though. Your father sold me my first lemon.”
He laughed. “Me too. Moms cursed his ass out about that shit for years. But I’m here tryna do right by him and keep the business alive, you know.”
“What did Kim have to say about that? You being in Briar damn sure ain’t something I know she’s happy about.”
“Kim who, man? Moms fucked that up the week she moved in. Talking that ‘I’m a woman before anything’ bullshit. Started a bunch of mess, I moved out, and the rest is history.”
“So wait, your moms took Kim’s side?”
He nodded, then sipped from his coffee. “Took her side through the divorce and all. Said I was nothing but a carbon copy of my pops and hung me out to dry for some shit I didn’t even do. Now was I gonna do it? Probably, but I didn’t.”
I laughed. “That’s fucked up. How are you faring though? You keeping clean or are you—”
“You know me better than that. Had I been keeping it clean, I wouldn’t be here.” He wasn’t looking at me but instead at the structure of the bar I had put in weeks ago.
I looked at him, tension welling in my chest. “What do you mean by that?”
He turned back around and looked at me before sipping from the coffee in his hand. “You know I still have my hand in some things I shouldn't, right? I still handle names on the weekends and most of the people I work with don’t know how far back my ties go as much as others.”
“You talking in riddles, bro. Spit it out.”
“The las—”
I held my index finger up for him to pause when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. When I pulled it out I saw a call from an Uptown area code which immediately had me pressing the green circle on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Murphy, this is Dr. Joan Mercer with the Briar County medical examiner’s office.”
My heart began to beat erratically, I couldn’t speak for a moment.
“We conducted the second examination you requested on the remains of Isac Murphy.”
“And what?” The pause between all of her words was getting on my nerves.
“What we found during our second autopsy does not support the original cause of death.”
I screwed my face up. “And what does that mean? He had a heart attack, right?”
“Yes, Mr. Murphy did suffer a heart attack, and that was the manner of death, but it was…” she paused.
“Yo, I’ma need you to stop speaking so slow and pausing in between words. What the fuck happened?”
“I apologize, Mr. Murphy. There is no easy way for me to say this, but your uncle’s heart attack was induced.”
I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.
“Mr. Murphy, are you still there?” she asked after I had apparently been quiet for too long.
“Yes, so you’re telling me someone in your hospital killed my uncle?”
“It’s not that simple, Mr. Murphy. I apologize for th—”
“Don’t apologize. Say yes or no.”
“I cannot… speculate.” She began to stumble through her words.
“Yes or no, Doc?”
“It seems that way. I was just calling because you authorized the second autopsy and I have to pass my findings over to BPD. I thought you should know.”
“You haven’t passed them over yet?” I gripped my phone tightly in my hand.
“No, not yet.”
“Don’t.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Murphy?”
“I said don’t give them shit. Unc died of a heart attack; thank you for your confirmation, Dr. Mercer.” I then hung up and felt eyes on me. When I finally looked up from the floor, my eyes locked on Kal.
“Wait, you just said your uncle died.”
“He did.”
“That’s what I came here to talk to you about, Psy. Your uncle’s name came across my feed. I didn’t take it, y’all like blood to me. But I went by my boy’s house over in the Row and had him find out who put the name on the server. The name he got was Charles Curr.”
I blinked several times, heat rising from my body, because this wasn’t life. It couldn’t be. My gut never lied and I was grateful for that. The problem was, just this one time I wished it had.
My uncle didn’t die. A motherfucker had murdered him and Charles Curr had a hand in it. Now what the fuck was I supposed to do with that?
Nothing felt right after that conversation, like my whole fuckin chest was tight, and to make matters worse ,how could I look Karsyn in the eyes when I knew what had to do? Her father was a dead man and he didn’t even know it yet.