Chapter Fifty-Six
Fifty-Six
First Crystal’s face went blank, and then she began to laugh hysterically.
Geneva laughed too, but she stopped when she saw that my lips hadn’t cracked a smile.
Noah’s face registered about twenty different emotions in just as many seconds; I knew he didn’t know what to believe.
“Your pregnancy must have you seeing things,” Crystal declared after she’d wiped the tears from her face.
“Pregnancy?” Noah piped, and his eyes fell on my swollen stomach. “No, you didn’t go and get yourself knocked up, Ms.Drama!” he shrieked and threw his hands over his mouth.
“I am not pregnant!” I screamed and marched over and snatched up Noah’s half-finished glass of wine and guzzled it.
Turning to Crystal, I said, “I know what I saw.” And then I turned my back on all three of their blank faces and stormed dramatically out of the living room and into the kitchen.
When I returned, wine bottle in hand, I tilted it to my mouth and drank deeply before I looked them in their eyes and said in my best “I see dead people” voice, “I saw her. She was dead, and Kendrick was the one that killed her!”
They looked at each other and then back at me before Crystal calmly said, “Okay, Chevy, sit down and start from the beginning.”
—
I told as much as I could without incriminating myself.
I explained that Cassius and I were casual friends.
That we’d worked together and she’d introduced me to her brother, who was visiting from Nigeria.
I explained that I was at her loft for brunch and that her brother, Abimbola, had stepped out to get some eggs and that she and I were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee when the knock came at the door.
When she opened it, Kendrick stormed in looking like a madman and demanding drugs.
“Drugs?” Crystal said, and even though she sounded as if she didn’t believe it, I could see by the look on her face that she kind of did.
“She was a drug dealer?” Noah asked, in awe.
“Well, I didn’t know that until then,” I lied.
I went on to say that Cassius told him that she didn’t have any in the house, and that he’d better leave before her brother came back.
“And what were you doing all of this time?” Geneva said.
“Didn’t Kendrick recognize you?” Noah added, and Geneva, Crystal, and I looked at him like he had three heads.
“C’mon, Noah, Kendrick had met Chevy only three or four times to begin with,” Crystal said.
“And you know Chevy looks like someone different each time you see her,” Geneva added.
“True,” Noah said, nodding his head.
“So what were you doing while all of this was going on?” Geneva asked again.
“Well, like I said, I was in the kitchen, and when they took their little discussion into the living room, I ran out the front door.”
I’d fucked up somewhere. I could tell by the way they were looking at me. But I’d been talking so fast, I didn’t know where I’d made the wrong turn.
“So if you left, then how do you know that he killed her?” Crystal asked.
I turned the bottle up to my mouth again and drained it.
“What I meant to say was I left after he knocked her down.”
“In the living room?” Geneva said.
“Yeah,” I answered quickly and then said to Noah, “You got any more wine?”
“No, but there’s some Grey Goose in the freezer,” he said, and I was gone before he could hardly get all of the words out of his mouth.
I returned with a glass filled with vodka and ice.
Noah scratched at his chin and said, “On the phone you told me she was sprawled out on the kitchen floor.”
“Did I?” I took a long sip of my drink, swallowed, and made a face before speaking again. “I was nervous, Noah! Kitchen, living room, what does it matter—she was dead!” I shrieked and got up and started walking circles.
“Did you call the police?” Crystal asked, total belief blanketing her face.
“Hell, no!” I said.
“I told her to,” Noah said. “But you know she’s hard-headed.”
“Well, I’m going to call the police,” Crystal said and jumped up and started toward the kitchen. I scrambled in front of her and pressed one unsteady hand against her shoulder. “I don’t think you should.”
Crystal eyed me. “Wasn’t this Cassius a friend of yours?” Crystal cocked her head to one side. “Are you that coldhearted? Would you do one of us like that, Chevy?”
I looked around at the expectant faces, took another swig of my drink, and then said in a slurring voice, “She was just an acquaintance.”
Crystal sucked her teeth and shoved past me.
“What’s the address, Chevy?” Crystal yelled at me from the kitchen.
I looked stupidly around as if the answer was somewhere in the air. “What’s the address?” Noah pushed.
I could hear Crystal in the kitchen, saying, “Yes, I’d like to report a murder.”
“What’s the goddamn address!” Geneva screamed at me.
That finally snatched me out of my daze, and I answered: “Three hundred West Seventeenth Street, top-floor loft.”
Crystal was repeating the address when a pain suddenly cut through my stomach. I doubled over and fell to my knees.
“Ugh, I don’t feel so good,” I said before I started puking wine and vodka all over Noah’s shiny hardwood floors.