CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After showering and dressing, they drove over to the Walmart Superstore in town.
Mainly because it was the only store in town that sold clothes and that opened before eleven.
And also because their pharmacy sold the morning after pill that Vince purchased and gave to Ricki to take.
Which only reminded her of the carelessness of their action earlier that morning.
They didn’t even know anything about each other’s sexual habits.
She not only could have gotten herself pregnant, but she could have gotten a disease!
Vince later said he always used condoms for everybody he’d ever been with, except for her, that was why he had no children.
But those were just words. She didn’t know if he was telling her the absolute truth.
It was reckless on her part, she knew, when she was never reckless with men. But it was done now.
Vince didn’t feel that sense of letdown.
He knew Ricki was a good girl who protected herself whenever she was with her past boyfriends.
The way he saw it, she just couldn’t help herself around him anymore than he could help himself around her.
But she had nothing to fear. When he told her that he always wore a condom, except with her, he was telling her the truth.
Ricki also purchased some slacks and blouses and undergarments, and although Vince looked at the men’s suits that were offered in the store, they were no where near of the quality he was accustomed to and decided the suit he wore yesterday would have to do for now.
By the time they made it back to the hotel, George Grantham was waiting inside his limousine.
A snob of the highest order, Vince knew he opted not to wait in the lobby of some three-star hotel.
When Vince And Ricki arrived, they got in the limo with George.
Sitting in a limo not affiliated with a funeral home was a first for Ricki.
What wasn’t a first for Ricki was the bluntness of Vince’s lawyer. “Who are you?” he asked before she could sit down good.
“I’m Rasheda Richardson. But everybody calls me Ricki. Who are you?”
George smiled. He expected a humble woman in need of help, not this firebrand. “I’m George Grantham. Vince’s divorce attorney.”
Ricki immediately was concerned. “Divorce attorney?” She looked at Vince. “But we need a criminal defense attorney.”
“He does that too,” Vince said. “He’s greedy. He does everything.”
“Now that we know my relationship with Vincent,” George said to Ricki, “what’s your relationship with him?”
It was the question Ricki was dreading. They slept together last night.
They made love this morning. In fact they made it again in the shower.
But did that make for a real relationship?
She didn’t answer that question. She couldn’t.
She looked to the much more experienced Vince to provide the answer.
But what he said disappointed her.
“This isn’t about her,” he responded. “This is about her sister.”
Ricki could see George glance at her, as if he knew it was a non-answer too.
He now would view her as some sex toy for Vince rather than somebody he respected and cared about.
It made her wonder if that was what Vince thought of her too: as a sex toy?
He certainly hadn’t told her otherwise. He hadn’t told her anything!
But why would he? They went there with each other, foolishly, when they barely knew each other.
It was out of character for her. She never did one-night stands. Would Vince end up being her first?
George felt bad for the girl. She seemed like a decent sort.
But she should have known better than to fool around with somebody obviously way out of her league.
“What about her sister?” he asked Vince.
“You told me nothing over the phone other than to drop what I was doing and to get my ass to Milton.”
“She’s been accused of murdering a local OB/GYN. Dr. Proctor,” Ricki said. She knew nobody could explain it better than her. “But she didn’t kill him. I know she didn’t.”
“Oh good. You have evidence to the contrary?”
“Evidence, no. But I know my sister.”
George looked at Vince as if he’d lost his mind. “I know you didn’t drag me all the way from D.C. for a she didn’t do it defense with no evidence that she didn’t do it. I don’t take on unwinnable criminal cases and you know this, Vincent.”
“It’s not unwinnable,” Ricki said. “We just need investigators.”
“And we’ll get them,” said Vince. “Don’t mind George.”
George settled back down. “How did it happen?”
“We don’t know.”
George frowned. “What do you mean we don’t know?”
“Watch your tone with her,” Vince warned.
“Sorry about that,” said George. Then he used the exact same tone: “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet. We’re going to see her at the jail now. She’ll tell us.”
George looked at Vince. And when Vince didn’t make the young lady tell him more, he just leaned back. And looked at his nails. “I missed my manicure appointment for this,” he said.
Ricki couldn’t believe he said that. Her sister was rotting in that jail and he was worried about his nails? She looked at him with disgust on her face. Vince laughed.
But when they got to the jail house, it was no laughing matter.
When they walked into the small police station, it seemed as if almost every cop in that building was running back and forth from one of the jail cells at the end of the hall. George immediately hurried over to the front desk. “What’s going on?” he asked the desk sergeant.
“Nothing’s going on,” the sergeant lied. “How may I help you?”
“I’m here to see my client.” George, Vince, and Ricki were staring at the frenzied activity in the building.
The sergeant looked at the computer. “Who’s your client?”
George realized he didn’t even know her name himself. He looked at Ricki. “Erica Richardson,” she said.
And when she said it, the sergeant looked at them as if he was looking at ghosts. “Wait just a minute,” he said and quickly picked up the desk phone.
But all three of them knew something was wrong. “Is that my sister’s cell their running to?” Ricki asked the sergeant.
“Didn’t I say just a minute?” They could hear the panic in his voice as he waited for somebody to pick up on the other line. “The Chief will talk to you.”
But Ricki wasn’t waiting for any chief. She took off running down that hall toward that cell. Vince, terrified that one of those trigger-happy cops would take her concern for her sister as aggression against them and shoot her, took off running after her.
“Rasheda, wait!” he yelled at her as he ran.
But Ricki wasn’t thinking about waiting. She was worried about her sister! She saw how white that sergeant went when she mentioned that name. She remembered how Vince believed that truck driver was trying to send her a message by running them off the road. She couldn’t get to that cell fast enough.
But when she got there, she stopped in her tracks. Because in that jail cell that everybody were standing around and looking into was her sister. Erica Richardson. And she was hanging from the ceiling in that cell.
Police officers were frantically attempting to cut that thick rope with a knife to try to bring her down, but there was no doubt to anyone that she was already dead.
When Vince slid up to that cell and saw it too, even his heart grew faint.
Because he could see there was no hope at all.
Erica Richardson had hung herself. And because he knew Ricki was going to be devastated.
She already was. As soon as she realized that it was her sister in that cell, she cried out with a guttural scream and began bending over and dropping to her knees. She would have fallen all the way over had Vince not gotten there and grabbed her.
When George ran back there to protect his best friend and saw it too, it took his breath away. “Good Lord!” he said.
Then he looked at Vince. “Is that her sister?” George asked, although, given Ricki’s reaction, it went without asking.
But Vince was too worried about Ricki to answer him. He had to push away several cops who tried to manhandle her to get her to leave the area, and George had to frantically tell those officers that that was Ricki’s sister, and his client, who had hung herself.
But as Ricki was forced back up front, still being held up by Vince, they could say it all day long. They could declare her baby sister killed Dr. Proctor and committed suicide out of guilt until they were blue in the face. But she wasn’t ever going to believe that either.
She collapsed against Vince before she could get back up front.
She didn’t know what she would have done without him.