CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The next day, after Ricki spent most of the night mourning her childhood friend, she and Vince walked into Davey’s hospital room. He was lying in bed, hooked up to machines, but Ricki was pleased by how good he looked. She even smiled. “Hey, Davey.”
She could smile at him. But he wasn’t there yet. He was still in too much pain. “Hey. What are you doing here?” Then he looked at her up-styled hairdo. “Your hair looks different.” He looked at her fancy clothes. “You look different.”
“Where’s Mommy and Daddy?” she asked them.
“They just left. They were here all night with me. They said they were going to the house to make sure nobody was taking advantage of that bombing. They wanted to make sure no looters are around.”
“Looters in Milton?” Ricki asked.
“You know how Daddy is,” said Davey.
“How are you?” Vince asked him.
He wasn’t too keen on talking to Vince, but he spoke up. “Rough,” he said. “But I ain’t killed my own sister. They lying on me. And I didn’t pay nobody to kill her either.”
“Did you kill Dr. Proctor?” Vince asked.
“No!” Then he winced from the pain. “What I look like killing that man? I never spoke two words to him before. I don’t know him at all. But they talking about I’m a person of interest. They got the police at my door like I’m already guilty.”
Then Ricki decided to come at her brother a different way. “JoJo asked about you,” she said.
Davey seemed genuinely confused. “What he asking about me for?”
“You guys aren’t close?” Vince asked.
“Close? Me and JoJo? No. We ain’t never been close.”
Then George and Milo walked in. “Sorry to disturb you, Davey.”
“What y’all want?” Davey asked them.
George looked at Vince and Ricki. “The assistant DA assigned to Erica’s case is problematic.”
“In what way?” asked Ricki.
“In a lot of ways.”
“Who is this DA?” Vince asked.
“That assistant DA assigned to Erica’s case. McDonald is her name,” said Milo. “Althea McDonald.”
“Althea?” Ricki asked. Then she looked at Vince. “As in Al? Could Althea McDonald be the Al that JoJo claimed hired him?”
“That’s what they call her,” said Davey.
They all looked at him. “That’s what who calls her?”
“Everybody. She’s Al McDonald around here.” Then a lightbulb seemed to go off in Davey’s head. “And she’s related to JoJo.”
This surprised Ricki and Vince. “Are you serious?” asked Ricki. “Related how?”
“Their cousins or something. At least that’s what I heard his mama’nem talking about once. They were bragging when she graduated law school. I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“It might be if she’s the Al that JoJo told us about.”
Davey winced as if he was experiencing even more pain. “But what does JoJo have to do with this?” he asked.
“He said somebody named Al tried to pay him to take out Erica,” said Ricki. “He even came to town to do the job. But he said he thought about me and backed out.” She wanted to tell him what happened to JoJo, but not until he was in better shape himself.
“And that’s why we’re here,” said George.
“What is it?” asked Vince.
“The evidence against Erica? Badly flawed. Perhaps criminally so.”
Everybody was looking at George. “How so?” Vince asked.
“The prosecution, led by Althea “Al” McDonald, claimed that Erica Richardson’s DNA was at the Proctor crime scene. That was their strongest evidence against her.”
“You’re saying it wasn’t her DNA?” asked a hopeful Ricki.
“Oh it was Richardson’s DNA mixed with his blood alright. But what Miss Al failed to mention in her court filings, was that there was Y-chromosomal DNA markers at that scene, not the XX chromosomes.”
Ricki frowned. “But what does that mean?”
“It means,” Milo said, “that the DNA was consistent for a Richardson to have been the murderer alright, but not a female Richardson. Only males carry the Y-chromosome. It had to be a male.”
Davey winced even harder. “But I didn’t kill that man! There was no way my DNA was at that crime scene.”
“It had to have been your brother,” Milo continued after Davey’s rant, “or your father. There’s no question it had to be one or the other one. It could not have been Erica, and certainly not you nor your mother.”
Ricki was floored.
“But it wasn’t me,” Davey said again.
“I know that,” Ricki said.
Everybody looked at her. “What are you saying, Rasheda?” Vince asked.
“I’m saying it wasn’t my sister and it wasn’t my brother. That’s what I’m saying.”
“And you’re probably right,” said Milo, “because we uncovered something else.”
Vince and Ricki were eager to hear it. They needed more.
Davey did too. “What else you know?” he asked Milo. Above anybody else in that room, he had a vested interest in their revelations.
“Our sources, and they are very good sources,” said George, “told us that Miss Althea McDonald was and continues to be in a two-year love affair with Hershel Richardson.”
Davey and Ricki both were shocked. “With my father?” they asked almost at the exact same time.
Milo nodded. “With your father, yes,” he said. “Which would explain why she was so willing to risk her law license to lie about that DNA.”
“To protect my father?” asked Ricki.
George nodded. “That’s the only explanation we can figure out.”
Ricki was more determined than she was upset. “Let’s go, Vince,” she said. “He’s supposed to be at the house to make sure no looters in little Milton are stealing from him. That asshole!”
“He’s at the house,” said Davey. “Him and Mommy. That’s where he told me they were headed.”
Vince would have told Ricki no way was she going to her father’s house after how she behaved when Davey made a run for it, but he knew she was the only one in that room who had the chops to confront her father.
Who just might be able to get him to confess.
And that was what they needed. Not conjecture.
Not speculation. They needed cold, hard facts.
“Come on,” he said, and he led her out of Davey’s hospital room.
But when they got near the door, he told George and Milo to hold back a few minutes and come to the house after he and Ricki left.
“Why?” asked Davey.
“So that the cop outside in the hospital corridor won’t get curious,” said Vince.
“If the cops show up, they’ll want to arrest rather than get the facts first. We need to get the facts first to exonerate Davey, and Erica once and for all.
” Then he looked at Milo. “We’re wait for you a block before we get to the Richardson house. ”
They agreed, and Vince and Ricki left.
Vince kept his arm around Ricki’s waist as they walked. He could feel her trembles.