“I’m not keeping you from something am I?”
“Lord, no. I was just going to start digging out some of the Christmas crap today.”
“Ah.” Lakisha looked over her shoulder toward the stairs. “Is Gary around?”
“Oh no, he’s got a new project starting. He won’t be back ‘til evening. Why?”
“No reason.” She shrugged, wondering if Karen dressed this way every day. Maybe it was for Gary. She knew Karen didn’t go out much.
“So what are the other girls up to?”
It felt odd to Lakisha to be sitting in the warm cheery kitchen sipping coffee and talking girl talk just feet from where a young man had been killed. It was creepy. Rayford had warned her about that.
“Let’s see, Erika’s got a guy now.”
“Really? I haven’t talked to her since the incident.” A shadow seemed to cross Karen’s face just then, Lakisha thought. “Come to think about it, I haven’t talked to anyone since then.”
Lakisha knew that without being told. The other ‘Go Girls’, all but Ally, had talked a lot since ‘the incident’, as she called it. The general consensus was that they were all a little scared of Gary now and didn’t want to be around him for any reason. Lakisha had other reasons for avoiding her. Karen and Gary wouldn’t be getting any Christmas party invitations. There wouldn’t be any shopping trips or lunches. There wouldn’t be any phone calls.
Lakisha sighed and looked out over the bleak December-barren back yard. The potential for the group to establish some distance from Karen had been there without her prodding, but she knew she was responsible for some of it. It had been difficult, tricky even. By reinforcing doubts about Gary’s stability she had planted the seeds. It was almost childish the way she had encouraged Karen’s segregation; using back stabbing gossip and innuendo like a jealous high school girl trying to kick someone out of the clique.
The microphone clipped to her bra burned like a scarlet letter, but she was glad it was there.
“Earth to Lakisha,” Karen giggled. “You sort of drifted off there.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been like that lately.”
“Is something bothering you, girl?”
Lakisha turned and fixed a determined look directly at Karen. She didn’t speak for a moment. They had rehearsed this a dozen times and a dozen ways and it wasn’t working out like any of the scenarios she and Rayford and Tony had imagined. She was too nervous and too angry to ease into a conversation.
“I’ve got most of it figured out, you know.”
Karen looked puzzled, but there was a wariness behind it that didn’t escape notice. “Figured out what?”
“See, I know you recognized that boy. I saw him in the bar out in LA. I told the detectives that.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You were eye fucking that boy in the bar. Then you were for-real fucking him an hour later.”
Karen sat up straighter. The perplexed look had morphed into a frown, and the wariness was building to anger.
Lakisha bored in again. “But on film? What were you thinking?” There was a long tense pause. Lakisha watched as what she said registered in the other woman’s eyes.
“I didn’t know there was a camera,” Karen said evenly but the first blocks were tumbling from the wall.
“Bullshit. I’ve seen the tape.”
Karen’s eyes became slits. Her lips disappeared into a hard mean line across her face.
“What do you mean you’ve seen the tape?”
“I mean I’ve seen the tape. Whooee, girl. That boy had a bigun’.”
“Where? How? Is it on the internet?” Karen’s eyes began darting, searching for something. A way out? A better answer? A weapon?
“Probably. The detectives showed it to me.”
Karen jerked up. Her chair almost fell when she stood. “What was on it?”
“You were the one there. You know what’s on it.”
“When did it cut off?” Karen shouted the question leaning forward, her fists on the table. Lakisha felt the first twinges of fear. They had talked about this too, had set up some code words. One of them was ‘afraid’.
“I’m afraid I don’t know. I couldn’t watch all of it. What were you thinking, Karen?
“I wasn’t thinking, okay? Jesus, you sound just like Deanna.”
“Did she get on you for fucking that boy?” Lakisha knew that she had, she’d seen the whole thing, suffered through the entire clip. She tearfully confirmed for Ray and Tony that it was Deanna’s voice in the background.
“I was just having a little fun,” Karen snarled. She crossed her arms over her chest and walked slowly away from the table and leaned on a cabinet near the sink, glaring at Lakisha. “You have your fun.”
Lakisha decided to send another message to Ray and Tony. “I’m afraid I do. But Mr. Marland is 85 and he lives in Greece.”
“So.”
“And I don’t do it in front of a camera, for crissakes.”
Karen leaned toward the table and shouted, “I didn’t know there was a fucking camera!”
Some of her hair had come loose. She had sweated enough her mascara had gone from a delicate line to a thick fierce accent around her eyes. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes off the counter and ripped the cover trying to get one out.
“Okay. Okay. Chill some, girl. You didn’t know there was a camera.” Lakisha didn’t feel sorry for her while she watched Karen fight with the lighter for a flame. “Did the boy follow you here?”
Karen’s head snapped up, the lit cig clamped between narrow tight lips. “No he didn’t follow me here and no, I didn’t send for him.” She took a lung burning drag and hurled the used smoke from her lungs toward the ceiling.
“Then how…”
“I just saw him one day. I mean, there he was over at Scotty’s.” Karen barked a nervous laugh. “What are the odds? What are the fucking odds?” She shook her head. Her lip curled in a disbelieving sneer.
“So you jumped him?” Lakisha watched Karen’s nervous eyes dart around the room. She was blinking rapidly and breathing fast and shallow.
“I think you should go.” Karen pointed toward the door. “Get out!”
“Some help?” Another code phrase. Lakisha prayed Ray and Tony were just outside the front door now.
“Help?”
“Help me understand, Karen. Why did you kill Dee?”
Karen’s agitation was in full tilt panic mode when Lakisha’s question slapped her. She struggled for words, struggled for air. “I never…if Gary…you don’t understand.” Karen’s voice wavered when she started crying. She turned away from Lakisha and leaned heavily on the counter. Lakisha stood and moved a quiet step from the table toward the archway and the front door.
“The boy never wanted any money did he? I think the boy just wanted to get away from you. Am I getting close?”
“Shut up!”
“But why did you kill Dee? She was your best friend.”
“SHUT UP!” Karen turned from the counter. A black handled knife appeared in her hand. “She was going to…”
“Now Rayford! Knife!”
Lakisha snatched her bag off the table and backpedaled as Karen stepped toward her. There was a crashing sound from the living room. The front door blew in. Lakisha tripped on the edge of a rug and fell backwards, sprawled on her back, the bag still in her hand. Ray appeared in the doorway, a black outline, snow white-bright behind him. Karen squinted into the dim room.
The back door crashed open, the window glass shattered when it slammed into the wall. Tony, off balance, stumbled into the room. Karen whirled. The knife slashed in a whirl of red skirt and red blood and screaming. Karen shrieked again and cocked her arm for another thrust.
A gun barked! Once! Twice!
Karen looked down at her chest. Two bright red stains blossomed on her white blouse. The knife fell to the floor. One hand was still raised, the other tentatively touching the stains. She looked up. Lakisha, lying on the floor in the doorway, was holding a small automatic pistol in both hands. A wisp of smoke curled from the barrel.