“Hands in the air or we’ll shoot!”
Seconds went by without a word. And then I heard the sound of a short scuffle and what I hoped was Ladykiller being taken to the ground.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.”
“I can’t get arrested,” Ladykiller wailed in a way that made me think he was suddenly sorry for what he did. “I can’t go to jail, please. Tyesha, help me! TYESHA!”
I closed my eyes and covered my ears.
-
Tyesha816: Kidnapper in custody! I’m closer to finding my daughter!
August 19th, 1:13 a.m.
CHAPTER 15
Questions ran through my mind as I sat inside the interrogation room with my arms crossed on the table, my head down, staring at the gray wall. I was in deep thought, waiting on a detective to come in and tell me they found my daughter.
Why did he take her? How could any man be that obsessed with me? Would they lock him up for life or would they give him a light sentence? Will I have to deal with this again?
I started looking at Ladykiller’s profile page on my phone, trying to find answers. Most of the activity on his page pertained to messages to me or comments on my status updates. It was as if his whole page was created solely to interact with me. I scrolled further back through his timeline, as far back as a year, and I saw a post that I had never seen before. It was a message my mother, Velma Fenty, posted on Ladykiller’s wall. It read: “I said no! I want nothing to do with you or your family! Stay out of my inbox!”
That was strange.
Suddenly, I heard a commotion outside of the room. I got up and went to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. They locked me in!
“What’s the problem?!” I heard Rodrick yell on the other side of the door.
Oh my God! I thought. Rodrick and my mother were waiting in the lobby for them to release me—as if I was guilty of something. I should have told him not to come!
“I don’t wanna hear it!” an officer yelled. “Hands behind your back!”
Rodrick’s voice came back hard. “I’m here trying to find my daughter and yall gone arrest me?! What part of the game is this?!”
“There’s a pick-up warrant against you, Mr. Brown.”
“So what?”
“So you have to”—I heard a chair being pushed back, maybe the officers hemming him up—“Don’t fight us. Then you’ll get resisting arrest, buddy.”
I went back to my chair and plopped down in it. I grabbed my forehead and started crying. My family was disappearing!
When the door opened, I looked up. I recognized both of the detectives that walked in. Detective Frisk and Detective Copeland.
“Where’s my baby’s father?” I asked.
“He’s in lockup now,” said Frisk, taking a seat on the other side of the table.
Copeland leaned against the wall in another tight T-shirt, a blue one this time, and gave me a strict glare. “Thanks for bringing him to us,” he said sarcastically.
“Fuck you!” I shouted. “Yall worried about arresting my baby daddy, but where’s my DAUGHTER!”
“That’s what we’re in here to talk to you about.” Frisk interlaced his fingers on the table. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“I’m not going through this shit again! I’ve answered all of those questions a thousand times. Where’s Detective Rosan?”
“He’s off the case,” Frisk said. “It was handed over to us.”
“Did Ladykiller tell you where my daughter was?”
Frisk’s lips where tight. Then he said, “Ladykiller was interrogated thoroughly. But he didn’t tell us where your daughter was.”
I felt the tears coming back. And I think I was having a sudden shortness of breath.
Detective Frisk told his partner to run and get me a cup full of water. He handed me a Styrofoam cup with a coffee lid on it. I opened it and drank slowly.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not going to find her,” Frisk told me. “We just have to keep looking elsewhere.”
“What do you mean ‘elsewhere’?” I asked. “Ladykiller took my daughter. You have to push him till he cracks.”
“Ms. Fenty, we’re gonna end up releasing Ladykiller. He admitted that he had a heavy presence on your profile page, but he adamantly denied taking your daughter. We don’t have enough evidence to hold him for very long.”
“Why don’t you put a tail on him and follow him to Kylie?” I asked desperately.
“We know where he lives. And we’ve talked to his mother, whom he stays with. Ms. Fenty, are you aware that Ladykiller is only seventeen years old?”
I gasped. “No…”
“His real name is Landon Roby and his mother’s name is Deborah Roby. From what his mother explained, all he does all day when he’s not at school is type on his computer. And he’s not at school much because he’s one of those half-day seniors. According to a few of his teachers, he’s actually a good student. His mother told us that if he had taken a 4-year-old child she would have known about it.”
I was shaking my head. I couldn’t understand it all. And why did Ladykiller’s mother’s name sound so familiar?
“I have to ask you some more questions,” the detective said, his tone becoming harsh. “I’ve turned up a lot of interesting things during the course of this investigation. So I have to ask you, ma’am, how long have you had a violent streak?”
Blinking, I said, “What are you talking about?”
Copeland butted in. “You know what he’s talking about.”
“I’ve come across several things that have disturbed me and I have to follow up on them.” Frisk reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He unraveled it and looked it over. “I came across a popular hiphop website that featured a video of you going toe-to-toe with another female. Can you explain that to me?”
“It was just a fight that got caught on tape.”
He nodded. “I went further back and found that you broke into a woman named…” He squinted at the sheet. “…Dava Babcock’s apartment. You proceeded to beat her and were subsequently arrested and put on a year’s probation.”
“Are you serious? In your little research you found, did you also see that my baby’s daddy put a restraining order out on Dava? She was crazy. She was stalking the both of us and even threatened my daughter on The Site, which you should have record of. Hell yeah I went over there and kicked her ass. I’d do it again.”
“Ms. Fenty, I also found that someone called the Department of Family Services on you for striking your daughter. The report read that you struck her several times for allegedly crying too loud.”
“That’s a fucking lie!” I shouted. “I know it was Dava Babcock who called DFS on me. She was just trying to get my daughter taken away from me because she was jealous of my relationship with Rodrick. What are you trying to say to me, detective?”
He stared me down. “Have you ever physically abused your daughter, Kylie Brown?”
I slapped him. I don’t think I slapped him hard but I know I woke him up. His eyes were wide and he shot to his feet, only to stop Copeland from coming after me. He adjusted the collar of his suit jacket.
“Don’t ever accuse me of hurting my own daughter,” I cried, pointing my finger up at him. Tears streaked down my cheeks. “I would never lay a finger on my daughter. Never!”
-
Tyesha816: What did I do to deserve this?
August 19th, 11:25 a.m.