Cold (14 page)

I struggled to eat the food that Darius brought me. My throat was burning and I didn’t even have enough energy to lift my fork.

“You have to eat something
,” Darius said as he pushed my hair out of my face.

“Please don’t leave me tonight
,” I begged.

He looked at me and replied
, “I will never leave you. This will be the last time you will ever hurt again.”

He leaned forward and kissed me. I wanted him to just take me in his arms and get me away from this place. I no longer wanted to live in Houston.
Darius didn’t leave my side the whole time. He lay in the bed with me and we talked. He comforted me and kept reassuring me that everything was going to be fine. I knew I wasn’t going to be living in that house anymore so he suggested that I stay with him. He even told me, he would buy me new clothes, shoes and anything else that I needed. He didn’t even want Michael’s scent in his house. I understood because I felt the same way. He asked me about a divorce, but I needed to take everything one day at a time. One of the first things I was going to do when I left the hospital was go down to the police station and tell them about the watch that I found in Michael’s car.

Darius had finally
fallen asleep. I refused to go to sleep because I was scared that I was going to see Carl again. I just laid there and stared at Darius the whole time. When the sun came up, Darius opened his eyes and stared at me.

“Are you okay?”

I didn’t say anything. Instead, I nodded my head. About an hour after Draya arrived, the nurse came in and gave me my discharge papers. Darius had already left and told me he would be picking me up from Draya’s place after he was done taking care of business.

“Are you ready to go?”

I sighed and said, “Yes.”

The hallway wasn’t as scary as it was in my dream and I was happy to see another day of light.                                                 

While on the freeway, it dawned on me that I left my gun at home. “

Hey, I have to go by my house really quick. I have to grab something.”

Draya got off the next exit and headed straight to my house. I didn’t want to go back there, but I needed some type of protection. The look in Michael’s eyes as he was beating on my window trying to get in led me to believe that he wanted to hurt me. He would kill me before his dirty laundry was aired. It would be nothing for him to hire a private investigator to hunt me down and before I put myself or Darius in any danger, I would shoot his ass right between the eyes. I was a little nervous about moving in with Darius because I barely knew him and I didn’t want to stress him out with my fucked up life. I had no job and I didn’t want to be a burden to him, but at the same time, he made me feel safe. He had security systems all around his house and I knew that he would make sure I was alright until I was able to get back on my feet.

When we pulled up to the front of my house, I realized that I didn’t have my key or my purse.

“Where the hell is my purse?” I asked as I looked at Draya.

She shrugged her shoulders and said
, “I don’t know. Did you leave it at the hospital?”

I thought long and hard and replied
, “I don’t think so.”

I didn’t even remember how I ended up at the hospital
, so I damn sure didn’t know what the hell happened to my pure.

“The paramedics probably left it in the car when they pulled you out of it.”

I then remembered that the patio door was still open. I jumped out the car and as soon as my feet touched the ground, all I heard was, “Get down now!”

There
were a million cops all over me and my face was being scorched from the hot ass concrete. I felt like I was being cooked alive. I began screaming and kicking and trying to break free and suddenly, I felt this shock that made my eyes roll in the back of my head. Moments later, I could see Draya trying to run over to me, but was immediately stopped by a cop wearing a bullet proof vest.

“She didn’t do anything!”
Draya yelled.

“Ma’am, if you don’t leave, you will be arrested too
,” the cop said to her as he pointed towards her car.

She looked at me and got in her car and sped off. The cop then jerked me up off the ground. The shock from the
Taser took all the energy from. My body was so limp that I could barely hold myself up. As I was being escorted to the cop car, my garage doors lifted up and I could see Michael and Carl just standing there. Carl had a smile on his face and he just waved. Michael gave me the most evil stare that I had to turn away. I didn’t even know who he was anymore. All of the years we spent together, the trips we took together and the love we made didn’t seem to matter to him. It was like there were no feelings there at all. I’ve heard so many stories about how men or no good. I’ve handled so many cases of domestic abuse and men killing their wives by gun shots, poisoning, strangulation, and a lot of other horrible things you could think of but in my mind, I felt like nothing could beat what Michael has done to me. At the end of the day, I was still his wife. We took Vows and he broke all of the promises he made to me. Although Michael hurt me, it was nothing compared to the hurt that Carl caused. I’ve known this man since we were children. I knew all of his girlfriends and we shared so many secrets. Of all the gay men in the world, he had to lay up with my man.

              The cuffs were so tight around my wrist that they started to burn.

“Sir, these cuffs are really tight.”

The cop didn’t say anything. He just continued to drive. I was so confused that I didn’t even know why I was being arrested. I sat in the backseat and cried the whole car ride. When we arrived at the police station, I seen the same clerk from when I was there trying to file a complaint about my car and when the cops brought me in for questioning about Melanie. She looked at me as if I was disgusting. This was my third time here so I knew this couldn’t be good. They immediately put me in a holding tank. I still didn’t know what the fuck was going on. They had me in a tank with six other women and they all looked crazy. The worst thing you could do was throw a prosecutor in jail with a bunch of criminals.  If it got out that I had anything to do with the law, I could be in serious trouble. The holding tank smelled like raw fish and shit. I looked up at the ceiling and noticed that there was wet toilet paper on it. My fear was that it was going to eventually fall and land right in my hair. I glanced at the toilet and almost threw up. It had stains all on the seat and I didn’t even want to know what was inside.

One lady walked over to it and began drinking from the top part of the toilet and that’s when I realized that the toilet was also a water fountain. It was the craziest shit that I had ever seen. There was another woman that was lying on the floor barefoot. She had on a small skirt that you could damn near see most of her ass. She was only wearing a bra and one of the straps
was missing. She looked like a straight up prostitute. I felt like I didn’t belong and this whole thing was one big mistake. Luckily, there was a phone. I walked over to it and tried to dial Draya’s number since that was the only number I knew by heart, but there was three buttons missing. Great I sighed to myself. I didn’t understand the point of having a phone in there if it didn’t work. One lady walked over to me and asked, “What did you do?”

She had bruises all over her face and he knuckles were bleeding. She had a bald spot in her head and the rest of her hair looked matted to her head. The closer she stood to me, the louder the fish smell started to fill the room. I then realized that she was the one that smelled like that.
I held my breath as long as I could and every time I inhaled, I felt like I was taking in some kind of toxic poisoning. I just looked at the woman and said, “I don’t know yet,” and walked to the other side of the small tank.

She looked at me like I offended her and rolled her eyes at me. I looked down and tried to avoid her. If she had a bald spot and bloody knuckles then that mean her ass was psycho. I felt like a small kitten that was tossed out into the jungle. I didn’t belong in here at all. I wanted to cry so
badly, but I didn’t want them to see me break down because I knew that they would probably think I’m a weak bitch and they would try to take advantage of that. I tried to keep a straight tough and look as crazy as possible but I wasn’t sure if it was working. I didn’t exactly look like a criminal. I was wearing a pair of Louis Vuitton slipper and some Gucci stretch pants with a tank top on that Draya brought me while I was at the hospital. I refused to sit down because I was terrified that I was going to sit on some piss or ever worse, shit. The least they could’ve done was clean out the tanks because this shit was not sanitary. That’s how people get sick.

After sitting there for almost three hours, I had to pee so
badly, but there was no privacy and I didn’t want these bitches looking at my pussy and I damn sure didn’t want to sit on that nasty ass toilet. After a few more minutes, it was getting harder to hold my bladder. I didn’t want to pee on myself so I said fuck it and just walked over to the toilet. When I looked down, I almost threw up everywhere. There were two tampons and a long green turd floating around in the toilet. I literally felt sick as hell. I was seconds away from pissing on myself so I pulled my pants down and squatted over the toilet like I was in hutting position. There was no toilet paper so I had to shake my pussy dry. I was away from the toilet before I pulled my pants back up. I was officially traumatized by what I had just seen. After about five hours of hell, one of the officers came and got me out of that smelly ass tank. They brought me into and interrogation room and then left me there alone.

While I was there, I thought about Darius. I felt like I was never going to see him again. Thirty minutes later, I saw the one of the detectives that was at my house come in and sit across from me. He looked and me and said
, “I’m detective Steve Wallace. Remember me?”

I looked him dead in the face and asked
, “Why am I here?”

He looked at me as if I should already know the answer.

“Well you’re here for the murder of Melanie Scott and the assault of your husband in a hotel parking lot.”

I sat there with my neck sticking out and my mouth wide open. Before I could gather my thoughts, he hit me with another blow and said
, “We found Melanie’s watch in your purse, the gun that you shot her in the head with and the knife you used to slit her throat.”

“This is impossible! I didn’t have shit to do with this! You’re trying to pen this shit on me!”

He shook his head and pulled out photos of me walking around Melanie’s house. I was in a state of shock and disbelief. I shook my head as if I was trying to shake off what I was seeing and hearing. He then told me that my prints were on the knife and the gun. I didn’t believe shit that he was saying. I was a lawyer and I knew all the little shady ass tactics that cops used. I sat back in my seat and said, “I’m done talking to you. When I get legal representation, then maybe I’ll listen to you.”

I could tell he was irritated but he said okay and walked out the room. As soon as he left, I buried my face in my hands and began crying uncontrollably.

“Why me,” I cried out.

‘
Why would God put me through this?’
I thought to myself. My heart was hurting so bad, I squeezed my breast. It was like someone took a bomb and dropped it right in my lap. A cop walked in the room minutes later and escorted me out. When we walked outside, for some reason, I thought I was free until they threw me in the back of this police truck. The space was so small and as soon as he closed the doors, everything went pitch black. There were no windows and I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I felt like a caged animal inside. It was crazy because I was now in the same position that I put the bad people in. I then began to feel sorry for myself. The ride was scary. There were bumps and crazy turns. There were times when I felt like the truck was going to tip over. The truck suddenly stopped I heard the cop get out of the car. He opened the door and helped me out and walked me into another jail.                                                              

I found myself sitting in another tank. It was a lot cleaner than the tank at the other jail. When I
found a spot that looked descent, I sat down. The room was freezing cold and I didn’t have a jacket. A cop walked in and yelled, “Okay its feeding time!” as she slid the box in the middle of the tank.

All of the women ran to the box like dogs and grabbed a sandwich. I didn’t budge. I wasn’t in the mood to eat and whatever was in the box, I didn’t want it. After the cop left, this pregnant woman walked over to me and handed me a cold sandwich, an oatmeal cookie and an apple juice and then she walked back to the other side of the room.  She looked like she was about to have her baby at any moment.
‘What the hell could she have possibly done?’
I thought to myself.

“Thanks,” I smiled as I took the food and sat it next to me.

The sandwich only had bologna on it. There wasn’
t even any cheese on it. Over the next few hours, I went to three or four different holding tanks. Some were cold, some were stinky and some were just plain nasty. I felt like someone was playing a horrible prank on me. I was able to see the judge, but I wasn’t able to make bond. I was so numb about it; I just stood there in front of the judge like statue. The only time I spoke is when I was saying yes or no. I was then taken out of the court room. I felt like trash, as I stood there butt naked in front of a bunch of women. When I didn’t think I could feel any lower than what I was already feeling, something else happened. We stood there in a line trying to cover our ass pussy with our hands. One woman raised her hand and said “I have a tampon in.”

The guard looked at the woman and told her to throw it
in the trash that was in front of us. The lady squat and pulled the tampon out. I gagged when I saw the blood on it. She walked to the trash and threw it away and got back in line. We were then forced to bend over and spread our ass cheeks and cough. I wanted to scream so badly, but I held my tears back and did whatever I was told to do. After we were done being humiliated, we were given orange jumpsuits to wear. When we finally made it to our cell, I laid on down on the bottom bunk bed and closed my eyes. As crazy as it was, I was relieved to be lying down in a real cell instead of on the floor of a holding tank.

The next morning, we woke up early in the morning for breakfast but I still didn’t eat anything. I had this false hope that I was going to be set free. My fear was seeing someone in here that I prosecuted
. When I was able to get to a phone I called Draya. I was happy that she accepted the collect call. When they put my call through, I was relieved to hear her voice

“How are you doing in there?” she asked with a shaky voice.

My bottom lip started to tremble and I thought I was going to break down.

“I don’t know
Draya. They denied me bail so I will be in here until I can get a lawyer and a court date.”

She stayed silent for a second and said
, “I went back to hospital and found Darius. I told him what happened and gave him your information. He said he would be up there to see you.”

I was thankful for
Draya because without her, I wasn’t sure what I would do. She was my only connect on the outside. When we got off the phone, I was sent back to my cell. Over the next two days, I tried to adjust to everything. I knew I wasn’t getting out so I didn’t have much of a choice. I even started eating the food and got use to showering naked with a bunch of women.