Page 9 of Happy Is On Hiatus
“My firm represented Sanford Gibson in multiple matters.” He spoke slowly, as if he were measuring his words, watching her every reaction as he continued. “I’m handling his estate.”
“His ...” Sharae paused, swallowed, and blinked. “His estate.” The word stuck in her throat as its implication settled in her mind. “He’s dead.”
“Yes. I’m sorry to tell you that your father passed away last Wednesday from sarcoidosis.”
She shook her head. “He’s in jail. I mean, hewasin jail.” Since she was thirteen. Ten weeks before her fourteenth birthday, to be exact.
“Yes.” Desmond nodded. “At the Jessup Correctional Institution.”
Where he’d been serving a life-without-parole sentence for killing her mother.
“Ms.Gibson, I have some things to discuss with you about your father’s estate.”
Sharae held up a hand to stop him from talking. She didn’t want to hear anything else, yet those words weren’t readily falling from her lips.
Desmond continued. “I understand that this has come as a shock to you, and I tried to reach you at the precinct but was told you were in court today. There are some things we need to discuss.”
He was still talking, his words floating around that black void that had settled into the farthest recesses of her mind. Sanford Gibson was dead. Just like her mother had been for the past twenty-seven years. “I can’t.” The words came out raspy. Her throat felt tight, her chest filled with some unnamed emotion that threatened to crush her.
“Ms.Gibson,” Desmond said.
She didn’t know what he’d done with that picture, but he was now reaching into the file folder again. Sharae shook her head. “No. Don’t. This isn’t ... um, it isn’t for me.”
Behind her, a clicking sound followed by the creak of rusted hinges echoed. “We’re ready for you now, Detective Gibson.”
Turning in the direction of the new voice, Sharae saw the state’s attorney’s law clerk standing by the door. That’s right, she was here to testify. In another murder case. Not her mother’s. She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding and stood. “Right. You’re ready for me to testify.”
Intending to walk away leaving Desmond Brown and his big folder of news she didn’t want to hear behind, Sharae took the first step on unstable legs. She stopped, just to take another cleansing breath and focus her mind on the present, the case outlined in the folder she now carried in her hand.
“As his only child, you would be the executor of his estate.” Desmond continued as if they hadn’t just been interrupted and shewasn’t attempting to walk away from him. “There’s the matter of three properties he owned and some other investments that need to be dealt with. Here’s my card. You can call me when you’re finished here today. I have time that we can meet this afternoon.”
She turned back slowly, until she was facing him again. He stood now as well and extended his arm to offer her the white business card tucked between his fingers. Sharae looked down at that card, then back up to him to see that he was staring intently at her.
“This is important business, Ms.Gibson. And while I offer my sincerest condolences to you and your family, there are a few time-sensitive issues that need to be addressed.” He paused and lowered his voice when he spoke again. “Please, take my card and call me later.”
Sharae didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t a case she’d taken notes on, investigated every aspect of, and knew like she knew her name. No, this was totally different and unexpected and ... she didn’t know what else. What she was certain of was that she couldn’t deal with it right now. Snatching the card from his hand with a little more force than she’d intended, she stared at Desmond Brown. “He wasn’t my father,” she said. “He was the man who killed my mother.”
She didn’t stick around for a response, didn’t give a damn what Sanford Gibson’s attorney thought about what she’d just said. When Sharae stepped into the courtroom, she pushed everything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes out of her mind and walked up to the witness stand.
For what seemed like an eternity, but was really only an hour and a half, she testified about her case. About the murder she could prove and the bad guy she wanted to put away for taking two innocent lives.
Her mother, Justine Johnson, had been thirty-five when her life was brutally taken. She’d been innocent too. Guilty of only one thing—falling in love with the wrong man.
Chapter 5
ELEVATOR MUSIC IS THE SPAWN OF THE DEVIL.
Rita slowly set the phone down on its base. She closed her eyes, clenched her fingers into fists, and held back the scream that burned for release. Why was this happening to her? Why now? And how was she supposed to do this?
Her parents hadn’t taught her how to do divorce. Hale and Vi had taught Rita many things; her father made sure her soul was saved and that she loved the Lord, while her mother taught her how to love and take care of a husband and a household. Nowhere in between was there a chapter on getting rid of the trash that was supposed to be her partner for life. Sure, infidelity was covered in the Bible, but so was forgiveness. Rita was tired of forgiving Nate.
Opening her eyes, she walked toward the dresser across the room. Nate’s dresser. At Sharae’s suggestion, Rita had brought the box of trash bags upstairs and had started packing up Nate’s stuff before her call with the lawyer. Thinking back on the forty-minute call with Sharon Raymond that had just ended had her temples throbbing.
Always prompt, because it was professional and respectful, Rita had called at exactly two o’clock. Only to be put on hold for fifteen minutes filled with the most dreadful elevator music ever recorded. She’d beenjust about to hang up and compose a very strongly worded email to Sharon when she came onto the line.
“Hey, Rita. Sorry for the delay. Had a last-minute issue to tie up from my court appearance this morning. What’s going on?”
Rita had known Sharon since they were in high school, when Sharon’s parents moved to Baltimore from Brooklyn. They were the strongest altos on the young-adult choir back then; now they sang on the Glory choir and were often on the same committees at the church.
