September 13th, 2016. 7:45PM
Indianapolis, Indiana
"Lashey, Chelsea, Metheny, Teddy, Garzy," Donnell rattled off in rapid succession as he scrolled through the last names of people who identified themselves as having graduated from Indy Central High in 1988, 1989 and 1990 on Facebook. "How the fuck am I supposed to know which one of these is Freaky? I mean, shit, it could be any of them!"
LeTonya approached him from behind the white leather couch on which he sat, watching him swipe through hundreds of names on his tablet. He threw his scrolling hand up in disgust and sighed as she touched his shoulder, leaning in to look at some of the listings.
"Trying to do it like that, you don't figure out which it is!" She said with a hint of attitude in her reply. "You ain't doing nothin' but chasing your tail scrolling through all those names!"
"Well what do you suggest?" He snapped, giving her the attitude back in spades.
"I suggest you let me do it!" She replied, moving around to the front end of the living room and dropping into the seat next to him. She snatched his tablet out of his hands with no pomp or circumstance, barely giving him an opportunity to let go of it before she had it firmly in her hands. "I can help, but I still don't understand why you're putting all this time on this case!" she said in objection. "I ain't seen a dime come in from this Jake character or this Chucky!"
"I told you, it's pro-bono!" he answered. "These are my old friends, it's not Jake's responsibility to pay for Chucky, and Chucky doesn't have any money to pay with! If I don't do it, he gets a public defender. PD stands for death penalty, just backwards, and that ain't right! Friends don't let friends end up on the lethal injection table!"
"Mm hm," she snorted, "you didn't make them sound like friends when you told me about everything that went down back in that trailer park before all of this came up!"
"Just because they're a little estranged and we had some trouble back in the day doesn't mean they're not my friends," Donnell replied. "A lot of shit went down, some of it was my fault. I can't hold everything that happened against them, and I'm not just gonna leave them swinging in the breeze!"
"You seem to be forgetting that I'm your wife and that you've told me quite a bit about what went down back then!" LeTonya exclaimed. "After hearing what you let me hear, I don't see you as in any arrears to these people at all! If anything, this Jake owes you an apology!"
"Well you haven't heard it all, especially not about what happened with Jake, so just leave it at that and show me how the hell I'm supposed to do this!"
"Look," she snapped, "I missed the dinner party of the century for these indigent fools! That's enough to cover whatever else happened that you've failed to mention so far!"
Donnell rolled his eyes, throwing his head back in frustration and snorting in disgust. "You ain't never gonna get over that, are you? You could've gone by yourself, you know!"
Before she could answer, Donnell's cellphone rang and cut him a break. He knew this equated to being saved by the bell, as pure verbal evisceration was sure to follow his suggestion that his wife attend a massive dinner party unescorted. He'd barely survived when he told her he couldn't go on account of Chucky's arraignment, throwing out a line like he just had was essentially the same as throwing salt on a wound that was going to be festering for quite some time.
"Well speak of the devil," he said, looking at the call screen, "there's Jake now!"
LeTonya gave him a look that could almost certainly kill as he answered and heard his friend's dejected voice resonating through his speaker.
"Sorry to bother you again, Donnell," Jake said in his depressed monotone muttering. "I just struck out on the FGSI Brougham and I've been sitting here outside of Rusty's place watching a whole lot of nothing happen for almost two hours."
"We couldn't have been lucky enough for that to be the car," Donnell replied, "and you say the old bum isn't doing much either? Shit, we just can't catch a break, can we?"
"Doesn't look that way," Jake agreed. "I was kind of hoping you had more luck with this Freaky character, a break would really cheer me up about now."
"Well, Jake, that's in the works right now," Donnell answered vaguely in an attempt to mask the fact that he hadn't gotten anywhere. "But I did get some information after we spoke this morning that I wanted to share with you."
"Good news, I hope?"
"Well, fifty-fifty," Donnell admitted. "First off, Chucky is cleared to have a visitor the day after tomorrow, and he's requested to see you."
"Oh wow," Jake said in response, not having considered that there would be an opportunity to see his old pal again. "Where and when?"
"At the Elsmere County clink," Donnell informed him, "noon on the fifteenth. Don't take your piece, they won't appreciate that much."
"Thanks, Sherlock," Jake jabbed. "What's the other end of the fifty-fifty?"
"You won't like this one nearly as much," the lawyer prepped him, "but Richard Hagan sent his plea deal through."
"Let me guess," Jake began, "life without parole."
"Congratulations, here's your cigar." Donnell confirmed.
"Fuck, man," Jake objected. "We've gotta get this shit figured out, there's no way Chucky did this, he shouldn't have to pay for it with his life either way you slice it."
"We're still ten days removed from the discovery packet, that will tell us a lot more about what we're up against. Maybe we'll be able to figure something out once we see their cards."
"Now that you mention their cards," Jake replied, "I got a strange call from Clyde Rambo a few days ago."
"Strange? How so?"
"He asked what we thought led to Chucky's arrest."
"Really? That is strange," Donnell said, thinking about what he knew based on young Louie Rambo's dissertation. "As a matter of fact, I remember thinking it was a bit odd that they picked him up on the word of some private eye. I mean, no offense man, but PI's don't usually provide the big break, they're usually more like background players than the main cast."
"You think they've got something serious?"
"I dunno," Donnell answered honestly. "They could have anything, we won't know until that discovery packet shows up."
There was a brief grunt from Jake, followed by a few seconds of silence before he continued. "Well, I guess we'll deal with it when it comes. Until then, let me know if you get anything on that Freaky character."
"Okay, man, will do," Donnell concluded. "What are you gonna do in the meantime?"
"At the moment, I'm thinking about beating on Rusty's door and giving him the third degree," Jake admitted. "As a matter of fact, I think that's exactly what I'm gonna do."
"Well be careful," Donnell advised. "Just keep in mind what old Boudreaux said about working in his playground."
With that warning, he told his old friend to take care before hanging up the call. He was worried about what might come of Jake's efforts. As he'd joked before, he could very easily end up back in Burlwood representing him in a case of obstruction of justice or tampering with evidence. LeTonya certainly wouldn't appreciate another pro-bono case, and he did have a load of paying cases to worry about after all.
LeTonya was clearly perturbed by the fact that he'd spoken with one of his two clients for so long without the meter running to add the time to their bill. She stared at him for a moment, the irritation obvious in her eyes, before finally picking up where they left off.
"Here's how we do it," she said, not responding to his comment about the party because she also knew that further discussion wouldn't end well.
Clicking around Facebook on the tablet, she backed out of the individual class page that he was searching and dropped back to the general Indy Central High group. Once there, she saw several pictures of the football team practicing and various check-ins that made her worry her post would be lost in the shuffle rather quickly, as it was obviously a heavily frequented page. Figuring it to be the only shot she had anyway, she logged in as he
rself and deferred to the what's on your mind box. Tapping Check In, she searched for the school and selected it. Once it was applied, she typed the most casual and convincing message she could conjure up.
Hey, y'all! She began, trying to seem like a proud alumni of a public school, something she figured was an oxymoron. Check it out, I'm looking for a guy from Central back in '88 that really helped me out. I didn't know him too well, and I actually don't even know his real name! Everybody always called him Freaky, though, so I'm hoping somebody will remember him. Anybody out there still in touch with him? #IndyCentralClassOf1988 #FindFreaky2016
"There!" She declared definitively.
"What, that's all you're gonna do?" Donnell wondered aloud.
"That's all you need to do!" She insisted.
"Now what? We just sit?"
"Yes! Now we wait for somebody to respond! I'm sure there's somebody out there who knows who the boy was, and if there is they'll comment on my post!"
"We wait?" He asked. "That's crazy! How is that proactive? How is that trying to find him?"
"Oh, it's proactive!" She replied. "I just reached out to everybody who looks at that God forsaken school's page! We're gonna let him find us. Either that or let somebody else point us to him! We're a lot closer to finding him now than we were when you were just scrollin' through all the nonsense! For all we know, this kid isn't even on Facebook! You could look at names all day and still not find him! Hell, for all we know the kid is dead! We need somebody who knows to tell us which is the case! If they're out there, they'll come out of the woodwork!"
Donnell snorted again, rocking back and forth in the couch to work himself to a standing position. "If you say so, massa!" He quipped.
"Massa?" She snapped. "Don't you start with that massa shit again! More than that, where the hell are you off to?" She asked as he moved toward the kitchen. "We just ate dinner!"
"I want a sandwich!" He replied, craving more of the delicious pastrami she'd bought from the deli the previous night.
"You'll be dead by fifty, you pig!" She declared. "Then who the hell is gonna be my slave man?"
Just as she finished her rebuttal, a shrill ringing sounded out through the house. It was their landline, which didn't receive calls very often at all since the number wasn't published and was never given out to clients. A bit surprised to hear it singing, LeTonya reached over to the end table where one of the extensions sat and picked up the cordless phone next to the couch.
"Hello?" Donnell heard her answer curiously. "Yes, this is the Hughes residence. Who's calling?" There was a pause, then the sound of her footfalls approaching the kitchen. They sounded hurried and uncertain, which he didn't like at all. As he was untwisting the tie on the bread bag, she appeared in the archway with a very concerned look on her face as the handset dangled from her right hand. "It's for you," she told him, looking many shades lighter than her typical cocoa complexion.
Donnell took the phone from her, not at all sure what to expect when he pressed the receiver to his ear. "This is Donnell," he said cautiously.
"Hey there, Don," a gravely voice replied. "This is Clyde Rambo, I've got a couple of questions I was hoping you could answer for me," he said.
"Clyde?" Donnell asked, more confused now than he was when he took the handset. "Questions? What kind of questions?"
"Well," Rambo began, "We've known each other for a long time, I'm not gonna beat around the bush with you. We might as well get right down to the meat of it, Don, because it's not gonna be pleasant.
"Okay?" A very nervous man replied as a statement and question all in one.
The pause seemed like eternity before the former sheriff finally broke the skin, and the needle ran deep at high speed as the words scrawled an unwelcome tattoo across his otherwise unblemished forehead. "I need you to tell me exactly when and how you started peddling meth for Ron Boudreaux."
Surprise, shock, anger, rage, betrayal, regret, remorse, sorrow, shame, fear... a decagon of torment enveloped Donnell, and his heart missed many beats when his ears translated the words he heard into reality. The tattoo was finished, his very first ink bleeding freshly across his brow.
Dealer, it read... and it was right...