“Ms. Fothergill, you say today that you never saw my client, Bernard Guess, before, is that correct?” “Yes.”
“However, this is your signature—is that correct?” Bobby DeSimone asked after walking swiftly to the defense table and picking up an investigative report.
“Yes,” Daisy Mae calmly responded.
“Your Honor, I would like this to be marked as Exhibit A,” he said, handing the document over to the judge. He turned back to Daisy Mae. “In this document you state that the defendant was with you on the night in question, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“So, now you’ve changed your mind and you want us to believe that you were lying then?” He arched his eyebrows and stared intently at her. Then he turned and purposely faced the jury while still waiting for her answer.
“I was paid to say what I said.”
“So you can be bought. Is that your answer, Ms. Fothergill?”
“Objection, Your Honor. Completely inappropriate,” said the district attorney, quickly standing up.
“Sustained. Watch it, counsel!” said Judge Means.
“Just one more question, Your Honor.” DeSimone cleared his throat and picked up where he had just left off. “Why should we believe you now?”
“I’ve told the truth here today.”
“Are you sure no one paid you, Ms. Fothergill?”
“Objection, Your Honor.”
“Sustained.”
“No more questions, Your Honor,” said DeSimone, strolling over to his table and seating himself next to Nard.
Even with DeSimone’s tricky and clever line of questioning, Nard’s heart continued to sink, along with his fate, as he bent his head down and stared into his lap. She didn’t do it. She didn’t give me the alibi. He pondered choking the daylights out of her. I thought she had me covered. Sticks said she had me covered. What the fuck am I going to do now?
“Will you be cross-examining, Mr. Zone?”
“Yes, thank you, Your Honor.”
The district attorney walked toward the witness stand. “Ms. Fothergill, you said that you were paid to make the statements you formerly made to the private investigator hired on behalf of the defendant, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone bribe you or pay you today?”
“No.”
“The statements that you have made today, you’ve made of your own free will?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Are you absolutely positive the defendant was not with you on the night in question?”
“I’m positive. He was not with me on the night in question.”
“No more questions, Your Honor.”
“You may step down, Ms. Fothergill,” the judge instructed.
She glanced at Nard’s face as she left the witness stand. God, he looks so mad, she thought as she was escorted out of the courtroom.
Inside, Nard could be heard screaming at the top of his lungs. “That’s it?! She just gets to leave?”
DeSimone looked over at the jury. Their expressions said a thousand words. Daisy Mae Fothergill just shot a missile into his battleship, and now, thanks to his client’s outburst, it was sinking. Four rows behind Nard, a family was rejoicing and a girl’s voice could be heard.
“That’s what you get! That’s just what you get for killing my brother! You know you was up in that house and you the one that killed him!” she shouted, now standing on her feet, ready to jump over the benches and pounce on Nard for the death of her brother Jeremy Tyler.
“Who the fuck is you talking to?” Nard barked at the girl, ready to jump back at her, her family, and anybody else who had something slick to say. “Order!” Judge Means called out and banged his gavel on its wooden plate.
“I’m talking to you. You know you killed my brother,” the girl screamed, tears streaming down her face. Her mother, sister, and two brothers held her back. The oldest brother, Wink, put his arms around her, holding her firmly to his side.
“Be easy, Leslee. You whylin’, man. Relax. I’m gonna get the boy, him and his whole fucking family,” said Wink, as he smiled at his sister.
“I don’t need any more attention drawn to this courtroom.” The judge continued banging his gavel. The entire case was already a fiasco in the media; every day camera crews and news reporters were looking for a new angle on the story to headline the nightly news. “Young lady, do I need to have you removed from this court?”
“Naw, we sorry, Your Honor,” said Wink. “She good. She not gonna say nothing else.”
“Any more disruptions made in this court by anyone, and you will be removed.” Then the judge looked at the jury. “You are to disregard the outbursts and opinions made by third parties in this court, and the outburst of the defendant as well.”
“I can’t believe this bitch just hung me,” Nard whispered to DeSimone as the judge continued to direct the jury.
“Nard, calm down. You don’t want to do this—not here, not now.”
“She just hung me!” Nard hissed.
“Look at me,” DeSimone ordered. “I said, not here, not now. You got that, kid? Not now.” DeSimone gripped his shoulders with both hands.
“Get a hold of your client, counsel, or I’ll remove him indefinitely from the hearing. Do you understand?” bellowed the judge.
“Yes, Your Honor, I understand.” DeSimone could feel Nard’s muscles begin to relax. “Come on, trust me. You gotta trust me.”
“Court is adjourned until tomorrow at nine o’clock in the morning.” The judge banged his gavel and the bailiff instructed the court to stand while the judge removed himself.
Barry Zone looked over at DeSimone, smiling like a sly fox. You should have taken my plea offer when you had the chance. Yeah, you really should have taken that plea. He knew DeSimone had to be thinking the same thing at that very moment. Of course Zone didn’t say a word. Instead, he bent his head down and pretended to be sorting through his planner.
Who the fuck does this asshole think he’s looking at? DeSimone fumed. He stood, grabbed his briefcase, and walked out of the courtroom. What a day, he thought as he answered his ringing cell phone. Just then a voice from behind him called out his name. He heard another person shouting in his direction. And he could also hear his fiancée demanding he respond to her on the other end of his oversized cell phone.
“Excuse me, Mr. DeSimone, one quick question?” said the voluptuous, blonde, and very attractive Gina Davenworth, who was hustling for her next paycheck.
“Hey, DeSimone, your client has no alibi. What do you think his outcome will be?” shouted another reporter from his left.
“Babe, I’ll call you right back.” DeSimone disconnected the call. “Do you guys mind? That was my girlfriend,” he said as he stared at Gina Davenworth’s breasts. If not for that one tiny button on her blouse, her perfect size Cs would pop right out of her shirt and say hello to him personally. As other reporters hovered and pushed one another, Davenworth’s body pressed up against DeSimone’s.
“Do you think your client will accept the DA’s plea offer in light of today’s testimony?” she asked from her soft-as-butter pink lips as she batted her baby blues at him.
“No comment,” he huffed at her, rolling his eyes, before busting through the pack of hungry reporters, out the double glass doors of the courthouse, and onto the courthouse steps. She wants me, he thought to himself as he picked up his phone and dialed his fiancée back. He stood on the corner of Thirteenth Street. He looked up at the sky as he heard her answer.
“Hey, babe, I think I just had the worst day of my life. You’re not going to believe it. If I don’t come up with a master plan, I’m gonna lose. I’m really gonna lose—big. And I never lose, Jo. You know I never lose.”
“I know, Bobby, I know,” was all she could say. Joanne offered a sympathetic ear and listened carefully to his every word. She was of course genuinely interested, but Bobby made the final call on everything, including her.
>
“I’ve got to get home and go back through this case. There has to be a way to get this kid off… There’s got to be.”
CONTENTS
FRONT COVER IMAGE
WELCOME
A PREVIEW OF ALIBI II
READING GROUP GUIDE
PROLOGUE
ROCK ’N ROLL BABY
FRANKIE B FRANK
STRICTLY BUSINESS
TAKE THAT, HOLD THAT
DEAD AT THE DOOR
FLY ME TO THE MOON
DEAD OR ALIVE
CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP
GROOVE LINE
KISS OF DEATH
GREEN-EYED BANDIT
FED UP
FLIP SIDE
SERVIN’ AND BIDDIN’
FREE AT LAST
HOME SWEET HOME, PART ONE
HOME SWEET HOME, PART TWO
TIME OUT
ROLL OUT
MIA
NINA TIME
UP AND AWAY
DUTCH MASTER
ROC WIT’ ME
LIVE WIRE
THE GREAT ESCAPE
SHOT CALLERS, BIG BALLERS
THE FINAL FINALE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
OUTSTANDING PRAISE
COPYRIGHT
OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR
“a major pioneer of street fiction” (Library Journal)
AND HER NOVELS
DUTCH
“Almost unparalleled in its shock value… thoroughly absorbing… a fast-moving story with ruthless dialogue… vividly highlights the crime-riddled existence of notorious Newark gangster Bernard James, aka Dutch… will keep any lover of this genre captivated.”
—The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
“A bone-chilling story of murder, violence, and the struggle for power. It is a harrowing tale.”
—MyShelf.com
ALIBI
“The classic investigative query—‘Where were you on the night in question?’—allows Woods to once again prove why she’s in a league of her own.”
—Philadelphia Tribune
“Gritty… While giving a sympathetic voice to her financially desperate heroine… Woods observes that easy cash comes with a steep price.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Woods writes with feeling and a strong sense of Philadelphia setting… Fast-paced and exciting, Alibi is an action-filled story about the desperate life of one urban girl and the consequences of trying to break away.”
—Booklist
“Blistering… This wickedly satisfying page-turner will leave readers eager for the next installment.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Woods has established herself as the Queen of Urban Fiction… launching a revolution in reading… Her hustle made real the dream of every wannabe author, the fantasy that your work will inspire a generation, will create a wave of response and thought, that posits you as a leader and a vanguard of a movement all your own.”
—Heavy.com
“A fast-paced, action-filled page-turner.”
—MyShelf.com
“Gritty drama that only Woods can deliver… [she] writes with the suspense and ingenuity of a crime novelist and has crafted a literary adrenaline rush for mystery, thriller, and urban fiction fans alike.”
—The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
“An engaging thriller with an intricate plot.”
—BlackVoices.com
“A fast-paced read… Teri Woods is quite a good writer.”
—Sacramento Book Review
TRUE TO THE GAME III
“Vividly depicts the 1990s drug culture… urban fiction fans will welcome the melodramatic final entry in bestseller Woods’s True to the Game trilogy.”
—Publishers Weekly
TRUE TO THE GAME II
“Raw… gutsy.”
—Essence
“Explosive… excellent… masterful… A must-have… definitely worth waiting for… solidifies Ms. Woods’s place as one of the Queens of Street Lit.”
—The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
“Four out of five… Wonderful… a great story… a fast-paced, exciting read that will surely keep you on your toes.”
—Urban-Reviews.com
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Teri Woods
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Grand Central Publishing
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First eBook Edition: May 2011
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-609-41850-2
Teri Woods, Dutch III: International Gangster
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