Sad but true, Daisy Mae had jumped right out the pan and into the fire. She had realized Aunt Tildie was religious when they
came up for her mother’s services, but so much was going on that Daisy didn’t really pay attention. Her mind had been elsewhere.
“I, um, didn’t realize I would be needing my church clothes. I wasn’t thinking.”
Aunt Tildie dressed Daisy Mae as best she could, fitting her in one of Kimmie Sue’s church dresses and giving her a pair of
flip-flops for her feet. “God ain’t looking at your feet. He’s looking at your heart. Come on, now, let’s mosey on, we’re
running late. Kimmie Sue, let’s go.”
Daisy realized that her aunt and cousin were faith fanatics, and she had driven herself into the middle of nothing but farmland.
She wasn’t sure if she had made the right choice or a horrible mistake coming there. So far, the odds were leaning toward
“horrible mistake.”
V
ivian Lang cut through the parking lot of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and entered the downstairs lobby. As she stepped
into the elevator and pressed the number ten, Nathan Chambers suddenly appeared and smoothly held up his hand, opening the
elevator doors.
“Good morning, Agent Lang.”
“Good morning, Agent Chambers.” She smiled, holding her hands tightly behind her back, dress suit perfectly starched, legs
perfectly straight, and pumps holding up her frame like a Barbie doll.
“I have a surprise for you today,” he said, smiling.
“Really?” she said, smiling at him with her baby blue eyes as she tossed her blond hair around. “You, Agent Chambers, having
time for surprises? Please hold back no more and do tell.”
“Ah ha, you are right,” he said as the elevator stopped at the tenth floor and the doors opened. “I do not have time for surprises.”
He spoke sternly, cleared his throat, and as if in another world, completely changed his demeanor as he stepped off the elevator.
“I received a call on your case, another tape sent over last night. It should be on your desk. Take a look. Hey, Bob.”
“Hey, Mackenrow,” added Lang, walking through the hallway while considering every word her partner said.
“Okay, so back to where I was, it’s a real person this time, and she withdrew fifty thousand off a bad check put in the account
months ago.”
“You’re sure she’s real, no phony ID,” asked Agent Lang, unable to believe they finally had a break.
“It’s the biggest break in this case. This is the thing though, listen to this, the bank claims this girl, and I can’t remember
her name, oh fuck… some flower, anyway, she was cashing the Social Security checks of her dead mother.”
“Who deposited the check?” asked Agent Lang.
“That’s just it. The bank claims the mother made the deposit, go figure, and she’s dead already, according to the government.
Geez, who fucking knows, these people are really sickos,” said Chambers, wondering what type of person would use her dead
mother to cash in on. He couldn’t help but comment. “Then again, it’s probably the dead mother’s ghost making the deposit.”
“You’re probably right; it wouldn’t be the worst case I’ve seen,” said Lang.
Agent Vivian Lang couldn’t wait to get to her desk. She immediately grabbed the package, opened it, and looked at the tape.
It had three segments listed by date. She put the tape in, sat on the corner of her desk, with the remote control in her hand,
and pressed play. It was a little old woman, walking into the bank with a male escort—a black woman, elderly, gray hair, hunched,
old-looking dress and sweater, glasses, walking with a younger man, wearing jeans, sneaks, and a long-sleeved, button-down
shirt. They walked over to the teller and handed her the deposit slip and the check, a few seconds passed, the deposit slip
record was returned, and the two were walking away and out of the bank.
Next scene was the same little old lady walking into the bank alone, walking over to the teller line, waiting in line, giving
the teller a check to cash, conversation. Teller left the window. Agent Lang pressed pause on the remote and picked up the
file folder on her desk and looked at it. The folder and outline from the bank showed that the account had been frozen. The
bank stated the teller did not have information about why the account was frozen, and after relaying information to the old
lady, who presented herself as Abigail Fothergill, according to the records, the teller claims that the customer left the
bank immediately and did not return. She pressed play, watched the teller return and the old lady leave the bank. Agent Lang
looked closely, as the old lady seemingly was walking faster as she left. She pressed rewind and watched how slowly the woman
was moving as she walked in. She pressed forward and watched how fast she was walking out. Vivian Lang continued to read the
bank statements as she peered up and looked at Daisy Mae Fothergill, “receiver of funds,” as the bank had titled her.
“Oh, my God, what in the world? Look at what this girl is wearing,” said Agent Vivian Lang to herself as she watched a scantily
clad, high-heel wearing Daisy Mae with mile-long legs and short shorts enter the bank and make her way over to the teller
window.
Agent Vivian Lang watched as it appeared that Daisy and the teller began to argue and the teller pointed her over to customer
service. There she signed in, a woman approached her, took her to a desk, spoke with her, left, came back, left, came back
and escorted Daisy over to a private booth. Daisy counted her money, put it in her pocketbook, and walked out of the bank.
What was wrong with this picture? Why did the bank give her the money?
Agent Lang began to read the folder: looked like a bank error. The freeze was dropped by this woman who had no record anywhere
of why the freeze was there, so the bank technically had no reason to freeze the account anymore. The phony check cleared,
they were repaid for the Social Security checks they had cashed, so everyone was happy. The bank customer service representative
had no reason not to unblock the account.
Who is Daisy Mae Fothergill, the “receiver of funds”? What’s her angle on all this? Way too many pieces to this puzzle and
still no arrests.
Agent Lang popped the tape out of the player. She needed to enhance everything on the tapes so she could see more about the
suspects. She needed head shots and she needed to do a major background profile on Daisy Mae Fothergill. If she conducted
a proper investigation, by the time she had Ms. Fothergill indicted, she’d have all the pieces of the puzzle fitting in their
places. That’s how the Federal Bureau of Investigation operated. You weren’t indicted if they weren’t sure or were trying
to build a case or if the bureau had nothing better to do with you. Oh, no, if you were indicted by the FBI it was because
you were going to prison and the case had already been built and all pieces of the puzzle were already present. That’s just
how it goes, federally speaking.
Sticks was sick, so sick he could vomit. His stomach ached and twisted from anxiety. He hadn’t slept or eaten in days. The
stress was building, and day after day he tried to reach Daisy. He went to her apartment, night after night, pounding at the
door and waiting outside for a sign someone was home. No lights. He called and called, no answer. For the past four weeks,
he had been chasing Daisy like a mad stalker. But to those around him, he remained cool, calm, and collected, well balanced
and in control. He was only pretending—deep down, he was sweating bullets. He played it off, though, to Nard, convincing him
he had nothing to worry about.
“Naw, you good. I got this, let me handle it. Once this broad testifies, you outta there. You hear me, outta there. Don’t
worry, baby boy, you’ll be home in a hot flash,” he said with feigned confidence. Nard believed him too. He had put all his
trust and faith in Sticks. That trust and faith was what got him through the days and nights of utter confinement. It wasn’t
until he walked into the courtroom the day his trial was set to begin that he began to worry. He surveyed the rows of benches
filled with scattered faces until his eyes met Sticks’s. Maybe it was the look of “I’m sorry” or maybe it was the way he shook
his head to the left and bent his gaze to the floor, but at that moment, Nard knew the witness with his alibi wasn’t coming
through, and for the first time he was scared. He knew deep down in his heart that there was no way he could give the system
life, not his life, maybe somebody else’s but, Lord, please, not his.
Nard took a seat next to his counsel. The room had a soft chatter as Bobby DeSimone took time to brief his client.
“Listen, the witness isn’t here, and honestly, I’m nervous. She’s our entire case, you understand, Bernard. We need her testimony.”
“Sticks said she’d be here.”
“Yeah, well, looks like Sticks is wrong. She’s not here. My office has been calling her, Sticks told me he went to her house
every day, morning, noon, and night, looking for her and called her a hundred times. She never answered the door, never answered
the phone, and honestly, I think she’s gone. I could be wrong, but I think she’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where? She’s got to testify or I’m going to go to jail for the rest of my life,” said Nard not wanting to believe
his probable fate.
“Listen, Bernard, we’re gonna handle it. We got to see how all this plays out. I might be able to get a plea deal. I can talk
to the DA and we can plea this thing right out if this girl doesn’t show. For today, though, we need to get a continuance.”
Tommy Delgado swung open the double wooden courtroom doors and walked into the courtroom, over behind the prosecutor’s desk,
shook prosecutor Barry Zone’s hand, whispered in his ear, and peered over at the defendant and his lawyer.
The prosecutor was betting his last dollar that DeSimone would request a continuance, and sure enough, DeSimone approached
the side of his wooden table.
“Hi, Bobby DeSimone,” said Bobby extending his hand.
“Barry Zone,” responded the DA, grasping DeSimone’s hand, returning the hello.
“Listen, I’m in the position of having to request a continuance, based on my witness being out of town. I’m not comfortable
with going forward.”
I bet you’re not,
thought Delgado to himself. He thought of the one time he had met the alibi witness. She was unknowing, scared, and had the
most intriguing shade of green eyes he had ever seen.
“Yeah, sure, why not? I won’t object, it’s the judge’s call,” responded Zone, looking over at Delgado to see his reaction.
Sticks sat patiently still, silently praying that Daisy would walk through the door. Of course, he knew that she might or
might not have gotten the gist of the situation and how critical her testimony was, not only for Nard, but for him, and the
predicament her failure to testify would create. He got up and walked out into the hall. He dialed Daisy’s number and listened
as the voice operator said the number had been disconnected.
Disconnected?
This bitch done disconnected the damn phone? What the fuck. She knew we had court on the twenty-third
.
She knew that shit.
The day had come and gone and he sat and watched as his man stood in front of the judge with no witness and no alibi. DeSimone
did the right thing. He immediately asked for a continuance, not wanting to move forward with the trial. The judge granted
the postponement. The court date was scheduled for two months away, on the third of October. The judge banged his gavel and
court was adjourned.
Simon Shuller paced the floor of his small office in the back of Fabulous Willie Man’s barber shop off Twenty-seventh and
Susquehanna. He had been popping Tums and antacids all day, with no relief. It was no surprise that Simon Shuller’s health
was failing. He was getting too old for the stress of it all, the worry and frustration of the streets and everything that
came with them. Not to mention the black man wasn’t black no more. Or at least that’s how he felt. Simon Shuller was an older
hustler, and truth was he was beginning to frown upon the young gangsters of today. Back in the day, the streets had codes
and real men upheld and honored those codes. Not the young, hip, gangster types you saw on the streets today. Simon Shuller
was more of a quiet man, not too flashy, but styled and classy. He ran the streets with an iron fist and was in on everything.
Simon Shuller was the man, in charge of everything from drugs to numbers. Yes, he was the one who ran the numbers game for
Philadelphia. Every night you had the Lotto and you had the street numbers. If you won, it was Simon Shuller who paid out,
but for the most part, Simon Shuller won and paid nothing. Night after night after night that money went into his pocket right
where it belonged—at least to hear him say it, it did.
“Man, that pacing you doing is making me dizzy over here,” said Dizzy, one of the few people Simon Shuller trusted to a degree.
Dizzy James had been his friend for over forty years.
“Well, good then… Shit can match your name,” said Simon as he stopped, said his few words, then went back to walking the floor.
“I should have handled this shit from the beginning. I should have followed my heart.”
“So, what’s the investigator you hired sayin’ now?”
“Lasworth ain’t said nothing but what I already know.”
“What’s that?”
“They fucked up. The alibi for the kid was a no-show. And Sticks, the motherfucker’s a walking nightmare. Instead of him coming
to me, you now got a string of murders following behind the Somerset Killer and it’s just a big mess,” he huffed, shaking
his head, picking up his medicine bottle, and popping a few more pills.
“That god damn medicine gonna kill you.”
“Shit, I’d be dead without it,” he joked back, hating that time was truly the grim reaper, but sharing the laugh with his
old comrade. “But, naw, Dizzy, man, the mole say this kid Nard is a real thoroughbred, a trouper. He’s not talking and he’s
gonna ride, even if it means the worst. He wants his family taken care of, especially his mother to be looked after, you know?
But that fucking Sticks got that kid jammed up. He wasn’t where he should have been and now he gets the kid jammed up with
no alibi and shit, ’cause no one can find this girl.”