Larger Than Lyfe (20 page)

Portia was also extremely busy in another aspect, working on a project that only she knew about. She was immersed in some very intensive research on none other than Keshari Mitchell, president of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment. The research was her new “pet project” and it received as much time and effort as the business side of her life at her design firm.

What
looks too good to be true generally IS
, Portia thought, and she had every intention of scouring Keshari Mitchell’s closet until she laid her hands on some real skeletons. She wanted to DESTROY that bitch. On the one hand, Portia had no idea why she was doing what she was doing. Mars Buchanan was just a man and she had been involved in romantic relationships before that didn’t work out. She had been able to let go and move on. No harm, no foul.
But, for some bizarre reason, this particular instance was different. Portia felt as if she had a score to settle. Mars had really hurt her. A huge blow had been dealt to her ego. When Mars chose that bitch over her, and then practically gloated about it by allowing it to be captured on the covers of virtually every entertainment tabloid on the newsstands, it was the kind of slap in the face that was more than a woman like Portia Foster could take. Something like a dam had broken inside Portia and a kind of negative emotional intensity like she’d never felt before seemed to d
ominate large segments of her every day.

Portia started calling Mars in the middle of the night and she felt certain that he knew who was on the other end of the line as he said hello over and over again, and then hung up in frustration. A couple of times following the happy couple’s impromptu trip to Negril, Portia had sat in her car in the park across from Mars’s condo community and watched as Keshari’s top-of-the-line, black Range Rover cruised through the security gates in the wee hours of the morning. She was, no doubt, on her way to get some of the fine, successful, entertainment attorney’s dick that had been stolen aw
ay from Portia without a second thought. As soon as Portia had allowed enough time for that bitch to get into Mars’s apartment and out of her clothes, Portia went into harassment mode, calling his numbers, both his cell phone and the house phone, disconnecting repeatedly without saying a word. She’d even bought a couple of those prepaid phones and dedicated them specifically to her middle of the night calls. Mars Buchanan would never see anything resembling an orgasm again if she had anything to do with it…and for damned sure not with that Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment bitch. Portia would
be livid, furious tears streaming down her face as she made call after ridiculous call for reasons that she could not begin to try to explain to herself, much less to anyone else.

The last time that Portia had placed herself on a “stakeout” mission across the street from Mars’s condo, she’d wound up following him to the bitch’s house, where he’d gone, probably for dinner, and then stayed the night. She had driven all the way to Palos Verdes behind Mars on the 405 freeway, and then had exited and followed him all the way up Paradiso Drive, stopping just down the hill until the security gate at Keshari’s home slid open and Mars’s convertible Mercedes pulled inside. Then Portia pulled right up in front to get a better look.

The illuminated mansion could be seen almost fully from the street and Portia instantly wondered who had been hired to do the bitch’s decorating. There were armed guards walking the grounds of the mansion throughout the night and Portia wondered what that was all about. Mars was probably not the first man who the bitch had stolen from a relationship and some other woman would probably not be as gracious as Portia had been in letting her man go. Some other woman might have gone as far as threatening the bitch’s life. Or perhaps the bitch had screwed some record executive in a business deal an
d was reaping the repercussions of that. What-ever the case was, the scene was like something straight out of
Scarface
, watching uniformed, armed officers patrolling the grounds all through the night as if they were guarding the White House. The bitch clearly had something to hide.

More than anything, Portia wanted to get a closer look at how the bitch lived. She would love to pay the housekeeper to allow her to come into that bitch’s house and get a look around. The moment would be priceless, walking around, fully violating Keshari Mitchell’s personal space without her even knowing about it in the same way that that bitch had violated her when she’d stolen away her man. She wanted to see where the bitch worked, get a look into her office, look through her computer files, see what her business endeavors were, see if Mars had sent her any e-mail
and see what that e-mail said. She wanted to see where the bitch slept and bathed. She could imagine the bitch’s master suite. It was probably something as far-fetched and extravagant as the accommodations that Cleopatra, or the Queen of Sheba, would require. She wanted to see what the bitch ate and the types of clothes she wore. With the kind of money that her record label brought in, she could surely afford to hit all of the major couture houses. Portia wanted to know what exactly had compelled Mars Buchanan to choose that bitch over her. She wanted to know everything there
was to know about that bitch before she fucked her up.

As Portia sat there in her car, solemnly watching the beautiful mansion where Keshari Mitchell resided, she wondered to herself what Keshari and Mars were doing alone together inside. She became more and more determined that she was going to get onto the grounds of that mansion and past that bitch’s hired henchmen. She had every intention of getting into that bitch’s house. She just needed to watch the house for a few more nights to see how its security operated so that she knew precisely how to proceed.

R,
she says that she’s out and her decision is final. She’s placed the bulk of her responsibilities in my hands, including completing the upcoming transaction with our new supplier,” Marcus Means told Ricky.

“I’m in here facing murder one and this bitch is splashed all over the covers of entertainment tabloids with this pretty-assed attorney that she’s hooked up with,” Ricky said. “We’ve gone through three major suppliers in less than a year, like some mismanaged, disorganized, neighborhood YG crime ring. This shit’s raggedy and I’ve got a lot of overpaid motherfuckers on the out
side NOT handling my shit!”

Ricky put his head in his hands. Being in jail, the trial, and the possible outcome of the trial, had him stressed enough as it was without Keshari steadily trying to force his hand. She was going to make him do something that he’d regret.

“I’ll take care of her, man,” Ricky said.

“Is there anything that you need me to do?” Marcus asked.

“Nah, I got it,” Ricky responded.

“If I might ask,” Marcus pressed, “how do you plan to take care of the Keshari situation?”

Ricky stared at Marcus pointedly for a moment. Marcus was clearly overstepping his bounds.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ricky said. “Like I said, I got it. On the other hand, after Keshari, you’re next in command in
this organization.
You know what needs to be done. Handle my business and keep me updated…and handle it like your life depends on it, because it does.”

“What are your attorneys saying about the case?”

“Man, I pay these motherfuckers eight hundred dollars a fucking hour. They’re supposed to be the best legal minds in the fucking country and they’re telling me it’s fifty-fifty right now for some shit that I didn’t do.”

“Wow,” Marcus said pensively. “Look, I’m gonna break out and I’ll get with you again in a few days.”

The trial of the
People and the State of California v. Richard Lawrence Tresvant
was in its sixth week and the defense currently had the floor. Nationally renowned attorney Barry Scheck stepped up to the witness stand to question the defense’s forensics expert, Adam Crichton of BIOTECH, a privately owned forensics laboratory in Los Angeles. Barry Scheck was probably best known for his role on the “Dream Team” of the infamous O.J. Simpson murder trial. Barry Scheck was currently on retainer with Richard Tresvant. He’d been handpicked by Larry Steinberg, Richard’s lead atto
rney, to work on Richard Tresvant’s “Dream Team” because of his phenomenal reputation at winning long-shot, criminal cases with irrefutable DNA evidence. All attorneys present in the room, including Judge Bartholomew and Steve Cooley, the district attorney, held Barry Scheck’s legal prowess in high regard.

“Mr. Crichton,” Barry Scheck said in his strong, East Coast accent, “please state your background as it pertains to the field of forensics.”

“I possess a Bachelor of Science degree in Forensic Science from Pennsylvania State University. I have a Masters degree in Criminalistics from Cal State Sacramento. I worked for ten years as a crime scene investigator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation here in Los Angeles. I founded BIOTECH ten years ago to offer my services to private individuals and enterprises seeking in-depth analysis of criminal evidence for major criminal cases such as this one. I also provide my services on a consulting basis to corporations internationally and to government agencies. My laborator
y analyzes biological evidence, trace evidence, impression evidence such as footprints, fingerprints and tire tracks; controlled substances and ballistics. I have served directly as an expert witness in criminal cases for more than twenty years, both during my years with the FBI and through my company, BIOTECH.”

“So, it is safe to presume that you are professionally qualified to discuss analysis of physical evidence taken from the crime scene related to this murder trial. Is that correct, Mr. Crichton?” Barry Scheck asked.

“That is correct, sir.”

“To clarify, please provide for me a better understanding of what the field of forensic science is,” Barry Scheck said.

“Forensics is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system, in either a criminal or civil action,” Adam Crichton stated. “Essentially, forensics is to law enforcement and solving crimes what imagination, a strong vocabulary, and good grammar are to the fiction writer. One cannot exist without the other. Sometimes crimes are cut and dry, relatively easy to solve. Other times, the crimes are highly sophisticated and require the expertise of several different forensic specialists from areas such as biological evidence, trace evidence, impr
ession evidence, ballistics, and digital f
orensics. Each forensic
specialist takes and carefully reviews each of the tangible pieces of the ‘puzzle’ of a crime. The majority of physical evidence is taken from the crime scene and from suspects. Sometimes the most minute and seemingly irrelevant physical details can be analyzed and carefully reconstructed into the timeline and turn out to be a most significant factor in solving a criminal case.”

“Your laboratory, BIOTECH, was hired by the defense to examine some of the physical evidence in this murder case. Is that correct, Mr. Crichton?”

“That is correct.”

“And what specific physical evidence related to this case did your laboratory examine?”

“My laboratory analyzed the murder weapon as well as the fingerprint evidence originally taken from the murder weapon by the Los Angeles Police Department,” Mr. Crichton said. “Because it had been established that Mr. Tresvant, the defendant, and Mr. Bernard, the decedent, had an attorney-client relationship, as well as a friendship, and had had lunch on the day of Mr. Bernard’s murder, the fingerprints belonging to Mr. Tresvant found on the interior and exterior of the decedent’s car, the car from the crime scene, did not hold as much evidentiary weight as the prints taken directly
from the murder weapon.”

“Was the fingerprint evidence temporarily released for analysis to your laboratory by the Los Angeles Police Department determined to be the fingerprints of my client, Richard Lawrence Tresvant?”

“Yes,” Adam Crichton answered. “The prints released to BIOTECH by LAPD’s forensics lab were determined to be the defendant’s, Richard Tresvant’s. We also examined the murder weapon and, although there was substantial disintegration, there were partial prints that we could ascertain on the murder weapon to be Richard Tresvant’s as well.”