Somehow my DNA didn’t match those at the crime scenes. My DNA would never match those at the crime scenes because I wasn’t sloppy like that. However, whoever was behind all of this had planted real DNA of a man already in prison named Albert Doggett from Miami Florida. Hearing all of this in the private hearing, I never been so confused in my life. Someone had pulled a me on me.
“Amell, are you listening?” Mahogany touched my hand. “Once you’re released, you’ll be taken to Edgewater Center for Healing. There you’ll spend eleven months going through different cognitive behavioral treatments until Mrs. Carter, head of psychiatry, signs off that you’re mentally stable to go back out into society.”
Was she…was she serious?
Against my will I had to declare myself mentally unstable because I ‘lied’ about committing crimes. Now they wanted to send me to some mental institution.
What the fuck was going on?
Everything had to be rechecked DNA, all the evidence, the weapon used. Even the eyewitnesses had changed their testimonies. How in the hell can witnesses that I hired retract their stories and change it to match the description of this Albert Doggett man?
And who in the hell is Albert Doggett?
Then to make me seem like an even more crazy person, while we sat in the private hearing room, AG Beau showed us videos with all my alibi’s confirming that there was no way possible I could kill those people. I don’t know how they got the videos, but I knew for sure that the time stamps on them were altered.
“Are they trying to medicate me?” My heart wouldn’t stop racing. I never did drugs in my life outside of smoking weed.
“If you cooperate at the center, then no.” She glanced over at Pacino who hadn’t said much since he got here. “I know this transition is hard but you’re free. It may not be the way you wanted it, but you got what a lot of people never get,” she stood reaching for her purse. “A second chance. I’m going to finish the paperwork.”
Pacino waited until she left out the room before taking the seat across from me, placing a pearled emerald stoned rosary on the table. Seeing those pearls. Seeing the diamonds with blotches of blood on them. I remember when Mitch bought it for her. We were over in Lagos, Nigeria celebrating his fiftieth birthday.
The trip had been a surprise planned by me and Krishna.
Everyone went.
Atlas and his family. Cassian and Massey. Krishna and me. We had fun.
Pacino and Capone. We celebrated his life. Like always the love I had for his daughter had to be masked but I made sure that the night before we left, she and I had a little time to ourselves. I took her to Tarkwa Bay Beach that is only accessible by boat or water taxi. That night had to be another best time of my life.
She laughed the whole time. Smiled when a clan of baby crabs chased her around in a circle. Told me the dreams she had for us as I made her s’mores. Professed her love for me over and over while I took her body in the middle of the ocean under the bright moon. The next morning at breakfast Mitch gifted Clover the pearled rosary. She cried with the biggest smile on her face. The pearls were real African pearls.
I knew that those unique pearls belonged to one person and one person only.
“How bad was it?” My body trembled at the fact that I even had to ask that question.
“Quick execution.” Both of our eyes were locked on the piece of jewelry.
“Anything on Krishna?” The thought of something happening to her next made me lightheaded.
Pacino let out a chuckle and flicked his nose. “She’s a piece of work, you know that. A whole piece of work. Out of respect and my love for her parents and you, that’s the only reason she’s still breathing.” He seethed slamming his fist on the table.
“The money laundering investigation going on with Capone’s company, she’s behind all that. To be honest with you she mentioned some other slick shit but once she made it known that she was behind my wife’s reputation being ruined I zoned out. Listen, you’re my dog, man. We’re brothers, but I need you to correct this shit because if she managed to stay under the radar all these years then pop up when she shit is flipped upside down, just get a handle on your woman.” Fuck.
Krishna.
There’s no way in the hell that she’s involved in any of this.
“Let me ask you something.” He leaned in making his dreads dangle in his face. “What happened the last time you saw her? What did you say to her inside the judge’s chambers? I never questioned it because that’s y’all business but now I’m wondering if she’s on some Waiting to Exhale type of shit.”
Placing the rosary necklace in my pocket I shook my head thinking back on that day. “I asked her to give me a divorce.”
His first reaction was nothing. Then he leaned back and crossed his arms with a confused frown on his face. “Wait,” he started to chuckle. “After your punk ass made me catch a flight with you, leave the All-Star game I had courtside seats at and go to California, you had the audacity to ask her to give you a divorce?
Have you lost your damn mind?” Yes, yes, I had.
Pacino rubbed the bridge of his nose shaking his head. “I told her that Clover died, and my delivery may not have been so subtle.”
The wheels started turning in my head. “Do you…do you think she could be…” I had no strength to finish.
There was no way possible that Krishna was behind all this.
“I don’t know what possessed you to try to divorce her at that moment, but for your sake I hope she forgives you and stops all this.”
What had I done?
Krishna
It took me three tries to pass the dress code inspection allowed to gain access into San Quentin Maximum Security Prison for visitation. My skin crawled at the mildew moldy smell. I felt like sticking a fork in the guards’ eyes who had a hard time focusing on my face instead of my chest. The female guards, which were only a handful, gave me way too much attitude like I was here to see their man. Once I passed the borderline molesting frisk and had my I.D scanned a dozen times, I finally made it to the waiting area.
My love for prison romance shows gave me a false pretense on what to expect. Granted there were women visitors, a lot of them, but most looked like mothers or relatives. I based my assumption on the fact that if I ever went to see my man behind bars, I’d be dressed to the nines to make sure I gave him something to look at and remember me by.
But hey, I have no room to judge.
About thirty minutes later I was escorted through seven sets of wired bars that led down two hallways before we reached the visiting area. I was given a key for a locker to place my belongings in. This prison had to be Moses' age. It was dirty. Smelled more awful than a hospital morgue. The guards were scary intimidating.
I sat on the cold steel circular bench before the thick glass window waiting. On the outside I had the courage of a thousand men. On the inside I was shaking worse than Ebony from The Players Club when Diamond was outside her door ready to beat her ass.
A loud buzzing sound went off. Gates were opened and inmates dressed in orange and white prison jumpsuits were ushered in. On my left a middle-aged man sat with a smile on his face as a Latino inmate sat before him. On my right was a woman probably a few years younger than my mom with tears in her eyes watching a young man sit before her. When he uttered ‘mama’ I almost shed a tear.