The Diamond Syndicate

“You’re making a fucking mess!” Diamond snatched the knife from Trey’s hands and commenced to stabbing the doctor ten times in his stomach. She didn’t do much better in creating less of a mess, but the doctor was surely dead.

Breathing heavily, she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and then remembered Estelle was standing there. She whipped her head around and stared at her.

Estelle jumped. Too afraid to turn and run, she simply stood there, her mouth gaping open in shock. Through the whole ordeal Estelle was numb with fear and hadn’t screamed or made a sound.

Diamond walked over to her. She snatched the woman’s arm and yanked her over to the doctor’s body, and Estelle nearly fell to the floor. “You are one nosy bitch! I have said it before, and I knew you would be a problem! You wanted to see so bad, so look!” She grabbed Estelle by the back of her head and forced her to look at the dead doctor.

Blood soaked through his physician’s coat, turning the white fabric a deep shade of crimson. Estelle could feel vomit traveling its way up her throat and into her mouth. Forcing it back down, she swallowed hard. Tears continued to fall from her eyes, and she could hear her heart racing in her chest.

Diamond took her gloved hand and forced the knife into Estelle’s hand, then rammed it into the doctor’s stomach another time.

This time Estelle screamed.

“Now you’re involved in this murder, so you better think twice before you go running off to call the police,” Diamond said to her. Then she said to her boys, “Get the money out of the safe and make sure he’s dead.”

Trey busied himself with Diamond’s instructions and was cussing Dante out for not having Diamond’s back. Dante, slow to help him get the office in order, stood there watching him.

Diamond and Estelle stood at the back door of the doctor’s office while the boys wiped away any evidence of them being there. Once everything was done, they all left out of the back door that led into the parking lot behind the mini mall.

Diamond grabbed Estelle by her shirt and pulled her close. “Remember what I said,” she told her. “Just remember you participated in this thing too. If you so much as open your mouth, I got witnesses that saw you take a stab at the good doctor.”

Estelle wanted to lie down and die.

Part Two

NINETEEN

Caught

2002

“Freeze!” the police officers yelled, their service revolvers aimed at the suspect.

The suspect held his hands high in the air. He and two of his friends were standing on the corner when three police vehicles screeched to a stop, and the officers jumped out of their vehicles with their guns raised. The suspect looked at his friends and then back at the officers, whose facial expressions were controlled and confident.

“Slowly put your hands behind your head and interlock your fingers!” one officer yelled.

The three men did as they were told.

Hiding behind a house in the bushes across the street was Dante Reed, an associate of the men now being searched, and the perpetrator the officers thought they were arresting. Dante ha

d switched clothes with one of the men when he got word that the police had arrested his mother. Apparently she went out fighting the police like they were from the streets. His boys had told him that his mother had knocked one of the female officers’ unconscious with a right hook.

Dante knew he was next to be arrested, so he wasted no time switching clothes with one of his associates. Dante stood six feet three inches with a slim build. The jeans he wore didn’t reach his ankles, and the sleeves on the jacket barely stretched past his elbows, since he was taller than the person he’d switched with, who happened to be the taller than the other two.

After Dante’s friends were searched and placed into the squad car, the officers began to talk amongst themselves.

“I don’t know, Ed,” the young black officer said to his partner. “I don’t think this is the guy.”

Ed, the white officer, responded, “He fits the description, Jerry. He’s wearing the clothes the dispatcher said he was last seen wearing.”

“But his physical description doesn’t quite match. OK, I agree he’s wearing the right clothes, but did you look at them closely? Those clothes he’s wearing swallow the boy whole. Besides, I’ve seen Dante Reed one time before, and I don’t remember him being short.”

“This is the guy,” Ed said, pointing a finger at Jerry, “and you know it. And if he isn’t the right guy, then the call should have been more specific. If you ask me, they all look alike anyway.”

Jerry took a deep breath. He’d heard comments like that quite often from Ed. The racial slurs flew from his mouth with no regard for Jerry or other black officers.

“We’re talking about murder,” Jerry said. “If we’re wrong on this one, then you know the captain is gonna have our heads for it. We’ve made three false arrests in the last month. Talk around the station is starting to build against us in a negative way.”