Nightly Confusion

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Melinda’s parent’s house was much like my parent’s; two stories, three step porch, a driveway only big enough for one car and an outrageous Miami color. All the houses on the block were bright colored. Melinda’s was baby blue, mine was orange. I parked out on the street and walked up the porch, Melinda’s mom answered again. “Hi is Melinda home?” I asked.

“Yes she is, come in dear.” Mrs. Peru was a nice woman and always had been, as a kid she use to give all the kids that stopped by to see Carry cookies and milk. I hung out with Carry a few times just for one of her mother’s cookies. She stood at the end of the staircase and called Melinda.

“Can I help you?” Melinda asked when she saw me.

“I work for the Miami Wave and I also knew your sister, I was wondering if you’d answer a few questions for me.” I explained.

“The Miami Wave, such a great paper Alissa is doing so well with it.” Mrs. Peru said. “I’m going to start some coffee.” She said in Spanish before heading off to the kitchen.

“What are your questions?” Melinda asked, she looked just like her sister only younger.

“Can we?” I motioned over to the door. I felt it would be better to talk out of Mrs. Peru’s reach. ”I knew Carry in school and she hated the idea of death and wanted to save the world.” I said as we sat on the porch. “I know if time people change but I can’t see her committing murder.”

 “She flipped.” Melinda said with her head hung low. “It was all my fault.”

I began to feel bad for the younger woman. “Ok I have to be honest, I do work for the paper but I’m really here because I want to find out the truth. I don’t think Carry should be in jail if she didn’t do anything wrong.” I explained.

I could see Melinda wanted to talk but she was scared. “This is how she wanted it, she believes when it goes to trial they’ll see it was a mistake and they’ll let her go.”

“I don’t think so because Carry is saying she’d do it all over again.”

Melinda took in my words and wiped a few tears from her cheeks. “I can’t let her pay for something I did, I just can’t. Carry did walk in on something just not what everyone thinks.” She began; I could see she wanted the truth revealed but something, my guess was, Carry stopped her. She wanted to save her little sister, I could relate to that.

“What did Carry walk in on?” I softly asked.

“I want the public to know, I want them to know Carry is innocent and I want them to know what he did.” Melinda said with more tears. “I stopped by her house to drop off a cake Mom made but she wasn’t there. He was there and he was drinking, he started touching me and I tried to get away but I couldn’t.  I knew Carry kept a gun in the house for protection. When he was done and let me go I couldn’t let him go on living. That’s all I thought; he had to pay. I didn’t mean to kill him; I just wanted him to feel pain.”

I hugged Melinda. “If I make this public you know the cops will ask you a lot of questions and so will other reporters. I know Carry didn’t want that for you.” I said, I had to make sure this is what she wanted before I helped turn her life upside down even more.

“I know, just make them understand how good Carry was and all she did was try and save me from going to jail.” Melinda said. I asked her a few questions and wrote the answers down on my pad. I told her to call me if she ever needed to talk or needed some help before I left.

I called Zack on my way back to the office and told him everything Melinda told me. “I’ll talk with the lead officer on the case.” He said. “Then he’ll send someone out to talk with Melinda.”

I thanked him for the help and hung up. I felt my stomach begin to beg for food, I should’ve stopped at my parent’s house but instead I went back to my apartment. I grabbed my mail on the way up. I walked straight to the kitchen and grabbed a soda. I looked through my mail, bills, bills, coupons, bills and an envelope from DLVM Inc. I had no idea who that was.

I set the can of coke down and opened the envelope. It was a check for holy cow five hundred bucks! I looked at the check and wondered if this was for real. In the employee name it said Samantha Martiz then I read the employer name; Joey De Luca. I guess that’s what the DL meant but who was the V and M? I checked the envelope for something else but there was only the check.

I was too confused and curious to let this go so I grabbed the phone and began to dial as I finished off the can of sofa. He answered his cell on the third ring. “I just got a check from DLVM Inc, what’s going on?”

“You helped me and lost time working on something else or sleeping and I know you needed the money. Don’t say it was out of the goodness out of you heart and you don’t want the check.” Joey said.

“I won’t I’m keeping the money.” I wasn’t stupid and after what he made me feel last night, all that anger, he did owe me this and maybe more. “Well thanks I guess.” I hung up because it was feeling too awkward, I was still mad and he knew that so there wasn’t much to talk about. Not that there ever was with Joey.

I left my apartment and headed to the bank to cash the check so I’d have money to food shop. I knew how to cook but I hated it so I rarely cooked. I bought TV dinners, everything for sandwiches, more cases of soda and bags of chips. I drove through McDonald’s and ate on the way home. After putting the groceries away I turned on my computer.

I typed out the article for Carry Green’s case with everything Melinda told me she wanted in the paper and I also typed an article with the basic facts from the De Luca case and other things I knew that could be public. It took four hours to format it and type it all. Even after all that and taking it to Alissa to read I still had time to kill before dinner time.

As I thought of what to do for my boredom the phone rang, it was Zack. “I need you to be honest with me now, have you seen Joey?”

“No. Now you answer me; what is going on?” I asked because Zack sounded very serious on the other line.

He sighed. “He was spotted last night at Giovanni’s and now Giovanni is dead.”

“Oh my god, do you think he did it?” I asked while praying he hadn’t.

“Sam just call me if you see him please.”

“I will.”

We hung up after that. I’m sure Joey would kill if he had to but I didn’t want to believe he killed Frances Giovanni but then I thought back to that look he had last night. Joey was angry and dangerous; I had no idea who he was and I was fooling myself if I thought he was a good guy. “I’m sick of this.” I said to the empty room.

I left my apartment and thought the extra time would be good to talk to mom.