AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Prologue
Jamaica Estates, Queens
It was Christmas Day, and the swanky house at the end of the block in Jamaica Estates was decorated with a dazzling array of lights. The home represented affluence at its finest with a Mercedes Benz and a Lexus parked in the driveway. A marked squad car pulled up to the place and came to a stop. Two officers climbed out and were met by a concerned neighbor who stood outside the front door waiting for the police to arrive. The Johnsons were a pleasant and social couple, and every Christmas morning, they would invite neighbors and family over to have breakfast and share gifts. It had been a routine of theirs for ten years. But today, their house sat in silence and was absent of any cheerful activity. The entire place looked bleak and almost dark, except for the Christmas lights.
“Something’s wrong, officers. I know it,” the neighbor lady told them.
“When was the last time you heard from them?” asked the senior cop.
“Two days ago. But every Christmas, this place is lit up with family and friends over for breakfast and gift giving. The Johnsons are that kind of couple—always giving and having folks over for a good time. They always open their doors to everyone,” she said.
She filled them in on the couple. Malik was a corporate lawyer and Liasha ran a successful online business as an SEO consultant and web designer.
“Okay, we’ll check it out,” said the partner.
One of the officers jiggled the doorknob and found the door to be open. Seeing that, the neighbor immediately became worried. The cops slowly entered the home on alert with their hands against their holstered weapons, and they started to call out the residents’ names, Liasha and Malik Johnson. But there was no response. Right away, the officers noticed the disturbance inside. The home had been completely ransacked. Both men being veterans on the force, they instantly knew it was a home invasion.
They carefully went through the house, and each room was the same—items wildly scattered everywhere, furniture turned over, and cabinets and drawers open and looking rummaged through. Inside the master bedroom was where they found the real horror. The couple was gagged and bound on their king size bed in their underwear, and they had both been shot in the head at close range. Their bodies were stiffened by their violent deaths and were reaching rigor mortis stages, meaning that they had been dead for a couple of hours now. The officers gazed at the scene in wide-eyed horror.
“Shit! Call it in,” said the senior cop.
When the neighbor heard about the tragedy, she immediately burst into tears. She couldn’t believe it. Not the Johnsons—and not on Christmas Day. Word of their ghastly murders started to spread through the affluent community, and their families were notified. It was heartbreak all around—tragic news that thrust everyone into profound grief over the horrific murders of their favorite neighbors.
Chapter One
A shirtless Butch Brown sang a slurred rendition of “Jingle Bells” and danced around the project apartment to music that wasn’t playing. He took another healthy swig from the half-finished bottle of Hennessy he clutched and continued to sing.
“. . . laughin’ all za wayyy—ha ha ha! It’s Christmas in Brooklyn!” he continued.
Butch was a forty-year-old alcoholic and a part-time mechanic. He was a skinny man with reddish brown skin, freckles, hazel eyes, and flaming red hair. He consumed most of his meals from liquor bottles.
He staggered to the window and peered outside at the projects on a sunny, but cold Christmas afternoon. He was already full-blown drunk, and it was only 1 p.m. But a drunk Butch was a friendly Butch. It was when he was sober that everyone had to worry. He became vile and angry, and no one liked to be around him and his quick temper. He would go crazy and lay hands on his girls, including his wife, Bernice. At times it got so bad that the cops were called to the apartment, and Butch had spent plenty of nights in jail. Although everyone knew he should be in rehab, they would encourage him to drink or buy him a bottle because a sober Butch was unbearable in the household.
“Look at Daddy. He’s actin’ all exalting and everything,” Butch’s seventeen-year-old daughter Claire said with a giggle. She sat on the couch with an English textbook in her hands, staring and laughing at her father, who had distracted her from reading with his drunken antics.
“Daddy, you know what you are right now? Jolly and inebriated. But that’s fine—we need some contempt in this house, and some agitation too,” she added.
Exalting? Contempt and agitation? What the fuck? the youngest daughter, Chanel, thought to herself. She gave Claire a peculiar look. Claire was known to use big words wrong, but no one in the family except Chanel knew the meaning of the words she used. Claire was heading to college in the fall, and everyone was proud of her.
