It was late, almost three in the morning, and standing in front of me was an obnoxious New York City homicide detective with bad breath and a Brooklyn accent. He and his partner, a homely brown-skinned woman who needed to do something with her ugly-ass weave, had me sitting in a small, dimly lit room somewhere in a police station in Brooklyn. This was the fifth time he’d asked me the same damn question, and there was no doubt in my mind that he was going to ask it again, because I wasn’t saying shit.
You see, less than two hours before, I’d witnessed the shooting of my date, Trevor Sims, son of New York City councilman and congressional candidate Ronald Sims. Regrettably, Trevor didn’t make it. He died five minutes after he was shot, right in my arms, which was why I was covered in his blood from head to toe. To say I was having a bad night was an understatement. I was having a terrible fucking night.
“Trevor, dammit! His name is Trevor! Stop calling him the councilman’s son. He has a name,” I corrected him as tears welled up in my eyes. I would have paid a million dollars to be anywhere but where I was right then.
“Correction, Paris. Had. He had a name,” the bad-weave bitch stressed. “Trevor’s no longer with us, because he’s dead, and we’re trying to figure out who did it. Now, I hate to break this to you, but you’re the only witness we got to his shooting, so we’re going to go over what you saw again. And, Paris, this time I want some fucking answers.”
“Look, I told you I ain’t got nothing to say. I just wanna go home. Look at me.” I spread my arms apart so that they could see my blood-soaked DKNY dress.
The dog-breath detective laughed. “You’re not going anywhere until we get some answers, Paris. We’ve got a congressional candidate’s son in the morgue. Do you have any idea what that means?” He paused only for a second and then answered his own question. “That means the newspapers and media are going to be crawling all over this. Which means the chief of detectives is gonna be crawling up my lieutenant’s ass, wanting some answers. Which means my lieutenant’s gonna be crawling up my ass, looking for those answers. So, until I get them, I’m gonna be crawling up your ass.”
“You can crawl wherever the hell you want to,” I said flatly, folding my arms in defiance. “I ain’t got shit to say.”
I stared at the cop and wondered, if Trevor’s dad were a garbageman or the janitor at Jamaica High School instead of a councilman running for Congress, would we even be going over this so thoroughly? My fellow clubgoers were being questioned all over the precinct about other victims of tonight’s shootings, but Trevor’s death was drawing the most attention because of his father’s political connections and the fact that it was the only shooting outside the club, not inside. I was sure the mayor would have something to say about it in the morning. I just hoped they left me and my family out of it. God, my dad was gonna kill me just for being there.
“Why don’t you have shit to say? Because of some stupid ‘no snitching’ code of the streets?” the female cop snapped. “Is that it? You got some stupid moral code?”
I stared at her briefly, then exploded in anger. “Are you for real? Do I look like I’m worried about some moral code of the streets? Bitch, I’m wearing a ladies’ Rolex that’s worth more than both your damn salaries combined.” I flashed my wrist in front of her face. “Look, I’m a party girl, not a gangbanger. I’ve got Kim Kardashian on speed dial, not Lil’ Kim. But maybe you don’t know who I am, so let me introduce myself. My name is Paris Duncan, daughter of LC Duncan, the owner of Duncan Motors, the largest African American–owned car dealership chain in the tristate area. He donated almost a million dollars to the PBA last year, so why y’all hassling me? Maybe you need to make a few calls and find out just who the fuck I am and where I come from.”
“We already know who you are,” she replied irately, “and personally, I’m not impressed with you or your nigger-rich daddy. I just-”
I sprang to my feet, pointing my finger up in her face. “Don’t be talking about my father, bitch. You don’t know him!”