Page 28 of Love Sanctioned

“You talking in riddles, bro. Spit it out.”

“The las⁠—”

I held my index finger up for him to pause when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. When I pulled it out I saw a call from an Uptown area code which immediately had me pressing the green circle on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Murphy, this is Dr. Joan Mercer with the Briar County medical examiner’s office.”

My heart began to beat erratically, I couldn’t speak for a moment.

“We conducted the second examination you requested on the remains of Isac Murphy.”

“And what?” The pause between all of her words was getting on my nerves.

“What we found during our second autopsy does not support the original cause of death.”

I screwed my face up. “And what does that mean? He had a heart attack, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Murphy did suffer a heart attack, and that was the manner of death, but it was…” she paused.

“Yo, I’ma need you to stop speaking so slow and pausing in between words. What the fuck happened?”

“I apologize, Mr. Murphy. There is no easy way for me to say this, but your uncle’s heart attack was induced.”

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

“Mr. Murphy, are you still there?” she asked after I had apparently been quiet for too long.

“Yes, so you’re telling me someone in your hospital killed my uncle?”

“It’s not that simple, Mr. Murphy. I apologize for th⁠—”

“Don’t apologize. Say yes or no.”

“I cannot… speculate.” She began to stumble through her words.

“Yes or no, Doc?”

“It seems that way. I was just calling because you authorized the second autopsy and I have to pass my findings over to BPD. I thought you should know.”

“You haven’t passed them over yet?” I gripped my phone tightly in my hand.

“No, not yet.”

“Don’t.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Murphy?”

“I said don’t give them shit. Unc died of a heart attack; thank you for your confirmation, Dr. Mercer.” I then hung up and felt eyes on me. When I finally looked up from the floor, my eyes locked on Kal.

“Wait, you just said your uncle died.”

“He did.”

“That’s what I came here to talk to you about, Psy. Your uncle’s name came across my feed. I didn’t take it, y’all like blood to me. But I went by my boy’s house over in the Row and had him find out who put the name on the server. The name he got was Charles Curr.”

I blinked several times, heat rising from my body, because this wasn’t life. It couldn’t be. My gut never lied and I was grateful for that. The problem was, just this one time I wished it had.