HOLY MAYHEM
by Pat G’Orge-Walker
Prologue
J
esus, Lord help me! I can’t believe it!”
Forty-two-year-old single woman and church missionary Joy Karry sucked her teeth
then took a deep breath to keep from cussing. The curly red wig she’d worn to work as
maintenance supervisor at the Pelzer, South Carolina, police precinct flopped about her
chubby dark brown cheeks.
As she hustled down the empty second-floor hallway, Joy’s two hundred pounds of dark
flesh jiggled on her five-foot-one frame. She took up from where she’d begun moments
ago, spewing loud angry words, not caring who heard them.
“Ten years of cleaning toilets and these demons gonna lay me off. Homicide and robbery
done already lay off my cousin Patience and now today, me! Enough of this crap!”
Five minutes later, Joy barreled through the back door and exited to the precinct’s
employee parking lot. Eyes blazing, head down like a raging bull, she rushed toward two
of the precincts detectives, Blake and Johnson. By the way they quickly dropped their heads
and moved to the side, she knew they’d already heard her bad news.
“Don’t do it, Miss Joy!” said a voice.
Before Joy could spin around to see who’d called out, she heard it add, “Your godson
ain’t on duty today, so you might wanna check that temper.”
Both Blake and Johnson turned quickly and headed back inside. The mention of her
second cousin and godson’s name, Detective Percy LaPierre, one of Pelzer’s most admired
and respected detectives had stopped her in her tracks.
“Thank you, Jesus.” She’d forgotten her hands weren’t empty. She’d already pulled the
cap off a bottle of bleach and was holding onto a sharp gum scraper. There was only about
a yard between her and the car belonging to the head of human resources. “Jesus, if you
don’t continue to help me, I’m going back inside in handcuffs. Now I ain’t got a job and no
bail money.”
Joy quickly discarded the bottle and the gum scraper. Climbing into her 2008 Toyota
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