QR Code Murders: Congeal

“Let me off here, please,” Yawquisha mentioned. “Thanks for this.”

“You’ve got my information stored in your phone. If you find anything useful to me, let me know.”

“Yep,” Yawquisha replied.

Kim drove away in a quiet elegance and strength based on meeting the young woman.

Yawquisha got to her computer and put on her ski mask and lit up the room. She adjusted the levels to distort her velvet voice.

“I’ve been attached. There are more layers to the tattoo story. I’ll let you judge based on these photos.” She uploaded the pictures to the screen.

“That’s all I’ve got for this session. Continue to support the cause with donations. Thanks.”

The citizen journalist clicked off the live footage. She switched off the lights again and studied her notes. With all of the intelligence she had gathered with Kim, she knew that she needed to feed her audience more so she stretched out the work.

Volumes of dead rappers in the city remained in her phone and in her head. Brands on biceps kept her perplexed. Her reportage drove her. It kept her grounded in her work and yet she flew to heights she had not known before meeting Kim.

To be official and not sneak on scenes anymore made her eager, hungry to get back on the street. As a Delaware Institute of Technology (DIT) dropout, she still had enough knowledge from her classes to still pick up on the details that even Kim never felt the need to point out.

She didn’t feel slighted. She looked at it with respect. It elevated her thinking. The time it took for her to decompress and let go of the day, she sort of shuffled off the grimness of her travels and watched hours of manga.

In her hours away from work watching the colors and light of the animation, drove her imagination. Her question marks weighed more than the exclamation points. Tall K was quick to snitch on himself, she thought. His willingness to give up all that information so readily was suspicious. Why would he spill his guts like a cigar ready for weed insertion? Why would he tell a state detective all of that data? The manga flashed.

She then switched to Kim. What a card, she thought. She was probably divorced, had kids and just kept advancing in her career. She might’ve failed out of the FBI and came back to Delaware like Icarus flying too high.

She seemed decent enough, Yawquisha thought. She rushed to her computer and drafted a list that would show what she would be doing on the ride alongs with Kim. She had figured she would make this list with the intention of her own selfish joy.

In bullet form, she listed the criteria she would need to keep going with Kim. As she jotted down the notes, she made sure that she kept it close to her. It would be the blueprint to her entire future existence. Kim would have to have a barrier between her. Yawquisha couldn’t be friends with her. It was just work. She had to be the passenger in order to drive her own existence.

So, she finished writing. She was glad with it. The list was like a token to access a new realm. Thoughts of the tattoos and graffiti ran through her mind like a video streaming service.

To keep her sanity, Yawquisha switched off the manga, meditated, and breathed deeply. Some ginger and eucalyptus wafted through the room from a candle. The ignition of the wick flashed before her eyes and inspired her to write more. She couldn’t meditate anymore.

At her computer, she typed even more. Her fingers glided over the keys with an ease and a wit that expressed her creativity and verve. Six pages spelled out not demands for Kim but for herself. Business remained on her consciousness. Kim could protect her only so much. In fact, the detective treated her as a necessary burden. She had dropped a hot line, and Kim pleaded for a hot song.

As clever as Kim thought of Yawquisha, she wanted to be seen as smart. Two women of color, one a professional the other an amateur, could congeal into one.