Larger Than Lyfe (33 page)

The coroner’s office took Tim Harris’s body away and crime scene investigators worked with Keshari’s security team to hash out the details of what had occurred that evening. The president of the security company quickly arrived on the
scene. He apologized
profusely to Keshari and her attorney for what had happened, and then got with Samuel Perkins and the rest of the security team to supply whatever information was needed to the crime scene investigators and to secure details regarding what had happened for himself.

Misha wanted to pack a bag for Keshari and book a cottage for her at the Beverly Hills Hotel so that she didn’t have to face the chaos and drama currently going d
own at her house. Keshari, however, assured her that she would be okay and needed to stay put. There were a number of things that she needed to discuss with her attorney. She walked Misha out to her car, amidst the circus-like atmosphere, and Misha promised that she would be back to check on her a little later in the day. Then Keshari and David Weisberg went into Keshari’s large, formal dining room and closed the double doors to talk.

T
hings were getting HOT in L.A.!!! Before the public could even digest the nearly successful hit on Keshar
i’s life, breaking news on every Los Angeles station reported that Richard Lawrence Tresvant had been killed in an apparent stabbing at San Quentin Prison in northern California, where he was awaiting a new trial on appeal for the first-degree murder of his attorney, Phinnaeus Bernard III.

Keshari, the epitome of the workaholic and trying hard to maintain appearances despite all that was going on, heard the news from her attorney and nearly passed out in her office. All the while, she had been thinking that Rick had been the one who had ordered the nearly successful attempt on her life. In fact, he had placed a price on her head, but Tim Harris had nothing to do with it.

Before Keshari could even wrap her mind around Richard Tresvant’s murder and who might be responsible for it, the absolutely unthinkable happened. Los Angeles Police Department officers burst into her offices and placed Keshari under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder/murder-for-hire in conjunction with the prison murder of Richard Lawrence Tresvant.

It was absolute chaos at Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment as LTL’s staff and the media got wind of the story.

Keshari sat in a holding cell for ten hours while her attorney wrangled to secure her release and news crews surrounded Parker Center in downtown Los Angeles, working to capture the breaking story. Ironically, Judge Phelton Bartholomew, who’d been the judge in Richard Tresvant’s murder trial, presided at Keshari’s bail hearing. The D.A., basking in the spotlight of what promised to be another highly sensational case, demanded vehemently that the court deny bail to Keshari Mitchell because, with her money and power, she was most certainly a flight risk. David Weisberg vehemently argued
in Keshari’s defense. He argued that Keshari Mitchell was sole owner of a major record label, Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment, and she directly managed, every single day, the operations of the record label that she’d built from the ground up. She had no criminal record whatsoever. She had much too much at stake to pick up and run away. She was no more a flight risk than the district attorney himself, David Weisberg contended.

Keshari’s bail was finally set at $1 million, an outrageous amount which David Weisberg instantly got on the phone to acquire before he even exited the courtroom.
Thomas Hencken was sitting at the rear of the courtroom when David Weisberg was walking out. He nodded to David Weisberg. David Weisberg did not acknowledge the gesture.

“Are you okay?” David Weisberg asked as his Mercedes sped away from Parker Center.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Keshari said.

She said no more for the rest of the drive to her house and David left her to her thoughts.

Mars was watching the madness transpiring in Keshari’s world
and all around her. He watched news story after news story unfold and Keshari’s typically very private life was dissected and speculated upon and raked over the coals by complete strangers in the media for the public’s entertainment. More than anything, he wanted to drop everything and go to her, be there for her…at least, until some of the turmoil around her died down. But he didn’t go. Something held him back firmly and left him torn by guilt and mixed emotions, knowing that the woman he still loved was going through it and he was not there to support her.

He called Misha and asked her if Keshari was okay.

“Why don’t you call her and find out for yourself?” Misha responded.

“I thought about it…you know, I was going to…but things are really difficult right now since…,” Mars said.

“Look,” Misha said. “She’s okay. She just arrived home from Parker Center a little while ago. She’s quiet. She’s understandably under a lot of stress. She’s more than likely suffered some sort of a shock, but…for the most part…she’s okay. I’ll make sure of that.”

“I’m really glad you’re there for her,” was all that Mars could manage to say.

“I would have thought that YOU, the only man she’s ever been able to truly be herself with, the man she’s in love with, would be able to set aside what she did in the past, set aside your personal feelings about what she’s done, and be there for her when she needs you most. Keshari had nothing at all to do with Richard Tresvant’s murder, Mars. Nothing.”

“Misha, I’m trying. I really, really am. But I can’t be there for her in the way that she needs until my mind has gotten to a place where I stop judging her and being angry with her. It wouldn’t be fair to her to step back into her life with all that she has going on until I get beyond that.”

“Fuck it,” Misha said. “I’m headed up to the house now. I’m spending the night there. I’ll let her know that you’re thinking of her.”

Misha hung up.

Misha,

You remember how I used to spend the night at your house and we would polish our toes and do each other’s hair while watching
Midnight Love
on BET, eating a big plate of nachos and talking about the men we were going to marry? I was gonna marry Kenny Greene of the R & B group, INTRO, and you were gonna marry “Treach” of Naughty By Nature. I truly miss those days. Everything was so much simpler then.

You and I have been like peanut butter and jelly for as long as I can remember. You are my sister and, even though we are not bonded by blood, you have always been the most important person in the entire world to me.

On a lot of levels, the two of us have led some pretty damned charmed lives. We’ve done most of the things we used to fantasize about doing. You’re the BADDEST events coordinator in the entire country and I just know that you’re gonna wind up orchestrating the details for the first Black President’s inaugural ball or something else completely major. I’ve done alright myself. I started my own record label that turned out to be successful beyond my wildest imaginings. Then, relatively recently, I fell in love. WOW…love…it changes EVERYTHING. Too bad the good things don’t last forever.

Misha, I’ve done a lot of shit that I greatly, greatly regret and all of it is finally catching up to me. I’m in too deep now and it’s drowning me and I simply cannot go on.

Please don’t hate me. Please forgive me for leaving you. Please remember all of the things that were so remarkably good about our friendship.
Your confidence, your spunk, your style and the way that you have always lived life so FULLY have always been qualities about you that I have both envied and admired. If there is such a thing as an afterlife or reincarnation, I’d still want you to be my very BEST friend, my sister, all over again.

I LOVE YOU, Misha.

Keshari handwrote the letter on her signature, pink parchment stationery, and then sealed it in its matching, parchment envelope. She cried like a baby as she composed what she wanted to say to Misha on the page.

Few women were fortunate enough over the course of their lifetimes to share laughs, tears, successes, and fears with a sisterfriend who was as SPECIAL as Misha Tierney was. Misha knew every dirty deed that Keshari had ever committed and loved her anyway, never judging her, always wanting the very best for her. Misha Tierney was the kind of friend who would go to hell and back for Keshari without ever questioning it and without ever expecting repayment for it.

Keshari poured herself a snifter of Courvoisier to steady her nerves, and then took out a few more blank pages of her stationery to write her next letter.

My Dearest Mars,

How and where do I begin?

If you had known everything that there was to know about me in the beginning, the two of us would never have gotten together…and, then, because so much of my life was such a mystery to you, it ended up tearing us apart. Life is a trip like that.

Who would ever have thought that God would be so kind to someone like me and send me someone like you? You’re like the finest, smoothest,
Belgian milk chocolate, the best champagne, the winning lottery numbers, and making love while it rains…the kind of man that EVERY woman dreams about. I feel like my adult life TRULY began on the night that I met you…and it ended on the night that I lost you. There has never been an ounce of doubt in my mind that YOU were “The One.”

Some people go their entire lives and never meet that one person who was made just for them. I feel honored to have stared into your beautiful, brown eyes, held your hand, heard the masculine resonance of your voice tell me your dreams, been your friend, and your lover.

I so wish that things could have been different. I wish that I had had the courage to tell you what you had to hear from someone else. I wish that there could have been more time for the two of us. But there never, ever seems to be enough time to truly
savor the extraordinarily SPECIAL things.

By the time you receive this letter and whatever happens has happened and so many questions and anger and, possibly, sadness hang in the air, please know without a doubt that I did not do this because of you nor because we broke up. My troubles were much greater than losing you and my troubles certainly existed long before you came. I’ve done too much to go back and correct things and I’m in too deep now to go on.