Chasing the Golden Butterfly

By Phyllis Jean Robinson

Chasing The Golden Butterfly takes place in Chicago where Tangi Singletary witnesses a crime on the worse day of her life. She has just been downsized from her job and is sitting in the park nursing her wounded spirit. She inadvertently becomes involved with the crime when she photographs a suspicious man in the park and takes a picture of a fancy foreign car that is waiting for him. Then she bumps into Blake Tyler, the handsome investigator who has been assigned the case. Tangi becomes Blake's sidekick in an investigation that takes them from the 'hood' to the trendy highrise apartments in the South Loop and the homes of the African-American elite. The case becomes personal to Blake and life and death circumstances make Chasing the Golden Butterfly , pursuing this shadowy,diabolical figure and shining a light on his criminal activities, the most important thing that he has ever done.
Chasing the Golden Butterfly chronicles the intersection and the clash of class and culture. It has twists and turns that include danger, intrigue,tragedy, excitement, and romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468584790

Phyllis Jean Robinson

Phyllis Jean Robinson is a retired teacher with a Master of Science in Education from Chicago State University. She has previously written four other books: Never Give Up On Love, Royalty In A Cedar Box, Love's Comfort and Joy, and Grace and Mercy Brought Us Through. She resides in Chicago with her family which includes her mother, two grown daughters, a son-in-law and a beautiful granddaughter.

Book preview

Chapter One

How do you expect people to make it and what in the hell am I going to do now, asked Tangi Singletary, as Hazel, the Human Resources manager handed her a pink slip? Hazel instructed security to escort Tangi to her work cubicle so that she could collect her belongings and leave the building.

Tangi had taken more time than usual to get ready for work this morning. She made sure that her navy blue pantsuit jacket was free from lint and she took extra time steam pressing sharp creases into her slacks. She did this because she was pairing her suit with an expensive designer blouse that she was finally able to purchase from a boutique on the Magnificent Mile. She had been saving for months and the blouse was finally on sale at a price that she could afford.

It was a perfect storm and everything was in alignment. She had been careful to keep her mascara and powder on her face, instead of on her clothes. She learned a trick from a fashion magazine that told her what to do. By covering her face with a silk scarf before pulling the blouse over her head, she was able to keep dirty smudges off of her beautiful blouse. She ate her breakfast in her bathrobe so that no accidental spills would get near it either. When she looked at herself in the full length mirror in the hall and saw herself fully dressed in her power outfit; she was pleased with her appearance. She looked fabulous!

It was especially important to Tangi that she looked nice today. When she looked nice she felt good about herself and she needed that feeling today for several reasons. Tangi’s heart was heavy and her spirits needed a lift because of a very nasty fight that she had experienced the night before with Nia Michelle and Sam, her roommate and her boyfriend. She decided, as she drove to work, that she wasn’t going to let that domestic squabble spoil her day. She finally arrived at her destination; parked her car in her parking space and made her way to her job. It was too early for her to expect to see any of the usual shop keepers who were neighbors to Apex Insurance. She pondered the fact that she should have brought an apron to cover the front of her clothes since she was probably going to have to make coffee for everyone again this morning. She was determined to be really careful about keeping her outfit looking as nice as it looked now no matter what chores she had to do.

She walked through the front door of the Apex Insurance Company building with confidence and she was especially elated when she saw a man that she had only dreamed of meeting, in person. He was tall, dark, handsome and rich, just as she had imagined him to be. There stood Mr. Apex, the big boss himself standing in the lobby. That in itself was unusual; everyone knew that he always came into the building through a private entrance rather than through the front door where the regular employees did. She felt proud and special when he spoke directly to her and said, You look mighty nice this morning, young lady; you be sure to have a wonderful, prosperous day for Apex Insurance.

Thank you, Mr. Apex, said Tangi, who was now feeling even better because of his acknowledgement. She made her grand entrance into the building and strutted a little stronger as she headed for the claims adjustment office where she worked. She couldn’t wait to tell everybody about seeing Mr. Apex and telling them about the compliment that he had given to her. She made her way to her cubicle and put her purse away. She stood and was preparing to sashay over to the machine to fill it with fresh coffee when she saw Ms. Baxter, her supervisor coming her way. She sat back down at her desk and waited for her to pass.

Tangi was shocked when Ms. Baxter stopped unexpectantly in front of her cubicle. She stood there silently for a few minutes as if she expected Tangi to make a comment and then with no provocation at all she started dressing her down in front of everybody. When Tangi looked up and met her eyes, Ms. Baxter said, Hello, Ms. Singletary, I was waiting for you to get here. I need that report which was due on my desk this past Friday. Where is it?

Report ma’am? I don’t know what report you are referring too.

Didn’t you read the bulletin? It was handed out at the meeting in my office on Wednesday.

I wasn’t aware of a meeting in your office Wednesday, ma’am.

Ignorance is no excuse, Ms. Singletary. Report to Human Resources.

Tangi had never heard about this meeting. She never received a memo that told her to attend a mandatory meeting in Ms. Baxter’s office on Wednesday and there was no way that she could have gone to her supervisor’s office uninvited. She was right there in her cubicle on Wednesday, as usual, doing work that Ms. Baxter had given her to do. Her supervisor could have summoned her to her office if she was supposed to be at a mandatory meeting there. That’s what she usually did when she wanted to see her. This was a trick. This was her way of getting Tangi fired for cause and she had finally been successful. Missing a mandatory meeting was grounds for termination.

Tangi grabbed the envelope from Hazel and walked briskly behind the guard with hot tears in her eyes. I can’t believe this! I’ve been a good employee. I came early almost every day and made coffee whenever anybody asked me to. I was just getting ready to make coffee for everyone when she fired me. I’ve even volunteered to stay for bullshit meetings that could have been held a week later in the middle of the day and what good did it do? Now that witch has fired me for not attending a mandatory meeting in her office; how crazy is that? I’m calling the union. I’m fighting this.

Jake, the security guard, walked along slowly enough for Tangi to keep up. He tried his best to be helpful and supportive as she filled a small plastic container with a Hawaiian tea plant, a pair of white summer sandals, a blue cable knit sweater, small incidentals from her desk drawers and her lunch box. Tangi checked her locker one last time and threw her keys on the desk. As she left the office, she refused to make eye contact with Tara, Tabitha, Mendez and the other girls that she worked with for fear she would start balling with an ugly cry that would have turned the whole place out. Instead, she picked up her things and put her head down as she followed Jake to the outside door with as much dignity as she could muster.

Bye Miss Singletary. I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m going to miss seeing you every day. You are one of the nice people around here. I hope things work out for you.

Thanks Jake, said Tangi as she jay walked across the busy street In front of the building; dodging horn-blowing cars and cussing drivers. She finally made her way to the other side of the street where she settled on her familiar bench under the big oak tree in the park. She placed the plastic box on the ground next to the bench and put her purse in her lap.

Going home to an empty apartment right now while everybody else was working was just too depressing for Tangi to bear. It caused her to be depressed first because she loved her apartment very much and now she was going to have to give it up. She and Nia Michelle had found it one afternoon while they were shopping in the trendy South Loop neighborhood where a lot of buildings were being renovated and being prepared for occupancy. They took a guided walking tour of the area and were interested in viewing all of the apartments. As soon as they walked through the very first building, they fell in love with the first apartment that they saw. It was perfect. First of all, this building was in a city neighborhood, but it had a friendly tree lined suburban feel to it. It was a trendy enough place to attract college students, young singles and middle aged business types too. It was within walking distance of nice restaurants, like the Blue Parrot Cafe and funky jazz and blues clubs in the downtown area as well.

Tangi’s parents insisted upon looking at the apartment to see if it was a safe place for their daughter to inhabit. They were impressed with the fact that the apartment building had wonderful amenities with great safety features. Even though it was located in the heart of a big city like Chicago, the neighborhood was lovely and from the people that they met, Tangi seemed to have nice neighbors too. Her parents liked what they saw and her Dad didn’t holler too loudly about his daughter’s decision to move into the Dearborn Arms when he became aware of the fact that the building had a strict security protocol in place. He liked Mr. Monroe, the doorman. He was a Black man, about his age, who was a retired postman like him; he said that he took this job to make a little extra money and to stay active. Mike Singletary’s father had been a doorman at one of the downtown hotels; so he felt comfortable when Mr. Monroe said that he would look out for Tangi and Nia Michelle, whom he called by name. He was also happy that the building had a concierge and a maintenance staff which took their jobs seriously and were available with services all hours of the day and night that would keep his daughter safe.

Tangi and Nia Michelle each had their own parking space in an indoor garage and one of the features that they liked best about the apartment itself was the fact that they each had a huge walk-in closet in their bedrooms which they both needed for their extensive wardrobes. The apartment had a beautiful kitchen that could be used when either she or Nia Michelle wanted to show off their culinary skills.

Each bedroom suite contained an extra-large bathroom with a Jacuzzi in an extra-large bathtub. Tangi loved to turn the jets in different directions when she bathed. Whenever she came home after a hard day at work, she would soak in a warm tub of water and aim the jets at each of her sore muscles that needed attention. She and Nia Michelle were exuberant about the added bonus that the Jacuzzi gave them when it came to entertaining; particularly when they felt frisky with their boyfriends. They both smiled.

This was the perfect place for two twenty-something single ladies to live and do their things. The thought of giving this life-style up and moving back home to live with her parents again because of Nia Michelle’s disgusting behavior was the real cause of Tangi’s depressed mood. She had no intention of giving up her dream-life without a fight. Dearborn Arms security was going to have to physically evict her and carry her out of her beautiful home kicking and screaming because she wasn’t ever going to leave willingly; and that was all there was to it.

Nia Michelle, why did you do this? We have the best living space in the world. Our neighbors are great. It’s like a freaking united nations at the Dearborn Arms; a rainbow of all races, colors, and creeds and it’s a nice place to live and learn how to respect other people. Most people mind their own business and leave us alone and I like that too. I love my apartment and I want to stay there until I decide to move. Right now, I don’t want to move.

As she sat on the bench in the park she looked down at the rumpled envelope that she was still holding in her hand. She pulled out the pink paper that Hazel, the Human Resource Manager, had given her and finally read the blasted thing. It stated very simply that today was her last day of service at the Apex Insurance Company. After wishing her luck in acquiring new employment, it offered references upon request. She put the pink slip back into the envelope and dropped it in the box with the other work related junk.

"That’s a joke. In an economy like this one, where in the hell can a Black woman or anybody else, for that matter, find another job? I had a hard enough time finding this one. That red headed bitch would write the reference letter from hell, if I asked her, and I never would get another job.

She has always resented me. I was the one who had to show her where everything was and I had to instruct her on how to do her job, when she first came to the Apex Insurance Company. Oh, I know she resented Tabitha and Mendez too when they tried to help her correct obvious mistakes that she made the first week she was there; but there was no way she was ever going to accept a Black woman telling her what to do. She felt very threatened by me. Well, she didn’t have to worry about me; I never wanted her job. I have always been happy with the job that I had. I have never been super ambitious; I was satisfied where I was. She didn’t have to fire me; her job was always safe from me. I don’t know where she got the idea that I was in competition with her.

In order to get rid of me, Ms. Baxter trumped up a load of bogus crap charges on me and got rid of me on a technicality. She said that I didn’t turn in a report. Well, she purposely neglected to tell me about that important meeting that we were all supposed to attend. I was right there in the office doing an assignment that she had given me to do that day and she refused to let anybody inform me that I was supposed to be in her office at that stupid meeting. Then when I didn’t follow one of her damn rules that she told everyone about during that meeting; I knew nothing about it and she got me. She has been trying to get something on me for a long time. Well, she won this time. I hope that horrible red dye that she puts in her hair each week fries her stupid brains."

Tangi took out her cell phone and dialed her mother‘s number. She really needed to hear a friendly voice. It seemed like whenever she was feeling really lousy; her mother knew what to say to make her feel better. She was disappointed when she heard the answering machine tell her that her mother wasn’t available to take her call. Maybelline Rose Singletary where are you? Where is my mama when I need to talk to her? I bet she’s at the gambling boat with her friends somewhere playing the slots.

Tangi closed her cell phone and sat back on the bench. She felt small, sad and all alone in the park. A light wind hit her face as the tears she had been holding back finally came down and she started crying that ugly cry that had been threatening to fall since she got the bad news earlier in the Apex Insurance Company building. After crying deep and hard for several minutes she finally accepted the futility of this act and she stopped crying. She wiped her face with a tissue and said, I think there is a song that has lyrics that say tears are wasted water; they don’t make flowers grow. There is a lot of truth to that. She blew her red nose on the same tissue that she had pulled out of her pocket and then calmed herself down. She sat up straight, squared her shoulders and started seriously contemplating her situation and considering her options. After thinking about things for a long time and coming up with nothing substantive, her shoulders fell again along with her spirit and she said, I still don’t know what in the hell I am going to do now that I no longer have a job.

She became aware of the fact that it was a beautiful autumn day when she felt a breeze that was sunny and warm for a change. The leaves on the trees were beginning to change from green to shades of red, yellow and orange. Tangi took off her pantsuit jacket and threw it into the box with the rest of her stuff. It was warm enough for her to sit and enjoy the warm autumn breeze on her arms and on her cleavage that was pushed up slightly above the ruffles on her sexy designer blouse. This was the one expensive purchase that she had been able to make since she had started working on her job at Apex. She planned to keep this designer blouse as long as she could as a souvenir of her work efforts. She seriously considered framing it now that this kind of purchase would probably never happen again. Now it was likely that she would end up selling the blouse at a pawn shop or putting it up for bid on that computer site where things are bought and sold to the highest bidder. But right now, everybody who passed her in the park was going to see that today she was prosperous enough to be able to afford an expensive designer blouse like this one; tomorrow it was going to be another story. Right now though, she still looked powerful and prosperous and she knew it. She wanted other women, who knew quality when they saw it, to look at her and feel jealous because she was wearing this beautiful, expensive blouse. They had a good idea of how expensive it was and they also knew that they couldn’t afford to buy one like it and obviously, she could. She knew it was crazy to feel this way, but she didn’t care. She needed something to make her feel good about herself and this beautiful designer blouse made her feel like a million bucks.

Tangi looked up at the wispy clouds in the clear blue sunny sky. She thought about the fact that it had been rainy and nasty most days this month and she was glad that inclement weather wasn’t one of her worries today. She wasn’t sure where she would have gone to lick her wounds if it had been raining, on top of everything else. This downsizing of her job sucked and it caused her to feel even worse about things because this was her second really big disappointment this week.

The first of the series of bad things that happened to her occurred just last night when she came home an hour earlier than usual and interrupted her no-count former boyfriend, Sam and her former roommate Nia Michelle getting real friendly on the living room couch.

She and Nia Michelle shared an apartment and the rent in a nice two bedroom at the Dearborn Arms. She had thought quickly about her circumstances at the time and had felt pretty confident that she would be able to handle rent by herself after she, rather forcefully, kicked both of their sorry behinds to the curb. Now this completely unexpected bombshell had thrown a monkey wrench into the works and the shit had definitely hit the fan.

Tangi earned enough money every two weeks as an insurance claims adjuster to cover the rent by herself. She was already in the process of figuring out the things that she could do without in order to handle her bills. After writing out her budget she had decided that with a few readjustments in her life style she would be able to pay all of her bills and have a little left over for incidentals. She hated the idea that her most serious major sacrifice was going to have to be selling her car, but if that was the choice that she was going to have to make; it was one that she was willing to make because it was more important in the end that she had enough money to pay the rent for this beautiful apartment where she felt fortunate enough to live.

The apartment was within walking distance of public transportation and most places where Tangi needed to travel. The Dearborn Arms Complex also had amenities inside the building itself like a mini-mart where she could pick up deli products, snacks, toiletries and other small items that she needed to buy on a regular basis. There was a dry cleaners and a