Crescent City Detective

by Vito Zuppardo

  “Initiation to show your loyalty,” Mario said.

  “Correct, all I had to do was hand Kate the newspaper to detain her. The guy in the van was going to jump out and grab her. But at the last minute that got changed and they forced me to put her in the van.”

  Mario turned away and stood up straight. He wanted to punch this punk’s lights out. Truman knew that look and what Mario was capable of doing to Rodney with one punch. The expression on Truman's face calmed Mario, and he took a seat.

  “Charlie forced me to take Kate—said he would kill me if I backed out.”

  Mario trying to stay calm, pushed for where they were taking Kate before the botched kidnapping.

  “They weren’t interested in the woman.”

  “Her name is Kate, and you’ll respect her or I’ll break every bone in your body,” Mario shouted, loud enough for the two officers to rush in.

  Truman jumped up. “We’re okay,” he said, putting his arms out to stop the officers.

  “You sure you don’t need a little help? I’m looking for a reason to rip into his ass,” one of the officers said.

  Mario stood and paced, mostly to calm down. Truman pulled him to the corner, now concerned that Mario was too close to the case to even question a suspect. Mario took a deep breath and assured Truman he was okay.

  “What else do you have, Rodney?” Mario asked in a more civilized tone. “If you kidnapped Kate and everything went off without a hitch, what’s in it for you?”

  “Two thousand in cash and I’m in the club,” Rodney said cautiously.

  “Son, do you hear yourself? You’re talking like it’s a privilege to be a member of the Cornerview Gang. Like you just got accepted to some rich man’s country club,” Mario said, rubbing his face out of frustration.

  Truman leaned into him. “So if Kate wasn’t the target, what was the plan?”

  Rodney put his head down. You could tell he was afraid to say anything more. “I think I might need an attorney.”

  Mario quickly replied. “You think? Now be careful. Thinking you need one and asking for a lawyer is two different things. We all know you will need one, but are you asking for one now? If so, we’re done here, and you can fend for yourself in jail. Work with me, and I will do all I can to help you.”

  “Are you asking for a lawyer?” Truman said.

  Rodney looked at both of them. He was scared but had to put trust in someone. He never knew a cop to help him or anyone in his neighborhood. The closest thing he had to a family was when Mrs. Jefferson took him in, and that was just six months ago. His father was long gone from his life, and his mother, a drug user, lived from man to man. He’d lived much of his life on the street.

  “Rodney, I need an answer,” Truman said.

  Mario sat silently, waiting for an answer—hopefully the right one. Rodney was so much like guys in the program Mario had founded—New Connection, a prisoner-release program. In and out of jail and no one tried to help them, and their pattern continued until they committed a crime that put them away for a long time—sometimes for life.

  “I don’t want an attorney,” Rodney said.

  “Best choice you’ve made in a long time,” Mario said. “Just one more question. If Kate wasn’t the target, why kidnap her?”

  “Please don’t make me say it. Felipe will know I talked and order me dead.”

  “Rodney, I promise I will do everything in my power to help you. They are going to let you take the rap. Felipe already bailed Charlie and Sammy out of jail. The judge took care of Darell. The gang is going to use their high-power attorneys to get them off. You were the one that snatched Kate. They will sacrifice you up to the DA and get the rest off,” Mario said, trying to give him the real picture.

  Rodney gulped water from the bottle. “Okay—all I know. They were going to take—” Rodney stopped to carefully choose his words. “Take Ms. Kate to a warehouse on the Industrial Canal.” He paused again.

  “You’re almost done,” Mario said.

  “Eather way, I’m fucked!” Rodney said, shaking his head almost in a circle. “I overheard Charlie and Sammy arguing. They don’t have a clue I know, and Darrell didn’t know either. They were taking Kate to a warehouse and using her as a drawing card to get to her boyfriend—a cop. That’s why they conflicted. Sammy didn’t know he was a cop—said killing a cop was a problem. Every law enforcement agency would come after them, and if you were lucky to make it to jail, you'd wish you were dead.”

  Mario's face was beet red. He turned to Truman. “Do you know the cop’s name?”

  “No. I just heard Charlie say they could draw the boyfriend out to the warehouse. There is a gang member that knew the cop and felt he could lure him to the location—they knew he would come alone. There were precautions set up in case he didn’t.”

  Truman could see Rodney was struggling and gave him a break. “They never mentioned the cop’s name?”

  “If they did, I don’t remember. What difference does it make? You can find out his name from Kate,” Rodney snapped, then regrouped himself. “I mean Ms. Kate.”

  Truman looked at Mario.

  Rodney took another sip of water and composed himself. He explained Charlie didn’t sign up for the way the gang wanted the hit to go down and wanted out. The plan was to kill Kate in front of the cop and kill the cop the next day at another location. That was why Charlie was pissed—he wanted to kill them both at the same time and finish with the hit. Sammy had a bonus coming if they killed the cop one day apart. The bonus was to have the cop dwell on Kate’s death before killing him.

  Tears ran down Rodney’s face. Truman threw a box of tissue on the table.

  “I didn’t know they were going to kill the lady and a cop. I was paid to watch that no one interfered and then got threatened into snatching her and putting Kate in the truck. Man, that is messed up, killing the woman in front of her boyfriend and leaving him to linger over it for a day.”

  Mario tried to recover from the details of how the kidnapping could have played out. There was no doubt in Mario’s mind that Felipe Cruz had reached out from prison, making good on his promise. It was hard to believe he still had that much power on the streets. He thought Felipe’s hatred would diminish in prison over time, but it had only escalated.

  Mario stood in a daze. Part of him wanted to take his gun and stick it in Rodney’s mouth and blow his head off. Another part of him had compassion for a guy growing up with the only parent he knew—a drug-addict mother in the housing projects. It was a repeating cycle of life cops saw every day in the slum area of New Orleans.

  Mario sat with his arms folded and resting on the table. “Have you seen me before this morning’s botched kidnapping?”

  Rodney was afraid to answer. He just wasn’t sure of the reasoning behind the question.

  “In front of Judge Bernard’s house. You and Darrell were sitting in the blue Crown Vic and I pulled the two of you out of the car.”

  It took a while, but Rodney finally told Mario he was taken by surprise. After all, a cop with his fingers draped around a gun, asking a lot of questions—you don’t focus on his face.

  “That was me. I’m Detective Mario.You weren’t checking out Kate’s parents’ house?”

  “No! We didn’t know the house until the morning before, when we did a dry run handing Kate the newspaper,” Rodney said. “What’s the point?”

  “The point is I’m Mario DeLuca, the cop you set up to kill. I’m the boyfriend.”

  Rodney’s face drained. He didn’t think his day could get any worse, but it just did.

  CHAPTER 32

  It was early morning, and Mario read through his notes of the failed kidnapping. He had not seen Truman since late yesterday evening after they booked Rodney into Central Lockup. The surveillance team was put back at Kate’s parents’ house until the police could sort things out on the attempted kidnapping. Rodney’s statement was believable and hopefully would be taken seriously by the chief and get her to go aft
er the Cornerview thugs. First, they needed additional proof or another source to compare with a street criminal’s version.

  Truman had the same idea and arrived about seven a.m., knowing this was a priority case and he was the lead detective, at least on paper, and that came with responsibilities.

  “Wow, you look like crap,” Truman said, looking at Mario, who was in the same clothes he’d left him in the day before.

  “I’m heading home for a shower.”

  “Did you sleep?”

  “I got a few winks on the cot in the back room—not very comfortable.”

  “How is Kate?” Truman asked, dropping some sugar in his convenience-store coffee he picked up on the drive to the police station.

  “Not good,” he said, fiddling with his pencil across the desk from Truman.

  Seeing Mario was not handling the kidnapping too well, and rightfully so, Truman told him the same words they said to victims and their families. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this and someone will pay.” Looking up at Mario, he said, “You’re okay?”

  “Kate thinks we need to hold off on the wedding and part ways for a while. I can’t much blame her.”

  “You think her parents are pushing her to that decision?”

  “They're not helping. Kate always worried about me working cases on the street, dealing with drug gangs, thugs, and outright killers, but we never thought she would be a target,” Mario said, standing. “I’m going to freshen up. I’ll check with you later.”

  Truman reminded Mario of a meeting at eleven with Chief Parks as he walked through the squad room and without looking back waved his hand—an indication he was going to be there, Truman hoped.

  Taking some side streets, Mario made it to his condo relatively quickly, considering it was a work day and the traffic was all heading the same way—towards downtown. He made it into the lobby and was thankful the morning doorman was busy talking to a resident and had his back to Mario. The elevator door opened with one push of the button, allowing Mario to dodge the talkative attendant.

  He made it to his apartment without encountering any tenants in the hallway. The room had a stale smell from being locked up for so long. He looked at the bed, and it seemed very inviting, but he knew if he put his head on the pillow he wouldn’t wake up for hours. It had been an exhausting twenty-four hours, and his body, mentally drained, couldn’t take much more. A long, hot shower helped, then he got dressed. Having a few hours before meeting with the chief, he went to breakfast and to thank his friends for their involvement in stopping the kidnapping.

  If it weren’t for Zack, Dave, and Howard, there was no telling what would have happened to Kate. And Rodney was right: the gang would have persuaded him to go alone and meet with Kate’s attackers. They knew too much about him—most of them grew up with police records, and Mario helped incarcerate them at some point in their life.

  Mario walked into Riverside Inn and went directly to the dining room. Zack, Emma Lou, Dave, and Pearl Ann were becoming inseparable and were having breakfast.

  “Do you people sleep?” Mario said, walking around the table and giving the ladies a kiss.

  “Do you? It’s a little early for you to be on the job,” Zack said. “You look like you pulled an all-nighter.”

  “I sure did.”

  “Well, the gang is all here,” Mario said as Howard walked up and took a seat.

  “I couldn't sleep, and where else can I get a good breakfast?” Howard said, shaking Mario’s hand as he sat down. “You’re okay?”

  “I'm all right.”

  “Poor baby. How’s Kate doing?” Emma Lou asked.

  Mario thought for a second, and he wasn’t ready to go into details of his personal life. So he gave the usual answer. “Shook up, but she’s coming along.”

  “I would guess so,” Pearl Ann said. “Our heroes told us how they handled those attackers and saved Kate’s life all by themselves. My little warrior stood in front of that truck. They could have run him over.”

  “And Zack? What can you say? He is the best negotiator ever. Talking those thugs out of the truck and forcing them to get on the ground,” Emma Lou said. “He’s a hero.”

  Howard looked at Mario and gave a slight nod of his head. Zack and Dave’s eyes said it all. They left out the part about Howard standing with an AK-40 pointed at the kidnappers.

  Mario smiled. “They are heroes, and I’m here to thank them for saving Kate’s life.” These were words people had told Mario after he solved a case, and he never thought he would be on the other end of the conversation. “The truth is if you guys hadn’t stepped up and watched the house that day and reacted so quickly, Kate would be in serious trouble. I thank you all,” Mario said as his voice cracked. The tragedy was settling in on him, and he tried his best to contain himself.

  They made small talk and had coffee and Danish pastries. It relaxed Mario for a few minutes, but it was time for him to go. He stood up and gave the ladies a kiss and shook the guys’ hands and thanked them once again.

  “Where do you go from here?” Howard asked.

  Mario’s concerned expression on his face showed he wasn’t sure. For now, he was heading for a meeting with the chief, but had to make a stop at Judge Bernard’s chambers first.

  It didn’t make sense for a judge to go on the limb and reduce the bond to fifty thousand dollars for Darrell.

  “If we can help, just give us a call,” Zack said.

  Mario smiled. “Hopefully the police can handle the case from this point.”

  Morning traffic had calmed down, and it was about an hour before Mario’s meeting with the chief. The courthouse was near police headquarters, so Mario made a stop at Judge Bernard’s office.

  Mario got as far as the outer office of the judge’s chamber when he was stopped by Beverly Borns, the court's clerk, and asked if he had an appointment. The word was Beverly was a distant cousin of the judge’s wife’s side of the family and disliked everyone. Beverly Borns’s nickname by most was BB for brutal bitch. And she lived up to it every day. No matter what you asked her, the answer was “no” or “the judge doesn’t allow that.”

  A police officer standing at the judge's office door stepped forward, indicating Mario wasn’t going any further. He didn’t know the officer. Not all police officers started out as a street cop. Some fell into cushy jobs right out of the Police Academy. Standing around all day protecting and watching every move a judge made was the safest way of being a police officer. All the crooks you came in contact with were shackled and handcuffed already.

  Seeing a judge unannounced was not the easiest thing, especially in the morning. At this time of the morning, they were reading case files they would hear that day.

  Mario got lucky while asking to see the judge. He walked out of his office, handing the clerk some files.

  “Judge Bernard, can I see you for just a minute?

  Judge Bernard, a white man of average height hiding his overweight body behind his black robe, stared at Mario

  “Please, it’s about the attempted kidnapping near your house yesterday.”

  “Detective, I have cases I have to prepare for,” Judge Bernard said.

  “You heard the judge, Detective. Move on,” BB said, showing her authority.

  Mario gave it one more shot. “Judge?”

  “Okay, but very quick,” the judge said, going back into his office.

  The officer stepped aside, letting Mario pass, and BB shot him a look that pierced through him, living up to her nickname.

  The judge’s chamber was an outsized dark office with pendant lights hanging over the desk. Standing in front of his desk, he was now having second thoughts. It sounded like a good idea to approach the judge when Mario heard the comments during Rodney’s interview.

  “Detective, you have a question?” the judge said.

  “Your Honor. You lowered the bond on Darrell Jefferson, and he walked out of jail two hours after an attempted kidnapping.”

 
“You’re questioning the ruling of my court?” he said, not too pleased with the question.

  Mario was wondering why the bond for Darrell was lowered, but not for the rest of the men involved. They were all equally charged with attempted kidnapping. The judge showed frustration, and Mario knew he was too far into his verbal attack to stop now.

  The judge stood up in the back of his desk. “Get out of here. And don’t ever come into my chambers and question my decisions. Try this stunt again, and you’ll be on foot checking meters for the rest of your career.”

  Mario turned and started to walk out, but didn’t. He’d come for a reason and had to follow it through. Slamming his hands on the desk, he leaned into the judge’s face. “That woman is my fiancée—she could have died, and Ora Mae Jefferson’s son was involved. You lowered the bond on Darrell and interfered with my investigation. So I do question your thought process of those actions.” Mario paused. The judge, stunned, stood speechless.

  Mario made a career move and went for the knockout punch. He got closer to the judge and whispered, “I don’t care that you’re screwing your wife’s nurse and you want to take care of her son.” The judge’s face turned red and was about to burst. “You see, Your Honor, your wife has been in the hospital for the last three nights. But Ora Mae is still spending nights at your home. Now you have a chance to make this right. I need you to post bond for Rodney—I need Rodney on the street today.”

  The judge stood still with a stunned look and said nothing—that was the moment Mario knew he was in control.

  “You see, Your Honor, I don’t care if you like dark chocolate. I think all woman are beautiful. I’m not too sure your Saint Charles Avenue socialite friends are going to agree, though. And your wife—well, that is a whole other problem. Your secret is safe with me.” Mario walked to the door, and without turning back to the judge, said, “Have Rodney out of jail by this afternoon.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Mario met Truman in the lobby of Police Headquarters. They rode the elevator to Chief Gretchen Parks’s office. The fact that the briefing on Kate’s attempted kidnapping was being held in the chief’s office indicated there were going to be few people present.