Croaker: Grave Sins (Fey Croaker Book 2)

by Paul Bishop

  The big problem was that he didn’t have time anymore for those types of feelings. The doctors told him that his body would betray him very soon now, and he’d made a pact with himself to not allow that to happen. It made him confused and angry. Two days ago he’d started out simply wanting enough time to take one more monster scalp. After that, he would have been happy to embrace his ending. Now, however, passions and emotional sensations he thought long repressed were wreaking havoc with the acceptance of his plight.

  He’d never set out to become a monster hunter. It was an avocation that had chosen him, not the other way around, but now it had become almost an obsession. If his life was to have meaning in the short time left, he needed to find personal closure by plying his skills in a final coup d’état. What energy he possessed needed to be channeled in that one direction, there wasn’t enough for anything else.

  The investigation that culminated in the arrest of JoJo Cullen was exactly the kind of case that he’d been waiting for. But he’d been cheated of the resolution, and had made no significant contribution. The case appeared to be a done deal, but somehow it didn’t sit right.

  Ash tried to examine his restlessness with the situation. Was he simply fooling himself? Was he so desperate for one last success that he was grasping at any straw? Or was there some substance behind the tenuous unease that was taunting him?

  It was clear the case and the suspect didn’t match with all of the behavioral science bells and whistles that set the standards in the investigation of serial killers. But who knew with killers?

  There were principles that could be applied in most cases. On the surface, however, they did not appear to fit in this one, and Ash didn’t have enough information to determine if further investigation would show the genesis of the violence to run true.

  Ash was bothered – bothered to the point of knowing he couldn’t leave the investigation alone. Somehow, he would have to find a way to take a closer look at everything that had occurred. He would also need to take a closer look at Cullen’s history. Only then would he be able to see if all the ducks lined up.

  His thoughts came back to Fey again, but the ringing of his phone cut his reverie short.

  “Ash,” he said into the receiver.

  “Hey, hey, Monster Man. How’s it hanging?”

  Ash knew the voice. “What do you want, Tucker?”

  Around the edges of his consciousness he could sense the hovering weight of blackness creeping in. Depression. Where Ash was concerned, Tucker could bring it on faster than a day without Prozac. It made no sense for Ash to ask how Tucker found out his unlisted home phone number. As the American Inquirer’s top reporter, Tucker had more sources than a priest had confessions.

  “Hey, come on, now. Don’t be that way.” Tucker’s voice was a nasally whine. “I’m the man who made you what you are today, superstar.” Tucker’s true crime books featuring Ash’s cases had both been on the best seller list for weeks.

  “Don’t do me any more favors, Tucker. I need you like a snake needs a skateboard.”

  “You need me more than that, my man.”

  “You think so?”

  “Absolutely. I know you. This JoJo Cullen thing must be eating you up.”

  “What makes you say that?” Ash tried to keep his voice steady.

  “It stinks. I’ve researched enough about what you do, and watched you in action enough times to know that this whole set-up is out in left field somewhere. It makes about as much sense as a bad Ed Wood film.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, right.” Tucker was sarcastic. “I’ve been watching you, man. I know every move you make. This thing has you wound tighter than a Catholic school girl virgin in heat. You’d sell your soul for another notch on your gunbelt before your Lou Gehrig impersonation gets out of control.”

  “What are you babbling about, Tucker?” Ash felt as if there was a rod of ice through his heart. Outside of his bosses at the Bureau and his doctors, nobody knew.

  “You can’t keep secrets from me, man. Don’t you know better by now? You may be the best monster hunter alive, but I’m the best muckraking hack journalist around.

  “Just like the Mounties, you always get your man, and I always get my story. Your life is an open book to me. I know more about you than even you do. I’ve seen your medical files, buddy. They don’t tell a pretty story. You’re gonna be whacking out big time real soon. You know it and I know it.

  What do you say? Let’s work together for once. People love this true crime stuff. They eat it up. You and your cases are enough of a cash cow to keep both of us in buffalo chips. Come on, say we’re a team. Accept it.”

  “Tucker you are the scum sucking bottom feeder to beat all scum sucking bottom feeders.”

  “How nice of you to say so. Thanks. I thought for a while there that you didn’t care.”

  “I’m not like you Tucker. I don’t make my living from other peoples’ misery.”

  Tucker laughed. “Of course you do. Without monsters in the world making people miserable, you’d have no reason for your existence. I admire you, man. You’re the best at what you do, but you live off bad news just like me.”

  Ash was silent. Thinking. He hated Tucker. He loathed the exposure that Tucker’s books had brought into his life. He despised the thought that Tucker might be right in his assessments.

  But most of all he hated the fact that there was so little time left for him that he might have to use Tucker to get what he wanted.

  Tucker’s voice crackled down the phone wires. “Talk to me, big guy. Give me an exclusive before you bite the big weenie. Make me rich and famous.”

  “I’ll make you a deal, Tucker.”

  “I knew it. I knew you’d come around. I knew you wouldn’t buy off on this JoJo thing.” Tucker sounded excited.

  Ash gritted his teeth. “Shut up, Tucker.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Ash took a deep breath. “I’ll grant you that you can find out more intel than a whole platoon of flatfeet. Get on this JoJo caper. Bring me something concrete, something I can use to break it open, and we’ll talk.”

  “You must be joking. What do I need you for if I find something to break the case open?”

  “Don’t push your luck, Tucker. If you can’t bring me something, then I sure don’t need you. And if you do bring me something, then you need me to catch the real bad guy.”

  Chapter 35

  The next six weeks flew by for Fey in a blur of activity. Keegan and Hale, the two heavyweights from Robbery-Homicide Division’s ‘Homicide Special’ unit, may have taken over the case of People vs. Cullen, but Fey and her people were still swept up in the middle of the hyperbole.

  The press were in a feeding frenzy of gargantuan proportion. Each aspect of the three murders that was unearthed, no matter how minor, was hashed over and dissected in the minutest detail. The brilliance of JoJo Cullen’s basketball career was replayed time and again on television screens across the nation. In the off-camera words of a well-known television news anchor, “If it bleeds, it leads,” and JoJo Cullen’s case was bleeding all over the landscape.

  JoJo’s private life, or more particularly the lack of it, was scrutinized under the harsh glare of John Q Public’s insatiable need to know. The fact that JoJo did not have a string of thousands of feminine conquests came as a letdown.

  Where was the spice in a flashy sports figure who didn’t screw everything that moved? It made him look guilty – as if by lack of obvious sexual excess, he was capable of anything. An All-American boy screwed women by the dozens, didn’t he? It was what made a man a man, wasn’t it? It was what made America great, by gum. What was the matter with this JoJo guy? He certainly didn’t seem to fit the white man’s fear of a black man’s sexuality, so he must be a pervert and a sex killer. He must be guilty.

  Even Fey had to admit that JoJo’s apparent total lack of feminine company, coupled with his lack of off-court a
ntics, made him an oddity. Here was a man who was rapidly becoming one of the leading pro basketball players of his generation, but he seemed to have no life outside of the game.

  A per game average of thirty-two points, twelve rebounds, and twelve assists were killer on-court numbers that could slaughter the opposition, but did they translate into off-court murder? JoJo appeared to live for only one thing – the game. His every breathing moment since he’d first picked up a roundball seemed to have been aimed at becoming the perfect basketball machine.

  JoJo had cruised through school on his athletic talent alone. His grades were passing, but in reality he was little more than a functioning illiterate. The tongue-in-cheek coalition of the legal system’s rumor control declared that in looking for twelve jurors who had never been exposed to JoJo, the best source would be his university professors.

  In a game that demanded aggressive, outrageous, on-court conduct, coupled with fluid skill and panther-like quickness, JoJo ‘Jammer’ Cullen was the heir apparent to the vacated throne of Magic Johnson.

  Every prep basketball player over six feet six inches who could dribble a basketball between his legs has been touted as the ‘next Magic,’ but none came close until JoJo. The comparison, however, only applied to JoJo’s on-court skills. Away from the hoops, he didn’t hold a candle to Magic’s personality and outrageous lifestyle.

  He was a robot that turned up for tip-off, played like a man possessed for four quarters, and then put himself away in a closet until it was time for the next game.

  Turn on. Turn off.

  JoJo’s on court demeanor – the in-your-face, smash-mouth, slick-as-whale-snot, slam-dunking, backboard-shattering maniac – was Mr. Hyde compared to the almost childlike Dr. Jekyll he became when the final buzzer sounded. Michael Jordan one moment, Michael Jackson the next.

  He was an enigma that was now being torn apart by public opinion and condemnation.

  But while the public reveled in vicarious blood lust, San Diego Sails players all made personal statements of support for JoJo. Other players from around the NBA rallied to his defense. JoJo’s UCLA coach and university teammates all took a stance that JoJo was a man who, despite his game demeanor, would never consider the violence of which he was accused.

  Leaders of the black community and clergy backlashed against redneck I-told-you-sos. A rumble of racial hatred that had been quiet since the summer of ‘92 in LA, began to echo. Battle lines were being drawn.

  Moderates of all ethnic backgrounds within the city stepped forward and spoke of tolerance, of allowing the courts to do their duty, of letting justice run its course. But the world still waited with jaded breath to see what the spark would ignite.

  Dead kids, fallen superstar athletes, and the taint of kinky sex weren’t enough. The world wanted more. The world wanted to watch Armageddon while they sipped their morning java, or watched the late evening news – that is as long as it didn’t involve them in any way.

  At the center of the controversy, Devon Wyatt stood like a sentinel in the raging storm. A mad Machiavelli determined to leave no pot unstirred.

  From his early days as a district attorney, through his transition to private practice and the early defense cases that had brought his name to prominence, Wyatt had always gone in for the drama of the moment. He gave juries what they wanted – entertainment.

  The Wyatt approach to juries was that they consisted of twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty. “I’m a salesman,” Wyatt was apt to say after a bottle or two of Dom Perignon, “I sell to juries!” And he sold it by the ton.

  In one of his greatest triumphs, his researchers uncovered a minor fact about a detective who had obtained a taped confession from Wyatt’s client. The detective, Dan Rivers, was well known in the squad room for his dead-ringer impersonations of various captain’s and deputy chiefs. No promotion party was complete without Rivers doing his Rich Little routine for the never ending amusement of his drunken colleagues.

  In court, Wyatt put Rivers on the stand, disarmed him with the professional charm of a snake oil salesman, and drew him into doing an impersonation of Wyatt himself. The DA objected to the irrelevance of the action, but Wyatt successfully argued that he would shortly show the court how amazingly relevant his actions were. The judge overruled the objection and Wyatt continued.

  Rivers was reluctant to comply at first, but gradually gaining confidence, he displayed his mimicking talents and had the jury in stitches. This was entertainment.

  With consummate skill, Wyatt gave Rivers – a frustrated performer at heart – a stage on which to play to the audience in the jury box. Rivers became sucked in by Wyatt’s tactics and, despite the DA’s frantic pleading, worked himself through impersonations of Bill Clinton, John Wayne, Marlon Brando, and a classic Richard Nixon. The jury loved it.

  But Wyatt, who’d been doing his own impersonation of Ed Sullivan up to this point, suddenly became serious. Like a Doberman going for the throat of an intruder, Wyatt pinned Rivers with an icy stare. “Now, Detective Rivers,” he started, using his voice as a tool, “would you please impersonate my client for the jury the same way you did on this taped confession?”

  Rivers looked shocked and confused. “But, I didn’t impersonate – ”

  Wyatt jumped in before Rivers could finish. “Isn’t it true my client never made any statements to you during the interrogation?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t it true you impersonated my client while making this tape of a false confession?”

  “No.”

  Wyatt kept his hammering style going, never giving Rivers a second to breathe or finish a statement. “Isn’t it true you desperately needed a good arrest to put yourself in line for your recent promotion, and framing my client was the best way you could think of to do that?”

  Rivers knew he hadn’t impersonate Wyatt’s client. Wyatt knew he hadn’t. The DA and the judge knew he hadn’t. But the jury were another story.

  Reasonable doubt reared its ugly head. The client walked and Wyatt pocketed a huge fee and added another notch to his proverbial gun butt.

  In Wyatt’s assessment, juries weren’t interested in guilt or innocence. Instead they were concerned only with their own prurient interests and creature comforts. If your dog and pony show held more smoke and mirrors than the prosecution, then nine times out of ten the jury was going to come back in your favor. A little sleight of hand, bring something unexpected in from left field, make up for the jurors missing their daily soap operas, and bingo, you had yourself an acquittal.

  The big splashy defenses that had established Wyatt as an icon in the legal world, began far before the case saw the inside of a courtroom. His maneuvering began with the press and with the tangled web of political strings that he was a maestro at conducting.

  It was Wyatt who tapped into Reverend Aloysius Brown’s sphere of influence. Nobody could say exactly what the reverend did for a living. Over the years, however, Aloysius Brown had become first a local and then a national spokesman for the black cause – whatever that cause might be. Brown was always first off the mark whenever the tentacles of racism lashed out. And if the tentacles of racism were quiet, then the right Reverend Aloysius Brown would whip some up just for the hell of it. Brown needed racism the way cops needed crime – job security.

  Brown owed Wyatt for getting him off on an embezzling charge when he’d been rising through the ranks of the L.A. power scene. Brown had seen himself as mayor of L.A. until the question of his honesty came into play. Now that everyone knew he was dirty, even if not convicted, mayor wasn’t good enough. Now, the reverend’s ambition was heading him toward governor, or maybe even a democratic vice-presidential tag.

  Brown’s L.A. power base was the congregation of the First Black American Evangelical Church. An organization of good minded folks being led to glory by hucksters, con-men, and the gleaming, angelical countenance of Aloysius Brown himself.

  The church was a powerful political entity that coul
d stir up a demonstration at the drop of a politically incorrect statement – or the jailing of a black role model. The press loved the church and Reverend Brown. Either one was good for any number of inflammatory quotes and inches of column copy.

  At Wyatt’s request, the church and Reverend Brown mounted their high horses and rode to JoJo’s defense. What had been a ‘simple’ case of serial murder with a high profile suspect, was suddenly turned into a racially charged issue that was on the verge of forcing sides to be chosen.

  Every action the police had taken in the case was suddenly suspect, and the most outrageous statements of non-fact were given feasibility strictly by being said, repeated, and published by the media in its never ending quest for the public’s right to know.

  Wyatt outdid even himself when the DA’s office leaked news about the DNA evidence that tied JoJo directly to all three of the murdered boys.

  Wyatt called a press conference immediately. He had a trump card to play and he wasn’t going to play it quietly.

  Chapter 36

  “Can you believe this crap?” Fey asked in exasperation. She spread the front page of the newspaper on her desk and turned to an inside page to continue the story she was reading.

  “What particular crap is that?” Monk asked. “That’s the Los Angeles Times you’re reading, which means there’s an awful lot of crap to pick from.”

  “Yeah,” chipped in Alphabet. “I can’t even use the Times to line my parakeet’s cage because there’s already crap on most of the pages.”

  “Ha, ha,” said Fey, not laughing. “I’m serious. This crap that Devon Wyatt is putting out about the DNA evidence results – it has got to be total lies.”