Cold Medina

by Gary Hardwick

  The cop said they tried to rob him. A switchblade was found at the scene.

  At David's funeral, people cried, yelled, collapsed unconscious, and threw fits. Church nurses in fresh white uniforms tended to the fallen with smelling salts and cool towels. When they tried to shut the casket, his mother sprang up, fell on the floor, and had to be taken out on a stretcher. It was the most frightening thing Tony had ever seen.

  After David was buried, Tony's mother, Lucy, was never quite the same woman. She seemed always to be a little sad, off-center from normal human contentment. And on the anniversary of David's death, their house turned into a wake. She wore black and would play sad, depressing religious songs. And if the anniversary of either event fell on a Sunday, they spent the entire day at church and by the end of the day; his mother's eyes were raw from crying.

  There was an inquiry into David Hill's death, and the police determined that the officer was not at fault. The police committee said that the officer had been threatened with sufficient danger to warrant the use of deadly force.

  Tony's father, Taylor Hill, would have none of it. The cop was a white man named Miller, and his father had no love for white people. It was a deep, torrid hate that seemed to run through each moment of his dally life. He just knew that if his son were white, he would still be alive. He would have two children instead of one.

  Taylor Hill sued the city and got a generous settlement, but money did nothing to quell his rage. Taylor Hill blamed whites for everything. Layoffs at the plant, Kennedy's assassination and, of course, Dr. King's; inflation, recessions, unemployment, drugs, even bad television was all part of The Great White Man Conspiracy.

  Tony's father hounded the cop who killed his son, sending him hate letters with pictures of David and filing complaints. Taylor Hill stayed on Miller's case until the old cop died, five years after shooting David.

  When Tony became old enough, his father bombarded him daily with stories of the white man's atrocities. Slavery; rape, castration, lynchings, and beatings, formed Tony's first images of white people in their all-black neighborhood.

  Once, his father took him to Hudson's department store downtown to get lunch. A few minutes after they sat down, a white man sat near them. When the waitress came, she went over to the white man first.

  His father became enraged. He yelled, cursed, and made a scene, telling the little blond waitress he was there first. When she tried to apologize, he became even madder. “Don't try to patronize me!” he screamed. The waitress began to cry.

  Tony was too young to understand his father's rage. It was like a current flowing from him, touching and filling everything that he came into contact with.

  “Son, understand that black and white people can't get along with each other because white men refuse to play fair,” his father would say. “It's not enough that they've had three hundred years to kill everyone and steal all their money, they have to keep beating us down so that we won't rise up against them. But they can't keep us down. One day, we'll be the ones in the driver's seat and then we'll see how they like it.”

  Taylor Hill's tough-minded, no-nonsense approach to life and race relations provided Tony with the mettle to overcome the barriers of prejudice. But it also caused Tony to dislike whites. In his mind, it was an eternal battle with definite lines of allegiance. Whites were the enemy. He worked with them and even socialized with them on occasion, but it was never the real Tony Hill they saw. He felt as though they didn't deserve to know that special person. He kept them at a distance, and after a while, he saw them as almost inhuman. They were to be tolerated, but not dealt with as people.

  Years after his brother died, Tony joined the police force just as it was becoming more black. He believed that it was his destiny, one which injustice had lead him to.

  Tony and Jim reached the lobby of 1300.

  “Last chance, buddy,” said Jim. “I can hook you up with this fine sister I met last weekend. Legs up to her neck.”

  “Give it up, man.”

  Jim shrugged as Tony pushed open the big front doors and walked out into daylight.

  4

  The Crypt

  The morgue was a nondescript building which stood three blocks from 1300. It was an ominous structure made of gray stones. Its front side was windowless, with cracks and chips that made it look like an old tombstone.

  Tony and Jim entered. Several sad-looking types sat in the reception area, probably there to identify bodies, Tony thought. Tony saw Jim tense as they walked in. Jim had an unnatural, almost childlike fear of the place. Tony never understood how a guy who had seen so much death could be afraid of the morgue. Perhaps it was because the death Jim had seen was violent and he was a part of it as an officer. In the morgue, however, you were reduced to spectator status. There was no action, no chance, no roll of the dice. It was death in a vacuum-your death.

  They asked the receptionist for the coroner and sat down on the puke brown sofa in the lobby. The young girl fumbled with the phone and its many buttons. She was obviously new on the job. Tony saw Jim smile. The receptionist was a young, pretty girl. Whenever there was a beautiful woman around, Jim seemed to become a totally different person. His eyes and smile brightened. His hair seemed curlier than normal and his already great body became even greater. The young girl returned Jim's smile and nervously twisted her long, dark hair.

  “Nice looking, huh?” Tony asked.

  “Real fine,” said Jim not taking his eyes from the girl. “You seen her before?”

  “No, but I think that's one of the mayor's nieces.”

  “You shittin' me?”

  “Don't think so. There's one way to find out.” Tony smiled at the receptionist. “Aren't you Harris Yancy's niece?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am,” she said brightly.

  “Are you working here as a college intern?” Tony asked.

  “Yes,” she smiled and twisted her hair. ''I'll be a sophomore in pre-med at Wayne State in the fall. That's why I'm here. Where else can you watch autopsies at my age?” She let the hair go. “You guys are cops, right?”

  “Guilty,” Tony said.

  “Uncle Harris says you can always tell a cop by his shoes.”

  She smiled and peeked at their shoes. She was right, Tony thought. All cops wore big, ugly shoes. He laughed.

  Jim seemed disappointed. Tony knew that Jim thought of him as a married eunuch, so he loved it when Stroke couldn't get the girl.

  “He's ready to see you,” the receptionist called.

  “What's your name?” Tony asked.

  “Wanda,” she said.

  They got up and walked through a pair of double glass doors. They were going to the cellar of the place they called the Crypt. Jim tightened all over.

  “I just did you a favor back there,” Tony said.

  “Oh, how so?”

  “If I hadn't told you that Wanda was Mayor Yancy's niece, you would have had her dress hiked up right now in some storage closet.”

  “To tell you the truth,” Jim said. “I don't think I could get it up in this crypt. “

  They took the elevator down to the basement. Belly of the beast. How many times had he taken this trip? Tony thought. Too many times these days. He should have an office in the morgue. In the last six years, the murder rate had climbed steadily.

  The emergence of crack cocaine had turned the streets into a fast money shooting gallery in which most of the dead were young black men under twenty-five.

  In Detroit, the population was about ninety percent black and many of those lived below the poverty level. To these hopeless underclass, using drugs or selling them was a way to end the days of suffering.

  Tony and Jim got out of the elevator and entered the morgue's autopsy room where they found the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Vincent Roberts talking with a young Asian assistant over a naked female body on a gurney.

  “Your work on this case was substandard, Mr. Kim,” Roberts said. Roberts was a plump, bespectacled man of forty-
eight with very narrow shoulders. His head seemed too big for his body and looked as if it would fall off at any moment.

  “With all due respect, sir, I was very thorough,” said the Asian man. “This case was very complicated. Anyone of a thousand people could have missed that second wound. It was less than a centimeter wide and-”

  “But you did miss it.” Roberts lifted the corpse's arm. “And I don't care what other people would have done.” Roberts dropped the arm and it made a smacking sound. “You're on late nights under Dr. Neward from now on.”

  “But when I came here, I requested days so I can finish school,” said Kim. “You promised me that-”

  “That was before I knew your work was so shoddy,” said Roberts. “Take it or leave it, Mr. Kim. Either way, I'm done with you on my watch.”

  Kim walked out cursing. Tony saw Roberts smile a little.

  Tony gave Jim the usual cautionary look as they approached. Roberts was a mayoral flunky and ass-kisser who took himself far too seriously, just like most of the city and county officials. Tony tolerated him, but Jim disliked Roberts almost as much as he did the morgue itself.

  “Mornin', Doc,” Tony said. Jim mumbled something like a salutation.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Roberts said. He turned, and it seemed that his head was going to detach. “I suppose you have come about our friend Mr. Turner.”

  “I suppose we have,” said Jim too quickly.

  “Yes,” said Tony, cutting the tension a little. “We need the report and any thoughts that you might have on the death.” Roberts rolled his head to the side. “Well, there's not much to tell. He was beaten, and knifed. He died from loss of blood. The weapon was big, probably eight inches or so. I'm told you know that the deceased's hands were removed just above the wrist. We're holding that from the papers. You know how the mayor hates bad press.”

  Tony knew all too well. It was an election year.

  Roberts continued. “The killer used a second instrument to remove the hands, possibly a surgical device. Considering the situation and the lack of light, it was a pretty good job, too.”

  “And we never found the hands,” Tony said absently:

  “No,” Roberts said. “The wound on the deceased's throat would have killed him eventually, but apparently that wasn't good enough.”

  “Eventually?” asked Jim.

  “Yes. He was alive when the hands were taken, Roberts said. “The throat wound was across the front. The major artery wasn't severed. Painful, but he was definitely still alive. The right hand was taken first. The cut is ragged. There was hanging tissue and jagged bone fragments. The deceased was still struggling, albeit not much. The cut on the left wrist is much cleaner. The subject was probably dead by then. I estimate the time of death to be about eleven-thirty or so.”

  Tony started to speak but Roberts cut him off.

  “And several other things you will be interested in.” He paused again, taking his moment. ''As I said, the knife was used to inflict the basic wounds, but not to sever the hands. Also, the deceased's left eye was punctured and partially dislodged from the socket with the tip of the knife. There is a cut on the outside of the socket. The eyeball itself was severed. We think the killer pushed the knife into the eye socket.”

  Roberts smiled a little, taking another moment. Jim shifted on his feet. Tony looked at Jim, making sure he was not about to say something foolish.

  ''And last but not least,” Roberts said. “The killer wounded the deceased in the rectum.”

  “What?” Tony said.

  ''Are you sure?” Jim asked.

  Roberts seemed irritated at Jim's remark. “Yes, I am sure. Checked twice. The wound matches the others. The killer jammed the knife into the rectum with great force.”

  “Was he raped?” asked Tony.

  “No. His clothes weren't even removed.”

  “Then why wound him there?” Tony asked.

  “That's one for you guys,” said Roberts.

  “Any other evidence of sexual violence?” asked Jim.

  “None,” said Roberts tilting his head again.

  “Was he wounded in the rectum before or after the hands were taken?” asked Tony.

  “Before, we think. There was lots of blood back there.”

  Roberts showed them the body. It was a mess-a cold, gray nightmare.

  Tony and Jim listened as Roberts went into the more technical aspects of the death. Roberts was an asshole, but he was good. He always gave the cops the story in plain English before he did his civic duty and began to talk like a scientist. Roberts promised a full, written report before he let the technical terms fly. Neither officer was really listening. They both were thinking the same thing.

  They had come to investigate a drug hit. Now it seemed they had a psychopath on their hands.

  5

  Rockin' Eight Mile

  Eight Mile separates Detroit from its northern suburbs. It is a huge, multi-lane street with a concrete island running down the middle. To the locals, however, it's more than a street. It's a wall, a barrier, which over the years has come to symbolize the separation of the races.

  In a burgundy Cadillac in a parking lot of the Village, a motel just north of Eight Mile, Theodore Bone pushed a shotgun into the rib cage of a blindfolded man. He jabbed the gun into the soft fold just above the hip. The blindfolded man sat on thick plastic that had been draped over the passenger seat of the Cadillac. In the backseat, a tall, handsome man with long dreadlocks held the blindfolded man from behind.

  “I don't have a lot of time to waste on your ass,” said the man they called T-Bone. He raised the shotgun and placed it under the man's jaw, careful not to raise the blindfold on his face. The man winced as the barrel touched one of several bruises.

  In one of the motel's suites, the thick bass of a rap song pumped through the walls. The windows were covered with the shadows of the dancing people inside. Outside the door, three young men stood guard, trying to hide their weapons.

  T-Bone had ordered the party because Grip had been killed. The death party was the dealer's equivalent of a wake. Over the years, T-Bone learned that mourning death was for those who were afraid of it. Rollers celebrated death because they cheated it every day.

  “I should kill you,” said T-Bone to the blindfolded man.

  “Just d-don't s-s-shoot me,” said the man in the backseat. He was Robert Campbell, Big Money Grip's immediate supervisor and one of T-Bone's lieutenants. Campbell stuttered slightly, a problem which contrasted with his handsome face.

  “What did it cost to bail his monkey ass out?” T-Bone said.

  “F-five thousand after they d-dropped the murder charge on him. The lawyer g-got him out before the c-c-cops knew what was happenin'.”

  T-Bone had an ordinary face, but it was etched with a hardness of years in the drug trade. When he dressed commonly, most people would think he was a mailman or perhaps a bus driver-a working man. T-Bone glared at the man at the end of the gun's barrel. T-Bone had been told that the blindfolded man was one of Grip's rollers who was there when Grip was killed.

  “Where is my money, Mr. Fields?” T-Bone asked the blindfolded man. Alonzo Fields was silent, still shaking and hurting from a beating Campbell had inflicted on him earlier.

  “Speak up, b-bitch!” Campbell slapped the man hard on the side of the head.

  “I don't have it,” said Alonzo Fields. “The police took everything I had as evidence.”

  “He t-tried to rob Grip,” said Campbell.

  “No, he didn't have no money. I was trying to get his rock,” Alonzo said. “To sell it and bring the money back to you, but the Hook got me first.”

  “Who killed Grip?” asked T-Bone.

  “I don't know!” Alonzo said.

  “Bullshitl” Campbell slapped Alonzo again.

  T-Bone moved closer to Alonzo. “Do you know who I am, Mr. Fields?” T-Bone asked.

  “Yeah,” Alonzo said, his voice falling. “Nobody.”

  �
�Correct. I don't exist, just like the Union doesn't exist. So, if you lie to me, I can do whatever I want to you and nobody will care.”

  T-Bone pulled the gun away, tucking it between his seat and the door. He then reached into the glove box and pulled out a small, cordless drill. T-Bone turned it on. The tiny engine sprang to life with a high-pitched hum. The sharp drill bit spun in a blur.

  Alonzo tensed in the passenger seat.

  T-Bone looked at the thin drill bit. He stopped the machine, took out the drill bit and put in a larger one.

  “Please, I didn't do nothing!” Alonzo said. “OK, OK man, I was gonna take the money, but I didn't kill him.”

  “Who did?” T-Bone asked.

  “I don't know. I swear!” Alonzo cried.

  T-Bone shoved the drill into Alonzo's shoulder. Alonzo yelled and kicked and slammed his body against the locked door. Campbell held him from behind. T-Bone kept up the pressure and blood flowed from the wound onto Alonzo's shirt and the plastic.

  “Hold his ass!” T-Bone said to Campbell. He kept the drill in Alonzo's arm.

  Campbell slipped his arm around Alonzo's neck, holding him in place. “T-tell the man what he w-wants to know,” Campbell said.

  Alonzo said nothing. He just whimpered like a child. T-Bone gunned the drill's small engine, the bit still embedded in Alonzo's shoulder and Alonzo screamed again as Campbell struggled to hold him.

  “All right,” said T-Bone. “Now that we understand each other, I'm gonna ask you again. And this time, if I don't like your answer, I'm taking an eye.”

  T-Bone pulled the drill out of his arm, and poked around Alonzo's eye socket with his finger. Alonzo sobbed, trying to jerk away.

  “Who killed my man?” asked T-Bone.

  “I swear, I swear on my mama, I don't know!” Alonzo yelled.

  “Sorry.”

  T-Bone turned the drill around and pushed the blunt end into Alonzo's eye. Alonzo screamed. The drill left an imprint on the blindfold, but Alonzo was not hurt. Campbell laughed quietly in the backseat.