True Blue Detective

by Vito Zuppardo

  “You tried to kill Emma Lou. It was Mrs. Cabibi’s bad luck she was in her bed,” Zack said standing up to Jack.

  Jack grabbed Zack by the arm, twisted it behind his back, and slammed him against the wall. “You lash out at me again, and you will be next to roll out of here on a stretcher, understand?”

  Dave, half the size of Jack, couldn’t take any more. He shouted, “You bastard, you killed her.” He pulled the stun gun from his pocket and zapped Jack in the back of his neck. Jack fell to the floor, incapacitated. Zack got free and turned around to see Dave with the stun gun in his hand standing over Jack.

  “I didn’t give you that,” Zack said with a shocked look on his face.

  “I have my bag of tricks. Had this gun for years,” Dave said with a slight smile.

  Jack moved and was trying to get up from being hit with a hundred thousand volts.

  Emma Lou and Pearl Ann were just infatuated with Dave’s bold move to protect them.

  “He’s trying to get up,” Pearl Ann shouted.

  “The police are here, let them handle it,” Zack told Dave.

  “Sure, but they are still at the nurses station filling out the report. I’d rather keep him down until they get around to us,” Dave said as he hit Jack in the chest with the stun gun again, pushing another dose of one hundred thousand volts through his body. Jack’s oversized body shook for a while, and then he just lay limp on the floor.

  The police came and pulled Dave off Jack.

  “What is going on?” an officer asked.

  Zack introduced himself as a former cop and requested to speak to one officer on the side while the other attended to Jack. They called the paramedics back to attend to Jack. Things were moving fast, and Zack knew he had to get Dave and the women out of the house quickly before Jack understood what had happened.

  Zack asked to be taken to the police station and asked them to call Detective Armando to meet them. It was now almost five in the morning, and the chances of getting anyone at the station he knew was slim. The officer understood Jack had attacked him, but it was in question how they would handle Dave using the stun gun. The officer offered to take them downtown to sort this out and get them out of the house. Zack knew the process. Whoever was on duty at the police station at this time in the morning would not give much credit to the ordeal and would pass it on to the next shift until it fell on deaf ears and the file got tossed on top of all the other unimportant reports.

  Zack thought for a second and asked the police to hang around for a while until they could pack their things, and he could come up with a game plan on how to handle this. The officer agreed, but Jack was coming to, loudly demanding their arrest. If there were any such thing as looks could kill, Dave and Zack would have been dead just from the eye contact they had with Jack.

  Zack walked Dave, Emma Lou, and Pearl Ann into his room and explained quickly and precisely what they had to do.

  “Don’t ask questions, pack a few things for maybe two nights. Now go. You must be ready in fifteen minutes,” Zack insisted. Emma Lou and Pearl Ann quickly went to their room and packed. Dave moved quickly too and packed a bag for Zack and himself while Zack made phone calls.

  The first call was to his son, Tom, to arrange for them to spend a few nights at his house. Then he called Ronnie Moore, his old friend who headed up the New Orleans Police Department detective unit, and Detective Armando. While it was early in the morning, they both answered their phones, a little suspicious of the conversation, but Zack filled them in on what he thought had happened as best he could. They both agreed to meet at nine o’clock in the morning in the commander’s office.

  The friends met in the hall with their overnight luggage. One police officer was waiting for them. Jack was nowhere around or at least not visible to them.

  The police officer escorted them swiftly to his cruiser. He helped load their things into the trunk and picked up the duffel bag of guns.

  “Wow, what are you packing?”

  Zack stopped and just looked at Dave. He knew he had to bring the guns with him, for protection if Jack followed them to Tom’s house, but he didn’t think about the police officer helping. He wanted to kill Dave for putting it down on the street and even letting the officer pick it up.

  “Just your usual items for overnight; a few handguns, one Colt M4, stun guns, you know, everyday stuff you might need,” Zack said with a big smile.

  The officer smiled and just shook his head, putting the bag into the trunk.

  Dave and the two women squeezed into the backseat of the car. As he opened the front door to get in, Zack felt sure that they had made a clean getaway until he saw Jack at the doorway entrance. He stopped, and they stared at each other for just a few seconds. Zack couldn’t show fear. He had to shut Jack down and show the intimidation was no long going to work.

  Zack tipped his head to Jack. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Yes, I will be in touch, old man,” Jack said chewing on his bottom lip. “Oh, you’re dead,” he whispered to himself.

  Dr. Ross intercepted Jack as he came down the hall. “I need to see you!”

  “Now? I’ve been up all night,” Jack shouted back at him.

  He pulled him by his shirt into a nearby office and closed the door. With anyone else, Jack wouldn’t tolerate such aggressiveness. But this was Walter Ross, and he was more than likely the only person who could get away with it, for now. Walter was one guy who couldn’t hide his feelings. If something bothered him, he wanted it resolved quickly or it would escalate.

  Dr. Ross had been in the room with the paramedics and the coroner’s medical team. They all agreed Mrs. Cabibi had a fatal heart attack and that is what the coroner’s report reflected. He had concerns that Jack had induced the old lady into a heart attack.

  “Sit down,” he told Jack, who followed his demand and pulled up a chair.

  “What happened to Mrs. Cabibi?”

  “This Nelson guy was giving me trouble. He has since the day he arrived,” Jack said.

  “So!” Dr. Ross said as his voice escalated. “So you take out the old lady?”

  “It wasn’t meant for her.”

  Jack looked away. He could look no one straight in the eyes.

  “I don’t care how or why it went down. You can’t just kill people at will,”

  Jack looked like he could have made the good doctor his next victim. The doctor was pushing him to his limits and hard. He had performed the same duty for him often over the past ten years.

  Now, I’m the bad guy? Jack thought.

  He couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “Can’t kill people at will? Come on, Doc, you been doing it for years. You just didn’t make this call. Now, go to the hospital and harvest her organs. Then like the Good Samaritan you are, tell her family how great she is for donating her organs.” Jack walked out and slammed the door behind him.

  Dr. Ross had never seen Jack come unglued like that. It was frightening, and this was the first time he’d felt Jack’s loyalty might have run out.

  The police car pulled up in from of Tom Nelson’s house. Tom was ready for them and would try his best to accommodate them all, considering the size of the home and the short notice.

  “Pop, what is going on?” Tom asked, greeting him at the foot of the front steps.

  “Just a misunderstanding,” Zack said trying not to alarm him.

  Tom did his best to accommodate them, putting Dave and Zack in the extra bedroom and giving his room to Emma Lou and Pearl Ann. They put up a fuss but Tom wouldn’t hear of it, and he agreed to sleep on the sofa.

  “Of course, it will only be for one night,” Emma Lou said to Tom.

  “It might be a little longer than that, Emma Lou, but everything is going to be fine,” Zack said trying not to frighten her.

  It was almost six in the morning, and Zack suggested, “How about I make my famous pancakes? Who’s up for a good breakfast?”

  Tom looked at him, and he knew something was wrong. The on
ly time Zack ever made breakfast was when something went wrong and usually deadly wrong.

  “Sure thing, Pop. I’ll help you while they get settled in,” Tom said.

  They had just gotten into the kitchen, and Tom hit Zack with a question. “What the hell is going on?”

  “You read through that, did you?” Zack said.

  “You’ve been doing that for forty-five years with me. Remember that day Peanuts, my dachshund died, and then when Uncle Sal died? Do I need to go further? It’s always, ‘I’ll make you my famous pancakes.’ I know you like a book. Something is very wrong,” Tom said sitting at the table with him.

  “The four of us have a problem with that Jack guy at the house,” Zack said.

  “Let the police handle it,” Tom shot back at him.

  “It’s not that simple. A resident died at the house this morning; Emma Lou should have been in that room,” he said, trying to be convincing, as crazy as it sounded.

  “Pop, quit playing detective. You need to go downtown and talk to your cop friends and let them get involved. Let them handle it.”

  It was time for Tom to shut the conversation down. He knew his dad wasn’t telling details until everything was confirmed. That was the cop in him. “Now, let’s make some pancakes.”

  It didn’t take long before they all gathered around the table and Zack passed out dishes with pancakes made to perfection. The finishing touch was a pat of butter and warm syrup dripping down the sides.

  “Zack, these are delicious. What’s in them?” Emma Lou asked.

  “He can’t tell you, or he will have to kill you,” Dave said with a little giggle.

  “Sometimes, the simplest of things can make all the difference. The batter has about a half a cup of 7 Up. That makes the batter rise nice and fluffy, and I top it off with one hundred percent cane syrup,” Zack said.

  “Finish it, Pop. Not just any syrup but Steen’s 100% Pure Cane Syrup.” Tom said.

  “That’s right, made right here in Louisiana. I went to school with one of old man Steen’s sons. That’s it, now you know my secret; I have to kill you,” Zack said with a laugh.

  The doorbell rang, and Zack knew it was time to go. He had called on his good friend, Ben Stein, once again for help, and without question, Ben sent Howard.

  “Zack, how are you?” Howard said with his charming accent.

  “Fine, thank you for helping,” Zack said as he motioned for him to come in.

  Emma Lou and Pearl Ann were thrilled to see Howard and gave him a kiss and a hug. “Are we going on a road trip?” Emma Lou asked with some excitement.

  “I don’t think so,” Howard said.

  It was time to head to the police station and have Zack tell his side of the story, or at least try to explain why he felt Emma Lou was the target and not Mrs. Cabibi.

  “Dave, get the duffel bag,” Zack said.

  “Zack? We’re going to a police station,” Dave said. “Take the duffel bag?”

  “Until things settle down, I don’t go anywhere without the bag,” Zack said in a harsh tone.

  They walked to the limousine, and Dave opened the trunk to put in the duffel bag. Zack quickly put his hand on the trunk and stopped it from opening.

  “What good is the bag if it is in the trunk? Put it in the backseat,” Zack said.

  Dave took the bag and followed his orders, placing the bag across two seats in the back of the limo.

  Howard started the car and slowly drove down Willow Street. The streets uptown were not in the best condition. The big oak trees had grown tall over the years and with that came long roots that pushed through the asphalt. A limousine with an extended chassis made it even harder to drive, even if Howard could dodge the potholes.

  Zack watched every car that came up on the side. He would not get caught off guard by one of Jack’s many gang friends. He thought that if he was right about Jack, there would be retaliation.

  The limousine made it to the intersection of Carrollton Avenue, and it was smooth driving to the police station. The limo pulled up to the front entrance and let Zack and Dave out. Howard stayed with the car and parked down the street. He was to wait for a phone call when they were ready for pickup.

  Zack and Dave climbed the massive concrete steps leading to the police headquarters. “There must be fifty steps here,” Dave said as they both stopped to take a breather.

  “It’s sixty-four, I have climbed it many times. In my younger days, I could get to the top without stopping.”

  “A lot of things you could do better when you were younger,” Dave said, looking at Zack from the corner of his eye. They both laughed.

  They made it to the top of the steps and took another rest so they would not go into the meeting sounding like they needed an oxygen tank just to talk. They walked to Commander Waters’s office at the far side of the building. At the end of the hall were floor-to-ceiling windows giving a view of Broad Street that must have been beautiful in its day. Over time, the inner city was crumbling, and all people could see now were gas stations, fast food restaurants, and bail bond companies setting up shop in rundown, strip shopping centers.

  A receptionist greeted them and said that the commander was expecting them. They were moved into a conference room and offered a beverage. Then Armando and Ronnie Moore joined them.

  “So you had a rough night,” Armando said to Zack.

  “You could say that,” he replied.

  The receptionist opened the door and escorted them to the commander’s office. They sat at a big conference table, and it was a little overwhelming for Dave and Zack. The commander had asked for Assistant District Attorney Bob Wells to join them. It was a lot more people than Zack had expected. It was the moment of truth, and Zack had to be dead on with his suspicions. He was now in front of some influential people.

  “Where do I start?” Zack said.

  “Try the beginning. Just walk us through what brought you here,” the commander said.

  Zack tried to put it in some order, but it was getting all jumbled up. The looks on their faces assured Zack that it was not making sense to them.

  The receptionist knocked on the door and opened it. “Commander Lindsey Johansson is here.”

  “Send her in,” he said.

  Lindsey came in and took a seat at the table. “Gentlemen,” she said with a smile.

  The commander filled Lindsey in on what Zack had brought to the table. “Continue, Zack,” he said.

  “Bottom line, I think Jack, not sure of his last name, I think Warren, had something to do with the murder of the woman last night, my daughter-in-law, Jennifer Thompson, and my wife,” Zack said all in one breath.

  “That is some statement. Let me ask you, Zack, any proof?” Commander Waters asked. “I mean, your wife has been dead for what, eighteen years?”

  “Next month will be nineteen years, sir,” Zack replied.

  Lindsey pulled a folder out of her briefcase and set it on the table. She was as confident as ever and was certain she would not let Armando get under her skin this time. “Gentleman, Mr. Nelson might be on to something,” Lindsey said with confidence in her voice.

  That statement alone got everyone’s attention, especially Armando. He had always given her a bad time, but he knew she had graduated top in her class, and she gained control of the room immediately.

  “I was able to pull the coroner’s report on Jennifer Thompson. Her cause of death was cardiac arrest. We know someone broke into the house and killed her, but we don’t know how.”

  Lindsey pulled another folder from her bag “Patty Nelson, the cause of death, cardiac arrest. While I don’t have other complete reports, I do know Doris Bell died at Riverside Inn of cardiac arrest. I pulled two more people: Maria Gonzales, the wife of the groundskeeper at Riverside Inn, and Joan Nelson. They both died of cardiac arrest at Evergreen Rehab Center.”

  Lindsey stood and walked the floor like she was in a courtroom. Everyone absorbed her every word. “So then I thought, does everyo
ne in assisted living die of cardiac arrest? I compared what each person had in their systems, and the one thing they each had in common was a high level of potassium; a considerable amount but not enough for the coroner’s office to be concerned with.”

  “So maybe they all ate a few bananas before having a heart attack,” Armando said.

  “A few would not have done it. A person could never consume that many bananas to die of an overdose of potassium. It was a quick injection of potassium chloride,” Lindsey said.

  “What are you saying?” the assistant DA asked.

  Lindsey took a deep breath and put her hands on the conference table, leaning in across from Armando. “If you want to look at this as murder, someone could have used a small amount of chloroform in a rag, caught the people off guard, and within seconds, they are out. Then inject them with just the right amount of potassium, and within seconds they are dead. To a doctor, they had a cardiac arrest, it’s that simple.”

  “Why not just keep the rag of chloroform on their noses longer and get the same results? Thirty seconds of inhaling chloroform and they would have gone into cardiac arrest too,” Armando said.

  Lindsey didn’t want to shoot Armando’s theory down too harshly, but she wanted to make her point. “That is true if the killer wants to get caught. You see, breathing chloroform too long would kill a person, but it would leave scars on the lungs. The autopsy would have shown the lung damage. None of the people we are talking about had any notes of discoloration or scars in the lungs. In fact, with all the people involved, the lungs were removed and donated. So I would think the lungs were in good condition. The killer used just enough chloroform to knock the victims out and injected them with an overdose of potassium. The potassium killed them and over the next eight hours, the potassium liquefied into the body tissue, thus not giving any suspicion to an autopsy doctor other than the potassium level was a little high.”

  The commander poured a glass of water and handed it to Lindsey. “So, you’re telling me this is murder, and the same person did it in each case? The killer would have to know a little about medicine, wouldn’t he?”