The Vigilantes boh-10

by W. E. B Griffin

  There was a muted large flat-screen television tuned to the Eagles- Broncos National Football League game. Badde, acting as if he’d stopped to catch the score-Philadelphia was just barely beating Denver-took in the crowd, particularly all the attractive women.

  Well, I’ll damn sure be coming back here.

  The TV broadcast went to a commercial break.

  One of the TV news talking heads came on with a tease for the eleven P.M. newscast. The box that popped up next to the news anchor’s head showed Francis Fuller awarding at least three ceremonial ten-thousand-dollar reward checks. The text below the pop-up box said

  HALLOWEEN HOMICIDES: COLD-BLOODED MURDER TURNS INTO COLD CASH.

  And Kenny-and that drug dealer Cicero-are going to be next.

  X

  [ONE]

  The Roundhouse, Third Floor Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia Monday, November 2, 9:12 A.M.

  The Executive Command Center’s main bank of monitors-all nine sixty-inch flat-screen televisions-was filled with the beet-red, angry face of the Honorable Jerome H. “Jerry” Carlucci, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  He stared right into the camera with a searing fire in his intense brown eyes as he said with great force: “And never in all my years in this city-both during my years in the Philadelphia Police Department and my time in elected office as your mayor-never have I witnessed such careless disregard for our laws. And I am here to tell you that this is lawless chaos of the worst sort”-his fist could be heard pounding the lectern-“and I will not let it stand! There will be law and order in the great city of Philadelphia if I have to bring in the state police and our National Guard troops.

  “And I am also telling you again that if you have information about any crime, you are to call our police department or the tips hotline-and no one else-and the police department will respond appropriately. This will not in any way cause anyone to be ineligible for any possible reward. It will, however, restore decorum to our fine city and dignity to its citizens.

  “Now, to show how absolutely serious I am in this regard, just this morning four people who went to Lex Talionis in Old City-”

  The image on the screen then cut to a shot of what had become the familiar scene at Third and Arch. Except this time there was a sea of dark blue-uniformed police lining the sidewalks shoulder to shoulder as far as the eye could see. And there were police cruisers parked bumper to bumper all along the curbs. There was a Medical Examiner’s Office van parked on the sidewalk, its rear doors open and a gurney with a full body bag being pushed inside.

  And in front of the van were four people, their hands cuffed behind their backs, being led by blue shirts to the open rear doors of two Chevy Impala police cars parked at the curb. The first was a tiny, ancient, gray-haired black woman in a sacklike dress, then a skinny young teenage black girl in a white sleeveless jacket, and two teenage black males in jeans and hoodie sweatshirts.

  A Tow Squad wrecker rolled past on Arch Street, a rusted-out mid- 1970s AMC Gremlin hanging backward behind it.

  “-were each arrested on multiple counts of suspicion of murder, tampering with evidence at the scene of a crime, and various other criminal charges in connection with the murder last night of one Jossiah Miffin. Arrested were his grandmother and three teenagers, two boys who identified themselves as Miffin’s neighbors, and a girl who said she was his niece.”

  The image went back to Carlucci’s face.

  He went on pointedly: “If these people had followed the proper procedure and called 911 for the police to handle the case of Miffin’s murder-and not brought the deceased to Lex Talionis-certain charges would never have been brought against them.” He paused, exhaled audibly, and in a calmer manner added, “So, in conclusion, let there be no mistake that, as I swore to do when I took my oath of office, I will see that the laws of this fine and just city are enforced to the letter. And, together, you and I will see Philadelphia return to normalcy. Thank you for your time. And may God bless you and the great city of Philadelphia.”

  Corporal Kerry Rapier was in his wheeled nylon-mesh-fabric chair at the control panel, manipulating the images on the three banks of monitors. He rewound the recording back to where Carlucci was forcefully saying: “And never in all my years in this city…”

  “I think three times is enough, Kerry,” Sergeant Matthew Payne said. “It was difficult enough to watch live the first time. I was convinced that his anger was being directed at the head of Task Force Operation Clean Sweep, who has accomplished exactly zero in his appointed duty.”

  Payne was sitting at Conference Table One. Detective Anthony Harris sat beside him. Each had a commanding view of the three banks of TV monitors, all brightly lit with various images, ones that now included the new pop-and-drops. Before them on the table, each had a notebook computer wired into the communications network. Matt’s screensaver image showed a hundred tiny. 45 ACP rounds continually ricocheting across the screen, looking like a copper-jacketed hollow-point meteor shower.

  Next to Matt’s computer was a coffee-stained mug with the representation of a patch. On the patch was the downtown Philadelphia skyline with the statue of William Penn atop City Hall. Overlooking that was a Grim Reaper in a black cape and holding a golden scythe. And in gold letters the words PHILADELPHIA POLICE HOMICIDE DIVISION-OUR DAY BEGINS WHEN YOURS ENDS circled the patch.

  Kerry Rapier said: “But, Matt, I just love that part where the spittle starts flying and he pounds the lectern with his iron fist while declaring, ‘… and I will not let it stand!’ Brilliant, just brilliant theater.”

  Payne raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty damn sure he wasn’t acting. I’ve seen him blow his cork a time or three before.” He looked to the second bank of monitors. “Getting back to the task force task at hand, so to speak, let’s see if we can turn over some damn stone under the stone.”

  Kerry Rapier checked the notes he’d written on his pad, then looked at the banks of monitors and said, “We have new information in the case files of Kendrik Mays, LeRoi Cheatham, Reggie Jones, and now Jossiah Miffin.” He paused, then added, “Oh, and those three dead we saw at the demolition site in Northern Liberties.”

  “Not those now,” Payne said. “They were a block away from where Cheatham got popped, but they’re not even remotely connected to any of the pop-and-drops, including Cheatham’s.”

  “I agree,” Harris said. “Unless the medical examiner finds some obvious cause of death-maybe poisoning?-my gut tells me that those are fast on their way to becoming cold cases. All we know is what caused the blunt trauma on the one-a damn wrecking ball-but that wasn’t necessarily the cause of death.”

  “Gotcha,” Rapier said. He manipulated his control panel.

  Kendrik Mays’s case file went to the main bank of monitors, his ugly mug staring down at them.

  Rapier took the Colt. 45 cursor and clicked on the link that took them to the crime-scene video. But the pointing device didn’t fire or have any muzzle smoke.

  “What happened to that?” Payne asked.

  “I disabled it before the mayor came in this morning,” Kerry said. “Decided it was a bit over the top. Anyway, as I told you in that text last night, Matt, forensics matched the prints at the Mays house to our mystery shooter, SNU 2010-56-9280.”

  The video showed the Mays basement with inverted-V evidence markers everywhere. Rapier moved the cursor over the marker bearing the numeral “05” in the corner of the basement. It was next to a pistol on a dirt-encrusted, sweat-stained T-shirt. A box with a series of digitized buttons at its bottom then popped up. It held a sharp image of the revolver that they’d seen being photographed on the live feed the day before.

  “Matt, you were right about the snub-nosed. It was a Chief ’s Special, not a Bodyguard.”

  Manipulating the console joystick, Rapier rotated the image of the pistol, showing all the angles at which it had been photographed. He then moved the cursor to the series of digitized buttons. He clicked the b
utton with a question mark on it, and up popped a translucent text box over the image of the pistol. It read:

  Weapon: Smith amp; Wesson Model 637-1. 38 Special revolver.

  Serial Number: (Unknown; removed by grinding or filing)

  Sold: (Unknown)

  Seller: (Unknown)

  Buyer: (Unknown)

  Notes: Airweight Chief’s Special. 5-shot stainless-steel cylinder and 2-inch barrel, aluminum alloy J-frame. Black rubber Uncle Mike’s grips. Only two (2) rounds of Federal. 38 caliber +p loaded in cylinder; other three (3) were spent shell casings of same round. Barrel riflings show evidence of firing. Fingerprints belonging to Kendrik LeShawn MAYS 2008-18-063914-POP-N-DROP.

  “Then the ‘boom’ that killed Mays was the. 38?” Payne said. “Not our mystery man’s. 45 cal.?”

  “No, no. It was almost certainly the forty-five,” Rapier said.

  “What do you want to bet that when we run the ballistics on those plus-p rounds, the. 38 will be linked to some other murder?” Harris said.

  Payne nodded as they watched Rapier move the cursor to the basement floor, to the marker with a black “03” at the foot of the dirty mattress lying on wooden pallets. Next to it was a single spent brass casing.

  Rapier put the cursor over the marker, and a box popped up with a digital photo close-up of the brass round. He clicked on the box’s question mark button:

  Spent casing,. 45 GAP.

  Notes: Possible bullet that killed Kendrik LeShawn MAYS 2008-18- 063914-POP-N-DROP. SNU 201-56-9280.

  Then he went to the opposite end of the bed, to the basement wall that had the blood splatter.

  He clicked on the evidence maker, and up popped a box showing a close-up photograph of a Crime Scene Unit tech’s hands in tan-colored synthetic polymer gloves holding a heavy-duty needle-nose pliers device that had just extracted a mushroomed copper-covered lead bullet from a wooden stud.

  The question mark button brought up:

  Copper-Jacketed Hollow-Point,. 45 caliber.

  Notes: Possible/Probable bullet that killed Kendrik LeShawn MAYS 2008- 18-063914-POP-N-DROP. SNU 201-56-9280.

  “Okay,” Payne said, “so we know it’s our mystery shooter.”

  “Next,” Rapier then said, working the control panel. Mays’s case file was replaced with LeRoi Cheatham’s on the main bank of monitors.

  They read the Notes section and chuckled at Detective Harry Mudd’s thoroughness. He’d written: “Michael FLOYD, age 12, nephew of deceased, when asked about possible involvement of a driver of a FedEx white minivan, responded with, ‘What be a FedEx, motherfucker?’”

  “I forget who it was,” Harris said, “but someone once questioned Mudd about leaving something out of a report once, and he’s never not put everything he knew into one. I heard that once, when a guy got shot in the pisser of a bar, he included all those ‘for a good time, call Suzy’ phone numbers he copied off the walls.”

  “Only some pompous ass like Howard Walker would question a pro like him,” Payne said, then he immediately realized Rapier probably had heard him speak ill about his boss. When he glanced his way, Rapier was nodding. “That, and I like Mudd’s sense of humor.”

  Rapier then went to the Crime Scene Unit’s imagery of the Cheatham scene in Northern Liberties, and then went through the same motions with the spent. 45-caliber casings there.

  Payne felt his cell phone vibrate once. Staring at its screen, and seeing that he had no tower signal and that the time stamp of the new text was twenty minutes old, he blurted: “Goddamn cell service! Or I should say: goddamn lack of service!”

  He glanced at Rapier. “Kerry, how come text messages are more reliable than voice? Call me skeptical, but it seems like it’s the phone company’s evil plan to screw the consumer. You either pay the outrageous price for an unlimited usage plan, or you pay through the nose for each individual text.”

  Rapier swiveled in his chair and replied: “Texts use less data than voice, making them easier to get through the pipes. They actually use the tiniest part of the bandwidth that the cell tower uses to constantly link to your phone. The rest of the bandwidth is for the heavier data users, the actual talking and Internet surfing.” He paused and smiled. “But I’m betting you’re right about it being an evil plan.”

  Matt grunted as he read the text from Amanda. All morning he’d figured that he was going to catch hell from her after she woke up and found on the pillow beside her only a note-and not him.

  He’d written: You look like such an angel while you sleep. I couldn’t find the halo-I looked!-but there’s definitely a heavenly glow. Sorry I had to leave so early. See you soon.-M

  He’d then gone back to his Rittenhouse Square apartment atop the Cancer Society Building that he rented from his father. He’d shaved and showered, and changed into nicer clothes.

  He now wore a navy blazer, gray woolen cuffed trousers, a crisply starched light-blue shirt with a red striped tie, and highly polished black lace-up shoes.

  But apparently I missed that bullet, he thought, rereading it: AMANDA LAW GOT YOUR NOTE. THANKS. I WAY OVERSLEPT amp; WOKE UP NOT FEELING WELL. GOING DOWN TO DRUGSTORE. THEN IT’S BACK TO BED… XOXO -A

  Hmmm… back to bed?

  But no fun there if she’s ill.

  Guess that glow was a fever.

  Hope it’s not me she’s sick of.

  Could be from sheer exhaustion.

  Then he thumbed the reply:

  I’M REALLY SORRY, BABY. CAN I BRING YOU ANYTHING? ASPIRIN? CHICKEN SOUP? HOW ABOUT ETERNAL HAPPINESS? SEE YOU SOON…

  He hit SEND. Then he put the phone back in his pants pocket.

  [TWO]

  A minute later, the main door to the ECC suddenly began to swing open. Payne, Harris, and Rapier could hear the soft humming sound of an electric motor on the other side. Then in the doorway appeared a black male in his late teens. He was in a wheelchair, but it was a highly maneuver-able power chair. He controlled its speed and direction with a joystick on the right armrest.

  He fluidly rolled inside the ECC.

  “Well, hell,” Matt Payne said, “look who’s still on the right side of the law. How are you, Andy?”

  “Great, Marshal,” Andy Radcliffe said with a smile.

  Radcliffe, with gentle black eyes and a round, kind face, had a full head of dark hair trimmed to his scalp. His jeans and slightly oversize cotton dress shirt were neatly pressed. His navy blazer was somewhat worn.

  Payne admired the intern, not only because he was a sophomore at La Salle doing a double major in computer science and criminal justice, and planning to get on with the department. He was also genuinely impressed with Andy’s attitude after the teen had been robbed three years before in North Philly-then paralyzed when the robbers viciously stabbed him in the back.

  Radcliffe looked at Rapier.

  “Anything I can do to help?” he asked. He pointed at Payne’s mug. “More java, Marshal?”

  And there’s that positive attitude, Payne thought. Willing to fetch coffee, anything.

  “We’re reviewing some cases,” Payne said. “Never hurts to have a fresh set of eyes and ears. Make yourself comfortable. At the miserable rate we’re going, we’ll be here some time.”

  Radcliffe nodded. “Yessir.”

  “Okay, Kerry, let’s move on to Reggie Jones-”

  “Can I first read this one on Cheatham?” Radcliffe asked. “Wait. I’ll pull it all up on the laptop. You guys go ahead.”

  Payne looked at him and thought, And he’s got confidence. Just walks in as if he’s been doing it for years.

  The motor of Andy’s power chair hummed as he went over to the end of the conference table, close to Rapier, and pulled out a laptop from a sleeve behind his chair. He plugged the box into the department’s communications system and started pounding its keyboard.

  Payne and Harris exchanged glances, then looked back to the main monitor. The fat baby face of Reginald Jones was looking down on them.

  Radcliffe
looked up from his laptop and saw Rapier’s custom-made. 45 pointer on-screen.

  He snorted. “That’s some sweet cursor, Kerry.”

  “Watch this,” Rapier said. He typed a command on his keyboard, then put the cursor over REGINALD “REGGIE” JONES Case No.: 2010-81-039 613-Pop-n-Drop and clicked.

  The overhead speakers then filled with the report of a gunshot, and a puff of smoke blew from the muzzle of the pistol pointer.

  “Now, that,” Radcliffe said, shaking his head, “might be a bit too much.”

  “Finally!” Payne said. “A clear voice of reason is heard on the task force.”

  Harris snorted.

  Radcliffe looked at him as if wondering if he was being mocked, then judging by Payne’s expression realized that wasn’t the case. He returned his attention to his laptop, fingers tapping the keyboard as he stared thoughtfully at the screen.

  Rapier did something at the control panel, and when he went to the Notes section of Reggie Jones’s case file and clicked on FINGERPRINTS, the gunfire and smoke effects were gone.

  He turned it off again, Payne thought. But he doesn’t look like he’s pissed or anything.

  “Here’s this new guy James, Matt,” Rapier said as two boxes popped up with digitized images of fingerprints. One was headlined “Suspect Name Unknown #2010-56-9327.” The second had the new live link: MARC JAMES Case No.: 2002-41-093631.

  Harris said, “The prints on the still-unknown doer are being run again. Forensics got a hit with James’s only because they reran his, too. They said they didn’t find a match the first time because his prints on record from a previous arrest didn’t have sufficient ridge detail for comparison. But the second go-round, they lit up just enough.”

  Payne looked at Rapier. “Punch up James, Kerry.”

  Reggie Jones’s fat baby face was now replaced with that of a shiny-skinned black male with a round face and male-pattern baldness.

  Toilet seat hair, Payne remembered hearing someone describe it. Its shape was similar to those seats found on public commodes.