[Lady Justice 07] - Lady Justice and the Vigilante

by Robert Thornhill

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “So coming and going from a house, in itself, regardless of the time of day is not a crime?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Do you know everyone who lives in your neighborhood?”

  “No, not everyone.”

  “Does being a stranger make one a drug dealer?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Let’s get back to these ‘tips’. Did anyone actually see an exchange of controlled substances?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Any reports of violence, gunfire?”

  “No.”

  “And yet, with this scant information, you felt compelled to investigate further?”

  “Certainly. Many of our drug busts have come from law-abiding homeowners wanting to rid their communities of illegal activity.”

  “According to your testimony, you turned your canine friend, Buster, loose to roam through the neighborhood. What exactly was the purpose of that?”

  “We suspected which residence was the drug house, but we wanted Buster to determine that on his own.”

  “So he sniffed more than one house?”

  “Yes.”

  “What exactly was he doing?”

  “Buster is trained to detect all kinds of drugs and he was search -----.”

  Winkler stopped in mid-sentence.

  “What were you going to say, Sergeant? That Buster was searching for the odor of drugs?”

  Winkler didn’t answer.

  Romero had him by the balls just as surely as Buster had mine.

  I saw the prosecutor slump down in her chair.

  Romero continued, “Sergeant, you’re a veteran officer. What’s required before a judge will issue a search warrant?”

  “Probable cause.”

  “Exactly, and I believe that the Fourth Amendment states that the probable cause should be supported by an oath describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

  “Actually, Buster searched not only Damien Price’s home, but nearly every home on that block.

  “Did you obtain a warrant authorizing Buster’s search?”

  “No.”

  “If you had asked a judge to issue such a warrant based on the comings and goings of individuals late at night, do you think that would have passed muster as probable cause?”

  Winkler didn’t answer.

  “Sergeant, wasn’t the warrant to search Damien Price’s home based on Buster’s detection of a controlled substance?”

  “Yes.”

  “And without Buster’s search, you actually had no probable cause to enter Damian Price’s home.”

  “Yes.”

  Romero turned to the judge.

  “Your honor, if I might, I would like to quote some case law that bears on this proceeding.”

  The judge nodded.

  “Brenniger V. U.S. states that, “Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government.”

  “That’s why we have the Fourth Amendment.

  “In Terry V. Ohio, “The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its’ protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.”

  “Your Honor, I submit that based on the testimony of the arresting officer, it is clear that the evidence obtained against my client was the result of an illegal search and seizure and a violation of my client’s Fourth Amendment rights.

  “We request that the charges be dismissed.”

  You could have heard a pin drop in the courtroom.

  For what seemed an eternity, the judge sat there with his eyes closed.

  At last he raised his gavel and pronounced, “Case dismissed! Mr. Price, you are free to go.”

  The courtroom erupted in pandemonium.

  News reporters dialed cell phones calling in their stories and TV anchors jockeyed for the best position to interview anyone connected with the trial.

  Suzanne Romero refused to comment as was her custom and the prosecutor was none to eager to make a statement for obvious reasons.

  In the confusion, Ox and I slipped out the back door.

  Ox was the first to speak, “Wow! That gal is something else!”

  “Yep, we just got our asses handed to us on a platter --- again!”

  “I don’t want to go to squad meeting tomorrow. There will be hell to pay.”

  “It won’t be pretty, that’s for sure.”

  Buster’s heroics and the department’s dream case had turned into a nightmare.

  Ed Jacobs had been eating lunch and had flipped on the TV to get the weather when the news bulletin flashed across the screen.

  Ed had been following the story and, like everyone else, had fallen in love with Buster.

  Also, like everyone else, he was thrilled that a drug dealer had been put out of business.

  As he watched the report of the aborted court proceeding he suddenly lost his appetite and pushed his sandwich aside.

  He felt the rage begin to build in his chest as Damien Price waved and smiled at the cameras.

  Another miscarriage of justice.

  The difference now, was that instead of letting that rage and frustration fester in his bosom, he had a way to make everything right.

  If poor, blind, Lady Justice couldn’t keep the scales in balance, it was up to him to restore equilibrium.

  The reporters had made it incredibly easy for him.

  Cameras had panned the street where the bust had taken place and focused on the bashed-in front door of Price’s house.

  Ed knew where Damien Price would be sooner or later.

  He slipped on one of his disguises and drove the old Toyota down Myrtle Street.

  He wasn’t the only looky-loo. A steady stream of cars crawled by the scene of the police department’s latest boondoggle.

  He found the alley that ran behind the house and intersected with the driveway to the basement garage.

  He noticed that there were no streetlights to illuminate the alley and later the area would be shrouded in darkness.

  This was the spot.

  Ed dressed in black including a black stocking cap that he pulled low on his head.

  He blackened his face with grease paint. In the shadows at the back of the house, he would be invisible.

  Both of his previous kills had been with rifles at long range. This one would be different.

  He retrieved the .22 caliber pistol from his rented storage locker and checked his load.

  He was ready.

  Being early November, it was totally dark by six o’clock.

  He drove through the neighborhood. It was mostly empty. The gawkers had gone home to dinner.

  Price’s house was dark. That was good. If he was already at home, he might not venture out again and the evening would be wasted.

  Heck, he didn’t even know if Price planned to return to his home. He might spend the night with friends celebrating his victory.

  He had learned that patience was a virtue he must cultivate if he was to be successful.

  He parked the Toyota several blocks away and made his way through the shadows to the alley and hid in some shrubbery at the back of the house.

  There was a chill in the air and he shivered as he sat on the cold ground.

  He could not see the faces of his previous two kills and as he waited, he wondered how he would feel staring into the eyes of his victim and seeing the fear and pain as the life drained from their bodies.

  He had to keep reminding himself that this was no different than the deer he had killed.

  Yes, it actually was different. The deer were innocent victims and these men were murderers, rapists and drug
dealers.

  He was lost in his thoughts when he heard the rumble of the Harley.

  He flattened himself to the ground as the bike turned into the driveway and the headlight swept the back of the house.

  He heard the garage door go up and the last cough of the big engine.

  It was time.

  He stepped into the doorway just as Price was removing his helmet.

  Price froze, seeing the pistol pointing at his chest.

  “Who --- who are you? What do you want?”

  “Let’s just say I’m here to balance the scales of justice.”

  Price made a grab for something in his saddlebag and Ed fired.

  A look of disbelief came over Price’s face as he watched the blood ooze from the hole in his chest.

  “This is for all the kids you’ve hooked on pot and all the poor suckers that are high on your meth.”

  Ed fired again and Price slumped to the ground.

  He waited for a moment and when Price didn’t move, he looked into the saddlebag of the Harley.

  Along with the .38 he had been reaching for, were the bottles of chemicals he needed to cook his next batch of meth.

  “Not tonight,” Ed said. “Not ever again.”

  Ed pulled the garage door closed and disappeared into the night.

  At squad meeting the next morning, the captain shared the news that late last evening they had received a 911 call from a neighbor who had heard a shot fired at the home of Damien Price.

  Responding officers found Price’s body lying in a pool of blood and called for assistance. He was alive but barely breathing when the ambulance pulled into the emergency entrance at Truman Medical Center.

  After several hours in surgery, the attending physician reported that Price had been very lucky and would survive.

  The slugs that they removed from his chest were from a .22 caliber that had caused minimal internal trauma.

  There was, however, significant blood loss and had the officers not responded quickly, he would have bled out.

  After the meeting, the captain asked Ox and I to come to his office.

  We were surprised to see that Judy DeMarco was already there.

  Ox and I exchanged looks. It had not been a secret that Ox and Judy were dating, but both of us were wondering if we were about to be reprimanded.

  Judy gave Ox a wink, so we both relaxed a bit.

  The captain looked very serious.

  “We’ve got to get a handle on this vigilante thing. The guy is making a mockery of the law.

  “He got to Price last night, but he didn’t finish the job. Our guess is that he will try to clean up his mess.

  “We’re betting he will come after Price and that’s where the three of you come in.”

  I could tell that Judy was getting into it. “How can we help, Captain?”

  “Price will be the bait and the three of you will be the trap.

  “Officer DeMarco, who had extensive medical training while in the military, will go undercover as an attending nurse and Ox will be on the scene as a custodian.”

  “So what about me?” I asked.

  The captain put on his best apologetic face. “Walt, if this wasn’t so important, I wouldn’t ask you to do this.”

  I didn’t like where this was heading.

  “With all the doctors, orderlies and nurses running around, we figured that we needed a non-threatening presence that wouldn’t intimidate the vigilante and --- well --- there’s hardly anything less intimidating than a candy striper.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “WHY ME!”

  Before the words were out of my mouth, I already knew the answer.

  A year ago, the department had needed someone to go undercover in a tranny bar to smoke out some corrupt politicians and a couple of dirty cops.

  Given my diminutive stature and the fact that I had much less body hair than anyone else in the squad, I was elected.

  My ‘Tina’ persona was such a hit that I had somehow become the squad’s anointed drag queen.

  “Walt, you do want to help us get this guy, don’t you?”

  What could I say?

  He went to his closet and pulled out a red and white striped pinafore.

  “I think this might be your size. Do you think Maggie could give us a hand again?”

  Ox wouldn’t look me in the eye and Judy had to bite her lip to keep a straight face.

  Maggie, of course, was thrilled to help.

  On my last foray into the world of cross-dressing, she had magically transformed me from a graying, sixty-six year old fart into something that was, at least, believable enough that I got propositioned at the bar.

  During that makeover, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

  It was actually kind of scary that the transformation had now become familiar.

  Feminine secrets like ‘hook the bra in the front, then rotate to the back’ and ‘gather the leg of the pantyhose before inserting your foot’ were second nature.

  The make-up part was always the hardest.

  No matter how close I shaved, Maggie had to spoon a lot of gunk on my face to cover the stubble.

  I think I hated the eyeliner pencil and lash curler the most.

  At the tranny bar, I had worn a wig with long brown tresses, but Maggie thought that something more ‘perky’ would be appropriate for a candy striper.

  I donned a blond pageboy and when I looked in the mirror all I could see was Phyllis Diller on steroids.

  When, at last, I was ready, the three of us gathered in the Critical Care Unit of the Truman Medical Center.

  I was handed a badge that bore the name ‘Fanny Merkle’.

  Fabulous!

  Ox was Lennie the custodian and Judy was Nurse Fremont.

  I noticed right away that Judy filled out her nurse uniform a lot better that I filled out my candy striper outfit.

  It clung to her curves and there was just enough room at the top to reveal a couple of inches of her ample cleavage.

  I, on the other hand, looked like a gunnysack full of cats.

  We were introduced to the head nurse in charge of the unit.

  It was Nurse Ratchett all over again.

  She had arms like a linebacker and the demeanor of a bulldog.

  As I looked at the two nurses side-by-side, I couldn’t help but wonder why, in all of my stays in medical facilities, I had always drawn a Nurse Ratchett and NEVER a Nurse Fremont.

  “I don’t know where you two came from,” she snarled, “but when you’re on my floor, you obey my rules! Got that!”

  We got it.

  “Fremont, check on Mrs. Snyder. She may need those damn bedsores dressed. Merkle, go with her in case she needs some help.”

  We went.

  Mrs. Snyder had suffered a stroke and had been bedridden for months. Even though she had been turned regularly and massaged, she had developed bedsores.

  Mrs. Snyder was not responsive and Judy motioned for me to help roll her on her side.

  The bandages on the sores had come off revealing open wounds dripping pus and blood.

  A stench that I had never encountered before hit me in the face.

  I gagged and almost tossed my breakfast.

  Judy grinned, “You’ve led a pretty sheltered life, haven’t you?”

  “If not having ever worked triage qualifies as ‘sheltered’, then yes.”

  After taking care of Mrs. Snyder, we checked in at the nurse’s station.

  Nurse Ratchett was ready with our next assignment.

  “Mr. Goldblatt is ready for his sponge bath.”

  Goldblatt had been involved in a head-on collision resulting in a concussion and two broken arms.

  He seemed to have recovered from the blow to the head, but his arms were both in casts and suspended from metal arms hanging over his bed.

  He looked like a big stork preparing for flight.

  We started at the top and were working our way down
his body.

  I noticed that he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Judy’s cleavage and whenever she would lean over to reach a difficult part, he would draw a sharp breath.

  When we pulled back the sheets to wash his neither parts, we were both shocked to see that Mr. Goldblatt was sporting a woody as big as a Polish sausage.

  He grinned at Judy, “How exactly do you pronounce your name? Is it Free - Mount?”

  Judy rolled her eyes. “Look, Buster, if you think this bath is leading toward a ‘happy ending’, you’ve got another think coming. In fact, I think I’ll just let Fanny here, finish you up.”

  He looked at me and I gave him a big wink.

  By the time I got there, Mr. Woody had turned into Mr. Wimpy.

  I suppose that it should have hurt my feelings, but I let it pass.

  I finished with the libidinous Mr. Goldblatt and was heading down the hall when I heard, “Hey, Candy Gal. Can you get me a pudding cup? I really need a pudding cup.”

  I looked into the room where I had heard the voice.

  A huge guy, probably at least three hundred pounds was sitting up in bed.

  It was obvious that many a pudding cup had met its’ demise at his hands.

  “Please! I’m starving here.”

  I remembered my last visit to the hospital and how glad I was when Dad sneaked a breakfast biscuit into my room.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I went to the nurse’s station, but no one was around.

  There was a small fridge. I opened it and saw cups of ice cream, jell-o and pudding cups.

  He looked like a ‘vanilla’ guy, so I grabbed one and headed down the hall.

  Just as I got to his door I heard, “Stop right there!”

  A doctor came running up to me. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “This guy wanted a pudding cup,” I said, holding up the cup. “I was just trying to help.”

  “This man was admitted in a diabetic coma. We have him on a VERY strict food regimen. You could have ruined everything!”

  “Sorry.”

  “If you intend to keep volunteering here, you will NEVER, and I mean NEVER, give anything to a patient without checking with a doctor or nurse. Do you understand?”