Martinez spoke from behind the folder. “You have an impressive record so far in your short career. I see you have three letters of commendation plus the Medal of Valor for pulling a woman out of a burning car.” Martinez closed the folder and dropped it on his desk. He reclined back in the chair and addressed Roman with a look of contempt.
“You made detective. That’s real nice. And you are assigned to my homicide unit. That’s also very nice. Let me ask you something.”
“Yes sir?” Roman replied, unable to even guess at what was about to hit him full on like a freight train.
Martinez rose out of his chair and shouted nearly at the top of his lungs. “What do you think gives you the right to make detective when I have guys on the street busting their ass for 15 years who don’t get as much as a ‘thank you’ for trying? Huh? Answer me that!”
Roman said nothing; he just stared at an old picture of Martinez, apparently taken shortly after he had graduated out of the police academy. That probably was before he had even been born.
Martinez sat back down in his chair and adjusted his solid black necktie. “I guess you wouldn’t know the answer to that, now would you? You are assigned to homicide. I can’t change that right now. I run a hard-charging unit. You may have heard that. My detectives’ records speak for themselves. You stack us up against anybody, and we have more convictions on the books than any other unit, or even department, for that matter.” Martinez appeared to relax a little more. He took a pencil from the desktop and twirled it between his fingers.
“You’re sorry ass is here because I requested another detective. I have a massive backlog I need to clear. I asked for an experienced officer, and I got you. Your probationary period starts right now. I was Special Forces in ’Nam, so I respect your service with the Rangers, but that’s all I respect as of right now. You report to Detective Sergeant Seebolt. You screw up, he reports to me, and I have you back writing speeding tickets or working as a transit cop. You got that?”
“Yes sir,” was all Roman could think to reply. He stared the captain right in the eyes, and Martinez looked away immediately. Roman stole a quick glance at his watch and saw that it was only 7:10. Damn, when can I get out of here?
Martinez rose out of his chair again and walked around the desk to Roman, a set of keys and an old flip style cellular telephone in one hand.
“These keys are for your ride. It’s a take-home, your responsibility. Go to the motor pool to sign for it. Here is your phone. Go draw a radio from supply. How many mags you carry?”
Roman checked his concealed magazine pouch, even though he knew the answer. “Two,” he replied.
“You might consider three. They don’t take kindly to rookies where you’re going to be working.” He took notice of Roman’s sidearm. “What are you carrying? That’s not the department issue Beretta, is it?”
“No,” Roman replied. “It’s a Glock 19. I’m qualified to carry it.” Martinez looked back up into Roman’s eyes. “Brush up on your Spanish; it will save your ass.” He reached to a spot on the desktop near his phone and picked up a yellow sticky note. He gave Roman the note, which had an address written on it. “Detective Seebolt is already on scene. You’re going to assist him with whatever he needs. You have questions, ask him. This job is not for rookies. No one is going to hold your hand. I will be watching you. It’s that simple. Now get out of my office. As a matter of fact, I don’t want to see you in my squad room at all unless you’re writing something up. In homicide, your car is your office.” With that, Martinez walked back around the desk and sat down. He picked up the telephone and began dialing. Taking that as a dismissal, Roman got out of his chair and left the office.
“Asshole,” Roman muttered to himself. “Special Forces, my ass. Maybe the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.”
Roman signed the property form for his unmarked black Crown Victoria and other miscellaneous gear. He retrieved a Remington 870 tactical shotgun from the counter along with a box of 00 buckshot and picked up the duffle bag he had brought from his locker. I get my dream job, and I am assigned to this prick. How much worse can it get? He hadn’t bothered to check out his desk or introduce himself to any other detectives in the squad room. It seemed to him that he was on a one-way ticket back to traffic duty, so what was the point?
Roman went to the garage and found his black Crown Vic parked amongst rows of marked police vehicles covered in dust. Popping the trunk, he tossed the duffle bag inside. He unzipped the bag and retrieved his ballistic vest. He thought about putting it on, but changed his mind and put it back in the bag. He quickly loaded the Remington and put five additional shells in the side saddle holder mounted on the shotgun. He closed the trunk, walked to the driver’s side door, and placed the shotgun in the roof rack. He sat behind the wheel, and inserted the key into the ignition. The 4.6-liter V-8 engine roared to life. OK, here goes my career. He adjusted the seat, backed out, and exited the garage with red and blue lights flashing.
CHAPTER 13
Yellow tape marked “Police Line—Do Not Cross” blocked off a small area behind a Diamond Shamrock gas station, and two police cruisers were on the scene as Johnny Roman pulled up. One officer was busy keeping a few curious onlookers back, and another, a corporal with bulging biceps exploding out if his shirt sleeves, was writing notes in a pocket-sized notebook as he stood near the body of the apparent victim, which lay at an awkward angle on the pavement. Roman got out of his car and walked up to the corporal.
“Hey, what’s up?” he greeted the corporal. I’m Johnny Roman, newly assigned to homicide. I’m supposed to assist for a Detective Seebolt until he gets here.” He extended his hand to the corporal, who looked up from his notebook and saw the detective’s shield hanging from Roman’s neck.
“Seebolt? Right, he radioed in. He’s on something else. He said for me to tell you to hang on. The lieutenant is coming over to work this one.”
“OK. Tell me what you have. I can help you out until he shows up.” Roman looked at the pool of crimson surrounding the corpse.
The corporal sighed heavily. He placed his notebook in a breast pocket and walked over to the body.
“All right.” Pointing to the left, he stated, “Dispatch received a 911 call from the gas station owner about a body. He was taking out the trash or some shit. Russo over there was first on scene.” The corporal pointed to the other officer, on the perimeter. The corporal continued, “The station owner says it’s been real slow all day, and he didn’t notice anyone hanging around.
I found one guy who apparently was sleeping back here by the dumpster. So far, he claims he didn’t see anything either.”
“OK. So the owner says he neither saw nor heard anything?” Roman asked.
“Correct. He stated he just found the body as is. Forensics and the meat wagon have been called. We’re just waiting on the lieutenant to show up so I can get my ass back 10-8.”
“All right. Thanks, corporal.” Roman headed toward Officer Russo, who was taking notes as he interviewed the witness. As Roman approached, Russo detached the mike from his epaulette. “Ryan!” Roman exclaimed as he approached Russo. Russo turned around, surprised, holding his mike in midair.
“Johnny, how’s it going?” Russo replied with surprise. Replacing the mike on his epaulette, he offered his hand to Roman, who shook it. “I see you’re on homicide, man. That’s great! That’s got to be a world record. Don’t even tell me what you did to get promoted so fast!” Russo laughed rather loudly. By now, more officers had arrived, and they began to widen the perimeter around the crime scene.
“Well, good luck on this one,” Russo said rather sarcastically.
“Why do you say that?” Roman replied.
“Well shit, man, you get a murder—or anything else, for that matter— in these parts, and suddenly everyone’s is deaf and blind. Nobody sees anything. These people think that if they give a statement, we’re going to call immigration. Good luck with this, man, this is a dead e
nd. My business card is as good as toilet paper around here.” Russo closed his notebook and returned it to his pocket.
“Well, I have my own problems right now. I have a hard-ass dinosaur captain who wants me out. You got an ID on the deceased?”
Russo looked back toward the body, but before he could say anything, a white Chevrolet Astro coroner van slowly pulled up to the crime scene perimeter. Russo nodded towards the driver.
“Victim is a Hispanic male, early thirties,” Russo said after regaining his train of thought. “The funny thing is the nature of the wounds. It looks like an animal bit a chunk out of this guy. Hey, maybe it was a pit bull or something. But that’s your job, Detective,” Ryan said with a sarcastic grin. “Not quite like our time at the academy, right?
“Did either of you examine the body?” Roman countered, trying to keep the conversation on point.
“No,” Russo answered. “Like I said we are just waiting on the lieutenant. We haven’t touched anything.”
“Well I guess I can take some notes then.” Roman walked over to the body and produced a pen and a small notebook out of his jacket pocket. Russo followed him closely.
“Hey man, the lieutenant said not to touch anything.”
“Relax, I’ll be a few minutes,” Roman said slightly agitated.
As he sketched the crime scene, he noticed that the body did indeed appear as if something had bitten or torn a large portion of flesh from the throat area. He fished some white latex gloves out of his back pocket and put them on.
“You guys check to make sure he was dead?” Roman asked as he put two fingers against the carotid artery. No pulse.
“Not my job man. Listen, I’ll catch up with you later, I need to log in the arriving units.” Roman shrugged as Russo walked back to the perimeter. “We should get a beer sometime and catch up,” Russo said over his shoulder as he walked away.
“Sure. Call me,” Roman said. He quickly resumed his inspection of the body.
He lifted the man’s wallet from where it was lying next to the body. He went through the contents of the wallet and discovered a phone calling card in Spanish and a Mexican Matricula Consular ID card, which many Mexican immigrants in the area carried. He also found a few business cards for landscaping and house painting businesses, but that was all.
“I would say the motive could be robbery,” Roman muttered to himself. “He seems to be a working man, doesn’t look like a gang banger.” He lifted up the man’s bloodied T-shirt. “I don’t see any tats.” He checked his pants pockets, turning them inside out. Nothing.
“Hey, Detective Roman,” the corporal at the perimeter called out. Roman looked up.
“Since you’re hanging around you should talk to this woman. She says she is the man’s wife,” the corporal said. She was attempting to enter the crime scene, but the corporal had a strong grip on her arm. Roman walked over and gently laid his hand on the hysterical woman’s shoulder.
“All right, let her go,” he told the corporal. Turning to the woman, he said, “Cálmate, señorita. Por favor.” His request had an unintended effect, as the woman collapsed to her knees on the ground and began to weep. She looked up at Roman and began to speak to him in rapid Spanish.
“What is she saying?” the corporal asked.
“She’s speaking too damn fast. Mas despacio, por favor,” Roman pleaded. The woman nodded. She wiped tears from her red swollen eyes with her right hand. Roman was able to translate after she resumed speaking, this time much slower.
“She said she was going to buy some milk for their baby just now when she saw him on the ground. I assume they live nearby.”
The woman started speaking again. “She says he got paid earlier today from a landscaping gig and he should have a few hundred cash on him,” Roman translated.
“Make sure you keep her here until the lieutenant arrives,” Roman said. Probably best to get a Spanish speaking officer over to take her statement.” Without looking at the corporal, Roman walked over to the coroner’s van, now parked. The portly driver got out of the vehicle with some difficulty and addressed Roman.
“How long you going to be?” The driver removed a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped sweat off his forehead.
Roman answered, “As long as it takes. This crime scene is still being processed. The lead detective hasn’t shown up yet, and neither has forensics. You in a hurry or something?”
The driver took a step back and raised his hands in a defensive manner. “OK, Chief, no problem. I have a job to do too, you know.”
I am surrounded by assholes today. Roman turned around and surveyed the scene one more time, trying to take in every detail. Sometimes he wondered why he chose this line of work. Seeing death and mayhem on an almost daily basis was probably going to be the norm from now on. He quickly reassured himself as he headed to his car. If it wasn’t for people like him, the world would descend into chaos, right? He liked to think so anyway. It helped the day go by a little faster. His stomach rumbled. Roman realized he had been drinking coffee all morning and he was starving.
CHAPTER 14
“Lincoln 78,” Roman heard his call signal over the car’s radio.
“Go ahead,” he replied as he picked up his radio mike. He was in the drive-thru lane at McDonald’s. After almost an hour at the murder scene, there wasn’t anything left for him to do since Detective Seebolt’s whereabouts were currently unknown to him. Seebolt wasn’t answering his cell, so some breakfast was definitely in order.
“Lincoln 78,” the radio dispatcher responded, “code 27 at the 600 block of Dawson and 128th. Detective Seebolt is requesting assistance.”
“10-4,” Roman replied. Shit, another dead body. So much for breakfast. Roman exited the drive-thru lane while activating the red blue emergency lights on his vehicle. He got on the South Central Expressway and exited a few miles later, at Hickory Street, entering an older residential area. Moments later, he was on scene, pulling his vehicle into a rundown strip mall parking lot. Only two businesses remained in the strip mall, a pawn shop and a Laundromat with the letters written upside down on the sign. Several officers were keeping a small crowd back. Roman parked his vehicle and approached the nearest officer, a burly African American sergeant. “Where is Detective Seebolt?” he asked, while holding up his shield. The sergeant pointed towards two plainclothes detectives conversing with one another.
“All right, thanks.” Roman turned and walked toward the two plainclothes officers. As he walked inside the scene, he could see the exposed body behind the Laundromat, near a dumpster overflowing with cardboard boxes.
The detectives stopped talking as he approached. “Sorry to interrupt. Is one of you Detective Seebolt?” he asked.
One of them answered, a man who appeared to be about fifty years old and had the look of a veteran detective, with hard, chiseled features and a neat crop of short gray hair, parted to one side. “You must be Johnny Roman. Good to meet you. Sorry to have you working like this on your first day. I wished I could have gotten you to ride with me, but it’s been too damn hectic already. No better way to learn, though.” This friendly introduction, coming from a detective who appeared so down-to-business, took Roman completely off guard. Seebolt extended his hand, which Roman shook. His tweed sport coat and wrinkled khakis looked like he had slept in them. Roman noticed that he carried a .357 revolver with a 6-inch barrel instead of a semi-automatic. Old school.
“Anything I can do to help, sir?” Roman answered.
“You can help the uniforms get statements. Start with that homeless guy over there,” Seebolt said, indicating a disheveled man sitting on the curb. “It seems like there’s a pattern developing this morning. We had another body this morning that apparently is similar. Looks like an animal bite or something, although the homeless guy claims it was no animal. He says he saw another man attacking this one. This guy is torn up pretty bad. I just talked with the lieutenant who was at the scene with you. He said the earlier victim is in pretty
much the same condition.”
“Yeah, the Mexican was bitten or slashed. Is there anything else about this victim that may indicate an animal attack or an assault?” Roman asked.
“Not much,” Seebolt replied. “The guy over there states he saw a brief struggle, he tried to intervene, and I’m guessing he scared the suspect off.” Seebolt pointed again to the disheveled man sitting on the curb, a slim white male with the tattered white T-shirt of a U.S. Marines Khe Sahn 2/5 Battalion veteran, and he sported a long, gray, unkempt beard. “Anyway, I’d be interested to hear your theories. It’s not every day someone gets bitten to death out here, let alone twice in one day. I figure it would be much easier just to shoot or stab someone. Maybe the suspect had a dog or something no one saw.”
Roman nodded and walked over to the man sitting on the curb, who now had his head buried in his hands. He was visibly shaken.
“What happened to your friend?” Roman asked, as calmly as possibly. The unkempt man looked up and met Roman’s gaze with his own.
“First off, that motherfucker wasn’t my friend,” he spat.
Roman put up his hands in a defensive posture. “All right, sorry. Did you know the man?”
The homeless man looked away from Roman. “You got a cigarette?”
“Yeah, here.” Roman produced a pack of L&M’s. The man took one from the freshly opened pack, and Roman offered him a light.
“All right, man,” he stated as he took a big drag. “I knew him. We used to be friends, before he stole some shit from me.” He looked toward the body. “But that ain’t a way for a vet to die; you know what I mean, man?”
“Yeah, I hear you. What did you see?”
The man stood up and took another big drag on the cigarette. “I saw this big motherfucker, looked like he was naked. Wasn’t wearing no clothes or nothin’, but I didn’t see a pecker. The dude was, like, bald everywhere. Looked like he had blood on him, too. They had some words, then the dude just up and bit him or something on the neck. The dude took his clothes. Had these black eyes too. I started yelling at him. He ran off after that.”
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