“How in the hell is he doing any of this? Come on, he has managed to get the drop on a heck of a lot of really bad dudes but he always comes out on top. Most of them don’t even have a chance to get their weapons out. Bigaletto look liked he was in the process of going for his weapon when the guy nailed him. Took off most of his knee, right elbow and the top part of his head. He had powder burns on his head according to Sorenson and it looks like the barrel was right up against his forehead when he pulled the trigger.”
“Ouch,” McGregor said.
“Ouch is right. He doesn’t mind looking them in the eye as he is killing them. Probably talks to them just before he does them in,” I said.
“I shouldn’t say this but I can’t say I am sorry to see Bigaletto off the streets. He was one nasty piece of work,” Captain McGregor said.
“Unless someone even worse takes over now that he is out of the way.”
“There is that. Look boys and girls, I know this is going to hurt your pride but after tonight I don’t have any choice but to call in the FBI.”
“Did the Commissioner order you to?”
“No. He just suggested it…forcefully. If you get my drift,” McGregor replied.
“Would you mind seeing if Pendergrass and his team are available? We work pretty well with them and it would cut down the dancing around we always have to do,” I suggested.
“I can ask. It will be up to the FBI to decide but asking sure can’t hurt any. I don’t mind them either which is rare for the FBI,” McGregor confessed.
“Alright. See what you can do. That okay with you Dan,” I asked.
“Sure. They are a good bunch. Easy to work with and not offensive like so many of them.”
“Okay then. Let me go to work on it,” McGregor said dismissing us.
***
While the police thought it had been easy, Bigaletto had almost gotten the drop on him. He was faster than he had given him credit for. He couldn’t afford to let that happen again. He was going to have to go back to his old way. Shoot them first and then talk to them. Letting them know why he was doing it was an important part. They had to understand that while the courts might not deal out the kind of justice they deserved, someone would, and they were going to pay for their crimes.
He had already selected his next target. A thirty-three year old man had been sexually abusing his eleven year old daughter, Janetta. The mother pretended she didn’t know anything about it. It had been in the papers for several days now.
While the child was now in the custody of Child Services the parents were out of bail. It bothered him that they were even allowed to post bail. They should have been locked away forever in some dark hole.
He started doing some investigation work on Judge Edgewood and found that he was incredibly lax when it came to sentencing. Over fifty percent of the cases he handled ended up with probation or the minimum sentencing possible.
The more he read the more enraged he became. This person was charged with protecting the community and yet he gave harsher sentences to people who passed bad checks than to pimps, or wife and child abusers. He read each case and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This judge was part of the problem, not the solution. The difficulty was, this was not in his area of comfort. The judge lived in an exclusive area and on top of that, it was a gated community. He would deal with him after he took care of the child molester and his wife.
***
Keenen and Latisha Jawan lived in Shelton Heights on Crocket Avenue. He had already driven by several times, checking out the area. Shelton Heights was right at the outer limit of the area he had carved out to protect but he had never spent much time in that particular setting. The houses in the area seemed fairly well kept. Like all neighborhoods, a few nice houses were always penalized by the slobs with no pride who let their place just fall down around them.
Just driving by he knew which belonged to Jawan. It was the trashiest house on the block by far. The grass was nothing but weeds. Trash and bottles littered the yard. A junk car sat in front of the house, obviously not running.
It is one thing to be poor but another to be lazy. It doesn’t cost anything to pick up the trash out of the yard. There was no alley behind the house so unfortunately it meant he would need to make a frontal assault. It also meant it would probably have to be done during the day and that posed a bigger risk.
It was one thing to shoot a bunch of thugs hurting someone, but to shoot people in their home would be a lot trickier. Noise would be a factor he would have to deal with as well. Regardless of what the movies show, not everyone has a noise suppressor they can just whip out and put on the end of their gun.
As he was watching, the mail man walked up to the house and knocked on the door. A woman answered the door and he stood there talking to her a few minutes before handing over a stack of mail and having her sign for something.
He decided that was his answer. At least it was a way to get the door opened. Now all he had to do was figure out how we was going to gain access, keep them quiet and eliminate them without alerting the neighbors. Piece of cake. Not really, but he was starting to form a plan.
***
“I should have killed that kid,” Keenen fumed while stomping through the front room. He kicked at a shirt lying on the floor but a book was lying under it and he stubbed his toe. He howled and started cussing at the top of his voice.
“Now honey, you don’t want the neighbors hearing you rant,” his wife said.
“You think I give a shit what they think? I got news for you. I could care less about those jerks.”
“I know but they might call the cops and we have enough trouble without that.”
“Call the cops. Call the cops. That’s all they ever do. They need to mind their own business. Bunch of old biddies. They had just better keep out of my business.”
“Calm down Keen. You’re getting all worked up over nothing. It’s done. We can’t get near Janetta. They won’t even let me talk to her,” his wife said.
“Who the hell do they think they are? She doesn’t belong to them. It’s like they are kidnapping her. That should be against the law. We haven’t been convicted of anything yet. They should give her back until the trial,” he yelled.
She thought about pointing out how ridicules that was but thought better of it. When he was worked up like this the best thing was to keep her mouth shut or else he would start taking it out on her. She wisely decided to just let it run it’s course. He would start drinking beer soon and hopefully pass out and leave her alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BODIES STACKING UP – shouted the headlines as I opened the paper. Just great. I decided to just skim the article. My stomach was already upset enough. It seems the reporter had decided that all the murders were the result of one vigilante’s work.
The article went on to report that the gunman was doing what the police were apparently not capable of in getting known criminals off the street. They went so far as to suggest that perhaps the police were not putting much effort into the case since crime had been significantly reduced in the area.
Now look, I understand and appreciate first amendment rights but to simply lie like that seems to me to be stepping over the line and slanderous. Of course there is little we can do about it.
On the other side of the coin, they were right in that crime in that area had started to decline. Of course when you just kill the bad guys that kind of goes hand in hand with less crime. Nevertheless, it made for sensational reading which was the whole point of the article.
There was no mention of the hundreds of leads we had tracked down, the lack of cooperation from the witnesses, and the number of man hours we had devoted to the case. I guess that didn’t really matter. It wasn’t considered relevant.
The one thing I couldn’t argue with was the fact that at this point in time, it did look like the work of one man and they were right about the bodies starting to stack up. Doc Sorenson had just been complaining about t
hat very thing. Crooks, gang-bangers, and thugs have a tendency to hang around in the morgue longer than normal people. No one wants to claim the body.
Dan and I had been working on this non-stop and were making little progress. The wheel was turning but the hamster was dead. We were going no place fast.
Dan came in from the break room and sat down. He looked whipped. Obviously he wasn’t getting much sleep either. Now we were going to have the FBI to contend with and that would only raise our anxiety level a few more degrees. They were already on their way here and were due to arrive at around 3:00 p.m.
So far we had no word as to who was coming. Dan and I both hoped it would be Brad Pendergrass and his team but you never knew with the FBI.
The captain came up the stairs and waved Dan and I over.
“You don’t have to pick up the FBI. Evidently we don’t have to chauffeur them around like usual. Someone make arrangements for them to have a car at the airport. They are coming here as soon as they arrive.”
“Any word on who they are sending,” Dan asked.
“They haven’t told me a thing yet. Just that they would take care of their own transportation.”
“So do we just sit on our butts until they get here?” Dan asked.
“No Dan. You do what you do every day; work the case,” he said tensely.
“No use getting the captain worked up. He doesn’t like it any more than we do,” I told Dan when we got back to our desk.
“This is like what, the third or fourth time we have had to call in the FBI? It doesn’t make us look very sharp. If anything, it makes us look like small town hicks,” Dan said bitterly.
I understood his feelings but I also understood that our Commissioner was never one to hesitate to call in outside help. He didn’t care how it made us look or feel. All he cared about was showing the city that he was on top of things.
“It doesn’t do any good moaning and groaning about it. It’s done and we are going to have to make the best of it,” I said, which was kind of strange coming from me.
***
The van stopped across the street from the Keenen and Latisha Jawan’s house. A delivery courier walked across the street with a large envelope and a clipboard. To anyone watching it was just a routine delivery.
The driver knocked on the door and waited.
“Yeah,” a woman’s voice answered after a few moments.
“Delivery.”
“Delivery? From who?”
“It says it’s from Family Services,” he replied.
Latisha cracked open the door and looked at the guy.
“I’ll take it,” she finally said.
“It is addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jawan. I need both of you to sign for it.”
“My husband ain’t here,” she said opening the door further.
“Okay, I can come back at a later time. We will make three attempts to deliver it, after that you will have to come down and pick it up,” the delivery man said turning to leave.
“Wait. He is here but he is sleeping. Can’t I just sign for it?”
“Ma’am it’s from the Federal Government. They are very strict about this kind of thing. I have to get both signatures if that is what the instructions say.”
“He ain’t gonna’ be very happy if I wake him up.”
“No problem. I can try again tomorrow,” he said and started off again.
“No. Hold on. I’ll get him up. It’s from Family Services?”
“That’s what it says,” the driver replied.
“Hang on a minute,” she said and hurried off to get her husband.
The driver slipped inside, and waited. He could hear Keenen shouting at his wife about waking him up but he calmed down after a few minutes. He could hear him say, ‘does that mean we are going to get her back?’ The delivery man just smiled to himself.
A few minutes later the scrawny husband and his chunky wife came into the front room.
“You let him in?” he said, turning to his wife.
“Hell no. He was still standing at the door,” she said moving away from Keenen.
“What the hell are you doing in my house,” Keenen said walking up to the delivery man.
“Delivering a message.”
“What? A message? What the ….”
The driver raised his gun with what appeared to be a large pop bottle on the end of it. Both Keenen and his wife looked at the gun wide-eyed, unmoving, except for Latisha putting her hand over her mouth.
“Shut up and listen. I have a message from your daughter. She wants you to know that you have hurt her for the last time. She wants you both to know you are scum and that she hopes you rot in hell. In fact she wanted me to point out that from this day on, you will never have the chance to harm her again,” he said and shot Keenen in the crotch.
The gun hardly made more than a loud pop sound as Keenen fell to his knees holding his groin. His wife started to scream but the driver aimed the gun at her face.
“Shut your mouth this instant or I’ll take your head off,” he said gruffly.
She stopped mid scream and clamped her hands over her mouth.
“You son of a bitch,” Keenen said, holding his groin.
“Yeah, it kind of hurts doesn’t it?” the delivery man said and kicked him in the face, knocking him over on his back.
He turned to face the woman.
“How could you sit by and let this piece of crap rape your very own daughter, time and time again, and do nothing about it?” he demanded.
“I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know? You are no better…no, you are worse than him. You let it happen to your very own child and did nothing to stop it.”
“Please, what could I do? He is my husband,” she said sobbing.
“And she was your daughter. You had a duty to protect her and all you did was turn a blind eye. He may be a scumbag but you are even worse. Now get over here and sit down beside your sad excuse for a husband,” he ordered.
She was hesitant but finally walked over and got down on the floor.
“You won’t get away with this,” Keenen said between clinched lips.
“Probably not, at least not forever. At some point they will catch me but it will be far too late to do you any good,” he said and shot Keenen in the groin a second time, taking off most of his fingers and what was left of his crotch.
The gun shot was much louder this time and he knew people would soon wonder what was going on.
“Latisha, I’m afraid you need to understand your daughter’s pain as well,” he said and shot her in the stomach.
He didn’t even look back as he walked back out of the house, climbed in the van, and drove off at normal speed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dan and I sat watching as two men and two women came up the stairs and were shown to the Captain’s office by Sargent Winters. We just looked at each other. It was not Pendergrass and his team. Neither of us had seen these people before.
“Not good,” I heard Dan mutter.
“Now don’t be like that. They might be very easy to work with,” I said, not believing it for one minute.
“Right,” was all Dan said.
I watched as the captain shook hands with each of them and they started talking. It was easy to tell the head honcho. He was the one still standing and doing all the talking. He was one of those kind that probably couldn’t get a word out of his mouth if you tied his hands down. They were constantly moving and gesturing. This ought to be fun I thought. I would have to be careful and not laugh when he was talking.
After fifteen minutes or so, I could see them starting to head our way. I made sure I was deep in work so they wouldn’t think I had been watching. Wait a minute Angie, what do you care what they think? Sometimes I am such a dork. I stopped what I was doing and looked at them as they approached.
“Special Agent Farling, this is our lead detective, Angie Bartoni, and her partner, Dan Roberts,” Captain McGregor said as we stood up
and did the hand shaking thing.
“These are my people, Agent Conroy, Agent Peel, and Agent Miller,” he said pointing them out.
We all did the skin swapping knowing full well none of us could really put the name with the face.
“Angie, you can show them to the conference room and get them settled in. Just let me know if you need anything else,” McGregor said dumping them on us.
What a guy. Prince of the earth.
Dan and I took them down the hall to the conference room and introduced them to Eric, our computer guru. I knew their IT guy immediately just from looking at him. Agent Miller looked like a little boy in a candy store and immediately he tuned us out and started talking in that foreign language all geeks seem to talk in.
Agent Conroy did not look like she belonged in the FBI. First of all she didn’t look fit enough. I know I could stand to lose a couple of pounds but this woman was at least twenty pounds overweight. I was wondering how she managed to pass the physical.
Agent Peel was more what you expected. Five ten or eleven, maybe one hundred twenty pounds and rather pain looking if you ask me. That was catty of me, I guess. Anyway, she was pretty typical of the regular robotic FBI agents they seem to make in a factory someplace.
Farling was nearly as tall as Dan, maybe an inch or so shorter, not quite as well built, but still slim and trim. It’s hard to find someone quite as well put together as Dan. His voice was the most unique thing about him. It was sort of quiet and gravely. Scratchy? It’s hard to put a label on it, but it wasn’t normal and he had little projection which was unusual for an FBI agent.
Miller had been easy. Skinny, glasses, tall but with no apparent muscle tone and a total geek. He and Eric would have a ball trying to outdo each other. Eric lived for this kind of challenge, especially against the FBI guys.
“I assume you want to go over the latest files?” I asked.
“We did that on the way over, unless something else has happened in the last twenty-four hours,” he said.
Victim's Advocate: Angie Bartoni Case Flie # 12 (Angie Bartoni Case Files) Page 10
