Blood Week

by J. D. Martin

  “We breached the home to find four assailants on the premises; guns were drawn.” It seemed my fears were about to be validated. “Fire was exchanged from both parties injuring two and killing another. The last man gave up after his associates went down.”

  “Were any of ours hit?”

  “Luckily, no. We came out all clear. The one who surrendered himself is in custody, while the others are being escorted to the hospital. I’ve notified the coroner’s office of the DB heading their way.”

  “Good to hear all of ours are ok. I’ll release Mr. Thompson, since his part of the deal is finished, and let you wrap up on your end.”

  I informed Stacey of the update I received, and got the go ahead to release Bradley from custody. I let him call his mother from my desk since he lived across town and we couldn’t just shove him out the front door and wish him the best of luck. “What the hell, Mom?” he said after what had been a ten-minute argument. “Fine.” His exasperated sigh showed that he had lost whatever they had fought about as he offered the phone to me. “She wants to talk to you.”

  Taking the receiver, “Ms. Thompson? How can I help you?”

  “Can you get one of your officers to drive him back here? I’m not coming out to get him. After the shit he put me through, I am not in the right state to worry about driving there.”

  After a bit of discussion with Bradleys’ mother, I decided it was best to just get her off the phone. “We’re not really a chauffeur service, ma’am, but I’ll see what I can do.” She thanked me and I hung up the line.

  “Someone’s in trouble,” I said in a mocking tone. I knew I sounded like an adolescent making fun of a schoolmate being called to the principal’s office, but it seemed to fit the situation.

  Looking around the bullpen to see who I could convince to take a babysitting run, I noticed Officer Oswald Kitna—or Okie Dokie as he’s known—grabbing a coffee in the break room. “Wait here,” I said to Bradley as I went to talk to Kitna. The boy grumbled a bit, but sat in the chair beside my desk and waited.

  “How are you holding up after finding Justin Sullivan’s body the other day?” I asked as I stepped up next to him to prepare my own cup of java.

  “Better now. I’m not used to that kind of stuff, ya know?”

  “Glad to hear it. It does get easier with time.” Glancing back at my desk, I watched as Bradley grabbed an entertainment magazine from Pinick’s desk and flipped through it. “Do you have time to do me a favor?” I asked, turning back to Kitna.

  “Sure. I’ll be coming off shift soon but I’ve got some time. What do you need?”

  “That boy at my desk over there,” I said, pointing. “Can you run him uptown to his Mom’s place?”

  Dokie looked at Thompson, “That your rabbit from yesterday?”

  “Heard about that did you?” He nodded and quickly took a sip of his coffee to try and hide the smile that formed on his lips. “Listen, newbie, you’ll have plenty of your own rabbits over the next few years. You can count on that,” I said with a grin and a friendly shove on his shoulder.

  “Fair enough. Tell you what, to make up for it I’ll run the boy home, but he’s sitting behind the cage.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said chuckling. Being taken home in the back of a squad car might be just what the boy’s neighbors need to see to set him right.

  Walking with Dokie back to my desk, I reached down and snatched the magazine from Bradley’s hands. “That’s not yours,” I said with the voice of a parent berating their child. Tossing it back onto Detective Pinick’s desk, I continued. “You’ll be happy to know that you’re done here. This is Officer Kitna and he’ll be escorting you home. A parting word of advice though, stay out of trouble this time and if a police officer wants to talk to you, don’t run again.” I emphasized the last bit to imply an ‘or else’.

  Watching his head bow slightly, he looked at the floor and said “Yes, sir.”

  He stood up and followed Kitna down the hall, clearly happy to be leaving the police station. I waited by the door and watched as the elevator doors opened for them. Out of embarrassment, he never looked back at me. Perhaps he’d think twice about his actions and try to lead a better life. But time on the force had the pessimist in me doubting it. Returning to my desk, I hustled through the paperwork on Thompson’s release.

  Right as I was signing my John Hancock on the final sheet of paper, my computer chimed with an email. As I reached for the mouse, I heard the chirp of a cell phone a few desks down and saw Simmons who had returned from the tech lab reaching for his pocket. Opening my email page, I found a message from Eric with the finished work on the photographs. I was about to open the jpegs he sent when I saw Simmons stand from his desk out of the corner of my eye and waddle towards me as he finished his call.

  “They’ve finished the work on the letter.”

  “Already?” I asked. “You just dropped it down there.” It was strange to have forensics finish with an analysis so quickly, but the news Simmons received explained why. They didn’t find any DNA on the seal of the envelope, nor were there any prints on the letter other than that of the producer at the news station that had opened it.

  “From what they tell me,” he said, “the paper is standard white stock that you can pick up from any office supply store.”

  “Well, that looks to be a dead end then. What about the delivery? Was there anything we could use to track where it came from?”

  “No, it was delivered by bike messenger. After checking with the company, we found that they didn’t have any deliveries around the news station. Ends up that a man stopped the messenger on the street and gave him $200 to deliver the letter.”

  “Did you speak with the messenger?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he said he was so focused on the money he’d been given that he never even looked at the guy’s face. All he saw was an address and a couple Benjamins. We even asked if he could remember what intersection he was at when he was given the letter, but he didn’t remember. All he could tell us was that he was somewhere on 22nd. I gave him my card in case anything came back to him.”

  “Ok, let me know if anything develops with the bike messenger. Eric, in the lab, just emailed me the photos he enhanced of our guy with the backpack.”

  Simmons stepped around to view my monitor as I opened the attachments. What we found didn’t reveal much more than we were able to see before enhancement. Eric had said it probably wouldn’t be much due to the low sophistication of the camera that took the image, and he was right. Mr. Masters was able to reveal that the man had a lighter skin tone by the cleaning done around the hands and chin. The red mark on the bag had also gone through corrections as it now showed the Guns N’ Roses logo more clearly. This all lined up with Bradley’s testimony, but it didn’t give us much more to go on.

  “Too bad,” said Simmons as he went back to his own desk. I copied the files onto the precinct database so others could access them and emailed Captain Hawthorne and Marcus to let them know that they were available. They’d want to take a look as well.

  Filing the paperwork on Bradley Thompson’s release, I grabbed my things to head out. I had a dinner date with a kitty Kat that was anxious to purr for me. As I threw on the jacket over the pressed shirt and tie, I turned to leave but was interrupted.

  “Another body’s been found,” announced Hawthorne. “Saint, find your partner because you guys are up.”

  Fuck, there goes my plans again.

  Chapter 14

  Surrounding the 12th Street Bridge were old brick buildings that housed factories in the fifties. They ranged from four to six stories tall and while many were abandoned, most had started to be repurposed over the years. A few that were tall enough to peek over the bridge, were now used as haunted houses during the Fall. It had been several years since I’d been to one of them, but the Beast and Edge of Hell were the most recognized haunted houses in the city.

  Although tickets were starting to sell to thes
e attractions, I wasn’t in the area for entertainment. The freight elevator I stood in made creaks and groans as it rose towards the sixth floor of one of the unused buildings. The walls of the brick chute could be seen passing by through the slats of the wooden framed walls of the car, which made me feel like I could almost see the history held in the stone. It was like sounds of the industrial revolution were reaching out to be heard.

  With a final screech and a jolt as the car came to a stop, the street cop we rode up with lifted the doors at the front for us to exit. Under orders from Captain Hawthorne, Delgado and I were on the case as leads with backup from Detectives Pinick and Bronson. My partner and I were only on duty for another half hour, so would have normally left new business for our brothers in blue, but this case had special rules since I was the senior detective on it. With that in mind, it made sense that the Captain wanted us to get a preliminary of the scene before turning it over to the late shift. For them, not 45 minutes on duty and they were already at a murder scene.

  The room we stepped into was huge. Without any dividing walls, it ran the entire expanse of the building. Bronson whistled as we walked through the space. “Place is huge,” he said. “It must be a few thousand square feet.”

  “And look at that view,” added his partner. I glanced out the window and saw outside the brick walls of the old factory was a gorgeous view of the downtown skyline of Kansas City, MO. This floor wasn’t as high up as the balcony in my apartment due to being in the valley of the West Bottoms that surrounded 12th Street, but the view was better. Since the Walnut building was in the middle of downtown, I was given a limited view of the city around me. But from here, you could truly see how breathtaking the city could be.

  The evening lights were just starting to peek out with the setting sun on places like the Town Pavillion and the Sheraton Hotel. Even the new One Kansas City Place was there as the tallest building in the city. While it may not be as great a view as the balcony at City Hall, where I often found myself, it was a scene with everything I loved about my home. It made me wonder if this building could be turned into condominiums to take advantage of the sight. It almost made one want to become a real-estate developer.

  The interior walls entirely made of red brick wasn’t something you found in newer construction. It imbued the building with a feeling of nostalgia that would make this a place that drew in high prices from potential tenants. If you threw in some new hardwood floors and divided the space up into individual apartments that kept elements of the original structure, a developer could make a killing. But first, the killing that was already here would have to be dealt with.

  In the center of the room, a black male in baggy jeans and a wife-beater tank top soaked with blood was duct taped to a chair. The dark stains were spilled down his chest like a bucket of burgundy paint. Kneeling next to him, Amy Doyle was hard at work on determining TOD and COD. As we approached her posterior, Pinick got the ball rolling, “What do we have, Ms. Doyle?”

  “Oh, hey Edward. D.B. was tortured before death-“

  “No shit,” interrupted Bronson. “Guy looks gruesome.”

  “Seen worse,” said Amy. “Anyway, I found a wallet on him that had an ID inside.” Pulling it from an evidence bag, she handed it to Pinick. “License says his name is Shane Jackson.”

  “Judging from the tats, he was a Ryder,” said Bronson while examining the victim’s arms.

  “Ryder?” asked Marcus.

  “The 12th Street Ryders. They’re a gang that are constantly warring over this neighborhood with Los Colabos. Bet you can’t guess what ethnicity they are.”

  Skipping over Bronson’s attempt at humor, Edward returned us to the job, “Anything you can tell us that could lead us to a suspect?”

  “You actually think I’ll have something more than usual this time?” she asked. As we stared at her, she realized we hadn’t noticed yet. Helping the boys catch up, she pointed with her pen towards the ceiling. Smeared in blood above us was ‘Ex malo bonum.’

  “Well that explains why Hawthorne insisted we come,” I said to Delgado. This body was another to add to the growing list of deaths associated with Blood Week.

  “I have to admit that this took planning,” said Pinick.

  “What do you mean?” Bronson asked.

  “Do you see a ladder or anything anywhere? How the fuck did he get up there?”

  “Good point,” I said. “You two may want to see if there is something sitting around that we aren’t noticing on how he did that.” The two of them took a quick tour of the room from stem to stern. Turning back to Amy, “What can you tell us about the torture?”

  “Based on what I’ve seen, I could probably walk you through what happened from start to finish.” Waiting with pads ready, we listened to her recant a story based on Shane Jackson’s wounds.

  At some point late last night, Jackson was struck across the back of the head with enough force to knock him unconscious and brought here. Amy then told us the colorful tale as told by our latest dead body.

  “Mr. Jackson? Oh, Mr. Jackson…?” The man bound to the chair started to stir, but slowly. His eyes started to flutter at the sound of his name as he groaned, trying to shake away the cobwebs. “There you are, Mr. Jackson. I was starting to get worried. How was your nap? Pleasant dreams I assume?”

  “What,” he started. “What happened?”

  “That is what is known as blunt-force trauma to the head,” the man said. “It probably stings like a mother right now, but I assure you the pain won’t last long.”

  Shane’s vision returned to him as he looked around the large room. It smelled musty like it hadn’t been inhabited for a long time. It was dark outside, and only a few flickering bulbs illuminated the floor around him. Beyond the area under the lights, everything was black. He couldn’t tell how far the room went in each direction, but it sounded quite large the way sounds played off surrounding surfaces. He looked down at the floor and saw wood that was rotting and torn up in places. “Where am I?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Big Shot. You’re still in Ryder territory. There’s nothing to worry about because nobody would dare mess with someone like you on your own turf, right?” He laughed as if the idea was the most hysterical thing he’d heard in years, and Shane was the only one that didn’t get the joke.

  Annoyed, Shane tried to stand and finally noticed the tape securing him to his chair. “What the fuck?” He shook against the restraints, grunting loudly as he did so. Eventually he screamed at the top of his lungs with frustration at his failure to free himself. Taking deep breaths, his eyes focused on me from beneath his brows as his nostrils flared.

  “Who are you?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “Wow,” the man hidden in shadows said. “Such grit in your voice. It’s almost as if you feel like you’re the predator in our little pairing.”

  The blood in his veins boiled at the man’s audacity. “I SAID WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?” He struggled slightly as if he could break the bonds with brute strength and attack his captor, but it seemed that he’d never been informed that you actually have to hit the gym to get big muscles.

  Shane Jackson wasn’t stick thin, but he also wasn’t aspiring to be the next Schwarzenegger. He was of average height and build and—like most thugs today—assumed brandishing a pistol made you powerful. What the trash like this didn’t get was that although a gun could do a lot of damage, it didn’t match the power of the mind. This is why the street thugs would never reach the status of those running said streets.

  “Temper…temper, Mr. Jackson. Have you ever considered the thought of taking anger management classes? I feel that you could benefit from them greatly.”

  “Fuck you, asshole! You better let me up before me and my boys fuck your sissy ass up!”

  “Your boys? YOUR BOYS?!?” he asked, incredulous. “Oh wait, do you mean those guys who don’t have the slightest clue where we are. The ones rolling to Collabos territory right now because of a note
they found indicating they had a hand in this? Are those the ‘boys’ you speak of?”

  The guest-of-honor for the evening opened his mouth to curse again, but then thought better of it. Instead, his kidnapper’s words sunk past Shane’s pigheadedness as he came to terms with where the power lied in this conversation. Squinting as he peered into the blackness before him, he tried to find the face to go with the voice. Instead of stepping into the light for him to see me, the man continued.

  “We don’t want any interruptions. You and I have plans for tonight, so I sent them on a little errand to the Collabos side of town.”

  “I’m gonna kill you, mutha fucka. Untie me you piece of shit, or you gonna die!”

  “Well which one is it, Mr. Jackson? Are you going to kill me, or let me go? To kill me, I have to untie you, but then you say you’re going to do so if I don’t untie you? You can see the confusion you’re creating, yes?”

  “Fuck you, Collabos scum!”

  “Damn it,” he said with a sigh. “And here I thought you’d been listening. I’m not in one of these factions you’re always fighting with. I just made it look like them so we could be alone.” The man walked around him, but always just at the edge of the light so Shane couldn’t see him.

  “While we’re on the subject of your inability to make sense of things, could I ask you a serious question?” His footsteps clapped against the hardwood and fell dead on the expansive room. “Why is it that individuals such as yourself think that chest-puffing and unearned bravado like that will get you anywhere?”

  Reaching Jackson’s right side, the man turned around to walk another semicircle before him. This time he came farther into the light so the lower portion of his body started to appear. Shane’s eyes fixated on his exact position as the speech continued. “If I’m not mistaken—and feel free to correct me if I am—the ranting has not magically made your bonds come free. Nor has it struck fear into my heart or allowed you to start working on that threat of killing me. No, if I were to spit conjecture, I think that you’ve got it all wrong.”