The Avenged

by Charles Prandy

  Theresa’s parents have the kind of love that my parents had. They take care of me as if I were their own son. Whenever they came over, hot meals were always ready and the house was spotless from top to bottom. What more could one ask from their in-laws? However, I knew the real reason why they came over so much; they missed their daughter. Theresa was their only child and lived with them until we married seven years ago. They’re lonely without her.

  I leaned in and kissed Mama J on the cheek and then slapped five with Pops, who was already digging into the bacon. In his early sixties, Pops was a natural athlete who runs five miles a day and then bikes another twelve miles. His career in construction kept his arms strong and shoulders broad. The only thing that he wasn’t able to fight was his grey hair, which he shaved bald. With his dark skin, he’s often told that he looks like an older Michael Jordan.

  Likewise, if there were a Senior Miss America, Mama J would be in the running. The years have been good to her, and the hourglass shape she had when she was twenty still existed today.

  “Theresa upstairs?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Pops responded. “She’s getting ready for her shift at the hospital.”

  “One coming, the other going,” Mama J teased. “Guess that’s why I haven’t gotten any grandbabies yet.” She winked.

  “Keep your mind outta’ the gutter,” I responded with a playful smile.

  “I’m just saying.” She looked at her watch, “tick tock…tick tock.”

  “You need to tick tock that man right there. He’s eating all my bacon.”

  “I’m still a growing man,” Pops replied as he patted his stomach. “I need all the nutrients I can get.”

  “I’ll show you some nutrients,” I jokingly retorted.

  I quickly reached for a piece of bacon in Pops’ hand, but he moved quicker than I expected.

  “Hey, hey, hold on now. Don’t mess with my bacon. You may be a hotshot detective, but I was a Golden Gloves champ in 1968. I still got a mean jab now.”

  He began to bob and weave and threw quick jabs in the air. “I wouldn’t want to connect two to your chin and knock you out.”

  I laughed. “Any time, old man. But first you’d have to catch me.”

  I quickly grabbed a piece of bacon from Pops’ hand and darted from the kitchen and up the stairs.

  “Imma remember that,” Pops yelled.

  “Good, and remember how good this bacon was, too,” I laughed as I ran up the stairs.

  Four

  THE SHOWER WAS RUNNING when I walked into the bedroom. The en suite bathroom door was partially open, and I felt the steam from the shower. I took off my tie and quickly slipped out of my clothes until I was nude and entered the bathroom. Theresa still hadn’t heard me. To my left was our white porcelain pedal sink with an oval mirror above it. To my right was the shower with a cream and brown colored shower curtain. I glanced at myself in the mirror before entering the shower, taking notice that the extra crunches I’d been doing were starting to show. I’m six feet three inches tall and weigh two hundred and twenty pounds. I’m a big guy, but light on my feet.

  I leaned closer to the mirror and noticed a puffiness around my eyes. I needed to sleep for a few hours before I reconvened with Charlie, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to. My facial hair was slightly overgrown, and Theresa kept telling me that she liked the look and how it made me look cool like TV detectives. I wear my hair close because I’ve been noticing that my hairline was starting to go in the opposite direction that I wanted it to. Fortunately, when my hair is close, my brown skin hides that fact that I’m slowly losing my hair.

  I turned around and slipped into the shower where Theresa was facing the showerhead with a film of soap covering her curvy body. She looked great from behind, even though she was wearing an unattractive black shower cap. She began to hum a tune that I wasn’t familiar with, but it didn’t matter because I only had one thing on my mind. Theresa’s back end instantly provoked a thought of lust. I always told her that if she hadn’t gone to medical school and become a doctor, she could have easily made a career as a video vixen.

  I reached for her waist, rubbed my hands over her flat stomach, and gently pulled her close. She jumped at first, but then turned around and smiled which made me jump back.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Didn’t realize you had cream on your face.”

  Theresa’s face was covered with a white cream that made her look like the Michelin Man.

  “If I knew that a tall, gorgeous, chocolate brotha was going to be paying me a visit, I would have been a little more sexy.” She giggled. “How long have you been home?”

  “Just a few minutes. Your parents are making breakfast downstairs. Your dad wasn’t too happy when I grabbed a strip of bacon from his hand.”

  Theresa shook her head. “You two. What am I going to do with you guys?”

  “For starters, you can rinse that cream off your face.” I raised my right eyebrow and gave her a look that I was ready.

  She lightly nudged my chest. “Not with my parents downstairs.”

  “They’re not going to hear us. Besides, when’s the last time you had a quickie before work?”

  Theresa raised her arms around my neck and pulled me closer. “You’re a wild one, aren’t you, Mr. Hayden.”

  “Only with you.”

  We kissed for a few seconds and I instantly felt myself become harder and more erect. Theresa pulled back and smiled.

  “We can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Sorry, babe, but I’ve got to get to the hospital. I’ll just make it before eight o’clock rounds if I get out of here in the next fifteen minutes.”

  “I only need two, three tops.”

  “You’re right about that,” she giggled. “But I can’t.”

  “Come on, babe, you can’t leave me like this.”

  Theresa turned around and rinsed the mask off her face and the soap off her body. When she faced me again, she sensually squeezed her perky breasts and kissed me.

  “Just think about this for the rest of the day and I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight.” She nibbled on my ear before slipping out of the shower.

  “It’s not that easy to turn off,” I said through the shower curtain.

  “Sure it is. Here, I’ll make it easy for you.”

  She reached in and turned off the hot water and I screamed like a little girl.

  “See, I’m sure it’s turned off now.” She laughed while I quickly found the hot water knob.

  “So you’ve got jokes,” I said.

  “It’s all in love, babe.”

  Five minutes later, I was out of the shower. Theresa was already dressed in her scrubs when my cell phone rang.

  “Hello, this is Detective Hayden.”

  “Detective Hayden, this is Camille Johnson from last night.”

  “Yes, Ms. Johnson, how can I help you?”

  Theresa leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek and mouthed that she’d call me later.

  “I got a call this morning from a storage facility in Lanham, Maryland. They said they were calling because Melvin had missed two payments and that if he didn’t pay his fees, his storage garage could go into auction.”

  “How long had he had the storage garage?” I asked.

  “That’s the thing. I didn’t even know he had one.”

  Hmmm. My mind immediately asked two questions: why was Melvin hiding from his mother that he had a storage garage in Maryland? And more importantly, what was he hiding in the storage garage? If my suspicions were right and this was a professional hit, then whatever was in the storage garage could be the reason Melvin Johnson had been killed.

  “Thank you, Ms. Johnson,” I politely replied. “I’ll definitely look into this.”

  Five

  RUSH HOUR IN THE D.C. Metro area never really comes to an end, but traffic was generally lighter leaving the city than coming in at this time of the morning. At 10 a.m., I picked up Ch
arlie from the station, and twenty-five minutes later, we were on Route 50 turning onto M.L.K. Jr. Highway in Lanham, Maryland, where the storage facility was located.

  The sky was as blue as a tropical sea and the temperature climbed close to ninety degrees, unusually warm for that time of the morning in early June.

  “So what do you think we’re going to find?” Charlie asked. During his brief visit home, he’d changed to a pair of black khaki cargo pants and a short-sleeved white pullover collared shirt that had “Metro Police” stitched in yellow over the shirt pocket.

  I, on the other hand, wore dark-colored blue jeans and a black button-up short-sleeved shirt. We both wore our detective shields on chains around our necks.

  “It’d be great if we opened the door and the killer was strapped to a chair with the murder weapon on his lap and a written confession taped to his chest.” I laughed, knowing how unrealistic that would be.

  “I’ll do you one better. The killer is tied to a chair, the murder weapon on his lap, a written confession taped to his chest, and the victim’s blood is on his clothes.”

  “I’ll do you one better than that,” I teased. “Everything you just said plus an eyewitness to the shooting who unequivocally says that person shot Melvin Johnson.”

  We both laughed at our silliness, but the grim reality quickly settled in that this could be just a lead that got us nowhere. That kind of stuff happens all the time in police investigations, but it was better to check it out and make sure everything’s crossed off the list before moving forward. There could be a hundred different reasons why Melvin had a storage facility and most of them could be legal. Maybe Melvin wasn’t hiding this from his mother, but rather, he just never told her because he didn’t think it was important enough for her to know.

  I turned my black 2009 Chevy Impala into the parking lot of the Extra Space Storage. The inside lobby was stacked wall-to-wall with folded moving boxes, hanging moving tape and movers’ gloves. We showed the young, dark-haired man behind the counter, who looked to be about twenty-two years old, our detective shields and asked for Melvin Johnson’s storage space. The young man was about to say that he couldn’t divulge that kind of information, but I handed him a search warrant, which quickly put an end to his chatter.

  Minutes later, we were standing outside in front of a brown garage door. Rows upon rows of storage garages were lined up across from each other, spaced wide enough apart that someone could pull up a trailer and either load or unload their belongings. The clerk unlocked a padlock and pulled up the garage door to let us in.

  I turned on a light switch. The lights flicked on and then we were able to see that there were three wooden crates along the far end of the wall, placed side by side. I immediately came to the conclusion that there were drugs in the crates and that whoever had killed Melvin Johnson had done so because of these crates.

  “Looks like we may have found motive,” I said.

  “Jesus, what kind of dope was this kid selling?” Charlie asked.

  “The kind that gets you killed.”

  I leaned over the farthest crate to the right and looked to see if there were any kinds of markings or writings on it. There were none. We exchanged glances with each other and then put on latex gloves before opening the crate.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said.

  The crate’s lid opened with ease and I was stunned to see what was inside. It wasn’t drugs like I expected, but just as bad.

  “We need to call the ATF,” I said.

  Six

  GUNS. THE THREE CRATES each had their lids off and were filled with a combination of handguns, rifles and shotguns. I picked up a stainless steel handgun with a black handle and immediately recognized it as a 22 caliber Walther 10. I pulled out the clip and saw that it was full. I then pulled out a Browning shotgun with a long black barrel. I looked over at Charlie, who was already on the phone with the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and knew that we were in for a long day. Over the next thirty minutes, Charlie and I pulled out all of the guns and lined them up according to style and size. The guns covered the entire floor of the garage.

  Melvin Johnson was a gunrunner. I knew that once the media got ahold of this that they were going to have a field day. Young black kids die every day in the city from gun violence, and unless there’s a particular spin that the media can put on a kid’s death, it usually doesn’t get much airplay. But this was a whole different ballgame. In this storage garage in the suburbs of Maryland, there was enough firepower to stock a small army, and once Melvin’s name was linked to gunrunning, the media would make a circus out of it. Which brought up another problem. Once this story hit the airwaves, whoever killed Melvin, if they weren’t already in hiding, would go deeper in hiding and make it nearly impossible to catch them. And if, as I strongly believed based on the amount of fire power that was in front of me, the hit was done by a professional, the killer may be untraceable.

  As I stared at the amount of weapons before me, my mind was searching for something, anything, that would help lead me to the killer. To move this much firepower, Melvin would have to have talked to someone or been working with others on the streets. I started thinking about the more organized criminals in the city and not the nickel-and-dime ones. The latter wouldn’t have enough structure to push this kind of arsenal. Whoever Melvin was working with were professionals by the look of the weapons.

  If I had to guess, I’d think that these weapons had never been used, which the ATF would be able to confirm. And if that’s the case, then Melvin was definitely dealing with professionals all the way through. But who? The only name that continued to come into my head was that of the Gomez family, part of a crime family that had emigrated to the District from Mexico City, and who had been rumored to be into some heavy dealings of drugs, prostitution and even weapons smuggling. Every time the feds conducted a raid on a particular family member, they always came up empty, which led me to believe that they have people working on the inside of the FBI, D.C. Police and every other local government agency.

  As I thought more about it, the name Hector Gomez had come up in briefings and meetings lately. He had migrated up from Mexico City about two years before and had numerous run-ins with the police. Nothing that resulted in jail time, but just enough that the department had been made aware of his presence and his reputation as a hothead. We had been advised to take caution if ever dealing with him.

  “Anything off the top of your head on the Gomez family? I know a new family member recently came into town within the past couple of years,” I asked Charlie.

  “Hector. Yeah, his name’s come up a few times. Street fights, cursing at cops. Someone said they saw him with a gun one time but it was never found.”

  “Think they could be involved in this? I mean, their family’s been relatively quiet, but something like this would take some financial backing. And then you’ve got some hothead who thinks he’s untouchable. We could be looking at a Scarface wannabe in our city.”

  Charlie formed guns with his fingers, pointed at me and, with his best Al Pacino impersonation, said, “Say hello to my little friend.”

  I shook my head, “Dude, good thing you became a cop, because your acting sucks.”

  “I wasn’t believable?”

  “Do I even have to answer that?”

  “Point taken.” Charlie’s attention went to the crates before he spoke again. “But going back to your question, the Gomez family could be a good start. They have the resources and the history to be involved in something like this.”

  An hour later, after agents from the ATF had confiscated the weapons and talked to Charlie and me, we headed back to the city in hopes of finding Hector Gomez.

  Seven

  WHEN I FIRST MET Turtle, he was a thirteen-year-old kid selling weed out of his mother’s basement. His mother worked two jobs and was never home, and like many of the kids in the city, his father had left the family before Turtle was old enough to walk. Also like m
any of the kids in the inner-city, money and food were sometimes hard to come by, so while the mothers worked two and three jobs to keep a place over their heads, a lot of the kids sold weed and dope to make ends meet. Turtle was no exception. He was an unfortunate product of his environment.

  Turtle’s real name was Malcolm Taylor, but as he’d explained to me, when he was a baby, he crawled so slowly that his father said a turtle could move faster than him, and thus the nickname Turtle had stuck with him. However, now the nickname’s irrelevant because Turtle’s one of the fastest people that I’ve ever met. If he’d kept his act together and stayed in school, I had no doubt that Turtle would be a track star competing for a world title in the two-hundred-yard dash. I know best because I had the luxury of trying to catch him that first day he got busted. I’m fast, but Turtle made me look like I was running in slow motion, even at thirteen years old. I only caught him because the kid ran into the street and was clipped by a moving car. Luckily, it didn’t break his leg, but gave him a nasty enough bruise that he was limping for two weeks.

  Over the years, I tried to mentor Turtle and tried to offer him some semblance of what a father could be. Sometimes, Turtle seemed like he would take a step forward, while other days he took two steps back. He never finished high school, didn’t work and was twenty-one years old still living in his mother’s house. I know that Turtle still sold weed, even though he denied it. How else does someone unemployed always have money? Nevertheless, Turtle’s been a good informant for me over the years. He knows the streets and always seems to know what’s happening. So when I called and asked if he knew anything about Melvin Johnson, I wasn’t surprised with what he knew.