by Derek Blass
Checkmate, Tyler thought. Why resist; this is all he wanted. It was what consumed him in the middle of empty nights. “What kind of work are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I'm talking about. Three little piggies.”
Tyler shrugged his shoulders, “I'll think about it.”
“You go ahead and think, but if I haven't heard from you in a week, consider the list published.” Shaver hung up the phone and rotated away to the door behind him. Tyler walked out of the jail, the same man, back to square one.
* * * *
Cruz sat in Mason's office, waiting for him to come back from a meeting. The past few days were eventful. Cruz and Martinez followed up on the lead they generated at the morgue. Jerome Miller was twenty when he died. Eight days from his twenty-first birthday, his mother explained to them.
Jerome's family still lived at the address that came up at the morgue. It was a dilapidated section of town, an area built up in the 1950s with small bungalows and row homes. Abandoned cars, or cars that should have been abandoned, lined the streets and driveways. Teal and white translucent porch covers hung on by single screws. The brick finishes of the homes were cracked and the lawns overrun with weeds.
Mr. and Mrs. Miller, probably both in their mid-fifties, were the core of the family. Jerome was their second child; his sister Donella was the oldest. Mr. Miller told them that Jerome had two other siblings, but said nothing else about them. Cruz saw no sign of them in the house, which was clean inside, although a funereal film hung about. The Millers showed Cruz and Martinez to Jerome's old room. Everything was intact four years later. The bed was made. The room vacuumed. Posters of athletes hung taut on the wall. The room shocked Cruz—the Millers hadn't let go at all.
“He was our only boy,” Mr. Miller said from behind them. He was standing between them and the hall, apparently requiring them to respect this statement by staying in the room for longer than comfortable. Mrs. Miller put a hand on his arm and he stepped sideways, letting Cruz and Martinez squeeze by. “You told me you're a cop, and you're a lawyer. What's this all about? Jerome died a long time ago now. We've been through the rigmarole.” Mrs. Miller directed all of them back to the living room where a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses were waiting.
“It's about just that, Mr. Miller. How Jerome died.”
“But why would you want to know that? Especially now?” Cruz could sense some frustration and rightful indignation coming from Mr. Miller.
“Have you followed the reports on this shooting involving one of the city's cops?”
“I don't watch the news anymore. What happened?”
“A sergeant in the city's police department, Sergeant Shaver, shot and killed an unarmed, elderly man from the Latino community.”
Mr. Miller tried to wave the importance of it away. “What's new? Police brutality? Look where we live, my friend. That's as old a game as dice.”
Martinez went on to supplement Cruz's explanation, “We're investigating some leads that I got—leads that may connect this sergeant to more deaths. We have reason to believe that your son may have been one of his victims.”
Mr. Miller's hand shook and spilled his glass of lemonade on the table. Mrs. Miller darted to the kitchen and returned with several towels. He looked at her as she cleaned up his mess. “I'm sorry, it's just...so startling.” He started off into another time, aching to put pieces of the puzzle together. “The police were never able to tell us what happened. Jerome died of a gunshot wound to his chest, but there were also signs of choking. I've always told Mrs. Miller something was wrong, foul. The coroner had no answers for us. He cut our son up, a big “Y” on his chest, his head, cut him all open and couldn't give us a damn answer. The coroner and the police chief met with us, told us they would keep investigating the death until they found a killer. After several months they labeled the case cold and told us they wouldn't be able to do anything else unless they got more leads.”
“That's kind of quick to shut a case down,” Martinez said.
“We thought so too!” Mr. Miller exclaimed, his whole body trembling now. Mrs. Miller poured him another glass of lemonade and stood there, making him take a sip. “What the hell were we going to do? Look around,” he said while gesturing to their house. “We aren't rich. We live in a rundown neighborhood. They could have just blamed it on the drug dealers that infest these areas, like they always do.”
“We just kept our memories of him,” Mrs. Miller said, her first uttered words. Mr. Miller took the interruption as an opportunity to gather himself.
“It's all we got,” Mr. Miller said.
“Was anyone with Jerome when this happened?”
“As far as I know, Jerome and a friend, Lamont, were coming home from watching their high school play a football game. We heard frantic rapping on our front door that night. When we opened it, Lamont was standing there, out of breath. He grabbed my wrist and hauled me five blocks while I asked him what was going on. He wouldn't talk, he just ran. We got to an alley, behind the old Smoky's Grocery and there he was, my beautiful son. Still warm, laying in a slowly growing puddle of his own blood.” Mr. Miller cut himself off. He grabbed his knees to stop his hands from shaking. Sobs welled up from his chest. “My boy...my only boy!” Tears welled up in Mr. Miller's eyes and ran down his face. “You'll have to excuse me,” he barely got out as he left the room.
Mrs. Miller stood by Cruz and Martinez, her eyes damp. “Maybe it's time for a break,” she said softly. They both nodded at her and stood up.
“We're very grateful for you taking the time to talk with us Mrs. Miller. Here's my card,” Cruz said, “Please, please call me and maybe you can come into my office to talk some more. I think we may be on a track to figure out what happened to Jerome.” She smiled, took the card and then opened the front door. They walked out and Martinez let out a long, held breath.
“What do you think?” Cruz asked.
Martinez shook his head. “I don't know. Certainly sounds suspicious to me. Why would the chief and the coroner meet with them at the same time? Why was he choked and shot? There's definitely something to this.”
The world started to take shape around him again as the memory drew to a close. Mason stormed into his office and completely broke Cruz from his thoughts. After telling Mason about Jerome Miller, he said, “Sandra came across equally alarming information.” Mason was busy taking down notes as Cruz spoke. When he caught up, he looked at Cruz.
“What did she find?”
“She went to investigate the death of a young woman named Isabella Cordoba. Isabella was a college junior here in the city. Her mother is still alive, widowed last year. She explained that Isabella died of an apparent drug overdose, but she adamantly denied that Isabella ever did drugs. Said she was nearly a straight-A student, never hung out with the wrong crowd.”
“Pretty common for kids to successfully hide things from their parents.”
“Didn't seem like that here, Mason. At least from what Sandra told me. This was an old-school Spanish household. Parents are very, very involved with their kids, especially the girls. They protect them.”
“Let's assume what you're saying is right, what's the connection?”
“We got these leads, in the form of photographs, from a cop. Martinez did. Apparently, this cop knew that Martinez was digging deeper into Sergeant Shaver's past. That's why he gave Martinez the photos. When Martinez went to get the photos, at the place and time the two had agreed to, the cop was dead. Shot while waiting in a diner for Martinez. We took the photos...”
“Wait, what happened with the cop?”
“Once he died? I don't know. Haven't had the time to look into it either.” Cruz took a breath. “We took the photos to the city morgue, then got access to the morgue's databases and searched for the deceased people in the photos. Two of them were matches—Jerome and Isabella.”
“The others?”
“No matches or leads.”
“Can you get those
other photos to me? I'll have my investigator try his luck too.”
“Sure. To get back to your question, how this connects, well, that cop gave Martinez the photos and we assume the people in them are somehow connected to Shaver. Our investigation lends support to that assumption. Just consider how Jerome and Isabella died. Unexplained...inexplicable.”
“I don't know, Cruz. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say inexplicable. Jerome could have died any number of ways, and if Isabella died of a drug overdose, then that's it. Hold on one sec.” Mason picked up his phone, “Todd, do me a favor. Pull the coroner's reports for a Jerome Miller and Isabella Cordoba. They both died within the last five years. If you need more information, call me and I'll have Cruz talk to you.” Mason returned his attention to Cruz. “Let's talk about something else until Todd pulls those reports.”
“All right.”
“How the hell do you suppose we're gonna get that video into evidence? Without that, this case is just a 'he said-he said', pitting Martinez against Shaver.”
“What obstacles do you see?”
“Hearsay, for one. Chain of custody, two.”
“Hearsay?”
“Could the video be considered an out-of-court statement used to prove the truth of what is asserted?”
Cruz thought about the question. “I don't think you even get to the statement part. The video isn't a statement, it's a recording of an incident. Even if you want to address the statements contained in the video, the dialogue that occurred, they aren't being offered to prove the truth of anything. There doesn't seem to be a hearsay problem. The chain of custody issue is a problem.”
“The requirements that the physical evidence be documented, who handled it be documented, and the number of transfers be kept to a minimum—all of those are blown.”
“We know Sphinx is gonna challenge the admissibility of the video on those grounds. That means we have to prove the video offered into testimony is the same as the one Max recorded. Martinez can testify that he never doctored or otherwise edited the video. Have you subpoenaed Max's records, specifically the files on his work and home computers?”
Todd came into the office while Cruz was speaking and handed Mason some documents. “Todd can tell you what happened there.”
“We did subpoena those files, and we got access to the computers. Unfortunately, Max had put a self-executing virus on both computers. If he didn't log on for a certain amount of time, the virus eradicated everything on the computers' hard drives.”
“Guess you didn't get to them before that happened?”
“Nope. There was nothing left for us to recover. Our best computer techs tried to, but unsuccessfully.”
“You see? It's going to be tenuous,” Mason said.
“It certainly would have been more of a slam dunk if we could have pulled the video off of his computer. There's no choice though, we've simply got to present Martinez's testimony about the video and let the judge decide. Who's the judge in this case, by the way?”
“Melburn.”
Cruz shook his head. “That's no help.”
“I'm going to get back to work,” Todd said as he left the office.
“I know,” Mason said, answering Cruz.
“Melburn's a pain in the ass,” Cruz said. “We've got no alternatives though. Plan A is Martinez's testimony against Shaver plus the video. Plan B is the testimony by itself. That's one more reason why we've got to keep investigating these other deaths. The problem is I just don't see how we connect Shaver to them. We'll have to pull the cold case files and see if we can match any physical evidence.”
“Or we can start here,” Mason said while handing one of the coroner's reports to Cruz.
“What is it?”
“Look at the last page of that report, the coroner's signature.”
“Okay.”
“Now look at the same page on this other report.”
“Same signatures. That would make sense, to have the same coroner drafting and signing these reports.”
“It certainly would make sense—if that was the city's coroner.” Cruz did a double take and looked at the signature lines again. “Dr. Xavier Kastenoff is not the city's coroner. I've never heard of that doctor.”
“Bingo.”
Mason picked up his phone again and asked Todd to pull the medical bar's records on Dr. Kastenoff. Todd returned with the results quickly.
“Dr. Xavier Kastenoff, originally licensed to practice medicine in 1972. Had his license revoked in 1996 for multiple investigations into unnecessary surgeries. He ran his last office out of a small clinic established in his home.”
“Oh my God,” Cruz said.
“What is it?”
“I've been there.”
T H I R T Y-S I X
__________________________________________________
Shaver walked around the perimeter of the “yard.” After nineteen days in relative isolation, ostensibly for his own protection, he couldn't take it anymore. The walls started to creep in on him. His muscles cramped and ached from lack of activity. He felt his mind evolve toward feelings of depression, even suicide. Those thoughts were flashes, almost like a single image cut into the reel of a film, hardly noticeable but disturbingly present. He persisted in getting out to the yard despite the guards' admonitions.
Circling felt great, a chance to stretch his legs. Fresh air removed the asbestos-like contagion from his lungs. Small, random shoots of grass were starting to spring up in the otherwise golden grass. The yard had three basketball courts, the requisite workout section with bench press, pull-up bars, stations for curling, a seated row machine, and bleachers in every corner. It was further divided by skin color. The blacks worked out at a certain time then went to the basketball courts where races actually mixed—more out of a sense of competition than amnesty. When they were done working out, the Latinos would transition in, then the whites. There were a few Asians, but their numbers were too small to assert rights over any of the facilities.
Shaver just circled. He recognized several faces. They didn't seem to recognize him, yet. He knew eyes were on him though. He represented new blood, a potential new threat or ally, a potential new source of weed or coke or sex. A new “bitch” to steal coffee or other goods from. Shaver mainly kept his head down, walking at a slow but confident pace. This introduction was critical, and he knew it. Appear weak and he'd be someone's slave—appear too cocky and he'd most certainly be attacked or even killed. So he circled, around the blacks' benches, the whites' benches, and the Latinos' benches.
Everyone was tatted up, but the whites took the most effort to show them. Mainly swastikas, or “white power” scrawled on a bristling chest. The Latinos sported 13's, or last names in Old English on their backs...“Gonzalez”, “MS,” broken bottles, sneering clowns with blood dripping off of bared teeth.
“You better not step there ese.” The low hiss broke Shaver out of his trance. He looked up to see an older Mexican, maybe late forties, tats running from his forehead down both sides of his face. Shaver recognized the tats as a form of Mexica design, something the Mexican gangs often paid reverence to. The man was in his prison blues with a white T-shirt. He leaned on his knee with a hand, hugging the edge of the bleachers. “That's La Eme ground.”
The organizational structure of these gangs didn't differ much from the streets to the prison. Shaver was familiar with most of them, although new ones frequently attempted to spring up. The Mexican Mafia was what this man referred to. A rival gang to Nuestra Familia. Shaver looked back down at the ground and detoured to the right to continue walking.
“Ese, that's Eme ground too!” the same man yelled to him. “Shit,” the man said as he got off of the bleachers and came toward Shaver, “You're already standing on Eme ground.”
Shaver squared up to the man, who was about the same height, definitely broader in every other aspect. Shaver guessed he must be at least a lieutenant. Several younger men looked at the two from the bleachers,
probably soldiers or carnales. Shaver remained silent.
“See, you can go over there, where you got some white putas to hang with. This part of the yard is taken.” Confrontation, to be expected. It was a test and would be determinative.
“I'm walking.”
“I know what the fuck you're doing, ese,” the man said while tilting his head. “You think I'm dumb?” Shaver didn't respond, it was an attempt to escalate. “You mute, puta?”
Shaver shook his head and started to walk away, in the direction that was La Eme ground. It was a questionable move. He had no allies, no back. The collective eye of the yard watched. All of them would take the cue from this interaction. He knew his only chance was for the whites to intervene if he ignored this lieutenant. The lieutenant would have to take action if Shaver didn't listen to him. He couldn't be perceived as letting Shaver ignore an order.
“Oye, oye! Mira esta puta! He's gonna get his shit waxed first day out!” the lieutenant said back to his carnales. Shaver didn't turn around to look but could feel that the lieutenant and several other men followed him now. His heart pounded in his chest. He could see guards start to perk up in the towers around the yard. That's the last thing he wanted—to be perceived as a guard bitch. He kept walking at the same speed, trailed by the La Eme members.
After turning a corner he heard another shout out, “Yo muthafucka, you 'bout to step into Guerilla territory. Best go back where you came from.” Now Shaver was stuck, in between a black prison gang and the La Eme. He stopped, feeling the presence of the men behind him. “And what the fuck you muthafuckas doin' here?” the black gang member yelled out to La Eme. Muscles tensed, fists clenched and walls of chest began to form. Just as the mood started to boil, three white men walked up into the mix.
“He got lost,” one of them said.
“Fuckin' right he did,” retorted the Guerilla member. “Better take that white boy to the Brotherhood before I fuck him and make him mine.”
Shaver looked behind him. Four members of the La Eme stood with their arms crossed, ready to pounce. The lieutenant said, “Same thing goes for us, cabrones. Make sure that white puta knows where he's going.”
