Due Recompense: Justice In Its Rawest Form

by Jason Trevor

  “Take the license out for me please,” he peered at the military ID. “Air Force, huh? I worked as an SP on a base in Kuwait a lifetime ago,”

  Joe pretended to struggle to get the license out, as a stall tactic. “Sorry. I never take this out of here,” The constable looked back and forth at the two of them for another second, then relaxed his shoulders a little bit.

  “Forget it. You two be careful. There’s lots of drunks out here driving at this hour,”

  “We will. Thanks,” Joe smiled as he put his wallet back away.

  “Gracias,” waved Oscar, staying in character. The cruiser rolled away into the night and the men began walking again.

  “You have between here and that interchange up there to tell me everything you know about the Blood Brothers,” Joe said sternly.

  Chapter 16

  George Lemond sat in his chamber in the criminal courthouse downtown, scribbling a note to himself on a yellow sticky pad. He peeled it off, lifted some paperwork from in front of him, and stuck the note to the relevant date on his desk calendar. Then he sighed and sifted through a few motions that had been filed by a defense attorney overnight, stroking his grey beard. He was looking forward to retirement. After five years as a defense attorney, ten years as a prosecutor, and 25 years on the bench in criminal courts, he’d had his fill of seeing the most depraved of humanity paraded before him. He wanted to fish with his grandkids. The phone rang and he glimpsed over his reading glasses at the caller ID.

  “Good morning, Detective,” he smiled as he answered the phone.

  “Good morning, Judge. Have you heard about the excitement in Third Ward last night?” Detective Sims sounded weary.

  “I heard a few people talking about it as I came through security this morning, but I haven’t watched the news or anything,”

  “Remember the guy I liked for shooting the gangbanger in the foot a little while back? You gave me a warrant for a GSR test,”

  “Sure. Joseph Danton. Did anything turn up?”

  “He submitted the sample willingly. We didn’t even need the warrant,”

  “So, he came back negative,”

  “We didn’t have an elimination sample anyway, but yeah, he was clean of GSR. I think he beat the tar out of more guys in the same gang on a street corner last night, then went and emptied a machine gun into their house. Two guys are dead and four were each shot in both of their legs from really close. They won’t be walking without help any time soon, if ever,”

  “Show me some probable cause and I’ll give you your warrant. What are you looking for?”

  “Anything. This guy is cool as a cucumber and extremely good about not leaving anything behind. It looks like he sprayed three thousand bullets into the house, but he didn’t leave one shell casing. One of the survivors of the drive-by says he saw a Suburban. My suspect drives an Escalade. Those are both big SUV’s and it was dark out, so I want to search his Escalade,”

  “Suburbans and Escalades are both big, but they are both common. How reliable is the witness?”

  “Pretty hostile. He doesn’t want to be a snitch,”

  “Do you have anything besides an uncooperative gang member who was probably diving for cover?”

  “Just two big SUV’s that are both black, but the guy managed to fire off thousands of rounds without leaving a single shell casing behind. He can’t be OCD enough to have gotten them all out of the truck. If we find one shell casing in there that fits the bullets in the house, we have him. This guy is on a killing spree and I don’t think he intends to stop until every member of that gang is dead,”

  “That’s a theory, not probable cause. All you have is a lousy witness and an unremarkable truck. I need more, or any respectable lawyer will bounce it right out of court using a few statistics from TxDOT,”

  “I thought so, but I had to try. Time isn’t on my side here,”

  “I understand. Go get me more and I’ll give you your warrant,”

  ◆◆◆

  “Son of a gun. Son of a gun!” fumed Constable Bradley. The BOLO on his cruiser’s Toughbook was 4 hours old but had only just made its way into his system. He was looking at the same driver’s license photo that he had seen only a few hours before. The description was a precise match to the man he’d seen walking on the beltway. The BOLO even referenced a black Escalade. What was missing was a reference to the short, stocky, and young Hispanic male who had been accompanying him. Chances were pretty slim that they were still at Walmart, but he had to go look. He pointed the cruiser toward the beltway and grabbed his cell phone, dialing the phone number on the BOLO for a detective named Sims.

  “Homicide, Sims,” answered a crusty and tired voice on the other side of the phone.

  “Detective Sims, this is precinct 4 Constable Shawn Bradley. A BOLO you issued last night for a guy named Danton just popped up in my car,”

  “He’s my prime suspect in a few shootings in Third Ward. Have you seen him?”

  “A little after two this morning, yes. He was walking on the beltway with another male,”

  “That’s a pretty good way from my crime scenes, and he owns three cars. I don’t understand why he would be walking on the highway in the middle of the night. He’s also a loner as far as I have seen. Are you sure it was him?”

  “Absolutely sure. I checked his ID,”

  “That was four hours ago. Why are you just now calling me?”

  “Your BOLO only just now hit my computer. He was walking West with a mid-20’s Hispanic male. They seemed off to me for that time of night, so I stopped and tossed them. He told me his Escalade was broken down at the Walmart up the street and his companion was a Samaritan who was going to help him with his truck,”

  “Did you follow up?”

  “I’m on my way to the Walmart now to see if they are still there, but I don’t have high hopes,” He flashed his bubblegum lights to run a red light, then rushed down the feeder road and turned into the parking lot. “I’m just arriving. The BOLO says ‘armed and dangerous’ so I’m not sure what you want me to do if I spot him. Do I engage, or call for help?”

  “He’s on a personal jihad against members of one specific street gang, and he’s shown a willingness to go out of his way to not harm anyone else. He may try to give you the slip, but if you corner him, he’ll probably come willingly. He’s smooth, savvy, and already has a high-priced lawyer. Don’t let him try to convince you of anything. Just get him into custody,”

  “I’m circling the parking lot now. This place is a ghost town and there is no sign of a black Escalade, let alone one with the hood up,”

  “Humph,” Cody grunted. “The whole song and dance about the broken-down truck was probably a ruse to get rid of you. I doubt he was even going to Walmart,”

  “Well, you can paint me the fool. Shift ends in thirty, but I’ll drive around here and keep an eye for him or the Escalade. I’ll call you if I see anything,”

  “Thanks for the call,” Cody hung up his phone and stared at Johnny Le for a minute, who was borrowing an adjacent empty desk to sift through folders, trying to put the last few real names to the aliases of the previous night’s victims. “Why do you suppose Danton was walking on the North Belt two hours after the shootings last night?”

  “Why do these guys have these stupid street names? Why can’t they just use their government names? Do they hate their mothers? Wait, what? Danton was walking on the beltway?”

  “Constable stopped him and another guy walking at two this morning,”

  “I thought you said he didn’t have any friends,”

  “Known associates can be counted on one hand, not including his business contacts. For sure none of them are a twenty-something Hispanic kid,”

  “You think he hired help off of the street for his assaults last night?”

  “Nah. Doesn’t fit his profile. He works alone. I really have no idea who the guy might be. I’d love to ask him, but he definitely isn’t at his house and we have to go through his la
wyer to find him,”

  “Did you get anywhere with the warrant for his truck?”

  “The judge turned it down,”

  “Why? He drives a black SUV and a witness saw a black SUV at the scene!”

  “The SUV’s are too common and the witness is too unreliable. The judge wants more,”

  “Did the constable give you anything that might help?”

  “Nothing that we don’t already know, at least as far as his truck goes. That close to the time of the shooting, I’ll bet he was covered in GSR and other forensic goodies,”

  “Not anymore,”

  “Nope. We’ve still got nothing unless one of those thugs in Ben Taub will identify him,”

  ◆◆◆

  “Desmond Singleton?” Sims asked as he walked into the hospital room. The young man in the bed glimpsed up but didn’t answer. “Desmond Singleton, AKA ‘Cornbread’?” Another look, but no answer. Cody poured his tired frame into a chair by the window and sighed.

  “The hell do you want?” Cornbread finally said, staring at the muted TV and refusing to look at the detective.

  “I want to lock up the guy who shot you,”

  “No, you don’t. He’s white. You just want to lock me up,” he motioned toward the handcuffs chaining his left hand to the bed. “Where do you think I’m going to go? I been shot in both my legs and my knee is busted. Doc says the bone in my left leg is shattered. Needs a bunch of surgeries and I may not walk ever again. What difference does it make now? Just put my ass in jail. I ain’t good for nothin’ nomore anyhow,”

  “I’ve got no beef with you, Cornbread. The beat cops who were first on the scene found a shitpot of weed and crack in your Caprice. They’re the ones who put you under arrest and cuffed you to the bed, so those charges are between you, them, and the district attorney. I’m the one who posted that cop outside your door. I don’t want the guy who shot you to come back and finish the job. He’s not going to stop coming for you until you’re dead. Help me put him away before that happens,”

  “Let me and my crew out of here. They’ll keep me safe. Don’t need your help,”

  “You can’t be that stupid,”

  “What did you say to me?”

  “Well, how’s it worked out for you so far to think like that? He single-handedly beat the hell out of four of you. The four of you are lucky that he didn’t want to kill you, because he sure could have,” Cody pulled two photographs out of a manila folder he was carrying and held them up. They were pictures of Meat and Slag on slabs in the morgue. “DeShawn Reynolds, AKA ‘Meat’ and Trey Wheldon, AKA ‘Slag’ are in the morgue right now. He sprayed them with a machine gun on the porch of Meat’s house. Your boys, Thump and Bullet, barely escaped by the skin of their teeth. Thump’s helping us out, but he didn’t see anything but a truck. Give me more and I can nail this guy before you end up in the morgue, too. This man is a battle-hardened soldier and a trained killer. You and your friends can’t stop him, but I can,”

  “I didn’t see much, but I saw a truck too. He was driving a Suburban,”

  “Could it have been an Escalade?”

  “Hell naw! It was a busted-ass Suburban. Homey didn’t have no fancy-assed Escalade,”

  “Well, it was dark and they look a lot alike. You’re sure it was a Suburban?” Cornbread became agitated.

  “I was the first one to see it. Nigga knows the difference between a Suburban and an Escalade, and that wasn’t no Escalade! It had ugly white-boy wheels, a big redneck bumper, and white ground effects. It wasn’t no goddamn Escalade!”

  Cody was scribbling furiously into a new spiral that had replaced the one he lost. “Okay, it was a Suburban and not an Escalade. That helps. What else did you see? What did he look like?”

  “Average white guy,”

  “C’mon, everybody looks different. What color was his hair? His eyes? Did he have any ink? Scars? Gold teeth? How tall was he? How much did he weigh?”

  “Tall and skinny. Six foot. Hundred fiddy or sixty pounds. Didn’t have no hair. Couldn’t see the rest of that stuff,”

  “So, a tall, skinny, and bald white guy?”

  “He had on a holster, like the one under your jacket there. Had two 1911’s in it with silencers. He had it hid under a Miami Vice jacket. He parked the Suburban up the street, walked over, took off his jacket, and start wailing on Tony with a baseball bat and brass knuckles. Then we all jumped him,”

  “So, he went after Tony first. Was Tony the closest one to him?”

  “Nah, Bone was closer, but he walked up on Tony,”

  “Why did he do that? Is Tony the one who shot Foster Shayne?”

  “Who?”

  “The man with the silver Chevy. Biggie hawked it at the chop shop in the heights,”

  Toad’s eyes got wide, and then angry. “Nigga, you are trying to put us away and not him. Go fuck yourself,”

  “There’s got to be a reason he went to Tony first if Bone was closer. I’m just trying to-“

  “-You just trying to lock up all the niggas you can, like the rest of the po-po. Lawyer, motherfucker. A black one,”

  “Okay, forget about Foster Shayne. Why do you think he-“

  “Lawyer,”

  “You were giving me pearls, Cornbread! Keep helping me out! I want to stop this guy,”

  “Lawyer,” Cornbread pushed the button on the side of his bed to turn the TV’s sound on, then he turned it all the way up. The sounds of a daytime game show obnoxiously filled the room.

  Chapter 17

  Morgan Butch sat hunched in his dismal cubicle at the Chronicle. Print media wasn’t doing so good these days, and he hadn’t seen a pay raise in almost ten years. His boss attributed his locked salary to the lack of any big stories being broken by Morgan in recent years, but crime was down. It had been on the decrease for thirty years. It was enough to make a middle-aged crime reporter rethink his career. His phone buzzed and he half-heartedly picked it up, scratching his grey two-day beard.

  “Chronicle, Butch,” he droned.

  “This is Harry, downstairs,”

  “Yeah, what do you need?” Morgan tried not to sound surly.

  “I’ve got a guy on hold who says he has one hell of a crime story, but he’ll only talk to you,”

  “Why me?”

  “He says he looked up crime reporters at the Chronicle on the web and your name popped. He also says he’s got an exclusive that will make your career,”

  “Whatever. Put him through to the tip line,”

  “I tried that, and he called back demanding you,”

  “You can’t be serious,” Morgan sighed. “That only happens in movies. Do you think he’s credible?”

  “I think he’s determined and won’t take no for an answer. You can decide if he’s credible or not,”

  “Fine, put him through to me,” he surrendered, grabbing a pencil and pad.

  ◆◆◆

  Joe was stretched out on the balcony chair outside of his hotel room, with his socked feet up on the banister, enjoying the breeze while trying to ignore the oppressive Houston humidity. The packaging from a disposable prepaid cell phone was scattered on the little table next to him under the drooping fronds of an artificial fern. The hold music was beginning to irritate him. This ‘Morgan Butch’ guy must’ve really been somebody important at the paper if he was this hard to reach. The hold music finally clicked off.

  “Chronicle, Butch,” came the voice on the phone.

  “Ah, Mr. Butch. You’re a difficult guy to reach. You must be pretty important to have people running that much interference for you,”

  “It’s more like you got yourself tangled up in red tape. Who is this?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you, but you want to hear this,”

  “Off the record? That doesn’t do me any good for a story,”

  “Oh, I think you’ll be able to confirm enough details to believe me, and you really do want to hear this,”

  “Convince me. But be aware th
at I don’t have much patience,”

  “You heard about the man who was carjacked and shot in Midtown a few weeks ago?”

  “Yeah, I wrote about that. I hope that isn’t your story,”

  “You heard about the drive-by in Third Ward that killed 2 people the other night?”

  “Everyone did. One of my colleagues ran it on the front page,”

  “Below the fold,”

  “Yeah, below the fold. So what?”

  “The shootings are connected, and I can give you enough information to put it top-center, page one,”

  “What, are you one of the shooters or something?” Morgan asked sarcastically.

  “Yep. And I’m not done,”

  Morgan Butch involuntarily found himself on his feet. “Don’t fuck with me on this. Are you for real?”

  “Start taking notes and find out for yourself, or I can just call Fox News. They’re doing a lot better than the papers these days anyway,”

  ◆◆◆

  Joe strolled down the aisle of a True Value franchise, toting a plastic shopping cart. Plumbing wasn’t his specialty, but he wasn’t exactly worried about codes.

  “Can I help you find something?” asked a man in a red shirt with a black apron on.

  “A typical water heater has three-quarter inch NPT inlet and outlet connections, right?”

  “Usually,”

  “What about the T&P?”

  “The same, on most of the ones I’ve seen,”

  “But some are different?”

  “It’s pretty rare, but yes. I’ve seen one or two small ones that were half-inch,”

  “I’d better double-check mine to be sure. Thanks!” He hurried out the door. There just couldn’t be enough caution in his moves right now. The anonymity of a big-box store is what he needed, so he headed toward the Lowe’s on the freeway.

  ◆◆◆

  Sadie stopped transcribing from her dictaphone when the phone rang, and pushed the button. “Athens and Whitman Law, how may I direct your call?” she chirped into her headset.