Color of Justice (11 page)

When Danny and Erik got back to the SCU, things had become hot concerning the case. The Longs had called Jim Cole directly to complain. Oscar Stallworth had threatened legal action, while Virginia had phoned the mayor's wife. Ever the politician, Hamilton Grace had contacted Tony Hill, the Deputy Chief, to “just say hello.” Reverend Bolt had not made a peep.

Danny and Erik had a brief meeting with their boss, who was pleased with their work. When people complained, it meant buttons were being pushed. Still, they had very little to work with. The murders had been committed with a common weapon, and the killer's efforts to ruin the crime scene had apparently succeeded.

They were about to call it a night. Most of the other cops were already gone. Danny said good-bye to Erik and sat for a while looking at the case file. He listed all of the big losers in the Internet company, and even though none of them seemed
like killers themselves, they all had ties to those who could have done the deed. He'd learned a long time ago that no matter how wealthy a person was, he was one cousin, one friend, one relationship away from the underbelly of life.

“What are you doin' up here, man?” asked a familiar voice.

Danny looked up into the face of Marshall Jackson, his best friend. Marshall was a tall, good-looking man who had been Danny's friend since they were kids. The two had been through hell and back investigating the assassination of Justice Farrel Douglas. Since Danny had been promoted to detective, they'd made a regular date to have a drink once a week, not wanting the demands of their jobs to become an excuse for losing contact with each other.

“Hey, man,” said Danny. “I'm sorry. I forgot.”

“Big-time detective ain't got time for his boy, huh?” said Marshall.

“Who the hell you callin' boy,” said Danny laughing.

Danny stood and Marshall slapped him on the back. They walked out of the SCU and outside into the evening.

“How's that damned new job of yours?” asked Danny.

“Fine,” said Marshall. “And don't say it like that. You know I couldn't stay at the U.S. Attorney's office, not after what happened. Private practice is more lucrative anyway. I'm making some
serious money now. And I need it with the two kids.”

“Defending criminals,” said Danny. “I still don't believe it.”

“The law doesn't have good and bad guys, Danny. Get over that shit.”

“Well, if you ever have to cross-examine me, be nice.” Danny laughed a little.

They walked over to Fishbones, their favorite bar and eatery in Greektown. Danny barely listened as his friend talked about a recent case involving insurance fraud and a prosecutor named Jesse, who was all over him on the matter.

“You okay, man?” asked Marshall, noticing Danny's distracted look. “You still thinking about your mother?”

“Yes, but it's more than that.”

“Look, man,” said Marshall. His voice was tense. “Your father didn't cause her to die.”

“I know,” said Danny. “I just have to get it out of my head. You know how I get.”

“I know. You get stuck on something like this and you obsess. Let it go.” Marshall looked upset with himself, then added, “Look, I'm sorry, man.”

“Don't be. I'm working my way through it. Anyway, that's not my only problem. I caught a bad case. The Baker murders. We're interviewing suspects, wealthy black suspects.”

“Uh-oh,” said Marshall. “Touching the untouchables.”

“They all seem to be hiding something. The day
ended with me getting my ass tossed out of a church.”

“Holyland?” asked Marshall.

“How did you know?” asked Danny.

“The Reverend Bolt is the only minister I know who would do something like that.”

“His helpers look like a goddamned drug crew,” said Danny.

“They might have been,” said Marshall. “Reverend Bolt's prison ministry is still going strong. He gets them while they're in the joint then gets them back on their feet when they get out. You know people suspect some of them in a killing.”

Danny perked up at this statement. He'd been suspicious of Bolt's assistants, but it was normal cop prejudice concerning the way they carried themselves.

Danny and Marshall ordered a pitcher of beer and some of the restaurant's famous alligator voodoo.

“What's the story?” asked Danny.

“Well,” said Marshall, “when Reverend Bolt still had a storefront church, it got ripped off by some locals. The cops got a tip where to find the stuff, which they did, but they also found two dead bodies.”

“And you think it was Bolt's prison ministers?” asked Danny.

“Nothing was ever proven. But have you ever read the stuff Bolt gives out to his people? It's like a damned cult. He talks about being the hand of God, and the Old Testament being the way.”

“An eye for an eye,” said Danny almost to himself.

“Exactly,” said Marshall. “But don't get me wrong. I think Reverend Bolt has a good heart, it's just that he's a hard man and the people who follow him are loyal and not too smart.”

Marshall was always right about these things, Danny thought, so he would have to do some more checking on the reverend and his people. He was happy to know he might have been right about Bolt's men. The real question was just how dangerous they were.

“Thanks,” said Danny. “That was good shit. You need to get back with the good guys.”

Marshall laughed off the joke. “So how's Erik doing?”

“Good. Still gettin' used to me, though.”

“You still seeing the shrink?”

“Yeah, he's into my head about the black thing.”

“Oh, fuck that,” said Marshall. “You're one of us, and it's too late to change that.” Marshall took a moment then, “So how's Vinny?”

Danny sighed heavily. “She's so into school that we're starting to have problems about the shit.”

“Dammit,” said Marshall. “I had a feeling this was coming.” Marshall looked guilty for a second then, “Vinny's been calling me.”

Danny was shocked, but didn't say anything. His head filled with the usual stuff, like why didn't Marshall tell him, and what the hell did they talk about. But Danny knew Marshall had more to say, so he didn't want to jump all over him.

The bartender, who was familiar with Danny and Marshall, brought the pitcher and the food. He smiled, said hello, then left.

“At first, she had a lot of law questions,” said Marshall. “Nothing big, the normal stuff. But then she started asking about people I knew, lawyers, judges, and groups she should join. That's when I got suspicious.”

“Why would that make you suspicious?” asked Danny.

“Because I know Vinny. She's never been interested in social climbing, and all of a sudden, she's into that legal world shit.” He sounded angry, as if he thought he could have stopped her.

“Well, she's all into it now,” said Danny. “And I got a feeling that I don't fit into whatever she's seeing for a lot of reasons.”

Marshall took another drink of his beer. “Vinny's long past caring that you're white.”

“But the world cares,” said Danny quickly, as if the response had been in his head all night. “It's just another thing to keep us apart.”

“Damn, I should have said something to her.” Marshall jerked his hand a little, as though he wanted to hit himself on the head.

“Don't blame yourself. You were just being a friend.”

Marshall sighed, a frustrated sound that mirrored what Danny was feeling. “Well, as you know, I have experience with women trouble. I mean, I thought my loving wife had killed a girl over my little indiscretion.”

“Man, you don't even need to be thinking about that situation,” said Danny. “Let it die.”

It was typical of the pair that they sacrificed for each other. Each not caring about his own pain, he tried to ease that of his friend. They'd been doing it since they were kids and neither man even noticed it anymore.

“All I can say,” said Marshall, “is nobody understands women, especially black women. Vinny is strong like my wife, Chemin, and she's got to work through this thing. You remember how it was when I went to law school? I was into the social step-up, the parties, the idea that I was lifting myself out of my situation.”

“But you didn't stop hanging out with me, did you?” asked Danny pointedly.

“But I could have. See, it's different for a man. I can have any kind of friend, but a woman likes to think that her man is going in the same direction as she is. She always wants him to be a little older, a little taller, a little
more
, you know what I'm saying?”

“Fuck if I understand that,” said Danny with a tinge of frustration. “A person is what he is, you know. You can change the job, and the kind of clothes you wear to work, but that's all.”

Marshall looked at his friend, saw the face of the kid he used to be, and smiled. “You just don't understand prejudice, do you, Danny? I guess you never did. Man, I wish you could teach that to a lot of other people I know.”

“You remember my first day of school?” asked Danny. “Over at Davison, the old school?”

“Never forget it. A playground full of black kids and there you were, sitting in a corner looking scared as hell.”

“You were playing basketball with some other kids,” said Danny, taking up the tale. “I was sitting there about to shit in my pants and you came up to me and said, ‘So, you playin' or what?' I said yes.”

“And I yelled out, ‘Yo, we got the white boy!'”

The two men laughed at the memory. They eased a little now and each of them remembered why they made it a point to be together every week. A friend can get lost in the big bad world of working, striving, and living. You had to make sure you had your peace.

“Anyway,” said Marshall, “Vinny has to work through this thing herself, and no one can do it for her. If you try to help her, she'll accuse you of treating her like a kid. If you don't help, she may think you don't give a shit.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Danny. “Women are a muthafucka. So I can't win, can I?”

“I like to think that you can't lose. Either she wants you, or she doesn't, and in the end, whatever she chooses will at least end the shit.”

Danny sat there looking down at the wooden bar, knowing that this was the only person that he could be so open and vulnerable with. Everyone had to do it sometimes, and although he thought of it as a weakness, Danny knew it was also a necessity, and he felt better just being able to show how fucked up he was by all this.

“Okay,” said Danny almost to myself. “I'll back
off of Vinny. I got my work, you know. That'll keep my mind occupied.”

“I'm not finished yet,” said Marshall with a sternness in his voice that reminded Danny of his father. “You've always loved Vinny because she was a lot like you, and it made your life easier.”

“Oh, that's bullshit, man,” said Danny, but even as the words came out, he knew what Marshall said was true.

“You don't like complicated relationships,” said Marshall. “Our relationship is about as complex as you've ever had. So, what I'm saying is don't be afraid. I may not understand everything about women, but I do know that when a woman grows, things change, and you have to deal with it. They make you work at being better and sometimes you can't see it. And us men, we don't like being told how to act, because it makes us feel like less of a man. It's the way it has to be. Men have been going through this shit since they were living in caves and eating wild animals for dinner. Let it be, man. And you'll be better off for it.”

Danny nodded, although he admitted to himself he didn't understand all of it. Marshall was the kind of man who spoke in simple words, but they carried depth, nonetheless. No one knew Danny better than this man, so he would heed his words because he knew they came from the heart.

The two friends hoisted another round and told more stories about their coming of age together. Better days, thought Danny. The old days always seemed like better ones for some reason.

Danny let go of his concerns about Vinny, but those thoughts were soon replaced by images of all the people who had good reason to kill the Bakers.

The Sewer was loud with laughter as Danny walked in. He'd just come from Vice, where he'd been trying to get some info on John Baker's hooker friend. The Vice cops helped narrow it down to a couple of dozen girls who frequented the part of town that Baker lived in. They promised to put the word out on the street. Danny had figured that it wouldn't be easy to find the girl. The woman was probably smart enough to know that her man had been killed, and if that was the case, she might have gotten spooked and gone to another state by now.

The laughter he heard came from some of the cops who were assembled and listening as Lisa Meadows told a story. Some clerical people were there as well as a couple of uniformed cops. Danny drifted over to see what was going on.

“Wha'sup?” Danny asked Erik.

“You missed it,” said Erik.

“Tell it again, Lis,” said Joe Canelli, a husky
Italian cop. He was still laughing when he asked her.

“You do it this time, Gretch,” said Lisa to her partner, Gretchen Taylor. Lisa's Brooklyn accent was still detectable even after years of living in the Midwest.

“Okay,” said Gretchen. “Lisa and me got a call that someone had a tip on that serial rapist working the west side, right? So, we go to this house and we hear a man screaming and something hitting the walls like this—” Gretchen rocked a desk. “‘Go, go, go!' he screamed.”

The other officers who had heard the story laughed a little at this, knowing where it was going.

“So we kick in the door, pull out our guns, and identify ourselves as cops,” said Gretchen. “Well, what should we see but a man bent over a chair with his wife…”

“His two-hundred-pound wife,” added Lisa.

“…fucking this guy in the ass with one of them plastic strap-on dicks!”

Danny and Erik laughed along with the other officers at the visual image in their heads.

Gretchen waved everyone to quiet down then, “So they just look at us for a second in shock that we caught them, right?” Gretchen continued. “Then the man says ‘Latasha, we gotta talk to them. Take yo' dick outta my ass.'”

They all laughed again at the punch line. Danny leaned on Erik and burst into laughter once more as Joe Canelli bent over and Gretchen demon
strated on him, smacking his backside and yelping like a cowboy.

The laughter stopped when Jim Cole's door burst open. He thundered out of his office.

Jim made a beeline for Erik and Danny, and hardly stopped as he headed for the door. “Got another body,” he said. “In the river. We think it's your man again.”

 

The Detroit River was choppy and tossed the big Coast Guard cutter up and down. The boat floated by the body, which was just off the Detroit shoreline. The corpse had actually been found on the Canadian side of the river, but it was a U.S. citizen, so they'd brought it over here. The Ontario police were present, but they were not doing much. The Canadians, just a mile from Detroit, had not had a murder in their city for several years and were eager to push the floater off on Detroit.

Fiona and her crew were already on the scene, and their preliminary investigation had led to a call to the SCU. The dead woman, though found in the river, had not drowned. She'd been shot several times with a small-caliber weapon.

It appeared that the body had been rolled into the water close to a construction site. The body was tangled in some debris, and had been hit by some kids in a boat.

The corpse was down a low grade by the shore. Danny motioned to Erik and walked down. Erik stayed behind talking to Jim Cole.

As Danny made his descent down the grade, he
heard a helicopter overhead, then saw a big black sedan pull up. He knew the police brass had to be inside. The killer was now a multiple murderer, and that meant political control would be put on the case. Detroit was making an economic comeback and nothing was worse than a case like this. The press was being kept away from the scene, and all the detectives and uniforms had been told not to talk to anybody about the case.

Fiona and her team worked on the dead woman's body, which was slimy and discolored. It was hard to tell what had caused the lack of color, the river or the method of death.

Danny regarded the body and suddenly it turned into his mother's corpse lying there twisted and broken, a lifeless vessel. He was aware that he had stopped breathing in that instant. He calmed himself. No one could see him react this way. It was not professional.

“You okay?” asked Fiona.

“Yeah,” said Danny. “Who is she?” He had to speak up because he'd stopped a good distance away from the forensic crew.

“Don't know,” said Fiona. “She had ID on her, but the smart guys took it away.” Smart guys was Fiona's word for Danny's police superiors.

“Is it our man?”

“It's our boy all right. Looks like he used the same weapon, a .22, and same kind of tape on the wounds. At least he didn't cover the scene with dirt. He let the river do it for him this time. Smart bastard.”

“Why would he try to hide this one and not the Bakers?” Danny asked himself. “Why dump her like this?

“Don't know,” said Fiona. “Who can figure out a sick fuck like this?” Her voice had a note of defeat in it.

Jacob, the new kid, barged into the conversation and before Fiona could stop him he was talking to Danny. “You know, it's a miracle we ever found her,” he said. “The undertow in the river is strong.”

“Jacob, what are you doing?” asked Fiona. “Get back over there with the others and check the shore.”

“But there's nothing there,” he said like a petulant kid in grade school.

Fiona just glared at him and soon he walked off. “Eager fuckin' beaver,” she said. “But he was right. The undertow should have carted her off to the Eastern seaboard, but see this big gash here.” Fiona pointed to an unsightly wound on the woman's back. “Our boy didn't do that. We think her back got caught on something down there and it held her. Then the joyriders hit her.” Fiona turned suddenly and admonished one of her workers.

“Fiona, I'm gonna need all your genius on this, baby. I want to know everything. If our man is trying to throw us off the trail, then we gotta stick to it that much more.”

“You got it, Danny, and I like that ‘baby' thing. Sexy.”

Danny moved back up the grade and saw that Erik and Jim were in a crowd now. With them were Tony Hill, the Deputy Chief, and Chief of Police Vernon Noble. Erik stood a few paces off from the big shots and said nothing. Danny did the same as he joined them.

“The mayor wants this shit wrapped tight, fellas,” said Chief Noble. “We need a lid on this and anyone who talks is ass out.”

“Impossible,” said Tony. “We got a crew of seven down there, six uniforms, not including the Canadians, and three detectives already, not to mention the reporters with their fancy camera lenses.” Tony pointed to the helicopter hovering over the scene. “So, it's gonna get out. Tell the mayor that he has to beat the press to it and release a statement ASAP.”

Noble nodded and pulled out a cell phone. Tony and Jim shared a quick smile. Everyone knew that Noble was just warming the Chief's seat for Tony. Tony was running the department and every officer understood that if you had a real problem, he was the man to see. Tony motioned Danny and Erik to come closer.

“Okay, fellas, you caught the case,” said Tony. “So you're gonna be the men on this. You're gonna hear some shit about how Jim and I are personally taking this case, but don't believe it. This is yours, and we'll need you to act like it.” Tony looked over to Jim.

“The floater is Olittah Reese, one of the mayor's chief aides,” said Jim.

Danny thought for a second, then he remembered the name. It was the flirtatious woman he'd met at Virginia Stallworth's fund-raising party. Instinctively, Danny looked back at the body, remembering how pretty she was. He saw her walking away from him, the subtle sway of her hips, the elegant way her long legs stepped, and the smoothness of her neck as she turned to look back at him. A sadness washed over him. He looked at Erik, who had the same emotion written on his face.

“If this murder is related to the first,” said Jim Cole, “then we've got two killings linked to the mayor.”

“I assume his security is going to be beefed up,” said Erik.

“Already done,” said Tony. “So you can see the greater implications of this.”

Tony said nothing, but Danny knew he was referring to Harris Yancy, the former mayor who'd been murdered in office. It was a nasty affair, one that no one had forgotten.

Noble came back and shoved the cell phone at Tony. He took it and stepped away with the Chief.

“We'll establish a team of men to assist you,” said Jim. “From this moment, the case is your top priority. Got anything that looks like a lead?”

Before Erik could answer, Danny said, “Yes, sir, we got a hooker who had a little booty thing with Mr. Baker.”

“A hooker?” said Jim with interest. Danny knew that Jim was making the same sordid con
nections in his head that he had. “Where do you think she is?”

“She's a local girl, so we're going to shake some trees,” said Danny.

Erik dummied up. Danny knew he'd get it as soon as this conversation was over. But Danny didn't like to tell his boss that he had nothing.

“Good,” said Jim. “When you get her, I'm your first call.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jim walked away, and at the same time, Erik tapped Danny on the shoulder.

“What the fuck, man?” said Erik.

“You know Jim,” said Danny. “If we had said we had nothing, what would he say?”

“Get your asses out and find something.”

“There you go. We got the same pressure, only he's not pissed at us.”

“I won't argue,” said Erik. “We'll be waiting forever on Vice to find her. So, let's go find us a hooker.”

“I think we should split up, ask around. We'll cover more ground, and if we go together, people will think we're looking to bag her. She'll get tipped off and scatter.”

Erik agreed. If they went together, it would look like an official investigation to the folks in the hood. People would be less likely to give up info. And if the girl was connected to a murder, everyone on the street would know it.

The other reason Danny wanted to separate was that he liked to work alone when he went into the
neighborhoods. Each time he went back, it was like opening a door to his past, a past where danger was always a word, thought, or mistake away. Danny was already excited about the prospect, his mind running lists of contacts and things he might have to do.

“You takin' the east side, I guess,” said Erik.

“Yeah,” said Danny. “I got a couple of people who might have something.”

“I'm gonna do the same on the west side,” said Erik.

They walked back to their car, and Danny could see the line of uniforms holding several TV crews at bay not far off. Absently, Danny thought about Vinny, and how this case would now consume him, and that might make things worse between them. Danny turned and looked back at Fiona and her crew. They were lifting the body and placing it into a long, black bag.