Stone Cold

Chapter Twenty-Two

Rossi and Harris went down the hall to an interrogation room where they could spread out. A rectangular table and four black chairs were the only furnishings in the white-walled room lit by a pair of naked fluorescent tubes embedded in the ceiling. A raised steel bar to secure a suspect’s handcuffs was bolted to the top of the table. Interrogations could be observed through a two-way mirror set in one of the walls. The linoleum floor was scuffed from heels dug in against hard questions.

A dozen homicide detectives had worked both investigations, generating enough paper to fill two three-inch binders on each case. Before the investigations were over, there would be more paper and more binders.

For now there were reports by the responding officers listing the location of each crime and the names and ages of each victim and a summary of each officer’s observations upon arrival. A log had been kept recording the name of every person who was allowed inside the yellow tape at each scene. Every cop who’d worked the cases had filed reports documenting what he or she had done.

There were photographs of the victims, details on the positioning of their bodies and the condition of their clothing. Preliminary autopsy results described the external and internal condition of each body and recited the cause of death. Initial forensic reports summarized fingerprints and hair, blood, and fiber samples taken from each victim and each scene.

Every item of physical evidence had been identified, tagged, photographed, and inventoried. Both scenes had been documented with videotape, photographs, and surveys noting all relevant dimensions.

A list of people contacted through the neighborhood canvass had been neatly typed and was supplemented by statements from those few who had been willing to go on the record to say that they didn’t know a damn thing about anything.

Rossi leaned back in his chair, feet on the table and the Henderson murder books in his lap stacked one on top of the other. Harris scooted his chair in close, elbows planted on the table, shoulders hunched as he pored over the Chapman books. Neither man spoke, Harris scribbling notes in a pocket-sized spiral, Rossi thumbing pages back and forth, reading and rereading.

An hour later, Harris pushed his chair back, grunting as he stood, and left. He returned with two cups of coffee, handing one to Rossi.

“Chapman’s case is simpler,” Harris said, settling into his chair. “So I’ll go first.”

“After you,” Rossi said with a wave of his hand.

Harris used his shirt to rub smudges off his glasses, putting them on and sliding them halfway down his nose before consulting his notes.

“Kyrie Chapman, African American male, age twenty-three, died as the result of a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Judging from the entry angle of the wound and burn marks on the scalp, the shooter was aiming down with the muzzle a few inches from the victim’s head.”

“Execution style.”

“That or the shooter was standing on a ladder and capped Chapman when he walked under it.”

“Bad luck, walking under a ladder,” Rossi said.

“Getting popped with a.45 is even worse. Bullet bounces around inside your head like a fucking pinball.”

“So,” Rossi said, dropping his feet to the floor, “the way Chapman went down makes it look personal or like the shooter was sending a message.”

“Personal sounds like Dwayne Reed.”

“Anything about Chapman having a beef with somebody, maybe in his gang or another one?”

“Whole lot of nothing. Marco King in the gang unit is checking with his CIs.”

“Get back to Marco and light a fire under his ass. Some of those gangbangers will die for the cause before they’d snitch, but a few will drop a dime for the right price. Let’s find out who they’re willing to give up.”

“I thought you liked Dwayne Reed for all this. Sounds like you aren’t so sure.”

“I’d bet my left nut that Dwayne is good for all of it, but I don’t want some mealymouthed defense hack saying we made up our minds before we ran all the traps. What’s Chapman’s time of death?”

Harris flipped a page in his spiral pad. “Between eleven Friday night and one on Saturday morning.”

“Same window as the Hendersons. Where was Chapman’s body found?”

“In a Dumpster in an alley off of Independence Avenue half a block east of Brooklyn.”

“Close enough for Dwayne to have done Chapman and then made it to Henderson’s.”

“True enough,” Harris said, “unless Dwayne had nothing to do with it.”

“You got another theory?”

“Yeah. I had a case just like it last year; same area and same MO. Marco helped me out on it. He told me that stretch of Independence Avenue is Eastside Locos’ turf. They’re a Mexican gang tied into a cartel that ships dope from south of the border all the way up I-35, including a stop in Kansas City to supply the Locos, who sell the shit to the black gangs on the east side.”

“What happened in your case?” Rossi asked.

“Gangbanger name of De’Andre Waiters tried to rip off the Locos’ stash. The Locos caught him, and one by the name of Luis Flores got the honor of putting a bullet in the back of his head. They threw his body in a Dumpster like they were taking out the trash.”

“Did you close it?”

“Yeah. One of Marco’s CIs tipped him to where we could find the gun. Flores’s prints were in the system and on the gun. When we picked him up, he didn’t deny it, practically bragged about it. Took a deal for life with a shot at parole in twenty-five.”

“Why’d the CI drop a dime on him?”

“Cause the asshole was fucking the CI’s sister.”

“Is that so bad?”

“It is when the sister is ten years old.”

“So you think the Locos may have caught Kyrie trying to steal from them?”

“Could be.”

Rossi sighed. “That would let Dwayne off the hook.”

“Maybe not.”

“Why not?”

“De’Andre Waiters and Dwayne were in the same gang, so Dwayne would have known what happened to De’Andre. If he wanted to make it look like the Locos killed Chapman, he’d have known just how to do it.”

“Either way, let’s nail it down.”

Harris nodded. “How about you? Anything to work with on the Hendersons? What about the gun used to kill Jameer?”

“Different gun, nine millimeter. It was another close-up, like Chapman, only face-to-face. Close enough for blood to have splashed back on the shooter. Lena Kirk is testing some fabric we found in the fireplace at Dwayne’s mother’s house. After the way Jameer testified at the Wilfred Donaire trial, if any of the victims’ blood is on that fabric and we can tie the fabric to Dwayne’s clothes, we’ve got him cold.”

“What about the rest of the Henderson family? Anything in their background that would make someone besides Dwayne go after them?”

“Not so far. I checked Henderson out after he testified against Dwayne. Best I could tell, they were just a family trying to get by.”

“What about the way the wife and kids were killed? Any help there?”

Rossi took a deep breath. “It was fuckin’ ugly, man, what happened to them. Autopsy found flakes of aluminum on the kids’ skulls and in the mother’s vagina. The aluminum is the kind used to make baseball bats. Whoever did this cracked the kids’ heads and then raped the mother with the bat. If he hadn’t strangled her, she would have died from the internal injuries.”

“Man,” Harris said. “I been doing this a long time, and I still don’t know what kind of man does something like that.”

“I do,” Rossi said. “The same kind of man that cuts another man’s dick off and shoves it down the victim’s throat.”

“Hey,” Fowler said as he opened the door to the interrogation room. “Things have changed.”

“What?” Rossi asked.

“I just got off the phone with Tommy Bradshaw. Judge Upton released Dwayne Reed on his own recognizance.”

Rossi came out of his chair. “You are fuckin’ kidding me!”

“I wish I was. It gets worse. Bradshaw says that Reed threatened the doctor at Truman who sewed him up, a woman named Bonnie Long. Said he was going to be waiting for her when she got home from work.”

Rossi started to leave, stopping when Fowler put his hand on Rossi’s arm.

“Where are you going?”

“To warn the doc, and then I’m going to find Dwayne and put his ass back in jail.”

“No, you aren’t. Dwayne was probably just mouthing off, but in case he wasn’t, I’ve alerted Truman Medical’s security and I put two uniforms on her house. So I don’t need you warning the doctor or harassing Dwayne Reed. You handle solving crimes and I’ll handle preventing them.”

Rossi rolled his eyes, giving Harris his can-you-believe-this-bullshit look.

“I’m not asking your opinion, Detective Rossi,” Fowler said. “I’m giving you an order. You’ll do things my way or you’ll take your cowboy act to the rodeo. Are we clear?”

Rossi clenched his jaw. “Crystal clear, Commander.”

“Good,” Fowler said and left, head high, triumphant.

“What are you going to do now?” Harris asked.

“Like you’ve got to ask,” Rossi said.