Blue Justice Read online

  About.”

  “I love you baby, and be safe.”

  “I will. On second thought Captain, I need you to come with me,” I said, getting into my car.

  Chapter 11

  We turned out the lights as we pulled outside the home of Judge Middlebrooks. Minton had told us that the judge had put out the hit on his own wife. The only unanswered question is, why?

  I turned the police radio all the way down. We exited the car quietly trying not to make any sound. We left the car doors slightly ajar. We both moved up to the house. Capt. Davis moved a little slower than me. He was sweating bullets now, more nervous than I’d ever seen him. This should be a routine arrest—I wondered what was bugging him. We looked inside the windows. The house was dark. I remember seeing the reflection of one light in a room in the back as we were walking up.

  I signaled Capt. Davis to follow me. We quietly sneaked around the lit window. The window was slightly opened and we looked inside. There he was, Judge Middlebrooks, holding a gun and pointing it at Chief Pate who was tied up. They were in a hallway that was connected to the room we were at.

  “Keep an eye on him while I call dispatch.” I whispered.

  “Ok.”

  It didn’t take me long but I had to repeat a few words to the dispatcher because I was whispering. She was new but finally got the message. You have to learn to listen well when somebody is whispering, but it’s part of the job.

  “I’m going to try and get inside.”

  “Let’s wait for backup.”

  “It may be too late by then,” I whispered.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “Be careful.”

  The window moved with ease. I looked around to make sure I wouldn’t fall on anything when I cleared the window. Judge Middlebrooks was angry at the chief, and using his gun to make the point repeatedly. Then I heard what I had come to hear.

  “You slept with my wife!”

  He then hit the chief with the gun.

  I was almost through the window when he was about to hit the chief again. I felt something give way as I stepped down on the floor. Loose floorboard probably. Whatever it was, it got the judge’s attention. He didn’t ask any questions. He started shooting at the window. I fell on the floor and took cover at the corner of the wall.

  “Give it up Judge, this is the police. This is Detective Jackson. We have you surrounded.”

  I peeked around the corner. He fired a shot down the hallway.

  “Look Judge, we know that you had your wife killed because she was having an affair with Chief Pate. So come on and give yourself up. Enough blood has been shed. This won’t make it right and you know it!”

  “You don’t have a clue, Detective.” The judge was getting all misty-eyed. He began to choke on his words.

  “You don’t know how it feels to only love one woman,” he began, reliving his whole life in relationship to the woman he’d had killed. “To give her anything she desires, but it’s never enough. I grew up dreaming of a woman as beautiful as Julia was, made myself into this man I became, all so that I might deserve her when the time came. You talk about poor? I grew up in a house where a square meal was a luxury! I worked my way through law school doing anything I could, just so I could become a gentleman, worthy of a good life with a woman who appreciated fine things.”

  The judge was standing in the middle of his fine things now, in his well-appointed mansion, holding a gun in his slightly-trembling hand, expressing emotions it looked like he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in his whole life.

  “When I met Julia, I vowed to give her everything I could afford. I gave and gave but it was never enough for her. She spent her mornings buying things—designer clothes, imported furniture, top of the line everything. I would never tell her we couldn’t afford it. I thought I could win her love if only she saw how much I would do for her.

  “Then, one morning I had a slight heart palpitation in my office. My doctor said it wasn’t serious but it would be a good idea to take the rest of the day off. I came home, and found her in bed—in our bed—with this bastard.”

  He looked at Pate as if he had forgotten he was in the room. I thought he was about to fire off a round. I spoke up to draw his attention.

  “Judge, did you know that the hit man you hired killed other innocent people?” I asked hoping for a reply. “What?” he asked. He lowered the gun and looked at me. Good. I had his attention.

  “What do you mean, he killed other innocent people? This man was a gun for hire…”

  “That’s just it, your honor.” Carl Minton was not the man you thought he was. In fact, he wasn’t a man at all when you knew him.”

  The judge looked surprised. I continued.

  “Do you remember Dr. William Dancy?”

  “Yeah,” he said, thinking back. “The predator who molested and killed all those boys and girls including his daughter Melanie. He was sentenced to death.”

  “That’s correct, your honor.” I saw Capt. Davis at the window with his gun pointed at the judge. He looked calmer now; he must have suspected something like this with Pate and Julia Middlebrooks.

  “Listen, your honor, Dancy did not kill his daughter.”

  I moved around the wall with my left hand up and my right hand along my side with my gun.

  “She is still alive.”

  “I remember a child crying hysterically outside the courtroom that day…”

  I eased toward him. He watched me. He kept the gun at his side.

  “That hysterical little girl had a lot to be crying about. She had a strong attachment to her daddy—too strong. She spent her life dreaming up ways to get back at the police and at you. She wanted to be tough so much she was obsessed with it. She became a man and changed her name from Melanie Dancy to Carl Minton.”

  “Carl Minton? The little girl?”

  “As Carl Minton, Melanie not only killed your wife, she killed one of the jurors, Nancy Durham. Also she killed Dave Robinson, the Assistant DA. who had been on the case. Once she started the killing she just couldn’t seem to stop.”

  The judge looked stunned. It was as if I’d dropped a bomb on his well-appointed mansion and destroyed everything in it. He looked around as if he didn’t know where he was.

  After what seemed like an hour he said softly, “Detective, I am sorry. I had no idea I had hired a monster.”

  I was now an arm’s length from him.

  “That isn’t all, Your Honor.”

  “What else is there?”

  “Carl Minton was going to kill me and then come back for you. His plan was to pin everything on you hiring a hit man and then make it look like you killed yourself out of grief over your wife.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In jail.”

  “Well, then there is no need for me to keep on living, is there? I lost…I lost my mind. I’m not myself. I am going to make this part right. I must.” He was beginning to move his gun hand toward his own head when I raised my own and smacked him across the face to knock him off balance.

  I quickly pounced on him to get the gun. He was strong and very crafty. I couldn’t get the gun. I punched him in the face, jumped off him, dashed down the hall and covered myself behind the wall to the spot I was at before. He fired two shots. I couldn’t fire because the chief was in harm’s way. Davis couldn’t get off a clean shot either. I thought for a moment. I did a quick peek around the corner and fired into the ceiling above the judge. He fired again and then I fired my last shot, hitting him in the chest.

  The bullet took him back a little but I couldn’t tell where I hit him. He still had that gun in his hand. I fired two more rounds into the chest. The gun dropped to the floor and the judge fell next to it.

  I ran up to get the gun and check for a pulse. The judge was dead. I heard the sirens in the distance. Now it was finally over. I gave thumbs up to Capt. Davis and then checked on the chief. He had a concussion but was going to live. Capt. Davis and I left the scene when the other un
its and the CSUs' showed up. We decided to go check on Chad. I wanted to thank him for what he did.

  The hospital parking lot was full to capacity. We went through the ambulance entrance. The security guard pointed us to Triage 3, where chad was being patched up.

  “How you doing, fella?” I asked.

  “Ah, hell,” Chad said. “I’m fine. Did we get everybody?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh yeah,” said Capt. Davis. “We got them all.”

  He looked at me and grunted in pain as he shifted his body to sit up on the gurney. “So why was Burncutt after you?”

  “Old wounds. He blamed me for his family circumstances and then became what the hated the most.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He became a police officer. You see, I caused a great disruption in his life when I arrested his father and sent him away for many years. His father died an unexplainable death in prison.”

  “Well that clears up everything except one thing in my mind,” said Capt. Davis.

  “What’s that?” I asked. Chad and I both were looking at him.

  “Why did Melanie change her gender to a boy?”

  “Well,” I began the twisted story. “I had Charlotte do some background checking before she had was abducted. What she found was that Melanie was still alive.”

  “Okay, but still—why a boy?” Asked Chad.

  “I’ve learned a few things in the psychology classes I have been taking online and one thing I learned was about the Psychoanalytic Theory.” They both squinted their eyes at me, in different ways.

  I smiled. “That theory is, and I’m quoting here, “If the mother feeds, the infant develops an attachment to her based on her repeated satisfaction of his hunger and thirst--unquote.”

  “So what you are saying is, the dad fed her and sorta mothered her? To the point where she became attached to him and identified with him—wanted to be him?” asked Chad.

  “That is correct. Or then again it could be one other thing?”

  “All right,” said Capt. Davis. And what is that one thing?”

  “Well she could have suffered from penis envy.”

  We all burst out laughing.

  “I’m serious, look it up if you don’t believe me.”

  Chapter 12

  Summertime was near. It was already hot in Alabama.

  It had been three months since my dealings with The Reaper, aka Carl Minton, aka Melanie Dancy; Burncutt, and Judge Middlebrooks. The Reaper is expected to get the needle in November, but some prominent people in town are pushing for an earlier date. So far it looks to be in their favor.

  Burncutt went to prison. He had a change of heart, they say—spends a lot of time in the library and goes to all the self-help group meetings. He’s expecting to get an early release. He’s been a model prisoner and we may actually be able to stand each other when he gets out.

  Now those bloody murders, the kidnapping, even the sex change—all are distant memories.

  Once the news media broadcast the scandal with Chief Pate and Judge Middlebrooks’ wife, he withdrew himself from the running for Sheriff. The Mayor fired him. Capt. Davis is now Chief Davis.

  Charlotte and I have been married three months now. We had our honeymoon in the Virgin Islands. She has gotten a little bigger—no, a whole lot bigger. We are expecting a girl. Charlotte still felt she needed to stay close to her parents even though her mom had been given a clean bill of health. I gave up my apartment and we moved in with Momma and Papa Reed. Occasionally, we would hear Momma and Papa Reed laughing about something that’s funny to them or they might wink at each other. Charlotte still gives them the shame sign.

  Today was different. Not a cloud in the sky. No giggling, but smiles all around. Just plain beautiful; peaceful, and relaxed.

  I laid my head in Charlotte’s lap. “I love you,” she said, running her smooth silky hands on my face. I reached up and kissed her softly on her lips and said. “I love you both.”

  BLUE ALERT

  Chapter 1

  Officer Richard Davies lies on the ground, bleeding-- to death, knowing within himself that he was about to die. In the last few moments in his mind, he thought his hand was writing out the killer’s name. It wasn’t. His spirit was leaving him fast and there was nothing he could do. Darkness was settling in his eyes. People were shouting and he heard them but they couldn’t hear his pleas for help. He looked up at the sky and watched as the darkness swallowed him.

  Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans was nothing like the Elysian Fields you read about in a book of the Greek Gods; in the book there were no troubles, no pain, and no death. Elysian Fields Avenue had trouble, pain, and now death.

  District eight is bordered by Canal Street, the French Quarter, I-10, and the Mississippi River. The area was known for its many historic attractions until recently. Somebody was killing police officers.

  Sirens blared in the distance as he lay dying. His badge was covered with blood from the wound in his chest. He was heaving, gurgling and possibly drowning in his blood. He heard the sirens getting closer but it was too late. He started drifting away from life.

  “Come on man, stay with us!” somebody shouted. The voices started to fade. Darkness set in. The stars disappeared in the night sky. He screamed, but nobody heard him. He was gone. Dead.

  “This is the third officer killed in the last week.” A woman said.

  “Yeah,” somebody said. “I saw the news too. This is insane.”

  “This is not good at all,” said the woman.

  The patrol cars surrounded the scene. They un-holstered their guns as they exited their cars. They made their way to their fallen comrade to try and administer first –aid. They shook their heads and holstered their guns. Questions were hurled at everyone standing around. Nobody admitted to seeing anything. They said that they heard gunshots—maybe two and heard a car speed off.

  Detective Jasmine Coffy was assigned the case. She had eight years on the force, with two of those years in homicide—one of ten black female homicide detectives in Louisiana. Violence in the Big Easy was pretty normal to her. She grew up in New Orleans in a family with three brothers. They lived near the river on the outskirts of the city. From the time she was a little girl she was taught to hunt and fish by her older brothers and also learned to cook like her mother. Of course Jasmine wanted to be a police officer.

  Her desire to become a police officer began when she was nine years old. She was walking down town with her parents along the river in the French Quarter when she saw a man get beaten and stabbed. Before she could scream, her dad covered her mouth and quickly walked back to their old Ford pickup truck and sped away. She still remembers his words. “Jas, there are some folks round here you just can’t help.”

  Now, Jasmine pulled up to the scene. Police from every agency were there, which was normal when the “Officer Down” call comes over the radio. Whatever an officer is doing at that moment—even if they had just stopped a vehicle and was in the middle of writing a ticket; they were rolling in the distressed officer’s direction. And fast.

  Jas hesitated on walking up to the body. The last thing any officer wants to see is one of their own lying dead in the street because of some punk who didn’t want to go to jail. She pulled out her badge and showed it to the officer logging names at the crime scene. The Crime Lab and Evidence Division were already on the job. She walked up to the female CLED tech.

  “What do we have?” Jas asked. The tech wiped her eye with the back of her glove.

  She had been crying. Jas gave her a second to gain her composure.

  “Sorry, Detective, this is my third scene involving a fallen officer and I just can’t…” She couldn’t finish. The tears flowed. Jas placed her hand on the tech’s shoulder. “I understand.”

  She turned. The body was covered already. Detective Santiago had just finished interviewing the witnesses. Jas called out to him. She waved her hand for him to come to her.

  “Bernar
d, what do we have?”

  “Hey Jas.” He shook his head. “Sorry, but we got a bunch of witnesses who didn’t see anything—only heard the shots. Officer Davies didn’t have a chance to pull his gun out the holster. He was killed in cold blood.”

  The very words “Killed in cold blood” sent a chill down her spine.

  “Where did the shots hit him?” she asked.

  “Two in the back; one made its way to his chest from the side, probably as he turned to get away. He was wearing his vest but it only helped some. He must have fallen at some point and the perpetrator got off a head shot and according to witnesses, sped off. But nobody saw the car or the driver.”

  Jas let it all settle in her mind.

  “Well, I better go and tell the chief so he can inform his wife.”

  “Ok, thanks, Bernard. I will see you back at the station. I’m going to look around some more.”

  She hated that part of the job--telling a family member that their loved one is dead. Especially when you don’t have the person responsible. She went over to the body, stooped down and slid the cover back to see Davies. The blood was now dry. Under what was left of his head. He had been shot at close range. By the perp. She slid the cover back on Davies, stood up and sighed.

  “Three dead in a week. All killed the same way. Shot in cold blood. Just doesn’t make sense. Probably some fanatic that wants to get justice for all the police murders of blacks in the news lately,” she said. She got back in her car and drove to the substation in the 8th Precinct.

  The precinct was usually noisy with phones ringing. Officers joking around. And people being interviewed by investigators or making formal complaints with the desk Sergeant. Today was different. Gloom had settled in. Some officers had drifted to corners of the room not to be seen shedding tears. Others rubbed their badges, contemplating on quitting the job they loved.

  Police Commissioner Larry Flanagan and Chief Estelle Adelaide walked into the muster room.

  “I know how you all feel. It is not an easy thing to talk about when someone you know and work with and depend on is gone,” said the Commissioner. “But we have a duty and an obligation, not only to the community we police, but to our families and our fallen comrades, to find this animal and bring him to justice.” He paused. Some officers felt the boost of his speech and stood upright. They all respected him and wanted the horror to go away.