Crescent City Detective

by Vito Zuppardo

  Mario gave Truman a look from the corner of his eye. It was time for them to leave before Mario said something he would be sorry for. Truman caught the hint and followed.

  Mario stopped at Robin’s desk to ask her to send a copy of the phone recording to Olivia Johansson for her to analyze.

  Robin smiled. “Way ahead of you, Detective. She got it an hour ago.”

  “Thanks,” Mario said with a nod of his head.

  Walking through the squad room, Truman asked, “So, what lead?”

  “I don’t have a lead,” Mario said. “Needed to end the bullshit grandstanding the Chief displays when Gilbert is around. I do have one thing to check out, but am not sure it will pan out.”

  “Where to?” Truman asked.

  “I need to do this alone. You follow up with Calabar and see if Felipe had any visitors lately or any use of the phone. I’ll get back to you in a few hours,” Mario said, sticking one of the phone messages in his pocket. “And call Olivia and see if she can get a rush on the audio?”

  Truman motioned with a hand wave, expressing he’d take care of the request. He’d learned early on it was best not to know what Mario was thinking or what law he planned to break that day.

  Mario took the elevator to the garage. The late-evening traffic was starting to pile up on Tulane Avenue, but it gave Mario time to run all the events of the day through his head. It also gave him time to think how badly this had affected Kate. It was something he had to push out of his head for the time being, or he might do something he’d regret.

  Making the turn on Carrolton Avenue, the traffic eased, and he arrived at Riverside Inn. It was three in the afternoon, and that was coffee time for Zack and Dave, so he knew where to find them.

  Mario found them sitting at their usual table in the corner. It was Wednesday, so their ladies were not tagging along—it was card day. Zack pointed out that he and Dave couldn’t compete with a good Boure` game. His lady friends were French from down on the bayou and grew up playing cards, mostly Boure`.

  Mario snickered. “My grandmother played and called it ‘Boo-Ray.’ Hell, I was thirty years old before I learned it was Boure’.”

  A dining room worker came by with a coffee cart and set up three cups on the table with a fancy sugar bowl, matching creamer, and some sugar substitutes.

  “Better make that four cups,” Howard said as he took a seat. “Thanks for meeting me,” Howard said.

  Mario took the pink phone message out of his pocket and put it in front of Howard. “What is this about?”

  Howard waited for the kitchen lady to pour coffee and move on to another table. “This morning I was at Benny’s Car Wash, getting the limo touched up. You know the place?”

  They all nodded. It was an old established place, and few people didn’t know Benny.

  Howard continued, “Little Gabe pointed out two guys waiting for their vehicle. Definitely gang bangers with Cornerview posse. Talking cocky about a job they just pulled. I guess they didn’t realize Spanish is the first language around the car wash. One of Gabe’s supervisors picked up part of the conversation.”

  “How cocky?” Mario asked.

  “Laughing and mentioned your name, then said, ‘I would love to see Mario’s face when he hears the tape.’ If he hadn’t said your name, the supervisor would have never thought anything of the comment. Little Gabe told me you know his supervisor.”

  “Tall, skinny guy?” Mario asked.

  “That’s him.”

  Mario’s mind was racing a million miles away.

  Dave gave him a look. “Does this have anything to do with what we heard this morning on the police scanner? There was a lot of police dispatched to Saint Charles Avenue.”

  Mario nodded. “Yes.” Looking at Howard, he asked him, “Can you identify these two guys?”

  “Yep, but one I know for sure. I’ve seen him around the car wash before. But most of all he is the man in the getaway car in Kate’s attempted kidnapping.”

  Mario’s jaw dropped, and the color of his face changed almost instantly to pale white. “Rodney Day?” he said in frustration.

  “No, the other one. The black lady’s son.”

  “Darrell Jefferson? A thin guy, a little fuzz on his chin. A half-ass goatee?”

  “That’s him,” Howard said, watching Mario’s face go from pale white to a red glow.

  Mario thought he’d had this guy scared straight during the interview. With a judge in his back pocket, Darrell just wasn’t worried about the law.

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

  “No problem, Howard. I appreciate you contacting me.”

  Zack wanted to help. He reminded Mario he was a cop for many years and in his day they bent the rules. Nowadays the police did everything by the book and the criminals had more rights than the victim.

  “You have time to take a limo ride?” Mario said to Howard.

  “Sure.”

  “Let's go, I’ll explain on the way,” Mario said as they all rushed out the dining room.

  Howard, Dave, and Zack got in the limousine and followed Mario’s police cruiser.

  They hit the Interstate entrance of I-10 and Mario flipped the cruiser’s blue and white overhead lights. Howard kept the limo right on his tail as they cut through traffic. It took no time to get to the Downman Road exit in New Orleans East. At the bottom of the ramp, they crossed the highway and pulled into the Crazy Eight parking lot.

  Mario rushed into the pool hall with his badge over his head. “I’m looking for Darrell Jefferson,” he shouted. Scanning the place with his eyes, Mario walked directly to the back. “Is Darrell Jefferson here?” he shouted again.

  A guy holding a pool stick in his hand shouted, “Who wants to know?”

  Mario grabbed the guy, pushing him against a wall with the stick to his throat. “That’s a question. I’m looking for answers.”

  The guy could hardly talk, but mumbled, “He left about an hour ago.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been easier to say that from the start?” Mario said, giving the stick a little more pressure then letting the guy go.

  Mario stormed out the place and jumped into his car. Putting the flashing lights on again, he took off, and the limo followed. The cars made the turn into Ora Mae’s subdivision, and the flashing lights went off. The two vehicles pulled up slowly and stopped a few houses away from Ora Mae Jefferson’s home.

  Howard stood by the rear of the limousine. Zack and Dave walked up to the front door and knocked. Mario was off to the side of the house waiting for the door to open. On the third hit to the door, Ora Mae cracked the door enough for her to view out.

  “Hi, I’m Inspector Wilson. We’re investigating contractor fraud in this area,” Zack said as she opened the door a little wider.

  “I don’t have any construction going on here,” Ora Mae said, opening the door and giving them a view of the inside of the house.

  During that split second of opportunity, Mario pushed his way through the house, shouting, “Police. Darrell, we need to talk.”

  Ora Mae screamed, and Zack pulled her outside while Mario roamed the house. Darrell stuck his head out of a room, giving Mario the opportunity to slam him against the wall. With no resistance, Mario handcuffed him again—and hopefully for the last time.

  “You’re under arrest for the third time,” he said, pushing Darrell to the front door.

  Stopping in front of Ora Mae, Mario looked her square in the eyes. “Your sugar daddy judge is not going to be able to help him this time.”

  Howard held Darrell outside of the police car for a moment while Mario talked on his radio. He finished and put two items in a cloth bag with a New Orleans Police logo on the side.

  Mario pushed Darrell into the backseat of the squad car and locked the door. Dave and Zack jumped into the limo while Howard took the cloth bag. After explaining the details, they were all in and ready to assist.

  The police car with the limousine following traveled about a hal
f a mile up the road. It was an undeveloped area on the east side of the city. The vehicles turned onto a dirt road of an abandoned construction site closed down for years. What should have been a beautiful apartment complex with waterfalls, Olympic-size swimming pools, and palm trees was nothing but an on-site construction office trailer.

  The cars came to a stop, and Mario reached for a set of keys on the console. Next, he pulled Darrell out the back seat and stood him on the side of the car. Howard reached for a duffel bag out of the trunk of the limo and joined the guys.

  Mario flipped Howard the keys. “I did security work here—the job closed down, and they never asked for the keys back.”

  Howard smiled, opening the door to the office trailer. He found a light switch and turned it on and off a few times—there was no electricity. He opened a window for some ventilation and daylight in the musty, locked-up room.

  Mario pushed Darrell to Howard. “Handle him,” Mario said.

  “Man, you can’t do this. What kind of cop are you?” Darrell said as his voice trembled.

  “No cop you’ve ever met. I played by the book, which didn’t work. Now I’m changing the rules,” he said, closing the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 36

  Leaning next to the limousine, Zack, Dave, and Mario pitched rocks at a tree about twenty yards away. A few hit the tree and others flew wide left.

  Inside the trailer, Howard unpacked his duffel bag, watching Darrell’s eyes grow larger every time he placed an item on an old desk.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Darrell pleaded.

  Standing well over a foot taller and being a much larger man than Darrell, he said with his British accent, “Information” as he took a small six-volt battery out the bag. “You can call me The Mick, like your baseball hero Michy Mantle.”

  “Is that supposed to scare me? A six-volt battery?” Darrell tried the bold approach—it didn’t last but a few seconds.

  “It will when the conductor clips to your testicle. What would you prefer, your right ball or the left?” Howard said, resting the last item on the desk: a baseball bat.

  “You like baseball, Darrell?” There was no answer.

  Darrell was the right height to tie to a steel bar that ran across the roofline. With his hand over his head, Howard attached Darrell’s handcuffs with a rope to the steel bar. He then reached for the ball bat and placed a small bath towel around the end with a piece of tape.

  Darrell was in a panic and wild-eyed. He knew the technique. You could make a more destructive impact on the rib cage, damaging internal organs while the bath towel protected the skin from being cut.

  Without warning, Howard swung the bat like he was aiming for the center field fence at Yankee Stadium.

  “Strike one,” Howard said, landing the bat square into Darrell’s rib cage.

  Darrell doubled over, and all the air in his body departed. Then he wheezed, and with his face drenched in fear, he shouted, “What the fuck do you want?”

  Howard enjoyed playing games and took a few practice swings with the bat off to the side. He pointed out that every time Darrell gave the wrong answer or didn’t answer quick enough, he would take a swing into Darrell’s rib cage. After three strikes Howard would hook up the battery.

  Darrell was too frightened to talk. His eyes were now bulging, and his face was pale—as light as a black man could get.

  “Understand?”

  “Yes,” Darrell whispered.

  Howard took two small recorders out of the bag and set them on a table. Pushing the Record button on one and Play on the other, a voice said, “What is your full name?” It was Mario’s voice pre-recorded, and Howard hit the stop button, leaving the other one to record.

  Darrell shifted his eyes, not sure what to make of the question. He answered, “Darrell W. Jefferson.”

  Howard had suggested this procedure to Mario and assured him he could get results. His background was questionable, and few people in New Orleans other than Ben Stein knew his life story. He didn’t play by any law enforcement rules—something Mario needed at this time.

  “Repeat the following,” Howard said. “This is my admission of guilt.”

  Darrell knew he had no other choice but to repeat the words or risk getting hit again, so he followed Howard’s directions.

  “Very well,” Howard said as he walked around swinging the bat. “Who sent you to the boathouse?”

  Darrell didn’t say a word—until the bat got close to his rib cage. “Marina and Dante drove me to the location. Marina sat in the kitchen with me and made sure I made the phone call to Mario. Dante roamed the house with some workers.”

  Howard motioned for him to keep talking.

  “They gave me a recorder.”

  Howard fixed the towel on the end of the bat and gave a short swing between Darrell’s legs—his knees buckled. He turned the recorder off. “Strike two. Stop making me ask all the questions. Spill it out. Who told you to do what, when, and where?”

  “Okay, just stop swinging that bat. You make me nervous.”

  The red light came back on the device, and it was recording.

  Darrell took a deep breath. “I was given a phone number to call from Lakeway Drive Boathouse seventy-two over in West End. The place was under construction, a complete remodel. There was sheetrock piled in every room ready to be installed. I made the call from the kitchen and pressed the button on the recorder when Mario answered. That’s it, man. That was my part,” Darrell said, keeping an eye on the baseball bat.

  A tap of a rock hit the office door, then another. It was Mario’s signal to wrap the questioning up.

  Howard twisted the end of the bat on the floor with one hand. With the recorders off, he thought he would go off script with one more question.

  “I have a bonus question for you. Did you ever do any work for Doctor Ross?”

  Darrell blinked, and both eyes rolled upward—a dead giveaway. What he was about to say were lies. The bat turned on Howard’s shoulder as he wrapped both hands around the base.

  “You’re taking too long to answer,” he threatened with practice swings over Darrell's head.

  Howard hit the record button, and Darrell spilled his guts. He did a car bump for Doctor Ross a few times. The doctor paid good money for information. He followed older people home from the doctor's office. Roughed them up enough to send them to the hospital. What Dr. Ross did with the people once admitted to the hospital, he claimed he didn’t know.

  Howard pressed the Pause button on the recorder. “You’re lying.”

  Another rock hit the door. Howard cut the rope from Darrell's hands, and he dropped to the floor, rubbing his wrists. Howard swung the bat, landing dead center in Darrell’s gut, pushing him back several feet into a file cabinet.

  “Bam! That one is out of the park. Looks like a home run, Darrell. What do you think?” Howard smiled. “That was a good one, Mick.”

  Darrell crawled on the floor towards the door before the bat came at him again.

  “The old people were shaken up and taken to Doctor Ross’s hospital. They later mysteriously died, and their organs were harvested—right, Darrell? Is that how it works? Just get them to the hospital, and Dr. Ross will take care of the rest?”

  “No, man! My job was roughing them up.”

  In Howard’s mind, this guy was guilty, and he would like to sentence Darrell to three more blows with the bat.

  “Just rough them up?” he said, swinging the bat over his head and smashing a lamp on the desk. “You street punk!”

  Howard put the bat back in the duffel bag and picked up the battery and wires.

  “When you get downtown, you will write down everything you told me and give it to Detective Mario. And if your statement is not word for word, we’ll make another trip out here,” Howard said as he let the two wires attached to the battery touch. Sparks lit up the room.

  Darrell could barely talk but managed to nod his head up and down, agreeing. Howard packed the bag
and walked out. Mario was waiting on the steps.

  “He’s all yours and ready to write his memoirs,” Howard said with a smile.

  Mario looked in the trailer. Darrell was in the corner on the floor with no visible marks on him. You could see he was hurting. The ordeal had gone down as Howard planned.

  “Let’s go, Sparky. There is a prison cell waiting for you,” Mario said.

  CHAPTER 37

  Mario sat in his car processing Howard’s findings, knowing Darrell and Rodney should have never been let out on bail. They were just too involved in the kidnapping to be released, but with a judge in your back pocket anything was possible. He looked at Darrell through the rearview mirror. He appeared scared and held his ribs. Mario could only imagine how frightened Kate must have been during the hospital attack, when losing the baby, and then during the kidnapping.

  His first thoughts were to bypass Central Lockup and go straight to an area called Alligator Bayou in New Orleans East. Hell, it was only a few miles away, he thought. Feed him to the gators and get rid of this prick once and for all. It ran through his mind several times, but Mario knew there would only be someone else in line to take Darrell’s place. Someone wanting to make a name for themselves—another puppet Felipe or Dante could manipulate.

  Mario looked at Darrell in the back seat again, his eyes beet red, oozing with hatred. He had a deranged mind willing to do anything for attention—good or evil, but mostly evil. Mario pounded the steering wheel and shouted, “You fuck,” letting his anger show its nasty face.

  The limousine pulled out first, and Mario followed with his prisoner handcuffed in the back seat. The dirt road had run for about a half a mile before you reached the highway back to the city. Mario stopped the car and waited for the limo to get out of sight.

  Mario looked in the mirror at Darrell. “You ready, Sparky?”

  “For what?” Darrell said.

  Flooring the gas pedal, the car took off, and Mario watched Darrell’s head jerk back. The vehicle accelerated to eighty miles per hour then Mario locked the breaks. Darrell was thrown face first into the steel grate that separated the prisoner from the driver. Blood ran down the side of Darrell’s face and his nose.