[Lady Justice 01] - Lady Justice Takes a C.R.A.P.

by Robert Thornhill

  My knees gave way and I grabbed Ox’s arm for support.

  “It’s okay, Walt. The first one is always the worst.”

  “No --- it’s not that. I --- I know her! That’s Nancy Duncan. She’s a real estate agent. We’ve done deals together.”

  A detective standing nearby heard my comments.

  “You know this woman?”

  I nodded.

  “The two of you need to head back to the precinct. Maybe you can give us some background information that will help with the investigation.”

  I was still reeling from the shock of seeing Nancy’s bloated body and I held onto Ox as we headed back to the cruiser.

  My partner couldn’t have been more supportive. “I’m sorry that your first one had to be someone you knew. That’s tough.”

  “Yeah, it is. Looks like this might be one of those days when I’m the statue.”

  Ox patted my leg and we headed back to the precinct.

  On the way, I reflected on my past association with Nancy.

  She was a fifteen-year veteran and a real pro. She knew her business.

  Successful women in the real estate business have some unique characteristics.

  There’s an old joke that has been floating around real estate offices for as long as I can remember:

  Question: What’s the difference between a pit bull and a lady realtor?

  Answer: Lip gloss.

  That says a lot.

  While women in many other fields have bumped up against the ‘glass ceiling’ of corporate America and female college graduates are struggling as secretaries and bookkeepers at minimum wage, a good female realtor in a hot market can bring in a six-figure income easily. At any real estate company in any market, the majority of top producers are women.

  They have big incomes, big cars, and big egos to match. One of my pet peeves was that these gals, many of whom are excellent salespersons, would come in second place in a one-person beauty contest. Yet they go to Glamour Shots photo studio, get a pound of makeup plastered to their face and a hairdo that they will never wear again, and put that photo on their business cards. Sheesh, talk about truth in advertising. One evening, when railing to the professor about one particular lady, he replied, “Women who wear wonder bra make mountains out of molehills.”

  What a guy!

  These women are determined. Realtor income is commission only. You don’t work; you don’t get paid. It’s a very motivating principle. Consequently, there’s inevitable competition among agents for clients. While most agents get along fine, some of these gals are ruthless.

  Maggie is, of course, a realtor. She’s good. She works hard, and her clients love her. The picture on her business card is really Maggie. But she does have a bit of that bulldog deep inside. I’ve seen her deal with another agent who was trying to steal one of her clients. By the time she was through with him, he thought he had two assholes, because she had just ripped him a new one. You really don’t want to piss off that little Irish redhead.

  By the time we reached the precinct, I had recovered from my initial shock, but I felt absolutely drained.

  Ox and I were ushered into a conference room where Captain Short and a couple of detectives were waiting.

  The Captain motioned to two empty chairs. “Walt, I’m so sorry about your friend. Please tell us what you know about her.”

  I shared my involvement with Nancy and the detectives brought us up to speed on their investigation.

  Nancy Duncan had gone missing from an open house she was holding. The sellers had returned home and found the door ajar and signs of a struggle but no Nancy. Her car was found locked on the street in front of the house. This had all the earmarks of abduction. A yellow alert had been issued but there had been no word on Nancy until our grisly discovery that morning.

  By the time we were finished, it was nearly noon.

  As soon as we were excused, I called Maggie. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Maggie, have you heard—”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. “Our broker just called a sales meeting to let everyone know about Nancy. The Board of Realtors has issued an alert. They have asked all agents to take extreme caution. Don’t meet new clients at vacant houses. Try to avoid open houses and make sure our cans of pepper spray are still active. We’re all scared to death.”

  “Sounds like good advice. You be careful. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “See you tonight,” she said and hung up.

  We were just finishing our sandwiches when Captain Short summoned us back to the conference room.

  “We just received the M.E.’s preliminary report. There were ligature marks around Nancy Duncan’s feet, wrists and neck and it appears that she had been sexually assaulted with a large object. The cause of death was strangulation. This was obviously an act of rage.”

  We all sat in stunned silence. While murder is not an everyday occurrence at the station, most mayhem is one gangbanger killing a rival gang member or a drug deal gone bad. But when it happens to a respected, successful person like Nancy, it really hits close to home. It makes you realize no one is truly immune from violence and that all of us are just a random violent act away from death.

  Where is the justice in that?

  We solemnly went about our patrol duties wondering if this was just a random act or, God forbid, just the opening act of a serial killer. There was no joy in Mudville that day. A vicious killer had lashed out.

  After work I went straight to Maggie’s apartment. Upon entering, I found her curled up on the couch, a half empty box of Kleenex in her lap. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  Without a word I sat down on the couch beside her. “I served with Nancy on the Professional Standards Committee,” was all she said, and then she sobbed uncontrollably. I held her for a long time that night.

  CHAPTER 9

  The next morning I was totally distracted by the previous day’s events. My heart ached for Maggie and for Nancy, and I was so pissed that one person could create so much heartache in so many lives.

  At squad meeting we were told that at this time there were no suspects in the murder. No clues were found around the lake, and no witnesses had come forward.

  Ox and I were on our regular patrol when a message came over the two-way radio. “Assault in progress at 507 Linwood Boulevard. Any officers in the area please respond.”

  “Car fifty-four on route,” Ox replied. “ETA ten minutes.”

  As Ox sped away, that address hit me between my eyes like a ton of bricks. “That’s my Three Trails Hotel,” I shouted. “Move it!”

  Mary Murphy is the resident manager in my only other building, The Three Trails Hotel. When I sold all my rentals to the young couple, they refused to take this property. I didn’t blame them. This property was a lot like most women.

  High maintenance.

  In the 1800s, Kansas City was the last major outpost on the way west. The Oregon, California, and Santa Fe Trails originated from the Westport area. My hotel was built way back then. Hence, the name, Three Trails. It was a grand hotel back in the day. But as the property changed hands over the years, so did its use and condition. It was even a brothel for a while. When I purchased it, it was a flophouse for druggies, crack heads, and various other human vermin. I evicted everyone, remodeled the building, and made it a respectable flophouse.

  It consists of twenty single rooms, each with a bed, dresser, and chair, four full bathrooms, and a small apartment for the manager. You do the math. We just hope all twenty tenants don’t get the squirts at the same time.

  My tenants are mostly old retired men and single guys that work out of the labor pool. They pay by the week, $40 cash. It’s a bookkeeping nightmare. That’s why I have Mary.

  Mary is a young, sturdy seventy-five-year-old who carries a Hillrich and Bradsby white ash baseball bat, and she doesn’t take any crap from anyone, including me. If she had been a man, she probably would have been Harmon Killebrew. Some people just have an a
ura about them that says, “If you mess with me, sucker, I’ll split your skull.” Mary has that aura.

  More than once I’ve heard her bellow, “Lenny, you shithead! You pissed on the floor again. Now get your ass in there and clean it up!”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  Mary is my resident manager. She gets her rent free for keeping the boys in line. If she ever left me, I’d have to burn down the hotel.

  We pulled up in front of the hotel. A crowd had gathered and was staring at the front porch roof. A skanky-looking white guy was cowering in the corner of the porch roof. Big Mary was standing over him with her Hillrich and Bradsby. We got there just in time to hear her say, “Go ahead, punk. Make my day!”

  Jesus, I thought. Dirty Mary! She’s been watching those Clint Eastwood movies again.

  “Get her away from me, please!” the skanky guy shouted.

  “Shut up or I’ll knock your skinny white ass clear over to Main Street,” she shouted back.

  “Mary,” I called.

  She looked down, saw me, and a big grin spread across her face. “Hey, Mr. Walt. I got me a squatter.”

  The skanky guy, who couldn’t have weighed more than 110 pounds, seeing her momentarily distracted, decided to make a break for it. Mary was standing between him and the window, so he barreled into her. Whump! Mary was planted like an oak, all two hundred pounds of her. After the initial impact, he kind of slid down the front of her body like Wile E. Coyote does when he hits a rock wall.

  “I’ll teach you not to squat in my hotel,” she said and kicked him in the ribs.

  It turned out that the guy was coming in at night after everyone was asleep and locking himself in one of the shared hall baths. If a tenant got up to use the can and found the door locked, he just assumed it was another tenant answering a nocturnal call of nature and simply went to another bathroom. The guy made sure he was out by the time the tenants were rising.

  Mary had found some needles and a white powder in the bathroom the day before. She feared one of our regular tenants was using drugs, so she decided to stake out the bathroom. Finding it locked, she gathered her bat, a pillow, and blanket and quietly camped outside the bathroom door.

  Imagine the surprise of Mr. Squatter when he opened the door only to be nose to nose with Dirty Mary.

  We cuffed and frisked the guy and found a bag of crack cocaine in his pocket.

  Sweet!

  I wondered if this guy would tell his grandkids about the day he got his butt kicked by a seventy-five-year-old senior citizen with a thirty-six-inch bat? Probably not! But it’s justice!

  Before Ox and I could pull away, Mary grabbed me one more time.

  “Old Mr. Feeney in number fourteen stopped up the toilet again. You better send Willie over with the plunger.”

  “Swell,” I replied. “What in the world does that old man eat?”

  “I haven’t the faintest,” she said. “But when he’s ready to pass it, I wish he’d take it down to the Quick Trip on the corner. They got one of them vacuum flushers. It’ll damn near suck your ass down the toilet if you ain’t careful.”

  Mary runs a tight ship.

  That evening on the way home I stopped by the shirt shop. Now Mary has a T-shirt that says:

  OLD GALS RULE!

  CHAPTER 10

  It seems that crime never takes a holiday. Even though our thoughts were focused on the murder of Nancy Duncan, other victims deserved our attention as well.

  Downtown Kansas City had recently been the scene of a series of snatch and grabs at ATMs. Downtown Kansas City from Ninth Street on the north to Twelfth Street on the south and Oak Street on the east to Main Street on the west is a labyrinth of multistoried office and retail buildings, including the famous Petticoat Lane. Running between each block is an alley that provides access to loading docks and service entrances. Several large national banks have branches in this area with ATMs in front at sidewalk level for the convenience of their patrons.

  In this most recent crime spree, patrons who had just withdrawn cash from the ATMs were suddenly rushed by a very fleet of foot young Latino boy who snatched the cash from their hands and dashed away and disappeared into the back alleys.

  Ox and I had been assigned to patrol the area on foot. The ultimate goal was to catch the kid in the act, but at the very least, to give the citizens a sense of security. The target area was twelve square blocks, with four ATMs scattered throughout. We decided to split up, keeping in touch at regular intervals with our walkie-talkies.

  As I walked the sidewalks of downtown Kansas City, I was struck by the diversity of the people who mingled there on a daily basis. Prominent were the businessmen and women. Even on scorcher days such as this one, they dressed in suits and ties and pantsuits. These were the movers and shakers of Kansas City commerce and industry, on their way to their air-conditioned offices high above the city street. The postman, the UPS driver, laborers, and deliverymen all scurried about at the bidding of the suits. Women with shopping bags went window to window searching for the next bargain. Vendors on the street sold newspapers and hot dogs, and at the corner of an alley was an old woman in a long coat carrying all her worldly possessions in a shopping cart. All men are created equal. They just don’t stay that way for very long.

  I strolled by the first ATM. A line had formed behind the woman at the machine, and those waiting behind her appeared to be agitated. As I approached, I saw her hit the machine with her fist and mutter, “That jerk! He took out all the cash. Just wait till I get a hold of him tonight.”

  Uh-oh, somebody was in trouble. She gave the machine a kick. Right, like it was the machine’s fault. She retrieved her card and huffed away. A round of applause arose from the queue behind her. She turned and gave them the finger.

  Happy days!

  The M.O. of the grabber had been to hit single individuals. Not so many witnesses and less chance for there to be a hero close by. I crossed the street and wandered into the next block toward the second ATM. A middle-aged man in a business suit was just keying in his PIN when I saw a Latino boy about thirteen or fourteen years old come strolling up the sidewalk. He obviously had practiced his approach. His timing was perfect. He came even with the man just as the machine spewed out a handful of bills. With the speed of a striking snake, he dashed up, reached in front of the man, snatched the cash, and sped away.

  I keyed the mike. “I got him, Ox: alley, Tenth and Grand.” I took off after him. There wasn’t a chance in hell that a sixty-five-year-old man could outrun a fourteen-year-old kid. My goal was to follow close enough so that I could see where he was disappearing to after each grab.

  I was maybe fifty feet behind him when I saw him duck down the alley. It took maybe all of fifteen seconds for me to reach the corner and charge into the alley after him. I raced around the corner and had advanced twenty feet into the alley when I spotted the kid. He was right in front of me, standing perfectly still. And right behind him was a Latino man, maybe thirty-five years old, with a .380 pointed right at my head.

  I came to an abrupt halt, and two more Latino guys in their late teens moved in behind me and grabbed my arms. After I was pinned, the guy stuck his gun in his pants and advanced toward me. Without so much as a word, he struck me squarely in the stomach. I groaned, bent forward, and gasped for air. He came at me again with an uppercut, snapping my head back. My lights went out, and as I was going down, I heard Ox pounding around the corner.

  “Es el gordo!” snapped the Latino. “Vamanos.” They dropped me and disappeared down the alley.

  As I regained consciousness, I was aware of Ox and two paramedics hovering over me.

  “He’s coming around,” I heard one of the medics say. “Let’s try to get you up.”

  My ribs hurt like hell, and I noticed blood was on my shirt from my swollen lip. “Did you get ‘em?” I asked.

  “No,” Ox replied, “I stayed with you till the medics and backup got here. They got away.”

  Swell! Beat up for n
othing.

  The medics insisted I go to the hospital for X-rays on the ribs and to be checked for a concussion. After a thorough exam, I was told I would probably live and was dismissed. The way I felt, I wasn’t sure I agreed with them.

  I took the rest of the day off, and as I drove home, wincing in pain with every breath, I began to question what I thought I was doing.

  Good grief, Walt, I said to myself, you’re sixty-five years old. You’re supposed to be playing golf and fishing and traveling. What in the world were you thinking?

  I remembered another time I felt this way. I was fifteen years old and thought that I could be a football player. I had just been run over by a 250-pound defensive tackle. What lesson did I learn from that? I quit football. I had just been mugged by a Latino tough guy with a .380. Was there a message here? The more I drove, the more I hurt, and the more discouraged I became.

  I arrived at my apartment, and as I was going in the door, I was met by the Professor. “Good Lord, Walt!” he exclaimed. “You look like crap. What happened?”

  Nice of you to notice!

  I went into the Professor’s apartment, dropped in a chair, and spilled my guts about my beating and my self-doubts. The professor just sat quietly as I indulged in my pity party.

  He offered no sympathy or advice or admonitions. He just listened. When I had finished with my rantings, he slowly rose and went to his desk. He returned with a piece of paper, and as he handed it to me, he said, “Why don’t you go upstairs, take a long hot shower, pour a glass of Arbor Mist, and think about this before you make any decisions?”

  So I did. I stood in the shower with scalding water pouring over me until it turned cold. I poured a glass of peach chardonnay, sat down, and read the words on the paper he had given me:

  When things go wrong, as they sometimes will

  When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill

  When care is pressing you down a bit

  Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

  Life is queer with its twists and turns

  As every one of us sometimes learns