by B. A. Savage
Ben Green eyes seem to peer through him. “With an undercover officer dead and now Mister French is here from the D.A.’s office. I don’t know, Cutter. I just cannot trust anyone, not even you.”
There was a knock at the door. “Enter,” Green said.
Emerson walked through the door. “I questioned the cleaning people. They all were cleaning UK Bank at the time of the break-in. The bank’s video verified their story.”
“What about French? Has he been questioned?”
“Yes, sir. He was staying at the Days Inn, Louisville. He ordered a steak dinner delivered to his room minutes after the break-in. A girl matching Karen description was in the room with him.”
“He was in the room with Karen? I thought the boy was gay.” Cutter said.
“Where were you at last night, Emerson?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“You heard me, Detective. I asked where you were.”
“But, sir, I don’t think Emerson or any other officer had anything to do with the break-in.”
“Shut up, Cutter, I didn’t ask you for your opinion. Someone broke into the police department. They must have had inside help because the cameras were facing the left side of the wall. They took the service entrance up to the third floor, just as Martin was on a smoke break. So how did the thieves know how to avoid the cameras, unless they had help from the inside?”
“Touché,” a voice said from the door. Green looked up to find French and Karen standing in the doorway. “Detective that’s an incredible piece of detective work. I heard about what happened, is there anything we can do?”
“What do you want, French?”
French smiled; his eyes were darting around the room at the three officers. “Do you keep a record of every officer who shows up at a crime scene?”
“Yes, why?” Green snapped.
“I like to see that report.”
“That information is classified,” Green said. A surprised look crossed the detectives’ faces, but they remained quiet. “Why would you need to know that? It has nothing to do with the murder.”
French smiled. “Just checking all sides of the investigation to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
“What are you doing in this building? I fire you?” Emerson said, looking at Karen.
“I’m a special investigator for the D.A.’s office,” Karen said, flashing a badge and a bigger smile.
“You have to be kidding me.” Emerson muttered aloud.
“We're conducting an investigation French. What else do you need?"
"I need that report, sir.”
“I told you; that’s classified. Good afternoon, Mister French. Detectives escort them out of my building.”
French and Karen were guided to the main door by the two investigators “Excuse me, Detective,” French said, looking over his shoulder. “You’re a Sniper, First Division, United States Marine Corps, Camp Pembleton, San Diego, 1990s. I think they called you guys The Walking Dead.”
“You've been checking up on me, French?” Emerson asked.
“You have that military ring on your left-hand right finger, and it has a special force's sniper insignias; it looks like you have had a lot of practices. I would think you could hit anything you want. Would you shoot two women meeting on Fifth Street beside Douglas Park, Friday?"
Emerson’s mouth dropped open. “What are you saying, French?”
French smiled. “Well, let’s say someone saw a man matching your description and wrote down his plate number 2 o’clock Friday evening. He was in a dark-blue SUV, the same vehicle you're driving in the police department parking lot earlier.” French removed a piece of paper out of his breast pocket. “Your license number is 3478?”
Emerson leaned closer to French, lowering this voice to a whisper. “I have had about enough from you; French. Perhaps next time you'll not be so lucky, maybe, I’ll put one right between your eyes.”
French leaned closer, inches from Emerson's ear, and pulled a mini tape recorder out of this pocket, flipped the rewind button and played back the conversion.
“Let’s start over Detective Emerson. You'll listen to me, or I'll take the tape to the D.A's office." He inquired politely.
"What do you want French?" Cutter asked urgently.
"You will not come after me or my associates again, do you understand me?”
Emerson started to say something but was cut off by Cutter. “Yes, I understand. What do you want?”
“How many officers were at the Dalton crime scene?”
The detectives looked at each other.
“It was seventeen officers,” Cutter said.
“No, it was eighteen; I remember. I counted them” Emerson corrected.
“Are you sure it was eighteen?”
Emerson counted under his breath. “Yes, it was eighteen. I’m sure.”
“Was anyone wearing riot gear?”
“Yes, the seven members of the SWAT team,” Cutter replied.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” French said, pulling the tape out of his pocket and handing it to Emerson.
The two officers watched in amazement as French walked away.
“I don’t understand, boss, why did you give him the tape? I would have turned it over the D.A.’s office.” Karen asked.
French smiled. “It’s simple, Karen. We need a friend with the police department, and I think we have one.”
“You trust him?”
French rubbed her shoulder. “Sometimes when dealing with strangers, we have to trust our gut feeling. So, you're trusted me, and I believe you.”
"But he got me fired.”
“And that was a good thing because if he didn’t have you fired, I would have never been blessed with your friendship.”
“Thank you, Mister French, for being so sweet,” Karen said, kissing him on the check.
Chapter 9
Later that evening, Detective Tom Cutter was too bewildered to enjoy his wife’s delightful tuna and broccoli casserole. His whole plan was turning to crap because of Emerson carelessness, throwing his future out of the window, and leaving him out there to deal with his boss.
The buzzing of his second cell phone made his heart skip a beat. “Shit,” he muttered. “After dealing with French this afternoon, now I have to deal with this.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Detective, what happened today?” The voice said. “I told you to take care of French and now the fat piece of crap had the mayor on to us.”
“He called the mayor, sir? But why would he call the mayor? He gave us the tapes.”
"What tapes?”
Cutter's heart was pulsating hard; he struggled to catch his breath.
“The tape of Emerson admitting he was the shooter.”
“What am I dealing with, morons?”
“Well, sir, he had witnessed who saw Emerson at the shooting. They even had the license plate number of his car.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Cutter knew he was still there because he could hear him breathing.
“And whose wise idea was it for him to drive his car?”
“Sir, we didn’t think anyone would see him. No one lives on the street but old people.”
“My God, man, you are stupid?! Cutter, I’m giving you one more chance. Take care of this and take care of it fast.”
“What about Emerson, sir?”
“At this point, he’s more trouble than Karen Day. I want you to put that idiot on desk duty until I decide what I’m going to do with him. I would take his badge, but he could go out and do something stupid that will have all our asses in danger.”
“But Chief Green is going to be asking questions... why the SWAT team leader on desk duty? Everyone in the department is going to want to know why.”
Cutter could hear the wheels turning in his boss’ head.
“I don’t care what you do, just take care Emerson.”
“Yes, sir. Goodnight.”
The person on the ot
her end of the phone had already hung up.
Cutter sat down on the porch and lite a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and watched the grey smoke drift through the air. “Why have I got myself get into a mess? I'm a cop, not some low-life thug shooting at innocent women in a public neighborhood, just to protect some damn photographs? He thought grimly. Let them have the pictures, who care? French is just a way for the District Attorney to think he’s in control of this investigation. I’m going to do this, but I’m going to do it my way. He crushed out the butt and when into the house.
Chapter 10
French was sitting in bed with his reading glasses on, going over the chief’s case files on his desktop, when there was a soft tap on his door. “Come in,” he said, brushing the roasted peanut shells from his lap.
Karen stepped from the room. The puffiness around her green eyes showed French she had been crying. “Do you have a second?”
French slid over on the bed and patted the seat next to him. “What’s wrong, my dear?”
She inhaled deeply and let it out. “I just talked to Steve, Alice’s father; he’s such a prick. He will not come and see his daughter, and now he’s refusing to pay child support, claiming Alice isn’t his.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want him to do his job and be a father.”
“You and another 40 million mothers in America, wants the same thing.” French rubbed her hand. “He can always be a court ordered for child support, but they cannot order him to be a dad.”
“Then what are we going to do?” she said, placing her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean—.”
“I understand what you are saying, but when it comes to family matters, as long as there’s no violence, I find it best to stay out of it. Has he ever harmed you or your daughter?”
Tears began to flow down her cheeks. “For five years, he would get drunk two, sometimes three, times a week and come home and use me as a punching bag. He said his father would beat his mother, and that’s how he learned to keep his women in her place. It was alright, as long as he didn’t take it out on Alice but when he started crossing that line and hitting on his daughter, that’s when I stopped it.”
“How did you stop him?”
“The next time he came home drunk, I was ready. I purchased a Louisville slugger and found a place to hide. He walked in the door screaming my name, calling my daughter a whore. He went into her bedroom and removed his belt. I jumped from behind the door and with one swing, I broke his arm. He went for me with the other arm, and I knew if he got his hands on me, I was dead. So I hit him in the face, breaking his jaw and drove his drunken ass to the hospital. He cleaned out the bank account and moved out the next day. You just don’t understand what I have been through.”
French stopped her by placing a finger on her cheek. “I understand,” he said, lowering his voice. “People just don’t understand what a blessing children are until it’s too late. I once had a little girl. Her name was Jordan, and she was my angel. She was seven when J.C. Knott escaped from Kentucky State prison. He was serving 25 years for child molestation. It just happens to be that day that my wife was a few minutes late picking her up from school. There was a bad traffic accident on Circle 4, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. The teacher didn’t have enough sense to keep her in the school until we showed up. Knott must have seen her and grabbed her. We found her body the next day in a dumpster three blocks away. She had been sexual assaulted and dumped like garbage. That night, the night my daughter’s body was found, my wife took her life by overdosing on Clonidine.”
“Mister French, did they catch Knott?”
French lowered his head so Karen couldn’t see the tears dropping from his eyes. “No, he’s still out there somewhere, living his life as a free man. I’ll catch him, Karen. I don’t care if it takes me the rest of my life… one of these days, I will catch him.”
“Mister French, I have an idea,” Karen said rubbing his hand. “How about you bless Alice with the honor of becoming her godfather?”
“How does Alice feel about this?”
“It was Alice’s idea but she asked me to make you her daddy. But I think we should start with godfather, first. What do you think, Mister French?”
French tried, but he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. It was tears of sorrow for losing his daughter and joy for getting another. “It would be an honor.”
Karen stood up and walked to the door, trying to hide her tears. “Mister French.”
“Yes, Karen?”
“I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“I could use a little company tonight.” He said, sliding over on the right side of the bed.
Karen climbed into bed; French wrapped his arm around her waist, and they both were asleep in minutes.
Chapter 11
The red Toyota pulled slowly into Carl Franklin’s, driveway. French got out of the truck brushing the cookie crumbs from his jacket and walked to the front door. He looked over the area and took notes. He looked up at the street light on a pole 30 feet away from the front porch.
Karen was busy getting pictures of all houses with close views of Franklin’s home. The police crime-scene tape was covering both walkways into the backyard. French climbed over the tape and walked slowly to the back of the house. There were no windows on either neighbor’s house next to Franklin. But both houses had back doors with chain-link fence dividing the yards. French pulled a whistle out of his pocket and gave a soft blow and counted to himself, “Thousand one, thousand two,” and both doors swung open.
“Who are you, fellow?” One man demanded, “That’s a crime scene. You need to leave and leave now before I call the cops.”
French flipped out his badge and stuck it inches from the guy’s eyes. “I’m an investigator for the D.A.’s office. May I ask you a few questions, please?”
The short curly-haired guy looked over at his neighbor. “It’s alright, James; it's another cop."
The other guy nods but kept looking.
“On the night of the killing were you home?”
French could tell by the guy’s demeanor that he didn’t care much for the police, and he could tell by the prison tattoos that he spent time in jail.
“Yes,” he snapped. “I was here and heard the whole thing.”
“What were you doing before it happened?”
The short man’s lip curled, showing his stained teeth. “I had a few of my boys over and we were sitting in the yard, having a few cold beers.”
“What kind of beer?
“We heard the shots my boys, and I climbed over the fence and went to the back door.” The man answered.
"You hear anything ma'am?"
She smiled and said, "He called me, Ma'am. Well, you're a gentleman?" I was sitting in the living room watching Family Guy when I heard three shots; the first was loud and the others softer. I called James, but that drunken friends were investigating. I ran out the front door and ran into Helen, the lady who lives across the street. We ran to him, Dalton’s, front door I knocked but no one came out.”
“"You notice any strange cars around the area, before or after the shooting?” Karen asked.
They shook their heads no.
“What can you tell me about Dalton, did he ever have any company?” French asked.
“He was a quiet fellow, kind of stayed off by himself. We didn’t see him much, and when we did, he didn’t seem like the friendly type.”
The heavyset women had a puzzled look upon her face. “It was strange. He was very handsome, but I never saw a girl around him until a few days before he died.”
“Could you tell me what this girl looked like?” Karen asked.
“No, I was never able to get that close.”
“What about her hair? Was it long, or short black, or red?”
“She was wearing a hat. However, she was a small thing, no bigger than you, honey.” The woman looked at Karen with a smile,
displaying her toothless mouth.
“What kind or car was she driving?” French asked, directing the woman’s attention back of the questioning.
“She did have a car. She was constantly riding with Dalton.”
“You said she was always riding with him? How many times had you seen this woman?” Karen asked.
“I think maybe twice. Paul, you must have seen that girl. Your tongue always drags the ground every time you see some female walking by in a skimpy skirt.”
“You can't blame me. Look that what I have to look upon every day for the last forty years.” He said, elbowing French in the ribs.
His wife gave him a look that sent goose bumps down Karen’s back.
“I'm sorry, fellow. I never saw any girl,” he replied.
“You recall what she was wearing?” Karen asked.
“Honey, I’m excellent with faces. I'll remember someone as sexy as you for the next twenty years.”
French drank the last of his beer, thanked the couple, and walked around to the front to the house. The front door fastened with a tradition single cylinder deadbolt it opens in minutes. The smell of dry blood hung heavy in the air. Karen entered the room where the murder had occurred, and French went straight into the bathroom. He checked the medicine cabinet, the trash, and under the sink. He walks through the kitchen, checking the trash can, inside the refrigerator and the dishes for lipstick stains but found nothing.
He didn't have a girl in here. There’s no makeup in the medicine cabinet, no tampons in the trash, and only one toothbrush, one washcloth, and one towel. If there was a woman here, she must have been a ghost.”