by J. A. Jance
Knuckles’s words had tumbled out in an almost breathless rush. Now he stopped and waited.
“Where did the railroad take you?” I asked.
“Ellensburg. Ben Weston worked some kind of deal to get me an’ this other kid in over at Central. We both be…we’re both in this special English class. He helped me sell my car for this quarter and he was gonna get me student aid for the next one. All I gotta do is promise not to come ’round here, not to get involved. He says my family can’t even know ’bout what I’m doin’ ’cause they might tell the wrong people. He says he ain’t tellin’ anybody, not even his woman, neither.
“And so I’m over there workin’ my ass off. I doan read no papers, doan see no TV. So when this One-Time here wakes me up at six o’clock in the mornin’, I think maybe some of my ex-friends’re lookin’ for me to cause trouble. Instead, he tells me ’bout Ben and all those poor little kids.”
“You’ve been in Ellensburg the whole time?”
He nodded.
“What about your briefcase?” I asked. “The one you got from your mother for your birthday?”
His eyes narrowed. “What about it? How’d you know ’bout that?”
“It was found on what used to be your doorstep the morning after the murders. Some of your former associates from the streets turned it over to us. The clothes inside—red sweats—were soaked with blood.”
“I be a BGD,” he announced defiantly. “I don’ wear red sweats. Ever!”
As soon as he said it, the frame-up was so obvious I felt stupid for falling for it even momentarily. The color red and BGD do not go together.
“Okay.” I nodded. “I understand that, but somebody wanted us to think you did it. They went to a lot of trouble to make it look as though you had something to do with what happened to the Westons. Maybe they figured that if we didn’t get you for the murder, maybe some of your ex-friends would take care of you just on general principles. So you tell me, who did it, Ezra? Do you have any idea?”
“You already know one name,” he said. “Sam Irwin. If I say the others, I be breakin’ my word to the Black Gangster Disciples and to Ben Weston both.”
“As far as the BGD are concerned, you’re a marked man anyway. They already told me that. And after talking to them, I can understand why Ben wanted you to stay out of it, to keep your mouth shut. We’ll try not to use your word alone to build our case, Ezra. There’ll be other evidence as well. In fact, there probably already is. Did Ron tell you about Junior, Ben’s son, that somebody tried to kill him again last night?”
“Yes,” he said with downcast eyes. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Don’t you owe Junior Weston the same kind of chance his father gave you? If we don’t stop these guys, they may try again, and the next time they may succeed. I can’t promise that you won’t be called on to testify against whatever police officers are behind this operation, because you probably will be, but I can say you’ll be given the best protection we have to offer.”
He raised his eyes and met mine, but he said nothing. “I’ll ask you again. What happened to your briefcase, Ezra?”
“One-Time took it.”
“A cop took it? Which one? When?”
“Name’s Deddens.”
“Gary Deddens? From Patrol?” I remembered Deddens from Ben Weston’s house. He had been one of the officers left guarding the crime scene, the guy who, along with me, had gone chasing after my would-be assassin. Talk about leaving the wolf to guard the henhouse. No wonder Ben Weston’s Day-Timer had disappeared into thin air.
Ezra Russell nodded. “That’s the one.”
“How did he get it?”
“He’s the bagman. We pay him to let us know where the gang enforcement’s gonna be. Me? I’m the treasurer of the Black Gangster Disciples. I take the money to Deddens in that briefcase my mama gave me for my birthday. Deddens takes the money and then he says he likes the case and that he’s gonna keep that too. And all the time he’s sayin’ this, ol’ Sam Irwin’s standin’ off to one side with his knife, sharpenin’ it. So I say fine, you keep it. But when people ax me about it, I say someone stole it.”
“Did Ben Weston know this was going on? Did he know there were cops on the take?”
“Ben knows.”
“Why didn’t he do something about it?”
“Don’t you understand nothin’?” Knuckles Russell demanded. “He was. He was gettin’ the evidence. That’s why those mothers smoked him. That’s why he be dead.”
“You’ve already named two—Deddens and Irwin. Are there others?”
“Ben says there be at least one more and when he finds him, maybe that’ll be the end of it.”
“Did he mention a name, give you any kind of a clue?”
“Somebody in the gang unit,” Knuckles Russell said softly. “He says somebody who all the time knows what’s goin’ down.”
Somebody in the gang unit? Who could that be? I glanced at Ron, who was studying his watch. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, “It’s almost time, so let’s go to the funeral. I don’t know if Gary Deddens plans to attend or not, but my understanding is that as many people from Patrol as possible are coming as a group. Since Ben worked both places, I expect CCI will be there in force as well. If Deddens shows up, let’s cut him out of the herd in public, turn it into a media event. Once we do that, all we have to do is watch for a reaction from somebody in the gang unit.”
His suggestion made sense. I suspected that Sam Irwin had been killed as some kind of damage-control measure, in another attempt at pinning the Weston murders on somebody else so business in the protection racket could continue as usual. If we made a big show of picking up one of the remaining conspirators, we would be serving public notice to the contrary.
I stood up. “You’re right. We’d better get going.”
“You’d do that?” Knuckles Russell asked dubiously. “Just on my word?”
I looked Ezra Russell straight in the eye. “Ezra,” I told him, “Ben Weston was your friend. I believe you want us to find the people who killed him every bit as much as we do. Maybe your word alone isn’t enough for an actual arrest, but that, combined with other things we’ve learned, certainly makes it possible for us to ask questions. Just asking may get the reaction we need.”
“Can I come along?”
“You bet. Let’s do it.”
We all piled into Ron’s Reliant. The push of a button sent his folded chair disappearing into the specially designed rooftop wheelchair carrying case that resembles a giant clam shell. We drove back up to the church and parked in an open handicapped zone directly in front of the hearse-filled courtyard.
An overflow crowd had spilled out into the courtyard, where loudspeakers blared a full-voiced choir singing an absolutely mind-blowing version of “Amazing Grace.” In my experience most funerals feature a single soloist, but from the sound of it, the Mount Zion Baptist Church had done far better than that. If the choir was already singing, however, there was no time to stand outside and savor it. I left Knuckles with Ron Peters and tried worming my way into the church.
The cross-shaped sanctuary was jammed to the gills. Five white coffins, three large and two small, were ranged across the front of the church, creating a telling spectacle of loss that brought an Adam’s apple-size lump to my throat. In the very front pew, the top of Junior Weston’s head was barely visible where he sat, statue still, with Emma Jackson on one side of him and his grandfather on the other.
On the far side of the church, a red-robed choir faced across the altar and the middle, forward-facing pews. Opposite them sat a massed group of uniformed police officers, only half of which were from Seattle itself. The rest were from law enforcement departments all over the state of Washington. Maybe some of the African-American officers had set foot inside the Mount Zion Baptist Church before, but if they were anything like me, most of the Caucasians hadn’t and again like me, they probably felt like foreigners, drawn there only by the unifying trag
edy of those five senseless deaths.
As I started down the aisle, a deacon moved forward to assist me, but I had caught sight of Sue Danielson seated near the front in one of the middle pews. Obviously, the empty space next to her was reserved for me. With whispered thanks to the deacon, I made my way up the aisle just as the Reverend Homer Walters stepped to the pulpit. I slipped into the crowded pew beside Sue Danielson. She scowled at me but said nothing.
“This is the day that the Lord has made,” he said. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” A chorus of amens echoed throughout the sanctuary.
The opening prayer was long and moving. Then, one at a time and with heartfelt measured words, Reverend Walters eulogized each of the slain victims in turn. He spoke of Ben Weston’s pride in being a police officer, of Shiree Weston’s work with the church credit union, of Bonnie’s interest in becoming a teacher, of Adam’s hope to follow in his mother’s footsteps and become a doctor, and of Doug Weston’s sometimes impish gift for storytelling. Finally, though, Homer Walters pounced on the meat and gristle of his message.
“I will not stand here before you today and tell you that what has happened is God’s will,” he declared. “I will not say that God must have had an urgent need for this man and woman and these three little children and that’s the reason He took them home. No, I will not say that. They have been literally cut down in their primes without so much as a chance to live and grow and laugh on this good earth where God put them in the first place.
“Maybe you came here today expecting me to give you comforting words in the face of this senseless tragedy, a tragedy not only for the African-American community but for the community at large. Maybe you expect me to tell you that this too shall pass. Don’t you believe it. I want you to get mad and stay that way.
“Take a good look at these children’s unfinished lives and Ben and Shiree Weston’s unfinished business. Are we just going to wring our hands and say that’s too bad, or are we going to do something about it? And I’m not just talking about catching the man who did this. Today I’ve heard rumors that there’s a chance the killer is already dead, that he died last night of a drug overdose. So be it. Let him stand before his Maker and explain himself. I have more faith in the Lord’s justice than I do in ours.”
This was followed by another answering chorus of amens. Across the center aisle I caught sight of a dry-eyed Molly Lindstrom sitting with her son Greg. She didn’t see me. She was listening intently to Reverend Walters, hanging on his every word.
“As a minister of the Lord it is my job to write sermons Sunday after Sunday, and some say I do it better than most. But don’t you believe that, either, because when I write one of those real tub-thumping sermons, the kind that makes the rafters up there ring, you can bet the sermon’s better than anything I could have written myself. I always figure the Lord Almighty must have a hand in those. And that’s the way it was last January when I wrote the first sermon of the New Year. I was inspired to challenge the men and women of this church, and especially the men of this congregation, to do something about the young men in our community, and in other communities as well, who have fallen afoul of themselves, of drugs, of gangs, and of the law.
“By no means are African-American young people the only ones involved in gangs, but I told the men in this congregation that they had a responsibility to the ones who are, that they needed to go out in the world and do something about that particular problem on an individual basis. We can sit here inside these four walls and pray about it, and we need to do that. But we need to do something more. Each of us needs to get off our backside and go out into the streets and do what we can to help.
“That’s what the sermon said. Ben Weston heard that challenge and he set himself the task of meeting it. He went after boys he knew in gangs who had some connection to this church. I can tell you that before he died he found four of them. He pulled them out of where they were and he put them on another track. Do you hear me? I’m saying he put them on another track entirely. He brought four young men out of the wilderness and led them into the Promised Land.”
Another louder murmur of amens trickled through the congregation. I glanced at the choir. In the front row sat an attractive young woman with a mane of pencil-thin braids. She was listening with rapt attention, and I wondered if she wasn’t the undercover cop Tony Freeman had tried to conceal from us as he escorted her out of his office.
Walters continued. “I believe Ben Weston is dead because he was doing the Lord’s work, because what he was doing rocked those gangs. They don’t want to lose their members’ loyalty, but Ben Weston figured out a way to take them away, to set them free. And so today, I want to issue another challenge to those of us who are left. And I’m not talking just to the members of the Mount Zion Baptist Church, either. I’m talking to all you people out there who came here today because Ben Weston and his family died, because Adam Jackson died.
“Instead of just grieving over this terrible loss, I want each and every one of us to do what we can, starting right where Ben Weston left off. Maybe we can’t save every one of those boys, because, quite frankly, some of them don’t want to be saved. And I’m not talking about throwing money at the problem for more social workers or more jails or more drug treatment centers, either. I’m saying that if each of us goes out and takes one boy or one girl by the hand, takes the time to talk to them and lead them in another direction, we can make a difference. If we do, Ben and Shiree Weston, Bonnie and Doug Weston, and little Adam Jackson will not have died in vain.
“After this service, we will be going to the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Renton. Afterward, there will be a reception here, sponsored by the ladies of the church. I hope as many of you as possible will join us both at the cemetery and here later.
“And now, Lord, in closing, we ask Your blessing upon this day, upon the grieving family members, and upon this community, that we can somehow find a way to turn this tragedy into a blessing. Amen.”
A small army of men, none of them police officers, rose as one and moved forward to collect the coffins one by one. As they did so, the strains of “Amazing Grace” once more caught fire in the church. This time, it wasn’t just the choir singing, either. The whole congregation was, their voices raised in affirmation. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one shedding tears and singing at the same time.
It was that kind of funeral.
CHAPTER 25
THE COFFINS WERE STILL BEING CARRIED down the aisle when my pager went off, summoning me back from the stirring hymn and Ben Weston’s unfinished business to my own. I stifled the pager’s racket as soon as I could and glanced at the display that listed Tony Freeman’s extension at Seattle PD. Why was he there instead of at the funeral? I knew he had planned to attend.
“Freeman’s not here?” I asked sue in an undertone.
“I haven’t seen him.”
“Call him back on the double,” I whispered, “and use a pay phone, not a radio. Find out what he wants, and tell him I’ve got another name for him to add to the list—Deddens, Gary Deddens from Patrol. Got that?”
Sue nodded, but she didn’t move. None of the rest of the congregation had, and I knew she was questioning the propriety of our leaving during the recessional.
“Go now,” I urged, “while we can still get out. Meet me out front as soon as you can. We’ve got work to do.”
I had finally managed to spot Gary Deddens sitting near the end of the third row of uniformed officers. He was far closer to the door than we were, and I knew that the slightest delay in our getting out would mean losing him and also losing the opportunity to send a chilling message to any other crooks still left in the group. I wanted to serve notice that we were closing in on them; I wanted to force them into making some kind of strategic blunder.
Shaking her head in disapproval, Sue nonetheless started for the side aisle, leading the way and excusing us to the people whose feet we had to step over in the process. In the vestibule, she asked directions
to the nearest phone while I took up a station outside the door just as the last coffin emerged followed by Emma Jackson and Harmon and Junior Weston. They disappeared into the waiting limo while the rest of the people began to trickle out of the church into the courtyard. I looked around, trying to catch sight of Ron Peters and Knuckles Russell, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Sue erupted through the doors and looked around anxiously until she caught sight of me. “How’d you do that?” she demanded.
“Do what?”
“Come up with Gary Deddens’s name. Freeman says you’re right. Kyle Lehman’s copy of Ben’s deleted files finally turned up on Tony’s desk. He says we’ve got probable cause. He wants us to take Deddens into custody and bring him down for questioning right away.”
“But wait a minute,” I objected. “I’ve got to be here in case…”
“Captain Freeman is sending a squad car for us and for Deddens both,” she replied. “He wants the two of us there. He was very specific about that.”
Just then the first batch of uniformed officers emerged into the fitful sunlight, where they joined the growing crowd milling around the limo and the collection of hearses. I turned my attention on the officers, scanning faces, hoping to see that of Gary Deddens. I examined each one, some of them familiar and some not, and wondered how far the cancer of corruption had spread and how many more officers were involved in the protection racket. The possibility made me sick.
“There he is,” Sue whispered. “He’s just now shaking hands with Reverend Walters.”