Catch Me When I'm Falling

by Cheryl A Head

  “It really is a beautiful place,” Judy agreed. “You and Mandy are going to have a lovely life here.”

  “And aren’t we off to a great start,” Charlie said with irony.

  Chapter 13

  Gerald Travers did not seem to be in a good mood. Charlie had called him at home the night before to arrange for this early Thursday morning meeting at police headquarters, and he wore a scowl.

  For her part, Charlie realized how much Travers must dislike her. He had been the master of a ship once under siege, but lately sailing smoothly, and he probably blamed her for stirring things up. Now, he had a dirty cop situation, a serial killer he was trying to keep off media radar, and the murder of a prominent drug kingpin that could start a gang war in the Cass Corridor. She figured he was putting the full blame on her.

  Travers sat across the table from the trio of private investigators and listened to Charlene Mack make the case for why she and her equally guilty partners shouldn’t be charged with aiding and abetting a criminal, and obstruction of justice.

  “Ms. Mack, I’ll do as you suggest regarding Ms. Waller, and have her transported to our prison infirmary,” Travers announced. “But we need something in return.”

  Charlie, Don, and Gil took attentive postures. Alonzo Scott opened a folder and cleared his throat.

  “We’ve had Bill Anderson under a court-ordered surveillance since we last met. We’ve tapped his mobile and home phone, and we’ve been tracking the GPS unit on his unmarked car. The research you’ve given us has been confirmed. He’s heavily involved in the activities of the L2Ds and Monty’s business ventures. He hasn’t really been trying to cover his trail because he thinks he’s constructed enough layers between himself, the drug trafficking, and the other illegal activities. Your investigation of these Corridor murders has peeled away a lot of the layers.”

  “We’re glad we could help,” Don interrupted, wanting Scott to cut to the chase.

  But Scott wasn’t going to be rushed. He waited to see if Don had more to say, then cleared his throat again. “Captain Travers and I have discovered that Anderson has others in the department supporting him, so we’ve closed the information loop on this case. However, we know from the wiretaps that he’s aware of the Mack Agency’s investigation of his activities and about your relationship with Miss Waller. We also know for sure that Anderson is trying to find Betti. That’s why we’re going to squirrel her away in the hospital.”

  “Does he know you’re on to him?” Charlie asked.

  “We don’t think so,” Travers said.

  “His actions suggest he doesn’t believe he’s being watched,” Scott added. “He’s being reckless—brazenly meeting with gang members and even searching Monty’s house last night because he thinks Monty might have been stealing from him. One of the calls we intercepted led us to another burned body.”

  “Another one?” Charlie asked, unnecessarily.

  “I’m afraid so, but this time it wasn’t a homeless person. It was the kid you took the drugs from,” Scott said, looking at Gil.

  “What about the guy I winged? The driver of the Camaro?” Gil asked.

  “We haven’t been able to find him.”

  All the plates were spinning fast now. The L2D power struggle, the desperate actions of a corrupt cop trying to protect himself, Betti’s vulnerability, and another immolation murder. Charlie felt her hair stand on end, a sign her sixth sense was nagging.

  “At least we know these serial murders haven’t been random,” she said. “They’re somehow connected to the L2Ds. It might be part of an initiation ritual, but it seems also to be a form of retaliation or punishment.”

  “Yes, that’s what we believe, too,” Travers said.

  “So what else does the department need from us?” Charlie asked fearfully.

  # # #

  Ernestine had called during the meeting with Travers, but rather than call back, Charlie went over to her mother’s apartment. She waved to the ladies in the office as she passed the desk and was about to hit the elevator button when she was startled by a touch on her arm. It was Gloria.

  “Hi, Miss Charlene. Your mother isn’t home. She left ten minutes ago.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  The Midvale Independent Living complex required residents to abide by only a few rules, and Ernestine balked at all of them. First, residents were to check in with the front office when they had outside appointments and give an estimated time for their return.

  “Well, you know I had to ask her a couple of times in a couple of different ways, and the best I could get from her was she was going downtown to a McDonald’s to meet someone for lunch.”

  Charlie crinkled her nose in concentration until she had a hypothesis and turned her attention to Gloria. “Was she carrying any folders?”

  “Yes. She was.”

  Charlie walked quickly to the front entrance, and Gloria trotted along beside her.

  “Miss Charlene, your mother seems like her old self again, like she was when she moved in. She can be a bit stubborn, but that’s a good thing because it means she’s hanging on to who she is.”

  Charlie paused and smiled. “That’s right, isn’t it? Thank you, Gloria.”

  # # #

  Charlie was lucky to find a thirty-minute parking space a block away from the McDonald’s. Detroit was still an early morning work town, and security guards, restaurant workers, bus drivers, and retailers were either beginning a shift, or getting off for the day. The restaurant was packed, but as soon as Charlie entered she spotted her mother in deep conversation with Reggie in a booth against the back wall.

  “What are you two up to?” Charlie said, sliding into the booth to sit next to her mother. Reggie tried to hide a guilty look by dropping his glance. Her mother just looked surprised.

  “Charlene. What are you doing here?”

  “I went to your place looking for you. Gloria told me where you were.”

  “Oh,” Ernestine said with a look of annoyance. “That woman asks so many questions, she should be a private investigator.”

  “What’s that?” Charlie said, pointing to the open folder on the table.

  “Reggie and I were just sharing our latest discoveries.”

  Reggie was still avoiding eye contact. He picked up his coffee for a sip, and Charlie noticed his hands were quite steady. Maybe the coffee had a little something extra in it.

  “I assume Reggie told you Monty is dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I just found out from the police that another burned body was discovered.”

  “Oh no,” Ernestine said, covering her mouth.

  “You already knew about it, didn’t you Reggie?”

  “News travels very fast in the Corridor. I didn’t want to worry your mother with any more of this craziness.”

  “We’re going back there tonight. Undercover.”

  Ernestine and Reggie looked at each other with the concern they felt. Ernestine shook her head in disagreement.

  “Why do you have to go back, Charlene?”

  “The police want our help.”

  “You have to be very careful. I did some checking on the L2Ds like you asked, and they’re very dangerous. Did you know they were run out of Kalamazoo by the feds? Before that, they terrorized a small Texas border town.”

  “No. I didn’t know.”

  “Selling drugs is just one of Monty’s enterprises. He owns two car washes and a couple of party stores. Those are the kinds of businesses you have when you want to move cash around.”

  Charlie smiled at her mother’s seriousness and her new familiarity with the vagaries of organized crime. It was much of the same information Scott had shared.

  “That’s exactly right, Mom.”

  “There’s more. I was just telling Reggie, and it’s very interesting. I found out that one of the L2D captains is Monty’s son. He’s got the same name as his father.”

  “What?” Charlie said with surpri
se.

  Ernestine used a fingertip to separate a sheet of paper from the others in the folder and slid it toward Charlie, who read the document. It was a medical form from an insurance company in McAllen, Texas. There was little of interest until she reached the bottom of the form where, in the box under treatments, there was a diagnosis: Schizoaffective disorder. Charlie perused the patient information again: Monctezuma Juarez Valenzuela, age eight. The form was dated 1990.

  “How’d you get this?”

  “I had to lie some to the insurance company,” Ernestine said, with embarrassment.

  Charlie stared at the form again, doing a mental calculation. “The son would be twenty-four years old now.” She tried to remember something she’d heard. Her sixth sense again, waving for attention. Then she stiffened.

  “MJ. That’s what Betti called the boy who tried to pull her into his car in front of the Temple Bar, and the one who gave the threatening sign to Gil. That’s got to be Monty’s son.”

  Ernestine grabbed two additional sheets from her folder and waggled them excitedly at Charlie. “He’s also the person named as co-owner in the party stores and car washes,” she said. Laying one of the sheets on the table and reading from the other she said, “He spent time in jail for vandalism, assault and arson, four years ago. I got a photo faxed to me from the newspaper in Kalamazoo.”

  Now Charlie, Ernestine, and Reggie leaned over the table—mother, daughter, and their friend caught up in the anticipation of the revealing of a puzzle. Ernestine placed the photo on top of the other documents, showing a younger version of the man Charlie had seen from afar, cursing Betti and threatening Gil. On his left cheek, just below his eye, was an inked upside-down cross. Charlie looked at Reggie.

  “You know what this means, right?”

  “It’s the guy Carla told you about. The man she said put the lighter in her face.”

  Charlie nodded. Ernestine stared at the photograph, then at Reggie. Her face had drained to a grayish hue.

  “You mean he’s the one who killed Eddie?”

  “Probably,” Charlie said.

  Charlie began thumbing through the other pages in the folder. There were ownership papers for a car wash in Ferndale and another on Detroit’s west side, plus a series of newspaper articles about drug trafficking and arrests in Kalamazoo. Charlie also read two letters from the Veterans Administration addressed to Eddie Rodriguez and tax records for Monty’s house on Wabash. While she read, Charlie saw Ernestine and Reggie steal conspiratorial glances at each other.

  “This is impressive research, Mom. I saw a similar file at police headquarters, but they didn’t have half this information, even with ten times the resources.”

  “And ten times the authority,” Ernestine said. “I couldn’t do investigation work on a regular basis. There’s too much deception involved.”

  Charlie laughed. “Well, that’s true. I’m making up for all my childhood years when you drummed into me that honesty is the best policy.”

  It wasn’t lost on Charlie that Ernestine and Reggie hadn’t come clean on the reason for their meeting. She scooted up from the bench seat. “I want a cup of coffee. You guys want anything?”

  “I’ll take an apple pie,” Reggie said with a slight smile.

  “You got it.”

  When Charlie returned to the table, her mother and Reggie were ready to talk. The folder remained in the middle of the table, but with only two items on top. They were check stubs.

  “What have we here?” Charlie asked.

  “When I spoke to Eddie’s sister, she said he was still receiving VA benefits checks,” Ernestine began. “She gave me the address where the checks are going.” Ernestine was done talking and leaned back against the booth seat.

  Charlie looked between her mother and Reggie, waiting for one of them to continue. She crossed her arms and leaned back as well.

  “The address is Monty’s check cashing company,” Reggie finally said. “They have those mailboxes, like the post office, for people who don’t have permanent addresses. I got hold of Eddie’s backpack after he died. He had a few personal items, nothing of value, but there was a key. When your mother told me about the checks, I figured the key might be for a mailbox.”

  “So Reggie went to the check cashing place.” Ernestine picked up the story again. “He told them he was Eddie and wanted to pay for another month’s rental, and with no questions asked, they gave him a receipt with the box number on it. Reggie opened the box and found two checks.”

  “Okay,” Charlie said. “You shouldn’t have done that. There are laws about taking people’s mail,” she said to Reggie. “Is that why you two are being so secretive?”

  “Do you know anything about Al Capone?” Reggie responded.

  “What?” Charlie saw the earnest look on his face and decided to answer. “Let me see. I guess all I really know is what I’ve seen in movies, like The Untouchables. He was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, I think. Didn’t he make his money during Prohibition?”

  “In popular culture he was known as public enemy number one, but he was never on the Most wWanted list.” Reggie paused to take a gulp of coffee. “Anyway, after years of making money in bootlegging, prostitution, and racketeering, he was running a multimillion-dollar business.”

  “Are you comparing Capone to Monty?” Charlie was trying to make a connection to their current case.

  “In a way, Charlene. Reggie, explain it,” Ernestine said.

  “Capone is considered to have been responsible for more than thirty murders, mostly of members of rival crime syndicates. Ultimately, what the feds used to put him away was tax evasion.”

  “Reggie thinks the way to bring Monty’s gang down is to get them in some procedural wrongdoing,” Ernestine said.

  “Like tax evasion?”

  “No. Like money laundering, an offense under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.”

  “I know, Mom. The RICO Act. So what have you guys done?”

  “Reggie cashed the two checks.”

  Reggie nodded the truth of Ernestine’s statement. “After they took three percent of the total, that is. All I had to do was to sign the back of the check. That’s violating the law, right?”

  It was impressive her mother and Reggie were committed to finding Eddie’s murderer and bringing the person or persons to justice, but Charlie was skeptical Reggie’s actions would help. In fact, he technically was guilty of a crime in cashing a check that wasn’t his.

  “What did you do with the money, Reggie?”

  “Your mother put it into a money order and mailed it to Eddie’s sister to help with funeral expenses.”

  # # #

  Afternoon light filtered through cloudy skies, matching the mood in the Mack conference room. Detroit police wiretaps had picked up Detective Bill Anderson’s directive to find, and dispose of, Betti Waller and her accomplices. Yet, against the protests of Charlie and Don, Gil had agreed to Travers’ request to be bait in the fishing expedition to catch Anderson directly in a felony. Charlie couldn’t object too much since she’d asked Gil to do the same thing two nights before.

  And clearly the clerk at the Charlotte hotel hadn’t heeded Don’s warning because Scott reported one of Anderson’s intercepted calls had the clerk giving a detailed description of Don and Charlie to an L2D captain. That meant all the Mack partners were in jeopardy if they returned to the Corridor.

  “I don’t understand why Gil has to do this,” Judy said. “Aren’t the wiretaps enough to arrest Anderson?”

  “Maybe,” Charlie said. “The police lawyers and Wayne County prosecutors are going over the evidence, but they want to catch him red-handed.”

  “The red-handed part is what worries me,” Judy said.

  All eyes were on Gil to explain again his reasoning for agreeing to the ploy. Instead he offered a tactical plan.

  “Maybe I go back to the Corridor tonight, do a bit of bragging about how I stole from Monty’s couriers, and s
pread some of the drugs around. We’ll need to get the drugs I stole back from Scott,” Gil said to Don. “What do you think?”

  Don was in his predictable “I’m against it” posture. “You know what I think. But I’ll call Scott if that’s the decision.”

  “I don’t know how we keep you protected,” Charlie said, voice filled with concern.

  “I’ll be okay. They’ll come to me, so I’ll have the upper hand. Do you think Reggie will help me? He knows the ins and outs of the Corridor better than I do. I’d like to sit with him and figure out a place to spring the trap, but also have an exit strategy.”

  Reggie was willing to help. Judy drove to the McDonald’s, picked him up, and brought him back to the office. Gil had enlarged a Corridor street map, and for several hours they poured over the maps. Reggie was invaluable. He knew of holes in fences, loosely boarded windows, abandoned cars, even doors that would open with the right knock. They’d begin their evening at Grand Circus Park, and later walk to the tent city near Stimson Street where Gil would be public enough to attract the attention of the L2Ds and escape an attack by the gang. If all went well, they would either draw Anderson out or at least capture one of the attackers who could finger Anderson as the mastermind.

  At three o’clock, the group disbanded with the agreement that Charlie, Don, and Gil would meet again at ten at a place designated by Detective Scott. Gil would be fitted with a wire, and Charlie and Don would join two of Scott’s patrol units ready to respond when Gil needed help. Judy gave Gil a long hug before leaving to take Reggie back downtown.

  # # #

  Charlie arrived at her apartment ready for a couple of hours of sleep, but she was hungry. The kitchen was still mostly packed up, with just a few dishes, glasses, and silverware in the dish drain, and one small skillet available. Charlie grabbed the skillet’s handle and placed it on the front burner to prepare a grilled cheese sandwich. When she turned to the refrigerator, she stopped to look at the packing schedule held by a magnet on the door.