He walked out of the office and waved good-bye to the detectives. He made his way to the coat rack, retrieved his trench coat, and poured it over his chubby shoulders. Then he buttoned up two of the center buttons and walked toward the elevator.
“I can’t believe this shit,” Rick said as he began pacing the floor in the captain’s office.
“I understand, Rick, but we have to have faith in the system. That’s why we do this job, because we think it’s worth doing,” the captain assured the detective.
“We can’t do anything about it, Captain?” T-Bone asked.
“Well, short of pulling a signed warrant out of our ass, I guess not,” the captain answered.
Rick stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at the wall behind the captain as if a mythical creature were there. “But what if we could?” he asked excitedly.
“What if we could what, Rick?” the captain asked.
“What if Archer is right? What if we could get the warrant that was signed that day from a district judge? That would solve the warrant problem, right, Captain?” Rick whispered as he closed the open door.
“Rick, you’re talking crazy; you know there wasn’t a warrant signed that day by any district judge,” the captain replied.
“Yes, sir, I know that, but if we could get a warrant signed with that date on it and take it to the federal prosecutor, we could stop Young from playing the circumstantial evidence card,” Rick explained.
“Oh, yeah, I think I get it, Captain,” T-Bone added as he too stood and became excited. “We did have a signed warrant the day Young was recorded confessing to the murders. Captain, all we have to do is get a judge to sign a warrant for that day. Then we’ll have it,” he continued.
“Oh my God, that’s it! We just have to persuade a district judge to break the law and write a four-day-old warrant that we’ve already fucking served. I don’t imagine that the district judge will go for something like that, gentlemen. And if he would, which one of you has the balls to ask him to do that?” the captain asked.
“I’ll do it, Captain! I’ll go and ask Judge Mathews to stop this guy from getting away with murder. He knows me, and he knew my father as well,” Rick volunteered.
“Rick, I know how you feel about this. I feel the same way. But we can’t just go and ask a district judge to break the law,” the captain countered.
“Captain, if you’ll let me try, I won’t tell him that you know anything about it. It will look like it is my idea, and if it goes sour, I’ll go down for it alone. I’ve known Judge Mathews a long time,” Rick said.
The captain looked around his desk as if he were looking for the right answer. “Okay! I’ll go for it. But if you get caught, you came up with this on your own. Okay? I’m too close to retirement to go to jail and lose my pension.”
“Yes, sir! I understand,” Rick answered and opened the door.
“T-Bone, you stay out of this one. If he can get it done, he’ll need to do it on his own. I don’t want to lose both of you if it goes badly,” the captain said.
“Yes, sir, I’ll just hang out here and do some things I have to do,” T-Bone answered as he stood and followed his partner to the door.
The two detectives walked out and separated as each went his own way. Rick was headed for the elevator and T-Bone was headed to his desk. Rick had to get in touch with Judge Mathews and convince him that he needed the fake warrant to prosecute a very bad man. It would be hard, but he was going to try.
Chapter 2
Colt was finally at ease. He didn’t have to think about Young; he didn’t have to worry about being framed for murdering those people. After all, he had enough to worry about without being framed for murder. He walked out of his study and saw a small piece of cloth on the floor beside the hall closet. He knelt down and picked it up. It was a piece of one of his pocket sashes. He didn’t know why it would be on the floor. His instinct kicked in as he paused and looked around for a moment. He opened the closet slowly and peered inside. He couldn’t see well, so he pulled the string to the light switch.
He could see several coats hanging there, and a couple of pairs of shoes on the floor. He couldn’t figure out where the piece of cloth had come from, or why it would be on the floor. He decided his wife must have dropped it on the floor as she was cleaning up. He slipped it into his shirt pocket and continued walking into the living room. He sat on the couch and turned on the television. There was never much on—nothing he wanted to see anyway.
He stopped at a local channel just in time to hear the reporter say, “This will be a crime that the experts will be trying to decipher for years to come. I’m Janet Harold, Channel Five news.” Colt noticed that the news crews were filming the house where murders had been committed. The house was boarded up and there were still police guards present. It all came back to him. He couldn’t believe Young would try to frame him for something this gruesome.
The charges from last year were legitimate, but this time Young had gone too far. Colt liked Bennigan; he was a straight shooter and seemed to be a good person. Bennigan was a ghost attorney. He had done legal work for high-class people and was made to take Colt’s case as the defense attorney by a wealthy man who lived in Crestwood. This man who had his brother-in-law killed by Colt a couple of years ago wanted Colt to have the best attorney available.
Colt faded off into thought as the channel went to a commercial. I need to get myself together. I can’t let this bullshit get to me! I’m bigger than this. I’m not gonna sit around here and dwell on it anymore. Besides they’ve got the killer. I don’t need to lie low anymore. He turned the TV off and walked into the kitchen. He walked over to the fridge and opened it. He pulled out a carton of orange juice and closed the door. He made his way over to the cabinet and pulled out a glass. He placed it on the counter and filled it with the pulpy vitamin mixture.
After finishing his juice, he placed the glass in the sink and put the carton back into the fridge. He wiped his mouth clean and then walked to the table by the front door. He picked up his cell phone and dialed his wife’s number. The phone rang a couple of times and then she answered. “Hey, baby! How have you been?” she asked.
“I’m good; I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Is everything all right, Colt?” she asked nervously.
“Yes … Everything is fine. I just wanted to hear you and know that you’re okay.”
“Yeah, honey, we’re fine. I’m ready to come home, but Hanna isn’t. She’s having such a good time, Colt. You should see her.”
“Well, I guess I’ll see you in a couple of days then.”
“Okay, honey, we’ll see ya then.”
“Oh, hey, Emily, do you know why there is a piece of my pocket sash on the floor by the hall closet?” he remembered.
“Oh yeah, I found one with blood on it and cut it into small pieces. I guess I just dropped one.”
“Ha ha. You take such good care of me. I’m a blessed man to have a woman like you in my life.”
“Yes you are, mister, and don’t forget it,” she said jokingly.
“Okay, okay, you win. I love you, baby girl. I miss you, and I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
“I love you too and I can’t wait to see you,” she said, and then they hung up.
He smiled as he hung up the phone. He knew his wife was the best of the best. She always took care of the small things, the things he had missed. One of his pocket sashes with blood on it—probably the blood from one of his victims. She also made sure he had plenty of clean clothes to take with him on his trips: simple clothes that he could easily burn or get rid of quickly after he was finished with a job if need be.
She didn’t know all the bad things that he’d done, but she knew he wasn’t in sales. And anything that could link him to a crime had to be taken care of with a delicate hand, sometime
s even a woman’s touch. He and Emily had been married for thirteen years. He knew she didn’t ask about his job because she didn’t want to think of him in a bad way. She wanted to think of him as if he were doing justice for the world. Emily knew Colt worked for Gamboni and also that he would always have to work for him. She knew Colt would never be able to walk away and live a normal life. After all, he was a gangster and had been married to the Mafia even before he was married to her.
Chapter 3
The white van turned off the pavement and onto a long dirt road. The dust covered the horizon behind the van. It appeared as if the van brought the end of the world with it. They pulled up to one guard shack in front of a double ten-foot-tall fence topped with razor wire and cameras on each corner. The guard approached the van and spoke with the marshal who was driving. He observed the cargo through a window reinforced with a steel-cage barrier.
Young’s wrists were chafed from the long ride to Beaumont, Texas, federal correctional facility. He had been in the cuffs and shackles for twelve hours now. The passenger door opened, and a federal marshal climbed out and grunted as he stretched. Then he walked a few steps, looked inside through the bars, and opened the side door to the van. The prisoner opened his eyes with a squint and then made eye contact with his transporters.
He said nothing as one deputy marshal climbed in and removed the chain from a steel loop holding him to the floor. His eyes were bloodshot, and his legs were numb from the long ride.
“On your feet, prisoner,” the marshal snapped before backing out of the van and moving to the side. Young squatted as he found his footing.
Young had noticed that all of the guards were staring at him as he climbed out of the van. They had all heard what he had done. He was a disgrace to any man who wore a badge, and he would not make friends here easily. He knew he would have to keep to himself until he was free. The guards weren’t his primary concern; the inmates hate dirty cops just as much. They felt like it somehow made their crimes justified if there were cops who had done the same things.
“Step to the front of the van and then stop,” the marshal said as he pointed to the front of the white van.
A short, heavyset man with black and gray hair stood beside two armed guards and watched as Young made his way over, dragging his feet as he stepped.
“Stop, spread your legs, and stand still,” one of the guards said. The guard searched every inch of Young’s body and then stepped away. The older man cleared his throat and began to speak softly in a thick southern drawl.
“I am Warden Batcher. You are not a guest here, you are not a government hero here either,” he said. “Your family will not come and visit you. You are not special in any way. You are at best an inconvenience to me and to the United States of America. You will obey every rule here, or you will suffer the consequences.” He continued as he walked closer to Young. “This is not a safe haven for you, inmate Young. This is a maximum security federal correctional compound, and there is no way to escape. The perimeter fences are electrically charged with one hundred and fifty thousand volts.” He pointed to the ten-foot fence with razor wire atop and the obvious electrical contacts.
“There are guards here around the clock. They live for only two things, inmate Young. One of those things is their families and the other is to catch an escaping inmate such as yourself and shoot him in the head. Do I make myself clear, inmate Young?” the warden asked.
“Yes, sir,” Young said as he nodded and peered into the man’s eyes.
“You can make this a pleasant stay or an unpleasant one. It is all up to you, inmate Young. I believe that you are a smart man, a man smart enough to acknowledge that you are not at the top of the food chain any longer. There are some white-collar criminals here, but there are some very bad men here as well. I suggest that you stay away from all of them. You will be placed in solitary confinement for your own protection. This will make the others hate you even more. So I implore you to follow the rules—all of them.” The warden turned around and walked away.
“Well, Young, it looks like you’re already making friends here,” the deputy marshal said as he took a clipboard from one of the guards and signed a release form.
The guards placed their own ankle shackles on Young’s legs and then removed the U.S. marshal’s jewelry from his legs. They repeated the process on his wrists and then removed the marshal’s chain and cuffs from him.
“We’ve got him from here, Marshal. We’ll make him feel right at home,” the guard said as he looked at the marshal and then at Young. The two deputy marshals climbed into the van and drove to the gate. After a couple of minutes the gate opened and the van disappeared.
“That’s it, huh? I’m really in prison!” Young said to the guard.
The guard didn’t reply … He put his hand on Young’s cuffs and gave a sharp jerk. Then he pointed to one of the few doors facing the dirt driveway that they stood in. “Let’s get you settled in, Special Agent Young,” the guard said sarcastically.
Young followed the guard and looked around the prison grounds. He saw two towers, one on each side of the main yard. There were two other guards following him and the guard in front. He watched the expressions on the faces of each guard as he passed by them. They didn’t seem impressed. They all looked angry as they rolled their eyes when he passed.
Dirty FBI agents were like any other scavengers in the wild: they would take anything they could get their hands on and make it a mess. It was a power thing. They felt powerful when they were breaking the same rules they upheld and defended. But now Young was powerless. He had nothing.
He was simply another docket number, a case number that must be heard before a group of his peers. He was just an inmate awaiting trial.
They walked along the long concrete path to the door. The guard pressed a button and looked up at a camera facing the door. He then stood back a foot or so and waited. A loud buzz sounded and then a click. The guard opened the door and motioned for Young to enter.
As Young scurried through the door, his eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. After a moment he saw nothing but a hallway leading to another door. They waited for the other two guards to enter the building behind them and then proceeded to the next door.
The cameras seemed to follow them as they approached the door. There was a loud buzz, and again a click unlocked the door. The guard opened the door and then walked through. He held the door as Young made his way over and entered the adjoining room as well.
As they entered, they walked into a large room with several doors leading off of it. They walked to the third door and the guard opened it with a key. The door opened and the guard said, “Here is where you’ll be waiting in the meantime. Make yourself at home.”
Young entered the room and looked around. It was a small cell with a stainless-steel bed and no mattress. There was a small sink and a toilet combination on the wall. In the center of the concrete floor was a drain for any fluids that were loose in the room.
“Young, face away from me and keep still as I remove your shackles,” the guard said as he nudged Young to turn around.
Young turned around and stood still as the guard removed his shackles and cuffs. The guard then walked backward through the doorway. The door closed and locked instantly behind him. After the door closed, Young watched the guards walk through another door in the large room and close it behind them.
He walked around the six-by-eight-foot room and then took a seat on the cold steel bed. His body quivered as the shock from the cold metal shot through his thin inmate coveralls and entered his body. He looked around at the small, poorly lit room. The walls were made of cinder blocks painted with a dull gray paint that robbed the light from the single bulb in the ceiling.
He felt more alone now than ever, and for the first time on this journey, he felt trapped and confused. He was in a maximum security federal pe
nitentiary on the outskirts of Beaumont, Texas, waiting for a trial. But this time he wouldn’t be the witness for the state; this trial was to decide his fate. The time here, in this unholy place, would not be kind to him; he was used to going anywhere he pleased at any time. He was the people’s hero; everyone looked up to him and the career he had made for himself. But for now, until he could figure a way out of this, he would have no choice but to sit here in this cold dark room and wait.
Chapter 4
Rick called ahead to the district judge’s office. “Judge Mathews’ office. Can I help you?” the female’s soft southern voice answered.
“Yes, ma’am, this is Detective Wise of the Dallas Police Department’s special crimes unit. I’m calling to see if I can meet with Judge Mathews,” Rick replied.
“Well, he has court till twelve o’clock, and then he’ll go to lunch. He will be back in court till around four o’clock this afternoon.”
“Do ya know where he’s going to lunch today?”
“Well … he usually goes to the deli around the corner from the courthouse, but I can give him a message if you’d like.”
“Yes, ma’am, would you tell him that I’ll be at the deli at twelve fifteen and that I’ll buy him lunch today?”
“Okay, Detective Wise, I’ll let him know what you said,” she said and then hung up the phone as Rick said, “Thank you.”
Rick didn’t know what was going to be said about the attempt to unlawfully obtain the warrant. He didn’t even know if the judge would hear him out about the situation. He knew he could be put in jail for trying, but he also knew he had to try something. He didn’t want Young to be set free because of a technicality. He knew the truth; he knew Young had killed those people. He knew Squeaky had been murdered to keep quiet, and he also knew he had to do something.
There was a chance that the judge would simply press charges for the attempt to falsify the evidence. But it was a chance Rick was willing to take.
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