“One question Jimbo, where’s your brother at this very moment?” Jake whispered, staring directly into Jimbo’s face.
“What time is it Mr. Spade?” he whispered back with obvious affability. E8 and 212 looked at each other with a ‘thumbs-up’ acknowledging the perps ‘Mr. Spade’ cordiality.
“Twelve-forty-seven, Jimbo”
“Then he would be home preparing our runners for the second tour, Mr. Spade – between twelve-thirty and one o’clock he replenishes product to the runners and collects the earlier tour take.”
“Wonderful – and where would home be located Mr. Jimbo?”
“2802 John R Street, Mr. Spade,” he meekly spoke, as if in conversation with his favorite librarian.
“Thank you Sir Jimbo, you’ve been most cooperative. James here will untie you and Mr. White, making you comfortable in our holding area. Is there anything you might require in the way of food, drink perhaps?”
Seldom do we interview someone, particularly a criminal hoodlum, who speaks with any modicum of articulation – let alone cooperating to the extent of being damn helpful. Jimbo certainly had been the exception. Actually, he appeared incredibly out of place as a member of an illegal Detroit drug distributor; re, his Detroit Public Library card? Also being captured reading JA Konrath’s detective thriller, Shot of Tequila, of which I’m familiar – knowing the book contained killer Bullmastiffs in the storyline – I’m guessing it probably aided Jake’s interview outcome. No matter Jimbo’s bookish deportment, his eager cooperation or meek demeanor – he’s guilty by association and that’s that. So, all’s well that ends well.
James untied the perps placing them in Jakes homemade interviewee holding cell, welded by his own hands from old, rusty, scrap angle iron found in the warehouse when we moved in. It was quite sturdy, besides with James, Max and Joanie roaming the basement floor the perps surely felt quite safe...as long as they were inside the cell.
“Billy Jo’s home is approximately ten minutes from here – a brick two story with open fields surrounding it. There’s an empty warehouse across the street with an alley on the north side,” 212 reported, looking up from his phone.
“If we hurry we might just catch Billy Jo home right after he completes his runner business. We’ll set up in the alley across the street then surround his house,” said Jake, as he, 212, Epic 3 and 8 loaded in Jakes’ vehicle. Jake advised that I trail them in the Cooper, keeping low, safe and ‘out-of-the-way,’ he always said, until he called for me. We arrived at two minutes after 1:00 AM; there were no cars around except the black Range Rover which we knew from Jimbo to be his brother Billy Jo’s ride.
Jake and the Irregulars exited his vehicle deciding that E212 and 8 cover the back of the house while Jake and E3 enter the front door. Jake’s way was not to ‘crash’ the door but to ‘key’ the door, making his entrance as quiet and unassuming as possible.
My split screen had both 212 and Jakes’ glasses-cam streaming realtime into my tablet. As Jake entered the front door, 212 stood waiting and listening from the rear of the house. The main entrance was open to what was possibly a living room but with no furniture. The windows were boarded-up keeping snooping eyes away. Surprisingly there were no dogs, at least not yet. The room was dark only for a large industrial twin-light stand sitting on a metal trash can at room’s far end fifty feet away. There was a long, wide hallway with two closed doors, probably bedrooms. Jake moved to the empty kitchen where he unlocked the back door allowing 212 and 8 to enter, who he gestured in a pointing fashion to take up positions at either end of the hallway. Jake and E3 listened for any noises coming from the two rooms. Ten seconds later E3 waved the others over as he heard mumbling inside his doorway, sounding like someone talking on the phone. Jake hand-signaled E8 to bust the door open, while the others readied their personal firepower before entering the room. The door was old, dilapidated and big – E8 was young, strong and bigger as the door splintered off its hinges lying flat on the rooms floor...with E8 on top of it.
“DON’T MOVE! Jake shouted, pointing his favorite tool, a mini MPA30SST 9MM ‘ghetto gun’ at the face of local drug kingpin, Billy Jo Stackhouse.
From 212’s glasses-cam came a vision of a huge black man picking up E8 from the floor...then a stun projectile hitting the big black guy’s neck with 212 on the other end of the wire cranking voltage – standing over the giant as he went to his knees, then to the floor.
“All clear!” E3 yelled, indicating no one else but the two perps were in the room.
“Hey...wha’zit bout five-oh?”
E8 grabbed Billy Jo by the neck, through him on the floor placing a tin-snip over his little finger.
Jake’s favorite power tool – MPA30SST 9MM Ghetto Gun
“Just a little information if you’ll be so kind,” said Jake, who was positioning his favorite power tool into Billy’s right eye socket as E8 snipped an opening on the side of the perps little finger.
“Okayzz, OKAYZZ! Yawl keeps cool.”
“Here me clearly if you please Mr. Stackhouse,” said Jake, “one – where’s the money taken from the 2nd Precinct Station and secondly – who shot Detective Jones?”
“Wha – wha youz sayin?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself; it’ll be to your detriment Mr. Stackhouse.”
Moaning noises from the room came over the video stream so I switched my viewing to 212’s camera, he looked to be turning up the voltage on the big man as all I could hear was buzzing.
“Wha money, we got nuttin from that job, nuttin! We got shit...spose to be oxy stor’d in that cage; we got no money, no oxy, no shit. Don’t know anythin’ bout any money.”
“And Detective Jones?”
“Axe Hector, he know, I wah not dare.”
“Hector?”
“Arroyo, Hector Arroyo.”
“His present location would be...where?”
“Aauugh, tell him to stop...my finger...wait, I’ll call him...stop, stop.” Jake waved off E8 from his task while Billy Jo made his call to Hector.
The call resulted in Mr. Arroyo cutting short his assured criminal activities, beating his ass back to where we were at Billy Jo’s crib. Twenty minutes later Hector Arroyo arrived with his larger, muscular teammate Jesse who always accompanied his smaller, meeker and astute boss, Hector.
Having signaled Jake and company of the two’s arrival, I discretely followed them into the house. Epic 3 had previously found Arroyo in the Detroit Police Department database and found he and Jesse was inseparable, so we assumed beforehand they were traveling together now. E3 reminded Jake of an encounter with this pair two years prior relative to a domestic disturbance where a mother and child were at risk vis-à-vis Hector et al, so Jake remembered who they were.
Keeping my tablet handy, it streamed Jake’s glasses-cam focused on the closed door of the bedroom, waiting for Hector and his associate to arrive.
“El señor Héctor, supongo? Jake shouts ‘Mr. Hector I presume,’ as the little man enters through the doorway.
“Si, Si.”
‘Yes, Yes,’ Hector responds, as Jake places his ghetto gun to Hector’s head. Big Jesse, now humbled with eyes pasted to the floor, followed his leader into the room. Not unlike most illiterate, street-gang tyrants, falling submissive when forces were not to their advantage. And from the relieved facial expressions of Jake and the Irregulars, they were happy for big Jesse’s docility.
“Comprender Inglés, Hector? ‘Understand English,’ said Jake.
“Si, Si.”
“To your advantage sir...now tell your assistant it’s to his benefit he remain calm, quiet and collected, as doing so will allow him to awaken another day.”
After Jake sternly administered his salutation, conveniently transfixed inside his Sherlock persona, he waved his tool toward the lawn chair positioned next to the huge wooden wire spool Billy Jo used as a table. Hector scurried to the chair while scanning the room of the many unsympathetic Irregular faces. Hector spoke in his nati
ve language, a Mexican-Spanish dialect, to his Mexican compadres, Jesse, explaining the request for his calmness and undoubtedly the futility of any antagonistic action on his part. Not that he visibly portrayed any aggressive state, he didn’t, as he knew his goose was cooked and behaved accordingly – which was a good thing because Jesse was as tall as the unconscious black man with more bulging muscles per square inch than anyone I ever saw. He looked a Latin Schwarzenegger.
Epic 3 waved me into the room as each perp ogled me up and down. My cuteness has that effect on men when entering a room, I told myself. Circling the room I made sure each perp’s face was captured for posterity in my tablet camera. We had hundreds of criminals defined in our personal database and with any event like this it was our protocol that we make notes. After taking Hector’s picture and typing in his last name the software asked me if I wanted to include the pic with information already existing in the database. Our files were separate and maintained on our own server but Epic 212 had created a realtime feeder link from Detroit PD which aided our total profile on anyone placed in our PerpFile. Having compared the pictures, mine with theirs, I accepted the match asking the software to include their Hector with the perp sitting in the lawn chair. The DPD file pic had a journal entry below it indicating Hector’s criminal history with a recent posting four days ago. To my surprise the name Patty Chen had been listed as the individual making bail, releasing Hector. The connection between Ms. Chen and Hector was new to me as I could never imagine they were acquaintances, let alone enough so that she bails him out of jail. What exactly was the connection between Chen and Hector, I wondered? I quickly shoved the tablet in front of Jakes face, pointing to Chen’s name, and watched as he read. His face was expressionless, showing no surprise in seeing her name, which surprised me. Jake said nothing, only nodding his head in acknowledgement and giving me a thumb-up signal. What did that mean? I wondered.
02:45 A.M., Friday, June 14, 2013
Jake finished his interview with Hector leaving him and the other perp’s to be further queried by the Irregulars, no doubt employing other persuasive technique. He left instructions to shuttle Billy Jo, Hector and the other two goons out to the middle of the Detroit River where they would meet up with Captain Willy Parolin, and old friend who pilots a Canadian freighter. Jake had earlier phoned Captain Parolin arranging the details of the cargo...suggesting a destination of some remote logging camp north of Sarnia, Canada. It was always more convenient to dump the perp’s in the countryside instead of issuing something more punitive, letting them find their way back home, sometimes taking several days. It was easy, not as messy and we knew the perps would experience a huge bureaucratic dilemma from border patrol authorities on both sides. Captain Willy was always willing and thankful to aid our needs any way he could, as he had been a recipient of Jake’s kindness a few years back.
Jake and I loaded in his vehicle headed for the hospital and a meeting with Captain Cranbury and Detective Jones.
“Why are we meeting with Cranbury and Jones...what could they possibly add to the investigation at this point in time?” I said.
“I beg your pardon, did you ask why?”
No sooner had Jake replied when Epic 3’s phone number light lit up on my tablet. I punched answer and intercom so both Jake and I could hear what he was saying. I did this because there was information or knowledge that Jake was obviously withholding and it frustrated me to know end. He always held stuff back, probably because his thought process was so advanced beyond everyone else’s, like someone who plays chess thinks ahead, maybe he never knew where to interject information about the case to us, never knowing where we were in our thinking.
We both listened as E3 began chattering...
“It seems Hector has a low threshold of pain. We can’t shut the guy up...he’s spilling big time. E8 snipped open a finger of his partner Jesse and when Hector saw the blood, he became quite willing to answer our questions.”
“And,” said Jake.
“Well, it seems that Hector and Jesse were the ones who cut the hole in the storage building at the same time the contractors were cutting the door opening...this helped them cover the noise when making the hole in the containment area.”
“The point you’re making E3 is mute as the white pasty substance on Hector’s sneakers puts him at the scene, that’s a given. What does he say of their treasure?”
“Hector confirms Billy Jo’s story, he says they came away from the job empty, no drugs, no money, nothing.”
“Nothing you say...they retrieved nothing from the containment area?”
“Nothing of value, the backpack they snatched was filled with newspapers.”
“Checkmate!”
“Sorry, say again.”
“Nevermind...did he mention any inside person from the Precinct?”
“No.”
“No-one? No mention of any administrative person or one of the seven known players?”
“No.”
“Anything else noteworthy?”
“Hold on a minute...he’s still talking or trying to talk, E8 has him by the leg pulling him around the room.”
Jake made a quick right turn heading in the opposite direction of the hospital.
“Where to now?” I asked.
“Call Captain Cranbury – tell him to meet us at the Leo Burris’ home within the next twenty minutes,” he said, in a contemplative, trance-like state – staring straight into the early morning blackness.
Cranbury was still at Detective Jones bedside, sleepy but coherent he acknowledged Jake’s request and quickly left the hospital heading for the Burris’ home.
We traveled the route to our destination in no particular hurry and that made me wonder why, as we’re always in a hurry otherwise. It seems I’m always wondering about Jake and where his thinking is at any particular point in time. His thinking was usually a couple thoughts ahead of ours...the Irregulars usually ask me what Jake is thinking, as if I knew. One thing I did know was that if our investigation takes us to Leo then why are we not moving posthaste? Did Jake want Captain Cranbury to arrive before us? If so, what was that about? My head was about to burst, then finally I blurted...
“Why we going so slow?”
“Humm, what are you saying?”
“You’re doing 35, you are purposely driving slowly. Why?”
“No big deal Clarice, we just need to conference with Captain Cranbury before talking to Uncle Leo, besides I wanted to hear what else E3 found out.”
“Uh, okay, that makes sense.”
“Call 22 and let her know we’ll be there in 15 minutes. Ask her if Leo’s in the house.”
“Okay,” I said, as Jake nodded his head.
My tablet streamed 212’s glasses-cam picturing mostly the interview between Hector and E3. He was down in Hector’s face shaking his finger, while E8 held the tin-snips to Hector’s ear. It was hard to pick up any distinct conversation between the two as 212 stood approximately 15 feet away, but it was obvious that Hector was talking plenty. 212 multitasked by keeping the other thug’s in abeyance with his own power tool while simultaneously recording the room action. The audience appeared completely focused.
E3 walked to the side of 212, knowing his glasses-cam would pick up his conversation and that Jake and I would be watching.
“Clarice, Clarice...you seeing all this?” E3 said.
“10-4,” Jake hollered.
“Go ahead E3,” I added.
“Hector ‘Blabbermouth’ Arroyo, now tells me there’s a desk sergeant named Frank who sells Billy Jo information about ‘inventory’ that might interest them.”
Jake, who had been chuckling from E3’s comment, looks at me, saying...“Thought so!”
He then grabs the tablet, speaking loudly into the screen...
“Ask him – how he knows Patty Chen.”
“Say again – who was it?”
“Patty Chen, ask him how he knows her.”
We watch as E3 moves back to wher
e Hector is sitting. Again, the conversation is muffled, some of it in Mexican-Spanish, some in English. All the sudden E3 hand-slaps Hector across the face and steps back, giving E8 the scissors signal with his fingers.
“Aauugh! Aauugh! Para! Para! Stop, Hector shouted.
Hector should probably seek another profession as he definitely wasn’t cut-out for the criminal underbelly of a drug gang. He wanted nothing to do with any kind of pain. With no more than the sound of E8 closing the tin-snips a couple times, making a ‘zwik, zwik,’ sound, he began screaming ‘stop’ before any actual cutting began. Obviously, Hector wanted nothing to do with any body parts being lopped off.
‘Zwik–Zwik’ – Epic 8 interviews with his tin-snips
Both E3 and E8 had to stifle their snickering at Hectors lack of bravado.
“Hablar! Hablar! Talk! Talk! E3 shouted.
They talked a minute or so and then E3 comes walking back to where 212 is standing, saying...
“He says he only knows Chen through his sister, they are friends and that’s the extent of him knowing her. He’s never met Chen...only knows what his sister has told him about her.”
“Okay, okay,” said Jake, “he knows more than he’s letting on, I’m convinced. Keep at him E3, tell him we can have his sister interviewed if he prefers. Clarice and I will keep in touch; we’re on our way to see Leo Burris.”
We rounded the corner heading down the street Burris’ lived on, when we spotted the Captain’s black Suburban, we pulled in behind him. Epic 22’s position was in the alley behind the Burris’ house. She had reported on the JakeForum that Leo, his daughter and her child were the only ones in the home. 22 also said that everything was quiet, with only one light on, upstairs, the daughter’s room, Theresa.
The Mystery Maxims of Jake Spade - Case #1 FORGIVEN Page 7