by Jamal Shakur
“I see you found him but not in the shape that I hope he would be in and that’s alive,” said Sara Davenport. “I’m sorry for your lost,” l said. Could you look at the TV screen and acknowledge for me that is your husband Mr. John Henry Davenport III. She took a moment and breathed hard answered in the affirmative. Unlike other spouses who have come though this place she was unperturbed by the whole scene as if she had some relief to his early demise. “Well Doc, I can’t say this has been pleasant but say-la-vee,” she said with a very flip attitude.
There wasn’t anyone to question about his suicide / murder but Omar and detective Miles were going from door to door in the projects to find witnesses about why Davenport was even there and who did the apartment belong to. I was in a contemplative mood looking out of my window on a rainy day in Philly; rainy days often made me feel this way even in a funky ghetto area like this. Denise walked in a very slow and sexy walk that she could only produce and looked at me with a sultry stare, but in a blink of an eye that stare turned into all business and said, “Omar and Me knocked on all the doors starting from the fifteenth floor all way to the first and what we could glean from the conversation with the residents is that the woman that they called Bang Bang was a hooker/stripper who resided there and that Mr. Davenport was a constant visitor.”
“So I guess it’s a possibility that he was not alone.” I whispered.
Did you find out where Miss Bang Bang worked,” I said with a smile while trying not to burst out laughing at the sound of the name.
Bang Bang worked at a funky strip club called the Rec Room in the seedy section of City Center on Fifth Street. I enter the club in the late hours and she was showing in her most provocative moves why she acquired that name. Every move was a pelvic thrust and grind. The customers appreciated her dancing stuffing bills of all denominations into her panties. I entered her dressing room after her set was done, she was a very attractive young woman, I guess in these economic times this is the only employment left for a nice looking woman who would normally be in secretary pool instead of in a flop house like this one. “So what’s up officer,” she said with a nasty smirk that looked carved into her face.
I looked directly in her eyes that let her know that I wasn’t bullshiting and said, “Look I know you were a real good personal friends with John davenport who just committed suicide in your apartment, so what’s the story.”
“Someone just told me about it but I wasn’t there, I was here working.”
I took that all in and simply called the ME office and got the tech working that shift on the phone, “What’s the estimated time of death of the deceased Davenport.”
“I would say about 12 noon,” he said.
“I talked to your boss you didn’t come in till 4 this evening and Davenport was dead at 12.” So you better come up with a better alibi or you could be charged with murder.
“Murder, I thought it was a suicide,” she said.
She looked down as if she was getting ready to say something of merit when I noticed at the corner of my eye that we were not alone. I felt a sudden hard thump to my head and I was out. Everything went blank for a minute or two but I raised myself up on all four and seen a suspicious perp running ahead of me, he was weaving between tables as men were stuffing the panties of half naked women with dollar bills . I reached into my side holster and aimed my Glock 44. I shouted, “Police officer move out the way.” The perp was running frantically and ran out the front door. He looked back to see if I was still on his trail. It looked like he had a weapon, pointed at me I dived to the ground and let out two burst from my Glock, he was down I think I hit him. I was standing over him, he was rolling back and forth, it was a chest wound I looked closely and felt his chest, and it was a Kevlar vest. This wasn’t an ordinary perp. I called for backup, the big man Omar was the first to arrive; he picked the perp up like a rag doll and threw him up against the wall. I retrieved Bang Bang and took them both down town to sweat them both out.
The man we discovered was the owner of the club which was strange in itself because he openly attacked a police officer. I reached in for my cell phone and casually called Judge Molly Ring a friend of mine for years and asked her to quickly give me verbal permission as in a warrant to search his club and all the dressing rooms on the premises. I got the permission it seemed in a matter of minutes. I searched his office, it was surprisingly fashionable and technically updated and just outside the office was a ghetto strip club, which was a funky inconsistency ; I scrounge around his office for hours, the only thing looked out of place was the tall fake fruit tree. I moved the fruit tree to the side and on the bottom was a floor safe that was good but also bad, I didn’t know the combination. But low and behold, it was my lucky day, I pulled slowly at the handle to the safe and it was opened, in his rush to deal with me he left it opened. The safe had a large amount of cash and documents. I guestimate maybe two hundred grand which was strange because a club like this didn’t do that much business. His laptop was opened on his desk and running, it was either my lucky day or this guy was the dumbest crook in history. I perused through his files; he had lot of email correspondence, I had open up about two or three and all of them had nondescript pictures on them.
Ch14
I took the club owner’s Yancy Doors lap top to homicide and had our tech guy Karl Ranger give it a thorough look. I answered the phone, which rang about five or six times, I was daydreaming which I often did when I was in my serene cubicle back at the precinct. It was Karl, “I think you should hurry up and get down here I found something.” I rushed to the elevator he was in the basement aka dudgeon as we called it because he was the only one there. He was hunched over the laptop like a squat fat man over a delicious ham sandwich.
“What am I looking at,” I said.
“ You’re looking at some high-level technology , what the perp is doing is e-mailing pictures that are encoded with pictures to each one of these messages, using the technique of Steganography.”
” And what the hell is that,” I said incredulously.
” Steganography is the computer digital art form of hiding messages in pictures.”
“So I guess our fellow has been busy corresponding with other felons creating his little empire.”
I read the emails very carefully, it was amazing, and they were corresponding about every time that they had committed a criminal activity. It was ironic we thought the suicide murders were just a theory but these email messages were giving us factual evidence and there it was, Yancy had a squad of women who were prostitutes that drugged her vics and then robbed them. The email had credit card and debit card information. We did a history check on the emails and the perp was doing this for years. This was well put together plan no wonder John Davenport was murdered. He would jeopardize a multimillion dollar operation. It was a real slick criminal business, the perp and his crew would drug the Johns and just lay back and drain their accounts out. When they were finished with them they would simply encourage committing suicide. We had in essence all the info that we needed which was basically kidnapping and theft but the murder part of the crimes was elusive. We would either have to get a confession or catch them red handed. Omar was at his desk looking like he felt good about himself, I didn’t see that smirk on his face since his college football days when he sacked a quarterback. The big guy had something up his sleeve. “You haven’t spoken to the tech guy have you,” he said.
“All right cut the suspense, what do we have,” I said.
He simply slid a folder across my desk, and said,” What we have is the hookers addresses.”
We started at the first address a Carol Cortez, it was an office building, and she had a small office on the tenth floor. I knocked on the door and it was a strange and eerie feeling that all of sudden came over me. There wasn’t anyone in the outer office, it obviously was a front. We simply opened the door and to our surprise all three women were there, each one was on their own separate laptop as if this was a legi
t cyber business. “All right cease your activity now, it’s the police.” I said.
It was amazing they were calm. I happened to glance at their computer screen and it look like they were running a porno site. On the wall was a set up for cameras and a bed and couch where they simulated sex on line, not only were they raking in cash from drugging Johns they had a lucrative skin business they were running. Each website was not only for online correspondence but hook ups for paid sexual favors. The Johns had gotten more than they could hope for. They had a moment of pleasure which was followed by a moment of a drug induced period that led to them losing all of their wealth. Who ever thought up this con was a genius.
I was back at the precinct we were about to question the additional four women we just had arrested at the office. They were seasoned hookers who were accustomed to being arrested; they would often clam up and wait for their pimp or their lawyer. But these women seemed more afraid than usual. I guess it’s because of the weight of the charges. Normally sexual solicitation would get them bail and they would be right back on the streets in a matter of hours, however this is murder and they wouldn’t see the light of day for a while. Detective Miles and I walked towards interrogation Room 1 and started our interview with Carol Cortez, the woman with her name on the lease, and said,” I ‘m not going to sugar coat any of the things that I’m about to say to you. This is first degree murder, kidnap and extortion case. You can clam up and take the weight for these charges or you can give us the name of the person who really runs things.”
Her mouth flew opened and for a minute she just stared at us. Cortez was an attractive woman suited well for the porn industry but murder wasn’t her cup of tea. “All I know is that I was living in Brazil just last year when my man bought me over to the states to work.” She said with a tiny trembling voice. “We’re going to need more specific information than that, first off what is your so-called man’s name,” I shouted loudly. She suddenly looked at me with fear in her eyes, a look as if she was about to die. She waffled back and forth and finally said with a whimper and very quietly, “His name is Juan Cortez,” she said quietly.
Denise returned from the computer room and looked satisfied and said “I ran a check on him; he’s wanted by Interpol and the Colombian police. He is wanted for white slavery, drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder.” This guy has a criminal sheet as long as my arm. The drugs he used were self manufactured and delivered by his whores to unsuspecting John’s. Denise looked at me for a second time as if to say bad news with the good, and said, “I just got off the phone with the FBI; our boy has just left on a plane for Columbia.” But just ten minutes after we received the message he was held by customs at the Columbian airport.
The US has an extradition treaty with Columbia so we would have no difficulty in returning the perp to the US. It wouldn’t be a hard sell for me to talk the chief in to letting me bring this fool back. I arrived in Columbia and head to the town of Villa de Leyva. It was a quaint little colonial town and I was surprised that the perp came from this area. But he was charged with a litany of crimes that he had began here before going on to other parts of the country where he spread his devilment before heading for the states. The jail cell that held him didn’t look like a holding cell but much similar to a beautiful hut with a background of palm trees. It was quite appealing. I walked through the door and approached the sergeant at the desk. He was surprised to see me, I guess he was expecting a paler version and not me, I said “My name is Detective Lomax and I have extradition papers for the prisoner Juan Cortez.”
His response was quick and with a nervous impediment. “You will have to speak with the captain about that, have a seat he’ll be out in a minute,” he said. Needless to say the minute became a half hour ant then two hours. It was frustrating. Just as I was about to explode, the captain finally came outside to greet me. “Hello detective would you, step into my office please,” he said with authority couple with courtesy. “I had a problem with my superiors, Mr. Cortez has committed so many crimes here that they were trying to keep him here but we want to keep good relations with your state department and decided to proceed with the process of getting him into your custody,” he finally finished without taking a breath.
Cortez entered the room in shackles with the desk sergeant right behind him; he was immaculately dressed in all white. He looked more like a tourist than a prisoner. He wasn’t stressed like most prisoners in his position. But he was light hearted and upbeat. I couldn’t figure this one out but I had no intention of letting him out of my sight, my plan was to go immediately to the airport and get his ass in the air headed for the states as soon as possible. There would be no sightseeing are lunch, dinner, none of that. “Captain, I want an armed escort for me and the prisoner and I want to leave in the next half hour are as quickly as possible,” I said with urgency. The captain gave me a curious look and said, “I don’t think you have nothing to worry about detective Lomax, all of the gang members that were a part of Cortez’s empire or dead or in prison.” I caught the last end of his statement; he called a criminal organization an empire, which meant he had a lot of respect for the perp which is highly unusual for a police official. I wonder what was his delay in speeding up the extradition and the way Cortez was dressed had anything to do with the power that Cortez wielded in this town. The captain and officials at their state department finally relented in giving me the armed escort that I requested. The cars were moving slowly down the street, I purposely choose the morning to avoid tourist and the looky-lu’s that were intent on seeing a mobster for their excitement.
We were six cars in all. My car was in the middle with the other five cars surrounding us. I had to glance at Cortez at the corner of my eye. He was smug and had an air of self-absorption and ego that was overwhelming. If I didn’t know his destination, it would seem that he thought he wasn’t going back to America with me. There were a few people on the street mostly men who appeared to be unemployed hustlers that had a look of despair about them, I was about to learn that the look was meant for me. The car pool or car entourage was going at a steady klip and suddenly we hit want seemed like a large pot hole in the street. The car that I was riding in with the prisoner tire went suddenly flat. Next was a large blast that came from the side street. It appeared to be a blast from a throw away bazooka. The projectile luckily hit the back of the vehicle and miraculously bounced off into the air which had us slam into the building at the corner. We received gunfire and at this time I was out the car with my Glock in my hand returning fire, we immediately ran into the next car and sped away. Cortez had a smirk on his face. “So pussy you think this whole thing is amusing,” I said as I elbowed him in the jar. He remained silent and his face was a blank slate with no smiles only a dark void, Blood was gushing from his face but I think he got the message.
The plane was on the tarmac with the engine running ready for takeoff. I pulled his arm with the handcuffs and we were soon seated on the plane ready to go. We were up the air and Cortez looked really sad as if all his plans were dashed. His air was subdued and his optimism seemed crushed. He was quiet for the six hour flight. We arrive in Philly in the evening. I had a couple of squad cars meet us at the airport just in case, l had always been a person that was suspicious and believed in all things conspiratorial. There were five uniformed cops meeting me at the international gate. Two of the guys were gigantors standing about six foot five , they each took their beefy hands and clasped them around Cortez’s shoulders and escorted him out to one of the awaiting squad cars. I smiled and said to myself it’s no place like home.
Ch15
Tuesday 11:00 am
We put Cortez in interrogation room 2 and put his woman in room 1. We choose Carol Cortez, his bottom bitch; she would listen in on our interview with the suspect. I was staring at him in the one way mirror, his behavior was the same, and he was arrogant and egotistic. I walked through the door of the interrogation room with two cups of coffee to break the ice. “I bought yo
u some coffee black but here’s some cream and sugar,” I said. He looked at me like he deserved what he was getting and said, “Thanks that’s mighty black of you.” He laughed at that pun. “Look we have some very serious crimes that you are accused of, one of which is kidnapping and murder.” He laughed at me almost howling like a jackal, and said “Tell me, Mister Police man do you have my name on any papers connecting me to this place you busted into.” He was right the name on the lease was Carole Cortez. He wasn’t connected to any of the cyber porno sites are any of the real state that was connected to the group.
“As far as it goes, you don’t have anything on me, do you?” he said. So I guess I can leave right now?
“Don’t even try that shit, we going to make this case work and remember you could be sent back to your country of origin and stand trial for the many crimes that you have committed there.” I said with obvious pleasure. He smiles at my last statement because we all knew that being sent back there would only put him back in the arms of his fellow gangsters and a life of ease where the gangs worked closely with the government. Noticing his comfort level, I was about to take a different tack. To corroborate his involvement in some of the crimes, I was going to turn his bottom whore against him. She was listening to everything we were saying. He took the bait like any criminal who thinks he’s on top. “Look them bitches that you caught were the criminals I don’t have anything to do with this shit,” He shouted. I looked at him with a serious frown and said, “So what you’re saying is the women that were in the office that we arrested were the perpetrators of the crimes alone without your help.”