Cold Flash

by Carrie H. Johnson

  Still, Nareece sat lifeless and expressionless.

  “Took a while for them to get her ready,” Fran said, stepping down to lock the brakes on Nareece’s wheelchair. “She was sleeping when I arrived. They said she had been resistant today, pushed them away and did not want to get out of the bed. Anyway, I left and got caught up in work.”

  “No problem, thanks.”

  “Breaking news just in. A nine-year-old girl was shot during a drive-by shooting. The child was taken to Children’s Hospital, her condition unknown at this time. We will continue to bring you the latest on this story and the child’s condition as it becomes available.”

  Everyone focused on the news report except Nareece. Helen rested her head on Nareece’s chest in a fetal position. Not an easy feat being that she was almost as big as her mother. Nareece turned her head in the direction of the television as the anchorwoman finished her report. She lifted both her arms and wrapped them around Helen, who was still cuddled on her lap. Over Helen’s head, her gaze found me. I got up from the couch and went to her. Tears filled her eyes.

  Doctor Sharma came in and told us Rose was stable and had been moved from recovery to a private room. In Rose’s room, I stood next to Nareece’s wheelchair, holding her hand as she gazed on her little girl, so tiny and helpless, tubes attached to her arms and an oxygen mask over her face.

  Dulcey stepped up and stood beside me. She squeezed my hand. Helen slid down from Nareece’s lap and climbed on the bed, careful not to disturb any of the tubes, and lay down facing her twin.

  While everyone’s attention was on Rose, Fran gave me the signal. I gently put Nareece’s hand into Dulcey’s and followed him into the hallway.

  “You should know that the head nurse lady at the rehab place, Ms. Braithwaite, said Nareece had a visitor today.”

  “What do you mean, she had a visitor? No one should be asking for her. No one but family knows she is in the hospital or even who she is.”

  “The lady said she told the guy she had no one under the name he gave her, which was Nareece. Black guy, medium complexion, tall, dressed in dark slacks and a dark shirt. Scar or a mole near his lip. Nurse said she was about to call you when I showed up.”

  As quickly as fear stabbed my chest, it dissipated. Laughton.

  CHAPTER 8

  Agent Askew of the DEA walked around the table and sat across from me. Agent Rommel stood against the opposite wall from where I was sitting in a small conference room at 600 Arch Street.

  Askew leaned forward in his chair and rested his forearms on the table and said, “Can we get you something—coffee, water?”

  “I’m good, thank you.”

  He continued. “Officer Mabley, the city is experiencing a heroin epidemic. People are dying in record numbers not experienced since the sixties and early seventies. Heroin is being mixed with fentanyl, a lethal drug that increases the chance of an overdose. Fentanyl is also being sold in pill form. The pill is made in China, shipped to Mexico, and distributed in the States. The Berg Nation gang is a major distributor.”

  “What is it you are expecting me to say?” I said, struggling to keep control. “I take my family to church and my niece gets gunned down and you got me in this five-by-seven interrogation room questioning me like . . . like I’m guilty of something. What the hell is going on here?”

  “Officer Mabley, what is your relationship with Ward and Elijah Griffin?”

  “What do you mean, what is my relationship with them? I don’t have a relationship with them. Elijah is my son’s friend and his brother is a known member of Berg Nation.”

  “Is your son involved with Berg Nation?”

  “I’m not sure where this is going. My nine-year-old niece is lying in a hospital bed fighting for her life, and instead of trying to find out who shot her and why, you’re questioning me about my son’s alleged involvement in a gang. Well, no, Agent Askew, my son is not involved with Berg Nation or any other gang.” I got up to leave. “I think I need to get to work, so if you’ll excuse me. Direct any other questions to my lieutenant,” I said, walking around the table and moving toward the door.

  I reached for the doorknob, but it seemingly opened on its own, until Zoila, Detective Burgan, came through.

  “Muriel, please, have a seat,” she said. She held the door open and cocked her head toward the exit. “Gentlemen.”

  The DEA agents cleared the room. I walked back around the table and sat down.

  “Muriel, these guys can be off the charts. It’s expected since one of their agents was killed a month back in a failed bust.”

  “Zoila, what the hell does that have to do with what happened to my niece? I told you everything. Why were we being shot at? If we weren’t the targets, then who?”

  Zoila spread out some photographs in front of me. Elijah and Travis were in one of them, with Elijah’s brother and two other men. Mr. Kim’s daughter was in another.

  “Travis is not involved with this gang. With any gang.”

  Zoila gave me the eye that says if he was in a gang I would be the last to recognize it because I’m his mother. It made my skin crawl.

  “Damn it, Zoila. I don’t wear blinders. If Travis were in with these . . . these . . . guys, he’d be dead by my hand.”

  “Which is why . . .”

  “Which is why I know he’s not. Elijah, he hangs out with Travis and comes to the house sometimes. Said his brother hassles him, tries to get him to join the gang. Said his parents are dead and his brother is his only family. Travis befriended him because he felt sorry for him. So I let him stay at the house.”

  “How long?”

  “He’s only been there a few nights. Anyway, his brother came to the house Sunday morning and said if Elijah shows his face in the hood again, he’s dead.”

  She flashed me a satisfied look.

  “He threatened. Elijah has not gone back.”

  “But he could be pissed because his little brother, who he has cared for the past five years, is dissing him.”

  “I don’t think so. His brother may be going against him as far as becoming a gang member, but there was something in Ward’s manner that said he accepted the idea of Elijah making something of himself.”

  “You got all that from the guy coming to your door and threatening death.”

  I twisted my mouth and bore into her. “Yes, I got all that and more, so don’t play me.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments before I went back to the pictures and pulled out the one with Mr. Kim’s daughter.

  “When was this taken?”

  “You know her?”

  “She’s my neighbor’s, I mean my ex-neighbor’s daughter. She’s been missing for a few days. He asked me to check into it.”

  “She’s new on the scene. It was taken three days ago at the Blumberg.”

  That would have been Sunday, the day after she went missing.

  “Is she on the hook for any illegal activity?”

  “Besides hanging out with the likes of that element, no.”

  “Is this the latest? Any way of knowing if she is still there?”

  Zoila stared at me, probably trying to decide if she should give me any more information. It was difficult for me to imagine Mr. Kim’s daughter being caught up in the gang activity in the city, but there it was in front of me. The obvious reason was for drugs—heroin, no doubt.

  I stared back with a raised brow, challenging her testing me on this. She caved. “I’ll make some inquiries,” she said.

  When I got to the lab, I called Travis. He picked up on the first ring and said he had just returned to the hospital from taking Dulcey home. Rose was doing well. The commotion on his end quieted as he left the room, I guessed.

  “Mom, Aunt Nareece is here! How’d she get here? She’s acting like nothing’s wrong with her, like she’s all good.”

  “I know. She surprised us all last night. I should have called you sooner and told you, but so much is happening, and you were sleeping this mor
ning when I came home and left again.”

  “It’s all good. She’s talking like they are going to be moving back to Boston, back into their house, and going on like nothing ever happened. She even talks about Uncle John, going on about what a good husband he is to her and a good dad he is to her babies, like he’s still alive. The twins are so happy she’s here they’re going along with everything she’s saying. Helen told her he was dead. She just went on talking about how they would all be together soon.”

  “I’m asking a lot, but please stay with them and make sure she doesn’t do anything crazy.”

  “Crazy like what, Ma?”

  “Just stay close.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be here.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Elijah.”

  “Right.”

  “Mr. Kim and his granddaughter were here for a minute. He did his mojo over Rose and I’ll be damned, I mean . . . after Mr. Kim did his thing, Rose started acting like there wasn’t nothing wrong with her. He’s definitely the man!”

  Parker peered over the partition that separated our desks. “I hope everything is good with your niece, Muriel.”

  Parker never calls me Muriel. I looked up at his Minion-looking self—eyes too close together and magnified by big glasses—and smiled. “Thanks, Parker. She’s going to be fine.”

  Fran was hunkered over a comparison microscope when I passed the microscope room on my way to the toilet. When I came out, he was in the same position. He waved at me to come in without taking his eyes from his work.

  “You got eyes in the back of your head or something?”

  “Check this out,” he said, pushing his chair back from the table and getting up. I sat down, adjusted the seat, and leaned in to the microscope.

  A comparison scope is the same as a microscope that is used in any high school chemistry class, but a comparison microscope allows you to view two separate pieces of evidence at the same time through one set of eyepieces. Then it’s a matter of time. It can take days to match up the markings on bullet evidence to a particular gun. If sufficient markings are not present, the findings are inconclusive.

  “What you are looking at is the bullet taken from your niece’s shoulder and the bullet from the DEA agent who was killed. I’m not ready to call it yet. I want to spend some more time on it.”

  “So, we find the gun, we find the murder weapon and maybe the shooter,” I said. “As much as I want to know about this, it’s probably going to turn out we can’t connect anyone to the weapon even if we find it. But I hear you. Still, this isn’t doing anything to help our caseload.”

  “I’m working on that as well. I got caught up in your niece’s shooting.”

  Parker stuck his head in the door. “Someone wants to talk to you bad. Your cell won’t stop ringing.”

  It was Dulcey in a panic because her car was in the shop and Hampton, who was supposed to take her to her two o’clock chemotherapy appointment, was a no-show. Parker shooed me on my way, vowing to cover for me with the lieutenant.

  When I arrived at the house, it was 1:50. Hampton pulled to the curb behind me. Dulcey charged out of the house, aiming for Hampton’s car. Hampton hopped out of his car with his arms raised as though surrendering to the police.

  “Baby, baby, I’m sorry I’m late. The traffic . . . You gotta give a brother some forgiveness.”

  “I’ma give you some forgiveness all right,” Dulcey said, wielding her suitcase of a pocketbook.

  I jumped out of the car and stepped to Dulcey, redirecting her attention to me before the two collided. “C’mon, girl. You don’t have time for this. You’re going to be late.”

  Hampton backed up to the curb and stood with his head hanging, looking drained and defeated. After I had put Dulcey in the car and moved around to the driver side, he made a motion to call him, then clasped his hands in prayer position. I nodded that I would.

  Dulcey was silent all the way to the doctor’s. I decided it was best to leave the silence be until she was ready to disturb it. The thought wasn’t all the way out of my head before she became talkative again.

  “Muriel, whatever that man has gotten himself into, he can’t fix it by himself. I ain’t never seen him act like this before. I’m afraid for him and I can’t do a damn thing to help him, especially if he won’t talk to me. The way I’m looking . . .” She quieted and went through her ritual of late—pulled down the visor and cringed at her reflection, removed her wide-brimmed sun hat and patted her hair, careful not to tug on it, afraid what little she had left would fall out, then pulled her hat down on her head again and pushed the visor back up. “The way I’m looking I wouldn’t be surprised if he found him another woman.” She sat with that a few moments, then gave it back in force. “I will kill the man if he’s messing with someone else. We’ve been through everything together. I’ll kill him.”

  “You know damn well Hampton ain’t messing. You know he loves you and everything about you, no matter what.” I pulled into a parking space and shut the car off. “Dulce, I’m gonna find out what the problem is and do what I can to help him fix it. You are going to concentrate on getting better and stop worrying. It’s all gonna be good. It all is good. Needs a little tweaking is all.”

  She gave me a crooked smile and slid across the seat. I grabbed her arm.

  “You hear me, right?”

  “Yes, I prayed about it. God got me, you, and Hampton.” She rose up out of the car then turned back to me. “That’s right, God got you too.”

  “If you asked him, no doubt he does.” I chuckled at her.

  Halfway through the two-hour process, Dulcey quieted, relaxed in the recliner, and fell asleep. I stepped out into the hallway and called Hamp. No answer. I was about to go back in when my phone vibrated. It was Zoila.

  “Muriel, you inquired about your friend’s daughter, a young Asian woman.”

  “Right.”

  “Got a call from Hayes that a victim matching that description was brought into the morgue this afternoon.”

  Twenty years on the force, I have never even shaped my mouth to say the words, Your child, the baby you bore, held to your breast, raised up with every speck of unconditional love you had inside, the one with the toothy grin, unkempt hair, lanky physique . . . that child is dead. Thinking the words, hearing the sound of them humming in my ears—words not yet spoken—my heart ached.

  After I dropped Dulcey off at her house, I sped downtown to the city morgue. It was after hours, but Hayes, the medical examiner, lived there. I sat in the parking lot on University Avenue trying to wrap my brain around the fact that Mr. Kim’s daughter was lying in cold storage waiting for him to identify her body. “Get a grip, kid.”

  I pushed the car door open and sat with the task at hand for a few more minutes before I got out and went inside the building. I took the elevator to the basement. My footsteps echoed down the empty hallway that led to the inner room. Hayes was performing an autopsy when I entered. The smell of antiseptic mixed with the repugnant odor of decomposition pushed me back outside the door, retching. It took a few minutes to readjust and go back in.

  “Hispanic female, age thirty-five to forty, scar on left shoulder. . .” Hayes stopped mid-sentence when he saw me. “Detective Mabley, how nice of you to visit,” he said, his craggy teeth beaming in a jack-o’-lantern kind of smile.

  “Doc. I got a call that you had a young Asian woman brought in this afternoon.”

  “Yes, I’ve been expecting you.” He snapped off his latex gloves and spun around toward the cold chambers. The release of suction and thud of rollers being disengaged to allow the drawer to move gave me pause. “You can’t identify the victim from over there,” Hayes mused, motioning me forward.

  I stepped forward as he pulled back the sheet that covered her face, and nearly fell forward on the corpse had not Hayes put his arm out to stop my stumble. I regained my footing and backed away.

  “Tha . . . that’s not her,” I stammered, turning to leave.


  “Wait, Detective. The victim’s belongings included a business card for a club named Calvin’s Place. The card had your name scribbled on the back.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “You told me there shouldn’t be anybody else coming around asking for her,” the administrator, Mrs. Anchorman said, handing me release papers to sign. “I made a sketch of him.” She handed me a detailed sketch of Laughton, including the mole on the right corner of his bottom lip and the swatch of white hair on the right side of his head. “I like to draw.”

  Dr. Altman, Nareece’s psychiatrist, came into the administrator’s office as I finished signing the papers. We went down the hall to his office. He shut the door and gestured to a chair in front of his cube-sized desk.

  Nareece spent the last three days at the hospital with Rose, during which time she almost seemed like her old self. Now that Rose was being discharged from the hospital, Nareece insisted on coming home too.

  “She’s not well,” Dr. Altman said. He sat down at his desk, then rolled his chair forward until his watermelon-sized belly squeezed against the desk. He leaned way forward and let his forearms take his weight. “She needs support and should come to sessions. Miss Mabley, Nareece experienced deep depression and has been in severe shock. While she is physically healthy, she still has some deep psychological trauma that she hasn’t dealt with. I know you and I discussed her son, who is your son.” He shook his head back and forth. “Anyway, she has been focused on him, Travis, right?” I nodded. “Concerned that he’ll hate her because she gave him up.”

  “Travis is over all that.”

  “Apparently, she’s not. She could display some negative emotions around that, and depending on how she processes the home situation, it is possible that she could slip back into her unresponsive state. Nevertheless, I believe taking her home so she can be with her children is an excellent idea. As I said, she is physically healthy and has no restrictions there. I strongly recommend that she continue to come to the private and group sessions here until she is stable.”