Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 1
Page 20
“So why kill them? They found out about each other? Might talk and turn him in?”
“I don’t think so. One explanation for Jordan’s death is her pregnancy. We’ve learned that the DNA of the fetus didn’t match the DNA left at Shelby’s crime scene. It’s possible he was furious that she had gotten pregnant by another man. And Shelby…well, she was raped, repeatedly. Maybe he was trying to get her pregnant. With Jill’s pregnancy… I can’t be certain, but the father angle is the best thought I have for right now. The guy has a God complex.”
Price gave him a long look and wadded up his taco wrappers. “You are scaring the hell out of me. Let’s get back to the squad. It’s time to kick this into high gear.” He stood and took their trays to the trash can. His excitement was palpable; cases broke on less cogent theories. They started back to the office, walking quickly. Just before they reached the door, Price turned to Baldwin.
“And, son? You hurt Taylor, and I’ll rip your balls off. Got me?”
Baldwin didn’t miss a beat. Apparently their body language had been enough to give them away. He wasn’t sure how she felt, or where it was going, but he did know he wanted to get to know Taylor much, much better. But he didn’t hesitate or play around. He looked Price in the eye, unflinching.
“Yes, sir.” And he meant it.
CHAPTER 51
Taylor pulled up in front of the Washington Square building on Second Avenue. She looped into the parking lot and took the first open space. She locked her car, walked the twenty yards to the door, and entered the building.
She was prepared for this meeting of the grand jury. She wasn’t thinking about guns. Or the coppery scent of blood. Or the slight sense of satisfaction she had felt when she realized who she had killed. None of those things were going through her mind at the moment. She was totally focused on an image of twelve-year-old Tamika Jones, lying in a puddle of blood on her grandmother’s kitchen floor.
Taylor was so intent on her purpose, she walked right past Julia Page.
“Hey, Lieutenant. Over here.” Page trotted after Taylor, an engaging grin on her rotund face. Taylor stopped dead and looked over her shoulder, realizing she had missed seeing the Assistant District Attorney. Granted, ADA Page was maybe five feet tall on a good day, so she wasn’t automatically in Taylor’s line of vision, but she shouldn’t have missed her totally.
She started back up the hall. “Sorry, Julia. Lost in thought. We all set?”
Page tried to keep pace with Taylor’s strides, her brown curls bobbing with the effort. “Yes, we’re all set. Are you ready?”
Taylor stopped, realizing the shorter woman was practically running to keep up. “Ready as I’ll ever be. I want to get this over with.”
ADA Page pursed her lips and looked her over, as if to gauge whether Taylor was telling the truth. “I don’t blame you. The grand jury is in room 502. They’re waiting for you. You know I can’t go in there with you.” Her pug nose twitched, and her demeanor became all business. “And you know how important this is.”
“That almost sounds like coaching, Julia. I’ve got it covered. I’ll see you after, okay?”
With that, Taylor strode away, catching the elevator at the last moment. She shoved her hand in between the closing doors, and they slid back open. There was only one other passenger. He sighed loudly in annoyance. She gave him her brightest smile and fingered her Glock. He blushed and looked at the floor.
The ride was quick. The elevator stopped at the second floor. Taylor watched the man’s pudgy ass waddle off the elevator. Should have taken the stairs, buddy.
She got off at the fifth floor. Following a black-and-white diamond-patterned corridor, she stopped in front of room 502. She didn’t hesitate. She rapped three times, almost amused that it seemed like a secret knock. The door was opened immediately by the foreman of the jury, and she was ushered into the room.
Twelve members of the grand jury were already seated at the table. Taylor recognized the faces. She’d sat in front of them just a few weeks before. She had testified on her own behalf, explaining the shooting of Detective David Martin as self-defense. Thankfully, the grand jury had agreed with her assessment and did not indict her. Now they had to decide the rest of the case, the one Taylor had blown wide-open.
She took her seat at the head of the table. The thirteenth juror, the foreman, a sweet gentleman with a thick southern accent and black glasses, held the chair for her. She thought he looked a bit like the colonel from the fried chicken chain. When she was seated, he took the chair to her left and cleared his throat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you all know Lieutenant Jackson. Lieutenant, could you state your name and occupation for the record, please?”
Her voice cracked when she answered. “Certainly. My name is Taylor Jackson, lieutenant, Criminal Investigations Division, Homicide Unit. Badge number 4746. Let me apologize up front for my voice. I’ve caught the Tennessee Crud. I’ll try not to sneeze on you.” That drew a few smiles and laughs from the room. Taylor relaxed. It was better to work with an audience that was at ease.
“Thank you, honey,” the colonel replied, his courtly southern demeanor overshadowing his professionalism. He addressed the room. “We’re here today to gather information relating to the alleged criminal activity of Ray Alvarez, Tom Westin, and Nelson Sanders, all employed by the Nashville Metro Police Department, working in the Vice squad, and David Martin, of the Homicide Unit.” The contempt in his voice was apparent. Handing down indictments of officers of the law was not taken lightly.
He continued. “Now, we’ve read a summary of the case. Lieutenant Jackson, we understand that you were called in to investigate a suspicious death, a young girl named Tamika Jones. And the investigation led you to uncover information that implicated four fellow members of the Metro Police—David Martin, now deceased, Ray Alvarez, Tom Westin, and Nelson Sanders. These men were complicit in a black-market scheme that was ultimately profitable for them. Am I correct in this summary?”
Taylor nodded.
The colonel smiled and leaned back in his chair. The business end was over. It was time to hear Taylor’s version of events. “Now then, let’s discuss Tamika Jones. Could you go over it for us, please?”
Taylor surveyed the room. Here were thirteen very powerful people. They had the mission of deciding who and what got prosecuted in Nashville’s criminal courts. They met in secret, were basically a self-governing body. No lawyers or district attorneys were allowed. It was just the person who had been subpoenaed to appear, and the thirteen jurors, like a lopsided cabal. Yet for all the seriousness of their job, the spirit in the room was congenial, friendly even. This particular meeting held the futures of three men in the balance, but the atmosphere was reminiscent of a book club gathering.
Taylor cleared her throat and took her notebook out of her pocket. She didn’t need to open it. “Of course, Mr. Foreman. On October second of this year, I was called to the home of Clementine Hamilton, 453-A Moore Street, Nashville, Tennessee. It was coming on ten o’clock in the evening. When I entered the premises, I found the woman’s twelve-year-old granddaughter, Tamika Jones, on the kitchen floor. She was lying on her right side, curled in the fetal position. There was a pool of blood under her body.”
Taylor quickly lost herself in her narrative. She couldn’t have imagined how investigating Tamika Jones’s death would change her life forever.
*
Moore Street was one of Nashville’s nastiest projects. Many of the city’s homicides happened there. Some were fueled by drugs, most others by desperation. Whatever the cause, the effect was tangible—the Moore Street projects accounted for nearly 30 percent of all the murders in Nashville in a given year.
In the gloaming dusk, Taylor exited her vehicle to the usual catcalls. In these projects, men and women of varied ages roamed the streets aimlessly at all hours of the day and night, talking, watching, being. The typical crowd had gathered when they heard the news. She ignored the rude gestures
, the propositions, and threats. She walked through the manufactured similitude of the rundown buildings to the complainant’s front door. The screen was cut. The wooden door stood open. Taylor could hear the sound of crying and smell the blood. Though there were other police around as well as EMTs, she instinctively put her hand on her gun.
A pale-faced EMT saw her looking through the screen and came over to the door. He opened it silently. His motions were sluggish. He looked as though he might be sick. She gave him a look of concern, then continued into the cramped house. The walls were paneled with dark walnut, lending the depressed air of the room a morose tone. Attempts had been made to keep the walls clean, but it seemed halfhearted. Lace curtains, yellowed with cigarette smoke, hung limply over the window. Taylor could see a bullet hole in one pane. The carpet was orange shag, about a million years old, and it didn’t quite reach the four corners of the room. The home was squalid. The fetid stink of despair hung from every corner like a blanket.
She stepped through to the kitchen. She immediately realized why the home was such a mess—the woman sitting at the tiny, unstable kitchen table was blind. Her eyes were milky white, made more opaque by the contrast with her blue-black skin. She was old, very, very old. Taylor bit back a curse. The woman should be in a home with people to take care of her, not living on her own.
There were tears leaking ever so slowly from the woman’s blind eyes. For a moment, it seemed she and Taylor were alone, just the two of them in the putrid little kitchen, and she looked right into Taylor’s soul. Taylor got a chill down her spine. Then the old woman’s head turned and Taylor spotted the body of the girl. All other thoughts left her. She stepped carefully, avoiding the pooling blood.
The girl’s skin was lighter than her grandmother’s, and unmarred by the ravages of age. Her hair was braided into tiny rows, each held in place with alternating blue and white beads. Though dispatch had said the girl was twelve, she looked older. Taylor guessed that came from living hard.
She threw off all the cloaking of compassion and became a cop. She turned to the EMT leaning against the counter.
“What’s the story here?”
“Tamika Jones, twelve years old. Seems she had an abortion today. Came by to check on her grandmother, collapsed on the floor. I’m assuming something went wrong with the procedure, and she bled out.”
Taylor gave him a sharp look. Assuming wasn’t allowed.
“You know for a fact she had an abortion?”
A voice, deep and rich, drifted toward Taylor’s ears.
“She told me she was. That’s how I know. Honeychile told me she was riddin’ herself of the child. I told her it was a sin. She didn’t care. Never listened to old me anyways.”
Taylor turned and saw Tamika’s grandmother looking her straight in the eye. Taylor shuddered, and the woman laughed. “Don’t take sight to see, girl. I know you’re right there in front of me. Honeychile’s been acting stupid for a while now, whoring around, taking drugs. I told her it would come to no good. She don’t listen to her gran, though. I told her that man would kill her, one way or the other.” The woman turned away, and Taylor stood, frozen, as if Medusa had glared out of the woman’s sightless eyes.
“Ma’am, what man are you talking about? Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Haw,” the woman spit out. “Boyfriend. Girl, child like that, she got herself a pimp. A sugar daddy. He whores her out, gives her the drugs.”
“Do you have his name, ma’am? Any way I can contact him?”
The woman made the guttural noise again. Taylor understood it was a mirthless laugh. She got quiet, then seemed to shrink in on herself, drawing into the collar of her stained dressing gown like a turtle. The interview was obviously over.
Taylor took a deep breath and stared down at the little girl. The story was all too familiar.
CHAPTER 52
“The medical examiner’s autopsy report found the girl had in fact procured an abortion within the past twelve hours. You were able to contact the doctor who performed the abortion, one Carl Murray?” asked the foreman.
The question yanked Taylor back into the small room. She nodded and licked her lips.
“Correct. I was given his name by one of Tamika’s friends. The girl only identified herself as Annya, wouldn’t give me her last name. She was the one who confirmed that Tamika had seen Dr. Murray earlier that day. I visited Dr. Murray, and he denied ever seeing the girl. There was no way to confirm either story. Unfortunately, even if he had performed an abortion on Tamika, I couldn’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
“That’s when Annya called again. She asked me just how stupid I really was.” Taylor shook her head. “She told me about the setup. The word on the street was if you needed an abortion, you could go to Dr. Murray. He would do an abortion without parental consent for only a hundred dollars a pop. There was one catch. You had to bring as many boxes as you could of an over-the-counter decongestant known as pseudoephedrine hydrochloride with you. One hundred dollars and several packs of Sudafed? It was the deal of the century for these girls.
“Recognizing a possible criminal enterprise, I brought Annya on board as a confidential informant. With her contacts, I started seeing a trend. It wasn’t just the poor black girls going to Dr. Murray. It seemed everyone who Vice would have interest in was seeing him as well. Strippers, prostitutes, drug addicts—all of them were being funneled to Dr. Murray for abortions.”
“Which in itself is not necessarily illegal, is it, Lieutenant?” The foreman smiled at her gently. The grand jury knew all of the details of the case from their summary documents. For legal purposes, they needed to hear it from Taylor’s own mouth.
“No, sir, it isn’t. Incredibly unethical, but not illegal. I had a better chance of busting Dr. Murray for doing abortions on underage girls, but even that was tricky. If they show him an ID saying they’re sixteen, he’s covered.
“Something felt wrong to me. Rumors were swirling. Word on the street was there were other people involved, people in the police department, and drugs were playing a role. I didn’t want to make any unfounded accusations, but I needed to separate the truth from the rumors.
“I set up a loose surveillance on Dr. Murray’s office. It quickly became apparent that he had a very successful practice. Almost too successful to be handling a patient load that large. If I hadn’t been clued in about what he was doing I would have assumed he was just a very popular neighborhood doctor.
“That’s when I was contacted by Detective David Martin.”
*
The knock on the window of her unmarked vehicle made Taylor jump a mile. She looked out to see the grinning face of David Martin, one of the detectives in Homicide. He was blowing her cover, damn it. She put down her window in annoyance.
“What’s up, David?”
“What’s up with you, Taylor? Sitting on a house?”
She just smiled. “What can I do for you?”
He smiled back. “We need to talk about what’s going on with the esteemed Dr. Murray. I know you’re looking at him, and there’s something going on that may involve the department. I’ve got some information for you. Let’s go get something to eat and talk about it.”
Taylor’s first impression was that David had gotten information and was there to help her bust whoever was involved. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
She followed him as he drove to the Shoney’s across the bridge from police headquarters. Taylor noted that they were well away from Dr. Murray’s office.
They went inside. Martin ordered coffee and eggs from a robust waitress. Taylor asked for Diet Coke. Her appetite had left her back at the stakeout.
Martin leaned back in the booth and gave her a lazy grin. “So, Taylor. Whatcha been up to lately?”
“David, I just want to talk about what’s happening at Dr. Murray’s. What information do you have?”
“Ah, c’mon now, sugar britches. Tell me you don’t want to catch up with me.”
He started to laugh. “Oh, struck a nerve, did I? You need to lighten up, Miss Loo-tenant.”
“I get it. You’re still pissed I got promoted and you didn’t. Tough shit, David. I earned this job.”
“Whatever you say, sassafras.”
That was the last straw. Taylor stood up and threw a dollar on the table. “Fuck you, Martin.” She turned to leave but he grabbed her wrist.
“Oh, c’mon now. Sit back down. I know you’re pissed at me, but you need to forget about it for a while. We need to talk about the doctor.”
Taylor yanked her wrist out of his hand. Turning slowly, she sat back down. “Talk,” she spit out.
CHAPTER 53
“Detective Martin offered to cut me in on the deal. Dr. Murray was producing and selling the drug methamphetamine in the back room of his offices. He would do an abortion for a cut rate as long as the woman provided him with a certain quantity of pseudoephedrine. Since ephedrine, one of the main ingredients in meth, is a controlled substance and difficult to procure, meth cooks can produce ephedrine by processing large quantities of pseudoephedrine. It seems that once the laws on selling pseudoephedrine over the counter in Tennessee changed, when they put it back in the pharmacies where it couldn’t be shoplifted, the meth makers were having a hard time producing the quantities to meet their demand. They needed a legitimate way to get their hands on the pseudoephedrine. Detective Martin was working with the three previously mentioned Vice squad detectives—Ray Alvarez, Tom Westin, and Nelson Sanders.