The Avenged

by Charles Prandy

  Five doors were on my side of the hallway: two offices, two bathrooms and one supply room. Management of the building contacted their security company and decoded all of the doors so that we wouldn’t need security keys to open them.

  The first door on the right was a glass door with the name Loventon & Smith, LLC, which I assumed was a law firm. I pushed the door open and entered a small lobby comprised of a reception desk and two leather couches in front of it. I passed through the reception area and entered the back offices and quickly made my rounds through each office. With everything clear, I returned to the hallway.

  The second door on the right led to a men’s bathroom. As I gripped the door handle, I heard movement coming from down the hall, which initially startled me. I released the door and aimed my gun in the direction of the sound and slowly moved towards it.

  Harvey Lindenberg was all I could think about. The sound could be coming from the SWAT officers checking the rooms, but something told me it wasn’t. It was Harvey Lindenberg.

  I looked to the right to see if Tim was in sight, but he wasn’t. I wanted to call for backup, but dared not as Harvey could hear the radio.

  The sound became more pronounced the closer I got to the center of the hallway, and I knew it was coming from the middle door. With no backup, I took a chance on being one-on-one with a man who has no problem killing.

  My heart was thumping in my chest as I reached for the door’s handle. My eyes widened and I took a deep breath, ready for whatever was on the other side. I twisted the knob and exploded through the door with my gun aimed.

  “Police!”

  Twenty-three

  I NEARLY DROPPED MY gun at the sight. If I weren’t staring at it myself, I never would have believed it. Three people were lying on the floor, two of whom were unconscious. The one who was moving around and trying to unbind himself was the hostage. I reached for my radio, still shocked by what was before me.

  “Tim, get down here fast, first door on the left!”

  I hurried to the first man, a SWAT officer, who was both bound and nearly naked. He was alive. I stepped over to the next SWAT officer and saw that he was alive as well.

  “Goddammit,” I screamed.

  Tim swiftly stepped into the room with his machine gun engaged, as if to shoot on sight.

  “My God,” he said.

  He knelt down next to Smith, the nearly naked SWAT officer. He pulled the black duct tape from his mouth and unbound his wrists. Tim slapped Smith’s face until he came around.

  “What happened?” Tim asked.

  Smith’s eyes partly opened and then closed again.

  “Smith!”

  Tim rested Smith’s head on the ground and then radioed the rest of his men.

  “The shooter’s still in the building, possibly wearing a SWAT uniform. Smith and Clayton are down. I repeat, Smith and Clayton are down. I need paramedics on the fourth floor, ASAP.”

  I jumped to my feet and started to leave the room.

  “Stay with your men. I’m going back to the lobby.”

  I rushed down the hallway and found the stairwell, taking the stairs five at a time until I neared the bottom floors. The only way out of the building was through the front door, and the only way to catch Harvey Lindenberg was to beat him there.

  I underestimated Harvey’s skill. I figured the shooter had to be a professional for picking today to do the killing, while the building had a conference full of out-of-town people. But to be able to shoot his way out of a lobby full of cops and then take out two SWAT officers was unimaginable.

  I reached the lobby and saw that it was full of uniformed cops and a few plainclothes detectives. I stood in the center of the lobby and raised my hands to get everyone’s attention.

  “Listen, the shooter’s name is Harvey Lindenberg and he may be dressed in a SWAT uniform. Have any SWAT come down in the last few minutes?”

  The officers shook their heads no.

  “Be on full alert that no one wearing SWAT gear can leave the building until they are thoroughly checked.”

  Twenty-four

  AN HOUR WENT BY, with no word from Harvey Lindenberg. The nail-biting suspense was killing me inside. I wanted to run through the building and check every room, but I also wanted to be in the lobby in case Harvey Lindenberg somehow made it down.

  My last communication with Tim had been thirty minutes before, when he said that his men were scouring the building.

  I didn’t want to believe it, but I was beginning to think that Harvey Lindenberg somehow made it out of the building. How? I still held onto hope that Tim and his men would find him, but that hope was quickly slipping away.

  “Jacob,” Tim’s voice came over the radio and brought me out of thought.

  “Talk to me.”

  “We’ve got nothing.”

  I lowered my head as my fear was confirmed. Harvey had gotten away.

  Part Three: The Judge

  Twenty-five

  The Next Day

  AT NINE A.M. SHARP, the announcement was made for all to rise. Superior Court Judge Frank Peters entered the courtroom like royalty, wearing a sleek black robe. He stepped up to the bench and gracefully sat down. He scanned the courtroom and saw a couple dozen people scattered in the pews, all of them standing and waiting for his command.

  “You may be seated,” he said in a husky voice that sounded amplified in the quiet room.

  Everyone took their seats.

  He slipped a pair of wire-framed reading glasses over his eyes that nearly came down to the tip of his nose as he opened a case file. The caption for the first document read: The District of Columbia v. John Hayes, and under the caption, in bold letters, said: Decision. Judge Frank Peters glanced over the Decision and then raised his head, narrowing his eyes at the defendant.

  “Will the defendant please rise.”

  The defendant, John Hayes, a slimy two-bit crook with tattoos covering his neck and a shaved head like a skinhead, slid his seat back and stood with his lawyer. He looked uncomfortable wearing a suit.

  “Before I begin, I’d like to remind the defendant that you waived a trial by jury, which means that I’m the only one deciding your fate. Correct?”

  Tim Johnson, a public defender who looked like he had just graduated from law school, acknowledged for the defendant, “Correct, Your Honor.”

  “Very well. As to the charge of felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, I find the defendant guilty and sentence him to the maximum time allowed, ten years.”

  Judge Peters slammed his gavel.

  John Hayes looked to his lawyer with utter shock. Two uniformed court deputies stood behind the defendant and placed him in handcuffs.

  Tim Johnson tentatively raised his hand and tried to speak up. “Your Honor?”

  Judge Frank Peters yanked off his reading glasses and nearly growled. “Is there something you want, counselor?”

  “It’s just…I…”

  The deputies took John Hayes out of the courtroom. He looked at Tim Johnson, confused, and then to the Judge, and then lowered his head as he exited the room.

  Tim Johnson lowered his hand and dejectedly said, “Nothing, Your Honor.”

  “Very well.”

  The judge closed the file and moved on to the next one.

  Twenty-six

  “WAKE UP, SLEEPY HEAD.”

  I felt the tender touch of soft fingers rubbing my cheek. I slowly opened my eyes and then felt succulent moist lips gently press against mine.

  “How’s my tired detective doing this afternoon?”

  I smiled as my body stretched to its full length.

  “Afternoon?”

  “It’s just past one o’clock.”

  “Geeesh, I didn’t mean to sleep this late.”

  “That’s your body telling you it needs rest.”

  I nodded and then quickly grabbed Theresa and pulled her into bed. She playfully screamed, but willingly fell. I pulled her closer and wrapped my arms aroun
d her and laid my head in the center of her breasts. I loved this woman more than she knew. I closed my eyes and succumbed to the gentle massage that her fingers played against my scalp.

  “You wanna talk about it?” she asked.

  I exhaled as I moved my hand to her stomach and gently made circles around her belly button with my index finger.

  “I had to finally call it a night. We searched for this guy for nearly ten hours after we left the building, with no luck. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

  I turned my head and looked into her almond-colored eyes.

  “It’s like he just vanished off the face of the earth. How does that happen? I mean, how does a guy escape from a building swarmed with cops without being seen. It’s a trick not even Houdini could pull off.”

  “Maybe Captain Kirk beamed him aboard The Enterprise with Spock and Bones.”

  “I wish that was the explanation. At least it would make sense. Although then I’d have to wonder why the Enterprise would have beamed him down in the first place.”

  Theresa kissed the top of my head and said, “Turn around.”

  She took off my shirt and motioned for me to lie on my stomach. When I was comfortable she straddled my backside.

  “Take deep breaths.”

  I did. With the balls of her palms, she rubbed my lower back in circular motions and then slowly moved them up my spine and onto my shoulders. I felt like I was in Heaven. Once on my shoulders, she extended her fingers and rubbed deep into my muscles.

  “How does that feel?”

  “Great.”

  She laughed, “Okay, relax.”

  She then moved her hands to my neck, then wrapped them around the back of my head and chin. With a quick jerk, she jolted my head and cracked the bones in my neck.

  “Hey.”

  “Feel better?”

  I moved my head around from side to side. “Actually, I do.”

  She moved from my backside and laid next to me.

  “You were stressed. Your muscles and joints were tight. By cracking the bones, I’ve relieved the tension.”

  “That’s why I married a doctor. Now if you could only perform miracles and point me in the direction of my shooter.”

  “Let me pull out my crystal ball.”

  We laughed, but inside I couldn’t help feeling the weight of not finding the shooter. To make things worse, we found out that the real Harvey Lindenberg died in April of 1947. So now I was faced with searching for a nameless suspect whose face was burned into my brain. Composite sketches had already been worked up and sent to every news outlet in the city, so now it’s just a matter of patience. I’m also hoping that something about the victim will help point me in the right direction.

  I kissed Theresa’s hands and then rubbed my fingers through her hair.

  “Thanks for everything.”

  Before she could respond, my BlackBerry chimed. I reached over to the nightstand and picked it up. A text message from Charlie Evans telling me that they had some information on the victim. Just what I was waiting for.

  “Good news?” she asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  Twenty-seven

  JUDGE FRANK PETERS COMFORTABLY sat in his chair as it leaned back, allowing his hands to rest on the edge of his desk with his fingers interlocked between one another. His face was expressionless as Tim Johnson, the public defender in the Hayes case, stood before his desk, nervous. They were in the judge’s chamber because Tim had asked for a brief meeting to discuss the verdict against his client. Tim was of average height and build, with short-cropped hair, a long nose and bushy eyebrows. He’d only been out of law school for three years.

  Frank curled his lips and then looked to his right. Nathan Hunt, a large Italian-looking man in a black suit sat on a leather couch with an open newspaper. Nathan appeared to be reading the paper and uninterested, but Frank knew that he was paying attention to every word. That’s what he was paid to do.

  Frank looked back at Tim.

  “So you have a problem with the sentence, is that it?” Frank asked.

  Tim gulped and, before responding, looked over to Nathan.

  “It’s not that, Your Honor. I just thought we had a different understanding.”

  “Understanding?”

  Tim didn’t respond, but his face screamed panic.

  Frank slowly stood from his chair and casually walked around his large mahogany desk. Despite being sixty-two, he was in excellent shape, and if it weren’t for his thinning grey hair, he would look like he was in his forties. He was wearing a blue collared shirt which accentuated his broad shoulders, strong pecs and bulging arms. When he was in his twenties, Frank had competed as an amateur body builder before he took to the bench. He knew he didn’t have the physiology to go pro, but enjoyed the competition on the local level. Now his physique was likened to Sylvester Stallone’s, who also didn’t seem to age.

  He motioned for Tim to sit in one of the empty chairs in front of the desk. Tim nodded and moved to sit, but before he could, Frank swung an open hand and smacked him in the face. Tim tumbled over the chair and fell on his back.

  “Get up you, pencil-pushing coward! Do you know how much that idiot cost me?”

  Tim stayed on the floor with a hand covering his cheek. He looked over at Nathan, who didn’t bat an eye from the paper.

  Just as casually as he had stood, Frank returned to his chair. He leaned back and placed his hands on the end of his desk, interlocking his fingers between one another.

  “So what’s our understanding now?”

  Tim slowly stood and repositioned the chair to take a seat. The left side of his face was red as an apple.

  “There’s no misunderstanding, Your Honor.”

  A smile curled on Frank’s face. “That’s what I want to hear.”

  The phone on his desk beeped and a female voice came to life.

  “Mayor Bradley’s on the line, sir.”

  “Good. Tell him I’ll be one minute.”

  Frank returned his attention to Tim. “Anything else?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Very well. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  As Tim turned to leave, Frank picked up the phone. “Michael, good to hear from you, buddy.”

  Twenty-eight

  “WHATCHA GOT FOR ME, Charlie?” I asked as I entered the back offices of the police station.

  “We got an ID on the victim from the park yesterday.” He shuffled some papers around and then pulled out a manila folder that had a picture of the dead victim. “Faraji Owusu. Originally from Kenya. Family emigrated here when he was ten years old.”

  Charlie handed the folder to me.

  “Kenya?” I said as I sat at my desk.

  “Yep. He used to be a prosecutor here in the city, but moved into private practice a few years ago.”

  I slumped in my chair and rolled my eyes. I knew my job of finding the shooter had just gotten harder. Prosecutors are known for receiving death threats from people they put behind bars, or from people who are close to the ones who were put behind bars. Depending on how long he had worked as a prosecutor, the list could be enormous.

  “Do we know if he worked on any high-profile cases?”

  “Not yet. We haven’t gotten a chance to interview any of his present and former colleagues.”

  “Family?”

  “I talked to his wife and she said that everything was normal. She doesn’t know of anyone who’d want him dead.”

  I thought about the wife for a minute. General procedure in a murder investigation, although it’s not written in stone, is to interview the family members or those closest to the victim. It’s an unfortunate fact, but most murder victims are killed by people they know. Could the wife have put a hit out on the victim? Was he cheating on her? Beating her? Did he do something to her that was so bad that she had him killed? Did he have money? If it wasn’t for that fact that a sniper shot him from the roof of a building, I would take those tho
ughts into serious consideration. This wasn’t a typical murder and I believed that the man who called himself Harvey Lindenberg wasn’t a typical killer. I thought I could go out on a limb and say that the wife wasn’t involved.

  So then why was he killed by a sniper? Who would possibly want him dead? Business associates? Greed could be a factor. All kinds of questions started to flood through my mind. The victim was from Kenya. Maybe he did something to someone over in Kenya and this was how he was repaid? Could the sniper be a contract killer? Or maybe a killer with a vendetta? The sniper attacks in 2002 in the D.C. area by Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad caused such a ruckus that people were terrified to leave their houses. Could this be a copycat killer trying to make a name for himself? I didn’t think so, but the fact that a sniper had killed someone in the city nearly a decade after the 2002 sniper attacks would stay in the back of my mind until this was over.

  The more I thought about it, the more I leaned on the fact that this was a professional hit. The sniper had stashed a gun behind a picture in the lobby just in case he had to use it, which showed that he was prepared for anything to happen. Also the fact that he was able to escape a building full of police showed that he’s smarter than the average killer.

  “Okay, we’ll need to start at the beginning. Find out where he went to law school and who he clerked for. This was a professional hit, so somewhere down the line, he crossed paths with the wrong person.”

  “Actually, he clerked for Judge Peters from 1994 to 1996.”

  I sat up in my seat. With all the commotion of the sniper shooting, I had completely forgotten about my conversation with Turtle in the park.

  “Judge Frank Peters?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Interested in taking a ride?”

  Twenty-nine

  WALKING DOWN THE HALLWAY to the judge’s chambers reminded me of that long walk to the principal’s office after I’d gotten in trouble in elementary school. I didn’t know why I was nervous; I’d be the one asking the questions and the judge would be answering. Maybe it’s the fact that a judge stands as the authority in the legal community; someone who’s respected and feared, similar to a principal. Or maybe it’s because in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the conversation with Turtle and how Judge Peters could possibly be involved in an illegal business.