The Vigilantes

by W. E. B Griffin

  “So?” one teenage male in the crowd shouted in reply.

  “Yeah, after all the things this shit has done to people?” another voice added.

  The beefy Javier started muscling his way into the circle, grabbing elbows and pulling shoulders. He forced open a path to the center. Just as he reached the limp and bloodied body, Javier saw an elbow swinging toward him. He failed to duck in time, and the elbow caught him in the corner of his right eye.

  “Shit!” Javier screamed out in pain, instantly covering his injured eye with his right hand. He swung his left hand over his head. “Goddamn it, everybody just fucking stop! Yvette, get them to stop!”

  Paco Ramirez stepped next to Yvette Iglesia and waved his arms at the crowd. “Hey, everybody stop! Who hit Javier?”

  It took a moment for the momentum to slow—there were a couple last kicks at Xavier Smith—but finally the crowd stood still. And stared down Javier.

  Javier said, “Listen to me! You kill him, you’re going to run from that the rest of your lives—”

  “It’d be worth it!” a male teen in the crowd shouted.

  Javier went on: “It’s not worth it, is what I’m telling you. You need to let him get arrested, get charged with murdering Principal Bazelon.”

  “No cops,” Paco said. “No way.”

  The reward! Javier suddenly remembered.

  Let that rich guy Fuller turn him in. . . .

  He said: “Take Xpress in and get that ten-thousand-dollar reward!”

  Yvette looked at her brother, and her face lit up as she said, “That’s right!”

  Then she looked at the crowd and said, “Javier’s right! This piece of shit actually is worth something. And we can share the reward with Sasha.”

  She looked again at Javier. “Where’s the place?”

  He thought back to the Medical Examiner’s Office unit that had picked up the three bodies the previous night. “In Old City, Arch and Third. Place is called . . . what the hell was it? . . . Lex Talionis.”

  Yvette nodded.

  She then turned to the male with the baseball bat and said, “Go get your truck!”

  He ran to the red Ford pickup, got in, and sped back.

  Two teenage males were already waiting with the unconscious Xavier Smith in their hands. Everyone watched as the pair threw his limp body into the back of the truck like some sack of trash, then climbed in after him. Five others followed, filling the small truck until its rear seat sat low with their weight.

  Then the truck roared away.

  Yvette turned to Javier. She reached up and gingerly pulled back his right hand, inspecting the injury.

  “Oh, wow,” she said, wincing. “That’s going to be a nice shiner.” Then she smiled and added, “Big bruise for big bro.”

  “Great. Just what I need,” he said. He pulled out his cell phone, scrolled the list of stored numbers, and called the one he’d entered as SGT PAYNE.

  Wonder what the odds are of Xpress being alive when they get there?

  [TWO]

  Homicide Unit Interview Room II The Roundhouse Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 1:11 P.M.

  “I want my reward,” Shauna Mays repeated to Sergeant M. M. Payne.

  “Yes, you’ve said that. And I’ve told you we need some questions answered about Kendrik’s death.”

  Payne felt his cell phone vibrating. He carefully pulled it from his pants pocket. He glanced at its screen but did not recognize the caller ID number, so he let the caller get routed into voice mail.

  “And I want these damn handcuffs off,” she said. “I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  Interview Room II was small, ten by twelve feet, and held only a single bare metal table and two metal chairs, all pushed up against one wall. The chair that Shauna Mays sat in was bolted to the floor. One end of a pair of handcuffs was clipped around a bar on the seatback, the other cuff around her left wrist. On the opposite wall was a four-foot-square one-way mirror.

  The room was harshly lit, and it was cold. Shauna Mays, her arms and legs crossed, shivered in her dirty, loose-hanging T-shirt and torn black jeans. Payne was not sure if the cause was the clothing or her obvious lack of a recent bath, but she gave off a musty odor that reeked of filth. He tried not to come too close to her.

  There was a handheld digital audio recorder on the table between them. But the real recording equipment, audio and video, was behind the one-way mirror, in the small viewing room. Tony Harris, watching the interview with Jason Washington, was running the camera.

  It had taken no time at all to bring in Shauna Mays—Third and Arch was only four blocks from the Roundhouse—particularly after Mayor Jerry Carlucci let loose with his famous temper when he saw her and her dead son on the bank of TV monitors in the Executive Command Center.

  After saying “Oh, shit!” his very next breath had been: “Get that damn uniform to arrest her right damn now on suspicion of murder and bring her here for questioning! I damn well just said that those responsible for any death will be prosecuted to the fullest—and goddamn it, that’s what’s going to happen!”

  Matt Payne now looked down at the gaunt and badly bruised woman, and took pity.

  Someone’s really slapped her around, especially in the face. And her hand, which she must have tried to use for protection.

  She could barely stand on her own two feet while they were rolling her fingers for prints and checking her hands for gunpowder residue.

  The only person she’s a danger to is herself. . . .

  He said, “I’ll remove the cuff, but one thing goes wrong and it goes back on.”

  She nodded.

  Taking out his handcuff key, Payne asked, “Who hit you?”

  “Who you think? Kendrik.”

  He nodded.

  “Can I get you something to eat or drink?” he asked as he removed the cuff.

  “Maybe a soda?”

  Payne looked to the one-way mirror. He couldn’t see anyone—except, of course, the reflections of himself and Shauna Mays—but he knew that on the other side of the glass they’d see him looking, and that they’d bring the drink from the small refrigerator that was kept stocked in the unit.

  A moment later there was a knock on the door, and when Payne unlocked and opened it a crack, a massive black paw of a hand reached in with a screw-top plastic bottle of grape-flavored soda and a snack-size bag of Tastykake.

  “Thanks, Jason,” he said, taking them, and then closing and locking the door.

  Payne placed both on the table before Shauna Mays. As she reached for them, her bruised hand trembled.

  He said, “Would you like me to open them?”

  She nodded.

  She ate the whole bag of Tastykake in about three mouthfuls, washing it down with half the soda in two swallows. Then she loudly belched.

  She looked at Payne but said nothing.

  Payne pulled from his pocket a small notepad and pen, then reached over to the recorder and pushed its red button to begin recording.

  He glanced at his wristwatch and said, “Today is Sunday, November first. Time is one-twenty P.M. This interview is being held in the Philadelphia Police Department Homicide Unit, and conducted by me, Sergeant M. M. Payne, badge number 471.”

  He looked at Shauna Mays, who seemed to be mesmerized by what Payne had just said.

  Either that, or all of a sudden the sugar and salt in her system is throwing off her blood sugar balance.

  He said, “Would you please state your name?”

  “Shauna. Shauna Mays.”

  “And where do you live, Ms. Mays?”

  “In Philadelphia.”

  “Okay. And your address is?”

  “Uh, over on Wilder.”

  “That would be 2620 Wilder Street, Philadelphia 19147.”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh. That right.”

  “Have you been read your Miranda rights, Ms. Mays?”

  “My what?”

  “You have the right to remain s
ilent, the right to have an attorney—”

  “Oh, yeah,” she interrupted. “That first cop did that.”

  “And you’re freely willing to now answer any questions?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Just so I gets my reward.”

  “Right. We’ll get to that, Ms. Mays. First, Kendrik Mays is your son, correct?”

  “Yeah. He my boy.”

  “Can you tell me what happened to Kendrik?”

  “He got hisself killed.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m aware of that. How did it happen?”

  “He was doing bad. Long time. He had it coming.”

  “Because he beat you? You did say he’s responsible for the bruises on your body.”

  She looked at him oddly. “I don’t understand.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No! I told that first cop that!”

  “Okay, then how did it happen, Ms. Mays?”

  “I guess that bullet killed him.”

  Payne exhaled audibly. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Who had the gun?”

  “A delivery guy. He come in with Kendrik’s paper. That paper I had that the cop took?”

  “The Wanted sheet?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. He come in and—No, wait. First he say he got a check for Kendrik. And when I let him in, he give me the paper. The sheet. Said there was no check.”

  “This began at what time?”

  She cocked her head. “Time? This morning, all I know. Ain’t no clocks in a crack house!”

  Payne nodded as he wrote that on his notepad and thought, Right.

  If something’s not nailed down, it’s sold for drugs.

  My God, what a way to live.

  “What did this guy look like? And was he alone, anyone else in the house?”

  “Just him. Old white guy, maybe my age. Tall. Kinda skinny.”

  Payne wrote that down and asked, “He give you a name? You ever see him before?”

  “Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “I think Kendrik did something bad to this guy. Or maybe to his family. Robbery, rape, something. Once my boy got in the drugs, he was no good.”

  Payne noted that on his pad, then said, “This old white guy your age—anything unusual about him? Anything at all special or different you remember about him?”

  She thought about that for a moment. Then she grinned.

  “He give me money. A hundred dollars, he did! How many times that going to happen? Some white guy come in your house and give you a hundred dollars, then tell you how to get ten thousand more!”

  She’s almost giddy.

  The sugar must really be kicking in.

  She squinted her eyes at Payne and wagged her right index finger at him. “And I want my reward!”

  “This man had a gun?”

  She looked at Payne with an expression that suggested he was nuts. “How else Kendrik get shot? Had to! I never saw it. But it made a loud noise. Sounded like a cannon boom in the basement.”

  “That’s where Kendrik was shot, in the basement? Do we have your permission to go through it and search your whole house?”

  She nodded, then snickered. “If you want. Sure. Just try not to make a mess.” She looked at Payne and said, her tone flat, “That was a joke.”

  Now she’s feeling so good she’s a damn comedienne.

  Payne nodded, then said, “You do know it’s against the law to tamper with the scene of a crime, remove or otherwise alter evidence?”

  She shrugged.

  Payne raised an eyebrow, then went on: “Okay, do you know the cabbie who helped you?”

  She shook her head. “No. He just the first one who’d help me. Had to walk four blocks till I found him on Reed Street. Only charged me twenty bucks. Said he was sorry for me but glad to see Kendrik got what he deserved. Nobody liked that boy.”

  Payne wrote that as he asked, “And this cabbie helped you do what?”

  “He’s a really big guy. He took that rug and rolled Kendrik up in it, then carried him to the car.”

  “Ms. Mays, that’s the tampering with evidence I’m referring to. You should’ve called 911 and—”

  She laughed. “Call 911? What? I ain’t got no phone. And I sure as hell wouldn’t call no police if I did.”

  Payne stared at her.

  Amazing. You get beat to hell and back, someone blows away your son in your basement, but whatever you do, don’t call the good guys. . . .

  He went on: “Are you also aware it’s against the law to harbor a fugitive?”

  “Harbor?”

  “Let him live with you.”

  She sat up in the chair, puffed up her chest, and in as loud and angry a voice as she could muster said, “I didn’t let him live with me! I throwed him out over and over. But he come back. And when I try throwing him out again, after he been in jail, that’s when he beat me really bad. What can I do? I got no money to move out, so I just deal with it all . . .” Her voice trailed off. She reached for the soda bottle and drained it.

  Then she crossed her arms and glared at Payne. “I want my reward!”

  Payne looked back at her, then glanced at his watch and said to the recorder, “Interview paused at one-forty P.M.”

  He stood, stuck his notepad in his pocket, and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  He left the handcuff off her but, using the sliding bolt, locked the interview room door from the outside.

  Only Jason Washington was in the small observation room when Payne entered.

  “The minute you got her permission,” Washington said, his deep, sonorous voice answering the unasked question, “Tony went to get a Search and Seizure warrant signed by the judge and sent the Crime Lab to her house.”

  “If that house is anything like its resident, I doubt we’re going to get anything of real use. Other than maybe a bullet fragment. The shooter probably collected his shell casings.”

  Washington nodded and said, “You’re probably correct, Matthew. But you know to ‘never say never.’”

  “And ‘always check the rock under the rock,’” Payne said with a smile, citing Washington’s well-known rule of thumb for conducting thorough investigations.

  “I learned you well, Young Matthew,” Washington said mock-seriously.

  Payne looked at Shauna Mays through the window and parroted her: “‘I want my reward.’”

  Washington chuckled, but then in a serious tone said, “And she should get it, considering the hell she went through.”

  Payne looked at him, then back at her.

  After a long moment he said, “Jason, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “She didn’t do it,” Washington immediately answered. “She’s arguably guilty of a whole host of other mistakes in life. But murder isn’t one of them. And after one look at her physical condition, the DA isn’t going to go after her for harboring a fugitive.”

  Payne nodded. “We could throw tampering with evidence charges at her, or even accessory to murder. But why?”

  “I doubt the DA would press charges if they caught her jaywalking,” Washington said. “We’ll hold her till we see what, if anything, they find at the scene. Then let her loose to collect her reward.”

  They looked at her again.

  After a moment Payne said coldly, “I’m betting this won’t be the last we hear of Shauna Mays. And not alive.”

  “Great minds follow similar paths, Matthew. I agree. There’re ten thousand reasons why.”

  “The whole ’hood will be after her money.”

  Matt Payne then felt his phone vibrating again. When he pulled it out, he saw the call was from the same number as the call he’d ignored earlier.

  He looked at Washington, shrugged, and said, “Excuse me.” He answered it: “Payne.”

  After a moment he said, “Hold on,” then hit the SPEAKERPHONE key.

  “You still there, Sergeant Payne?” Javier Iglesia’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Yeah, Javier,” Payne said. “I’m here wi
th Lieutenant Jason Washington—”

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” Javier interrupted. “Haven’t seen you in quite a while.”

  “How are you, Javier?” Washington asked.

  “Not real good. I was just telling Sergeant Payne that I’m near my home in Kingsessing—southwest Philadelphia?”

  “We know it,” Payne said. “What’s this you just said about a Principal Bazelon being murdered?”

  “We got the call from Twelfth District this morning that she’d died in her sleep,” Iglesia began. “But I just found out she really died during a home invasion by a really bad dude named Xpress Jones . . .”

  “. . . and now part of that crowd is taking Xpress down to collect that ten-grand reward,” Iglesia finished some five minutes later. “It being a homicide and all, I thought you’d want to be the ones who grabbed him.”

  “Give me this animal’s name again, Javier,” Payne said, pulling out his notepad and flipping to a clean page.

  “Xpress Smith. Xavier Smith, aka Xpress. Black male, twenty-four.”

  Payne wrote it down. “Okay. Got it. Any unusual features to look for to ID him?”

  Javier snorted. “Other than being attached to an angry mob of wannabe gangbangers? And the ten-g price tag on his head? Don’t worry, Sergeant. You can’t miss him. Xpress is pretty messed up.”

  “Thanks, Javier. We’ve already got someone down there. I’ll give him a heads-up.”

  “Later,” Javier said.

  Payne broke the connection, then slipped the cell phone back in the left front pocket of his pants.

  Matt Payne looked at Jason Washington and said, “So we have a mother bringing in her dead son, and now we have street-justice punks cashing in a really bad guy? And those first eight pop-and-drops. Killadelphia, indeed. The vigilantes—and now we know there’s at least one—are everywhere. Worse, I’m beginning to think Operation Clean Sweep has been commandeered by Five-Eff.”

  “Well, Francis Fuller’s reward system is certainly superior to ours in attracting attention,” Washington said. “To start with, he’s not a cop. And, as we well know, nobody on the street wants to talk to cops.”

  Payne grunted.

  He said, “Carlucci is really going to blow his cork when he hears about the street vigilantes turning in this thug and that Kendrik’s doer is still loose and, we can presume, still active. Next time you see my head, it’ll probably be on a platter.”