by Larry Enmon
She repositioned herself behind the rifle and gazed through the scope to check the elevation. From her oversized purse she pulled out the range finger and brought the target location into focus. She ranged the distance. Almost nine hundred yards.
When Jesse had first arrived in Dallas, she already had the background info on most of her targets. Old man Gambizi wanted her to go to work rather than screw off doing research. At the prices she charged, she understood why. Still, she’d taken a couple of days to do surveillance on the first few targets to get an idea of where they’d be at certain times. Creatures of habit make it so much easier.
This guy always arrived at six o’clock at the dry cleaners to pick up a young woman—his sister, or more probably, his girlfriend. There were a half dozen open places to park in the lot, but he always chose one of two handicapped spaces near the door. It couldn’t have been better. By choosing those spaces, he silhouetted himself perfectly against the sun as it completed its descent in the western sky. All she had to do was make the shot before the woman got in the car.
As Jesse waited, a feeling of doubt washed over her, that little voice that always whispered to her. She’d not felt comfortable at her hotel lately. She’d been a fool letting her temper take control of her at the pool that day with Mr. Minnesota. Never stand out. Never draw attention to yourself. Probably time for a new place. Something on the other side of town. Or in another town, perhaps.
Less than ten minutes later, he wheeled into the parking lot in a vintage gold Cadillac—STS. He backed into the closest handicap space and slammed it into park, keeping watch on the cleaner’s front door from his side mirror.
Jesse popped a peppermint under her tongue, checked the wind once more, and racked a round into the chamber. She took a deep breath. As she slowly released it, her finger eased back on the trigger, taking up the slack until the rifle fired. She caught him between the temple and ear. He dropped into the seat and the bullet kept going, blasting out the passenger window. A second later the door to the dry cleaners opened and the young woman bounced out, lighting a cigarette. She strolled to the passenger door and started to get in. Her mouth opened into a silent scream, and the cigarette fell from her lips. She backed away from the car and her purse slipped from her arm. People ran out of the cleaners to the woman, who had collapsed in the parking lot.
Jesse had seen enough. She quickly packed up her equipment and headed toward the staircase. When she was halfway down, she glanced at the front door. After clearing the room earlier, she had blocked the door with an old chair. The chair now sat against the wall, a good six feet from the door.
Never heard it open.
Head turning from side to side, she held her breath—listening. Jesse took the silenced pistol from her purse and allowed the purse strap to slide off her shoulder. She eased down the last few steps before silently sitting the cardboard tube with the rifle on the floor. Breathing in slow, shallow breaths, she strained to hear any sound. But it wasn’t a sound that gave him away. It was the smell. To her right, from around the corner, came the pungent odor of marijuana.
Jesse moved to the other corner, peeking around it quickly. All clear. She walked through the old dining room into the kitchen. Someone cleared their throat from the other room and she stopped. Keeping the pistol in the combat shooter position, she eased around the corner. He had his back to her. The gangster crouched low to the floor with an automatic pistol in his right hand. He took a last drag on the joint and dropped it on the mildewed carpet.
The sound of distant sirens drifted through the room. Probably ambulance and police heading to the dry cleaners. Jesse took a step, keeping her eyes on the guy. Her foot bumped something beside the fireplace. He looked over his shoulder and caught sight of her. His eyes widened and he spun around. The guy’s gun hand came up toward Jesse as she fired. His unexpected movement caused her to miscalculate. The bullet entered just below the left eye. The guy’s head slung back as she fired again. The second one hit him in the forehead, and he went limp, falling to the floor.
Jesse moved farther into the room to check him. The next thing she knew something crashed into her from behind. Falling to the floor, she landed on her right side with her pistol underneath her. Another gangster.
The kid grappled with her, slamming her head back into the floor so hard she saw stars. He was young but larger than her. She struggled against him, but it was only a matter of time before he’d win. She pushed his snarling face away from her with her left hand, her right hand and the gun still trapped beneath her. Jesse released the gun and wiggled her hand free. She ran her thumb around her waistband until it found the tactical knife clipped to her pants. She yanked it out while releasing the switch blade.
The kid struck her with his fist in the side of the head just before she jabbed the knife hard into his neck and shoved him to the side. She was numb from the strike. Jesse lay there unable to move as the gangster clutched his throat and rolled on the floor. A gurgling sound filled the room and blood oozed between his fingers.
After a minute, she pushed farther away from the dying man. God, I hate using that thing. Her head throbbed and she spent a moment catching her breath and watching the death throes. He was just a kid, really.
When he stopped moving, she pulled the knife from his neck and cleaned it on an old rag.
Funny, when you stick a knife into someone, they seldom pull it out. It’s as if they accept it as part of their bodies. Like pulling it out might end things sooner. People must have crazy thoughts just before dying.
Jesse had long ago stopped attaching emotion to her work. Doing that was crazy. She’d refused contracts before because she didn’t believe the targets needed killing, but once the contract was accepted, she carried it out with military precision. Being judge, jury, and executioner suited her. Just like her dad had said. “If you don’t take the power, someone else will.”
No one was as good as her, and she didn’t intend to give up one ounce of power. The thought had once crossed her mind that she might be a functioning sociopath, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Crazy thoughts like that could get you killed.
Jesse collected her tube and purse and then headed for the door. From the peephole she watched another gangster leaning against her car parked on the street. Was he with the other guys? She gazed again at the gang-banger as he bent down to put his face against her passenger window. It wouldn’t be long before the investigators arrived at the dry cleaners crime scene. Once they decided the shot originated from another place, they’d fan out in an organized search grid looking for the shooter’s location. This was the trouble operating in an urban area; you needed someone to watch your six. Doing it alone in a city was ill advised. Doing it in a city in a combat zone—suicide.
Jesse needed to get out of there. The gangster turned toward the house and studied it a few seconds. She laid her equipment on the floor, removed her jacket, blouse, and bra, and opened the door. The guy was still staring at the house when she stepped into the open threshold. His jaw dropped and she smiled, motioning him with her index finger. He looked from one side to the other before strutting up the walk. Jesse picked up the silenced pistol and stepped around the corner before he came in. As the door creaked open and the sound of footsteps drifted through the room, she popped her head around the corner and grinned at him. When he advanced toward her, she shot him between the eyes.
25
Early the next morning Frank and Rob rolled up to the old house where the gangster bodies had been discovered the night before. Rob noted a marked patrol car, a CSU van, and Paul Sims’s unmarked car parked along the curb.
Clouds threatened rain again, and a cool north wind made it a good morning for a jacket. Frank was asleep, as usual. Guy took every opportunity to grab a nap.
“Hey, we’re here,” Rob said.
Frank pulled himself to a seated position and yawned. “Already?”
Rob grabbed his cup of coffee as he got out. Frank snatched up his cup,
got out, and did a back stretch against the top of the car.
“I have something you need to put in your Directive to Physician’s folder,” Rob said as he walked to Frank’s side of the car.
Frank took a sip and stared at the house. “What’s that?”
Rob led the way up the cracked and overgrown sidewalk. He glanced back over his shoulder as they walked. “Make sure you specify that before they embalm you, they ensure you’re not just asleep.”
Frank didn’t answer.
A uniform officer stood cross-armed at the door. Rob flashed his I.D.; Frank flashed his Shrek donkey smile. The team inside was breaking down the crime scene. All the bodies removed. All the forensic work done. They’d started twelve hours earlier. Paul Sims’s voice led Rob around the corner into the old living room.
“Hey, Sims. This your scene?” Rob asked.
Sims disconnected from the call, took the last bite of Twinkie, and strolled toward them. “No, thank God. Edwards got this one. He just went home. Been here all night. Thought I’d stop by for a look. What a mess.”
Frank squatted down and examined a blood stain.
“What the hell happened?” Rob asked.
Sims shook his head. “That’s what they’ve been trying to figure out.”
Kelly stepped from around the corner, still dressed in his white crime scene Tyvek overalls. He peeled off a blue Latex glove. “Thought I heard your voice,” he said to Rob.
“Can you explain this?” Rob asked.
Kelly shrugged. “Gang massacre. That’s what they’re calling it.”
“But who killed who?” Rob asked.
“Whom,” Frank said.
Rob shot him a look. “Whatever.”
Kelly said, “Still not sure. Found one here,” Kelly pointed where Frank had squatted, “and two more around the corner in the den.” Kelly motioned and led the way through the dilapidated old kitchen. It had all the charm of a filthy version of The Addams Family home.
Rob sniffed. The smells of animals mixed with mold and the metallic odor of blood still hung thick in the air. Frank’s sensitive nose had already started twitching. He hated nasty crime scenes. The smells seldom bothered Rob except for bodies that had putrefied. Kelly stopped at the area where the kitchen ended and the den began. He pointed at the floor.
“Appears there was some kind of struggle there. Dead guy had a puncture wound in the neck—knife probably. We didn’t find one, so the killer probably took it with him.” Kelly wiggled his finger at the fireplace. “Other dead guy was over there. Two bullets to the head. Small caliber. Most likely a .22, same as the guy around the corner.”
“Anybody see or hear anything?” Frank asked.
“Talked to Edwards before he left. Lady across the street noticed an older model white sedan parked on the curb in front of the house earlier,” Sims said.
“Make? Model?” Rob asked.
“Said all cars look alike to her.” Sims grunted. “Anyway, she never saw the driver, but noticed two of the local gangsters go into the house while the car was there. Never saw them leave. When her husband came home from work, she sent him over to check it out. Found the first dead guy and called the police.”
Frank slid his hands in his pockets and circled the room. He stopped occasionally and squatted, studying the scene from different angles.
Rob studied him. What’s he looking at?
“But that’s not the most interesting part,” Kelly said.
Frank had been staring at the two blood stains. He turned his head. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Sims motioned for them to follow, and he led them through the den and up the stairs.
Frank’s expression contorted and his nose looked like it would wiggle off his face with every step. The animal feces and mildew stench was stronger up there. Sims led them to a corner bedroom and they followed him inside.
Rob saw it immediately. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed.
“What?” Frank asked.
Rob walked to the table and orange crate turned on end. He stood behind the table, bent down, and looked out the window with the broken panes. “Son of a bitch.” He looked back at Sims.
Frank stared at the table and crate. “Is this—?”
Rob finished his sentence. “The sniper nest used to kill that gang banger at the dry cleaners yesterday.” He squatted down and studied the new footprints on the dusty floor. He traced it them his finger. Woman’s five, maybe a six. Small—very small. Smaller than Carmen’s. Had he screwed up the other day when he made the patent statement about the military not training women as snipers? He hadn’t been in the military for sixteen years. Things were changing fast. Things changed now in sixteen months.
Frank strolled to the window and gazed toward the northwest. “Well, I’ll be darned.”
“And check this out,” Sims said. He put his toe on scratch marks in the dust and grime. “Drug the table from another room.”
An hour later when Rob and Frank walked into CIU, Edna wasn’t in her office. Rob was relieved. There had been so little progress and so many loose ends he didn’t want Edna interrogating them just now. Rather find a live roach in his Copenhagen can than face her. He marched to the coffee pot and poured a cup as Terry strolled over and met Frank at his cube.
“Make it out to the house?”
“Yup,” Frank said.
“Bad as I’ve heard?”
“Worse.” Frank hung his jacket on the back of his chair and took his seat.
Rob said, “Real blood bath, Terry. The upper floor of the house was most probably used by the shooter in that dry cleaner snipe.”
Terry grimaced. “What exactly went down out there? Does anyone know?”
“Not yet,” Rob said.
“Edna’s in a meeting. Everyone’s catching hell over this gang killing. The woman and kids getting shot was the last straw. Brass is trying to figure out how to explain the up tic in gang violence to the press,” Terry said, before turning back to his office.
Frank wiggled into his slouch position and stared at some point about a million miles away. He’d drifted into “silent mode” again. Guy seemed to have lost his mojo. Usually didn’t take this long for him to come up with a theory. It might be a crazy theory, but he usually had one.
Rob logged on to his computer and googled female snipers in U.S. military. After scanning the postings, he came to the conclusion he’d been both right and wrong. “Hey, Frank.”
Frank didn’t look at him, but grunted. “Huh?”
“I was wrong.”
Frank slowly turned his head. “About what?”
“Women being trained as snipers by the military.”
Frank seemed to come alive. He sat up straighter. “You mean we do?”
“Not in the traditional sense, but the Air Force trains females as snipers for base security operations in combat areas like Iraq and Afghanistan. The footprints at the house this morning were too small for a man.”
Frank stared at him and pulled at his lower lip with his thumb and index finger. “Interesting.”
Rob wished he’d never opened his mouth at Sarge’s that day about the military not training women as snipers. In a criminal investigation the only thing worse than no information was bad information.
Twenty minutes later, Edna rushed in, went straight to her office, and closed the door. She had the look of someone who’d just had a big bite taken out of their butt by a supervisor, probably Higgins. She spent the rest of the morning on the phone. From her expression it was clear she wanted to be anywhere else.
Around lunch Rob glanced at Frank. He’d drifted off again into the mental hinterlands. Rob walked down Lamar Street to Off the Bone Bar-B-Q and ate a pulled pork sandwich. When he meandered back into CIU Frank was gone. Computer off, jacket missing, and chair scooted under his desk.
* * *
Frank parked at White Rock Lake and stared at the blue water and trees on the opposite shore. Alma’s house was around the next corner. He
didn’t plan to go there, but just being in close proximity helped him think. It all began with her on the front porch of Ricardo’s that night. Everything that had happened since was a derivative of that. The connection was loose, but the ends had started to fuse together. Frank had been meaning to pay his friend Dana a visit since taking the photos of Alma’s garden. This seemed like the perfect time.
As Frank drove, he pondered Dr. Alma Hawkins. He hadn’t been with a woman in years who, after spending the night with him, hadn’t called him back within a day or two—except Alma. Was it his ego or curiosity that drove him to want to see her again? A little of both. Or possibly something else. He liked her. He liked her a lot.
Ten minutes later, he sauntered through the aisles of plants at Dana’s Garden Center. He shopped there for the best herbs and patio plants. Dana, who was an American Horticulture Society Master Gardner, had been married to Fred Sweeney, Frank’s old partner when he was still in uniform. Even after Fred’s early death from a heart attack, Frank still checked in on Dana every couple of weeks.
He found her squatted over a five gallon Texas Mountain Laurel, scratching in the dirt around the edge of the pot.
“No one looks better dirty than you, lady.”
Dana snapped her head up and a broad smile followed. She was almost ten years Frank’s junior. She stood, dusted her gloves on her jeans, and gave him a hug. “Hi, Frank. What brings you out during the week? Never see you except on Saturday or Sunday.”
Frank pulled out his iPhone.
“Got something I need advice on. Been thinking about some new plantings for the patio.” He opened the phone to photos and scrolled to the first picture he took in Alma’s garden. “Not familiar with these plants. Can you tell me if you carry them?”