Memories of a Murder

by Sid Kar

  There were a couple of clicks on the other side and then Roth’s voice came on the radio again.

  “Oh my… we have Joe Marsh calling in today. Go ahead, Joe. You are live,” Roth said.

  “You called my tweet a disgrace. You better apologize,” Joe said.

  “No, I called you a disgrace,” Roth replied.

  “Bastard!” Joe said and Frank spat out some more coffee in laughter as he heard the word come out of his car radio. He wondered if the drivers and the passengers in the cars around were listening in to the same show too.

  “You sir, are a disgrace to the police. You should have been fired,” Roth said.

  “You are a disgrace to radio screamers. You should have been dumped,” Joe replied.

  “You think you are tough behind the badge, Joe?” Roth asked.

  “Bastard, I could snap you in two,” Joe said, “you name the place, I will come.”

  “Now I respect that badge and the uniform, but if you Joe weren’t wearing it, I would meet you anytime and school your fat ass.”

  “Forget the badge. I will bring my brass knuckles and I won’t wear my uniform. I will beat you silly in my wife beater,” Joe said, “We’re going down the Parkway; why don’t you meet me on the Driscoll Bridge? I will toss your ass in the river.”

  “Get that crazy bastard off the radio!” Frank’s police radio crackled with superintendent’s command.

  “Yes sir,” Frank replied. He hit the brakes, leaned over sideways, snatched Joe’s cell phone, cut off the call and tossed it in the backseat.

  “Joe are you there, Joe?” Roth asked, “We will cut to the commercial and pick up again if he is still on…”

  Frank turned off the car radio.

  “Joe you are going to get banned from radio now,” Frank said.

  “First banned from Twitter, now radio,” Joe said then grinned, “But I showed that boy.”

  “We better not go to the headquarters today,” Frank said holding back laughter, “I think we will do overnight in AC.”

  “See, I have always said, Joe don’t belong, Roth feels the same,” Mason Curly was animatedly holding court in the cafeteria of the police headquarters. It was still lunch time and many more police officers had come streaming in when they had gotten wind of the on air commotion. Over thirty of them were assembled around a table with a portable radio tuned to Roth Griffin Show with the volume turned to the highest.

  “Joe has a strange sense of humor, but you Mason are one mean dude,” Darnell came to Joe’s defense.

  “Darnell, I know he is your friend, but he brings bad PR to the police,” Mason said.

  “Bad PR? I will tell you what brings bad PR – you Mason pulling over my Master’s degree holding cousin when you was a road trooper for driving while black,” Darnell said.

  There was ruckus in the crowd as police officers shouted approvals and disapprovals.

  “Oh please, we have got Card players in our force,” Mason said.

  “Card players?” someone asked.

  “Joe plays the Dumb card, he was dropped on his head as a child. Now he can go around acting stupid,” Mason said, “Frank plays the Army card. He was in combat, so he can kick anyone’s ass, and you Darnell,” Mason pointed his three fingers at Darnell, “you play the Race card.”

  “Race card!” Darnell fulminated, “You are one messed up…forget it. Joe is right about you.”

  “Everyone who is not having lunch, back to their desks and their duties, now,” Colonel Edward shouted as he walked out of the cafeteria along with Major Kenneth. The two of them were having lunch in a far corner and listening to the radio on their own. The crowd dispersed.

  Ed and Ken walked into the superintendent’s office and Ed sat down on his chair and took a sigh of relief.

  “Ed, I know Joe is your old partner’s grandson but…” Kenneth said.

  “We don’t give him cases on his own,” Edward said, “I just want to give him an opportunity for a decent life, not have him end up as a mall guard. And he keeps Frank happy. Frank’s our best detective but he likes to be in command, to drive the case his way. He won’t get along with many others as his equal partners. Frank and Joe make a good team.”

  “Can’t you send him back to Gaston? They pay his salary and benefits anyhow,” Kenneth said.

  “We get another benefit from having Joe on our roll call,” Edward winked.

  “What’s that?” Kenneth asked.

  “He can stand for many different diversity quotas: underprivileged quota, weight challenged quota, disabled quota, rural quota, bubba and redneck quota…”

  “We have quotas for bubbas and rednecks now?” Kenneth asked incredulously.

  “Given who our President is, would you be surprised?” Edward smirked slyly, “what else…special ed quota, visually impaired quota, Muslim quota…”

  “Donut is supposed to be a Muslim too?” Kenneth popped his eyes wide.

  “You remember when that agent from Federal Bureau came up to give a seminar on Islamic Terrorism and he mentioned the 72 Virgins and Joe declared that he wanted to convert?” Edward chuckled, “the poor agent was awkward rest of the day because no one told him about Joe till the end.”

  “That don’t count,” Kenneth laughed.

  “The fact is, mister, if some bureaucrat from Washington or Trenton comes here nosing around, chaffing about diversity, I can throw Joe in his face,” Edward said, “Oh, here is Joe; he is underprivileged; he is overweight; he hails from a rural farm…Oh, by the way, we don’t tell you it’s a single individual.”

  “As you say Colonel,” Kenneth shook his head and relaxed back in the seat reading emails from his officers on his phone.

  The traffic had let up and Frank and Joe cruised down south on the Parkway at a decent pace. Joe dozed off while Frank sipped his iced coffee and listened to the light music while enjoying the drive. The exits passed fast and Frank knew them all by heart as he counted down 148…145… and onwards to 144…

  Exit 144!!! Frank looked at the fenced walkway traversing the Parkway above the sign for 144 from distance and saw three figures standing over the southbound lanes. In all his years starting out as a Trooper assigned to the Parkway, he had rarely seen even a single soul walk across it.

  On a hunch, he let off the gas pedal and let the car decelerate while he picked up the binoculars he always kept infront of him on the dashboard and looked at the pedestrian walkway above the road and yelled ‘Fuck!” loud enough to jolt Joe out of his sleep.

  Three gunmen with assault rifles were just taking aim at their car.

  “Joe! Joe! Joe!” Frank squealed, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  “Frank you are driving,” Joe said.

  Frank quickly looked to the left, saw no car in his blind spot, turned on the police lights, and pulled his car across the lane at a diagonal angle that would give no shot to the gunmen at their gas tank. The car was their only cover in the open highway.

  He slammed the brakes, he had already pushed out his seatbelt, turned off the engine, snatched the keys and rolled out on the street behind the cover of his door while shouting commands to Joe.

  “Joe! It’s Action Time,” Frank said. It was their agreed upon code phrase when it was about to hit the fan and time to take instant action without questions or delay. “Joe grab the Benelli. Out! Out! Out! Out! Joe Out!”

  Joe had already suspected danger watching Frank’s actions. He had taken off his seatbelt. Now he snatched Benelli with his left hand while he pushed out his door hard with his right. Joe rolled out on the street just when a hailstorm of bullets shattered their windshield and punctured holes in their seats.

  “Get back Joe! Back to the trunk!” Frank shouted, “stay low, crawl.”

  Joe was already on his knees crawling back towards the trunk. Frank went flat on his stomach while slithering across the road as fast as he could. All the while bullets splattered on their doors and bounced off their rooftop with metallic clangs.

  O
nce behind the cover of their car, Frank and Joe sat up low and Frank opened the trunk.

  “Homies want to bust a cap in Donut’s ass,” Joe laughed nervously.

  “No, these aren’t gangstas. I only got a glimpse but their rifles looked distinctively Heckler & Koch – G36 I would say. Ex-Army, even Ex-Special Forces,” Frank replied while he took out his AR-15 from the trunk and attached a magazine.

  “Load slugs Joe,” Frank said, “the range is far.”

  Joe was already on it as he had opened a box of slugs and was loading them into his shotgun.

  The bullets kept coming and were now striking the road surface on their sides and in front of them along with the car roof.

  “They are good shots,” Joe said.

  “Like I said, professionals,” Frank replied while he carefully twisted around and raised just the barrel of his rifle and aimed at the three figures on the walkway. Frank’s AR-15 had been converted for full-automatic fire and he rapidly emptied his first magazine at the shooters on the walkway who ducked behind the steel plates they had setup for cover. Joe opened up with two shots of his own.

  “Goddamn, that shotgun is loud!” Frank said.

  “Boys picked a fight with the wrong team today,” Joe said.

  The gunmen had stopped firing momentarily, surprised with the incoming fire that was as accurate as theirs. Frank took the advantage to crawl forward to his seat behind the protection of his open door and picked up the police radio he had dropped on the floor mat. He also quickly reached over and grabbed the selfie stick he kept in one of his cupholders. As Frank crawled back the firing started again.

  “Officers requesting immediate backup on the Parkway, southbound, exit 144,” he said on the radio, “three active shooters in the fenced walkway, armed with automatic weapons, military or paramilitary training,” Frank said.

  “Acknowledged officer, sending the call for immediate assistance,” dispatch replied then added, “hang in there, officers. Be safe.”

  Frank took out his cellphone and looked straight ahead at the stopped traffic. A great many drivers behind them had abandoned their cars and run away. The Parkway was choked behind them and there was continuous loud honking from the cars further behind. The northbound lanes on the other side were empty too as drivers further down had seen what was going on and stopped as well.

  “The Parkway is going to jam like never before,” Joe said, “these boys aren’t getting home for hours.”

  Frank wondered if they would ever be getting home, but he pushed the thought out of his head; he had been in running gun battles before and the time was on his side. He looked in the trunk and saw he had nine magazines left. He attached one more and flicked his rifle to semi-auto. Frank raised his rifle again at the gunmen and returned fire. This time he fired a bullet every couple seconds. He was fighting for time here.

  Joe loaded his shotgun again.

  “Joe be careful,” Frank said, “these boys are the real deal.”

  “Frank, I am not blessed with many talents, lot less than other folks,” Joe said, “But there are two where Joe knows his shmoe: shooting and wrestling.” Joe replied and then let loose with the thundering shots from his Benelli.

  “Joe, range is still too far,” Frank said, “but if you fire the shotgun at an angle like a mortar, you might drop one over their heads.”

  “Be glad to do that then,” Joe replied grasping for more slugs in the box.

  Frank attached his cell phone to the long selfie stick, turned on the video recording, zoomed in the lens to the highest magnification and raised it above the car’s cover and waved it back and forth to avoid giving a fixed target.

  The shots came and narrowly missed his phone but one bullet broke the stick and Frank reached forward to catch the phone before it hit the street.

  “Damn, those boys can shoot,” Joe said.

  “Might have had the same training as me,” Frank said, “Joe, take no risks. Stay low!”

  Frank attached one more magazine and returned fire once again. He was now down to seven magazines. Help couldn’t come soon enough. He still could not hear any sirens, perhaps some panicked drivers had taken off driving the other way on the shoulder.

  But he did hear a helicopter and looked up at the same time as Joe.

  “That’s a damn traffic news chopper,” Joe said.

  Frank knew it too. He ignored it and turned around. He added the fourth magazine, opened up and kept firing till it had run empty. The gunmen on the walkway did not let up. They kept firing relentlessly, one of them on full auto, the other two picking their shots. They must have come prepared for an ambush, but how did they know where to find them?

  An alarm went off in Frank’s head. He lay down on the road and stretched his neck to look at the bottom of the car and after a few seconds of glancing everywhere, found a small electronic device attached under the exhaust system. Frank used the stock of his rifle to strike it a couple of times and break it lose then used his barrel to pull it towards him. He didn’t have gloves and wanted to avoid contamination for the prints; although, he did not think whoever was capable of doing this would leave any fingerprints.

  Then he heard the sirens, and Joe let out an audible sigh of relief.

  “Cavalry is coming, Frank,” Joe said.

  “That brings a question to my mind, how did they plan to get out of here?” Frank wondered, “they are not going to take off running are they?”

  Meanwhile Frank loaded the fifth magazine in his rifle and kept firing. The incoming shooting had tapered off and Frank soon realized why. Their attackers must have heard the sirens too and one of them had taken out a bolt cutter and was cutting a hole in the fence. His two associates; however, provided occasional cover fire whenever he had to leave the protection of his steel plate.

  “What are they thinking?” Frank asked himself. He looked across the opposite lanes of the Parkway and his sights fell on a large delivery truck that was parked ahead of the overhead walkway in the shoulder of the northbound lanes.

  “Those trucks aren’t allowed this north on the Parkway,” Frank said.

  “Want to give him a ticket afterwards?” Joe chuckled. He had stopped firing as he was down to his last two slugs and now sat crouched behind the cover of their car’s trunk.

  “I was thinking a gateway car, but now I am damn sure that truck must be it,” Frank said. He realized they couldn’t expect a lot of protection inside a car since Troopers would fire on them knowing they had just ambushed police officers. But that truck could serve as an armored carrier – just what someone with field experience would think of and want.

  Frank’s hunch was proven right when the gunman using the bolt cutter dangled a rope down onto the street below through the large hole he had cut. The other two gunmen opened fire on full auto to provide cover just as the first gunman rappelled down the rope onto the northbound lanes of the Parkway. He quickly took cover behind the two and a half feet tall concrete divider between the North and South lanes and provided cover fire for the second gunman to rappel down.

  “Joe, move towards the shoulder side,” Frank said. Joe crawled around the rear of their car and Frank slowly followed him. The angles of fire were shifting but the intensity of incoming fire had suddenly picked up. The gunmen could not afford to give Frank a shot when they were exposed in their escape attempt.

  The police sirens got closer and louder. Frank tried to raise his rifle again but the two gunmen on the ground had added new mags and once again splattered their car with a barrage of bullets. The third gunman still atop took the opportunity to rappel down and halfway through the rope he flat out jumped on the road. Their firing stopped a couple seconds later.

  Frank slowly and cautiously looked up and saw the three of them running towards the delivery truck.

  “Bastards are going to escape,” Frank vented.

  Frank threw away his nearly empty mag, grabbed two new mags, loaded one in his rifle, held the other one parallel to the first,
gripping onto both of them simultaneously.

  “Frank don’t go,” Joe said.

  But Frank had gotten up and taken off. It was time to go on the attack, Frank had decided, he was tired of being pinned down. He watched the last of the gunman climb in the truck just as he had a chance to aim his rifle.

  The truck started up and moved from the shoulder into the center driving lane.

  Frank ran across the road, jumped over the divider, ran to the center lane, turned towards the truck, raised his rifle and aimed it square at the windshield.

  The three attackers were stunned in their seats but their trained reflexes were as fast as they were automatic. The driver ducked below the steering wheel even as he slammed his foot on the gas pedal. The two who weren’t driving rolled down in the space between the seat and the dashboard.

  Frank emptied his first mag on full auto shattering the windshield glass into thousand shards, ripping out the seatback and destroying the upper curve of the steering wheel. He dropped the mag and attached the second one even before the first one hit the road. He switched to single shot and fired across the front of the truck, alternatively striking the sides and the front to prevent any one of them from trying to take a shot back at him. The truck accelerated at him even as Frank kept firing. Frank had gotten off 20 rounds before the truck came too close, then Frank turned sideways, ran and jumped over the concrete divider and huddled down for cover.

  “Down Joe, down,” Frank yelled.

  But no fire came from the truck. The gunmen were too shaken up by Frank’s sudden counterattack. Instead, Joe blasted the side of the truck with his two remaining slugs that wrenched out large chunks of metal with the sound of a hammer slamming into a gong.

  The truck sped away.

  Frank stood up then heard the rotors of the chopper. He looked up and saw a cameraman filming him from the helicopter.

  Frank smiled. They had attacked him, but instead he had run them out of town. He was the victor here.

  Frank gave a salute to the camera.

  CHAPTER 13