Wet Shoes

I stood at the river bank as the Marine Unit fished the body out of the river....It was early in the morning..Earlier than I'm used to getting up...but when I got the call, I came...

Carlotta ,Tyriq and Dr. Hunter had on rubber boots and were out in the water bringing the body up to the boardwalk along with the police marine units..

"Man this job is starting to wear on my sleep." said Detective Tyriq Pile to no one in particular.. I felt his pain..

They laid the lifeless body on the boardwalk.... Carlotta and Dr. Hunter kneeled down and observed it...

"Now this is odd...Same M.O. as your lawyer Tyriq and the same as our still unsolved double." said Detective  Carlotta Rodriguez......

"He was shot 27 times...Glock nine...." said Dr. Hunter....

"Let me look at the holes.....Look ,Defensive wounds...holes on both sides...Looks like two shooters." said  Detective Tyriq Pile.

I walked over and took a look at the body....I knew right away who he was...

"Oh My God...It's Shoes...." I said.

"Huh? Who?" said Carlotta..

"He does have on an expensive pair of Gators." said Tyriq....

"No...No...That's Willie "Shoes" Shoemaker....He's a gangster...I told you about him the other day Carlotta." I said.

"You did?" she said.

''Well ,I didn't use his name..He was the gangster that we had on a murder rap...Detective Barbara Dennison worked the case....It was before you were a detective." I said.

"Yeahhhh...Yeahhh,I  remember that case...She planted evidence on him and then lied under oath..." said Tyriq...

"Exactly....That sleazy lawyer Michael Feingold discovered the deception and caught her in a slew of lies on the stand remember?" I said.

''Yeah...Yeah..Yeah...Joshua Washington was the ADA on that case..He had to throw out her testimony...His lead detective...He tried to try the case with other evidence...but he lost and "Shoes" Shoemaker walked...I remember....In fact..We found out that he did commit the murders, but we couldn't try him again because he was acquitted." said Tyriq..

"Yeah....Guess there's Justice after all..." said Tyriq..

"Your lawyer, this guy who he repped and the guy who prosecuted them..All dead within a matter of days..." I mused...

''Seems like it would be a conflict of interests here." said Tyriq...

"There has got to be a connection." I said.

"Nothing else to do here...Release the body...See if anybody saw anything..." said Detective Pile to some uniformed policemen..

II-

Carlotta and I sat in Sissy's office some time later talking about the three open murder cases we had this week..

"Boss Lady....Did it ever occur to you that these murders might be  being committed by cops?" said Carlotta.

Sissy and I stared at Carlotta.....

"Cops?" I said.

"Cops,Chica?" said Sissy.

"Well look...all three cases involve a glock nine...That's a standard issue for cops...
The surveilience cameras in two cases were disconnected so that we couldn't get any visuals...No fingerprints, No DNA...barely any shell casings...All the things we would look for..." she said.

Sissy and I looked at her..She was making a point...

"A Homicide cop would know what we would look for... Who better but one of us.." I said.

"Chica, you don't think someone in this unit or in C.I.D. is doing this?" said Sissy..

"It wouldn't have to be someone here presently...Maybe someone that used to be here with an axe to grind..." she said.

"Oh My God...I think I got it!!!..I think she's right Sissy...Someone with an axe to grind..." I said.

"What are you getting at?" said Sissy.

"Barbara Dennison....It makes sense....Do you remember her?" I said.

"Yeah...We worked together under Lt. Cantrell...She was a brilliant Detective...Taught me a lot when I first made Detective..Had a high clearence rate."said Sissy.

"Yeah, well Carlotta and I ran into her a few days ago...She's a cashier in a coffee shop a few blocks from here." I said.

''What? Oh My God.." said Sissy...

"She planted evidence on Willie "Shoes" Shoemaker remember?? And she lied under oath....That lawyer,Melvin Feingold caught her in several lies during cross examination and discovered that she planted evidence....It all fits... That cost her her job." I said.

"Okay...I understand why she'd kill the gangster...He really was guilty and he walked ,I understand why she'd kill the sleazy lawyer...He exposed her as a fraud....but why Joshua Washington and his wife? He's one of us?" said Carlotta.

"You tell her Sissy." I said.

"Chica...After Joshua lost that case, he was distraught....See this guy Shoes executed a drug dealer named Pete Jarkley and his wife who had nothing to do with the drug game, execution style and their three month old baby...It was a horrible crime..a triple murder.....ADA Washington wanted to put that guy down like nobody's business and when she blew that case for him...he was beside himself....He called for her head...." said Sissy.

"Lt. Cantrell tried to do his best to save her job... He offered to transfer her to Property Inventory, down in the basement...and said that she'd never do any investigatory work anymore...But Joshua Washington wouldn't hear of it...He wanted her gone...When Lt. Cantrell refused to fire her....Joshua went over his head to the Deputy Ops...and she got fired....17 years on the force...No pension..." I said.

"Oh My God...What about the second shooter?" asked Carlotta...

"I think I can answer that." said Edwin "Duke" Baylor, who entered the room with Dr. Hazel Hunter....

"I got a hit from the DNA on the discarded chewing gum left at the murder scene for
the lawyer, Melvin Feingold...Remember that about ten years ago they started bonding all of our employees, DNA samples and fingerprints? Well this belongs to a former Homicide Detective...Dominick Evans!!!" she said.

"Oh My God...Him? He's too stupid to plan something like this...Barbara Dennison must obviously be the ring leader.." said Carlotta.

"Heyy go easy on him Top...If not for him you might not be a Detective." laughed Duke.

"Ohhh?" said Sissy.

"Yeah Lou...Top here solved a murder...His case...When she was still a uniformed patrol officer...She got an accomodation for that...Lt. Cantrell and Sgt. Sanchez told her to take the Detective's test...She did and the rest is history!" said Duke..  "That's when Tyriq and I started working with her, teaching her the ropes,mentoring her,making her into the great detective she is today." he laughed.

"It's true Boss Lady, that's how it went down..Probably Evans only cleared case of the year." said Carlotta...

Duke cracked up!  I smiled myself!

"Hey guys...All that watching video paid off in spades." came the voice of Detective James Barlow..

"Another country heard from." said Duke.."Where have you been Junior?" he asked.

''Watching video... I went three blocks down and I got an old Impala and an Suv...The SUV belonged to some guy visiting his girlfriend...The Impala belongs to...Get this, a former Homicide Detective named Dominick Evans....I thought that was odd...So then I canvassed the blocks close to where Tyriq's lawyer was found and guess what?? I got the same Impala, same license plate.!!!..This guy, an ex cop is at both scenes of both murders...And then I thought, no wonder these crime scenes are so clean...Who better to commit a perfect murder then someone who knows how to solve them? Somebodywho knows what we'll be looking for." he said.

Carlotta smiled and high fived Jimmy...

"We came to the same conclusion." she said.

"Great minds think alike." he said.

"That puts Dom in for at least two of these crimes...but if Barbara is the ring leader..we got nothing that put her there..." I said.

"Nah Keith, we got somethin...Look..."said Detective Tyriq Pile...he put a photo on the desk..

''I had that store blow the photo up and clean it up...The blond that bought the bleach at 9:30 pm, just hours before the murders of ADA Washington and his wife is her, former Detective, Barbara Dennison and standing outside...look...Dressed in black, Former Detective Dominick Evans...That puts the both of them at the scene."said Tyriq...

"Nice...Looks like old Shoes in death did something good...He connected the dots to this baffling case." I said.

"Well guys...Let's not stand around...Pick em up." said Sissy.

(CONCLUSION NEXT)