Fake Out

The Man known as Pink was sitting in the stylish bar in South Philly....

He put down a few dollars and said to the Bartender...

''Whiskey"

Lt. Tragg sat down next to him...

"How ya doin Snitch?  This bar is a step down for you isn't it?" he said.

Pink, a high stakes Gambler with his ear on the streets turned and looked at Lt. Tragg...He hated him and had hated most cops most of his career until he met Lieutenant Sissy Van Buren

Purely the sexiest woman alive he thought...Too sexy to be a cop...Sissy had busted him cold years ago and had dropped the charges...In exchange for information on a homicide...He gave her what she needed to make a case and she never called his name or made it known that he had been the one who gave her information...

She gave him a get out of jail free card....Whenever he got in any trouble below a felony...he could call her and she'd take care of it...

She was Detective Sissy Van Buren then..and he was a young hustler...She was as good as her word and he in turn gave her information when she needed it...

Soon he fell in love with his cop friend...She didn't feel the same way, but she occassionally would allow him to buy her a drink and share pleasent conversation with him...She never took it any further..

Years went by...Sissy moved up the ranks to Sergeant and now Lieutenant of the Criminal Investigation Division....

Pink is far past his days of petty street crime...He's a pretty established and well heeled Gambler and entrepreneur...and it is said that if he doesn't know something...it aint worth knowing...

Sissy had introduced him to her foxy associates..

Detective Carlotta Rodriguez-Wallace, who he remembered ,when she was a patrol cop...She really could fill out that uniform ,he remembered and that accent....it drove him crazy...

Detective Angie Belton, Sweet Angie...He dreamed of a twosome with her and Sissy often...

Sexy and saucy Sirena....Detective Sirena Pile...What he could do with her...

All of them and Sissy herself , married....

These were the only cops Pink talked to and they were smart enough to dress casual and unassuming and never make themselves obvious...Unlike Tragg, who just oozed of cop..

"What you want Lieutenant Tragg, you short of cash...You want a drink?" said Pink....

"Don't play games with me you two bit hood...I want information....Some freak has been snatchin up girls and I want him in custody..."said Lt. Tragg..

"And what would I have to do with that?" asked Pink as his whiskey arrived and he swigged down his shot glass...

"I know you hear things from time to time and I know you talk to Sissy....Word on the street is if you don't know it...it's not worth knowin...So here's what I know...You refuse to play ball with me and I'll put it around in certain circles that you're a confidential informant and have been for years...What do you think your life expectancy will be then?  Now talk!"

Pink laughed..

"Sissy asks better than you do...and looks a whole lot better too..." said Pink.

"What do you know about these killings?" asked Lt. Tragg...

"Look isn't this Sissy's case?" asked Pink...

"So you do know something right?" asked Lt. Tragg...

"I haven't seen Sissy or any of her detectives in like two weeks..." said Pink...

"And you won't...This is going on three weeks now and they haven't turned up one suspect...just a whole lot of nothing...I want results...Now what do you know?"

"Look I don't KNOW nothin..I hear there is this Minister...Reverend Lucious Barnes...several of the young teen aged girls at his church have been complaining about him making unwanted advances at them...He drives a church van...White....that's been seen in all of the areas of the vanishings....I may have mentioned him to Sissy a few weeks ago  and I never heard anything more about it.." said Pink.

"Good Job...I'll look into it!" said Lt. Tragg, who got up and walked out...

 Sissy walked out of the back just then, she was with Carlotta ,Angie, Sirena, Sharon and Jimmy...

She kissed Pink on the cheek and laughed...

"Thank you baby!" she said.

 "He's going to go after this guy and call a press conference..If I know right " said Carlotta.

 "He's too easy..."laughed Angie..

 "He used to be a pretty decent detective at one time.."said Sirena..

 "Really?? I've known so many assholes like him when I worked in D.C. , Atlanta and New Orleans...You guys are truly the best detectives I've ever worked with and the only ones I've ever been this close to." said Sharon..

"No place like home eh?  This ought to be rich.." laughed Jimmy..

"Siss, did you have me finger an innocent guy?" laughed Pink..

"He's innocent of these murders....but he is guilty of making unwanted advances at several teen-aged and twenty something young girls in his congregation...This ought to shake him up a bit and throw Lt. Tragg off of our trail..." said Sissy...

"Anything to screw that bastard..." said Pink...

"Only Tragg can manage to be equally hated by Cops and street people..."laughed Jimmy...

"Thank you Pink....Here....your drinks are on me tonight..."said Sissy, who kissed him on the cheek again...

"Come on guys..let's get out of here...We've got work to do." said Sissy..

Pink smiled and watched as they exited the bar..

II-

We ate cold sandwiches...and drank beers as we discussed the latest in the case..

"So guys give me an update.."I said..This was the third week of our investigation...

"Hazel and Angie and I went to Camden and it was a good thing we did...Camden and Cherry Hill PD allowed us to copy their case files on their ten cases..." said Duke.

"The ballistics match....Same guns.....357 mag. .38 and .45...saliva and fingerprints and DNA on their ten,match our twenty...as well as the same spermicide......Condoms used on some and not on others...It's the same guy....and he's been active and quietly slipping beneath the cracks for two years now." said Tyriq.

"Overworked police departments..lack of manpower and the facts that they are all so different in stature..That nobody picked up the pattern until we started looking into them as a group.." said Hop..

"And that van...It is registered to Artis HVAC Inc.  We did interviews on all of their drivers except one , who wasn't at work...His name is Lester K. Grundy....He's 52...Now we alibied all of the other drivers...we have a copy of his routes...and we can match his route with the time all of the young ladies vanished..He was in all of the areas...And not only that...He was working in the areas, where the bodies were dropped ,not too long after..." said Carlotta..

"We found the vans he worked in and matched them to the license plate numbers we pulled from the traffic cams on the days of all of the disappearences.."said Jimmy...

"But unfortunately...they had been wiped down...Bleached and washed down...No DNA or Prints..."said Sirena..

"But while in Camden...We got something....A Rap sheet!!!! He's not in our system...But we ran his prints and his DNA...He damn sure is in New Jersey." said Angie , who showed us a mug shot...

"Wow!  " I said...Here was a Blond, Heavy set White man in his early 50's with a white or graying beard, just like our living victim...or Girl Twenty One as we referred to her had described him...

"He was arrested five times in New Jersey three years ago for soliciting prostitutes..He was booked, but not held...He was arrested for assaulting a woman last year in a diner...Booked again, but not held..His job apparently didn't know about this." said Sharon.

"You've all done exceptional work....Keith can you get us a warrant?" asked Sissy...

"I'll call Judge Stevens....He can email me the warrant tonight..."I said ..

"Hold Up Just Yet...Let's talk to "Girl Twenty One" she saw him..See if She can identify this mug shot." said Sissy..

III-

It was Sunday Morning....

Church services were starting all over the city....

At Greater Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church....service was in session....When Lt. Tragg and five uniformed officers walked down the aisle..Reverend Lucious Barnes stopped and looked at him...

"Excuse me sir, can I help you?" he said.

"Give your soul to Jesus, because Barnes...Your ass belongs to me...Hook him up officer..

"What? What the hell are you doing?" asked the astonished Minister..

"You're under arrest for the murders of twenty young ladies..Read him his rights..." said Lt. Tragg as the Minister was handcuffed and led out of church as a stunned congregation looked on...

Several Reporters were outside...Lt. Tragg made the announcement...

"TERROR HAS COME TO AN END....I HAVE CAPTURED THE SERIAL KILLER WHO HAS BEEN TERRORIZING THIS CITY!" he proclaimed as photographs popped...

"You got the wrong man....I aint killed nobody..."said Reverend Lucious Barnes.

"Tell it to the judge buddy." exclaimed Tragg...

"I'm gonna sue the pants off of you..ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.." exclaimed Reverend Lucious Barnes.

"Button it up killer..Take him away.." said Lt. Tragg as he marched off triumphantly...

 While back at our safehouse...

"Boss Lady...Lt. Tragg just arrested the Serial Killer.." said Carlotta ,trying to keep a straight face.

"WHAT??? We cleared that guy of this...Two weeks ago..."I said.

"Oh We know!" laughed Sirena, Angie, Sharon and Sissy...

"Counselor...You're looking at what we like to call the old "Fake Out"  Tragg pops him...In time...His DNA and Fingerprints will clear him..of the murders...but not of the young girls from his church he's assaulted..
While  Tragg and the Brass wrestles with the embarrassment of that...We put the cuffs on our real suspect.." said Jimmy..

"Let's get to that hospital and get our girl to ID our photo."said Tyriq..

"Yeah, let's do some real police work." said Duke..

"Nice move ,gettin old Tragg out of the way..." said Hop..

"This goof up could send him back out on the boat...Out of our hair..."laughed Sissy...

I laughed at the thought of it..

(CONCLUSION NEXT)