Mistaken Identity
A Bruce West Novel
By
Ron Sharrow
Author of Conspiracy
Smashword Edition
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Copyright © 2008 by Ron Sharrow. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express permission of the copyright owner. For further information, you may write or e-mail:
Ronald M. Sharrow
111 Desert Holly Dr.
Palm Desert, CA 92211
E-mail: ronsharrow@aol.com
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. To the author’s regret, the descriptions of sexual activity are all pure flights of fantasy.
Published by Ron Sharrrow at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person with whom you wish to share it. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to www.Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Other Books by Ron Sharrow
The Sword of Justice ~ A Lawyer’s Revenge
Conspiracy
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For Beth
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PROLOGUE
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,
it cannot save the few who are rich”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy – 1961
~ •~• ~
1
His fate was sealed when his seed was planted. Deon Rickins was condemned before he was born into a life of poverty and hopelessness. His mother, Taneesha Rickins, was fifteen years old when she became pregnant. She was living at home with her thirty-three year old mother, Aquanetta Rickins, who was also unmarried and her older half-brother Jerome Washington. Having a child at sixteen was not unusual. After all, her mother had dropped out of school and was only fifteen when she had Jerome and other girls in Taneesha’s school became baby mamas as young as thirteen and fourteen.
Having an abortion wasn’t even a consideration; once the child was born, she would receive additional public assistance. She was flunking out of school anyway, so having a child was a good excuse to quit and become a statistic on the chart of poverty stricken, unwed, teenage-mothers on the public dole. She had been quite active sexually since just before she turned thirteen. In the beginning, she just gave blow-jobs. Six months after her thirteenth birthday, at the urging of one of her older friends, fourteen-year-old Velveeta who told her how exciting it was to do the dirty, Taneesha gave in to one of the boys who wanted to go all the way.
Velveeta was right; sex really felt good. Only luck kept Taneesha from getting pregnant before she turned fifteen. She partied so much and had sex so often with so many different boys, that she had no clue as to the identity of the father. DNA tests could have proved the identity of the putative father, but the tests are expensive and knowing would have made no difference anyway. All the boys she slept with were young, irresponsible, unskilled, uneducated and unemployable. Besides, knowing who the father was wasn’t so important; no one knew who her father was either.
Her mother had always lived on welfare and now Taneesha and her child would qualify and contribute to the household expenses. Her older brother, Jerome, every now and then slipped their mother a couple of hundred dollars which he earned from peddling drugs. He had turned eighteen three months earlier, so his father, who wasn’t much more than a casual acquaintance of their mother, was no longer required to pay child support which was hardly of any consequence. He only paid when the Department of Social Services got warrants for his arrest for failure to make the payments on a regular basis. Besides, he had been in jail for three of the past four years.
Purely as a consequence of plain bad luck, Deon Rickins was born to a teenage mother out of wedlock into the vicious cycle of poverty from which there was virtually no hope of escape. He lived with his mother, his grandmother and his step-uncle in a rented house with so many building code violations that it should have been condemned. The house next-door had been torn down three years earlier as had the two houses directly across the street. The only male influence in Deon’s life was his step-uncle who was eighteen-years-old when Deon was born and who had been having run-ins with the law since nearly five years before Deon’s mother had even given her first hand-job.
Shortly after Deon turned eight, his grandmother was murdered by one of her boyfriends leaving Taneesha and her half-brother to manage all of the expenses of maintaining a household with public assistance and Jerome’s occasional drug money. Taneesha’s mother had been the glue that kept the pseudo-family unit together. Although she had little success, she was the one that hollered and screamed at everyone to try to keep them in line. She was the one who was there when Deon got home from school. Now, with her gone, there was no one to even try to keep order.
Deon had no chance of rising above the disadvantages of being planted in an uncultivated field. If by some remote chance there was a sliver of greatness buried in his genes, there was no one to nurture it. There was no one to fertilize and stimulate its growth. There was no one to pull the weeds and moisturize the soil. There was neither praise, nor punishment for his deeds. There was neither encouragement, nor discouragement to choose one path over another. There was no one to push him and no one to pull him from the cesspool of his existence. Finally, there was no one to love him … the main ingredient of a child’s growth into a self-sufficient, self-reliant and self-assured human being.
Taneesha may not have gotten an education and she was ignorant of the requirements for motherhood, but she was street-wise and had a good instinct for survival. All these years she had been having sex for fun, but now she was going to have to start charging in order to make ends meet. She didn’t work the streets, but it didn’t take long before word got around that her body was for sale and she developed a tidy little tax-free business. She kept the home filled with a steady flow of new uncles for Deon. Deon was shooed out of the house when he came home from school and was left to run wild in the streets with no parental or other adult supervision.
By the time Deon was twelve-years-old, like his step-uncle, he was already getting into trouble. He was helping Uncle Jerome with his blossoming drug business. He was getting into fights at school on a regular basis and got suspended for cutting another student with a knife he had sneaked into school. He was huffing glue, drinking, stealing cars and at fifteen, began breaking into houses. He had been caught twice and was put on probation each time. He reported only once to his probation officer. After he failed to show up for any of his other appointments, he learned that nothing happens to you when you don’t report, so why waste valuable time and money taking a bus to the probation office.
One night, when he was high on drugs, he broke into a neighbor’s house. The occupants of the house heard him breaking in. The husband whacked Deon with a baseball bat as he crawled through the living-room window while the wife called the police. A Baltimore City police officer from the Western District responded to the call and arrested Deon. He was charged with nighttime housebreaking and attempted robbery.
This was his the third arrest for a violent crime, so he was tried as a juvenile in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City where he was found to be delinquent and in need of supervision. He was sentenced to six months at the Charles H. Hickey, Jr. School, a juvenile detention center in Baltimore County where the disproportionate majority of the detainees were, like Deon, poor black kids from Baltimore’s inner-city neighborhoods. He probably would have gotten more time, but Maryland’s juvenile-justice system was in trouble. It was overwhelmed by the more than thirty-five thousand new cases that came into the system each year. Hardly any juvenile who violated probation was ever caught and punished. Those who were, were sent to overcrowded detention centers like the Hickey School where they suffered physical as well as mental abuse by overworked, underpaid and under-qualified staff who were operating with insufficient resources in a system fraught with bureaucratic red-tape. It was a system bogged down in politics and paperwork.
This was the perfect place to hone the skills required for his chosen profession and harden his attitude about life. One might think that a bruise the size of a football and the two cracked ribs resulting from his neighbor’s batting practice would be lesson enough to deter Deon from pursuing his criminal behavior in the future, but Deon was a slow learner. He served only twenty weeks of his detention and was released on probation. As in the past, he never bothered to keep any of his appointments with his probation officer.
Within a year after he was released from juvenile detention, he quit school and launched his career as a full-time criminal. He graduated from street muggings to burglary, robbery and drug dealing. He didn’t specialize in any particular type of crimes. He simply committed any crime presented to him by opportunity. Deon’s bad luck began when his mother got pregnant and followed him to a robbery, this time with a deadly weapon, where he carelessly left some fingerprints on the doorknob of the house he had broken into in the middle of the night. He was represented by one of the attorneys from the Baltimore City Public Defender’s Office, found guilty and sentenced to three years at the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup. He served fifteen months and with time off for good behavior was released or unleashed, however you wish to view it, back into the community on March, twenty-second.
~•~•~
2
Anthony McFadden’s life was snuffed out before he could experience the pride of a father seeing his daughter graduate from college or the pleasure of escorting her down the aisle when she married a nice young man from a fine family. He was denied the joyful experience of becoming a grandfather. Anthony McFadden was a Baltimore City Police officer. He was killed in the line of duty one night when he responded to a call to investigate a domestic dispute at the Virgil P. Watson Public Housing Project in West Baltimore.
A woman who complained that her boyfriend had beaten her and was threatening to kill her with a knife had called the police. Upon his arrival at the scene, Officer McFadden was met at the door by the abusive boyfriend who attacked him as he entered the apartment. He forced his attacker to drop the knife. But, while Anthony was scuffling with him, the woman who had initiated the complaint retrieved the kitchen knife that her boyfriend was going to use to kill her and stabbed Officer Anthony McFadden in the throat. He died on the way to the hospital.
His wife, Esther and their fifteen-year-old daughter, Henrietta, survived him. Esther whose father was a physician managed, with the help of her parents, to raise Henrietta and put her through college. She graduated with a degree in elementary education from the University of Maryland.
During her senior year of college, Henrietta met and fell in love with Robert Brock. Robert had earned an Associate degree in criminology from Baltimore Junior College and was taking classes at the University of Baltimore to further his education. He had just graduated from the Maryland State Police Academy and had become a Maryland State Trooper. Esther was reluctant to give her approval of Robert because of his occupation. She still suffered from nightmares about the loss of her husband. But Henrietta, who had been so proud of her father when he came home in his policeman’s uniform, convinced her mother that if she didn’t approve of Robert, she’d just go find herself another policeman to marry.
Henrietta became Mrs. Robert Brock six months after her college graduation. With a handsome gift from her grandfather and a substantial gift from Robert’s parents they had enough for a down payment on a small two-story bungalow on Milford Mill Road in Baltimore County
~ ~ ~
Just before they got married, Henrietta obtained a position teaching third grade at the Howard Park Elementary School. She and Robert had been married a little more than two years when they were blessed with the birth of a strapping nine-pound baby boy. She was able to take maternity leave from her job and by then, Robert had moved up a pay grade with the State Police because of the college courses he had completed, so they were doing nicely financially and would only be a little strapped until she could return to work. They named their son Anthony after his maternal grandfather.
Having a schoolteacher for a mother gave Anthony a distinct advantage over many of the other kids in his school. By the time he attended first grade, he was achieving well beyond the normal expectations of a six-year old. In addition, because he was quite a bit larger than the other kids his age, he quickly emerged as a leader. Robert spent every spare minute with Anthony. He enrolled Anthony in The Baltimore County Little League baseball program.
He volunteered to be a coach for Anthony’s team. He took his son to Oriole games. They bundled up and went to some of the Colts football games until the team’s owner spirited the team out of Baltimore in the middle of the night back in 1984. There were family picnics, family vacations and family excursions to visit the historic monuments in Washington, D.C. They visited Williamsburg, Virginia. They explored the treasures of the numerous museums in Baltimore and Washington.
His mother introduced him to the wonders of the Enoch Pratt public library. Robert and Henrietta decided not to have more children because they wanted to be certain that there would always be enough money to send Anthony to college and they didn’t wish to divert their time, their resources or their attention to another child.
Anthony went to Milford Mill High School which was within walking distance of his home. He lettered in baseball and football and still found time to participate on the school’s debating team. He graduated with honors and probably could have gone to any college he wished, but he wanted to stay close to home. He decided to attend the University of Baltimore where, following in his father’s footsteps, he enrolled as criminology major with an eye toward possibly going to law school if he could work it out financially.
Anthony earned his associates degree in criminology and applied to the Baltimore City Police Department to become a policeman like the grandfather whose name he carried and to follow in the footsteps of his father who was his hero and role model. He promised his parents that he would continue his education at least until he earned his bachelor’s degree. His parents were bursting with pride when the police shield was pinned to his uniform on the day he graduated from the police academy and was sworn in as a Baltimore City Police Officer. He was assigned to the Western District Precinct where his grandfather had been working when he was killed in the line of duty.
In keeping with his promise to his parents, he applied for admission to the University of Baltimore, where he enrolled as a criminology major, eventually earning his bachelor’s degree. Immediately following his graduation from college, he applied and was accepted into the University of Baltimore Law School.
~•~•~
3
The phone was answered on the second ring: “Emergency Services … Police or fire?” The operator asked.
“Dis be nine-one-one?”
“Yes … is this a police emergency or a fire?”
“A man jus’ broke inta ma house. He took …”
“Ma’am, try to calm down for a second. Is he still there?”
“Uh-uh, he be gone.”
“Are you injured?”
“No, I ain’t injured, but he stole all … ”
“Okay, Ma’am, try to be calm. I’m showing that you’re calling from 1016 Laurens Street. Is that the correct address?”
“Uh-huh, it is. He took my money and my … ”
“And what is your name?”
“Emma Mae Thomas.”
“Are you alone in the house?”
“Yes … and he threatened … ”
“Mrs. Thomas, try to stay calm. I’m just the operator, but I’m dispatching the police to your house right now. Will you be okay until they arrive?”
“I’ze scared half to death. When will the police be here?”
“They should be there any minute. Now, you try to calm down and be sure to tell the police everything that happened. Okay?”
“Okay … thank you very much.”
~ ~ ~
Laurens Street is located near the public housing projects in a run-down, crime-infested neighborhood in West Baltimore. Many of the houses have been condemned by the Baltimore City Housing Authority and abandoned by the residents or the landlords who could not afford to make the renovations and repairs required to cure the housing code violations against the properties.
Years ago, the housing authority sent crews out to board up the abandoned houses, but many of them had been broken into and had periodically become home to a variety of homeless people who set the houses on fire burning trash to keep warm in the winter. Others had been turned into crack houses by some of the badass homies in the neighborhood. Most of the people living in the neighborhood were among the disenfranchised, unemployed, under-class of Baltimore’s welfare recipients. Drug dealing was rampant and the neighborhood kids ran wild in gangs with no adult supervision. Crime was the major activity of the teens and young adults in the area.
Emma Thomas, unlike many of her neighbors, was not on welfare. She and her late husband, James, bought their little row house with the white marble steps on Laurens Street almost fifty years ago. The mortgage was paid off in thirty years and they managed to keep their home well maintained. There was always enough money to keep beautiful flowers exploding their vibrant colors from the flower boxes under the windows of the two front rooms. They managed to supplement their son’s tuition and college expenses for four years at Towson State University where he graduated with a degree in education. They were proud, self-sufficient people who shared a great pride in their home, their son and their life together. James, who had been plagued with high blood pressure for years, had a stroke and died suddenly at age seventy-one only six years into his retirement. Emma was only sixty-eight when she became widowed nearly fifteen years ago.
Her home was like a blooming oasis in a barren desert. It was freshly painted and still had beautiful flowers cascading from the window boxes. You could eat off of her white marble steps which she painstakingly scrubbed several times a week.
She would have committed suicide before she would accept a single penny of welfare money. She supported herself with her Social Security benefits and the meager pension left to her by her late husband who had been employed as a laborer by the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. He had retired about twenty years ago at age sixty-five after forty-five years of dedicated service to his employer. Emma still remembered the wonderful party his fellow workers threw for him when he retired and proudly displayed the beautiful cut-glass vase they gave him as a retirement gift.
Emma had retired herself about eighteen years ago. She got a job in the housekeeping department of the old Emerson Hotel on Baltimore Street after she graduated from Dunbar High School. When the Emerson Hotel closed down, she moved on to the Lord Baltimore Hotel up the street and when that hotel was closed for renovations, she landed a job in the housekeeping department of Hutzler’s Department Store on Howard Street. Hutzler’s closed its downtown store and opened stores in the suburbs, but there was no convenient public transportation to any of those suburban stores and she had to resign. Still, she managed to find other jobs to keep herself busy. In fact, the only time she did not work was when she gave birth to her only son, Damon and was a stay-at-home mom until he started nursery school at age four.
Now, at almost eighty-three years of age, she was alone and trapped in this once lovely neighborhood where she shared and fulfilled most of her dreams with a faithful, hardworking and devoted husband. Her son had a family of his own and was the vice-principal of the Elmcroft Road Elementary School in Randallstown.
Many of the old neighbors with whom she had been friendly had died or moved out of the city when the junkies, drug peddlers and gangs began to rule the streets in the neighborhood. She had a handyman install decorative bars on her first floor windows and sturdier locks on the doors. Emma never ventured out alone at night, but still felt fairly secure in her home.
Emma wasn’t happy about what had become of the neighborhood, but she really couldn’t afford to move. Besides, she reckoned that any neighborhood where she could afford to move wouldn’t be much different from the one she was in. The areas of Baltimore which had been rehabilitated and gentrified were too pricey and the ones that were still affordable, had for the most part either fallen to decay or were enclaves of public and subsidized housing, occupied by people who had no vested interest in the properties and no sense of community pride. They had no respect for their own or anyone else’s property and no reason to concern themselves with the upkeep and appearance of the neighborhood.
Emma had been blessed with good health and was a very spry and tough old lady. She would walk to the corner grocery or wait at the bus stop during daylight hours by herself even though she was quite apprehensive of the dangers that lurked on every corner. She went about her business prepared to cope with any unwanted confrontations with the homeboys and potheads who had no respect for others and no value for life, not even their own. To them, an old lady alone on the street was just an easy target for an assault and robbery.
She was angered and puzzled by the intrusion into her home and suddenly for the very first time, felt quite unsafe. The ringing of the doorbell suddenly interrupted her thoughts. “Who’s there?” She called through the door.
“Police, Ma’am!”
“Just a minute,” she said as she got to the foyer and reached for the knob.
“Are you okay, Ma’am?” asked the first officer as he walked through the door.
“I feel better now that you’re here. Come right in.”
“I’m Officer Anthony Brock,” he said as he politely removed his hat and introduced his partner, Officer Rita Duncan.
“Can I fix ya some coffee or tea?” Emma offered.
“That’s very kind. If it’s not too much trouble might we just bother you for some cold water?”
“How ‘bout some fresh iced tea?” she suggested.
“That would be great … thank you.”
“Jus’ have a seat … make yo’selves comfortable. I be rat back,” she said as she headed for the kitchen.
Moments later, she returned carrying a tray with three glasses and a pitcher of ice tea. “Dere ya go,” she said as she deposited the tray on the coffee table. “Please hep yoself.”
“So do you feel up to answering some questions and then telling us what happened?” asked Officer Brock.
“I’ll try my best.”
“First, tell me your full name.”
“Emma Mae Thomas.”
“Does anyone else live here with you Mrs. Thomas?”
“No, I’ve been alone here since James passed on. He was my husband.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Hear what?”
“That your husband passed … was that recently?”
“Oh, no. It was fifteen years ago. He had a stroke … died right away … just like that,” she said as she snapped her fingers.
“Well, that’s too bad.”
“Actually, the doctor said it were a good thing he died quick like he did.”
“Why’s that?” asked Officer Duncan.
“Doctor said if he’d a lived he prob’ly woulda just ended up bein’ a vegetarian.”
“A vegetarian?”
“Yeah, you know … like in a vegetable state a mind.”
“Oh, I understand,” said Officer Duncan. “How old are you Mrs. Thomas?”
“I be eighty-three in two months, God willin’.”
“About what time did the break-in occur?”
“Well, I heard glass breakin’ and that woke me up. I looked over at the clock on the nightstand and it were ten minutes past two.”
“Mrs. Thomas, I’m going to look around to see if he left any evidence. Maybe he left some fingerprints.” explained Officer Brock. “While I’m doing that, Officer Duncan is going to get all the information from you about what happened, okay?”
Emma replied, “That’s fine.”
“So, Mrs. Thomas,” asked Officer Duncan, “What happened after you heard the glass break?”
“Well dere’s dis loose board in the flo’ upstairs in the hallway at the top a the steps. The flo’ creaks when you steps on it. I heard that flo’ creakin’ and I turned on the lamp ‘side my bed. I thought maybe the light would scare away whoever was out dere.”
“Did it?”
“Uh-uh … I thinks that boy mussa been all drugged up. He just come right on in the bedroom wit’ this big ol’ knife in his hand … wavin’ it ‘round to scare me.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He said somethin’ like, ‘give it up bitch or I gonna mess you up real bad.’”
“What did you do?”
“I aksed ‘em, give what up? What you doin’ in here? I tol’ ‘um … git out ma house!”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘if you wanna keep livin’ gramma, gimme all yo money.’ An’ I said it’s in my pockabook over dere on the dresser … just take it and git outta here.”
“What did he take?”
“He took my whole pockabook. I had my money, my Medicare card, my pills, my ‘dentification ‘n I don’t know what all else in dere. I don’ know what I gonna do.”
“Describe your pocketbook for me.”
“It be dis brown leather pockabook with two handles and it snap shut at the top …’bout this big,” she said demonstrating with her hands the approximate size of the purse.”
“Do you know how much money was in your purse?”
“I knows ‘zactly how much, ‘cause I made out a deposit ticket to take to da bank in the mornin’.”
“So how much was there?”
“I had two fifties, six twunies, one five dollar bill and two rolls a quarters … two hunert and forty-five dollars … dat’s how much!”
“Can you describe this person to me? How old do you think he was?”
“It’s hard to say, but I guesses ‘bout somewhere between nineteen and twuny-two.”
“How tall would you say he was?”
“Well I was sittin’ on da edge a da bed lookin’ up at ‘um ‘n I would say he was ‘bout tall as my boy, Damon. So I say five-feet and ten inches.
“How much do you think he weighed?” asked Officer Brock who had returned by this time.
“Well, I be guessin’ now, ‘cause the way he were dressed it were hard ta tell, but I say ‘bout a hunert ‘n seveny pouns.”
“How was he dressed?”
“He had on dis long leather coat … look like it were two or three sizes too big.”
“By long you mean like a full-length coat … you know down below his knees?”
“Un-uh. It were more like a jacket … you know, shorter than what you said, but not one a dem ones just to the waist.”
“So, you mean like a three-quarter length jacket … just above his knees?”
“Yep, dat’s da kind.”
“What color was it?”
“Black.”
“What color pants was he wearing?”
“Dey was black too … be dem kinda pants dat all bunched up at da bottom ‘n the crotch be down ‘tween his knees. I thinks dey calls ‘em hip-hop pants, er gangsta pants, er somethin’. Dey’s like what all them homeboys wears.”
“Can you describe what he looks like?”
“Yeah, he be dis angry-lookin’ dark-skinned black boy. He needed a shave ‘n he were wearin’ one a dose baseball kinda hats turned sideways. It were black too. It had a ‘A’ on it.”
“Can you describe the knife he was threatening you with?”
“It were a mean-lookin’ thing. ‘Bout this long,” she said holding her hands about five or six inches apart, ‘n it had a real pointy end. Look’ like some kinda dagger.”
Officer Duncan interrupted. “We’ve investigated four break-ins with the same MO in the past week. We think we might know who did this, but none of the other victims were able to identify him. Do you think if we showed you some pictures you would be able to identify him?”
“I got a pretty good look at ‘um, you know. The light was on and he were standin’ right there in fron’a me.”
Officer Brock asked, “So, if we can get some pictures here in the next half hour, would you try to identify him?”
“I’ze already up ‘n I ain’t likely ta be able to sleep anyway, so if you thinks it‘ll hep ketch ‘um, I do it.”
Officer Brock turned to Officer Duncan, “Rita, this sounds like you know who. How about you run down to the station and get eight or ten mug shots. Bring them back and see if she can make him.” He turned back to Mrs. Thomas and said, “I’ll stay here with you until she gets back.”
“I ‘preciates that. I’ze still kinda scared. You know dat boy what done this?”
“I think he’s the same kid I arrested a few years ago. He was a juvenile then. He’s been out of jail a couple of weeks and he still seems to have a problem staying out of other people’s houses. He didn’t live very far from here then. He probably still lives in the neighborhood.”
Officer Brock was sitting in a chair across from where Mrs. Thomas was sitting on the couch and said, “Do you think it’s a good idea for a lady your age to be living in this neighborhood alone? Don’t you have any family that you could live with?”
“I got my son, Damon, ‘n he been beggin’ me to come live with ‘um. But, ya know, he got his wife and kids and dey don’t need me out dere innerfearin’ with dey lives.”
“I’m sure he’d love to have you with him and especially after this incident.”
“He live way out dere in the couny in Randallstown … out in the middle a nowhere. I be good and stuck out dere,” she protested.
“Maybe so, but it would be a whole lot safer than living here by yourself.”
“Well, I think on it, but you know, I couldn’ get nuthin’ fer this house with the way the area is run-down ‘n I got my whole life ‘n all my memories here.”
“I know it would be a difficult decision to make, but I’m really concerned about your safety here. Every day there’s some kind of crime committed in this neighborhood. Muggings, break-ins, drug wars, drive-by shootings, rapes, murders … you name it. You’re too nice a lady to be in the middle of all this mess. You’re just lucky this guy didn’t hurt you tonight.”
“Well, maybe I’ll jus’ git me a pistol ‘n if dat boy come back here, I’ll shoot his black ass!”
“I don’t think you’d want to do that, but there are two things you’ve got to do to protect yourself a little better. First you’ve got to get rid of the glass panels in the front door and replace them with Lexan. That’s like bulletproof glass; it’s almost impossible to break. It’s not too expensive. They stock it at Penn Hardware over on Pennsylvania Avenue. Your son can measure the panels and pick it up. Any handyman can install it.
That’s how the guy broke in tonight. He broke the glass panel and reached in and unlocked the door from the inside. The second thing you’ve got to do is put a dead bolt on the door; the kind you need a key to open from the inside. That way even if they break the glass, they can’t unlock the door without a key. Will you look into that?”
“I talk to my son ‘bout it.”
“Would you like me to talk to your son? I can call him later today if you’d like.”
“Da two a you gonna get in cahoots to get me to move, is what you be aimin’ at.”
“Okay, I won’t call him if you don’t want me to, but promise you’ll do the two things I suggested.”
“I will. I promise.”
~ ~ ~
Officer Duncan returned with eight mug shots, including the one of Deon Rickins. Deon Rickins had been released from the Jessup prison two weeks earlier, after having served fifteen months of a three-year prison sentence for nighttime housebreaking and armed robbery. It had been his first offense as an adult, but he had an extensive juvenile record for committing the same kinds of crimes. Officer Brock had previously arrested him when he was still a juvenile. The officers spread the pictures out on the coffee table in front of Mrs. Thomas and asked her to look at each one carefully to see if she could pick out the picture of the man who broke into her house.
Emma lifted and carefully studied each print. After she looked at all eight, she returned to the fifth one, picked it up, held it under the light, adjusted her glasses and said, “That’s him.”
“Are you certain?” asked Officer Brock.
“Positive! That’s him!” she replied emphatically.
~ ~ ~
Deon Rickins lived four blocks down and one block over from 1016 Laurens Street on Argyle Avenue. Armed with a positive identification, Officers Anthony Brock and Rita Duncan headed for the District Court magistrate who had the night shift and obtained a search warrant for the house where Deon Rickins lived and a warrant for his arrest.
They requested the assistance of additional officers to help with the search and arrest. A second squad car arrived within minutes of their return to the neighborhood. Officers Brock and Duncan removed their Glock nine-millimeter weapons from their holsters and quietly approached the front door at the Argyle Avenue house where they believed Deon was residing. They stood on either side of the door pressed against the side of the house with their weapons raised in a ready position.
The other two officers went around to the rear of the house and positioned themselves at the rear door. Officer Brock gave the pre-arranged signal on his radio and in a synchronized attack, the officers simultaneously kicked in the front and rear doors of the house. The assault splintered the door frames and the doors swung inward and banged against the walls with a resounding crash.
The break-in was loud enough to wake the dead, but unexplainably, Taneesha Rickens, Deon’s, mother was the only person in the house to respond to the break-in. She screamed at the top of her lungs as she wrapped a faded terry-cloth robe around her ample body, “What the fuck’s goin’ on here?”
Officer Brock announced, “Police! Place your hands up and stop screaming. We have a warrant for the arrest of Deon Rickens with an authorization to search the premises. Officer Duncan is going to handcuff you. If you behave yourself, she will release you when we have completed our search and arrested Mr. Rickens. Where is he?”
“What’d he do? He be in bed sleepin’ for Chris’ sakes!”
Deon was arrested at four forty-five the same morning that he broke into Mrs. Thomas’s house.
The police officers searched the house and the surrounding area looking for the clothing, the money and the knife described by Mrs. Thomas.
Deon’s uncle, Jerome, was asleep in his room and never woke up while the police were in the house. No one knows what might have been found if they had done a thorough search of his room. Uncle Jerome might very well have been busted along with Deon if he kept any evidence of his drug business in the house.
After they transported Deon to the lock-up and booked him, Officers Brock and Duncan returned to 1016 Laurens Street, parked their squad car and walked through the alley between Laurens Street and Argyle Avenue to Deon’s house to search the area for evidence.
~•~•~
4
I stepped through the door onto the landing inside and was immediately assaulted by the sound of loud voices straining to be heard over the blaring music from a jukebox on the floor below. My eyes began to tear from the acrid smoke seeking an escape from the windowless edifice that lay several feet below the landing and the stench of stale beer drifting up from the bar downstairs. Once my eyes became accustomed to the haze of the smoke and the dim atmosphere, I descended the steps and fell into the rhythm of the mélange of humanity gyrating on the floor below. I snaked through the throng of young nubile bodies toward the bar. It was like being swept away on a pulsating tide of human flesh engaged in an orgasmic frenzy. People were stacked four deep at the bar.
It was Wednesday night at the Bear’s Den, a bar which occupies the basements of two eighty-year-old row houses in a somewhat run-down, blue-collar neighborhood on the west side of town. The place swarms on weeknights with newly separated men and women, married-cheaters and assorted and sundry other losers from the affluent, upscale, sprawling Pikesville community in the northwestern suburbs of Baltimore. The main attraction of the Den, as it is affectionately referred to by the habitués of this iniquitous sinkhole, is that the patrons feel safe here. It is highly unlikely they would ever run into anyone they know from their real lives … the lives they live on the weekends.
So what is a successful, thirty-seven year old single, well actually divorced for six years plus, lawyer doing in a joint like the Den? I don’t live in Pikesville. I’m not hiding from my real life. Christ, I don’t think I even have a real life! I’m not lost in life like the rest of these losers. The women? Nah, they’re just a secondary benefit. Business! That’s why I come here … Business! The cheaters, the losers, the people whose marriages are on the rocks, the hangers-on who frequent these kind of places always have problems … lots of legal problems. I have created a very active and lucrative law practice helping to extricate the inveterates of places like the Bear’s Den from the quagmire of their perpetual legal problems.
Don’t be put off by the fact that I’m a lawyer. I’m not a great fan of lawyers either, but I’m different from most other lawyers. I’m not one of those big-shot corporate types, walking around with a haughty attitude, nose up in the air and an expression of disgust on his face like an Episcopalian searching for a clean seat in a public toilet. I have a good sense of humor. I like to make people laugh and in general, I don’t take myself too seriously. Don’t misunderstand me … my clients get the very best and most aggressive representation available. Winning is very important. Actually, it’s more than very important; it’s everything! … Well, it’s not everything either. For me, it’s the only thing!
Another thing I have going for me is the uncanny ability to say just about anything to anybody and get away with it. Not even I know what might come out of my mouth on any particular occasion. I once had a client who had been accused of rape. The victim testified that he didn’t have intercourse with her because he was unable to maintain his erection. I didn’t think twice about telling the judge who had absolutely no sense of humor, that my client should be acquitted because he should have been charged with assault with a dead weapon … oh, he threatened me with contempt, but I got away with it.
There are some good things about being a lawyer. Most of the time, I don’t have to lift anything that’s too heavy. I get to wear nice suits and expensive shoes. At the end of the day, my clothes aren’t soiled and my shoes don’t get scuffed up. I don’t very often get dirt under my fingernails and despite the fact that after twelve years, I still haven’t figured out how much to charge clients, I still have managed to make a damned good living and surround myself with all of the accoutrements of financial success. I have an expensive car, a luxurious condo in a prestigious mid-town apartment building in historic Mount Vernon Place. I have the time to avail myself of the amenities of a top tier country club of which I am a member. Unfortunately, I have no significant person of the female persuasion with whom I wish to share my success. Perhaps I’ve been looking for her in the wrong places. She sure as hell isn’t going to be hanging out at the Bear’s Den.
I finally managed to inch my way up to the bar to order my Stoli Crystal Gimlet on the rocks in a snifter with a twist of lime. I’ll nurse it all night, because I really don’t like to drink, but a friend of mine always orders a Stoli Crystal Gimlet on the rocks in a snifter with a twist of lime. He always sends it back because it’s never quite right … too much of this or too little of that. It all seems so sophisticated, so that’s what I do; order one and then send it back. It’s also a good conversation starter.
Charlie placed a napkin over a bare spot on the bar when he spotted me. “Hey Bruce, the usual?”
“Yeah,” I replied a little disappointed that I didn’t have a chance to go into the whole spiel.
“You gonna send it back?” he asked.
“Probably.”
“You know Megan?” he asked, nodding to the quite attractive young lady seated on the stool to my right.
“No, I’ve never had the pleasure,” I responded. I turned toward her, smiled and introduced myself. “Hi Megan, I’m Bruce West,” I said and extended my hand to her.
“The Bruce West?” she asked quizically. “The infamous lawyer, C. Bruce West?”
“I’m sorry, we couldn’t possibly have met before; that would be something I don’t think I could forget,” I fawned, pouring on the charm.
“No, we haven’t but I certainly have heard a lot about you.”
“Really, can I buy you a drink?”
“Absolutely … what are you drinking?” she asked.
I was so excited. “Charlie is fixing me a Stoli Crystal Gimlet on the rocks in a snifter with a twist of lime.” I was smiling.
“That sounds interesting; I’ll try one of those,” she replied.
I hollered out to Charlie, trying to be heard over the cacophony of the loud voices and the blaring jukebox, “Charlie! Make that two Stoli Crystal Gimlets on the rocks in snifters with twists of lime.” I turned my attention back to Megan. “So, Megan, I hope everything you’ve heard about me was good.”
“Quite to the contrary,” she said with a wide grin on her face.
This suddenly didn’t seem too promising. I just sprung for a drink for a chick that has heard bad stuff about me. I hoped that she’d like the Stoli Crystal Gimlet on the rocks in a snifter with a twist of lime and not send it back.
“Well, you can’t believe everything you hear about people you don’t know. I mean how reliable was your source?” I asked.
“Oh, Daddy is quite reliable. I’ve known him all my life and he’s a federal court judge,” she said grinning even wider.
“Is he a federal court judge that I might know?”
“Forgive me for not properly introducing myself,” she replied. “My name is Megan Anderson.”
My heart dropped into my shoes. “You’re Judge Jerome Anderson’s daughter?” I asked in a shocked tone of voice. “This is great!” I exclaimed. “I’m so happy to meet you,” I lied with a big smile on my face.
I hate her father. I’ve had two cases before him over the past few years. Each time, he threatened me more than once with contempt of court. He berated me publicly in his courtroom, screamed unmercifully at me in chambers and constantly denounced me as being incompetent. During my first encounter with him, he threatened to have me prosecuted for violating the federal wiretap laws. He is a stern, humorless, impatient tyrant with a volatile temper, a short fuse and a bad reputation among the lawyers in the federal bar and the fourth circuit federal judiciary. He holds the distinction of having the greatest number of decisions reversed on appeal. I’ve often wondered if he beats his wife and children with a big stick … I’ll have to ask Megan.
Unfortunately, in this country, presidents get impeached for getting a blow-job in the oval office, but there is no practical way to rid the system of a bad federal judge who has been appointed for life. That too requires impeachment proceedings which have only been successful in a handful of cases.
Megan went on, “When you’ve had a case in his court he has been impossible to be around at home. That’s not to say that living in that house has been a bed of roses for me and my mom, but when you were in the picture, it was even worse. All he did was rant and rave about you. There was like no peace at all. I hated you for making my life more miserable and I didn’t even know you.”
“Well, I’m really surprised to hear that. I thought he was just great,” I lied.
“Well, then you’re an even bigger asshole than he said. I hate that son-of-a-bitch. He’s done nothing but make our lives miserable. He’s a fucking tyrant, with a bad temper and no redeeming qualities that I’ve ever discovered. He’s got the personality and the warmth of a pit full of vipers.”
“Wow! Tell me, did he ever beat you with a thick stick?”
“You don’t even want to know the kind of abuse he’s put my mother and me through.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I was just kidding when I said I liked him. But you knew that didn’t you?”
“I know that one of the reasons he hates you, is that he probably couldn’t intimidate you and you got your clients acquitted. He can’t stand being wrong, so he just accuses everybody of tricking him. He doesn’t like anybody who stands up to him and isn’t cowed by his threats and bullshit.”
“Well, in all honesty, I did trick him and the U.S. Attorney in the conspiracy case I had with him last year. If he hadn’t been so ornery and prejudiced against my clients, I probably wouldn’t have been able to win without having to put on a defense, but in the long run, I’d have won anyway, because the jury loved me. There was no way they’d have found my clients guilty. And by the way, they really were innocent.”
“I get so worked-up whenever I talk about that motherfucker. Let’s finish our drinks and go someplace and fuck,” she said bluntly.
“Whoa! Hold on a second. I don’t really think that’s a good idea.”
“Why? You’ll like it. I give great head and I ejaculate all over the place.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt anything you say and I can think of nothing I’d rather do at this moment. Christ, I’m getting a erection just thinking about it, but I don’t want to be the vehicle you use to get even with your father. You’d go right home and taunt him with the fact that you slept with me and gave me a blow-job just to piss him off. He already hates me and I plan to practice law for quite a few more years in this community. It is a certainty that I’ll have to appear before him again. I’d rather go to the dentist and have my teeth drilled without Novocain than to appear in his court. But, I can’t even imagine what it would be like if he knew that I had screwed his daughter. As much as I’d like to take you up on your offer, I frankly don’t have the balls to do it.”
“I can’t say that I blame you, but fucking you has nothing to do with my father. I just happen to be really horny.”
“Megan, please don’t be insulted. I’m sure having sex with you would be one of the highlights of my life. I never would have believed I could turn down an opportunity to have sex with someone as beautiful and sensuous as you, but I just can’t let my hard dick get in the way of my common sense and my instincts for self-preservation. Please try to understand.”
“How about if I swear not to tell him?”
“I don’t think I would do it even if you offered to cut out your tongue.” Which, I thought to myself, would certainly interfere with her ability to give good head.
“I can’t believe this. My father said you were a stupid, hardheaded son-of-a-bitch. I guess he knows what he’s talking about.” she excoriated me angrily.
“Don’t be mad. We can be platonic friends. I’ll fix you up with one of my friends or how about this … we can go to a porno shop and I’ll buy you a really nice battery-operated dildo. If you want we can go back to my apartment and I can watch you masturbate, but please don’t ask me to fuck you. I’m not ready to end my career.”
“I don’t need you to fix me up. I’m perfectly capable of seducing any man I want,” she snapped.
“Well, next time you meet a lawyer you want to jump in the sack with, don’t tell him your real name, ‘cause no lawyer in this town with half a brain will have anything to do with you. And if you find one who will, stay away from him … he’d have to be a genuine lunatic! Listen, if your father dies, call me right away … we can go someplace and fuck our brains out. I really like you … let’s make a date to have dinner … how about Friday night?”
“You going to pick me up at home?”
“Do you live at home with your parents?”
“Come on Bruce … I’m twenty-eight years old, for Christ’s sake!”
“So where do you live?”
“Actually I’m in the process of moving and I am staying with them until my new place is ready.”
“Great! Do you think that would be a good idea? That would be nearly as bad as fucking you.”
“Where are we going to go?”
“Why don’t I meet you at Sabatino’s in Little Italy?”
“That will be cool. Aren’t you worried that I might tell my father I’m going out with you?”
“I’ll be able to handle that.”
“Well, then why don’t we just go someplace and fuck, because I’m going to tell him I fucked you anyway.”
“You wouldn’t do that to me and ruin a perfect platonic friendship.”
“You don’t understand. I will still go to dinner with you Friday night, but I really want to get laid tonight and it’s getting late!” she insisted as she raised her arm to look at her watch.
“I’d insist on a lie detector test. I’d be able to prove my innocence if he didn’t lose his temper and kill me first.”
“I really don’t fucking believe this,” she muttered in obvious frustration.
“Neither do I,” I responded. “Do you want another drink?”
“No, I’m leaving. I’ll see you Friday night. What time?”
“How’s eight o’clock? I’ll make a reservation.”
“I’ll see you then. In the meantime, I guess we can both just go fuck ourselves … literally!” she said as she stood to leave with a disingenuous smile on her face. She leaned toward me with a look of determination and stated, “I want you to know that I’m not giving up. I damned well intend to get in your pants and you best believe I get what I want!” she said as she headed for the stairs to the exit.
On my way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about Megan. She was the most aggressive woman I had ever encountered and I’d never had a woman who ejaculated. What the hell was I thinking? Why the fuck should I care about what her father thinks? He already hates me; I hate him and if he gets a hard-on for me because I had sex with his daughter, well then, all the more reason he would have to recuse himself from my cases. Screwing Megan could be a good thing for my career … not a bad thing! I could advertise that I was fucking Judge Anderson’s daughter. Maybe, place an ad in the Baltimore Sun: “C. Bruce West, attorney-at-law is currently fucking Judge Jerome Anderson’s daughter.” Then anyone who had a case before him would want me for his or her lawyer. We could move the case right out of his court to a more reasonable judge.
By the time I got home, I was so pissed at myself, that I had a hard time falling asleep.
~•~•~
5
The alarm detonated at eight-thirty exploding me out of a nearly-wet dream of Megan squirting a stream of whatever fluid a woman ejaculates across the room. What does a woman ejaculate anyway? It can’t be semen. I’ll have to remember to Google that when I get to the office.
Last night had been a total bust out. I screwed up big time by not bringing Megan home with me from the Den. I got no new clients. It’s a rare Wednesday night when I don’t pick up one or two cases at the Den or at the very least, leave with one of the secondary benefits of hanging out there.
Judge Anderson … the mere mention of that bastard’s name interrupts the rhythm of my life. He always schedules hearings on Wednesdays which fuck-up my golf schedule. He interferes with my style of trying cases. He plants negative images in the minds of jurors to insure a victory in the government’s cases. In reflection, and I’m not really sure how he controls this, but every time I’ve had a hearing or trial in his court, it rains to beat hell and ruins a pair of my expensive shoes. He evokes terror in the hearts of lawyers who appear in his court. And now, he’s fucking up my sex life.
I wandered into the kitchen to brew a fresh cup of coffee. I filled a cup with water from the instant hot and stirred in a teaspoon of Taster’s Choice decaffeinated instant coffee. I sat there alone, nursing the coffee and thinking about how really stupid I was last night. There is no law against a lawyer having sex with a judge’s daughter. It wouldn’t be a violation of the cannons of legal ethics or the rules of practice. It doesn’t violate the Federal Rules of Procedure and there’s nothing in the Ten Commandments that says thou shalt not covet thy judge’s daughter.
I retrieved the newspaper from the hallway outside of my front door, glanced through the world and national news in the front section and the first few pages of the Metro Section while I finished my coffee. I rinsed out the cup and put it into the dishwasher and then I headed back to my empty bedroom to get ready for another exciting day in the life of C. Bruce West, Esquire
The phone rang just as I was about to jump into the shower. My heart skipped a beat. I imagined it was Megan who was going to tell me she was downstairs in the lobby and was headed up to my apartment to ejaculate all over my bedroom. “Hi Megan,” I joyfully answered.
“Who’s Megan?” It was my mother. “Another one of your bimbos?” she asked accusingly.
“Oh, Hi Mom.” No she’s some judge’s daughter I want to screw, I said to myself.
“What are you doing tonight?” she asked.
“I have no plans yet. I’ll probably go to the Pimlico Hotel and hang out in the lounge after dinner.”
The Pimlico Hotel is one of the best restaurants in Baltimore. It’s a landmark near the Pimlico Race Track, home of the Preakness, which is the second race of the Triple Crown of horseracing. Located in northwest Baltimore, it’s a favorite hangout for many of those Pikesville folks who do their cheating at the Bear’ Den. The restaurant boasts a menu that offers a wide selection of foods, all of which are brilliantly prepared in a wide variety of ethnic cuisines … Chinese, Continental, Italian, Spanish or just plain American. Thursday night is the big night at the Pimlico lounge. Freddie Stern plays the piano and sings his renditions of popular songs; he always attracts a lively crowd.