George Pelecanos (18 page)

He
fretted and racked his brain, trying to fathom,
How
did the killer find out who I am? How did he find me?

The
thought occurred to him that the killer might still be around, lying in wait
to...to do what? Knife him and leave him bleeding on the floor? Gun him down in
the parking lot? He looked around, trying to make sure he was not in immediate
danger, but he was sure that his nervousness betrayed him.

Warily,
his mind reeling, he walked to the escalator leading to the second level of the
mall, wondering if being a good man was worth it.

When
he got to his car in the front parking lot of Iverson Mall, he found a folded
piece of paper under the left windshield wiper of Sweet Georgia Brown, his
mint-condition 1970 metal-flake candy-apple-red,
black-ragtop-with-black-leather interior Volkswagen Karman Ghia Coupe, which he
had painstakingly refurbished personally over the last two years. Her
personalized D.C. license tags read, GEORGIA

What
with him attending Howard U on a full scholarship as a civil engineering major
and only working part-time at various jobs--busboy, waiter, photo technician at
Moto-Foto--restoring her had by no means been an easy task, but it had been
worth it. Often women mistook it for a Porsche. Incredible! Yeah, Sweet Georgia
Brown drew women's attention that men like him could not otherwise draw, and
that was priceless.

Rodney
Grimes's anxiety heightened when he opened the note and read it. The message,
which was handwritten in a childlike scrawl, said: Heros don't wear glasses.

Heros--the
ignorant bastard couldn't even spell heroes
Under
different circumstances, Rodney would have found this amusing, but nothing was
funny about the situation. This was the killer's subtle way of telling him that
he knew not only who he was, but what car he drove. It was a good bet that he
knew where he lived, too.

Grimes
refolded the note and put it in his shirt pocket. He walked around the car,
giving it
a
once-over to determine if any damage had
been done. Satisfied that his sweetheart was still in great condition, he
disarmed the alarm system and unlocked her, climbed in, started her up, and
headed off.

The
drive home to his tenth-floor apartment at the Wingate House East apartment
complex on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in far Southwest Washington was no
joy-ride. Rodney couldn't shake the fear and a sense of impending doom he had
not felt in years, not since he was in the seventh grade at Hart Junior High
School.

When
he'd attended Hart, he had been beaten and robbed on a daily basis, by people
like the killer, until he fought back one day and maced a thug in the face when
he'd attempted to rob him. That had been his last day, since to remain would
have meant certain death. His mother had used her cunning by giving her
sister's apartment in a housing project on M Street, S.W. as his home address
so that he could attend a school in another part of town, Jefferson Junior
High. It had been smooth sailing from there and he had stopped living in fear.
Until now.

But
what he had experienced at Hart was nothing compared to the terror the killer
instilled in him now. The killer had threatened not only him, but also "other
people" Rodney cared about, and his concern for the safety of his friends and
family was what really terrified him. His actions could cause them harm...but
could he live with the consequences of inaction, of not cooperating with the
authorities and letting the killer go unpunished? In fact, what would stop the
killer from doing
him
and those he cared about harm
once the danger of arrest and prosecution had passed? If something bad happened
to April Knight, he'd never forgive himself.

As
he parked his sweetie in the front parking lot of Wingate House East, Rodney
Grimes could not shake the belief that he was damned if he did and damned if he
didn't.

Detective
John Mayfield had seen better days, both careerwise and in his private life.
His early years as a homicide detective had been good days. His closure rate
was high, the envy of his peers, in fact. His late wife had always been in his
corner, even though most homicide detectives' marriages end in divorce.
Understandable.
Police work, with its constant shift
changes, makes cultivating any meaningful relationship difficult, but this type
of assignment, which requires a round-the-clock commitment, makes it virtually
impossible. Few people can accept being married to a ghost. But his dear
Katherine had put up with it and hung in there. She had deserved better than
dying by the hands of a lowlife during a street robbery gone bad. The fact that
her murder remained unsolved was a festering wound. To him, every murderer he
brought to justice was Katherine's killer, but the wound would never heal, he
knew.

His
closure rate seemed to diminish in direct proportion to his failing health, not
because he lacked the stamina he once had as some might argue, though he was
painfully aware that he did indeed lack the vigor of his youth, but because of
obstacles he now had to hurdle to bring the guilty to justice. Nowadays,
witnesses were hard to come by. A thug strapped with a MAC-11 can open fire on
a crowded street or sporting event or concert hall, and no one sees a thing. If
the perpetrators fail to intimidate witnesses, then murder definitely does the
trick.

Cases
that shocked and outraged the public humiliated the mayor and his "law and
order" administration, and the pressure to quickly rectify each situation
was
passed on to the chief of police. Shit rolls down hill,
and this time around Mayfield was at the bottom of the heap. With a caseload of
thirty-seven murders for the year, more than half of them unsolved, John
Mayfield was under a lot of pressure. As his boss Captain Lynch had put it,
"Work better and faster if you want to keep your job!"

Yeah,
the good old days of being a superstar homicide detective were definitely long
gone as far as Detective Mayfield was concerned. But today would be like the
good ol' days, he mused. Today, he had a rock solid case against the prolific
and ever elusive "Teflon Thug," Isaiah "Ice" Hamilton, the suspect in the double
homicide on Chesapeake Street, S.E., not only with strong physical evidence,
but with three eyewitnesses: urban pioneer Terri Daulby; pillar of the
community Ruthann Sommers; and Whiz Kid Rodney Grimes, some kind of nerdy
genius who had risen above the social forces that seemed to conspire to keep
black men down by turning them into Ice Hamiltons to become well-educated and
gainfully employed. Each of them, separately, had picked Ice out a nine-mugshot
black-and-white photo array--black-and-white instead of color so that Hamilton's
cold-as-ice, steely bluish-gray eyes wouldn't set him apart from the mugshots
of thugs of similar age, facial structure, and dark complexion.

The
witnesses would stand by in separate waiting areas down the hall in an office just
inside the secured, combination-lock doors leading to the lineup room where,
one by one, they would see if they could pick out the suspect who had opened
fire in broad daylight a couple of days ago on a cool, early September Saturday
afternoon while the intended target, Francisco "Big Boy" Longus, was standing
in front of 740 Chesapeake Street, S.E.

Mayfield
was driven by a burning desire to see Ice, the cold-blooded perpetrator--alleged
perpetrator--of this and other sins before God, put away as soon as possible.
But it was also important to him that by closing this case he got off his back
the government officials, police brass, and community leaders who were all
whipped into fever pitch by an outraged public.

Yes,
closing this case swiftly had gotten him out from under not only the victims'
family--he had notified Aaliyah's mother by phone as soon as the arrest warrant
was issued--but from the good captain as well.

Detective
Mayfield had arrived at the soot-stained, weather-beaten, and dilapidated municipal
center, the Henry J. Daly Building, located at 300 Indiana Avenue, N.W., at
around 7:45 a.m. for check-in at the Court Liaison Unit on the first floor, a
prerequisite before he could log in at D.C. Superior Court across the courtyard
for the long and ongoing "Simple City Massacre" murder trial at which he would
testify against codefendants LaVon "Pooty" Kirkwood and Donzelle "Killa"
Hilliard...whenever the prosecution got around to him.

After
he had checked in to court and was placed on standby, to be paged shortly
before they needed him on the witness stand, he'd returned to MPD HQ for his
10:00 a.m. appointment in the lineup room. He was anxious. Finally bringing
down Isaiah "Ice" Hamilton had him wired.

Handcuffed
and shackled, and escorted by two officers assigned to the Central Cell Block
(CCB), the very dark-complexioned Isaiah "Ice" Hamilton, six feet four inches
tall and lean but muscular, clad in the standard thug uniform of laceless
sneakers, baggy low-riding jeans, and oversized T-shirt, stepped from the
private express elevator that ran between the CCB in the basement and the
prisoner holding area adjacent to the CID lineup room. Detective Mayfield,
Detective Crawford of the Lineup Unit, and five plainclothes officers of
similar build, age, and skin color, selected to participate in the lineup, were
already there when Ice and his escorts arrived.

Ice
Hamilton had been picked up at about 4:00 a.m. that morning, operating the
suspect vehicle described by the three witnesses, a black late-model Ford Crown
Vic, and bearing the tag number Ruthann Sommers had jotted down just before the
shooter sped from the scene. Remarkable also was that the car had not been
reported stolen, which was typically the case for vehicles used in the
commission of felony offenses. Ice was pulled over by two Seventh District
officers when they spotted him driving the wanted vehicle on Barnaby Street,
S.E., a couple of blocks away from the scene of the crime. Luckily, Ice
Hamilton had not been able to produce his license, so he was placed under
arrest and his vehicle was impounded. As instructed, the arresting officers
made no mention of the car being the suspect vehicle in a murder case.

When
he got the news, Detective Mayfield had been amazed that the cunning and
elusive Teflon Thug had made such a magnificent blunder, and he was still
astounded by this development, but rationalized that perhaps Ice wasn't as
smart as he had given him credit for. Hell, it wouldn't be the first time.
Incredibly, pursuant to a D.C. Superior Court warrant issued posthaste through
Mayfield's connections and served within ninety minutes of Ice being taken into
custody, the search of the trunk of the Crown Vic had yielded a MAC-11 and two
fully loaded magazines, clothes matching the description of that worn by the
assailant, and black cotton work gloves of the type the witnesses said the
shooter had worn. Furthermore, ballistics tests conducted by the Firearms
Examination Section--also conducted posthaste within two hours of the arrest via
Detective Mayfield's connections--had identified the MAC-11 as the weapon in the
Chesapeake Street double murder, as well as tentatively linked it to a half
dozen other shootings and seven other murders committed in D.C. over the last
nine months. The discovery of the weapon and the ammo led to additional holding
charges of possession of a prohibited weapon and possession of unregistered
ammunition.

By
the time Detective Mayfield interviewed Ice briefly in the Seventh District
Detectives Office, the latter was only aware that he was being charged with
failure to display his operator's permit, and possession of a prohibited weapon
and unregistered ammo. Mayfield nonchalantly inquired as to (1) Ice's
whereabouts on the afternoon of the previous Saturday, and (2) how he had come
to be in the possession of the Crown Vic.

Ice's
answers were simple: "Hangin' wid my boyz" to the first question, "Borrowed it
from my boy" to the second. Ice didn't even bother to ask the detective why he
wanted to know. When questioned if he knew that the man he'd borrowed the car
from, Carter Washington, was wanted on an arrest warrant charging him with
murder, and if he knew Washington's whereabouts, Ice replied, "Naw, I didn't
know he was wanted. I don't know where that nigger at."

At
any rate, John Mayfield was certain that he had built a rock solid case against
Ice Hamilton for the Chesapeake Street murders. The physical evidence and the
statements of the three witnesses who had separately picked him out of a photo
array was more than enough for him to obtain an arrest warrant and a lineup
order.

Stifling
a laugh, Mayfield smiled at Ice, who responded with a smirk.

"Ice,"
said Mayfield.

Ice
nodded.
"Detective."

"Been
behaving
yourself
?" the detective asked.

Ice
snorted. "Don't matter if I misbehave or not.
Rollers always
tryin' to pin somethin' on me.
Tryin' Like you tryin'
this time."

Mayfield
chuckled. "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

Ice
glared at him. "My lawyer'll get me off, like always." "Oooh,"
quipped
Mayfield, "I'm shaking. Fact is, your very expensive
lawyer, who just happens to be next door waiting to sit in on the lineup, by
the way, is very, very good...but Johnny Cochrane couldn't get you out of this
one. You got sloppy this time, Ice. You should stick with knives; guns aren't
your speed." He nodded at an officer. "Unshackle him."