The She-wolf's Love

Chapter 3

“Hello 9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the operator asked.

“Hello, I just witnessed a murder,” Mrs. Diana said frantically. Her hands shook vigorously as she spoke.

“If I hear you correctly, you said you just witnessed a murder, ma’am?”

“Yes. I’m Diana. I live at 64 Chesapeake Street, Western Avenue, Kalamazoo,” she answered.

“Okay ma’am. Tell me what you saw.”

“I was looking out my window, watching as people celebrated Independence Day, when I saw two figures in the dark. It looked like one was grabbing the other from behind,” she paused to catch her breath. “A few seconds later, I saw the one who was grabbed fall to the ground as the other one began to use his hands on her. After a while, the other person stood for a few seconds before running off into the crowd,” she added.

“Do you know the genders of the figures you saw?” the operator asked.

“Yes. The one who grabbed the other was male, the other was female.” Mrs. Diana replied.

“Okay Diana. Do you have any other details to add?”

“The shooter looked like he was a black male, average height, navy blue sweatshirt and gray pants,” Mrs. Diana concluded.

“All right. Thank you very much. I’m sending an ambulance and a police team right away,” the operator said, and ended the call.

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The air outside the restaurant was cooler and smelled of humus. Josh lit the reason for their departure. He took a deep drag and exhaled smoke out his nostrils. “I hear our perp put us on the map.”

Minutes after the shooting, 911 started ringing like a twenty-four hour news hotline. Dispatch started fielding calls from media stringers sniffing after a story.

“Ears and eyes are everywhere. We are in the social media era. Anything and everything makes the news,” David said.

Interagency pissing contests were as common to law enforcement as to the military. City cops looked down on county cops, county cops resented the highway patrol, the highway patrol detested the ATF and everybody hated the FBI. The latter two were graven in stone, but all-hands emergencies like tonight’s eclipsed jurisdictional meters and bounds.

Alfred said, “I suppose you already know that our shooter didn’t have any ID on him. No driver’s license, no credit cards. Zip.

A cigarette dangling from his lips, Alfred flipped back several pages in his notes. “The kitchen assistant said his name was G. F. Taylor. Came in about a month ago looking for a job. No such luck – the manager had just hired a new pair of hands. A day or so later, the kid didn’t show up for work. Taylor was contacted to claim the vacant position if he wanted it.”

“Taylor wasn’t a local,” David said. “Any idea where he hailed from?”

“Negative. The first three digits of his social security number he gave the restaurant manager are two-two-four – issued in Virginia. I’ll run it for wants and warrants when I get to the office. Have any idea who the dead woman some meters away is? Officers say they saw Taylor walking away from that scene.”

“Emily Roberts. Her father is one of the top players in Michigan’s business circles. An officer has been sent to his residence to inform him of what has happened. We are about to have our backsides set ablaze. The man has lots of influence in this state.”

“We'll do what we can. So help me, if somebody has prior knowledge, I want his or her ass in jail for conspiracy, accessory – every charge the prosecutor can hang on ‘em,” David said resignedly.

Alfred shook his head. “Taylor was a loner. Clocked in on time, did his job, clocked out, walked home. He shot the s**t with the busboys about baseball and bitched at the waitstaff for not sharing their tips with those that did the dirty work, but he didn’t talk at himself.”

Fatigue and lethargy from a full-born adrenaline rush whined in David’s head. He struggled to think straight and fast. “Quite a few workplace massacres have ended with the perpetrator committing suicide, haven’t they?”

“Whether they did or not, punching his own ticket definitely wasn’t part of Taylor’s plan,” Alfred said. “A pair of sunglasses, a yellow ball cap and a red shirt were found in a knapsack a few blocks away from the restaurant. A one-way bus ticket to Ohio was in the shirt pocket. It was pretty obvious, Taylor was going to chuck the weapons and ski mask in a Dumpster, button the red shirt over the black one and top it off with a yellow cap.”

“Smart,” David admitted grudgingly. “Witness descriptions might have put his height and weight from five-six and a hundred and forty to six-five and two-ten, but even if they weren’t sure whether his shirt was black or navy, they wouldn’t have mistaken it for red.”

“Another answered question,” David continued, “is there any connection between Taylor and Emily Roberts?”

“The shooter gruesomely murdered Emily minutes before storming the restaurant,” Alfred said with uncertain certainty.

“We have to get a report from the coroner and forensics to know exactly how Emily was killed by Taylor before we draw conclusions. No fingerprints? No CCTV footage?” David fired back. He was mentally exhausted.

“None yet,” Alfred said, embarrassed at his confidence in giving rather empty information on the case.

“This is totally befuddling! Any theories on how a minimum-wage dishwasher came into possession of a TEC-9 assault rifle and a 9 mm Beretta automatic and the gruesome murder of Emily Roberts?”

“Well, the tooth fairy didn’t leave ‘em under his pillow,” Alfred said, “If we’re lucky, the Beretta’s serial number will lead somewhere. Intertec 9’s, 22’s and the like have been banned several years ago. Before and since, assault rifles have been the go-to weapons of gun-queer cops, white supremacists and gangbangers.”

“Then Taylor brought him with him.”

“Maybe,” Alfred shrugged. “We both know all three of the above call Kalamazoo home and none of them would file a stolen-property report if their toys came up missing.”

Legal ownership of an assault rifle requires federal registration and a permit. Alfred had just busted a reservist on multiple weapons violations, among other things. Alfred’s attention to something else was called by a rookie cop and his conversation with David came to an end.

Detective David got home and slumped onto the sofa. He was exhausted. His designer Louis Vuitton tailored suit was a mess. He had taken a chunk from his savings to buy that suit and had only worn it once – his first date with Melissa, his ex-wife. Now, the suit would be confined to the dustbin of history because blood and other matter had tainted its purity. He didn’t bother to take off his shoes because he was too tired to do so. He would sleep off on the sofa and wake up any time his body chose to do so.