Chapter 20

distant ears

Nikki poured the water into the coffee maker and almost immediately it

started to percolate down into the empty pot. She removed the coffee cake

from the oven and had just set on the rack to cool when the doorbell rang.

She looked at her watch, seven on the nose. A punctual man…hmmmm.

Nikki opened the door and there stood Danny, hands full of fresh cut

daisies.

"Damn, it smells great in there!" he said as his nostrils filled with the

sweet smell of cinnamon. "Brought you a little present. I hope you like
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daisies."

"I hate the fuckers." She deadpanned. "Daisies killed my mother."

"Sorry to hear that." Danny said, tossing the bunch of flowers over his

shoulder.

"No I’m just kidding!" she screamed as she watched the delicate flowers

fly through the air and scatter over the front lawn.

"Now you tell me!" he laughed and began to gather the flowers together

again.

In about thirty seconds he turned around and presented her with a new

bunch of daisies, their stems broken, most of them missing a petal or two.

"There’s some grass mixed in. Sorry about that." he chuckled.

"You asshole. I guess you can still come in."

Danny walked in and handed Nikki his sorry bouquet.

"Here, let me put those in a vase." she said, tossing them in the trash can.

"Would you like some coffee cake or you want me to just throw it on the

lawn?"

"Okay, clean slate." he replied, wiping off an imaginary chalkboard. "Is it

a deal?"

Danny held his hand out.

"Deal!" Nikki said.

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 She spit in her hand and clutched onto Danny’s before he could pull it

back. When she released her grip, he grinned sheepishly and wiped his hand

on his pant leg.

"Well, now that we have the pleasantries out of the way let’s get down to

business."

The two of them sat, drank coffee and nibbled at their cake for a few

minutes before they got into the meat of the conversation.

"I guess we can assume that since IA is going to the trouble of bugging its

officers this thing is pretty fucking serious, eh?" Danny asked, brushing his

crumbs from the table onto his saucer.

"Garland says it may go all the way up to the deputy chief, so yeah it’s

pretty serious."

As they talked, the parabolic microphone gathered in every word and

funneled it to a tape recorder. The two vehicle occupants sat in the non-

descript gray Chevy, fast food wrappers gathered around their feet.

"So what does the man say about all of this?" the passenger said as he

turned to the driver.

"The man thinks that Tilden’s a liability that we need to lose."

"What the fuck you mean…kill him?"

"Yeah, kill him, ice him, whack him! You know…the big sleep!"

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 "Nah fuck that! I didn’t sign on for that!"

The driver reached over and grabbed the passenger by the lapels and

pulled him closer.

"Look asshole, you’re in this just as deep as I am! We can both swim or

we can both sink together. Besides, any killing to do and I’ll do it. It’ll be a

pleasure. Maybe I can smoke Sullivan while I’m at it!"

"You’re fucking crazy man! If you decide to do anything, I don’t want to

know nothing about it!"

"Fine pussy, you can read about it in the papers."

The passenger thought about it for a while then continued.

"What good will killing Tilden do? He already talked to IA. They got him

on tape!"

"You mean these tapes here?" the driver said, producing several micro-

cassettes from his jacket pocket.

"Where the hell did you get those?" the passenger asked incredulously.

"From my pocket. Other than that…you don’t want to know."

"You got that right!" the passenger replied, turning to look out the

window.

"We’re just spinning our wheels here. I’ll drop your sorry ass off and go

take care of that business you don’t want to know about."

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 The passenger didn’t answer. He just stared out the window.

Inside the apartment, Danny and Nikki had run through the whole story

several times and had come up with what they thought was the final version.

Terrence O’Neil was in league with Doobie Flowers and had just made a

major cocaine score. Terrence decided that he didn’t want to split the profits

so he tried to kill Doobie by giving him an overdose of some yet unknown

drug. Instead of croaking, Doobie went off his nut and started shooting

people outside The Acey-Ducey Club. When it got out that not only didn’t

Doobie die, but he was in police custody, Terrence must have called his

daddy the Deputy Chief to come save his ass again which he did…with

extreme prejudice.

"The only thing we don’t know for sure," Danny said after the summation,

"is whether the DC was just acting out of fatherly love or if he could have

been in on the whole cocaine deal from the get-go."

"That’s really just a small detail though.’ Nikki added. "What we have

here is a major police official who has committed a murder to cover the

tracks of his son, also a police officer, who tried to kill his partner in a major

drug deal but instead was responsible for him killing four people at a night

club…oy!" she said, slapping her hand on her forehead.

"You bet your ass, oy." Danny said looking at his watch. "Hey, we still

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have two hours left until visiting hours are over. You wanna go with me to

see Chad? Maybe he can tie all this together for us."

"Let me get a jacket!" Nikki said, jumping at the chance.

Within minutes Danny and Nikki were pulling up in front of St. Thomas

Medical Center. As they rounded the corner to the parking lot they were

greeted by a sea of flashing lights. Squad cars and unmarked units were

parked in a mish mash in front of the emergency room entrance, some with

their doors still hanging open.

The two of them were set upon as soon as they cleared the doors. Garland

Smith was the first to approach.

"Danny, glad to see you. There’s been an incident."

"What the hell’s going on Smitty? Is Chad all right?" he asked, half not

wanting to know.

"Chad’s fine Danny, thank God. Somebody tried to kill him though."

"What the hell are you talking about? Who tried to kill him?"

Garland pulled his notebook from his pocket, unwrapped a rubber band

from around it and produced an I.D.

"You ever see this guy before?" he asked, handing the I.D. to Sullivan.

Danny gave it the once over. It was a California driver’s license belonging

to a black male named JuJuan Parks. He noticed it was expired.

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 "No, I’ve never seen him before. Is that the guy who tried to kill Chad?"

"That’s the guy."

"I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could talk to him?"

"Not unless you brought a spirit medium." Garland smirked. "The fucker’s

deader than General Grant."

"No shit! What went down?"

Garland slipped the I.D and notepad back into his pocket.

"We had an undercover watching Chad. He was disguised as a male nurse.

Anyway, he goes in to check on Chad and finds this guy trying to smother

him with a pillow. They get in a wrestling match and BLAM the fucker gets

himself killed."

"How’d he get into the room without your guy seeing him?"

"He must have been watching from a stairwell or something. As soon as

our guy went to use the shitter, he slips in and goes to work."

"Nikki and I were just on our way up to see Chad. Any chance that can

still happen?"

"I’ll have to be in there with you."

"I don’t have a problem with that. Do you Nikki?" Danny asked, looking

over his shoulder.

"Not at all." she replied. "In fact Garland might want to hear what we have

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to talk about."

"Let’s head on up then."

They walked to the elevator, pushing their way through a gauntlet of

reporters. Camera flashes blinded them until they were safe in the solitude of

the elevator. The doors slid shut, almost trapping a hand holding a

microphone.

"We had Chad moved to a different room so they could process the crime

scene." Garland said as they passed Chad’s old room.

Danny glanced in to see a body lying on the sterile white tile floor. A small

pool of blood ran from underneath its head and there was a spray of blood on

the bed linens. The photographer snapped JuJuan’s last portraits as evidence

techs gathered shell casings and other pertinent items into small plastic

baggies. The attempted murder weapon, an innocent looking pillow, lay on

the floor near the body.

They were just four steps shy of Chad’s room when a uniformed officer

sprinted around the corner with a look of grim shock on his face.

"Sergeant Smith, they need you back at the station! Tank Mitchell’s been

murdered!"

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