Color of Justice (25 page)

Danny and Marshall watched as the attendant at the pet cemetery dug up John Baker's dog, Frankie. The Rest-in-Pets Animal Cemetery was a dismal patch of land jammed in the back of what used to be a strip mall in Ferndale just outside of Detroit. Darkness was settling on the city, and the tiny headstones sprouted up around them like a miniature vision of some hellish dream.

Like most people, Danny thought of pets as kind of human, so this place, this ragged piece of land filled with the carcasses of once-loved family members, was very quietly giving him the creeps.

Danny had called in the cops and an ambulance for Reverend Bolt. How and why Bolt was there and had been mutilated was something that he did not know. They were all curious but Bolt was in no shape to talk yet.

The morgue's meat wagon had come for the Bady brothers. They would not be talking at all.

Bellva had confessed to everything she knew.
John Baker had stolen a lot of money along with Olittah Reese, who'd had a last-minute change of heart. When the heat was on, he buried it with his dead dog before he was killed.

The cemetery attendant, a young man named Wilson, dug up the grave of John Baker's dead dog. Wilson told Danny that Mr. Baker had insisted on buying the casket himself and would not let him see what was inside it. By law he had to know, so after a little haggling, Baker had bribed him with a hundred bucks to keep his mouth shut.

Wilson hit something solid and stopped shoveling. “That's gotta be it,” he said. Wilson put down his spade and scooped away dirt with his hand, revealing a black metal casket. Lifting it up, he pushed it out of the hole.

Danny took over at this point. He forced open the lid and waited for the stench of the dog's rotting corpse. Instead, he smelled nothing. Inside the coffin were two black vinyl bags. Danny opened the first one and saw it contained neatly bundled packets of bills.

“A buried treasure,” said Marshall. “This shit could only happen in Detroit.”

“You got that right,” said Danny. Danny opened the other bag and found Frankie's carcass. He quickly zipped it closed.

Wilson sighed and whistled as he realized that he took a measly hundred to pass up a fortune. “There a finder's fee or somethin' for this?” he asked.

“No such luck,” said Danny. He lifted the bag
with the money in it, then noticed that there was something else in the coffin. He removed several mini cassette tapes and a recorder with a tape inside. It also had a small microphone still plugged in. He stared at it, understanding that John Baker had hidden more than stolen money; he'd buried a secret with his beloved dog. Whatever was on these tapes had driven John Baker to extremes and perhaps caused his death.

“If you don't play it, I sure as hell will,” said Marshall.

Danny searched the small machine for the play button.

“I should get one of these bundles of money,” said Wilson.

“There's no reward,” said Marshall.

“There should be,” said Wilson. “That's a lot of money for there not to be no reward. Maybe you fellas can fix it so's I get hooked up with one.”

“We'll do what we can, sir,” said Danny. He pressed the tape recorder's play button and nothing happened. “Batteries are dead,” Danny said to Marshall.

Marshall couldn't help but laugh a little as Danny fumbled with the tape machine. Danny saw Wilson run to his attendant's cart, then come back with several small batteries in his hand. Wilson seemed as eager to know what was going on with the desecrated grave as Danny was.

Danny took the batteries and put several of them in the tape machine. He rewound the tape, then played it. Danny was mesmerized as he lis
tened to the voice emanating from the tiny speaker. He popped in tape after tape until he got it all. When he was finished, he took a deep breath and looked up into the darkening sky. Now he knew everything.

Virginia Stallworth breathed nervously as she finished practicing her speech for the third time. This was going to be a historic night in her life. It had been a long, hard, and dangerous road, but she'd stayed the course, and it was finally going to pay off. Even though someone had found out her secret and struck down her companions, she was safe and ready to take her place in history.

“…and when history is recounted, we will look back to see that this day was not the end of something,” she said to the mirror, “but the beginning of truth and prosperity for us all.” She smiled for an imaginary crowd. It was good, she thought, perfect.

Virginia was in her bedroom, waiting for the NOAA Premiere Night festivities to begin downtown. Though her speech wasn't for some time, she was taking no chances. She'd come too far for that.

Her family waited downstairs, celebrating. But
even they didn't know what she was going to announce tonight. To meet her goal, no one could know what she was planning, not even her loved ones. The police detectives had discovered just one small part of what she was planning. The Castle. It was silly to resurrect the name, but it had served her purpose. Oscar had been angry as hell, but he didn't know it went any farther than the Castle.

It had all started years ago, when the Japanese received reparations from President Reagan for their internment during World War II. That led black activists to ask for the same. The cry of “Where's our money?” rose from the beleaguered face of black America. But the trillions it would have cost to repay blacks would have bankrupted and demoralized the country. Internal focus groups in the NOAA, liberal think tanks and other organizations went through the practicality of doing it. Each time they came to the same conclusion. There were too many people to ever find a control group small enough to make it feasible. Many people in America were mixed with African blood, and answers about who was black and related to slaves were cloudy due to racial mixing. Millions could claim protected status, swelling the numbers out of proportion and killing the effort.

The NOAA had had a bitter internal struggle about this for several years. Finally they'd decided to abandon the agenda for reparations. Virginia had been upset, but not because she believed in reparations. In fact, she'd opposed them, thinking it to be just another political handout leveraged by
white guilt and black weakness. What upset her was that a small number of blacks within the group had determined the issue. They'd arbitrarily decided who was black and what that term meant. They called the shots for everyone and lumped the entire race into a single mind-set that they had predetermined.

Virginia realized that this was the case not only within the organization but within the race in general. The many were dictated to by the few and select. It perturbed her even more that this control group was comprised mostly of dark-skinned blacks who considered themselves to be the “real” voice of the people.

The black race had been saved by its elite class, she thought. From W. E. B. DuBois to the legions downtown waiting for her speech. And that savior class had always been racially mixed for the most part. They were the first doctors, teachers, professors, lawyers, and intelligentsia, the backbone of the race.

And for this they had gotten only grief. The notion that the color of a black person didn't matter was repugnant to her. Color was everything in this country, and she was tired of being dragged down by those who didn't see that, those who didn't want to work, suffer, and strive for success.

So slowly, over time, she had sought out like-minded individuals within the NOAA, and found that her beliefs were echoed by a small, yet very powerful group of racially mixed blacks like herself.

Virginia had gotten them all together in a series of clandestine meetings and formulated a plan to give life to the reality of their ancestry and the necessity of their cause.

She was fighting with Hamilton Grace over leadership of the NOAA, but that was just a clever diversion, a ploy to put her in a leadership light. Her newly formed Castle group was going to be the real power.

Their agenda was to create a separate race within the black race in America, a new race of people who were multi-ethnic. She would split off all those of mixed blood and create an elite minority, one that would be fueled with money, power, and a single vision, her vision.

Her family was black, Irish, and Swedish. And yet, no one wanted to hear about those nonblack parts of her heritage. The idea that any black person with more than one race's blood in his veins was something different was met with derision and anger. When she talked about it, the overwhelming attitude was, “Shut up, you're black like the rest of us.” The bullshit theory of the black “dominant gene” had made everyone, black and white, just assume you were one thing, and that thing was wretched. But she did not buy that limitation. It was dehumanizing to be forced to forget vital parts of your heritage, and it was time for it to end.

The Bakers had thought her mad at first, but over time they began to see the possibilities. John's Internet company would provide the money they needed and together they drafted the resolution she
was going to read tonight at the meeting, one that would free her people from another generation of Jesus-and-corn-bread philosophy, liberal finger wagging, and the political begging of her organization.

The seeds for this change had always been there within the race, the silent, secret resentment based on color. She would lift it up, expose it in the light of day, and turn it into something good for all people. And her race, the new race, would be strong and proud. It would accept no handouts, and thrive on hard work and the depth of heritage. In time they would be joined by mixed-raced Latinos, Asians, and others would fill the ranks of her group until they were no longer a minority but the one, true voice of America.

And it would all begin tonight. She smiled to herself. After she took the podium and told everyone of her plan, she and her followers would stage a walkout that would throw the organization into disarray and focus instant media attention on her. She saw herself on the
Today
show,
Nightline,
and
Larry King Live,
leading the crusade and opening the mind of America in the new millennium.

From there, she would get funding for her new organization, which she planned to call the MEPOA, or the Multi-Ethnic Persons of America. They would start chapters in each city where there was an NOAA base then seek out certification from all of the powers that be in this country.

It was time for this, she thought. Hundreds of years in the making, a new day had come. She'd
barely been able to contain herself these last few weeks. She didn't have time for her family, who had noticed the change in her, the nervousness and sleeplessness. They wrote it off to anxiety connected to the murders.

Virginia didn't know who had killed the members of her secret committee in Detroit. This had frightened her beyond belief. First she thought that it was a disgruntled investor in New Nubia, but that didn't make sense. Then she thought it was Hamilton Grace, but it was not his style. The one thing she did know was that John Baker had gotten cold feet about the Castle and her cause. He began to question what they were doing, threatening to stop the flow of money. But she'd countered with her own threats to expose his shady business dealings and he'd quieted down.

Still, that didn't explain what was happening. With each death, she'd grown more afraid to continue her quest. But no great revolution came without a price. Dr. King, Gandhi, and JFK had all paid for their vision. She knew there might be dangers, but she was willing to face them.

Even the death of Dr. Vance would not deter her. She would win the day, she thought. If all mixed-race blacks left with her, the so-called African American agenda would be weakened to the point of nonexistence. No more government set-asides, no more political clout, no more affirmative action. There would be a multibillion-dollar fallout, and groups like the NOAA, NAACP, and the
Urban League would crumble into dust. Nothing in this country would ever be the same.

There was a knock on her door, which took her out of her wonderful reverie. She tucked her speech away in her purse and opened the door, revealing her son Cal, standing there in his elegant tux with a wild look on his face. His eyes bulged in their sockets and his face was twisted into a smile so wide and tight that it looked as if it would split his face.

“Son, are you okay?” she asked.

“We are fine,” he said coldly. Then he raised his arm, and brought his weapon into her face with all his might.

Danny had tracked down the Stallworths to their home, but security reported that they'd found all the members of the family unconscious, except Virginia and Cal, who were missing. Someone had put some kind of drug in a bottle of champagne, knocking out the family members. There were guards posted outside the house but they reported seeing no one leave the home.

The police were working on the theory that someone had abducted the two, but Danny didn't think so. One of them had taken the other, and he was betting that it was Cal who was the abductor. Why was what he didn't know.

John Baker's tapes were recordings of meetings of Virginia's new elite group. All of the people on her list were accounted for. Danny listened in shock as he heard Virginia's plan for race domination. She was crazy but, apparently, her son Cal was equally as bent.

Danny had turned in the money and told his
boss what he'd been up to. Jim had covered for him as usual, saying that he was on a special mission. This was chiefly due to the Bady brothers' situation, which was a bloody mess.

They'd run a check on the brothers and connected them to a series of crimes stretching across the country. In the face of closing a lot of cases, no one was asking questions.

Reverend Bolt was in the hospital, unconscious and in critical condition. For now the police assumed Bolt had been kidnapped or carjacked by the brothers.

Danny had called for backup from the SCU team and the FBI. Marshall had gone back to his family, safe and sound.

Danny arrived at the home of Virginia Stallworth to find an angry Janis and an angrier Erik waiting for him. Erik's arms were folded across his chest and Janis's hands were on her hips. Their faces held the same expression, pissed off.

“This is completely unacceptable,” said Janis.

“Damned right it is, partner,” said Erik.

“I can't explain right now,” said Danny. “I had some problems, but that's behind me.”

“And we're just supposed to forget about you leaving us out to dry?” asked Erik.

“Yes,” said Jim from behind Erik. “You can kick his ass tomorrow, but right now, we have a killer at large.” Jim reached into his pocket and handed Danny his badge and gun. Danny took it quickly and no more was said.

Danny explained to Janis and Erik what he had
learned. They both seemed unwilling to accept that the whole case hinged on matters of color. As they went inside the home, Danny could feel the anger radiated by Janis and Erik. He had to get back into the case and if he knew them that would be all they needed to forgive him.

The Stallworth home was neat and undisturbed, except for one thing. Someone had defaced many of the family pictures. Virginia's face was scratched out of picture after picture. But not Cal's. His face was left intact. They also found two bottles of prescription pills for Cal. Janis noted that the medication was given to stave off severe mental depression. The bottles were full.

“It's the son,” said Danny. He called everyone over and they examined the pictures.

“All the pictures upstairs are the same,” said another cop. “Mom's X-ed out.”

“Got any theories on this?” Danny asked Janis.

“He hates his mother,” said Janis. “But why? They're the same color.”

Chip, the FBI boss, was engaged in a serious conversation with Jim across the room. He motioned to Danny, Erik, and Janis. Danny lingered behind, his attention drawn to another picture on the wall.

“Our canvas has to be tight. The Stallworth woman is probably gone by now,” said Chip. “So, we have to find Cal before he can flee the city or kill himself.”

“We'll have to coordinate with other law enforcement,” said Jim. “And the county and state boys will want to be brought in.”

“Fine,” said Chip. “As long they obey the chain of command. Our other offices will lend us more men. He's got to be somewhere in the city, and we're going to find him tonight.”

“I got something here,” said Danny.

Jim and the others moved over to a picture of Virginia and her husband when they were much younger. Oscar was smiling, and Virginia looked happy. Behind them was the sprawling train station on the city's south-west side. Back then, it was still open, though in the process of closing down. None of this was what had caught Danny's attention. In Virginia's arms were two little babies dressed in white jumpers. Danny grabbed the picture and took it out of its frame.

“Danny, what are you doing?” asked Janis. “That's evidence.”

“This picture,” said Danny. “It's the only one in the house where Virginia's face is not crossed out, and look at the kids' faces.”

They all looked at the picture. Virginia held the two kids. One of them was pink, the other dark brown.

Danny examined the back of the photo, and read what was written there:

My angels: Colson and twin brother Callent.

“They told me Cal's brother died,” said Danny. “But they never said how. And they sure as hell didn't say he looked like this. Throughout this case the color of the victims has been an issue.
Virginia's group was composed of mixed-race people. She was obsessed with it and somehow it poisoned her family. I'd bet everything that Cal thinks she killed his brother because he was darker.”

“Jesus,” said Erik. “Would she do that?”

“Doesn't matter,” said Janis. “If her son thinks she did.”

“That explains the medication we found upstairs,” said Janis. “The bottles are full, so he hasn't been taking his medicine. He been growing more and more depressed.”

“Me and Janis saw Cal and his sister Gwen arguing about something at their house,” said Danny. “And Gwen was waving a bottle of pills at him.”

“He was not taking his medication and she knew it,” said Janis.

“Yes,” said Danny. “And this picture proves it. He couldn't deface it because—”

“He loved her back then,” Janis finished for him.

“The train station,” said Danny. “That's where he is.”

“We can't gamble the entire investigation on a hunch, Detective,” said Chip.

“I don't think it's just a hunch, sir,” said Janis. “This picture held special meaning for him. The building here is where he would go.”

“Maybe we should break off a detachment and check this out,” said Jim.

Jim and Chip moved aside and began to talk in
private. They stepped back just as quickly and each looked directly at Danny.

“Let's do it,” said Chip. “My people will lead the unit.”

Danny looked over to Jim, who subtly nodded his head. Danny agreed and Jim and Chip went off to coordinate. It was law enforcement politics at its best.

Danny moved over to Erik and Janis. He didn't want to end this case with them angry at him. But he couldn't tell them why he'd vanished and went on to get Bellva without them. The matter of his mother's death had to end with him and his father.

“I don't have any excuses,” said Danny. “Just know that this has been the worst time of my life. These last few days I couldn't come to you. If you're gonna have a problem with me for this, Erik, I understand.”

“Trust was broken,” said Erik.

“And you sure as hell didn't make me my boss's favorite,” said Janis.

“I know,” said Danny. “But this was not about the job. It was personal.”

Erik quickly moved to his partner and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Fuck it,” he said. Danny clapped a hand on Erik's shoulder and smiled. “It ain't like I needed the extra work, you know.”

“The next crazed killer is all yours,” said Danny. He looked over at Janis, whose eyes told him that she was not as ready to forgive as Erik.

“If you two are done being in love,” said Janis, “maybe we can go arrest our killer.”

 

Detroit's old train station sits on Sixteenth Street and Vernor, on the city's lower west side. It is a massive building, both grand and pitiful, a beautiful old structure neglected by time and abandoned by the great city that built it. It was scheduled for demolition and it stood by like a condemned man waiting for execution.

Danny and the tactical team moved in several blocks away, then proceeded on foot. Danny, Erik, and Janis took the lead, supported by a team of FBI and SCU cops. Chip, Jim, and the other big bosses fell back.

On the way to the station, the SCU had learned that Colson Stallworth, Cal's twin brother, was killed at the age of ten in a boating accident on the river off St. Clair Shores. Virginia and young Colson had been together in the boat when it tipped over. It was ruled a death by accident, but apparently Cal didn't think so. Several times he'd tried to get the police to investigate the killing, but no one would listen to the rantings of a ten-year-old.

A year after his brother's death, Cal Stallworth was put into a juvenile rest home, a fancy name for a mental facility. He had been in and out of treatment houses for most of his life. The shock of losing his brother had kept him on the edge of sanity.

The feds wore flack jackets with
FBI
emblazoned on the back. The Special Crimes Unit wore similar jackets with their letters. To Danny, they looked like two well-armed softball teams running through the night.

Chip and Jim had arranged to have the streetlights turned off so that Cal could not see their approach. They hoped that he would believe that it was a power outage. They also pulled up blueprints of the station so that Danny's team would know the basic outlay of the place.

The train station was dark and stretched out over what could have been three city blocks. Its facade was aged and gray, littered with cracks and holes. The pitch windows looked like hundreds of black eyes. It was a colossal haunted house. Across from it Roosevelt Park where three men sat around passing a bottle. The darkness didn't deter them from their little party.

Danny went over to them and pulled out his badge. “Yo. Y'all seen anybody go in there?” Danny pointed at the train station.

“Naw, Mr. Po-leece man,” said an old black man with no teeth in the front. “Ain't nobody crazy enough to go in that muthafucka. It's got ghosts.”

“I thought I saw somebody,” said another man. “I thought I saw him drag somethin' up in there.”

“You outta yo' mind, man,” said the first man. “This whiskey ain't that damned good!”

They all laughed and the toothless man choked a little, then killed it with a drink.

“We got a car in the rear off the side street,” said an officer on the radio.

“Copy that,” said Erik. “He's inside just like you said.”

“Okay, we go in and get him,” said Danny.
“The place is big, so we'll have to stick to the blueprint. If we stay quiet, maybe he'll make some noise and lead us to him.”

“Nobody get cocky,” said Chip on the radio. “Proceed with caution.”

Danny pulled out both of his guns. After the incident with the Bady brothers he was not about to go in with one hand empty. Danny turned off his radio and instructed the backup team to do the same. Then he nodded to Erik and Janis, and moved toward the train station.

Danny and his team edged over to the front of the building and saw that someone had forced open the door. Danny, Janis, and Erik went inside, careful not to make any noise.

The lobby of the old train station had lost none of its grandness. It was a cavernous, crumbling mess. The place was dim, and the only light was from the door that Danny had just come in. They were assaulted by many smells, none of them good.

Danny waited until their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Then he could see that the floor was covered in debris, plywood, broken glass, beer cans, and the carcasses of dead rats.

They stood in the lobby for several minutes, waiting to hear something. A rodent scurried from a wall and stopped to pick at the dead body of its brother, then moved on. Danny heard gagging behind him, but it was not Janis, it was Erik, who detested rats.

“Sorry, man,” he said. “I hate them damned things.”

They huddled together in a tight circle and were motionless as the thickness of the stench assaulted their lungs. It looked like a good place to die, Danny thought grimly.

They heard a sound from above. It was soft, but audible. A voice. Someone was yelling. They could not make out the words, but that was beside the point. Their killer was here.

Danny pointed to the decrepit upper floors of the building and slowly broke the circle by moving toward the stairs. Erik and Janis followed. Janis took out a small light and the shrunken copy of the train station's blueprints. Erik called for the backup team to move in closer as they proceeded.

There was not much time, Danny thought. If Virginia were not the killer's mother, she would probably be dead already, or maybe she was dead, and Cal was ranting to himself over her corpse.

They went to a stairwell. The farther they moved into the place, the darker it got and the louder the voice became. Danny didn't know which was making him more nervous. He stopped when he got to a long stairwell. Looking up, he saw only murky darkness.

Danny peered at the stairwell and saw his own mother at the top of the flight, tumbling through air, twisting and falling, her descent racing against the poison that she'd put into herself. He saw his grief-stricken father, crying, broken by his own murderous mercy.

Danny's mother was a wrecked vessel at the end
of her life, ruined by fate, choices, and limited love. Lucy had severed the emotional bond and taken her own life. Somewhere up those stairs, another son and his mother were engaging fate, only this time it was the son who had crumbled and was going to take his mother's life.

Danny pulled himself back into reality. Virginia was not his mother, he told himself. She was the killer's mother and whether he saved her or not, it would never bring back Lucy Cavanaugh or change the things she'd written about him.