[Lady Justice 15] - Lady Justice and the Vet Page 8

  His remark about the Gay Pride Parade brought back a flood of memories. Ox and I had been assigned to crowd control along the parade route. A fanatical religious group had planted a bomb in a soft drink canister at a tamale stand. We were both close enough to the blast to be knocked off our feet and Ox would have been seriously injured or worse if it had not been for his flak jacket. The death and devastation was horrible. I could see why a crowded parade route would be a juicy target for a terrorist cell.

  “Look for anything out of the ordinary, canisters of any kind, explosives, weapons. If you do find something, don’t disturb it. Call me. We’ll want to process the area just like a crime scene. Any questions?”

  Hearing none, he said, “All right then. Let’s get this done so that this town can have a safe American Royal Parade.”

  As we headed to our cruiser, my cell phone rang.

  “Mr. Walt, this is Mary. You busy?”

  “Well, yes. I’m at work. Is anything wrong?”

  “Not exactly. I just need to talk to you.”

  “If it’s not an emergency, can I drop by the hotel after my shift?”

  “Yeah, I guess that would be okay. Don’t forget!”

  “I won’t, but if you need something right away I could send Willie over.”

  “No! No, don’t do that. I need you.”

  “All right. I’ll see you later today.”

  “What was that all about?” Ox asked.

  “Mary. She wants to talk. Sounded serious. Told her I’d come by later.”

  “Something to look forward to,” he said, grinning.

  Our first stop was the Foxy Lady, a strip club on Grand just south of Truman Road. The sign outside said, ‘Totally Nude,’ but the state of Missouri had passed a law banning nudity a year ago. Since then, the best they could offer was a lot of skin, pasties and a g-string.

  When we walked in the door, a vivacious young blond grabbed my arm.

  “Walt! So glad to see you!”

  Having the hostess of a strip club know me by name isn’t something that I’m particularly proud of, and it certainly isn’t something I brag about around Maggie. One of my first assignments as a rookie cop was to go undercover as a ‘john’ to sniff out a prostitution ring. Blondie was one of the girls we collared. We offered to cut her a deal if she helped us nail the madam of the ring, the Amazing Elektra. She jumped at the chance. After the smoke cleared, she stayed on as hostess and became sort of an unofficial confidential informant.

  “What brings you by? I’m guessing that it’s not for a lap dance.”

  “Nope, just checking things out for the big parade on Saturday. Trying to keep the citizens safe.”

  “I hear that. Look at anything you want, if you get my drift,” she said, giving me a wink, “and if you decide you want that dance, just let me know.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass. Been trying to cut back.”

  Fortunately, the most dangerous thing we found at the Foxy Lady was a studded collar one of the dancers used in her act.

  We skipped past the next few buildings which were being searched by our fellow officers. Our next challenge was an old abandoned three story.

  One of the K-9 officers joined us. “Davenport said to pay particular attention to the board-ups.”

  He patted the head of the big German Shepherd standing by his side. “My pal, Rex, can sniff out anything with gunpowder or any kind of explosive component.”

  As if waiting for his cue, the big dog ambled over and stuck his nose in my crotch. Actually, I wasn’t surprised. I had never met a dog of any size or description that failed to give Mr. Winkie and the boys a sniff. Finding nothing in that general area of an explosive nature other than the burrito that I had for supper the night before, he trotted back to his handler.

  “Looks like we’re good to go,” the handler said.

  The front door had an iron gate with a massive padlock, so we tried the back. This one was padlocked as well, but unlike the front lock, this one was shiny and new.

  “Out of town owner,” the K-9 guy said. “Davenport ran the ownership on all the vacant buildings. Any ideas?”

  “How about this!” Ox replied, barreling into the door with his meaty shoulder.

  The rotted casing splintered and the door swung open.

  “That’ll work,” the K-9 guy replied, approvingly.

  Ox flipped a light switch, but the power had probably been cut off years ago, so we cautiously proceeded into the old building following the beams of our flashlights.

  We had only gone a dozen yards or so, when Ox yelped. “Holy crap!”

  My flashlight beam caught a glimpse of a figure lurching toward Ox who was frantically waving his arms.

  Rex yelped, and we arrived at Ox’s side just in time to see him on the floor, struggling with what appeared to be a naked woman.

  “Get this thing off me!” he roared.

  A closer examination revealed that my partner had become entangled with a mannequin. We each grabbed an arm and lifted the thing off of a red-faced Ox.

  After order had been restored, we flashed our lights around the room.

  A dozen dusty bodies stared back at us out of the darkness.

  “This must have been a dress shop,” the K-9 guy observed. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” Ox replied, brushing himself off.

  “I promise not to tell Judy about your little tete-a-tete with Ms. Ready-To-Wear.”

  “Very funny!”

  “Let’s split up,” the K-9 guy suggested. “We can cover more ground that way. Walt, why don’t you take the ground floor; Ox can take the second floor and Rex and I will head to the top.”

  I had just started poking around the old display cases and storage bins when I heard Ox yelp again and start cussing a blue streak.

  I stumbled toward the sound of his grumbling and found him halfway up the staircase. It appeared one of the old rotted treads had given way under his considerable weight and his left leg had disappeared into the void below.

  “Get me out of here,” he bellowed.

  “This just doesn’t seem to be your lucky day,” I observed, wondering how I was going to lift his two hundred pounds out of the hole.

  “I can’t move it. It’s stuck,” he muttered. “See if you can find something to pry the board loose.”

  I retreated back to the first floor and rummaged around until I found an old rusty crowbar which I used to splinter the tread enough for Ox to pull his leg through.

  We were examining his leg which seemed to have only suffered a few scrapes and bruises when we heard Rex barking like crazy.

  We carefully made our way to the third floor. I went first, testing each tread. We didn’t need another performance of Ox’s disappearing leg.

  Rex and his handler were in a room on the street side of the building. Rex was frantically pawing at the floor just to the side of a window that looked down on Grand Avenue.

  “He’s found something under the floor,” the handler said. “We need something to pry the boards loose.”

  “How about this,” I said, holding up the crowbar that had freed Ox.

  The handler grabbed the crowbar and started to work on the floorboards.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” he cried as the first board popped up.

  We all peered into the cavity between the two floors. A sniper rifle, several cases of cartridges, and at least a dozen hand grenades were nestled between the floor joists.

  I got on the horn and called Mark Davenport.

  Fifteen minutes later, the old building was crawling with Homeland Security and crime scene investigators.

  They searched the entire building, but that proved to be the only stash.

  I heard Mark barking orders on the phone. Any vacant building was to be scoured with a fine-toothed comb.

  After Mark had given us a pat on the back, we were off to the next building.

  Late that afternoon, the entire task force was gathered together for a briefing.


  “The first thing that I want to do,” Mark said, “is to thank each and every one of you for a job well done. The good news is that we found a total of three caches of weapons and your good work undoubtedly prevented a disaster not seen in this country since 9/11. The bad news, of course, is that there is most definitely a terrorist cell operating in Kansas City. The boys from CSI were only able to pull one usable print. It belonged to Muhammad Navid who we know has ties to al-Shabab and the Taliban.

  “Here’s the problem --- and we need your cooperation on this. Given what we have found, we believe that it would be foolhardy to continue with the parade on Saturday. Even though we found those three stashes, we have no way of knowing what other plans they might have made. There’s no question an attack was planned. We just can’t take the chance that there was much more that we have not uncovered.

  “The last thing we want to do is throw the citizens of Kansas City into a panic. We just can’t announce the parade has been cancelled because of a terrorist plot. Fortunately, Mother Nature is giving us an out. The National Weather Service is predicting heavy rain, thunderstorms and lightening for Saturday. Normally, this would be a big disappointment, but in this case, it’s a blessing. There will be an announcement that the parade has been cancelled due to the inclement weather. We’re counting on all of you to keep the real reason to yourselves. Are we in agreement?”

  Nods all around.

  The headline in Friday morning’s Kansas City Star read, “Thunderstorms Wash Out American Royal Parade.”

  The article went on to say parade officials felt that the danger posed by the thunderstorms and accompanying lightening was too great a risk. Unfortunately, the magnitude of the parade was such that it would be impossible to reschedule it for this year. There would be no American Royal Parade in Kansas City in 2013.

  I could just imagine the disappointment that was being felt by the hundreds that were to have marched and the thousands that were expecting to watch, but that disappointment paled when compared to the headline that could have read, “Thousands Dead, Wounded, in Kansas City Terrorist Strike.”

  A dastardly plot had been averted, but for how long?

  CHAPTER 11

  Curtis Brown had been enjoying a lap dance with a voluptuous brunette when the two cops walked into the Foxy Lady. He had expected authorities would be checking the parade route so he really wasn’t surprised to see them. He had been keeping an eye on the buildings where Muhammad had stashed the ordinance and the strip club was as good a place as any --- maybe even better than any --- to keep a breast of the activity on Grand Avenue. His play on words brought a smile to his face as the brunette buried his nose in her cleavage.

  He didn’t recognize the big one but the old guy looked familiar.

  Then it dawned on him. This was the old KC cop that had thwarted the attack on the All-Star Game. Curtis had seen his photo with Zareef Kahn, the brother that had chickened out at the last minute.

  He bought another dance to stay concealed until the cops, apparently satisfied that nothing was amiss at the Foxy Lady, headed for the door.

  He followed them down the block and watched as they joined a K-9 officer and his dog in front of one of his buildings. Stymied by the iron gate in front, they circled around to the rear entrance. He winced as the big one crashed into the door, splintering the casing. Fifteen minutes later, he heard the dog howling like a banshee. They had found the stash. Soon the block was swarming with cops. Cursing under his breath, he slipped away.

  The old cop was beginning to be an intolerable nuisance.

  I was dead tired after our trying day, but I had promised Mary that I would stop by the Three Trails.

  She was waiting for me on the front porch.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to hide my irritation. “What’s so important? Has old man Feeney stopped up the toilet again?”

  “Heavens no. I can handle stuff like that. But something’s come up and --- well --- I just don’t know what to do.”

  My first thought was that she’d gotten some bad medical news. “Are you sick?”

  “No, I’m healthy as a horse.”

  “Well what then!” I was getting exasperated.

  “It’s Morty Friedman.”

  “Our Morty? The millionaire?”

  She nodded.

  “Is Morty sick?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Mary!”

  “Oh, all right! He called me today and asked me out on a date.”

  Now I was speechless.

  She blushed. “I ain’t been out with a man in --- I don’t know how long, but it’s been a long time. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “What’s to know? Do you want to go out with him or not?”

  “Well sure. He wants to take me to dinner and maybe a movie. You know how I like to eat.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  She blushed again. “What if he wants to ---you know.”

  “What! Hold your hand? Give you a peck on the cheek?”

  “No! You know --- the other thing!”

  I was beginning to get the picture. “Mary, you’re talking to the wrong person. You should be talking to a woman --- Maggie. No wait. You should talk to Bernice. Heaven knows she and Dad could give you some pointers. Just curious --- are you the kind of gal that has to worry about that kind of thing on the first date?”

  A puzzled look came over her face. “Honestly, I don’t remember!”

  Maggie almost busted a gut when I told her about my conversation with Mary.

  “Morty had better hope that he doesn’t have to cross that bridge,” she said, laughing. “Mary would kill him.”

  A mental picture flashed in my mind and I quickly shook it off. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I had seen Mary in a bikini in Hawaii --- all two hundred pounds of her --- and it wasn’t one of the most cherished memories of our honeymoon.

  “I think I’ll give Morty a call,” I said. “Here’s a new millionaire with cash running out his wazoo. He could have his pick of women. Why Mary?”

  Morty answered on the third ring. “Walt, I’ve been meaning to call you. That picnic was a hoot! Haven’t had so much fun since you rescued Earl from that kidnapper. What’s up?”

  “Well, I just had a conversation with Mary ---.”

  “So did I! I was just hanging up when you called.”

  “Then you probably have an idea what I’m calling about.”

  “Yes, she told me that she had talked to you about our date. She accepted, you know.”

  “Well, I didn’t, but I’m happy for both of you. Just curious. Of all the women in Kansas City, why Mary?”

  “Really? You have to ask? Didn’t you see her in action at the picnic? That gal’s got spunk! If she hadn’t stabbed that goon with a fork, who knows how things might have turned out. Then the nose ring and the knee to the groin --- I’m telling you, that gal is special! Besides, I’ve been asking around and I know about her shooting the intruder and whacking the assassin. She’s one of a kind!”

  “But you’re rich. Women would be standing in line at your door if they knew you were looking.”

  “That’s just the point. I’m not interested in someone that’s only interested in me because of the loot. Besides, the odds of me finding a younger gal like Earl did with Jessica are about as long as our odds were of winning the lottery. And let’s face it, most of the gals my age have lost their spunk. Bingo, canasta, you know the drill. Not Mary! Still lots of spunk in that old trunk!”

  “Okay, I just hope you know what you’re getting into.”

  “Well, that’s what I was hoping for --- the getting into part.”

  The mental image flashed into my mind again and I quickly hung up.

  Just before midnight on Friday, the thunderstorms swept into Kansas City just as the National Weather Service had predicted.

  Ben and Tracy Singleton had enjoyed a rare evening out. Ben’s meager salary at the landscape company didn’t leave much
wiggle room in their budget for recreation, but they had received a coupon in the mail for a buy-one-get-one-free promotion, so they decided to splurge.

  After a satisfying meal and moonlight stroll through a neighborhood park, they returned home, fell into bed and made passionate love.

  As Ben laid exhausted, with Tracy cradled in his arm, he felt at peace and even dared to imagine the worst of his ordeal was behind him. He drifted off to sleep with a smile on his lips.

  The first streak of lightening was so intense that it lit up the entire bedroom. It was followed by a clap of thunder that shook the house and rattled the windows.

  Ben jerked upright in bed just as the second flash illuminated the room.

  He looked around, but instead of seeing his cozy bedroom, he was on the dusty road outside the village in Zad Valley.

  The blinding light and ground-shaking tremor were not the products of a thunderstorm but of an IED triggered by the foot of a fellow marine.

  He rolled out of bed screaming, “Take cover! Take cover!”

  Then a look of horror came over his face as he saw his friend, Archie, covered in blood and splintered bone exposed where his legs had been.

  “Archie! No!” he screamed in anguish. “Medic! Medic!”

  The storm had momentarily roused Tracy from her slumber. She was about to drift off again when Ben’s frantic cries brought her upright.

  She saw him leap from their bed and scramble for a far corner. He was curled into a fetal position and trembling uncontrollably when Tracy reached his side.

  She sat down beside him and gently folded her arms around him.

  “It’s all right, Sweetie. I’m here.”

  He buried his face in her lap and wept.

  They spent the rest of the night huddled in the corner as the storm raged outside.