TWELVE
The next morning when I walked into the office, Lt. Gooch wasn’t at his desk. I was a little surprised. Usually he had been coming into the office at a ridiculously early hour. I figured he’d given me a week of show and now he was going to start malingering in a more conspicuous way.
I had nothing to do, so I skulked outside and hung a bunch of the MISSING posters of Jenny Dial on telephone poles up and down Ponce de Leon Ave. I figured the Chief couldn’t fault me for that. Anyway, who would even notice? The poles were covered with tattered ads for rock bands. I wondered if anybody in the entire history of the universe had ever looked at anything stapled to a telephone pole. After a while, the whole business started making me feel depressed. So I went back to the office.
Around ten-fifteen Gooch walked in and dropped a brown manila envelope on my desk. It had the logo of the GBI Crime Lab in the corner.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“What.”
“You just solved your first murder.”
I stared at him dumbly, not getting what he was talking about.
“Vernell Moncrief,” Gooch said. “The DNA from the semen found on Marquavious Roberts. It matches the mouth swab you took off him yesterday.”
I squinted at him, then opened the envelope. Inside was a DNA reported dated and time stamped nine-fifteen AM today. “How’d you get this?” I said. “The tech over there told me only God himself could get next-day service on DNA.”
“Making the world in seven days, that made me sweat a little. Getting some DNA run overnight, that’s nothing.”
“You just made a joke!” I said. I walked to the door and yelled out into the empty, echoing hallway. “Listen up, people! The Lieutenant just made a joke!”
“Who says I’m joking?” he growled.
I looked to see if he might crack a smile, but he all he did was spit tobacco juice in his Dixie cup and lock the cup back in his desk. I reviewed the report carefully. The DNA from Vernell’s mouth swab was a clear match to the semen found on Marquavious Robert’s body over a decade ago. Finally I looked up. “I guess we better go pick him up, huh, Lieutenant?”
“I want SWAT involved,” Lt. Gooch said. “Full felony takedown.”
I raised one eyebrow. Back in Narcotics we didn’t use SWAT unless we absolutely, positively had to. Calling SWAT was the sissy play. You’d get a reputation as being a hairstyle if you couldn’t close your own busts.
Gooch must have seen what I was thinking. But as usual, he didn’t say anything.
SWAT is a blunt instrument. Rapid entry, rapid takedown. That’s what they’re good at. Anything more subtle, and their value starts to drop.
Unfortunately the bust didn’t go the way it should have, and we ended up trying to fix a Swiss watch with a hammer.
We got some intel at the last minute, a CI of Gooch’s, who called twenty minutes before the bust was supposed to go down and said that Vernell wouldn’t be home that night, that he would be at a motel down on Stewart Avenue, the sleaze strip on the south side of the town. As a result we had to change plans inside the SWAT van itself, go in without a clear tactical plan.
How hard could it be, though, right? A motel room has a front door and a back door. You clear the rooms next door, you drop the flash-bang, you bust the door, you go in. Simple.
Only someone got their wires crossed.
SWAT piled out of the van first, sending three guys around back beside the empty swimming pool, and three guys to go through the front door. Lt. Gooch and I joined the stack on the front door.
As always, I felt the strange mix of prebust emotions—half pleasure, half terror. I could feel the sweat on my palm against the grip of the Glock, smell the cologne radiating off one of the SWAT guys in front of me.
Then everything else closed down, and my whole mind focused on the door.
The lead man had the door basher in his hand, hefting the steel handles, getting ready to pop the door, when I heard something behind me. It took me a moment to process the sound. A sort of click. Like a door lock.
I guess the SWAT guys were so focused on the door that they didn’t notice it. But Gooch and I turned in unison, like our heads were attached to the same little motor. Behind us, I saw someone walking out of the room next door.
“Who cleared the rooms next door?” Gooch snapped.
But it was too late for an answer.
The captain in charge of the SWAT team screamed, “Go!”
As the door basher hit the wood, the man coming out the next door room swivelled around, spotted us. He was a young black guy, ghetto fabulous, a white Sean John suit, white shoes, yards of bling. “Five Oh!” he yelled. It wasn’t clear who he was yelling to, but it must have been somebody in the room next to Vernell’s.
And then his gun came out.
Before I could even get my gun up, Gooch had double-tapped him, two shots that came so fast they almost sounded like one.
The kid with the gun staggered against the wall and went down, a shocked expression on his face.
“Go, go, go!” the SWAT captain yelled.
The three SWAT men disappeared into Vernell Moncreif’s room.
“With me,” Gooch said, gliding swiftly to the open door of the next room. He kicked the dying boy’s gun away, then peeped quickly into the room.
I reached down to feel for the boys’ pulse.
“Forget him,” Gooch said. “He’s gone. There are two men in the room. You take the one on the left, I’ll take the right. Go.”
Then he was in the room. I followed immediately.
The two men inside the room were on their feet, unarmed, panic in their eyes. On the table between them was a small mountain of baggies full of something that looked like brown sugar. I recognized it as Mexican heroin cut down to street weight. Apparently we’d walked into a drug deal between Vernell and the men in this room.
“Yo! What the—”
“Get down, get down!” Gooch yelled.
The door to the adjoining room was open. Apparently Vernell and whoever these guys were had been renting both rooms. Which meant the SWAT guys couldn’t see what we were doing, and we couldn’t see what they were doing. This was a disaster.
A man in a red track suit backed through the door to the adjoining room, slammed it shut, locked it, turned around.
“Aw, man!” he said, seeing us. “Y’all again?” It was Vernell Moncrief. He had one hand under the tail of his track suit. Reaching for a gun? Probably. But I couldn’t tell for sure. A puzzled look ran across his face. Like he was wondering why Cold Case cops were doing a drug bust.
“Everybody on the floor!” I shouted.
The two drug dealers complied, but Vernell just kept standing there staring at us, his hand still hidden under his track suit.
“Get your hand out!” Gooch yelled.
But Vernell’s hand didn’t move. “What y’all want?” he said.
Gooch’s voice was quiet now. “Get your hand out of your pants, or I’m shooting you.” Would he? I wasn’t sure. If he popped Vernell and there was no gun under that track suit, it would be bad news for Gooch.
“Is y’all Narcotics or not?” Vernell said. “I’m confused. I thought y’all was Homicide or something.”
“Show your hands, Vernell,” I said.
Vernell’s eyes widened. “This about Marquavious?” he said.
“The hands. Now.”
“I ain’t touch that boy! I loved that boy!”
I could hear the footsteps of the SWAT guys, coming around to the door of the room we were in. They piled in behind me, immediately started shouting at their top of their lungs, “Down on the ground, asshole!” and all the usual stuff.
“Guys,” I said. “Y’all aren’t helping.”
They kept yelling, though, until Gooch, without taking his eyes off Vernell, said, “Shut up.”
I don’t know what it was, but there was command in his voice. It wasn’t loud, but it just made you sit up straight somehow. The SWAT guys all went silent.
Gooch inched forward. “Vernell, don’t do anything silly.”
“This about Marquavious?” Vernell said again.
“Yeah, Vernell,” Gooch said. “It’s about Marquavious.”
“I gave y’all that DNA!” Vernell said. “Why I’d of give y’all that DNA if I’d kilt that boy?”
“Vernell—”
“I ain’t just fell off the turnip truck, man,” Vernell said. “I’d of lawyered up! I’d of made y’all get a warrant!”
“Vernell. You need to get your hand out of your jacket.” Gooch’s voice was so soft now, it was like he was talking to a woman in bed.
“Y’all done frame my ass. Because my DNA ain’t on no Marquavious body. Not no way. I loved that boy like he was my own son! Who’d of kilt a boy like that? Done them sick things on him? You know I couldn’t of did that!”
“Then you’ll prove it to a jury of twelve,” Gooch said. “If it wasn’t you, then you’ll walk. But right now, you need to give me that gun.”
Vernell stood there for what seemed like a long, long time. I could see the sweat running off his face, running down by his ear, a bead of it tracing the knife scar across his throat.
“I know I ain’t no good man,” Vernell whispered, pleading. There were tears in his eyes suddenly, mixing with the sweat, running down his nose. “But please! Come on, Mr. Po-lice. That boy, Marquavious, he like my own son.”
Vernell’s hand underneath his jacket was starting to shake. But he just kept standing there, starting at Gooch.
And then there were two quick bangs. I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye, then Vernell fell against the door frame. There was another bang, and blood sprayed out of Vernell’s face. He fell forward like a puppet with its strings cut. As he fell, his hand came out from underneath his jacket, a cheap little .25-cal auto slipping from his grasp, clattering to the floor.
“He moved,” the SWAT guy next to me said, his submachine gun still pointed at Vernell Moncrief. “Y’all saw it! He moved.”
Gooch turned and looked at the SWAT officer. “Son,” Gooch said, “why you think I brought you people in here? So this wouldn’t happen. If I’d of wanted to execute him, I could of done it myself.”
“Execute!” the SWAT guy said. “Execute? He was fixing to draw down on you.”
Gooch looked into the SWAT guy’s eyes until finally the officer couldn’t hold his gaze anymore. The officer turned away, muttering something that I couldn’t make out.