Lady Justice on the Dark Side (Volume 19) (16 page)

    “I hope you’ll have some fire trucks close by too,” I replied. “That building is over a hundred years old and would go up like tinder if they actually get a fire started.”

    “The plan is to take them before they get that far, but yes, we’ll have the fire department nearby.”

    The evacuation went well and by four o’clock on Friday afternoon the hotel was empty. The captain had assigned a half-dozen officers to roam around the hotel and sit on the porch dressed as tenants just in case Tweedy drove by. We didn’t want anything to be out of place and scare him off.

    I dropped by about six on Friday evening. The temperature had to be in the thirties, but Officer Fredericks was sitting on the front porch bundled up in an old coat.

    “Aren’t you freezing?” I asked.

    He gave me a disdainful look. “I’d rather freeze than be cooped up in that tiny room. How can people live in a dump like this? No offense.”

    “None taken. If all you can afford is forty bucks a week, there’s not a lot to choose from out there. At least they have a roof over their heads, a warm bed to sleep in and a bathroom.”

    “Speaking of bathrooms --- .”

    “Hold that thought,” I said, spotting a familiar figure coming up the sidewalk.

    “Mary! What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at the motel making sure our guys aren’t trashing the place.”

    “I just got to thinking about the place being burned up and I came back to get my Barry Manilow albums. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost those.”

    “Out of all the stuff in your apartment, the most important thing is Barry Manilow?”

    “Yeah, so what?”

    “First of all, we’re not going to let the place burn down.”

    I was about to say,
“Second, you can go to the flea market and pick up dozens of Barry Manilow albums for fifty cents each.”
But I quickly reconsidered.

    “Hurry, grab your albums and I’ll drive you back to the motel. By Sunday noon, everybody will be back and everything will be hunky-dory.”

    I just hoped I was right.

    By noon on Saturday, the captain had everything in place. Snipers were on the surrounding roofs and unmarked cars were on every block near the hotel.

    It would be a long, exhaustive wait until dark when Tweedy was expected.

    I sat in one of the unmarked squad cars with Ox and Amanda.

    I was happy to see that they were getting along well. Change is never easy, but sometimes it is necessary.

    As usual, Ox had stocked the car with plenty of snacks and a thermos of hot coffee.

    Every so often, there would be chatter on the police radio, saying that everything was clear, no suspects in sight.

    Just before nine, a message of a different kind came over the radio.
“A fire has been reported in the 2700 block of Benton Boulevard. The building is a forty unit apartment and tenants are jumping out of windows to escape. Traffic is snarled. All fire units in the area have been dispatched. Units 27, 38 and 45 proceed to the scene for crowd control.”

    I recognized those units as three of the unmarked cars that had been assigned to the Three Trails.

    Something was going terribly wrong.

    I heard the three patrol cars respond in the affirmative and moments later I heard sirens from the fire trucks that were descending on the burning building.

    Then it hit me. The fire on Benton wasn’t a coincidence, it was a diversion. With every fire truck in the area battling a blaze and rescuing people from a forty unit building, there would be no units available to respond to the Three Trails when it went up in flames. The building would be a total loss and any tenant trying to escape would indeed be an easy target.

    The sirens from the pumpers had just gone silent when we heard one of the snipers. “Suspect approaching from the alley behind the building. All units, respond on my mark. Three, two, one. Hit him!”

    Spotlights flooded the scene, revealing a startled Lamar Sheetz carrying a gas can.

    “Drop the can!” a bull horn bellowed. “Drop the can and on your knees! Put your hands behind your head.”

    Sheetz hesitated for a moment, then seeing every avenue of escape blocked, he fell to his knees.

    “Don’t shoot!” he shouted, locking his fingers behind his head.

    The good news was that we had Lamar Sheetz in custody. The bad news was that he was alone.

    DeMarcus Tweedy had undoubtedly set the other fire and was probably on his way to join Lamar to shoot the ‘fish in a barrel’ but was scared away when we arrested his accomplice.

    By striking when we did, we prevented Sheetz from burning the building, but we lost our chance to get Tweedy.

    The avowed cop killer was in the wind and most likely planning his next strike.

CHAPTER 18

    The public outcry over the executions of officers Chapman and Freeman was overwhelming.

    Many people had been understandably upset by the tragic deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the demonstrations demanding an end to police brutality were continuing across the country.

    With the deaths of Chapman and Freeman, a new segment of society hit the streets in protest. Not only in Kansas City, but all over the nation, citizens rallied in support of the police.

    A Virginia man launched a Facebook event that quickly spread across the nation. The event was labeled ‘Blue Light Week.’ The idea was for homeowners to replace their regular porch lights with blue lights to show their support for the men in blue. He sent out 190 invitations to his Facebook friends and in less than 24 hours, there were over 28,000 shares.

    Newspapers and TV stations picked up the story and soon every hardware store in town was carrying the blue lights.

     Officer Chapman was single, but Officer Freeman left behind a wife and two young sons. When funeral arrangements were announced, the response was so overwhelming, the venue had to be moved from one of the local churches to the Sprint Center to accommodate everyone who wanted to come and pay their respects.

    Police officers from all over the country took vacation days to travel to Missouri in support of their fallen brothers.

    A motorcycle escort had been arranged to accompany the hearses from the mortuary to the Sprint Center. License plates on the Harleys were from as far away as New York and California.

    I desperately wanted to sit with the members of my old squad, but since I was no longer a cop, it just wasn’t going to happen.

    Maggie and I had made arrangements to get together with Ox and Judy after the service. If I couldn’t be with my friends during the service, I definitely wanted their companionship afterward.

    The service itself was solemn but beautiful.

    There wasn’t a dry eye in the building when the flags that draped the two coffins were presented to Chapman’s mother and Freeman’s widow and two sons.

    When the last notes of Taps had died away, signaling the ‘end of watch’ for the two fallen officers, the building began to empty.

    Maggie and Judy had agreed to meet and go on ahead to get a table at the restaurant. I was to meet Ox, and he and I were going to make a brief visit to a nearby hotel suite where the members of my old squad were having an ‘after service’ get together.

    I made my way through the crowd to where I was to meet Ox, but the big guy was nowhere to be seen.

    I spotted Officer Dooley. “Hey Dooley, have you seen Ox?”

    “I saw him about fifteen minutes ago. He was talking to another officer --- a black guy. I hadn’t seen him before. I figured he was one of the out-of-town guys. They just talked briefly, then left together.”

    “Thanks.”

    Something wasn’t right. Ox wouldn’t have just left me high and dry. He would have called or texted to let me know what he was doing.

    It took me a good fifteen minutes to wade through the crowd. When I got to the street, I figured I would just go on to the hotel suite. Ox probably just got mixed up and thought we would meet at the after party.

    I was halfway to the hotel when I felt my phone vibrate with a text message.

    I opened the screen and it was from Ox’s phone, but the message certainly hadn’t been sent from my friend.

   It read,
“I have your partner. If you want to see him alive, come to the old Westport High School on 39
th
Street. Come alone. If I see another cop or anyone else, I’ll put a bullet in his head.”

    Suddenly it all made sense. Tweedy had gotten hold of a cop uniform of some kind. It didn’t even have to be a K.C. cop uniform. The Sprint Center was filled with cops from all over the country and he could blend in and no one would be the wiser.

    I could just imagine his words as he moved in on Ox
. “Come with me quietly or I’ll kill you right here first and then empty my gun on anyone close by.”

    Knowing Ox, he went quietly so that no one else would be hurt.

    I knew without a doubt that if I went alone as he asked, neither Ox nor I would walk out of the old school alive.

    I knew I couldn’t call the captain or any other cop, but I needed backup, so I called Kevin. Ten minutes later, he met me outside the school.

    I don’t know why Tweedy picked Westport other than it was abandoned, but his selection turned out to be a blessing for me. I had attended Westport for a few years when I was in high school and knew the building pretty well. I tried the front door, and as I expected, it was unlocked. That was obviously the way he wanted me to enter.

    When I was in high school, I weighed about a hundred and fifteen dripping wet and hated everything that was connected to P.E. or organized sports. When the coach had the class running laps or, heaven forbid, choosing up sides for dodge ball, I and another fellow geek would slip out of the gym by the back exit.

    I showed Kevin the door, he whipped out his lock set and had it open in a flash.

    I had no idea where Tweedy was holding Ox, but I figured the best bet was in the auditorium. I gave him directions from the gym to the auditorium and went back to the front entrance.

    I brought a flashlight and moved slowly through the halls toward the auditorium, checking each vacant room along the way.

    When I got to the auditorium, I spotted Tweedy on the stage. Ox was tied to a chair and Tweedy had a gun to his head.

    “Well, well,” he said. “I been lookin’ forward to dis for a long time now. I hope you come alone, ‘cause if I see anybody else, your buddy’s brains will be all over this stage.”

    “Don’t do anything hasty,” I replied. “Don’t hurt Ox. It’s me you want, not him. I’m the one who shot Rashawn. I’m the one Deandre was after when the cops shot him down, and I’m the one who put the bullet in your arm. Let him go and I’m all yours.”

    “Looks to me like you’re mine anyway,” he said. “Now I know you’re packin’ so come up to the stage nice and easy, put your gun on the stage and slide it over to me.”

    Tweedy had put tape on Ox’s mouth, but I could see him shake his head and the expression in his eyes said, “Shoot him!”

    I moved slowly forward, took my revolver from my holster, placed it on the stage and gave it a shove. “Okay, I’ve done what you asked. Now what?”

    “Now it’s time for you and your buddy to die. Like I told you, an eye for an eye.”

    I hoped that Kevin had found his way from the gym. If he had, he would be standing in the stage’s west wing about twenty feet from Tweedy. I figured it was time to make my move before Tweedy squeezed off a round.

    “That’s pretty big talk from a man that’s outnumbered and outgunned,” I said.

    “What you talkin’ about. I only see one unarmed old man.”

    “Then you’d better look again,” Kevin said from the wing.

    Startled, Tweedy swung his gun in Kevin’s direction.

    I know it only lasted a fraction of a second, but when Tweedy turned, I pulled a second gun I had concealed and pointed it at his head. Immediately, the sight of my friend, Vince Spaulding, lying dead, having been denied his anticipated retirement flashed into my mind, followed by the images of two flags being handed to the grieving families of the fallen officers, and in that moment, I hated DeMarcus Tweedy. Hated him with all my heart. As my rage built, I also remembered the Professor’s words,
“The light side is characterized by honesty, compassion, mercy and self-sacrifice, while the dark side draws its power from anger, rage, hatred, fear and aggression.”

    I was feeling all of those things, just as I had when Tweedy was holding Amanda Parrish hostage. On that day, I had the chance to take him out, but remembering the Professor’s words, I chose to try to put him under arrest rather that kill him in cold blood.

    If I had pulled the trigger that day, Chapman and Freeman would still be alive.

    At that very moment, I was faced with the same choice. If I showed compassion and mercy, Tweedy would undoubtedly be tried and convicted for his crimes and sentenced to death, but he would spend the next twenty years with appeal after appeal at the taxpayer’s expense. He might kill someone in prison. He might even find a way to escape.

    Light side or dark side? That was my dilemma.

    Surprisingly, it was an easy choice.

    I pulled the trigger and DeMarcus Tweedy fell to the floor dead.