Third Time, Not A Charm E-Book

H. Berkeley Rourke

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Captain Jim Cade, Lieutenant Jaime Ontiveros and Josie Du Puy of the Phoenix P.D. Homicide unit are engaged in a life and death struggle with a group of vigilante cops.

The discovery of this group of killers is a task in itself, and the chase leads to a one by one apprehension of some of these killers and elimination of some of them within their own group. The idea of cops being vigilantes is so foreign to our psyche that it is hard to fathom. The idea, once dwelled upon by the reader for only a moment, becomes the reality of the story.

You will love Josie Du Puy, hate her perhaps, want to see more of her perhaps, think she is without doubt a truly remarkable character and you will be right. You will laugh with her, love with her, cry with her, rage with her and fight with her against the stone cold killers. She will engage you as deeply as she does Jim Cade and Jaime Ontiveros, her bosses.

Leseprobe

Third Time Not A Charm

Josie DuPuy Novel I

H. Berkeley Rourke

Copyright (C) 2015 H. Berkeley Rourke

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter

Published 2019 by Next Chapter

Cover Design by The Illustrated Author (www.theillustratedauthor.net)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

The war between a person's mind, their training, their knowledge, contains a constant series of battles with their soul.

If the mind prevails for a moment and the depths of life's commands sway the soul, the person is lost for a time and maybe forever.

Prologue

Phoenix, Arizona and environs in 1995 is a sleepy large city. It has not yet encroached across the full span of the “Valley of the Sun.” Expansion and constant construction of new homes is at a high but not yet a fever pitch. Older homes are still selling well despite hundreds of new homes coming on the market every month. New developments are springing up in places where development has not been seen before.

Buckeye is being reeled into the Valley on the west. Mesa, Tempe, Chandler and Gilbert are, for all practical purposes, one city and are being swallowed by Mesa as well. But there are open spaces left which development is slowly filling. Golf courses are being built. Strip malls are popping up by the dozens. Several large shopping malls are on the drawing boards or under construction. Sun City is still expanding in size and population. Schools are being built around the city almost in a ring as the development begins to encircle the core of the city.

Expansion is causing some dislocation in services provided by the cities. Glendale is having a difficult time expanding its services to meet the needs of all its new citizens. Surprise is in its infancy as a city. Youngtown has been swallowed by the westward march of development as have Peoria and Tolleson. Both those western cities, just outside the ambit of the megalopolis for so long, have now been all but incorporated into the city of Phoenix. But still they maintain separate police functions, fire departments, the like. And each has its own groups of a charitable nature. Each tries to honor its frontline troops in the constant fight against crime.

James Cade is one of those frontline troops and has been, in 1995, for a number of years. He is Captain of the Phoenix Homicide Division. He is an imposing figure of a man at six feet two inches tall and roughly two hundred twenty pounds. In his early forties he is graying at the temples but still erect, muscular, a large person whose stature does not seem to frighten those around him. On this day he stands at the podium of the 100 Club, the downtown Phoenix Rotary Club, as a specially invited guest. It is the first time the Phoenix Rotary Club has invited a black man to be honored.

Jim is in uniform this day wearing his blue best with his Captain's bars gleaming, the brass dutifully shined, his shoes glistening with a fresh coat of polish. His wife, Kimberlee, his teenaged son, Jim Jr., a strapping young lad of fifteen years, himself nearly as tall as his Dad and a little heavier than Jim had been as a lad, most times just called Junior, and his daughter, now ten years old, sit by his side. The third Cade child, just seven years of age, is involved in a school project and she cannot attend the meeting. He is justifiably proud of his family and very proud to have them with him.

Jim is being honored for his many years of service to the City of Phoenix Police Department. His career is winding down, he thinks, but it has been amazing. The department has given him awards for merit and valor. The business community is honoring him for many reasons in addition to those acts of heroism and generally great police work he has been involved in through the years.

There are but few Black members of the 100 club but their hearts swell as he stands and listens to the accolades being thrown at him, as do those of his wife and children. Phoenix still has its problems with ethnic biases and racism. Those problems will grow and become more evident in time with both the Black and the Latino communities. But this day will show no evidence of those problems.

Jim's mind wanders a little as he listens to the speaker introducing him. His thoughts turn to his son, a budding football player with some real talents, and to his daughters, both students of martial arts, both well coordinated and physically talented as well as mentally gifted. In the midst of a reverie about his children he is brought forward to the dais to speak.

Jim thanks the Rotary Club for its attention to the notion the Phoenix Police Department is doing a good job. He thanks the club for its award and says, “There are so many in the department who deserve your accolades, deserve awards for their bravery, their everyday willingness to do what it takes to help others and fight crime. Each street officer who works his or her daily beat, every detective who toils to determine responsibility for criminal acts, every CSI who searches for information which will help to resolve 'who dunits' (he pauses for the laughter to subside), is equally as deserving of this award as am I. Some put their lives on the line daily. There are so many other unsung heroes in the system who keep us all a little safer. Attorneys, yes I know attorneys and cops are not supposed to have much use for each other but I respect those in our criminal justice system immensely as I do the judges, court reporters, the list goes on and on. Likewise there have been so many ho have come before me that were a lot better police officers and better investigators than I am. With all those things said I humbly accept this award on their behalf and on behalf of my family as well as my own. It is one which my family and I will always cherish. Thanks again.” His concise message brings about a standing ovation and then everyone settles down for a lunch of catered Sirloin tip steaks.

As Jim takes his place with Kim and his children he also thinks of a case on which he had received information only a few hours earlier. It deals with a body found laying in the middle of a dusty dirt road a number of miles out on the east side of town. The body has been there only a short time and it was well preserved, especially considering it was dumped in Arizona in the summer. It was badly treated though, much in the same fashion as another body which had been found on a cul de sac in the west part of town only weeks before! Were they connected? Were there others? What would these two deaths lead to?

Sometimes, he thought, I am glad I am getting ready to retire. The world, it seemed to him, at the ripe old age of forty-five, was changing. Technology was overtaking thoughtfulness, tools were replacing planning, plotting, charting, using your head for something other than as a prop to the likes of infrared light bars which could and would show blood. They showed it very well in areas that had been sprayed with luminal. High tech cameras, the list of new equipment seemed endless and of course was very expensive as well.

The thought tugged at his mind ass to whether he and his men, those of Homicide, his friends, his trusted companions and his mate, might once again be facing a recreational killer. Or, it might be something related to drugs or gangs. Those issues were being explored by Narcotics Division of the Glendale P.D. as he was speaking without his knowledge.

Both the men who had been killed had criminal records. Both had been involved with “dope” at one point in time or another in their lifetimes. But neither had been arrested recently in conjunction with drugs. Neither had been arrested for anything at all in recent months, even years. One, whose name was Johnny Campbell, had recently married, had a child on the way, had a fairly decent job, no bad stuff going on in his life according to his parole supervisor.

All Johnny's fees and fines had been paid on his last offense, he was under what in Arizona is termed Community Supervision, a loose form of parole. He had been having no problems of any kind. His supervisor, Wayne Curtis, was openly complimentary to Johnny in fact. And Johnny had undergone a urine test proving to be negative for any illicit substance within 30 days of his death. It didn't seem likely that Johnny had been killed over a drug situation unless it was from his past. Narcotics in Glendale was looking into his past to see what might have motivated someone to kill Johnny.

The other victim, Joseph Antonelli, had moved to Phoenix from Cleveland within the last year, had started a small business enterprise which was surviving if not thriving. He also did not have the appearance of being involved in the drug trade. But Joseph had been involved in his past so Narcotics was looking into his past with contact at the Cleveland Police Department.

As Jim Cade thought about all these things he also thought if not narcotics then what? Johnny was recently married, seemingly happy in his new life. Joseph had a wife and kids as well. She seemed like the salt of the earth to the detectives of the Glendale Police Department. They had interviewed her after going through the notification process. “Well,” Jim thought, “it will all come out eventually I guess. It's not something to worry about right now.”

Neither Glendale P.D. nor the Sheriff's Office of Maricopa County had contacted Phoenix P.D. yet nor asked for any type of assistance yet. Jim had to assume the cases were either unconnected or no connection had been found at that time. But Jim would soon be embroiled in yet another “serial murder” investigation. It would chill the marrow of his bones, shake the foundation of his years of police work.

As Jim wrestled mentally with the possibilities a man begged unsuccessfully for his life next to the eighteenth green on the Superstition Mountain Country Club near Apache Junction, Arizona. There was no one else around save for he and the man facing him with a gun. Jose Portales died knowing hell had faced him for a moment until the flame blossomed from the man's gun and the bullet entered Jose's head. In a sense Jose was almost relieved having gone through a horrendous beating at the hands of the same man that shot and killed him.

The killer simply walked away after dumping the body, whistling a ditty that his daughter had taught him in times before … wondering who he and his friends would find next. He commented to himself how easy it had been to justify killing this piece of “dog shit.” Jose, the killer thought, was less than human, had sold drugs to children in his past, had an arrest for child molestation that ended in nothing being done when both the Mother and the child had recanted. The killer had the strongest feeling, as did his friends when they discussed Jose, that there had been some coercion against the Mother and child about the child molest.

The child molest was the “clincher” in the decision to kill Jose. And it was so easy to delude Jose, make him believe that it was just another “interview,” just another momentary intrusion into his life. Hah, thought the killer. Gotcha Jose. No more dog shit on your street.

Jim Cade didn't yet know of all these things while basking in the award ceremony. When he learned of them he would be incredulous at first, disgusted as a secondary reaction and heartsick in the final knowledge of the truth he would have to face. The realization of the murders and the thought processes bringing them about would begin in a matter of days after the Rotary Club Meeting. It would last a lifetime for many, a moment for some, and would become Jim's focus for a time. Another day passed with the Rotary Club, a proud and happy day. The pride and happiness of the day would ebb into the tale of the horrors wrought by a group of vigilantes that Jim would seek.

BOOK I A GATHERING OF CORPSES AND DETECTIVES

Death is not a punishment, it is merely an ending that cannot be undone

Chapter 1 Information About Death Comes Together

The third murder within several weeks involving a severe beating and an execution style shot to the head surfaced rather quickly despite it being committed in Pinal County. Maricopa County (the site of Phoenix, Mesa, Glendale, Tempe and many other larger Arizona cities) is located slightly to the east and partly directly to the north of Pinal County. It, Pinal County, is smaller in terms of area, and in terms of population than is Maricopa County. Pinal County has somewhat less police resources available to it in an emergent situation such as a murder investigation.

Pinal County is blessed with bright and able investigators in various departments who are gifted and whose knowledge of the availability of outside resources in Maricopa County makes them more capable than otherwise they might be. By 1990 the willingness of police departments in Arizona to be communicative with each other in the face of unexplained criminal conduct had begun to develop. All was not perfect in inter agency communication but it was developing. This case and others would test the continuance of their communications and its usefulness as well.

There were still problems. The jealousies involving busts of dope dealers who were silly enough to leave a lot of cash laying around and the “seizure” of the cash by a given department still existed. Those seizures, sometimes involving boats or cars or trucks worth thousands in sales potential created income for the departments. Other departments less fortunate in dealing with dopers still harbored envy of those that did. The “this is my bust” mentality in every police officer has had since time immemorial still existed. It would sometimes lead to difficulties between departments, between divisions within a given department and between individual officers as well.

Those factors as well as the “blue wall” which rises to defend any police officer who makes a mistake in judgment or actions still existed in 1990 even as they were likely to exist forever. Likewise the attitudes of higher echelon police officials, the leaders of the units, the leaders of the departments, the CFO's and CEO's as they would be called in other situations came into play in multiple crime situations. Budget considerations might overrule investigative activity. One department would make an investment in an infrared lamp system that would enhance investigation for any CSI and another would just say to its people, sorry, we cannot afford that kind of equipment.

An officer or investigator might feel the need to take a trip to another city for training or to follow a lead and simply be told no by the upper echelon of the department. This would occur because the upper echelon people could not, or would not, justify the expense to the City Council or the Board of Supervisors. Jim had faced these kinds of decisions and attitudes in his past. He had seen the formulation of resentment by one division against another. His experiences in the O' Rourke and Bruce Fletcher cases taught him well about how budgetary considerations could derail an investigation in a heartbeat. The same was true throughout Arizona and especially in the smaller communities.

When a murder occurs anywhere there are immediate protocols to observe, immediate conclusions to reach, immediate investigative actions to take. It depends, of course, on who is killed as to what these protocols dictate being done. All police officers know, as did Jim Cade, in musing about the third murder in a month of virtually the same type, if a woman is murdered her husband, boyfriend, whatever in terms of relationships is the immediate suspect.

When a man is killed there is a tendency to believe that his spouse or significant other might be involved as well. So the instant reaction of police investigations is to go to a family member, a significant other, someone close, someone with a reason to kill, in the initial phases of the investigation. Police officers also know if a murder is unsolved after twenty-four to forty-eight hours there is little chance it will be solved without a lot of luck and a tremendous amount of hard work.

So called recreational killers do not strike with regularity in any given area of the country, much less Phoenix, Arizona and its environs. The first difficulty in dealing with a serial killer or a group of killers is to identify the idea there have been a series of killings done by one or more persons and those killings have no relationship to normal protocols. Only then can an appropriate investigation be commenced when dealing with a recreational killer.

* * *

“The Group” as they called themselves knew police protocols well. They planned for these protocols to prevail, used different areas of the Valley of the Sun as dump sites as a result of their planning. “They” knew given the attitudes of most police investigators “their” criminal activity would not be tied together for a long time, maybe not for years. And “they” intended to be finished with their necessities (as they thought of them) long before the crimes were tied together. And information was available to “them” which most murderers never could have. Those things made them a little careless about what they were doing, but not how they did it. They would never be found, they thought. They were the “good guys” after all. They were invisible and invincible.

* * *

Initially with the victims Johnny Campbell, Joseph Antonelli and Jose Portales each of the police departments involved, Glendale Police Department, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and Pinal County Sheriff's Office, very standard police techniques were utilized. Right away the Glendale P.D. went to Johnny's wife and asked repeatedly where she had been, what had she been doing, who she had been with at the time of death they thought was appropriate. Their information from the Maricopa County Coroner's Office, via Dr. Ralph Lomati, was that Johnny had died about twenty-four hours prior to being discovered.

Dr. Lomati also told the detectives of Glendale P.D., Will Jamieson and George Johnson, Johnny had been shot in the head once with a large caliber bullet. After completion of the autopsy Dr. Lomati had been able to remove the remainder of the bullet from the skull of Johnny. But the bullet had been a full “wadcutter” or “dum dum” as they were sometimes called. It had mushroomed badly. Not much could be obtained from observation of the bullet by a technician/firearms expert (sometimes mislabeled as a ballistics expert). All the expert could glean from the bullet was it was fired from a nine millimeter pistol, maybe a Glock, maybe even a Beretta.

The lands and grooves on the bullet taken from Johnny's head were so badly misshapen and covered by the spread of the bullet when it entered the head there was no way to tell for sure what kind of weapon fired it. The questions Jamieson and Johnson asked led nowhere. The information developed by the experts led to nothing. The interviews conducted by Jamieson and Johnson were fruitless. They failed to establish the suspicion of a motive, much less proof of how Johnny was beaten and shot.

By 1995 many modern techniques of investigation had evolved which were not available to Jim Cade or any other police investigator in prior years. DNA testing was perfect by 1990 to the point of making it a near lock on identity. At least it was a conclusive tool when there was a known suspect that left DNA available to investigators. DNA testing was so well developed by then much smaller and even smaller samples of skin or hair or blood or any other body excretion such as saliva could used to determine much information.

But in Johnny's case there was no DNA. Despite yeoman work by the CSI's of Glendale P.D. there were no hairs found, no blood that didn't belong to Johnny, no skin samples under his fingernails or elsewhere on his body, no saliva anywhere that was discernible. Of course even had there been saliva on the ground it would not have been detected. The heat of the day would have long dried it out and made it invisible even to infrared examination. The evidence would have been gone long before the CSI's began their work. When CSI's who are professionals, as they were in each of these cases, examine a potential crime scene they do it microscopically, tediously, tirelessly until all evidence of any kind is found and placed in envelopes of one kind or another, catalogued and sealed. In these cases there was no evidence to find. There was no blood other than that of the victims, no hair, nothing.

It was evident to Dr. Lomati, and he put into his report, the man or men who had beaten Johnny were large, powerful men, or if not large then certainly very powerful. Lomati could not imagine, though he had seen much such damage done to human beings in his career, could not believe one man could do such damage by himself. He was a little concerned with that conclusion in light of the fact there were what appeared to be ligature marks on Johnny's wrists. It was evident from Johnny's condition, bruising around his eyes, around his mouth, around his upper chest and rib cage especially, that he had been beaten for some time prior to being killed. As Jim Cade would eventually review all this information he would think the beating was unusual to say the least. And as he would say to Lieutenant Jaime Ontiveros at the time, “Someone was sending a message by this beating Jaime.”

So it would be with the body of Jose Portales. He was autopsied in Tucson by a different forensic pathologist named Cyndie Portmeyer. She made many of the same findings as Dr. Lomati did about Johnny Campbell. Jose had also been severely beaten and shot in the head with a nine millimeter pistol. She also noted the presence of ligature marks on Jose's wrists. In that case the bullet was recovered from the head of Jose with enough left of the lands and grooves to tell her it had been fired from a Glock Model 19 handgun. Knowing the make and model of the gun narrowed the suspect pool to several million people nationwide and well into the thousands if not the tens of thousands in the State of Arizona.

But Dr. Portmeyer made an additional observation which Dr. Lomati had not made. Her note was cryptic and speculative in some regards. What she said was that Jose had been beaten by someone large and powerful, or at least very powerful, while the perpetrator was wearing gloves. She could see no other way there would be no skin residue nor any hair which might have come off a fist impacting a body or face. Dr. Lomati had indeed felt the same about the issue of the beating and when queried later he said, “Yeah I thought it was true as well but I didn't want to speculate on it at the time.”

Maricopa County Sheriff's Office also sent its murder victims to the Forensic Center in downtown Phoenix where Dr. Lomati was one of the forensic pathologists on staff. But he didn't perform the autopsy for Joseph Antonelli. Instead that autopsy was done by Dr. James Rozinskiy. The doctor was a relatively new forensic pathologist who was assigned most if not all Maricopa County S.O. murder cases. Dr. Roszinskiy found Joseph Antonelli had been severely beaten by a large, powerful man either using instruments to inflict pain or wearing some kind of implements doing the same job. Dr. Rozinskiy speculated that the instruments might be gloves filled with “shot” or some other form of gloves that had metal protrusions or implements attached. The doctor in Joseph's case also found that the decedent was shot in the head but in this case with a forty-five caliber bullet. Only fragments of the bullet could be retrieved from the head since a large portion of the bullet had gone through and through. No fingerprints were found at the scene of the body dump where Joseph Antonelli was found. No hair, no blood, no saliva, nothing containing DNA other than that of Joseph Antonelli was found in the area where his body was dumped.

The Maricopa S.O. detectives, John Allred and Charlie Enas, who were well acquainted with Jim Cade, began their analysis of the situation in much the same fashion as the detectives in Glendale and Florence. First they went to Joe's wife, asked her about the marriage, if it was going well or in trouble, asked her where she was on or near the time of death, asked her if she owned a gun, where it was, and looked at the piece she brought to them. It was a standard police issue thirty-eight caliber which had been manufactured many years prior to Joe's death. They asked her if she knew of any trouble that Joe had been having. They did this after she had given them an alibi for the time framing of his death. They asked her if he had any business partners or anyone coming around the business who had been troublesome.

She had no information to give them. She was a stay at home Mom who had little contact with Joe's business prior to his death. Her children were all still in school and she had been with one of them during the time of death Allred and Enas believed to be appropriate. So Enas and Allred began to look at Joe's criminal history. They found he had been associated with some heavy people in Cleveland in earlier years. They found he had been arrested in those times. But they didn't and couldn't connect anything to the current situation even after an extended conversation with the Cleveland P.D. Homicide and Organized Crime detectives.

Similarly to the Mesa P.D. investigation and the investigation done by Pinal County (Florence) Allred and Enas had reached the ends of their ropes by the time a month had passed from the murder of Jose Portales. Each of those departments had sent flyers out to Phoenix P.D., the F.B.I., every department in the State of Arizona in the hopes of developing any information at all. The flyers simply described the murder of each of the victims, asked the police all over the state for any help they could offer. Enas and Allred had been involved with Jim Cade and the Phoenix Homicide unit in the Bruce Fletcher investigation. But Allred especially and even Enas who was much more thoughtful than his partner did not consider that the current murders might be tied to each other. After all they had taken place … well where they had occurred was really not conclusive and certainly no judgment could be reached yet as to where they had taken place.

All of the detectives involved instantly understood the body each of them was dealing with had been dumped at the site at which it was found. There was little blood to be found and the blood located at the dump sites belonged to the victims in every case. There was simply nothing else at the dump sites but the body and its blood. It was evident the bodies had been found in widely spread areas of the Valley of the Sun. From Apache Junction to Mesa, twenty miles or so, to the west side of town to Glendale, an additional thirty miles or more was obviously a wide rage of distance and jurisdictions.

* * *

“The Group” met rarely. It was not necessary to have a lot of meetings. All the members felt as one that the work they were doing was justified, was good, and would be of use to ordinary society as a whole. They didn't need to pat each other on the back. They didn't need to relive the experiences they shared in that several of them had been “blooded.” There were only a couple of them left who had not yet done their first removal of garbage. The removal of garbage was their working notion. The people they were killing were just trash to be taken to the dump and disposed of as quickly and easily as possible. But an additional working notion was the beatings would be a warning to others retribution was at hand if they didn't change their ways.

“The Group” had other targets identified but they had decided after the third removal they should wait a time before the next one. They also had decided even though the beatings would continue the mode of removal would have to be changed some for the next couple of trash pieces at least. Knives would be used the next time and the venue of the dump would change again. It would be located further south, out of the valley or any community associated with the valley. Or it could be west, well out into the raw desert where the next one might not ever be found at all.

At their meeting after the Portales removal these decisions were discussed at length. Jason Miller, a police officer with Mesa P.D., a street officer, would be next to be blooded. He announced that “In order to provide a little more confusion amongst the detectives handling the case a knife has to be my weapon of choice for my removal.”

Another of these men, Porfirio Gonzalez, a police officer with the Youngtown P.D. agreed. He said, simply, “I am going to follow Jason's lead.” The others merely nodded. The meeting was at an end. There was no timetable. It was a matter of finding the right piece of trash and removing it from the street to each of them. Each would determine how and when he would accomplish the task. Each would also furnish what intelligence concerning the “trash” they could including criminal histories and suspicions of conduct contained in files which might even be closed. All five were in fact police officers. One was from Casa Grande. His name was Adam Kennedy. He had been the first to be blooded. One was from Marana. His name was Robert Michael Wilson. He was blooded after Adam. His victim had been Joseph Antonelli. One was from Phoenix. His name was Bryan Gant. He was a supervisor Sergeant at one of the many stations Phoenix has dotted around the city. He had killed Jose Portales. Then there were Jason and Porfirio.

* * *

The flyers all arrived at Phoenix Central Offices and then were distributed to whatever department or unit that was appropriate as a matter of policy. Central Office had people to evaluate which would go to Homicide, which to Narcotics, etc. In the first instance the flyers were sent to Narcotics since each of the victims had been identified as having been involved in narco-trafficking at some point in their lives. As silly as it sounded in later discussions about this part of the initial handling of the cases the same was true in each of the departments involved in the multiple murder investigations. Each of the Narcotics divisions spent several weeks asking around among its snitches about the three dead men. No one had a glimmer of information. None of the officers in Narcotics had encountered the victims in any circumstance. No progress was made. No information was turned up. Nothing positive came from the assignment of the evaluation of the flyers to Narcotics. And in the end it was only because one Narco-detective made the suggestion that Homicide might be able to help the flyers were sent to Jim Cade's office.

Despite the flyers being ordered by Mesa P.D., Pinal County S.O. and Maricopa County S.O. each of these departments kept up their own investigations. Each of them, under specific orders, continued the “traditional” approach to these deaths. Each of those departments also failed to spend any time in conversation or meetings with each other to evaluate the evidence and information they did have. The net result was each of those departments was just about totally ignorant of the totality of information until the flyers came in and eventually made their way to each homicide unit.

As Captain of the Homicide Unit of the Phoenix Police Department Jim's days as an investigator were not totally finished but they were curtailed to a very large degree. Nonetheless he tried to “keep his hand in” when he saw an opportunity or a necessity. He had been well trained by Captain Mike Riordan and George Adams, his prior Captains, to spend time evaluating information and keeping up with the cases being handled in the division. He had to do the budgeting, set the hours for each of the many detectives working under there, see to coverage when the detectives in the division were sick or took vacation, as well as doing the same for the non-certified people in his division. He had to schedule training, conduct training himself both at the Academy and in house, and he ultimately had the responsibility to decide whether to close a case. Of course he did have good people working with him who helped to spread those tasks and take some of them off his hands. Jaime Ontiveros had been Jim's partner when Jim was a Lieutenant, the same rank now held by Jaime.

The day the three flyers arrived from central Jim was available to discuss anything at all for a change. When Lt. Jaime Ontiveros had the flyers brought to his attention by Detective Josie Du Puy he said “Come with me.” The two of them went straight to Jim's office, knocking on the door and when Jim said “Come in,” they both entered. It was to be a seminal moment in all their lives.

Jim asked “What's up Jaime? You look a little perplexed.”

Jaime answered, “I don't know if you remember Detective Josie Du Puy or not?”

“Sure.” Jim stood and shook hands with Josie and with Jaime. “She had top honors at the academy and great recommendations from her bosses when she was on the streets. What's going on?”

“Well Jim I wonder if there is not a huge and growing problem here,” Jaime said. He handed the flyers to Jim. “I don't want to create anything where it doesn't exist but this stuff makes me wonder a great deal about who might be doing this, why, and where?”

“I guess it's why the department is paying you the big bucks now, huh, Jaime,” Jim said with a smile.

Du Puy added to the commentary saying, “I think you are right boss. Why this is going on is my big question. The only reason I can come up with is the elimination of people in the drug trade.”

“Wait a minute now,” Jim said, “what are you saying? Do you think this is some kind of vigilante thing? Or maybe the right question is what else can it be? Or maybe the right question is why else would someone do this?” And then Jim, after a pause which said a whole lot without words, added, “Would these things be done by police officers or civilians?”

“Wait a minute Jim. Aren't we jumping to some big conclusions rather rapidly here? Don't you think there could be other explanations?” Jaime was concerned they should not make too large a leap forward with the police angle right away. He didn't want, any more than any other police officer would, to think cops would kill deliberately and cruelly as these murders had been committed.

“But Lieutenant,” Du Puy responded, “what about the autopsy reports, the similarity of the mode of death, one shot to the head like an assassin? What about the similarity of the condition of the bodies? What about the fact these locales were body dumps and the murders could have been committed anywhere? Doesn't all this point to one guy, one person who is a vigilante?”

Jim sat thoughtfully for a moment before answering all these observations and then said, “You know these are not our cases. To make these judgments now without being involved in any sense at all in the cases is not going to create anything positive. So here is what I would like to do with this information. Detective Du Puy I guess I know you well enough to call you Josie, do I not?”

“Sure, Captain, it is not a problem.”

“Okay Josie I want you to take the lead in this situation. I want you to contact the three agencies and offer our assistance. Don't make any suggestions based on what we have discussed here today. It's still their ball game. Don't try to get involved. Just offer our help and see what happens. The other departments may have reached the same conclusions we have. It is not likely to be true frankly. So they may not really want anything from us yet?”

“Do you want the Lieutenant involved as well?”

“No Josie. Not at the start of this one, if there is a start for us, is your bailiwick. Go for it. And keep Jaime advised of what is going on so we can help if need be, okay?”

If death has its day, if someone makes creating death his way, then soon he or she too must pay.

Chapter 2 Josie

Josie Du Puy had many thoughts about the assignment she was given by Jim. She tended to be a little defensive at work, about work. She was, after all, a woman, in fact the only woman who had achieved the status of Detective of Homicide. The history of Phoenix P.D. indicated a reluctance, if not a downright unwillingness, to bring women onto the force. But once it began to hire women the numbers began to rise. It was only a matter of time until someone happened to make Detective in one or more of the various units. It just so happened Josie was the first in Homicide.

She was always worried she would not make a good impression on people. She knew her physical beauty created an impression which was positive. It was not the problem, or maybe it was part of the problem. She was a pretty woman. She was five feet seven inches tall and weighed a constant one hundred forty pounds. Her weight fit on her frame in all the right places. Her medium length brown hair was lightly flecked with a few spots of blonde to gray hair. Her blue eyes were penetrating when she looked directly at someone and could be frightening to a criminal.

Josie possessed a medium bone structure so she didn't look overweight at all. She was muscular but not in the same was as a body builder. She lifted weights regularly if she had time to do so. She ran at least a mile every day she could find the time. She ran most days. She always sprinted the last quarter or so. It was a way to try and prepare herself for the “runners” she might encounter on the street. She would always have more stamina than those fools, if not more speed. It had proved to be true on more than one occasion. She was not fearful of men. She began studying Karate when she was a young girl and had a black belt by the time she was seventeen. She had some full contact fights when she was a Karate student and didn't mind the physical contact. In the right circumstances she even found it to be something of an aphrodisiac.

As a patrol person she had been required to hold her own physically on several occasions and had no problem doing so. One half in the bag guy who was about six feet two inches tall and weighed about two hundred, fifty pounds, said to her one night, “No way I'm going to let some skinny assed little broad take me down.” He grinned at her and threw a roundhouse right hand at her. He woke up on the ground, on his stomach, cuffed and leg ironed, trussed up like a chicken with a very sore jaw. When she finally got him into her patrol car and was on the way back to the station he asked her in a sheepish way, “What the hell did you do to me?”

She responded simply “Not as much as I could have you fool now shut up and let me get you to the jail.”

Josie's parents were middle income Americans. She was born in Arizona and raised in the west valley. They wanted her to go to college. She grew up in the western part of the city, far out in what was then termed the boondocks, went to Dysart High School when it was a brand new school facility. She thought as a girl she might attend ASU in Tempe. But she went to Phoenix College for a semester just to see what might interest her.

There she met a young man with whom she was taken immediately. He was a police science student (law enforcement), He encouraged her to try one of the classes. She did and she loved the notions it presented. She was a little rebellious in her early years and the “authority figure” aspect of being a police officer was a little intimidating at first. After some consideration she thought she could handle that okay. She did. In her days as a patrol officer people complimented her on being direct and forceful without being a storm trooper. The arrests she made stuck. Her arrest to conviction record was one hundred per cent.

She had a friend of the family who kept an eye on her without her knowing that to be true. He acted, as a leader of the department, as an unofficial “rabbi” for her as she began to gain experience and reputation. He was a closet feminist in some respects and wanted to see more women in highly visible positions in the department. Eventually with her reputation being the primary basis for the promotion, fitting into an opening a the right moment and her “rabbi” giving her just the right amount of boost she was promoted. Her promotion, with the blessing of the Captain of Homicide Division, James Cade, brought her to the position of Detective of Homicide.

It was a moment of some magnitude in the department. Some did not agree with the promotion. They thought it was too soon. Or they thought no woman should be in the position of homicide detective. Some were sure she would fail. Some were expecting her to make a gaff which would return her to the streets. Again she stuck. She worked. She studied. She pored over the files of unsolved murder cases, gaining even the slightest insight into the minds of the killers if she could.

Josie's first murder case was a horrendous home violence situation she fathomed right away. Luckily she had never seen violence in her home as a girl. She had a very normal childhood in a home where her parents loved each other. They were loving to others as well, leading them to wonder why she chose her job. But she had heard about domestic violence from others with whom she went to school. She went to the scene of the shooting with some worry about how bad the body would be. It was not her first stiff. It was her first murder. It was not terrible but certainly she didn't think she would want to spend the rest of her life looking at stiffs.

The wife, the shooter, was named Phyllis. The dead man's name was Henry. When Josie got to the scene the patrol people had Phyllis separated in a bedroom away from the body. Josie went directly to Phyllis after looking at the shooting scene in the kitchen and said to Phyllis, “I have to advise you of your rights, or have the others already done that?” Phyllis replied one of the other officers had already done that.

“Is there anything about the Miranda warnings you don't understand?” Phyllis said she understood and wanted to talk about the situation. Josie repeated the warnings nonetheless out of an abundance of concern for the wife. She did so out of concern for Phyllis more than out of it being a means of preserving testimony that might incriminate her.

Phyllis told Josie that her husband had been beating her for at least twenty years. She said to Josie that he had broken her right arm once, had broken a collar bone once, had broken her nose once, had knocked out all her front teeth which had to be replaced with a prosthesis and the showed Josie bruises all over her back, abdomen and the area of her breasts that were in various stages of healing. Phyllis had a huge hematoma on her right eye at the time Josie spoke to her. Phyllis cried softly the entire time she was talking and kept saying in between describing what had happened, including a full description of the shooting and how it had come about, “What are me and my kids going to do now? He was a royal asshole but at least he worked. What the hell are we going to do now?”

Josie took Phyllis back to Homicide, had her make a complete statement in front of a court reporter, the court reporter being hauled out of bed to take the statement, and then took Phyllis back to her house where the kids had been kept. Josie transported the entire family to a shelter for abused women and their families for the night while the necessities were finished at the scene. Phyllis was never charged, never booked into jail, eventually made her way back to Texas from which she and her family had come to Arizona and was never heard from again. All this had been done with the specific approval of Jim Cade. It was the only other time he had seen Josie at work. He thought she was a caring person who had a recognition of life in the world as it was, not only an outlook that sought the application of the law.

Josie had faced some discrimination early in her days as a rookie officer. There seemed always to be one guy around who was a smart ass or a “ladies man.” The comments would come occasionally. She didn't always hear them but sometimes she heard from other women officers what was being said. Josie had a good figure. She was lean, slightly on the buxom side. Her breasts were hidden by her sports bra and her protective vest ninety per cent of the time she was at work. She didn't flaunt herself, didn't want to get involved with another cop, especially some rookie whose macho necessities had not yet been sated.

One day she happened to overhear one of her fellow rookies talking in the locker room about what a beautiful set of “tits” she had. She confronted the guy. He was just macho enough to buck up when she braced him. She invited him to the exercise mat in the gym next to the locker room and kicked his ass. He thought she was just pissed and would get over it if he sparred with her for a minute or two. She kicked him directly in the stomach and while he was bent over she knocked him down on the mat with an uppercut that would have been envied by Muhammed Ali.

He got up but was a little unsteady on his feet. She knocked him down again with a focus force punch which hit one of his gloves first and then connected with his chin. He stayed down for a little longer. He shook his head while she danced around him, got up and rushed her. It was strictly the wrong thing to do. She stopped the rush with another kick to the stomach which he blocked partially leaving his guard somewhat lower than it should have been. She planted a punch right on the end of his chin. He woke up a couple of minutes later. She was back in the locker room already. As he staggered by her, reeling from the ass kicking she had administered to him, on the way to his locker she said to him, “Still like my tits so much?”

It was legendary through the department within a week. Jim Cade heard about it two years prior to Josie joining homicide. When he knew she was about to join his division he put the word out to his troops through their supervisors if any sexual harassment occurred he would simply send the offending person to the gym with Josie. After Josie was done with the offender then the guy would have to take on the boss as well. No one wanted a piece of either one of those two. Jim was legendary in the department as a martial artist and Josie's legend was growing.

Now and again Josie would wonder about whether she might face any additional sexual harassment. She knew it would not happen within the homicide unit. She didn't do anything which might provoke it either. She dressed and acted professionally at all times. She didn't allow any cop, not a homicide dick nor a patrol officer to get close enough to her personally for there to be any gossip about a relationship. Her treatment of all people in the public made Jim proud of her as she progressed as a Detective. She was equally open to all in terms of receiving information. She didn't seem to have any prejudices of her own. He thought it would be a really good thing for her to break out in communication with the departments dealing with the three killings.

She called Maricopa County S.O. but missed the detectives in the first attempt. She left a message asking they give her a call. She identified herself as Phoenix Homicide in her message. She called Pinal Country S.O. and got hold of a detective named Cosworth who was not involved except peripherally in the Portales case. Cosworth told her he would pass on the word to the detectives in charge and to his Lieutenant she had called, thanked her for the offer of help and hung up.

Josie called Glendale P.D. and talked immediately with the Lieutenant in charge of the investigation. He was an older officer of the department. He had been a police officer for nearly twenty-five years and was about to retire. He believed the investigation into the death of Johnny Campbell would be resolved by reference to a spouse, a lover, someone who was jealous, anything but a group of vigilantes. She didn't mention the idea but suggested the availability of some additional minds might help. He said he would think about it, hung up and said to himself, “She was pretty presumptuous. Goddamn Phoenix P.D. is always looking to grab some glory.” He didn't mention the call to his detectives for weeks.

The note Cosworth left for his boss at the Pinal County S.O. got hidden under some others that received little attention for a number of weeks as well. The call to Maricopa County S.O. was answered by an abrupt “If we want your help we'll ask for it,” when her call was returned. She dutifully reported the results to Jim and went on her way taking care of her own caseload. So much for interdepartmental cooperation she thought as she made a final analysis of her initial efforts.

Does crime justify death, or is death prematurely created by man, really a crime?

Chapter 3 Changing Circumstances

Time has a way of changing everything. So it was for Josie, Phoenix Homicide, Jim Cade, all of them. It happened suddenly. A body was found near the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Mounted Posse Facility on North Seventh Street in Phoenix. The body was a deceased young woman. She had been stripped of all clothing, had been savagely beaten and her throat had been cut so deeply her head was nearly severed from its torso/neck connection. Phoenix Homicide was called immediately upon the body being found. Jim took the call. “What is the state of the body,” he asked the patrol officer, after being told of the discovery.

“Hold on sir,” the officer replied. “I have to get the other officer who is here because I have not seen the body. It was covered by the other officer before I got here.”

“Okay,” said Jim and waited.

“Officer Greg Malloy here. Who am I speaking with please?”

“This is Captain Cade with Homicide. How are you Officer?”

“I'm fine sir. But I am afraid I cannot say the same for our victim.”

“What is the state of the body … well first I understand you are the only one who has seen the body?”

“Yes sir, other than a civilian. I was called to the scene by a golfer who was going to play at the Pointe Resort course right next to where the body is located. He saw something which looked strange, stopped to take a look and saw the woman. He is still here by the way. He called 911 and I responded. When I got here he pointed her out to me and I covered her with one of those space blanket kind of things.”

“Good work Officer Malloy. What is the state of the body?”

“She is nude sir. She has been severely beaten. You can see bruises all over her body and arms. I could not see all of her face but it appeared to be bruised up as well. Her throat has been cut rather badly. It's all I could see sir.”

Again Jim said, “Really good work Officer Malloy. You are most observant. We will be sending a homicide Detective, maybe a Lieutenant as well if he is available, right away. Stay with the body, as close or as far away as you want but within eye sight so no one bothers the body. Of course don't allow any animals near it as well. As I remember there are a lot of Coyotes out there near that golf course. Put up a perimeter far enough away so the news cameras will not be able to see her. Can you do all that Malloy?”

“Sure sir. What would you like me to do with the civilian? He tells me he didn't see anyone near the body, no cars or anything of that nature, nothing to help other than he saw something odd and took a look.”

“Get his information Malloy. And tell him we may contact him later today or perhaps later in the week. Then you can let him go.”

“Thank you sir. I will let the other officer go as well. We have been having a lot of problems out in this area recently, especially with gang bangers, and he needs to get back on patrol. Is it okay sir?”

“Of course Malloy. We will be there soon along with CSI's etc. Have you called the Coroner's Office?”

“No sir. I thought you folks at Homicide would want to do that.”

“Okay Malloy. Once again, good work. Hang in there.” Jim immediately called the Coroner's Officer after speaking with Malloy, rang Josie at her desk and Jaime who just happened to be in the office, called the Crime Scene Investigations Unit and asked for a team to be sent to the scene. As Jaime and Josie walked into the office he said to them, “There's a db, a woman, throat cut, been beaten severely, out at the area of Tapatio Cliffs Resort, by the golf course entrance. You two are up for this one. Be very thorough. This may or may not be connected to the others we have seen recently.”

Jaime and Josie got their respective kits and left in a hurry. It would take them a while to get to their destination which is about ten to fifteen miles north of the downtown area. As they drove each silently wondered what they would be getting into, what they would find at the scene, yes, but more what would it lead to in time. Or would it lead to some kind of confrontation? Uncertainty, apprehension, no fear, but certainly some worry occupied both of these veteran police officers, one more grizzled and experienced than the other, nonetheless with unspoken thoughts paralleling hers.

As they neared the site of the body locale they noticed there were floodlights already installed around the area and there was a perimeter created by crime tape. There were a few news hawks there pacing along the tape trying to get a view of the scene. It was not dark yet but soon the sun would be falling and the lights would be on. The perimeter was well set so the news cameras would not be able to use long distance lens to invade the scene and photograph the victim.

The CSI's were doing their jobs by the time Jaime and Josie arrived. As they stepped under the tape the news people tried their best to get some information from one of them but neither spoke. Jaime said to Josie, “At some time a little later we will have to give them something. Try to put something to say together. Let me know what it is and we will send them back to their typewriters or whatever.”

“You've got it boss,” Josie replied. Jaime grinned thinking about how many times he had said the same thing to Jim.

As they neared the body Patrolman Malloy stepped forward and asked who they were, trying to be sure. Jaime handed him a badge as did Josie. Malloy smiled inwardly and thought to himself I have heard a little about her. She's the gal that kicked the shit out of that idiot at the station one night. Nice looking woman. He said to her, “This is a rough one Detective.” He thought to himself dammit, if this were not a crime scene I might try to get to know her a little better.

Josie, a little concerned over what the woman would look like asked, “What was the final mechanism of death do you think, Officer Malloy, isn't it?” She thought to herself, wow, nice looking guy, been around for a while, seems to have his stuff together. I wonder if he is married. I might have to look into that… One of the CSI's chimed in at that point,

“Oh, there's no doubt, she died because her throat was cut from ear to ear. Both of her arteries were severed. She bled out in a very short time.”