Thomas Scott - Voodoo Daddy

Go time.

Rhonda Rhodes parked her car in front of her favorite stop off, Beans Coffee Shop, gathered her paperwork, then walked inside and took a seat at a table by the window. Beans was usually busy during the morning rush, but later in the day slowed just enough that Rhonda could sit in peace for thirty minutes or so and tend to her paperwork. The dying, bless their ever-lasting hearts, created a lot of paper.

Beans was unique not for their quaint name, but because instead of counter service, they employed actual wait staff who would come to your table and take your order. Plus, their prices were right-two bucks a cup with free refills-unlike those newer fancy-schmancy places that were popping up on every blessed corner that made you wait in line for a paper cup with different sizes, the names of which no one ever really understood. Her favorite waiter approached the table with his usual smile in place.

“Good morning, Rhonda,” the waiter said. “Get you your usual?”

“Yes, please,” she said as she spread her paperwork across the table. “I’ve got quite the schedule today.”

“I’ll bet you do a lot of good for a lot of people,” he said, and when he did, Rhonda felt like he meant it.

“I do what I can. I’ll probably be doing this until the day I die.”

“Well, our coffee will keep you going until then, that’s for sure. Be right back.”

The waiter returned a few minutes later with a large mug full of brew and a muffin wrapped in cellophane. “Muffin’s on the house today, Rhonda. Enjoy.”

Rhonda smiled and said thank you, but the waiter remained in place. “Mind if I ask you something, Rhonda?”

“Sure.”

“How do you do it? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you do, you and others like you, but to serve the dying like that, day after day, I just don’t think I could do it, you know?”

Rhonda set her pen down, took a sip of coffee and looked the young man in the eyes. “Everyone in here is dying. The difference is, some know it, and others don’t. The ones I serve, the ones with the Big C, they know it. I just help them during the final part of their lives. I’ll tell you this though, the suffering I’ve seen. My land, sometimes it’s almost too much. I pray to the lord every night that when my time comes I go quick. I sometimes think I’d rather take a bullet than to suffer through even half of what I’ve seen.”

The waiter glanced at his other tables. One of his other customers held a cup in the air, eyebrows raised. “Hey, I better get back to work. I wouldn’t worry, Rhonda. The work you’re doing, you’ll probably live forever.”

“Well, I hope you’re right,” she said.

Thirty minutes later, when Rhonda Rhodes stepped out of the coffee shop, the Sids got busy. Junior had the engine running already-nothing screamed get-away vehicle like an engine start after a gunshot, silenced or not. Senior had been lying on his back on the floor of the van, the rifle held at port arms. When Junior said “Good to go,” Senior sat up and put the business end of the barrel through the custom hole in the side of the van, just under the windows in the back. He squinted through the scope, drew a bead on his target, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. When he did, the silenced bullet smashed through Rhonda Rhodes’ sternum and chewed through her chest organs like the Big C on speed.

The waiter had gone behind the counter to put Rhonda’s cash in the till and brew another pot of their house blend. As he turned back around he saw Rhonda walk out the door and down the sidewalk toward her car. When the bullet hit her chest it lifted her from the pavement and tossed her back, her arms and legs flying forward. The waiter would later tell the police it looked like-at least for a moment-that her body hung in the air in the shape of a big C, and wasn’t that ironic because that what she always called it, the big C. But the cops didn’t care about irony so the waiter decided he would not tell them of his comment to Rhonda about her living forever, because as anyone will tell you, with the cops, you just never really know.

So, as it went, the waiter was wrong, but Rhonda’s prayers were answered. She went quick, dead before she hit the ever-lasting pavement. The hole in her chest left a red stain on her throwback whites that looked like a rose petal on a blanket of snow in the middle of an otherwise fine summer day.

The court was not on schedule and I ended up waiting at the courthouse for just shy of three hours for testimony in a previous case. My cell phone was set on silent but I felt the vibration and pulled the phone out and checked the screen. A text from Ron Miles. After I read the message I leaned forward across the bar and tapped the prosecutor on the shoulder. “I’ve got a situation,” I said. “I need to leave.”

“You’re joking, right? We’ve got a situation right here. It’s your testimony that’s gonna keep this prick locked up. You want to blow that?”

“It can’t be helped. I’m in the middle of this thing and I’ve got to go.”

The prosecutor turned in his chair and looked at me. “Look, I know we’re behind schedule here, but the defense is just about to wrap it up, then we’ll be able to get you on the stand and out of here. If you’ll just wait for a little-”

The judge tapped her gavel, leaned forward from the bench and spoke into her microphone. She sort of whispered into the device, and it sounded like she was either mocking my attempt not to disturb the proceedings, or trying to be funny. Most likely it was the former. “Gentlemen, is there something you’d like to share with the court?”

The prosecutor turned his attention forward. “No, your Honor. I’m sorry for the-”

I stood from my seat and looked at the Judge. “Your Honor, may I approach the bench?”

The prosecutor turned back to me and spoke through his teeth. “What the hell are you doing? Do you want to be held in contempt? Sit down.” The judge raised her eyebrows at me.

“Urgent matter, your Honor.”

She seemed to consider this for a moment, then said, “Step up. This better be good Detective.”

I crossed the bar with the prosecutor on my heels and walked up to the bench. “I appreciate the Court’s indulgence your Honor.” The judge made a circular motion with her hand in a ‘get on with it’ sort of way. The prosecutor, I noticed, had taken a sudden interest in the tops of his shoes. “Judge, a somewhat urgent situation has come to my attention. I’m sure your Honor has heard about the murders earlier today of one of our State Troopers, along with one of our city’s more prominent citizens, Mr. Franklin Dugan, at his home.”

The judge leaned forward and looked at me over the top of her glasses. Judge Andrea Moore was the senior judge in the superior court system and was not known for her leniency.

“Yes, Detective. I have heard. But what does that have to do with me, my court, or this case?”

“Nothing at all your Honor.”

“Then why are we speaking, Detective?”

This wasn’t going exactly as I had hoped. “Your Honor, it has just come to my attention that there has been another murder, just a few blocks away from here as a matter of fact. My-”

“Are you psychic, Detective?”

“Uh, beg your pardon, your Honor?”

“I said are you psychic? You as well as anyone should know we do not allow electronic devices of any kind in the courtroom. So, either you’re psychic, or you’re breaking the law in my courtroom. Which is it, Detective?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then thought better of what I wanted to say and chewed on the inside of my cheek for a moment instead.

The judge leaned back, smacked her gavel against the sound block and said, “The court will be in recess for five minutes. Detective, I’ll see you in chambers. Now.”