Maurice Broaddus - King's Justice

"All you had to say was 'you're up'. Fuck me for caring."

Moldy brown leaves puddled along the base of the black chain-link fence which ringed the outer boundaries of the apartments. Weeds and broken glass choked a sea of cracked pavement. Empty bottles of Colt 45 littered the dilapidated equipment that passed for a playground. Rust held the monkey bars together. The swings had been thrown over the top of the metal frame of the set, out of reach of any would-be user. The yellow school bus jungle gym had been tagged. RIP Alaina. RIP Conant. Nobody wanted to be here — not the police, not the media, not the paramedic, not the tenants — all equally prisoners in a cycle of well-meaning benevolence.

"I take this seriously," Cantrell intoned a little too earnestly. Try as he did to keep an open mind about his partner, he recognized the half-a-cracker scent of festering resentment. "We speak for the dead. That's the job."

"Screw this job. Screw the dead. Screw this neighborhood. You watch, no witnesses, nothing useful. We'll be lucky if we can even ID the vic. They don't care about these animals, even when they prey on them much less when they get killed."

"Animals?" Cantrell arched an eyebrow.

"You watch."

Before he got out of the car, Cantrell muttered a prayer for the victims, the survivors, and their families. And then his partner. Though it was half-full and lukewarm, he gripped a Starbucks cup, toting it with the consciousness of an affectation.

The city took on an entirely different pallor at night. Darkness had a way of enveloping any crime scene. No matter how many street lights, flashing lights of emergency services vehicles, the brightness of the moon, or lights from the surrounding buildings, shadows swam in deep pools around them. Where there was darkness, there was mystery. Lee studied the shadows, uncertain of the trick of the ambulance's lights on his eyes. Pairs of red dots glimmered at him. A half-dozen sets at least. Hate-tinged flecks glaring at him. He blinked. The dark remained a smooth velvet sea of ebony.

Like red boxes in white trim, every bit like bricks in the wall of the Phoenix Apartments, three ambulances remained in front, without sound, with only their lights' intermittent flash acknowledging their presence. Police tape had been strung from tree to fence. Lee only grew irritated by the welling quiet he knew would soon settle on the gathering looky-loos. Full of sideways glances and growing stillness, as if a cloud of innocence descended on them with a spiritual anointing of silence.

"I see angels. Snow angels." A homeless guy, in a tinfoil cap no less, waved his arms flapping in the snow only seen in his head.

"I bet you do," a uniformed cop said as Lee and Cantrell approached the scene. "That kind of crazy had to be steeped in whiskey."

The uniformed officer had that young cop look about him: thin, but muscular; dark sunglasses, and eager, with an arrogant bossiness to his manner. The rookie raised the tape to let them through. Cantrell ducked under. Shards of glass vials crunched underfoot. He paused to survey the remaining landscape.

"I ain't ruining my new shoes stepping in that shit," Cantrell said.

"You worried about this? Some of the shit you'll be walking through, you'll be begging for a scene this clean," Lee said.

"We got a live one here," the uniformed officer said.

"There was a survivor? He conscious?"

"Uh, no. I meant it was a lively scene."

"Look here, rook…" Lee rolled his eyes, the preamble tell to an apoplectic fit Cantrell usually found entertaining if not useful.

"Why don't you stick to telling us what we got?" Cantrell cut him off and slipped on a pair of latex gloves. The red light bounced from their faces. The first body slumped against a wall. At first glance, he looked like a panhandler waiting for change. But his clothes were too new, clean-cut, fresh look. High forehead, eyes sunken in regret, thick-faced, heavy lips. Blood flared against his yellow vest.

"Looks like multiple shooters. Don't know if these guys even got off a shot," Lee said.

"Where are their guns?"

"Exactly."

"So, no guns recovered," Cantrell said.

"Not even theirs?" Lee asked.

"Someone needed souvenirs."

"I doubt memories of spring break is what they have in mind." Annoyed by Cantrell's tight-assed fastidiousness, Lee strolled around the scene.

The second body leaned out of the car, his blood mixed with a puddle that drained into the sewer. Thin, bright-eyed, the red lights caught in them making him appear possessed. His white teeth spread in a harlequin sneer across his face.

Lee leaned over the body. At first he thought the dead boy was Juneteenth Walker, would-be assailant of Green, the former muscle for the Night organization. He had the same semi-scowl, the same years of hurt worn into his skin, worn like an ill-fitting jacket off the rack from Good Will. The images hit him all at once. The blood. The bodies. The death. Lee pictured Green lumbering toward him, holding a severed head in his hand. Bullets flying. His thigh ached, his body remembering its violation. Noting the boy's ashy knuckles and a short bus necklace, he was certain of only one thing: this mutt didn't deserve a cop standing over him.

"What's his name?" Lee asked.

"Don't know," the uniformed officer said.

"Dob?"

"Don't know."

"So he's not going to be missed by anyone." Lee wanted to roll the body, but knew the coroner would jump his shit for weeks if he touched a body before he got there. "What else do we know?"

"We know he was a part of a drug crew. Used to work for a dealer named Night," Cantrell said.

"But you know they were strapped?" the uniformed officer asked.

"Holy Virgin Mary's rotten pissflaps," Lee said. "Yeah, they were strapped. These fools can't floss without pulling out their nines like they were tugging on their junk."

The last body had been worked over pretty good. An inelegant beating, his face punched in, jaw broken. Bruising around his chest from a close wound: execution-style, but there was no stippling. The way his body sprawled along the sidewalk, it was as if he were snuggling into a bed of concrete with the tarp serving as his only blanket.

Cantrell hitched his pants up slightly and tucked his tie into his shirt. He imagined photos of the boys pinned by magnets on their mothers' refrigerators or framed on what passed for mantles or end tables. He humanized them to see them in schoolboy pictures full of hope and promise.

"If I had to guess, this here was one of Night's stash houses, and from the look of things there was a firefight. Near as I can figure, an enforcer," Lee pointed to body number three then to number two, "and wheel man making a delivery or a pickup. Street soldier over there," Lee gestured to the first body. "Ambushed."

"Tire treads?" Cantrell asked.

"Nothing," the uniformed officer said.

"Assailants on foot?"

"Maybe." Lee's stomach churned — a queasy sensation that for some reason had him rubbing along his scar. To the casual observer, it appeared like he rubbed the sweat of his palms along his pants.

"How they going to sneak up on an armed crew on high alert, take them all out, and disappear? That's why you detectives and I'm a lowly uniform. Earn them big bucks," the uniformed officer said.

"Fuck you and your big bucks."

Lee kicked at the tire leaning against the side of the building. "Stash's still here."

"Cash still on the bodies." Cantrell flipped a pants pocket inside out to withdraw a roll of bills.

"Rules out a robbery."

"Rook, come over here."

"What's up?" The uniformed officer saw the wad of bills. And that Cantrell saw that he saw.

"You first on scene?" Cantrell asked.

"Yeah."

"See anything?"