Veteran Vigilante(1~4)

Veteran Vigilantes


(Opening)
Morris County Daily Record July 4, 2008
“LaShawn Johnson no billed by Grand Jury but meets ‘Grim Reaper’ at McDonald’s”, for the fourth time in two years LaShawn Johnson has been brought before the Grand Jury on Charges of trafficking in drugs and child prostitution and been no billed. Following this he was tried, convicted and executed by a person described as ‘an old, bald man with a cane.’ The cane was actually a shotgun which was used to kill Mr. Johnson.
LeShawn Johnson, his wife and two children were just sitting down at a table in McDonald’s when the old gentleman approached. The Man appeared to be in his late 60’s and asked LaShawn if he would help him. LaShawn stood to talk to the man who turned to his right, then back, putting a stick under LaShawn’s chin. Suddenly LaShawn’s head exploded, the old man fired one more shot into the ceiling and walked out the door. There was blood and brains all over the Johnson’s and the McDonald’s ceiling.


Newark Airport July 5, 2008 8am
“Passengers, the southeast flight 782 to San Antonio by way of Dallas is now boarding”.

Chicago Tribune July 12, 2008
“Illinois Women should sleep lightly tonight”
At 10:30 on July 11 Jerome Rucker became a free man having won his appeal. Mr. Rucker had been convicted of the rape and murder of 6 sisters of the Sacred Heart Nuns while holding them captive for thirteen days.


Chicago Tribune July 13, 2008
“Jerome Rucker found Shot”
Responding to a call that a vehicle was parked, blocking the parking lot entrance for St. Bernard’s church, police discovered the body of Jerome Rucker. It appears that Mr. Rucker was shot in the head with what appears to be a small gauge shotgun.




Chicago O’Hare Airport July 14,
“206 Delta Airlines Flight 787, non stop to San Antonio Texas will be boarding in 5 minutes”.

Dallas July 12, 2008
An unidentified shooter, shot and killed Dallas’ most recognized street gang leader. Jacquin Domingo. Domingo, the leader of Dallas’ contingent of “MB’ was dining at the Spaghetti Warehouse when he was shot gunned by what fellow diners described as a tall “Santa Clause’ , who fired one round into Domingo’s left ear and one more shot into the ceiling and left.

CHAPTER 1:
I stacked these printouts on top of the eighteen others reporting similar killings in major cities all over the states. I’m Lt. Harry T. Hedge, a Gold Shield Detective with the Wharton, New Jersey Police Department and LaShawn Johnson’s shooting is the third of this type to occur in my jurisdiction. Needless to say we have no leads in any of these shootings and my superiors are not elated.
The local citizens are glad to be rid of each slime ball murdered but don’t like a murderer being “out and about” in the neighborhood. After twenty years in the United States Air Force and ten years on “the force” this investigation is my weakest to date. In each instance there are only two things consistent; the shooter is always an elderly person (over 60/65) and they always use a smooth bore weapon about 30/40-caliber or 410/20 gauge. Their appearance has been reported as tall, thin, short, bald, female, male, white haired/dark haired, and various ethnicities.
My partner, Detective Sergeant Patricia Hammer, has been scouring the national computer hook ups to see if there is anything in the archives similar to this MO. Sergeant Hammer and I have been partnered together for the past 2 years working homicide cases. That first year was tough seeing as Tricia, a blue eyed Irish red head, is one of the best looking women you ever laid eyes on; and I have a well-deserved, reputation as being a ladies man( not Favio handsome but a nice mix of Irish/Italian). But we eventually came to an understanding and now we are the best team in the department.

CHAPTER 2
This morning we got a memo that there would be a meeting at Chief H. Teller’s office at 2 o’clock this afternoon and that we would both be there.

Rumor has it that the FBI has been invited and that this will become a “joint task force” case. The only thing worse then this in my experience would be a dental root canal without any anesthesia.

At about 1:50 P.M. I slipped my 2010 Yamaha Road Star into the same parking slot as Hammer’s Harley Fatboy. Our choice of personal transportation being our biggest point of disagreement, being the Yamaha rider I always take pity on the ‘Hog Honey’ as I call her. I am sure we will take a cruise after this meeting. We are parked right next to a U. S government sedan; the FBI is in the House. We will need to ride to clear our heads. Ah, hell it will just feel good to ride.

The captain’s door is open so we walk n. Sitting with his back to us must be the agent, the “bald” agent that is. The chief and the “Feebee” stand.

Chief says, “This is agent Lurch, Kristoph K. Lurch, of our Local FBI office.”

At hearing the name I smiled saying “been a long time ‘Crusader’”.

With the chief and Hammer standing agog we clasp hands and hug. Regaining our bearing, I explain, “Chief, Hammer, Lurch and I went to school together back in ‘the day’ and we were pretty good pals. We sort of lost track of each other when I went into the Air Force. I guess this won’t be too bad an experience. A least we’ll get to catch up”

“If this reunion can be put on hold I would like to get this meeting over and somebody back on the case” growled the chief.

So we all sat down and waited for him to say his speech and then send us on our way. “Agent Lurch is heading up the East coast team which I am assigning both of you to. There will be two other teams, West Coast and Central, each headed by one agent supported by select local detectives. There is some information that has not been released by the ‘Feebees’ that Lurch will brief you on. You will report directly to Agent Lurch until this is case is resolved. Are there any questions or comments?” Hammer and I looked at each other; she shook her head then turned to me.



CHAPTER 3
I turned to the chief “Has there been any word on my retirement papers?”

“No!” replied the Chief “You have almost a year left so don’t rush it. You can all go now and get reacquainted.”

As we walked out I asked Hammer to take Lurch to my house and I will be there after I make a quick stop. I figured I would pick up some adult beverage, then head home, drop it off, and get my car to go get some steaks, charcoal and all the fixings. We may as well enjoy ourselves while we learn what the ‘Feebees’ are holding out and catch up on old times. I would also send Hammer out for the required ice.

It is 4 in the afternoon when we all finally sit down to learn what Lurch has to say. The iced ales will make this meeting much more bearable then the earlier one. I picked up some “Black and Tan” for Lurch, a little “Guinness” for myself and Hammer just has to have her “High Life”. So with a toast to old friends Lurch begins to fill us in on what we do and don’t know about these cases.

It only took Lurch about 2 hours to get Hammer and I up to speed on all the information that the FBI had already gathered on these presumably related assassinations. That was two hours of wasted time as our information was the same as theirs.

Our informal briefing being over I went and got everyone a cold “adult beverage” and fired up the grill. I asked Hammer to put some CDs on my player, switch on the patio speakers and show Lurch to a seat. We would break for some good food, some good catching up, and would be getting back to the job in the morning.





CHAPTER 4:
By 8:15A.M. all three of us had arrived at “the House”, poured ourselves some coffee and are sitting in interrogation room two.
“So, as I explained last night, the only thing we have that you don’t is nothing, that is why we are getting this team together, not that we miss the deceased but to stop all the vigilante talk that has started.” Lurch began. “The civilians are talking about a ‘Mr. Kersey’ and ‘Death Wish’ the Bronson movie. We’re afraid we might get even more shooters. (Like we know how many we have as it is)”

“ You know” Tricia said “Harry and I were talking before you got here and there is something we feel we missed last night and want to get this information down in a “chalk talk” and see if our feeling pans out”.

The large paper chart pad was setup already. So we spent the next couple of hours outlining these cases on those large sheets of paper. We were putting everything together under specific headings;
Time of Day-each varied
Location-numerous
Weapon-shotgun 410 gauge
Age-50s~80’s
Sex-both
Race-all
When we got to their clothing we noticed something that might be good to follow up on. We saw that in each case almost all of the witnesses described at least some article of clothing that appeared to be military attire. When we agreed that this was the case, I said that we should start here and see if it takes us somewhere. We could contact the other teams and tell them to keep looking as we work this angle.

We flipped over to a clean sheet of paper and started a fresh list. This one only took about an hour and we had everything. USMC dress blue slacks with Red side stripe, green “jungle” boots, USN “pea” jacket, camouflage fatigues, USA dress green slacks with black side stripe and other items that could be connected to each of the military branches. The only bad part was you could get this stuff at ‘AMVET’-stores, ‘Salvation Army’ stores and ‘Army and Navy’ stores in every town. Discussing this, we decide to concentrate on a direct military connection until that runs out.