“Peaches”
Several weeks into ‘Shit Tour’ (7 pm to 3 am), Father and Mule played matchbook football. Throughout their punishment, Mule was ahead by 761 touchdowns to 505 with an almost equal number of point-afters. The field goals were a little more challenging, but they approached half the touchdown numbers. Father maintained that after every loss, Mule cheated, but Mule just shrugged his shoulders, laughed, and marked down the continual score in his department-issued notebook.
All cases were assigned to the good ol’ boy detectives, not the “Shit Heads” on seven to threes, but they maintained disorderly stacks of files and papers on their respective desks just so the Sarge would think they were working even though everyone knew they weren’t. Things got so dull that Father started quoting Psalm 37:7 through 9: “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways when they carry out wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret-it leads only to evil. For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land” and explains to his heathen partner each Psalm meaning.
Mule didn’t know what the hell the Psalms were; he was so bored waiting for anything, including the Lord, to happen. He wanted an excellent juicy crime so he would never hear another religious thing again.
Mule had just tried a field goal, missing by at least a quarter of an inch to the right, during match 1267 when Father said, “I’ve had enough of this shit, let’s get something to eat. ( It should be noted here that Father never uttered an “off-colored word before being sent to 7 to 3s ) Your turn to drive to Benjamins.” Benjamins was a local black bar in Brentwood with four tables and six bar stools, and the only two officers to ever cross the hallow doors of Benjamins from the Department were Father and Mule. Mule had saved the owner’s daughter “from a fate worse than death” during his patrol days and had been reworded by the grateful father with two free drinks per visit and all the sandwiches he could eat forever. Mule didn’t usually go to Benjamins, but nowadays, no one looked for the two there, and nothing else was open after midnight on a weekday in the precinct anyway.
After consuming the baked ziti, which had been baked just the previous day, according to Thomas More, the owner who had purchased the bar from an old man named Benjamin but never changed the bar’s name, and after one beer each, they both settled back for the last half hour of their shift.
Just before Moore was about to throw the two out and close, a beautiful young lady entered the bar and walked directly up to the bar’s only non-paying customers. Father had her at 5 foot 4 inches, 120 pounds, 22 years old, while Mule guessed 5 foot 2 1/2 inches, coming in around 110 pounds and no older than 20. Given that Father only “looked” at older women, he was wrong, and the still champion Mule was right. Neither one noticed the color of the very, very, very sheer blouse, but both trained investigators noticed the very form-fitting jeans and everything else she was not wearing. Mule thought, “Thank You, God,” while Father wondered what she wanted.
She spoke as soon she stopped at the table in a friendly voice and a matter-of-fact style, “I’m a little nervous.”
“Don’t be. What can we do for you?” Father said in his most pastoral voice while Mule began to drool ever so slightly. Mule could only think, “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ……………… And the smell was what? Her scent was fresh and clean. He couldn’t place the perfume, but then again, he wasn’t French, and really, who cared anyway?
“I wanted to come to you all sooner but I just couldn’t, didn’t have a chance. I heard two detectives ate here fairly regular at night after hours. Well, anyway, my name is Peaches, I am not going to give you my real name. My nickname will do. I have knowledge of several, if not more, murders that have been committed in the north side of the County, Montgomery County and the District over the last six or seven months maybe more.” Suddenly, Mule was paying attention; Father was shocked but tried not to show it. She continued talking like she had rehearsed numerous times: “About eight months ago I went out with a motorcycle guy I met while working at the Little Tavern in College Park. He seemed nice, he bought me flowers every day for a week straight. He must have eaten thirty dozen hamburgers over the course of the week. So, thinking he was okay I went out with him. On our first date he took me to a place I now know is in North Brentwood. It was a big party with just bikers and their women. After a while I told him I wanted to go. I didn’t like seeing the drugs and sex stuff. Well, he just laughed and forced me to service every guy there with oral sex. He held my head while they, well you know. The women just laughed. I was going to the University, living off campus, while I worked at the Little Tavern so the family didn’t expect to hear from me, I was on my own. For a several days he and the boys kept me in the house against my will. After a while, he told me that if I agreed not to run away and stay with him I could go back to my job but no college. He threatened to kill anyone I knew if I went to the police. Over the next several months I did what I was expected to do, but I listened and learned. I am now ready to turn them in.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I recorded over a dozen murders, the dead guys names, where they are buried , and where and why they were killed all here in my journal,” saying that she pulled a black and white composition book out of her handbag and began. It didn’t take either super sleuth long to realize this young lady was for real. The two started looking at her in a completely different light, not a slut from the hood but a determined woman who was seeking revenge on those who violated her in every way imaginable.
Over the next hour, Mule and Father reviewed all the information in her journal; they couldn’t believe his eyes. By 7 am, they had it all down and were pretty sure they understood the contents of Peaches journal. They had a problem; Peaches was steadfast in her refusal to give them her name or any other information about herself. With twenty-thousand students at the University, it would take months to track her info down. “As I said, Detective Dillard, I want them arrested. How you do it is your business. You got all the information now use it.” There was no way they would use her as a ‘CI,’ Confidential Informant. All CIs have to be registered with the PD, and if the info supplied led to a felony arrest, the informant had to be interviewed by the State’s Attorney’s Office.
As the crime fighters escorted her out of the bar, Father asked, “Just one more question?” She nodded her approval. “How did you get the nickname Peaches?” She stopped next to a fire hydrant ten feet from the bar’s front door and placed her left foot up and onto the hydrant, pulled up her skirt, and showed him a tattoo of a peach in the very upper inner thigh right where the edge of a young ladies panties was supposed to be. While both stared at the tattoo, Peaches said, “My biker boyfriend made me get it and gave me the nickname. All the shit he did was wrong, but I kinda like the tattoo and nickname.” She lowered her leg, smiled, and walked away without saying anything.
Both Father and Mule had the names of the murder victims, the locations of the murders, the whereabouts of the bodies, the motives behind the killings, and the names of the twenty-three killers. But they had a problem: how could they establish PC, probable cause, to arrest the bad guys? By 7 pm that day, Mule had an idea. Simple, really, just find any of the murderers doing something, anything, illegal and go from there. It sounded simple to Mule, but Father wasn’t so sure; hell, they couldn’t enter the names into NCIC without maybe having to explain why. They needed a PC.
The two spent the remainder of their tour, two seven to threes, locating just one of the Bad Guys. First, Mule called a long-time friend of his, friend meaning Mule didn’t snitch out the vice detective to his wife about a particular world’s oldest professional young lady named Karry. Young she may still be, but the drugs made her look like fifty to the trained eye. Karry’s business card, yes, she had business cards; one has to act professionally to be professional, according to the self-help book titled “Republican Business Woman For Hire.” She was, after all, a good American with an outstanding work ethic who voted the straight Republican ticket, and she even wanted to pay taxes on services rendered but had yet to figure out how without going to jail. The friend came across with some expected good info. The man the “Shit Heads” had targeted did indeed have three outstanding warrants for Assault and Battery. Before Mule was finished, the vice detective promised to document in writing that he had called Mule and asked him to locate the “Bad Guy.” One step closer to a PC.
Step two centered on physically locating one William James Blain, Jr. ( Death Jaw ), White Male, 27 years old, 6 foot 1 inches tall, Brown Hair or what’s left, at last sighting 185 pounds and rode his only true love a Black and Silver 65 Electra Glide. Even with Death Jaw’s current address supplied by Peaches, he was hard to track down. As Mule told Father, we only have to locate his Hog.
As luck would have it, they accidentally located the Hog on 43rd Street in Hyattsville. The two were headed back to the Barn ( Police Station ) on Route 1 South when they encountered the fire department fighting fire at the Plymouth dealership, detouring them through Hyattsville and somehow landing them on 43rd Street in front of St. Jerome’s Church. Mule was driving when Father yelled, “Stop, there it is.” There, parked in front of the Church at 2 am, was Death Jaw’s Hog, all nice and shiny. The street was engulfed in silence at night, and both Detectives wondered what Death Jaw was doing there. They soon found out that Death Jaw had broken into the Church and was in the process of borrowing several thousand dollars worth of church items. Detectives Dillard and Linton drew down on “Death Jaw” when he exited a church side door with loot in hand.
The station clerk and Desk Sergeant ( not really a Sergeant, just a senior patrolman – titles are everything in police work ) were shocked when “Shit Heads” brought Death Jaw into the station. Neither one knew that Mule and Father knew how to make an arrest. The Desk Sergeant said out loud when the two passed him with their prisoner, “The world, as I know it, is no longer there!” Father replied hardly to light, “The universe is unfolding as it should.”
If not for needing PC, they would have punted the arrest off on a beat guy. But the almighty handed PC to them, and the game was on. They interviewed Death Jaw for about an hour and presented him with the facts of the murder of Malcolm Kernsey. At first, of course, he denied he killed Kernsey for laughing at his girlfriend Tonya, but when presented with all the facts, especially that they knew how and when Kernsey was killed, as well as the location of his resting place, in Blue Query outside of Laurel, he folded.
After Death Jaw’s arrest, the road to fame and promotion was on. Over the next three and half months, they closed 13 murders with the arrest of 43 bikers.
Detectives Dillard and Linton got off the “Shit Heads” list, were nominated and awarded Police Officers of the Year by the Department, given promotions to Detective First Class, and generally secured for themselves an easy ride for the rest of their careers. Peaches was never heard from again, but she made Father’s daily prayer list and twice on Sunday.
Joseph Jerome Jones, aka Jay, Father, and Mules’ very own loving, kind, and caring Lieutenant, was suspicious of the new dynamic duo. He wondered how the two who could not even open a door correctly could solve 13 homicides. “No way,” he muttered as he sat at his desk reviewing the last solved case file. He ignored that feeling that told him not to get involved, but he dialed Donny Parker’s telephone number in IA anyway.
Two hours later, Parker, all 5 foot three inches of him, he was the second to join the Department after they “shortened” the height limits, a lateral transfer from Baltimore PD, was seated in Jay’s office scrutinizing every word, comma, and punctuation mark in all 13 case files. Before finishing the day, he even examined Father and Mule’s typewriters. “You’re right Jay there is something fishy going but I’ll be damn if I know. It’s almost like they made up the PC for all the cases, but that can’t be right. I will refer this matter to my boss and see what he thinks. I’ll take all the files with me.”
Eight months to the day that Peaches walked into Father and Mule’s lives, the Commissioner was looking at Parker and Major Reynolds, just appointed CO of Internal Affairs, standing in front of his desk. In his Commissioner’s less-than-friendly voice, he continued to criticize the two. “I don’t care if aliens from the planet Zumba gave them the information to solve this case. Who gives a fuck? Not me, and I’m the one who counts. So, close this internal investigation, burn the files, and I, the fucking head of this Department, never want to hear of this matter again. Just for your info Major I am giving those two ass holes “Atta Boys” plaques tonight at a Knights of Columbus function. I want this matter dropped, now.” With that said, he threw the case files across his desk. Parker and the Major managed to grab them all before falling to the floor.
After receiving the Police Officer’s of the Year Award, the two returned to their haunts in B6 beat to celebrate the anniversary of Peaches walking through Benjamins’ Doors. Father and Mule walked into the Body Modification Tattoo Parlor located in what is considered downtown Bladensburg. Two guys, Father thought they were guys, tattooed an orange on each Detective’s right upper arm. The tattoo was beautiful, according to Pattie, Father’s 60-year-old girlfriend. Father’s wife Sherry, seventy-some, didn’t see the need but said, “it is nice for an orange.” Mule wanted to show the new tattoo to someone but had no one except his aging cat Hero. Hero looked, sniffed, and walked away.
