Murder on the Docks
Written by: Clayton B. Powell
Chapter 1
She walked along the docks, hoping that tonight was going to be the night that she could finally rest easy. After months of searching the back alleys and warehouses for any connection to the problems she knew was on the way, she was hoping this was the break she needed. Janeen tried to keep her head high was she walked in the shadows of the lights. She didn’t want to be seen right away. She started to wonder who would see her in the first place. The docks were dead. All of the night watchmen were on their rounds and crews had all left. There was no one on the docks at this time of night that would know her or identify her.
Janeen walked on heading towards the dead end of the docks. Her mousy brown hair swung in the pony tail. The humidity had made Janeen’s hair curl in the night heat. She didn’t want any excuses tonight. Janeen wore a loose white blouse that she thought was comfortable. She had no intention of trying to attract anyone’s attention. She just wanted to look like she was there for a reason. Her jeans were quiet as she walked up and down the streets and alleys looking for any sign of her target. To keep the night chill away, she had brought her brown leather jacket. Along with keeping away the night chill, the jacket had a great fit to keep her shoulder holster hidden from others unless she needed it for any reason.
She proceeded in caution on the streets between the buildings and cranes. Her green eyes tried piercing the fogged embankment of the river front. She walked among the ruins of warehouses that have been neglected over the years. Many of them showed the wear of the years as their sides became a nest of rust and discolored metal in the wake of hurricanes and storms. Most of the windows had bars on the windows to keep out intruders, but from the looks of some bars, that was still not effective enough. The old husks of some of these building were only there to support the falling mass of shingles that were no longer stapled to the roof. Some of the contractors had replaced the old shingling with traditional tin roofing, making the summer heat unbearable in the warehouses and adding to the rust and discoloration of the buildings. Some of the workers complained about the heat in the summer but that proved fruitless as the companies were more interested in saving a few pennies over the comfort of the men who gave fourteen hours a day to make sure they could move products in and out of the harbor area.
Janeen stopped for a minute and noticed how quiet it was this evening. After a moment she realized that is how it should be tonight. All of Baton Rouge was always quiet this time of year. Most of the college students from Louisiana State University and Southern University were trying to burn off the autumn’s booze from the football games. All of LSU and SU were trying to concentrate on the last minute credits before the final exam. Once the mall on Bluebonnet closed, nothing was happening uptown on a Thursday and nothing was happening downtown except the few bars that were open hoping for the late comer to stop in for a drink and fatten the tip cup a little.
Janeen just kept looking around the area trying to see if there was anything that would make her stop and go home. She was looking for any excuse not to be here tonight. She coughed as she got a whiff of the stacks from the Exxon refinery that was just five miles north of the warehouse district. Most of the buildings in the district were old warehouses that told how old they were just by looking at them. Many of them had shattered or cracked glass with the metal bars on the outside hoping to frighten vandals that would loot the stores inside. Most of the tin roofs in the area looked like they were ready to rust through. It’s a wonder to most of the owners that hurricane Andrew didn’t tear them apart back in the early 90s. Some of them even had patches of new tin on the roof trying to stop the leaking that devastated the precious cargo inside.
Earlier today, Janeen was surveying the area trying to find her destination. She was listening to the warehouse foremen and the workers in the area trying to see if they knew about anything that she should keep her eyes open for. She listened and noticed that a lot of the workers around here referred to the stenciled numbers on the buildings as grave plots. Most of the workers were just barely scraping by on the minimum wage trying to support a family or even just the rent on their apartment. It was no wonder they thought of the docks as a grave yard. Most of the workers, Janeen noted, felt sure that the docks were going to be the death of them.
Everything in Janeen’s body told her to go home and get some rest. She just couldn’t ignore her gut feeling that something was going to happen. What else was she going to do? Wait for the department to verify the tip that let her down here tonight? No, she wanted to know what was going on at all costs. She knew this tip was for real. No questions. All she had to do was find out what exactly was going on. As she proceeded down the docks to her destination, she noticed a man standing up against a building. Janeen ducked behind one of the trash cans hoping it would be enough cover so that she wouldn’t be discovered immediately. She started watching and observing the man across the street. He was wearing a plain black blazer leaning against the building. Great, another James Dean, Janeen thought as she looked on.
The hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. She was only two blocks away from her destination. Janeen stood frozen for a minute trying to figure out anything about the man at the side of the building across the street. After a few minutes, the man dug in his pockets. Janeen instinctively grabbed for the gun at her side. After a moment, the man lit a cigarette with a match. The light from the match was all she needed. Janeen relaxed her grip on her gun and stood up. Her coat picked up in the land breeze heading out to the river while she crossed the street. She approached the man who was sitting there grinning at her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“What? No hug for your brother?” asked the man standing against the building.
“No, not when you’re just going to get in my way. How the hell did you know I was down here anyway?”
“You know, for a detective of the highest order, you don’t hide your tracks well at your house. I went over because you and I were supposed to have dinner tonight with Jared and Edmund and you didn’t show. I went over to see what was going on, and you left this next to your phone. Big no-no.”
The man held up a piece of paper in the light for Janeen to look over. It was her handwriting alright, as much as she didn’t want to admit that she messed up already. He wasn’t supposed to know that she was here. Not yet anyway.
Halo Warehouse No. 1757 11:00 PM
“So, what is our next move? It was nice of you to tell me that you were going to be investigating my warehouse. Did you ever plan on telling me? Or was I going to find out when I read about it in the paper in the morning” asked the man indignantly.
“Gabe, keep it down. This is no time to get belligerent. I was going to tell you if there was anything to it. I had no intention of involving you this early.” Janeen tucked the piece of paper into her coat pocket. She took the cigarette out of Gabriel’s mouth and took a drag off of the cigarette herself. “As long as you are here, you might as well help me out. Did you bring any luck?”
“I got plenty of that. Three extra clips in my back pocket. What about you?”
“Four. The only problem is: I am the cop here. You are just a lawyer. You better not fire that damned gun of your unless you have a good reason.” Janeen commented and started walking off in the direction of the larger warehouses. She was looking over the numbers stenciled on each of the warehouses, each one belonging to a different person, different company, and different lives. It had to be difficult for the harbor masters to know where everything went. She was glad she was just a cop. She didn’t have to worry about making sure people didn’t get the right things. The only thing she had to worry about was whether or not the evidence fit the suspect.
Janeen and Gabriel proceeded up the street at a slow and cautious pace. Janeen started just following Gabriel’s lead since it was his warehouse that they were going into. Towards the end of the walk, Janeen started thinking what she was doing letting Gabe tag along with her. She did have to admit, he was a better shot than she was, but how was she going to explain him being here to the Chief. She didn’t think she could. She just prayed that nothing would go wrong. Maybe like so many other tips, this was just a dead end of wasted time. No, no thinking like that. This was going to be it. Tonight was going to be night that she figures out what is going on in her town. Who knows, maybe tonight will strike up all the luck and break down everything in one night. Highly doubtful, but still it was enough to make her smile for a minute. Janeen snapped back to reality when she saw the stenciled building numbers up ahead “1757”.
“Any ideas about how we are going to do this?” asked Gabriel as they approached the building. The west side of the building had about ten feet of landing, then the river. There was two ways to enter: through the front and there is a side door. Janeen weighed the options heavily while she examined around the building to be sure that there were no surprises waiting for the two of them. Chances are, if there was anything, it was only a trap for one. They more than likely were not counting on Gabriel to show up tonight. She had to take a chance on that. There were no guarantees in this business.
“Are there any guards on the night watch inside” asked Janeen as she started planning out what to do.
“Yeah, Stan. He should be sitting at the security console in the back unless he is on his rounds. Why? Wanna ask him a few questions for a wild goose hunt?” Gabriel prodded. He knew Janeen’s will to do things by the book when it came to people and suspects. When it came to the evidence and procedure, she was reckless. It sometimes annoyed him, but she was the actual cop. It was only because of her that he had not already been branded a vigilante in the area. Gabriel was very territorial about his company and the members of his company.
“No, just one question: if he would call the cops for back up. I don’t like this setup. It smells like someone is waiting for us.”
“Janeen; I know you and I know your sense of smell. You may be a good detective, but you are not that good.”
Janeen kept looking around thinking that there was something that she was missing. She finally just shook her head and got up starting to walk for the side door near the rear of the east side. She was careful still looking around for anything that seemed out of place. She tried shrugging off the feeling of goose-bumps all over her body. There was something else about tonight. If it was Gabriel, he would probably joke about his “spider-sense” tingling. He was always a big comic book fan. He read them, but Janeen knew the truth behind it all. The only reason he ever bought comic books or anything like that was because of the artwork.
Gabriel delicately withdrew the keys to the warehouse from his pocket and proceeded to the door. When he got to the door, he just stood there looking at the door for a minute. Janeen was still looking around. When she turned her attention back to Gabriel she noticed that his face was white as a sheet. “What’s wrong?” Gabriel panicked, looking around the warehouse and surrounding alleys as if looking for someone or something. He could see nothing that would make this easier on his mind.
“The door is already open.”
“What?” Janeen approached the door to look at it herself, hoping he was just joking with her. This would not be the best time to play games. Sure enough, as she approached the door she noticed that the metal door frame had been bent away from the dead bolt. Janeen looked down the alley that the side door was in and noticed a power box not far from where they were standing. “Let’s check it out.” Gabriel proceeded to the power box while Janeen stood at the door to make sure no one came in our out of the warehouse or the alley. Janeen took out her gun and lowered her aim to the ground. She didn’t want to shoot anything just yet. By the time Gabriel had returned, his gun was drawn as well.
“The main power feed to the building has been cut. I checked the emergency generator just past the power box, it was smashed. If they smashed the generator, I am surprised none of the other night watchmen heard it or for that matter called the cops.” Gabriel kept trying to appraise the situation in his head knowing that anything he came up with was going to be a dead end.
“Did the emergency generator maintain the security system” Janeen asked.
“Yeah, and since nothing went off, they got to the generator before the main line was cut. Without power on the back-up switch, nothing will trip the alarm. On top of that, I am trying to find out where Stan went. He would have looked on the monitors in the security room if he heard the kind of noise to destroy an entire generator. It wasn’t dismantled, it was clobbered.” Gabriel’s assessment got him to thinking. Halo International was a large company extending to surrounding cities and areas but Gabriel took the time to get to know his employees as best as he could in his area in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This was really starting to trouble him.
Janeen and Gabriel started heading back towards of the door. Janeen reached out and opened the door gently. Looking around the edge of the door to ensure that whoever was here didn’t leave a trip alarm to alert them of her presence. Gabriel went in the door first gun raised. He scanned in immediate interior and signaled to Janeen that the area was clear. They proceeded down the back hall to the security room watching the cat walks and rail cranes hanging above to make sure that nothing could take them by surprise. Gabriel saw that the security cage was open and started running down the hallway ramming the gate open to let him in. Gabriel holstered his gun and ran inside. “Shit!”
Janeen examined the hallway one more time before joining Gabriel inside the room. On the floor of the room was a large man in a security uniform. “Stan?”
“Yeah, he was still trying to get his daughter through LSU. She was studying to become a physical therapist. She was doing well in school. Three semesters left and she could have had her bachelors. She would have been the first in his family to graduate from college. Stan was so proud of her. It was Stan and his two kids. He had a daughter in college and son in middle school. This is not going to go over well.”
Janeen put her hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “C’mon. Chances are they are still in the building. We can talk about all of this later. Right now we need to figure out what is going on in here.” Janeen’s voice brought Gabriel to the present for the moment. Her voice filled the moment with authority commanding that he get his head together before going any further. The last thing would be Gabriel going off in a fit of rage at the wrong time. He knew she was right. The chances were high that whoever did this to just a night watchman was still in the building and there was a chance to get things straightened out. Maybe even bring someone to the long arm of justice tonight. There was always the chance. Janeen’s hopes were different from her brother’s thoughts. Janeen knew that they would have to have that conversation later about Stan and Gabriel’s ideas of vigilante justice.
Gabriel pulled his gun back out of his leather holder and nodded that he was ready to proceed. Something clicked in Janeen’s head at that moment. “What are they looking for in here anyway?”
“I honestly don’t know. I make sure everything coming in and out of this warehouse is inspected by the harbormasters and the foreman. If there is anything here, I was never made aware of it. Chances are, I was supposed to be kept in the dark about all of this in the first place.” Gabriel’s revelation about what was going on in his own warehouse started sparking a new fire inside of him to get to the bottom of this.
Janeen and Gabriel started walking back to the main storage area. Crates of all shapes and sizes were lined up against the walls creating strange silhouettes on the walls and floor. With the moon and the fog outside, the shadows looked like they could have danced if someone was playing music. “All I need if Gabriel and his damned viola right now to creep me out,” thought Janeen. While looking around, Janeen thought she saw a light cross over a door marked “Supervisor”. Janeen got Gabriel’s attention and started heading up the back stairs up to the offices on the catwalk. Gabriel followed coming from the front. They were both watching their footing carefully since the metal grating on the catwalks could make loud noises giving away the fact that they were there.
They both approached the office door. Janeen had to duck to avoid her silhouette being seen through the frosted glass of the office window. Gabriel thought it funny for a moment to see his sister crawling across the metal grating like when they were kids. Janeen couldn’t help but smirk when she saw Gabriel’s face. When she finally approached the door, Gabriel was there on the opposite side waiting for her. Gabriel signaled for her to go first. After all, she was the Detective in the family. He couldn’t legally tell anyone their rights without being an actual peace officer in this city. That didn’t bother him though. Since Janeen was ready for this night, chances are she had a bullet-proof vest. Gabriel had no such protection.
Janeen got up quickly and kicked in the door as if she had cat-like reflexes. Not a single moment of concentration involved in this, just running on instinct. Before she even had a chance to call for anything or anyone to freeze, bullets started shooting in the direction. Were they waiting for me? With the tip that she received, it was always a possibility. Gabriel was already against the wall waiting for her. Two, left; one, right, Janeen signaled to Gabriel. I’ll take the left Gabriel signaled back. At that, both brother and sister moved and started shooting back. The hail of bullets volleyed off of every piece furniture in the office. Three against two were not impressive odds, but there was always the chance that things would go right for them. Gabriel ducked down for a second as he re-loaded his gun. He ejected the wasted clip and inserted a new one, cocking back the barrel placing that first bullet in the chamber. Once that satisfying click of the barrel hit his hand, he got up and started shooting again. In Gabriel’s mind, his primary target as the slender looking man near the window. He appeared to have one leg out of the window, ready to jump. To slow down the process of anyone else getting away, Gabriel shot his bulky companion in the knee. The man let out a loud yell and landed on the floor on his hands and knees.
Janeen had her own problems. The one she was firing on was hiding behind a large metal desk. Janeen knew that wasn’t the best cover, but all he needed right now. Janeen was trying to figure out what he was doing in there waiting for his shot. Janeen kept firing at the thin panel of metal, making all sorts of holes, but never knowing if she was getting a good shot at him. Both Janeen and Gabriel stopped for just a moment to reload their guns. Instantly, Janeen’s target jumped out from behind the desk and started edging towards the window where his slender companion was waiting for him. There was still the bulky man on the floor crying out in pain from the bullet in his leg. The first slender man dove out of the window leaving it wide open for the second man. The second man ran towards the window. Janeen was reloaded and started shooting rounds again at her target missing him by only a few inches both before and after him. He stopped right before jumping out the window and dodging the bullets from Janeen’s gun. He turned to his fallen associate and shot the bulky man in the back at nearly point blank range. The bulky man instantly collapsed and the slender man jumped out the window following his companion.
Janeen and Gabriel raced to the window and watched as the two men entered a small speed boat beneath the river wall. Both men sped off into the fog that was embanking the city while Janeen and Gabriel sat there and watched.
“This is not going to go over well. Chief is going to have my hide if not my badge for this one.” Janeen was wondering what her first move was going to be from here. There was too much to consider and too much work ahead of her. After all that happened tonight, she knew this was going to be just the beginning of it all.
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Blue and red lights shouted through the fog in the warehouse district. The land breeze still tickled the back of Janeen’s neck as she sat on the side of a car sipping on a cup of hot coffee. She was watching a tall black man looking over the body that came out of the Supervisor’s office. He just stood there shaking his head as if in disbelief that there was a man on the gurney in front or him that was not expected to live. Janeen thought about this for a minute, the way the other man had shot him, she didn’t think he was supposed to live at all. The fact that the paramedics found a shallow pulse and said they may be able to get him breathing again surprised her.
Many of the night watchmen came out when they found out that Stan had been killed that night while on the job. Many of them started crowding the police that were trying to do their job and demanding that the police do something. All of the night guards were told to leave and go home. They would be called for questioning if needed.
The black man started walking back to the line of police cars that blocked in that section of the streets and warehouses. Janeen braced herself as he approached her. There was a scowl on his face and anger flashed in his eyes. She had seen all of this before, but something told her she may have put the wrong foot over the line tonight.
He came over wearing a long trench coat over a t-shirt and a pair of ragged jeans. He took a cup of coffee from the tray that was sitting on the hood of the car next to Janeen. He added a pack of sugar and stirred it slowly as if he was thinking deeply about what he had just seen. Instead, he had been thinking about the repercussions of tonight and what he would have to answer for in the morning. “Do you mind telling me why I am getting a phone call at 3:30 in the morning from your brother waking me up and telling me that there was a gun fight here in his warehouse? Please give me a good excuse.” The man stood there waiting for an answer. He was hoping that she would give the right answer so they could call it a night. Just as he was waiting, a news crew showed up. The WBRZ van was the first to have their crew out and on the scene as usual with the crime stories. The news crew quickly powered up their camera and lights approaching the man talking with Janeen. The blond reported quickly wiped the humidity off of his forehead as he extinguished his cigarette on the ground puffing in the air. He seemed out of breath like he had run all the way from the news studio to the scene. Knowing Randy, that was possible. Whenever there was a crime in the area, Randy would probably be the first one on the scene even if he had to commandeer a horse from a farmer in the outskirts.
“This is Randy Calloway reporting to you from the Baton Rouge warehouse district. Earlier this morning, there were reports of gun fired from within one of the warehouses. Police Chief Charleston: Do you have any comments about what took place this evening? How many people were involved? Is it true that there is a new mob boss in town? Is there any proof or do the cops know who is running the show now?”
“No, at this time we are still evaluating all of the evidence present. Once all of the evidence is available, then I will give you a statement, same as last time. Now, do you mind? I am trying to talk at one of my detectives about the case at hand.” The tall black man turned away from the cameras and signaled for Janeen to follow him. The two of them walked back towards the warehouse. They passed two officers who were standing there. “Make sure he stays behind the car line this time.” They continued walking. When they got in the warehouse, only the scene photographers and forensic scientists were left in the building.
“Everyone out” Chief Charleston bellowed. No one questioned him. They all picked up their equipment and walked out of the building. After a minute or two to make sure that everyone had left, Chief Charleston turned back to Janeen.
“Give me just one good reason not to take your sorry ass off of the force this time. I have put up with your antics before and most of them paid off. Not this time. I have one dead man and one man nearly dead on a gurney out there, with two men on the loose and your brother in the middle of an investigation that you were NEVER authorized to go out on a limb for. Janeen, I know your instincts are usually dead on if not within a reasonable doubt; but all you have now is a DEAD MAN and another who will be lucky if he sees the sun in two hours.”
Police Chief Gallant Charleston was a strong minded man. He had put up with Janeen’s hunches before and did his best to keep the media in the dark about the fact that he had let her run things her way. Gallant’s dark black eyes tried to see through Janeen and see if there was in fact a reason why she acted on impulse tonight.
There were several investigations where her methods seem to produce results faster than he would have thought or liked. Gallant and Janeen had a strong history knowing one another for greater than ten years. Gallant had trained Janeen when she was assigned to the Atlanta Police Department as an extra hand for the 2012 presidential debate. After that, Janeen had temporarily transferred to Atlanta to learn more from Gallant. He showed her how to work the streets for all the right leads. After all, she had only been out of the Academy for five years at most at the time and was up for her detective exam. If it wasn’t for Gallant, even Janeen would admit that she probably would not have passed it her first time up. Knowing her study habits, it probably been closer to the third or fourth time taking the test before she would have passed.