“Come on man, stay with us!” somebody shouted.  The voices started to fade.  Darkness set in.  The stars disappeared in the night sky.  He screamed, but nobody heard him.  He was gone.  Dead.

“This is the third officer killed in the last week.”  A woman said.

“Yeah,” somebody said.  “I saw the news too.  This is insane.”

“This is not good at all,” said the woman.

The patrol cars surrounded the scene.  They un-holstered their guns as they exited their cars.  They made their way to their fallen comrade to try and administer first –aid.  They shook their heads and holstered their guns.  Questions were hurled at everyone standing around.  Nobody admitted to seeing anything.  They said that they heard gunshots—maybe two and heard a car speed off.

Detective Jasmine Coffy was assigned the case.  She had eight years on the force, with two of those years in homicide—one of ten black female homicide detectives in Louisiana.  Violence in the Big Easy was pretty normal to her.  She grew up in New Orleans in a family with three brothers.  They lived near the river on the outskirts of the city.  From the time she was a little girl she was taught to hunt and fish by her older brothers and also learned to cook like her mother.  Of course Jasmine wanted to be a police officer.

Her desire to become a police officer began when she was nine years old.  She was walking down town with her parents along the river in the French Quarter when she saw a man get beaten and stabbed.  Before she could scream, her dad covered her mouth and quickly walked back to their old Ford pickup truck and sped away.  She still remembers his words.  “Jas, there are some folks round here you just can’t help.”

Now, Jasmine pulled up to the scene.  Police from every agency were there, which was normal when the “Officer Down” call comes over the radio.  Whatever an officer is doing at that moment—even if they had just stopped a vehicle and was in the middle of writing a ticket; they were rolling in the distressed officer’s direction.  And fast.

Jas hesitated on walking up to the body.  The last thing any officer wants to see is one of their own lying dead in the street because of some punk who didn’t want to go to jail.  She pulled out her badge and showed it to the officer logging names at the crime scene.  The Crime Lab and Evidence Division were already on the job.  She walked up to the female CLED tech.

“What do we have?” Jas asked.  The tech wiped her eye with the back of her glove.

She had been crying.  Jas gave her a second to gain her composure.

“Sorry, Detective, this is my third scene involving a fallen officer and I just can’t…”  She couldn’t finish.  The tears flowed.  Jas placed her hand on the tech’s shoulder.  “I understand.”

She turned.  The body was covered already.  Detective Santiago had just finished interviewing the witnesses.  Jas called out to him.  She waved her hand for him to come to her.

“Bernard, what do we have?”

“Hey Jas.”  He shook his head.  “Sorry, but we got a bunch of witnesses who didn’t see anything—only heard the shots.  Officer Davies didn’t have a chance to pull his gun out the holster.  He was killed in cold blood.”

The very words “Killed in cold blood” sent a chill down her spine.

“Where did the shots hit him?” she asked.

“Two in the back; one made its way to his chest from the side, probably as he turned to get away.  He was wearing his vest but it only helped some.  He must have fallen at some point and the perpetrator got off a head shot and according to witnesses, sped off.  But nobody saw the car or the driver.”

Jas let it all settle in her mind.

“Well, I better go and tell the chief so he can inform his wife.”

“Ok, thanks, Bernard.  I will see you back at the station.  I’m going to look around some more.”

She hated that part of the job--telling a family member that their loved one is dead.  Especially when you don’t have the person responsible.  She went over to the body, stooped down and slid the cover back to see Davies.  The blood was now dry.  Under what was left of his head.  He had been shot at close range.  By the perp.   She slid the cover back on Davies, stood up and sighed.

“Three dead in a week.  All killed the same way.  Shot in cold blood.  Just doesn’t make sense.  Probably some fanatic that wants to get justice for all the police murders of blacks in the news lately,” she said.  She got back in her car and drove to the substation in the 8th Precinct.

The precinct was usually noisy with phones ringing.  Officers joking around.  And people being interviewed by investigators or making formal complaints with the desk Sergeant.  Today was different.  Gloom had settled in.  Some officers had drifted to corners of the room not to be seen shedding tears.  Others rubbed their badges, contemplating on quitting the job they loved.

Police Commissioner Larry Flanagan and Chief Estelle Adelaide walked into the muster room.

“I know how you all feel.  It is not an easy thing to talk about when someone you know and work with and depend on is gone,” said the Commissioner.  “But we have a duty and an obligation, not only to the community we police, but to our families and our fallen comrades, to find this animal and bring him to justice.”  He paused.  Some officers felt the boost of his speech and stood upright.  They all respected him and wanted the horror to go away.

“Now we have to be watchful and vigilant at all times.  Somebody out there has killed three of our brothers and we can’t let that stand.  So I talked it over with the chief and we informed the mayor already.  We need answers and we think it’s time you all go and get us some.  Make your arrests and let’s get these people off the street.  And if we are lucky, we may find this bastard, or somebody that knows him.”  He turned his head and looked down as he wiped a tear.  “That is all, ladies and gentlemen.  Be safe out there.”

He and the chief went back into the chief’s office and closed the door behind them.  Jas sat down at her desk staring at the blank computer screen and resting her chin on the back of her hands, with her elbows on the desk.  “Who was killing cops?  And why?”

Chapter 2

I decided I would go outside and trim the hedges and decorate the yard for football season.  It was finally here.  Tuscaloosa was football country when it came to the Alabama Crimson Tide.  This is what most people today know about Tuscaloosa, and of course the time when Governor George C. Wallace stood in the admission doors of the University of Alabama when the first black student wanted to enroll.

They are right on both counts, but there is a lot more to Alabama than that.

I looked at my buzzing phone.  Chief Davis was calling.  I was about to hit the ignore button.  Then I thought about it.  It just could be important.

“Detective Jackson here.” I answered.

“Hello Jared,” he said.  I hope you are not busy but I really need you to come in today.  It is urgent.”

A small knot of anxiety formed in my gut.

“Sure, Chief--I will be there in half an hour.”

“Okay Jared, say hello to Charlotte for me, and tell her Margaret is planning a baby shower for her.  See you later.”  He hung up.

Margaret Davis, the Chief’s wife, was instrumental in building a support group for police wives.  She thought it her duty to make sure wives of police officers had someone they could talk to or rely on when life-changing moments happen.

“What could be so important on my day off,” I thought.

My wife Charlotte came up to me with a glass of lemonade.   She looked sexy in her sundress even though she was five months pregnant.  With her hair going down her back in one braid, she could pass for an Egyptian queen.

“Ahh, that’s good,” I said, after a healthy swallow of the drink.  “Thanks, honey.”