CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Jericho Police Department was relocated years ago to a larger building that was fronted by a country road and backed by a busy highway. Most law-abiding citizens didn’t even know where it had moved to. But MaKayla, as DA and the wife of the chief, knew exactly where it was.

The double doors at the entrance of the JPD opened and MaKayla, along with her father-in-law, walked on in. Although it was a busy lobby, with cops processing in crooks and other cops lollygagging with each other, everybody seemed to stop what they were doing to take a look at the newest arrivals. Specifically at MaKayla, whom they all viewed as their disgraced DA. But Juan Rivera, the agent in charge from the MBI, didn’t just look. He hurried over.

“What are you doing here, Madam District Attorney?”

“Where’s Sergeant Pyles?”

“You aren’t supposed to be in this building, Madam District Attorney.”

“Says who? You ? I may be under investigation, but I’m still DA. I still have a duty to perform. Now where is Sergeant Dokery Pyles?”

Rivera didn’t say anything, but the desk sergeant did. He knew what kind of power the Sinatras had in Jericho County. “He’s in the file room, ma’am,” he said.

“Thanks, Earl,” MaKayla responded.

But Rivera was looking at Charles. “Who are you?” he asked him.

Charles knew good-and-well that that cop knew who he was. But he played along with it anyway. “I’m her bodyguard. You got a problem with that?”

“Let’s go,” MaKayla said to Charles before things got even more complicated, and then they made their way to the file room.

But as they were heading down the hall, the door to the file room opened and Doke Pyles was about to walk out with two files in his hand. But as soon as he saw MaKayla and Big Daddy Sinatra heading his way with that we got the bastard now look on their faces, he suddenly dropped those files, hurried back into the file room, and closed and locked the door.

Charles rushed up to the room and with his shoulder he broke the lock and forced the door open. When it flung open, they could just see the tail end of Doke Pyles hopping out of the window.

But outside, as soon as he jumped out of that window and began running toward the side of the building that would lead to where he parked his car, Brent’s big Ram truck came around the corner of that building and stopped him in his tracks. Then Doke pulled his weapon and began firing on the truck, causing Brent the driver to duck, and then Doke turned to run in the opposite direction.

But when he turned, he realized that a gunman, Reno Gabrini, was waiting for him with his weapon drawn too. “That weapon goes down,” Reno yelled, “or you go down. Pick your choice!” He was the backup. They also had Mick upfront just in case everything went south in the back.

But it didn’t go south. Doke Pyles tried to get away. But as soon as he turned around and saw that Brent was getting out of his truck with his long gun in his hand, he knew it was no use. He quickly dropped his weapon.

Brent got out of his truck just as Charles and MaKayla, along with Juan Rivera and two other cops that heard the gunfire, ran around to the back of the police station.

Brent went up to Doke and slammed him against the wall, with the side of Doke’s face smashed to the wall.

“What’s this about?” asked Rivera.

Brent cuffed Doke and then turned him around, slamming Doke’s back against the wall.

“What’s this about?” Rivera asked again. “Sergeant? Chief?”

“This is the man that killed Judge Clayton,” Brent said. “Ask him what it’s about, Doke.”

But Doke was already shaking his head.

“What that headshake mean?” asked Rivera. “You didn’t kill him?”

“I had to.” Tears appeared in Doke’s eyes.

But Rivera was frowning. “What do you mean you had to?”

“They claim my boy killed those two women. He wouldn’t do anything like that and everybody knew it.” Then he looked at MaKayla. “But you and your boyfriend number one prosecuted him anyway. And your boyfriend number two upheld your prosecution. And I got tired of it!”

“Tired of what?”

“Seeing them blacks taking over everything. And them people like you,” he added, referring to Rivera’s Hispanic heritage. “Everywhere I look, y’all taking over.”

“Taking over?” MaKayla was offended. “Everything we go through on a daily just to be in these positions and you have the nerve to say we’re taking over? What the fuck we taking over?”

“Everything!” exclaimed Doke. “Everywhere I turn. My boy is dead for something he didn’t do behind you blacks with all the power.”

Charles rolled his eyes. MaKayla did too. But Brent wanted answers. “Is that why you killed Darren McGuire?”

“He prosecuted my boy. He was the lead prosecutor. Him and that witch right there were in charge.”

But Brent wanted it all on the record so there could be no doubts about his guilt later. “Is that why you killed Judge Clayton?”

“He was on the appellate court when they refused to overturn what Makayla and Darren had done. He was just as guilty as they were. Had the gall to say my boy was guilty because he didn’t use I in a letter. I couldn’t believe it.But I knew MaKayla was smart. I knew she was going to figure it out. I knew she would lead y’all to Donald and Ashley’s old apartment. And I was gonna blow all you black-women-loving race traitors up! All of y’all!”

“So you’re William Benjamin Goode?” Rivera asked him. He had no clue that they had already solved that riddle.

“Will B. Goode. Yes, that’s me. That’s what my boy wrote in that letter. That he will be good if they had mercy on him. But nobody had mercy.”

He shook his head as the tears flowed freely. “I wasn’t a good father. I couldn’t even acknowledge him in public because of my sins. But he didn’t deserve what he got. He didn’t!”

“What about my wife?” asked Brent. “Were you the one that attacked her in that hotel suite?”

“I hired two nobodies to do it. I paid Darren all that money, a full third of my life savings, to lure MaKayla to that hotel suite where those two men attacked her, knocked her out with chloroform, and then sat her up on that sofa. I also got them to put her panties in the bedroom.”

Rivera looked at Brent. He never recalled seeing any evidence of that nature in the files.

“But to what end?” a still befuddled Charles asked. “Why did you do all of that?”

“Because of what she did to my boy! Don’t you see that? I got tired of seeing all those people that ruined his life going on with their lives like he never existed. I wanted her to go to prison for a murder she didn’t commit just like my boy went to prison for a murder he didn’t commit.”

“You keep saying he didn’t commit murder,” said MaKayla, “but he did.”

“He didn’t!”

“He did, Doke. We had a mountain of evidence. He even tried to get Donnie and Ash to lie for him. We even had his DNA at the crime scene!”

“It wasn’t his DNA. It was mine!” Doke yelled out.

Everybody was shocked. “Yours?” asked Charles.

MaKayla nearly stumbled. “It was Hank’s.”

“It was mine! I loved Teena from afar for so many years. Since high school. So one day I went to see her. Just to tell her how I felt about her. But she and her sister started laughing at me. They said I was too ugly for her. They cussed me out and tried to kick me out of their house.” Then he hung his head. “And I lost it. I beat Teena to death and strangled her sister. Then I called Hank to come and help me clean up the crime scene. He was over to Donald and Ash’s apartment when I called him. That’s why he asked them to alibi him. That’s why you found DNA that matched his DNA under the fingernails of those two women. Because it was my DNA. He was my son. We shared similar DNA.”

Everyone looked at MaKayla. MaKayla was devastated. But Brent was angry. “If you knew it wasn’t your son that killed those girls,” he said, “why didn’t you say so? Why would you let him go to the gas chamber when you knew he was innocent?”

Doke shook his head again. “I was married. I had two small children. I couldn’t put that shame on them.”

“But you could put death on your son?” asked Charles. “More like you couldn’t face the consequences of your action and would be glad to let your son take the fall. Because it doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t Hank say something? If what you’re saying is true, he could have told the authorities what happened.”

“He loved me!” Doke yelled out with agony in his voice. “Just like your boys love you. Would they tell on you, Charles? Would they turn on you?”

Everybody knew the answer to that question was no. Even Brent knew it.

“He loved me,” Doke said again. “He kept telling y’all he was innocent, but he would never turn on me. And he never did. I told you I was not a good father to that boy. But he was the best son I could have ever hoped to have.”

Charles spat on Doke. “You disgust me!” he said with clenched teeth. Rivera moved Charles away from their brand-new suspect.

“And why didn’t you go after me?” asked Brent. “I was chief when they arrested your boy.”

“But you’re also white,” Reno said. “His cowardly racist ass didn’t go after the whites.”

But as soon as Reno said those words, a rifle shot was heard and the bullet tore into Doke Pyles’ body with such ferociousness that Doke slumped down dead on impact.

Everybody frantically aimed their guns again as they looked in the direction of the sound of the shot. They all saw what looked like a man with a rifle standing all the way across the busy highway. Then he started running toward what appeared to be his parked car.

Brent and MaKayla and Reno and Charles all made a run for Brent’s truck. But Mick, who had been the backstop out front in case they didn’t contain Doke around back, came flying to the back in his big Cadillac Escalade as soon as he heard that blast, picked up Brent and MaKayla and Reno and Charles and took off after the driver. Juan Rivera and the two officers hopped into a patrol car around back and took off after the Escalade.

Inside the Escalade, everyone was baffled. They could hardly believe it. “That shit crazy,” said Reno. “What was that about?” Doke Pyles was supposed to be their man. He confessed to everything. Why would somebody murder him???

“Did Hank Logan have any other family members, Uncle Mick?” MaKayla asked.

“None that we could find. His mother died before he was arrested for that double homicide. Did Doke confess?”

“To everything,” Brent said. “That’s why this is so baffling.”

“What’s baffling?” asked Mick.

“That somebody would want to take Doke out when he confessed.”

Mick found it baffling, too, but that didn’t stop his speed. He flew up that highway after the getaway car.

But when the patrol car turned on its sirens, as if it was warning Mick about his excessive speed, Mick slowed down enough for the patrol car to take the lead. Then he stayed on that cop car’s tail.

They chased that gunmen, who was driving a beat-up-looking Buick, for nearly eight blocks. Mick knew he could go much faster. His Escalades were custom-made that way. He knew he could easily capture that guy if that damn cop car wasn’t in the way. But it was in the way. And as long as the getaway car was in his sights, he was going to maintain his cool and let it play out.

But when the cop car tried a PIT maneuver that failed miserably, he’d had enough.

“Floor this motherfucker, Mick,” Charles yelled out just as Mick was flooring it anyway. Mick dashed around what he viewed as that slow-ass patrol car and went forcefully toward that bucket of a rundown Buick and did his own version of a PIT maneuver. Only his version forced that Buick to spin and spin until it came to a stop nearly a hundred-and-fifty yards further up the street.

Then everybody in the Escalade and Rivera and the two cops in the patrol car all hurried to the Buick.

When they saw who the driver of that getaway car was, nearly all of them were stunned. The driver of the Buick was none other than Noah Lamm, the evicted tenant who shot Brent’s rookie officer and tried to kill Brent.

“How did you get out of jail?” Brent asked him angrily.

“McGuire made them release me. Lack of evidence, he said.”

“Lack of evidence? My rookie is still in the hospital and you’re talking about a lack of evidence?” Brent grabbed Noah from out of that car and slammed him against it. “What do you have to do with this?” he asked him.

“With what?”

“I’ll handle this, Chief,” Rivera said. “Why did you kill Doke Pyles?” he asked Noah.

“I wasn’t trying to kill no Doke Pyles,” Noah yelled at Brent. “He was in the way. I was trying to kill you!” Noah was looking at Brent. “That other fella was in the way. My eyesight ain’t what it used to be.”

Nobody could believe it. “It’s like a free-for-all around here,” Rivera said. “You’re executing people that didn’t commit the crime. You’re letting people go free for years that did commit the crime. And you’ve got this idiot right here running around doing whatever the hell he wants. What kind of town is this?”

“The kind that can kick your ass,” said Reno.

And although the cops didn’t find it funny, the Sinatras found it hilarious. They laughed the laugh of a people who finally felt as if they were going to make it to the other side. Not because it was fun and games. But because it wasn’t life and death anymore.

Brent placed his arm around MaKayla. They were laughing too. But too many close calls for their blood for their laughter to last. They were just grateful and relieved that it was finally over. And they could exhale for the first time since their ordeal began. It was over. That was all that mattered to them.