Due Recompense: Justice In Its Rawest Form Read online

  Due Recompense

  Jason Trevor

  Copyright © 2021 Jason Trevor

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  For Mary, for always knowing I had it in me.

  For Teri, a high-achiever who was

  taken from us far too soon.

  Special thanks to the Houston Police Department and the Houston Fire Department for their invaluable assistance and for always being on the front lines for us every day.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Prologue

  The streets of Midtown were dark and quiet. The many new upscale condominium complexes and mid-rise custom homes contrasted starkly with the hundreds of early and mid-twentieth century buildings that they were scattered among, yet they all blended nicely for a surreal, peaceful scene lit delicately by the streetlights.

  Foster loved the backdrop that he lived in. One of the older buildings was his, built by his grandfather's own hands in the 1930s to audaciously start a family in the front of and a manufacturing business in the back of, even during the dark days of the great depression. The gamble had paid off, earning the family a fortune making every kind of widget for the government, from canteens to wheel bearings, during world war II. Through nearly a century of ups and downs, the business was still thriving, still in the family, and Foster was proud to raise his family of four in the same house and make his living running the same company with a half-dozen loyal employees. Some of those loyal employees were even children and grandchildren of his grandfather's first employees. The family fortune was long gone, thanks to a selfish uncle who had taken off for San Francisco during the 1960s with flowers in his hair and squandered it smoking dope and making love to anything with a pulse. His tragic death to peyote poisoning before having any progeny had not only removed him from the gene pool but left the nearly destitute company for Foster's father to pick up the pieces of. Together he and Foster worked tirelessly for years to turn the company into a respected local name. After Foster's brother and sister chose to head off to college and settle into comfortable, secure, 9 to 5 lives in crackerbox houses in the suburbs, he was the natural choice to take over the tiny factory after his father passed of a heart attack. At least the old man had lived to see his father's dream thrive again.

  Foster was shaken out of his nostalgic trance by the Bluetooth in his Chevrolet pickup ringing. He glimpsed at the display on the dash. It was his wife. He tapped the button on the steering wheel with his thumb, smiling from a stop light at the darkened windows of a corner ice cream parlor from the 1950s that someone had recently bought, refurbished, and re-opened.

  “Hello, my dear!” he chirped.

  “How was the meeting with Joe?”

  “Awesome. I swear, that guy really knows his business but he keeps the craziest hours. We should be able to get everything we need for under ten thousand dollars. He'll be at the shop tomorrow to take some measurements,”

  “Yeah. He keeps crazy hours. Like you don't. Do you even know what time it is?”

  “Sure,” his eyes darted to the clock on the radio. “It's 11:43 PM. The night's still young!”

  “Are you almost home?”

  “About six blocks away. I'm sitting at the light in front of the ice cream shop that just opened,”

  “Please hurry and be careful. You know the thugs from Third Ward keep coming across the freeway looking for people to mug and cars to steal. Trucks like yours are popular in chop shops. I don't want you getting carjacked,”

  “I'll be safe at home with you in less than three minutes... after this darn light changes. Why is it taking so long? Oh, well. I'll see you in a minute. Love you!”

  “I love you,” The Bluetooth beeped as the call ended. Then the light finally changed to green.

  “It's about time!” He lifted his foot from the brake and put it on the gas pedal, but before he could push it, he had to slam on the brakes again. An old Caprice, perched bug-like on 22” chrome wheels with subwoofers thumping inside, lurched into the middle of the intersection in front of him and stopped, blocking the road. A pair of headlights came on behind him. He couldn't drive forward or back up. Foster then noticed the silhouettes of several people in his side-view mirrors walking up to the doors of his truck from behind. “Oh, no,” he murmured.

  He heard someone pull on the door handle of the driver's door, but it was locked. Before Foster could react, the glass was shattered by the butt of a gun and he found himself facing the muzzle of a pistol.

  “Out of the truck, motherfucker,”

  “Alright, you can have the truck. Just let me get my phone so I can call for a ride home,” he started to reach for the phone sitting in the cupholder, but instead, two pairs of hands grabbed him by his hair and his sport coat, dragging him out of the window and dropping him gracelessly on his head on the pavement.

  “Nigga didn't tell you to talk or get you phone. I said out of the truck, motherfucker. If you had done what you was told, you might have got to live,”

  There were two flashes as the pistol reports echoed down the street and between the buildings. Tires screeched as the three vehicles sped away, toward a chop shop just outside of the Heights. Midtown returned to quiet solace as Foster lay in the middle of the street, alone and bleeding to death.

  Chapter 1

  “Seventeen?” growled Joe. “I need twenty tomorrow. Not seventeen tomorrow and three by the end of the week. That's why I placed the order nine days ago. I've got another vendor who promised to beat you by five percent, but he couldn't deliver until the end of the week. You're always on time, and that's why I always order from you, Randall. Find three more or I might as well give him the whole order. Call me back with some good news,”

  Tossing the phone on his desk, Joe took off his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, and rubbed his shaved head with the other. He hadn't slept since some time the previous afternoon and it was starting to wear on him. He strolled to the kitchen of his house, threw a coffee cup into the Keurig, poked a Community Dark Roast cartridge into the top, slapped it shut, and hit the button. The caffeine jolt might help him make the drive from the suburbs into Midtown. Even if it didn't, the hot drink would hit the spot.

  As he walked through the living room toward his bedroom to get dressed, coffee in hand, he stopped to straighten a faded and obscu
re photo on the wall. It was the only photo in his house, and it never needed straightening.

  Moments later he exited the bedroom in rock-hard starched and creased jeans and a crisp shirt with the sleeves double-cuffed. Military DCU boots were the order for today instead of the usual bull hide ropers, along with a web belt instead of buttoned suspenders. After straightening the photo again, he conscripted ten more ounces from the Keurig, this time into a stainless-steel travel mug, before strolling out to his black Escalade, a vehicle carefully selected for its purpose; the view from the outside and the first two rows of seats exuded business and success. The third row remained folded down, and the entirety of the truck behind the second row of seats was consumed by tools, materials, and equipment for his business.

  The ride into Houston was a dull one, surrounded by dull commuters going to their dull jobs who didn't have the fortitude to stick themselves out there and start businesses of their own, yet so many of them had the audacity to resent people like Joe for his success. Liberals, the pundit on the AM band reminded Joe that they were called, in between traffic, weather, and financial reports. Joe ignored the political banter and instead pondered when self-driving automobiles would become practical and available enough to handle boring drives like this one, yet still allow people to freely enjoy leisure driving like when he was racing the royal blue 1969 Charger in his garage, or driving the ‘97 Dodge pickup in his driveway.

  His engineer's mind was poring over the technical barriers to autonomous driving, both on the freeway and in the city, when he realized he had passed the ballpark and was coming up to his exit. Joe signaled, slid over a few lanes, exited, zigzagged along a familiar route, and then came to an unexpected stop. The one-way street was jammed, wall-to-wall, with cars. They weren't all honking pointlessly, because this was Houston and not New York City, but they were just sitting there helplessly. Some had even turned off their engines and were standing in the street next to their cars.

  "What in tarnation is this? I knew that the new ice cream shop was doing some major business, but this is nuts!" It couldn't have been a rush of people trying to get an early morning froyo before work. Something was up, and not knowing what it was meant not knowing how long he'd be stuck in it. Joe had to find a way around.

  Quickly checking his mirrors and then swiveling his head to assess that no one had pulled up behind him yet, Joe threw it into reverse, popped a quick 3-point turn, and drove over the sidewalk to the cross street behind him. Driving a large SUV had other advantages as well.

  Once he was safely back in a lane of traffic, he tapped the screen on his dashboard to call Foster and warn that he would be late. The call went straight to voicemail.

  "That can't be right. Foster sleeps less than I do," He tried twice more, then scowled and called Randall. The delay could be used to bark at his wayward vendor some more.

  ◆◆◆

  Sergeant Detective Cody Sims sat across from a sobbing new widow in her living room. He hated this part of his job. It could get to a guy after enough years, and make him lose his faith in humanity. He’d seen a lot of good cops become disillusioned, jaded, and desensitized to people’s suffering. They just got used to the depravity that some people are capable of. He refused to let it get to him. His colleagues told him not to, but he took each case very personally. He treated it like it was his own family that he was working on behalf of. It kept him invested in his cases and sharp on the job. It also kept him single.

  He looked around the house while the woman took a minute to collect herself. It was drab and small, built by hand many generations ago with a strong eye for practicality and a weak one for beauty, but subsequent occupants had done what they could to make it nice, including this lovely family whose lives were now shattered. Some kind of small factory was attached to the back of the house, but it was silent right now. Several workers in dark blue jumpsuits milled around the kitchen in the house drinking coffee and speaking to each other in somber, hushed tones. They were obviously close to the victim and the family. Statements from them would probably not end up being very useful, but he would interview them nonetheless.

  Peering out a living room window at the front of the house, Sergeant Sims saw a black Escalade pull up and double park behind his car.

  “Mrs. Shayne, do you know anyone in a black Cadillac?”

  “Yes. That’s Joe Danton. He was going to meet with Foster today to take some measurements to install new equipment in our factory for us,”

  Great. One more name, one more interview. He pulled the 3”x5” memo pad back out of his inside coat pocket where he had tucked it away when she broke down crying again a moment earlier. They were 60 sheets each, college ruled, and he always used one per case no matter how many pages were used, and NEVER tore out a page, lest one be subpoenaed as evidence in court. The department didn’t pay for them, but for $10 a dozen at the local office supply store, they were a tidy tax write-off each year. He wrote the victim’s name and the case number in bold sharpie on the cover of each one and scribbled his notes throughout each case. The cover of this one only said “Foster Shayne” so far because there was no case number yet. Since this was looking strongly like a simple carjacking in an area very prone to carjackings, he didn’t suspect that he would be using more than a few pages. He quickly scribbled Joe’s name in the notebook.

  “Was Foster friendly with Joe?” She stopped crying and gave him a puzzled look.

  “We all were. He probably won’t even knock,” True to form, he let himself in and gave the detective a suspicious look before turning to Foster’s wife.

  “What’s going on, El? I could barely get here for all the traffic, and Foster’s phone is going straight to voice mail. That’s never happened in nearly ten years,” She ran across the room and collapsed into Joe’s arms.

  “Foster’s dead Joe! He never came home last night! Someone shot him and took his truck!” She crumpled up. “Who kills someone for a truck? What car is worth a man’s life?”

  A switch flipped off inside of Joe. He had no control over it, but he couldn't be the comforter that Elaine needed. He had a soul stained by tragedy and a conscience marred by old brutalities that simply caused him to shut down in the face of trauma. It wasn’t Elaine’s fault that she had never seen it before, but she felt Joe’s soft arms and chest suddenly harden as he turned to the detective.

  “You HPD?” Detective Sims produced identification and a badge.

  “Sergeant Detective Cody Sims, HPD homicide,”

  “So, it happened at the intersection a few blocks away, where the traffic jam is. That’s why I couldn’t get through,”

  “Yes, sir. Ongoing investigation. Sorry for the inconvenience,”

  “Not a problem. Shut the whole street down for as long as you have to. Foster Shayne was a good businessman, a good husband, and a good father. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Foster was on his way back from a meeting with Joe last night when...” Elaine started crying again.

  “I see,” said the detective. “What time did he leave your office?”

  “About 11:15. I guess that makes me the last person to see him alive,”

  “No, the person who shot him was the last person to see him alive,”

  “...and I talked to him on the phone less than a minute before it happened,” sobbed his widow. “He told me that he was sitting at that light and I warned him to be careful of carjackers and we hung up but when he wasn’t home after 10 minutes I got the kids up and we went looking for him,” The she began really bawling. Joe turned back to the detective.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” he repeated.

  “Doubt it. It’s probably a group of the ‘bangers from across the freeway. It will be hard to ID the shooter, even if we find the truck and identify the gang that stole it, because they won’t snitch on each other. It’s just part of the culture. Here’s my card anyway, just in case,”

  “Here’s mine in case you do need me for anything
more. I’ll help in any way that I can. I’ve got to go,” He turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Elaine was confused, certain that Joe would have booked Foster for more than the few minutes he had been here.

  “To get some ice cream,”

  Chapter 2

  "This is not cool,” Royce leaned on the glass cooler and looked out the window, speaking to his wife who was puttering around an empty bread rack behind him. “I put my life savings on the line to be part of bringing this neighborhood back to life, and some poor guy gets shot in the street right in front of my new shop!” To his surprise, the string of bells on the street-facing door jingled as someone walked in. “We’re not open yet. Delivery truck from the epicurean market can’t get through the traffic jam,” He liked squeezing in a comment about his expensive source of fresh ingredients when talking to customers.

  ”Surely you have some coffee made, right? I can pay with a card if you don’t have a cash drawer made yet,” Royce found himself confronted with a tan pair of those military-type boots, jeans and a shirt so heavily starched that they shone and could probably stand up against a wall, and eyeglasses that looked like a smaller version of the now-passe BCG’s. The man had a slender build and was of average height, wholly unremarkable physically, but imposing nonetheless because of his posture, how he walked, and the brusqueness of his voice. Clearly, this was a military man who had made well for himself as a civilian. Royce hesitated as he took the guy in, then surrendered a half-smile.

  ”Cash is fine. We import our beans from Northern Africa and grind them fresh every morning. You’ve never had coffee like this!” He turned to the shiny new Bunn coffee maker on the counter behind the cash register. “Sugar on the bar against the wall. Like I said, no truck yet so I don’t have fresh cream, but I have powdered crud or you can use day-old cream. We also have milk,” He filled a foam cup and snapped a lid on it. “That’ll be four dollars,”