The Other World Ch. 04

This story is part of an ongoing series. The chronological order of my stories is now listed in WifeWatchman's biography.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

Part 16 - World of Hate

"How did you know it was Kevin?" Cindy asked as we sat in my office at 8:30am, Sunday, March 5th, having just gotten back from the crime scene.

"I didn't know for sure," I said, "but the body type was the same. And while I didn't expect this to happen this quickly, I am not surprised that Kevin was waxed after what happened with those drugs the night before at his club."

"Did he have anything to do with those deaths?" Cindy asked.

"I don't think so, not directly." I said. "Kevin was a pawn, a tool being used without his knowledge. I probably should've taken him into protective custody. Another mistake on my part leading to someone's death."

"Come on," Cindy said, "you can't stop every crime before it happens. And you couldn't keep Kevin in custody for any length of time unless he agreed to something like Witness Protection, which he likely would not have done. You even suggested to him to ask for protection, and he declined it."

"Yeah," I said moodily, "but I should've acted on this one, it was too obvious: too many ties between Kevin and the Mob, the pushers, the White Supremacists, the Fascists like Jay Swenson and Ken Eidex that George Schwartz is financing. No... I let that man walk out of my Police Headquarters, and he didn't live through the weekend."

"I think there was nothing you could have done." Cindy replied. "I don't think he knew anything to tell you that he had not told you already. And I think they were going to kill him no matter what. You hold him in custody for a week, or a month, and he's dead within a day of walking out."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because of that crowbar up his ass." Cindy replied. "That was a message, either to you or about you. They intended to deliver that message, and deliver it that way, and there was just nothing you could've done, Don."

I nodded. "You may well be right." I said. "So... let's find out who did this and ram our own crowbars up the perps' asses. One thing we do know: it wasn't Jerry Saint, who is still in our jails."

"True that." Cindy said.

"The Mouseketeers got here an hour ago, and are watching for financial movements of money for a paid hit." I said. "They're also seeing if there was any chatter on the cell phones of certain suspects."

"Do they have a warrant for that?" Cindy asked.

"Yes." I said. "Well, they have one for Kevin's phone from the deaths at the club. If we find anything to or from him up to the time of his death, we can follow our noses on that, and we can probably stretch it further by saying 'probable cause'. But even with probable cause, one has to have a warrant, so Franklin Washington is trying to get one now. Nance is the Night Court judge, which handles weekend work, so no telling what will happen there."

"Especially if this is a hate crime by a white group." Cindy said. I peered at her as she said "Yeah, I know the motive might be other reasons, but they are at least making it look like a hate crime of killing a homosexual man in a way that other white groups have killed blacks and homosexual before."

"You are absolutely right." I said. Just then, my phone rang.

"This is Martha." said the voice on the other end. "I just sent you the a preliminary report on that crowbar. I'll have the full autopsy done in a couple of hours."

I checked on my emails and opened the one from Martha. "I see why she went ahead and sent this." I said, showing Cindy. Crowbars (the metal ones) usually have the ends flanged out to flatness, to help pry things open. Usually those ends are a bit wider than the rest of the crowbar. The one that ended up in Kevin had ben filed down to a trapezoidal shape with the sides angling inwards making it easier to shove it where they did.

"Wow, they filed it down." Cindy said.

"Yep." I said. "It punctured through his bowels and into his intestines, from what Martha is saying here. Tremendous damage. Martha thinks he bled out and was dead before he was dragged down the road. Those aren't bruises, but abrasions from being dragged."

"Well, at least he didn't suffer the dragging." Cindy said. "God, what a horrible way to die." I could feel some intensity from my cousin; she was understanding of what homosexuals of either gender endured from some hateful people. It rarely escalated to this level, though...

"You want this one personally?" I asked.

"I want to make sure it's solved." Cindy replied. "And that means I want you on it."

My personal cellphone rang, and I answered it. "This is Tanya." said the voice. "Jack asked me to call and tell you that Les Craig is already on the way to your County to take over the Kevin Greeley case as a hate crime..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Orders of the Police Chief himself." said the Duty Desk Sergeant. "You are not allowed in this Police Headquarters, Agent Craig, no matter the circumstances." The Sergeant was blocking the way into the hallways behind the Duty Desk, and he was very tense and ready for a standoff.

"Are you kidding me?" snarled Craig. "I am the F-B-I. Now take me to Commander Troy's office."

"No, he's not kidding." said a voice to the side. "And you don't need to go to my office to see me right here, Craig." Coming out of the corridor to the Press Room was Your Iron Crowbar, red crowbar ready to go. Following me was the Green Crowbar, and she was suitably armed with her crowbar and even more ready to go.

"You heard the Chief the last time you were here, Craig." I said. "If you try to go past the Duty Desk, my Officers have orders to shoot you dead. I am not kidding, and will personally carry out those orders if need be. But I might give my partner here dibs."

"Crowbar beatdown to come..." Cindy said menacingly. "... in the Queen's name."

Craig and the two FBI Agents, the automatons I was used to seeing with him, looked utterly stunned. They were not used to being confronted, stood up to, like this. Finally Craig said "Very well. I'm here to take over the case of Kevin Greeley's murder as a hate crime. Here's the Federal warrant." He handed me the document, which was correct in every particular. "I want everything you have, all the evidence."

"The autopsy is in progress now." I said. "I'll send everything to the FBI offices in the Federal Building here in Town when it's done, along with all the other evidence under proper two-man controls."

The tension could be cut with a knife in the silence as the FBI Agents did not move. "You might as well go to the Federal Building, Craig." I said. "We're not even going to let you use the restroom here."

"You locals are just dog shit." said Craig as he started for the front door. "And assholes on top of it."

"You're the expert on that, aren't you?" Cindy spat. Craig turned on her, but then realized that I was the one about to swing a crowbar right at his head, and the Duty Desk Sergeant all but had his gun coming out of its holster.

"Come on, guys." Craig said. He and the automatons left.

Part 17 - World of the Rabbit Hole

"You just let him take the evidence?" asked Chief Moynahan as Cindy and I sat in his office at 1:00pm, Sunday, March 5th.

"No choice, sir." I said. "The warrant was valid, and a Federal warrant at that. Craig is saying this is a hate crime in connection with other hate crimes in the nation committed by White Supremacists. He cited Apple Grove and Providence Springs as one example of the national scope of the issue."

"We could've fought the warrant, appealed it." said the Chief. "We'd have lost, but it would've given us time to see what was going on."

"We already know, sir." I said. "Martha sent me a copy of the autopsy, we've seen the other evidence, we still have all the Police reports, though we had to send copies to the FBI. And I might have 'accidentally' sent Jack Muscone and his boss copies of everything digitally preserved, as well."

"I still like to give the Federal Government every fight I can give them." said Moynahan. "Just on principle. Those bastards are very pushy, sometimes, and sometimes they fuck things up. You two people with the crowbars are among the very few in this nation that can get away with pushing back like you do, so exercise that pushback when you can."

"Chief," Cindy said, "if I know the Iron Crowbar as well as I do, he's in full agreement with you. Ergo, he has ulterior motives in letting the Feds have this case and the evidence, and I would imagine he has a very good plan... which will take a crowbar to pry out of him." I was being messed with, I realized.

"Me? Ulterior motives?" I said jokingly. "Why, perish the very thought!" Then I grinned. The Chief couldn't hold back.

"Heh heh heh heh." he laughed, then said "Okay, Mr. Crowbarrrr, what's the deal?"

I said "Les Craig got wind of this case very, very quickly. The autopsy was not even done yet, and he is here, already in Town, ready to take over the case. Now let's ask ourselves, sir... how did he come to know so quickly?"

"He was obviously notified." said the Chief. "My question is whether or not you're insinuating that he had advanced knowledge of this crime, that he knew about it beforehand."

"Yes sir." I said. "I see three scenarios: first, the Press learned about it and Bettina tipped him off. Second, one or more of our Officers tipped him or the FBI off. The third is that he knew ahead of time."

I might add that Bettina and her KXTC News van had come upon the crime scene from the east, almost running over my Crime Lab people. They also tried to go around Police blocking them by driving onto the crime scene area where Kevin had been dragged. That caused Officers to draw guns to stop them.

Once I got to the scene, Bettina was screaming at my Officers. I'd told her that if she continued to scream at them, I would personally arrest her, and use a violent, physical takedown in doing so. Cindy then said she was going to arrest Bettina anyway.

What she actually did was take Bettina to the side and warn her that I was not kidding around... and that I would hit a woman with a crowbar, and as hard as I could. Bettina shut up. Her van was held in place until we were done completely, and the body had already been taken to the morgue. In fairness, we stopped the KSTD van, also, though we did not need to get ugly about it.

"It could very well be the Press." said Moynahan in present time. "Bettina has already been screaming at the Sheriff and the Council for the way she and her people where handled at the crime scene. The Sheriff told her she's lucky her van's driver is not in jail and charged with the felony crime of evidence tampering when he tried to drive over our crime scene. But I have a bad feeeee-ling about this Les Craig."

"Smarmy vibe at work, sir." said Cindy. "And I've had it for a long, long time."

"Well," I said, "if Craig got his info from the Press, or a tip from a bad Officer, then he may still be on the up-and-up. But if he knew in advance in any way, then he's part of the problem."

"So why did you let him take over the case?" asked Moynahan, who was still not fully over that.

I smiled, an ugly smile. "As Captain Ross said about ulterior motives... it is going to be soooo much fun watching the FBI infighting over this. And while it's going on, I can do what I think is -the- most important thing."

"What's that?" asked the Chief and Cindy at the same time. Jinx on them.

"Finding Leonard Lotz." I replied.

Just then there was a knock on the door, and the Duty Desk Sergeant was admitted. "Gentlemen, ma'am," he said, having been a military veteran and speaking to us as he would military officers, I noted, "Ms. Priya Ajmani is at the front desk and says she needs to see Commander Troy. She insists on coming to his office."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"So this is the mighty Iron Crowbar's office." Priya said as she looked around. "Very nice... Oh, student of the Trojan War?" She was seeing the matchstick Trojan Horse and the painting behind my desk.

"Student of Pastor Raymond Westboro," I said, "who was a student of the Trojan War, and send me those lovely parting gifts. Have a seat." I said.

Cindy was sitting on the sofa, with an amused smile on her face as Priya looked at my two MOV citations, Bowser's citation, then to the other wall and the framed picture by Gunny Guernica's son and the U.S. Marines insignia next to it.

As Priya sat down, she said "I have something for you that came in to KSTD this morning. Dan Walther asked me to bring it to you. We will not be giving this to the FBI's Les Craig, and we'll invoke the First Amendment rather than help him. Maybe he can fuck Bettina Wurtzburg to get her help on it."

Cindy was closer to laughing as I took the package. In it was a jump drive.

"We've checked for every virus in the world." Priya said. "It's safe."

"Then you won't mind if I run some no-shit Government detection software on it." I said. I did so, finding there to be no viruses. I began running the video files.

"Ho-leee shit." I gasped. We all watched as the image of Kevin Greeley being dragged behind a truck could be seen in the videocamera's powerful light. He was being dragged feet first, on his belly, the black crowbar visible at times.

The next one showed Kevin lying where he'd been found, dead. I heard voices cheering off camera, then one voice said "This is what fucking faggots get! White power!" A chorus of "White power!" chants rose up. Then the camera was moving, but I could see partially masked people. Then it turned and showed a pickup truck with the chains on the ground behind it.

"Oh my God." Cindy said. "Either they are stupid as shit, or they're letting us see the license plate on purpose."

"It may be both." I said. "They are indeed stupid as shit." I turned to Priya. "Thank you for bringing us this, Priya." I said.

"Oh, you're quite welcome." Priya said with a beautiful smile. "And one day, Mr. Iron Crowbar," she said, getting up and leaning over my desk, "you and I are going to have sex in this room. I'm going to lay down on this desk and you are going to fuck my brains out. Oh, Cindy can come and be part of the fun, too." The last sentence was teasing my partner. They must have a better relationship than I realized, I thought.

"I wish I could make that come true now." I said. "But we are too busy. But soon, Priya... soon. Better be sure to take your pill every day."

"Maybe I won't." said Priya huskily. "Maybe you can knock me up like you did Paulina Patterson, and Cindy's sister, not to mention your own scorching hot wife..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

3:30pm, Sunday, March 5th. Leonard Lotz was naked except for the seemingly dark glasses, pumping his very average cock in and out of the woman sitting on his lap. She was in her early forties, toned and in great shape. Her hair was metallic bright red and her bangs cut straight across; one would think it was a wig, but it was her real, dyed hair. She was naked except for the matte black high heel pumps she always wore while working. She was a prostitute, relatively high class for Goth working girls, but still a woman that spread her legs for pay.

Leonard Lotz was the most boring, coldest fuck she's ever experienced, she thought to herself. He wasn't impotent; his cock was hard as she rode him, but he was fucking as if he didn't give a damn and just wanted to get his nut. He could've saved his money and masturbated himself to climax, she thought.

Finally, she felt Leonard's nut rise, and he grabbed her sides to increase the speed of his pumping up into her.

"Unnnh..." Lotz groaned as he came, firing his spurts into the condom he was wearing. "Damn, it's hard to get off when I'm wearing a fucking raincoat."

"We'll have to do something to make that better, next time." the woman said, no interest in her voice at all.

Neither of them had heard anything, and so were totally shocked to look up and see the tall man with broad shoulders, Tilley hat on his head, trenchcoat wrapped around his obviously fit body... and tapping a red crowbar in his hand.

"Aaauugggh!" the woman screamed, leaping off Lotz. "What the fuck?"

"Get out of here." I said to her. "I want to talk to Leonard, here. Move, bitch." The woman scrambled to get her clothes, and ran out of the room, which was an auditorium room of an abandoned building in the Industrial District. Leonard and the prostitute had been fucking on the 'stage', such as it was.

"God damn it, man." said Lotz, knowing I had him, that he was at bay. "Messing up my action."

"What are you bitching about, Lotz?" I said. "I let you get your nut."

"Yeah, you did." he conceded, reaching for his pants.

"Don't move, Leonard." I said. Lotz sat back in his chair. I went over and picked up his jeans, going through them to make sure there were no weapons, and making sure there were no concealed knives in his belt. Satisfied (pun not intended), I flung the jeans at Lotz.

"So what is with the shades indoors, and in the dark, Leonard?" I asked.

"The sun never sets on cool." Leonard replied. I snorted a very sarcastic laugh.

"Not a bad acting job, there." Lotz said as he put on his jeans then sat back down in the chair. "But I know that bitch had to be the one that ratted me out to you. How much did you pay her?"

"Not a dime." I said... which was true. Earlier, I'd gotten a phone call to meet the woman. She said she'd been hired by Lotz for the second time in three days, and she'd give him up to me. What she asked for in exchange was stunning:

"If I give him to you," she had said, "I want you. I want you to fuck the hell out of me and come in me. I'll get tested to prove I'm clean. But I want to know what it's like to fuck the Iron Crowbar."

"You're kidding." I said.

"Nope." she said coming up to me. "Time and place of your choosing, and no charge. You just have to promise to come inside me. Whaddya say?" She'd reached up and put her arms around me. She was good looking, hot legs, and her eyes sparkled fire.

"Okay, you have a deal." I said, sliding my arms around her waist and clutching the firm globes of her sweet ass as I bent down and kissed her. Our tongues twined for a moment, then I let her go. She gave me her number, and I had that number in my Police cellphone marked as a C.I.

"That's hard to believe." said Lotz, a sardonic grin forming on his face. "After all, I told her to call you and give me up."

I nodded, seeing the full picture. "You're a sneaky man, Mr. Lotz. Boring as hell in the sack, from what I could see of her facial expressions, but sneaky nonetheless."

"I'm sure you'll give her a much hotter fuck than I did." said Lotz. "Frankly, she was boring, too. Sex is boring, unless I'm raping the bitch or I'm amped up to hell with drugs... or after a bank job. So... I'm in your custody now, Mr. Crowbar. What's next?"

"If I take you into custody, or back to The Asylum, you'll be dead within 24 hours." I said. "And if I give you to Les Craig of the FBI, you'll be dead even faster."

"Not much gets by you, Commander." Lotz said, his laconic voice connoting boredom.

"Is Craig dirty?" I asked.

"Depends on what you mean by 'dirty'." Lotz said. "Some people say you're dirty, but they don't mean being on the take. They mean you're a tricky bastard. The same goes for Les Craig, but he's got unlimited ambition behind his actions. You, you just like to fuck with people while you're snaring them in your traps."