Secret Sins: Murder in the Church (8 page)

Restaurant located at the corner of Kingshighway and Delmar Boulevard and it has
the best Asian food in St. Louis. Chow Mein House has a small Plexiglas order window
that is just big enough for the cashier to pass your order through.

There is a large refrigeration unit
visible that stocked full of every flavor of Vess
Soda known to man and as always I always order my favorites, the Vess Whistle Orange
Soda with a half order of Pork Fried Rice, Crib Rangoon and one Egg Roll. The cashier
rings up my order of
$12.46.

The cashier, Sue has been working here for many years and I can’t tell how old
she is,
but Sue was working here when my
Grandmother was a high school student at
Beaumont in the 1970’s.

Sue reads my order back to
me in broken English, “Half order Pork Fried Rice,
one Crib Rangoon and one Egg Roll.”
“Yes,” I say.
I always order the same thing, and the total is always the same, “Your order come to
$12.46.”
I hand Sue three five dollar bills, and she keyed he amount into the register and the
cash drawer opened. With the speed and agility of a professional bank teller, Sue counted
out my exact change, “Two dollar
and
fifty-four
cent
you
change.”
Sue
tears off my
receipt and gives me one part and she keeps the other as she yells my order in Mandarin
to the male cook in the kitchen and he yells something back to her. Sue tells me, “Your
number three-o-two and will be twenty minute.”
A slightly bald man in his fifties, wearing khaki pants and a St. Louis Cardinal’s TShirt with construction
boots is leaning against the wall marketing a lottery play slip. A
young man in his twenties wearing black sagging jeans and an oversized T-shirt walks over
to him
and comments, “I don’t know why you’re wasting your time on that crap because
know body ever wins from this neighborhood.”
A young woman walks over pushing a baby stroller
with a
newborn baby
inside
and holding the hand of a two year boy, dives into the conversation like an Olympic
Swimmer
drives from a board, “Better save it for the boat.” Everyone laughs and the
woman asks the man with the Lottery Play Slip, “What’s the jackpot up to?”
The man pauses and answers, “It’s back down to twenty million.”
The young man asks, “You mean someone had the ticket last Saturday Night.”
“Yeah,” says the man as he continues marking play slips.
The young man in the sagging black jeans remarks, “It wasn’t me!”
“Me
either,”
yells Sue from behind the
Plexiglas window.
The young man in the sagging pants turns to Sue and asks, “You play the lottery?”
Sue snaps at him, “You think I want do this the rest my life? I want live on easy
street just like you!”
The entire restaurant burst in laughter as a middle aged Asian man walks over to Sue
and says something to her in Mandarin Chinese and sits a bag
on
the
counter,
then
walks away. Sue yells, “Three-o-Two!”
After all that I almost forgot my number and had to check my ticket, “Oh. That’s
me.” I pick up my bags and exit the restaurant until my next visit.
Arriving home and taking a shower, Denisha is sitting alone on the floor surrounded by
pillows, and with open container of Pork Fried Rice, and a little bag of Crab Rangoon.
She has a notebook computer sitting on her lap. She reaches into her bra and takes
out the Data Storage device and inserts the data storage device into the port while taking
a bite of an egg roll. She brings up the files.
The first file has a picture at the beginning of
the files, and personal information, shows the file
juvenile dating back
to eighteen years
prior. He was sixteen, and the file indicates he
was a member of the street gang, the Disciples. The police reports on the night of April
11, 1997 the police pulled Shawn over for speeding, but a search of the vehicle all three
occupants, all male to be carrying crack

Even though Shawn Graves had drugs on him, all charges were later dropped. But I
was surprised to learn that the original arresting officer was Captain Cornelius West. I was
suddenly startled when the doorbell rang. It seems especially loud and it sounded like it
tolled from a bell tower rather than the door.

The clock on the mantle chimes eleven times as Denisha gets up off the floor and
looks at the clock, “Who on earth would come visit anyone this time of the night?”
The doorbell rings again, and she yells, “Coming!”
As she walks toward the door a male voice yells, “Open up or I will break it down!”
Denisha quickly turns around and returns to the living room floor and knells down in
front of the computer and begins to quickly type. She came hears the sound of someone
ramming at her door, “BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”
Denisha quickly turns her head in
the direction of the front door before returning
her gaze at the computer screen. She quickly types in Virginia Breeze’s NSA email address
and sends all the files from the Data Storage Device as an attachment. She hits the return
key on the keyboard and waits what seems like an eternity before a message is displayed
and a voice automated responder says, “Your mail has been sent to Virginia Breeze.”
She quickly pulls out the small storage device as she hears a loud crush of her front
door. She clinches the device in her fist, and she runs through the house and to the back
door. She bursts out the back door and takes off like a sprinter toward the back parking
lot. Denisha pulls her keys from her pocket and jumps into her Jeep, and she sees two
men run from her apartment, one is her boss Tom Johnson and the other was a man she
recognized from one of the pictures from the Data Storage Device, “Holy crap! He’s
supposed to be dead!” Tom and the man looked around the parking lot and saw Denisha
sitting in the Jeep, and they come to a dead stop.
Denisha inserts the key into the ignition, and she mumbles to herself, “I wonder why
they stopped?” She continues staring at the men and Tom looks at her and does a four
fingered wave and a fierce angry grin as she turns the key in the ignition. She hears a loud
click and a pop, and she cries out, “Christ Jesus,” and the Jeep explodes.
The
Man
with
Tom
Johnson
only
response as they walk away, “He’s not here
tonight.” People gather and sworn like bees trying to get a look at the burning car.

“This is Dr. Benjamin Hussein and I have before me the body of Miss. Jean
Newton, and a full autopsy will be completed to determine the cause
of death,”
he
speaks into the
hanging microphone and camera. The camera show a full body shot of
the nude body of Jean Newton. Dr. Hussein is interrupted by
the
ringing
of his
iPhone. He speaks into the microphone, “Camera off,’ and the television screen fades to
black in an instant.

He walks
over
to a contaminated waste
bin and
pulls
off
his
latex
gloves
and
surgical gown and discards
them. Dr. Hussein pulls his iPhone from his belt clip and
looks at the Caller ID and takes a deep breath and sighs, “Dr. Hussein.”

A female voice with a thick Harvard Accent comes onto the line, “Hello. This is Dr.
Dana Khan.”
Dr. Hussein walks into his office and sits down and takes out a blank notepad and
pen, “Nice of you to call and congratulations on the Nobel Prize in Botany.”
“Thank you so much, but the reason for my call is I was contacted by a colleague
of yours and
mind, Dr. Bhat and
I was hoping to
speak with him, but I have been
unsuccessful with contacting his exchange.”
Dr. Hussein is doodling pictures of trains on the yellow pad, “I hate to be the one
to inform you, but Dr. Bhat is dead.”
Dr. Khan is taken aback, “That’s unbelievable. What happened?”
As he continues doodling trains with greater detail he draws wings on the train, “Yes
it is. He was murdered.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she tells Dr. Hussein.
In an attempt to shift
the conversation, Dr. Hussein asks, “Have you made any
progress with the poison?”
“Yes I have. Since I will be in St. Louis Speaking at
Washington University I thought
we could schedule a time to meet so I could go over the results with you,” she tells him.
Dr.
Hussein
immediately
stops
doodling
and puts
the
pen
in
his
pocket, “That
would be excellent, but for now what did you come up with?”
“The plant is native to the Amazon region,” she said.
He pulls the pen out of his pocket and asks, “Can it be grown anywhere?”
“Only in a controlled environment and an experienced botanist,” she informs him.
Dr. Hussein’s call waiting beeped and there is a momentary silence on the line as Dr.
Hussein looks at the screen of his iPhone. The name reads, XRX-XXX-XXXQ. Dr. Khan is
still on the line, “Are you there?”
He answers, “Yes. Sorry.”
She comments, “I was afraid the call dropped. You know how inflight calls can be?”
He is surprised, “Inflight? Where are you?” “On a flight from France and I will be
landing in Los Angeles in two hours and I should
be in St. Louis early tomorrow morning,” said Dr. Khan.
Dr. Hussein thinks hard squints his eyes, “I wonder why it didn’t turn up in the U.S.
Government’s Poison Center Information database?”
Dr. Khan’s voice begins fading in and out, “It’s not something currently used and
it’s not widely known. It is very difficult to extract.”
“That explains a lot.” he tells her.
“No one has seen this plant since 1938 and they thought it to be extinct,” said Dr.
Khan.
“Listen. Dr. Khan. This is evidence in a homicide investigation and if you can keep
a lid on it. I’ll see about getting you some samples.”
With a sense of urgency in her voice, “There
is something you need to know…Whatever you do. Do not,” the iPhone goes completely
dead.
Dr. Hussein looks at his iPhone and realizes that he forgot to recharge it the day
before, “That’s just great!”

Captain
West
and Police
Chief
Darnell Logan’s squalling tires announced their
arrival on the scene of the back parking lot of Denishia’s Loft Apartment. They both
come to a complete stop in back of my car. The Fire Department, Bomb
Squad

and
ATF are
among
the
first responders on the scene of the car bombing.
NSA Agent, Christian Kane arrived on the scene ten minutes
after
the
influx
of
neighborhood spectators.

Chief Logan leaps himself in the direction of Danishes’s still smoldering car. Like a
strong gust of wind Captain West and
several
officers take hold of the powerfully built
man. Chief Logan has a strong and rock-hard face with very prominent beaten down brow
and bald head. Chief Logan is a man of action and at the moment he is all too ready for
an all-out dogfight. He calls out to his daughter, Denishia! Denishia!

Captain West released his grip on Chief Logan, “You can help Denishia more by
letting them do their job!”
Christian and I walked over to Chief Logan
and at once Chief Logan lunged at Christian and
clutched his throat, “This is your fault! My daughter should have never been involved with
your NSA crap!”
Captain West forces Chief Logan to release his chokehold on Christian Kane, “The
order trickled down from a higher authority than me!”
During
the
commotion
no
one
noticed
that the firefighters
had stopped hosing
down the car. I stepped closer to look through the charred window, but all I could see
was the faint shadow of the driver. No one saw Commissioner Horton when he arrived
and before I knew anything he was standing next to me. He only needed a split second
look and he turned to Chief Logan, “Come on let’s get out of her.”
Chief Logan yelled, “I’m not leaving my daughter!”
“This
is
not
a
request,
but
an order.
Detective Breeze has got this covered. Let’s get
out of here,” ordered Commissioner Horton.
The
Bomb Squad carefully, check out the
burnt out car before giving the all clear to open signal to the Fire Chief. The crowd of
people and reporters gather in the street, but the police manage to push everyone back.
“Attention! All citizens! For your safety! Please return to your homes!”
The news agencies expected us to allow them to stay, but they were forced further
away by the crowd of people, so they decided to call in the big guns. The television news
station immediately sent in a chopper to fly overhead. “They are going to be a problem and
I’m going to get rid of this problem,” I told Christian.
I unclipped my iPhone from my belt and hit
speed dial #1 and immediately a male came onto the line and I said, “I need a favor.”
A lot sound is heard from a distance and everyone look up and sees an fully armed
Boeing AH-64 Apache quickly approaching the News Chopper. Captain West looks up and
sees the Apache, then walks over to me and Christian and say, “Who in the hell sent for
the United States Air Force?”
“We don’t need photographs of Denishia’s body turning up on worldwide news.”
Captain West watch’s as all the reporters and Satellite News Trucks immediately pack
up and leave
The pilot of the Apache asks on his loud speakers to the pilot of the News Chopper,
“State your intentions!” The News Chopper pilot saw the Apache and left the crime scene
air space without haste, and my iPhone rings and one look at the Caller-ID and I knew
who it was. The pilot of the Apache asks, “Should I chase them?”
I looked at Captain West and ask, “The pilot wants to know if you want
to chase
the News Chopper?”
Captain West looks at me crazy and responds, “Is he crazy?”
I smile and tell the pilot, “No. Thanks for the help.”
“Anytime,” responded the Apache as he flew off in another direction.
The Fire Chief walks over and tells me, “We’ll have the vehicle open shortly.”
I tell him, “Fine, just let me know.”
Captain West suggests, “We need to look inside her Loft while things are still fresh.”
It didn’t take long for the Fire Department to pry the door of the car open and
the Crime Scene Investigators and the Bomb Squad Team moved in to collecting evidence.
Captain West and I were walking up the back flight
of
stairs
when
one
of
the
Investigator calls out to me, “Detective Breeze you need to take a look at this!”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I said to Captain West.
“No problem,” he said noncommittally.
I walked over to the Denishia’s car and stooped down on the driver’s side to take a
look. If I had worn glasses this would have been the point when I would have pulled
them off and begin to nervously chewing one of the earpieces, but instead I held on to
my
iPhone and gently tipped it on my chin. Christian walks over and stands behind me,
“She’s has something clinched in her fist.”
Medical Examiner, Dr. Hussein arrives and walks up and stands next to Christian.
I stand up, “Yes, but what?”
Dr. Hussein replies, “Give me a few minutes and I will have an answer.”