His closure rate seemed to diminish in direct proportion to his failing health, not because he lacked the stamina he once had as some might argue, though he was painfully aware that he did indeed lack the vigor of his youth, but because of obstacles he now had to hurdle to bring the guilty to justice. Nowadays, witnesses were hard to come by. A thug strapped with a MAC-11 can open fire on a crowded street or sporting event or concert hall, and no one sees a thing. If the perpetrators fail to intimidate witnesses, then murder definitely does the trick.
Cases that shocked and outraged the public humiliated the mayor and his “law and order” administration, and the pressure to quickly rectify each situation was passed on to the chief of police. Shit rolls down hill, and this time around Mayfield was at the bottom of the heap. With a caseload of thirty-seven murders for the year, more than half of them unsolved, John Mayfield was under a lot of pressure. As his boss Captain Lynch had put it, “Work better and faster if you want to keep your job!”
Yeah, the good old days of being a superstar homicide detective were definitely long gone as far as Detective Mayfield was concerned. But today would be like the good ol’ days, he mused. Today, he had a rock solid case against the prolific and ever elusive “Teflon Thug,” Isaiah “Ice” Hamilton, the suspect in the double homicide on Chesapeake Street, S.E., not only with strong physical evidence, but with three eyewitnesses: urban pioneer Terri Daulby; pillar of the community Ruthann Sommers; and Whiz Kid Rodney Grimes, some kind of nerdy genius who had risen above the social forces that seemed to conspire to keep black men down by turning them into Ice Hamiltons to become well-educated and gainfully employed. Each of them, separately, had picked Ice out a nine-mugshot black-and-white photo array — black-and-white instead of color so that Hamilton’s cold-as-ice, steely bluish-gray eyes wouldn’t set him apart from the mugshots of thugs of similar age, facial structure, and dark complexion.
The witnesses would stand by in separate waiting areas down the hall in an office just inside the secured, combination-lock doors leading to the lineup room where, one by one, they would see if they could pick out the suspect who had opened fire in broad daylight a couple of days ago on a cool, early September Saturday afternoon while the intended target, Francisco “Big Boy” Longus, was standing in front of 74 °Chesapeake Street, S.E.
Mayfield was driven by a burning desire to see Ice, the cold-blooded perpetrator — alleged perpetrator — of this and other sins before God, put away as soon as possible. But it was also important to him that by closing this case he got off his back the government officials, police brass, and community leaders who were all whipped into fever pitch by an outraged public.
Yes, closing this case swiftly had gotten him out from under not only the victims’ family — he had notified Aaliyah’s mother by phone as soon as the arrest warrant was issued — but from the good captain as well.
Detective Mayfield had arrived at the soot-stained, weather-beaten, and dilapidated municipal center, the Henry J. Daly Building, located at 300 Indiana Avenue, N.W., at around 7:45 a.m. for check-in at the Court Liaison Unit on the first floor, a prerequisite before he could log in at D.C. Superior Court across the courtyard for the long and ongoing “Simple City Massacre” murder trial at which he would testify against codefendants LaVon “Pooty” Kirkwood and Donzelle “Killa” Hilliard… whenever the prosecution got around to him.
After he had checked in to court and was placed on standby, to be paged shortly before they needed him on the witness stand, he’d returned to MPD HQ for his 10:00 a.m. appointment in the lineup room. He was anxious. Finally bringing down Isaiah “Ice” Hamilton had him wired.
Handcuffed and shackled, and escorted by two officers assigned to the Central Cell Block (CCB), the very dark-complexioned Isaiah “Ice” Hamilton, six feet four inches tall and lean but muscular, clad in the standard thug uniform of laceless sneakers, baggy low-riding jeans, and oversized T-shirt, stepped from the private express elevator that ran between the CCB in the basement and the prisoner holding area adjacent to the CID lineup room. Detective Mayfield, Detective Crawford of the Lineup Unit, and five plainclothes officers of similar build, age, and skin color, selected to participate in the lineup, were already there when Ice and his escorts arrived.
Ice Hamilton had been picked up at about 4:00 a.m. that morning, operating the suspect vehicle described by the three witnesses, a black late-model Ford Crown Vic, and bearing the tag number Ruthann Sommers had jotted down just before the shooter sped from the scene. Remarkable also was that the car had not been reported stolen, which was typically the case for vehicles used in the commission of felony offenses. Ice was pulled over by two Seventh District officers when they spotted him driving the wanted vehicle on Barnaby Street, S.E., a couple of blocks away from the scene of the crime. Luckily, Ice Hamilton had not been able to produce his license, so he was placed under arrest and his vehicle was impounded. As instructed, the arresting officers made no mention of the car being the suspect vehicle in a murder case.
When he got the news, Detective Mayfield had been amazed that the cunning and elusive Teflon Thug had made such a magnificent blunder, and he was still astounded by this development, but rationalized that perhaps Ice wasn’t as smart as he had given him credit for. Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time. Incredibly, pursuant to a D.C. Superior Court warrant issued posthaste through Mayfield’s connections and served within ninety minutes of Ice being taken into custody, the search of the trunk of the Crown Vic had yielded a MAC-11 and two fully loaded magazines, clothes matching the description of that worn by the assailant, and black cotton work gloves of the type the witnesses said the shooter had worn. Furthermore, ballistics tests conducted by the Firearms Examination Section — also conducted posthaste within two hours of the arrest via Detective Mayfield’s connections — had identified the MAC-11 as the weapon in the Chesapeake Street double murder, as well as tentatively linked it to a half dozen other shootings and seven other murders committed in D.C. over the last nine months. The discovery of the weapon and the ammo led to additional holding charges of possession of a prohibited weapon and possession of unregistered ammunition.
By the time Detective Mayfield interviewed Ice briefly in the Seventh District Detectives Office, the latter was only aware that he was being charged with failure to display his operator’s permit, and possession of a prohibited weapon and unregistered ammo. Mayfield nonchalantly inquired as to (1) Ice’s whereabouts on the afternoon of the previous Saturday, and (2) how he had come to be in the possession of the Crown Vic.
Ice’s answers were simple: “Hangin’ wid my boyz” to the first question, “Borrowed it from my boy” to the second. Ice didn’t even bother to ask the detective why he wanted to know. When questioned if he knew that the man he’d borrowed the car from, Carter Washington, was wanted on an arrest warrant charging him with murder, and if he knew Washington’s whereabouts, Ice replied, “Naw, I didn’t know he was wanted. I don’t know where that nigger at.”
At any rate, John Mayfield was certain that he had built a rock solid case against Ice Hamilton for the Chesapeake Street murders. The physical evidence and the statements of the three witnesses who had separately picked him out of a photo array was more than enough for him to obtain an arrest warrant and a lineup order.
Stifling a laugh, Mayfield smiled at Ice, who responded with a smirk.
“Ice,” said Mayfield.
Ice nodded. “Detective.”
“Been behaving yourself?” the detective asked.