Secret Sins: Murder in the Church (11 page)

Captain West is a talented and determined man, and his chief mission in life is to make
police work honorable and respectable. With the loss of his families breadwinner early in
life
made
for
a
difficult
childhood.
His
paternal
grandmother
raised
him
and
she
emphasized
education
and hard
work.
After
high
school,
his
worked
full-time
as
a
gravedigger, and attended the
local community college at night. After college, he took the
exam for admittance into the St. Louis Police Academy,
and
despite
the
naysayer’s
he
received the highest score, and was accepted. He became a police officer in 1976, and the
first lesson he learned, and he had to learn the hard way, “A Devil is a Devil.”

Virginia reads over email files, as she places them carefully in a folder, out of the
corner of her eye she sees Tom Johnson constantly walking past her
minutes. Pretending
not to notice Tom, she packs her printed pages
walks to Captain West’s office.

Captain
West snaps
out of his momentary mental sabbatical with a knock on
his
door, “Come in.”
“Got a
few
minutes?”
asks
Virginia
as
she walks in and glances behind her, and
notices Tom just outside Captain West’s office looking at a clipboard.
Commander West takes a glimpse at Tom in the hall as Virginia closes the door,
“Yeah, I needed to speak to you anyway…have seat.”
Virginia sits in the chair next to his desk, “What’s going on?”
cubical every few
into a folder and
“I have been on the phone all
morning, and guess who with?” Captain West was
attempting to make every effort to be civil, and Virginia answered, “I have no idea.”
“Genevieve Carney at Evergreen Springs and his so called daughter and they were upset
because some Government Officials ramrodded their way in and took Allen Thompson,”
exclaimed Captain West as he open the bottom drawer of his desk and ran his hand down the
drawer in search of a something and he pulls out brand new bottle of Scotch and a glass and
asked Virginia, “You know anything about it?”
Virginia looked strangely at him and the bottle of Scotch. She looks at the faded and
unbroken yellow label and asked, “You still on duty?”
Captain West looks at the bottle, “This was a Christmas gift from fifteen years ago, and
I’ve been saving this for that one case that going to drive me to drinking.”
“I was there this morning to ask him a few
questions and that was all,” Virginia replied.
Now whether or not Captain West knew she
was telling a lie or he believed her explanation,
Captain West never let on one way or another.
Almost in a whisper, Captain West frowns and leans in closer, “I received an email
from Denishia the night of the explosion, and I need some information regarding a case
you worked years ago,” said Virginia.
He leans back in
his seat and scratches his goatee with his thumb, “Watch case?
No…let me guess, “Shawn Graves and Eric Campbell?”
Before she could say a word, there is a knock on the door, an all too familiar voice,
Tom’s, “Tech Services-I need to run diagnostics tests on your computer!”
A whisk of silence, Virginia leans in closer to Captain West, and he bends forward
with his elbows on the desk, “What’s going on?”
“I’m having problems shaking him…he’s been shadowing me since the explosion,”
as Virginia scoots to the edge of her chair and bended toward Captain West.
The door opens and Tom enters, “I need to do some quick diagnostics on your
computer,” as Tom walks to Captain West’s desk.
“Ah! That‘s it?”
asked Captain West as he opens his lower desk drawer replaces the
bottle of Scotch and the glass and takes out a file, then takes out his keys and locks the
desk.
In
an
attempt
to
make
a
quick
excuse, “There have been some changes in the
Software…” responds Tom, but Captain West cut him off mid-sentence.
“Yeah, I don’t doubt that,” in a nasty crack to send Tom a message.
“Never ending changes.” comments Tom. Captain
West
looks
at
Virginia,
“Notwithstanding any other problems…we‘re leaving.”
As they walk down the corridor toward the
door, “I get the feeling he’s dirty,” said Virginia.
“Damn that
Tom, I don’t know
whose
pulling is strings, but when I do I’m going to ring some necks,” snapped
Captain West.
Suddenly Tom bolts past them in a mad dash, and out the door.

Lisa West and Cornelius West have been married for almost thirty-years. They
met
freshmen year at Sumner High School, and Cornelius had a big Afro, elevated shoes and
brown and orange bellbottoms pants, and her police officer father did not like him at first.
Nevertheless, when he realized how smart and ambitious Cornelius was he took him under
his wing, and helped pull some strings to help get him into the police academy.

Lisa is in the
kitchen watching
television, and at precisely twelve o’clock in
the
afternoon, during the hottest day of the year, the Meteorologist, Gail Danovan on television
said, “The current temperature is one hundred and one degrees with a heat index of one
hundred and twelve.”

Lisa not the best,
but she is not the worst either, but she flipped the channel to
one of the cooking channels, and she has assembled everything she needs to make Paula
Dean’s recipe for Chicken Kabob’s and Green Onions for dinner.

The kitchen door opens,
and Captain West walks in with Virginia following close
behind. He walks over and has a look at what is cooking on the grill, “That smells good,
we smelled in the driveway,” said Cornelius as he gives her a kiss.

“I hope he’s not working you too hard-” said Lisa with a delightful smile as she slides a
piece of chicken and a tomato onto the scourer.
“No more than usual, “responded Virginia.
Cornelius comes up behind her a takes a piece of the chicken from the simmering
skillet and sticks the hot chicken into his mouth, “Om, good.”
“Be careful it very hot. Lunch is in the refrigerator,” said Lisa.
Cornelius walks over to the refrigerator and take out a plate of sandwiches, “Hon,
we’ll be in my study.”
“No problem,” smiles Lisa as she continues making chicken kabobs
Captain West looks the television screen and waves, “Bye Paula.”
Cornelius enters, bringing a plate sandwiches and cheese, and some strawberries and
two bottles of water. “I thought about grabbing the bottle of Cola,
but-” looking at the
open file folder, he looks at a
mug shots of Shawn Graves, III and Eric Campbell, “Second thought, I should have
grabbed the Scotch,” said Cornelius.
“That’s the file Denisha sent before the explosion,” said Virginia.
“I
suspected
years
ago,
that
something strange
was
going
come
up
someday,”
comments Cornelius as he hands Virginia the file from his desk.
As she reads the file, Cornelius removes the plastic wrap from the plate of sandwiches
and he
takes a big bite, “There was something strange about that entire case, I remember
it as though it were yesterday,” he tells Virginia. “It was
my first night on the job, and they used to call us rookies in those days and there
were two cops per vehicle. At that time, all rookies started
on
the
night
shift,
the
night
was
quiet,
and for St. Louis, a quiet
night was a
blessing,” he continued, “My partner, Burt Nelson and I were
returning from a call on 603 Evans-just a routine domestic disturbance, we picked up the
guy and drive him ten or so blocks away, then we put him out-just to give him
time to
cool off, that’s off.”
“You should have hauled him in and booked him,” comment Virginia.
“In those days we weren’t allow to interfere between a man and his wife,” said Captain
West.
“I see,” replied Virginia.
Captain West continues telling his story, “Burt drove to one of his favorite speed trap
spots to part and hide-even back then we had a ticket quota to make. We’d s there for
almost twenty minutes, and suddenly a supped up Dodge Charger flew by like a bullet,
right past our speed trap, so we gave chase, and when we pulled the driver over, it turned
out to be two teenagers.”
Virginia nodded and said, “Shawn Graves
and Eric Campbell.”
“Yes and when walked up to the car, and as soon as the driver rolled down the
window, the stench of the marijuana hit us smack in the face and Eric Campbell pulls a
.22 and shots Burt in the head,” said Captain West.
Virginia asked, “What happened to Burt?” “Shawn Graves was about to put a cap in me
when his gun jammed and Burt managed to get off one shot at Eric Campbell before he died
at the scene…after I cuffed them and searched the car and I found almost three kilos of
marijuana in a large trash bag in the trunk,” explained Captain
West as he continued, “we able to positively identify them as Eric Campbell, but the real
shocker, was the son of Elder John S. Graves of Spirit Temple Pentecostal Christian Church,
Shawn Graves. The Daddy was well known and respected around the world. Shawn was a
minor, and as much as the authorities tried, it was impossible to keep it off the news and out
of the newspapers. At that time, St. Louis had two newspapers, and if you know St. Louis,
news
of Shawn’s arrest was already all over St. Louis and the television and newspapers made
things worse.”
Captain West thought I knew how the court system worked, but by the time the court
date rolled around, the stories changed. Shawn Graves cut a deal in exchange for a lighter
sentence. By the time, it was over Eric Campbell got life without parole and Shawn Graves
got ten years in prison. He said, “However, little did anyone know the real deal?”
Virginia knew he was referring to the fire at the prison and so called mix-up.
“A few years later, rumors begin going around that Shawn Graves was spotted in
London, England and He’d had been living there since he got out of the hospital.”
Both were hard to identify, but Allen Thompson said he knew by number on the
inmates shirt, and Shawn died in the fire and Eric Campbell was able to switch places with
him without being detected,” he said, but “Every time the Knights of the Black Circle’s name
come up, things have a way of being swept under the rug…remember that.” Captain West
takes a drink from his bottle of water, “that’s what I know and remember about the incident.”
“I think this Eric Campbell issue needs to be settled once and for all,” suggest Virginia.
“Uh ah…and we need to get a court order to have the bodies exhumed and get DNA.”
said Captain West.
“Yeah, that would be the thing, but we may meet with resistance,” said Virginia.
Captain West looked at Virginia with a seriousness she’s never seen before and she
said, “But I don’t think we have that kind of time, but we’ll burn that
bridge when we
get to it.”

Nichelle is in her car gathering her various reference books and spiral notebooks
to take into the church. She gets out of her SUV with her purse on her shoulder
and her left arm loaded down with her materials. The quick blow of the SUV horn
signals and a thud signals the
locking of the doors. She
walks towards the front
door of the church and unlocks the door, the alarms of the church beeps as she
walks over and enters a code to turn off the burglar alarm. A flip of the switch on
the wall lights come on.
Nichelle walks towards up the center isle and she notices someone sitting on the
front pew, and
dark?”
Silence,
as
she
answer, as she gets closer the thought runs through her head perhaps that person is
in deep prayer. As she gets closer, she looks and from the back, the person looks
faintly familiar, she arrives at the front pew, and suddenly drops everything in her
arms on
the
floor, “Daddy!”
She
rushes out the way she came with only her
purse on her arm, and she bumps into Shawn at the door and nearly knocks
him down, but she hits the floor.
While still wearing his black leather driving gloves, he asked, “What’s the matter?”
He helps Nichelle off the floor.
“Daddy’s
in
the
front
pew
of the
church!” cries
Nichelle.
she
calls
out, “Good
morning
and
why are you sitting in the

continues,
and
she
calls out, “Hello!” However,
there
is no
“Deacon Murdock is in the front pew of the church…No way that can be…let’s
go
and
take a look,”
said
Shawn
as he
leads
Nichelle
toward
the entryway of the
church. He looks and sees someone sitting on the pew as Nichelle pulls herself from his
tight gloved grip and runs out the door. Shawn glances back at Nichelle going towards
her
car and while digging in her purse. Shaw runs to the front of the church and stops
dead in his tracks, “This is unbelievable!”

Virginia stoop’s down and looks at Ray Murdock sitting on the pew with a big
grin on his face, then she stands up
to look at him and comments, “Something’s off
here.”
Captain West walks around and examines Ray from various angels in the room, but he
sees
nothing wrong, so he sits down on the steps of the stage. He looks around the
room, then he looks up and sees the camera’s and lights. On the far wall there is
an engineering room with a large window and he sat looking around and said
further, “This place looks more like a stadium concert auditorium than a church.

Virginia
walks up the staircase and stands at
the pulpit and looks directly at Ray Murdock, then it
hits her, “I see it!”

Captain
West
turns around
and looks
at Virginia, then turns and looks back at
Ray Murdock, “What? I don’t see anything.” “Come up here, then have a look,” Virginia
instructed him.

Without a flicker of hesitation, Captain
West gets up and walks up the stairs and
stands next to Virginia, and Virginia asks, “You see it?”
Captain’s West’s eyes widen, and “Oh
yeah!” He walks down the stairs and kneels
down to look up into
Ray’s shining porcelain
like eyes and the
gleaming white teeth. For a moment it looked as though death was staring him in the face,
and he stood up in a cold and unnerving sweat.
Virginia looked at him and asked, “Are you okay?”