Woody
I waited in the video game store for at least 15 minutes. I was hiding in one of the rows, looking out the window trying to see if the guy was still waiting for me. I noticed that the store manager was now watching me. Again, a young black man like me in this neighborhood, does make some people nervous. I took one last look out the window, I didn’t see the man that had been following me. I saw the manager eyeing me as I walked to the door. I looked up and down the street as I walked out, relieved no one was following me. I began to walk quickly, not wanting to run to draw any more attention to myself. It was just beginning to get dark, so I increased my speed just as I walked past the last store in the strip mall.
Before I knew what was happening, someone grabbed my arm and pulled me behind the building. The bag with my bread went flying as I was whipped around. I heard a raspy voice say, “where do you think you’re going little man?”
My old neighborhood street instincts kicked in, I grabbed the first thing I saw, an empty milk crate. I wildly swung it, I felt it connect with someone or something. I spun around to be standing face to face with the man that had followed me earlier today and days before in the grocery store. The milk crate must have hit him, I saw run blood running from his forehead and nose. Before I could move out of the way, I saw his fist coming straight for my face. I fell back against a wall as the pain set in and the blood began to flow from my nose. The man said, “I’ll teach you a lesson for hitting me.” I felt the air rush out of my lungs as his fist caught me in the gut and I doubled over. I felt my arms being grabbed by two more men and they held me up as my face caught another fist. Another gut punch and I was fighting for air. The two men pulled me back to my feet, as my assailant grabbed me by the throat. He growled, “no need to fight back you little runt, we just need you to get a message to your boss.”
Once again, my street instincts kicked in and I spit the blood that had accumulated in my mouth, right into his face, I spit out, “fuck you.”
This probably wasn’t my smartest move as I soon had another fist connect with my face. The two men holding me then threw me to the ground and all three men then began to kick me in the ribs and head. I have no idea how many times I was kicked, and I was fighting for air. I felt another kick connect and I heard someone yell, “that’s enough, get him to his feet.”
I was dragged to my feet, and held up, not able to stand on my own. A man came walking out of the shadows and stepped in front me. He wrapped his hand around my throat and said, “you tell Winslow that he screwed up when he messed with my family. He was supposed to die in that car crash too. Tell him that I am coming after him just as soon as the fucking cops let down their guard. The best part is, he will never see it coming.”
He let out the most evil laugh as he waved his head at me and started to walk away. I took another hit to face as the two men dropped me to the ground. They all got in one more kick as they started to walk away. The man that had followed me kicked my head again and spit on me. I gasped for air, and everything went dark.
Harley
I felt so helpless, I just knew something bad had happened to Woody. God, what was taking Todd and Heather so long to get here? I paced the floor until I heard the front door open. I yelled, “Woody? Is that you?”
Todd said, “no Harley, it’s me and Heather.”
Heather asked, “has he called yet?”
I sighed, “no.”
Todd said, “relax Harley, tell me what happened.”
I said, “Woody left here at about 4:30 to go the strip mall for a loaf of bread. Shit Todd, it’s after 7 now, he won’t answer his phone. I just know something bad has happened.”
He said, “calm down, I’m sure nothing bad has happened. Heather will stay with you, I’ll drive down to the mall and see if I can find him. I’ll be right back.”
Heather said, “come on Harley, just sit and relax, Todd will be right back, and I know he’ll find Woody. I’m sure everything is fine.”
I couldn’t relax, my mind was racing with a million scenarios, and none of them were good. I stood to pace again, much to the chagrin of Heather. About 20 minutes later, I heard the front door open and again, I yelled, “Woody, is that you?”
Todd said, “no, it’s me Harley, I didn’t see him anywhere. I stopped at the market, and they said Woody was there and he bought his bread and left at about 4:40.”
I said, “we have to call the cops then.”
Todd said, “Harley, maybe Woody just left. I should probably tell you that he doesn’t have the most stable background. Maybe he met up with one of his old friends and went back to his old neighborhood.”
I shook my head, “no, he would have never done that. He wouldn’t leave without telling me. You need to call the cops, right now.”
Todd sighed, “but Harley…”
Heather interrupted, “call the police Todd, we need to report this. If Woody did go back to his old neighborhood, I am sure they will find him. Then at least we will know he is safe.”
Todd said, “fine, I have a buddy on the department, I’ll give him a call.”
I heard Todd sigh, he said, “it went to voice mail.” Then he said, “hey, it’s Todd. Woody went missing, can you give me a call as soon as you get this message.”
He ended the call and said, “I’ll leave a message at the station too.” After a minute, he said, “yes, is detective Harrison there?” After he listened to the response, he said, “will you please have him call Todd Anderson, yes he has my number, tell him Woody, um… Cyrus Woodson is missing, and I need his help finding him.”
Todd ended the call and said, “all we can do is wait for him to get back to me.”
I stood in protest, and yelled, “the hell it is, we need to go look for him. Why didn’t you ask for another detective? Jesus Christ Todd, we’re wasting time, we have to find Woody.”
Heather put her hand on my shoulder, she said, “calm down Harley, I’m sure Woody will be walking through that door any minute now.”
I pulled my shoulder away, “and what if he doesn’t? Why aren’t you helping me? Why don’t you care?”
Todd said, “we do care, but you have to understand that Woody ran with a rough crowd before he moved in. I still think he ran into one of them and went back to his old neighborhood.”
I exhaled, “why do you keep bringing that up? I have gotten to know him much better than you. Woody would never do that without telling me. He told me that all he ever wanted to do was get away from his old life.”
Todd sighed, “I’m sure the police will call me back very soon, please just be patient.”
Heather said, “he’s right Harley, we need to wait for the police.”
I shook my head and ran my hands through my hair in frustration. Before I could reply, the doorbell rang.
Todd said, “I’ll get it.” Heather grabbed my hand as I heard Todd walk toward the front door. I heard Todd and another voice exchange greetings and then them walking back into the room.
Todd said, “this is detective Harrison, Jack, this is my wife Heather and my brother-in-law Harley.”
I said, “yeah, yeah, we can be friends later, Woody is missing, we need to find him.”
Jack said, “we have already found him. That’s why I missed your call, I was at the scene behind the strip mall. I came right here as soon as they had him loaded in the ambulance. He is on the way to the hospital as we speak.”
My heart sank, I said, “the hospital? Is he alright? What happened to him?” I didn’t wait for anyone to respond, I took Heather’s hand, dragging her to the front door. I said, “come on, we need to get to the hospital right now.”
Todd said, “slow down Harley. Jack, what happened?”
Jack said, “an employee at one of the stores in the strip mall took out the trash after he closed his store. He saw Woody lying by the dumpster and called us. Woody was beaten up very badly.”
I threw my hands up, “Jesus Christ, why are we still standing here, we need to get to the hospital right now.”
Jack said, “Todd, there is one more thing, we think it was Murph’s guys.”
I had quit listening to anyone after I heard that Woody was beaten up, I just knew I had to go be with him. I pulled on Heather’s hand again and said, “I’m going to drive there myself if we don’t leave right now, let’s go.”
Heather said, “Todd, we need to get to the hospital, please let’s go.” I sighed, finally someone was making some sense.
Jack said, “you can follow me.”
We rushed out to Todd’s car and were soon on our way, I was fidgeting in the back seat the entire trip. Todd let me and Heather out at the main entrance of the hospital and left to park the car. We went to the reception counter, I asked, “where is Woody, is he alright?”
The lady asked, “I’m sorry, who are you looking for?”
I took a deep breath, “I’m looking for Woody… um I mean Cyrus Woodson, he was brought in by ambulance, can you tell me where he is?”
I heard her typing on a keyboard, she said, “Mr. Woodson is still in the emergency room, they are treating him as we speak. If you will have a seat in the waiting room, I’m sure someone will be out to update you as soon as possible.”
I asked, “but is he alright?”
She said, “I have no update on his condition, please have a seat and we will update you as soon as we can.”
Heather said, “thank you.” She took my arm, “come on Harley, let’s find a place to sit down.”
I reluctantly sat down and sighed, feeling helpless. I said, “I should be with him right now. He doesn’t have anyone, he needs me.”
Heather said, “I’m sure the doctors are doing everything they can for him.”
I shook my head, “why would anyone want to beat Woody up? He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
Heather squeezed my hand, “Harley, you know that Woody had kind of a rough life before he came to live with you, maybe someone found him and…”
I interrupted her, “why do you keep bringing up his past, Woody may not have been an angel, but he doesn’t deserve to be beaten.”
Heather paused, she asked, “is there something going on with you and Woody?”
I asked, “what? What are you talking about?”
She said, "It’s just that I have never seen you act like this before. The only time I saw you like this is when you were with Sam.”
I stuttered, “well, I just… I mean…”
Heather said, “relax Harley, if you and Woody are starting to have feelings for each other, it’s ok. He is a great guy, and he is one of the few people who can hold his own with your… um… strong personality.”
I sighed, “I don’t know what’s going yet, we were just starting to figure it out.”
Before we could talk about it further, Todd and Jack walked in.
Todd asked, “any news?”
Heather said, “no, they just told us he was in the ER, they are still working on him. The receptionist said that someone would update us as soon as they could.”
Jack said, “I’m going to want to talk to Woody as soon as he is ready, I’ll wait with you. I’ll go get us some coffee, we may be here for a while.”
Todd said, “thanks Jack.”
We sat in silence for five minutes, my mind replaying the events of the last several hours. Why didn’t I watch the time closer? Maybe they could have found Woody sooner if I had noticed how long he had been gone. God, why did I want to have spaghetti tonight? If I had picked something else, Woody wouldn’t have gone out for bread. This was all my fault. As all these thoughts were racing through my mind, something else struck me.
I asked Todd, “did you say that cop’s name is Jack Harrison?”
Todd said, “yeah, why?”
I said, “the same Jack Harrison that investigated my accident?”
He said, "yeah, I guess so.”
I asked, “why did you call him first, and not just call the police station and ask for any detective?”
He said, “I had his number in my phone, we talked a lot while he looked into your accident. I thought it might be faster to talk to him directly.”
I pondered his answer for a few minutes, then said, “and, did he say he thought it might be Murph’s guys that did this to Woody?”
Todd took a deep breath, “I guess he might have said that.”
I asked, “Murph, as in Phillip Murphy?”
Todd said, “yes.”
Heather asked, “who’s Phillip Murphy? What’s going on?”
I said, “Phillip Murphy is a “businessman” that is always being investigated for loan sharking, drug running and he may even have his hand in a prostitution ring. I just sent his little brother, Paul, to prison, it was the last case I had before the accident.”
She asked, “your first case as a lead?”
I nodded, “yep.”
She asked Todd, “did you know about all of this?”
Todd sighed, “yes, but Jack thought it would be best to not worry Harley. He had been through enough. Jack said we would tell Harley as soon as…”
Jack had just returned, “I said what?”
Todd said, “Harley is starting to put the pieces together Jack, I think you should fill him in on the details.”
I said with my best snarky voice, “yeah Jack, why don’t you fill me in.”
Jach sighed as he sat down and handled us all a cup of coffee. He said, “we assumed your accident was a result of a drunk driver until we learned the identity of the other driver. We had a file on him, he worked for Murphy. When the coroner told us that there were no traces of alcohol in his system we started to do a little checking. One of our informants told us that Murphy wanted you hurt, or worse. The guy that hit you had somehow pissed Murphy off, so he made him drive the car. The guy thought he was just going to cause the wreck to send you a message. Well, Murphy had the car’s brakes tampered with, as well as the accelerator. Murphy really wanted you dead and assumed you would be the passenger since you were in Sam’s car.”
I was trying to take in all this new information, I said, “Sam had hurt his shoulder the week before when we went golfing, he asked me to drive that night.”
Heather said, “wait, are you saying that Harley is still in danger?”
Jack said, “I’m afraid so. We rented the house across the street from Harley and have officers there watching Harley’s house 24 hours a day. Whenever Harley leaves the house, we always follow him to make sure he’s safe. We are still working on a case against Murphy, his brother being convicted was a good first step, but Phillip is very careful to keep his hands clean. He always makes sure one of his thugs takes the fall. When Harley put Paul away, he really poked the bear.”
I asked, “so why did they go after Woody, he wasn’t involved in any of this.”
Jack said, “we still don’t know, the only thing I can think of is that Murphy or his goons saw you with Woody. Maybe they are trying to get at you through him.”
I asked, “why didn’t your guys trail Woody today?”
He said, “we didn’t think he was in danger, we were more worried about you.”
Heather asked, “why didn’t you take Harley to a safe house or whatever you call it until you had this Murphy guy off the street?”
Todd laughed, “Heather, do you seriously think your bull-headed brother would have let them hide him?”
She sighed, “probably not, but you really should have told us what was going on.”
Jack said, “you’re probably right Heather, but the fewer people that know about our case, the less chance there is for word to get back to Murphy. We never anticipated them hurting Woody, they just talked to all the others.”
Just as I was going to ask what he meant by talked to the others, a man in bloody scrubs walked in and asked, “are you here for Mr. Woodson?”
I jumped to my feet, “yes, yes we are, how is he, can we see him?”
He said, “we have him stable, but he is still in serious condition. He has a broken arm, and several broken ribs. His nose is also broken, and he has a serious concussion. He is sleeping now, but we have him settled in his room.”
I asked, “can I see him?” I shook my head at me choice of words, “I mean, can I go be with him?”
He asked, “are you family?”
I shook my head and took a deep breath, “no, he doesn’t have any family, I’m his boyfriend.”
I heard Todd mumble, “what?”
Heather said, “shh, I tell you later.”
The doctor said, “he really needs his rest, but you can sit with him, if you promise not to wake him. I’ll have the nurse prepare the other bed so you can spend the night.”
To be Continued…
