Jake Farms moved to a small town in Iowa when his parents abandoned him after he turned eighteen. The only time he traveled was when his contact left him a message that justice needed to be done. His last job, he witnessed a crime in Minneapolis against a certain judge, but he went back home to Iowa instead of reporting what he saw. Now he was falling in love, and he needed to rectify his past before he could justify his future with the love of his life. Travel with them on their journey back to Minneapolis and then to Omaha as they seek justice.
Justice in Omaha
The Jake and Peggy SeriesBy Barbara E. SaefkeTrafford Publishing
Copyright © 2013 Barbara E. Saefke
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4669-7197-4Chapter One
Jake Farms was instructed to make sure a shady judge in Minneapolis was no longer able to let guilty people off and sentence innocent people to jail. Jake's contact said he wanted him stopped from presiding on the rape trial of Senator Ames' son, and didn't care how Jake did it.
Jake devised a plan, and now he was sitting in the living room of Judge Howard Klein pretending he was a college student at the University of Minnesota, and wanted to interview him about the justice system. Then Jake planned on bringing up the trial in hopes to get information from the judge. Jake was uncertain what would happen after that.
Klein, being the arrogant judge that he was, was wondering why it took so long for someone to realize he was a good judge; and only now, after being on the bench for so long, was someone finally realizing it.
* * *
Norman, as he was called, was a hired hit man. His contact was anonymous, and Norman didn't particularly care. He was contacted about a job. He did the job, and was paid. That's all he cared about, the money.
Norman was instructed to injure a shady judge in Minneapolis so he could not return to work. In the past, Norman just did away with them. That way he didn't have to hear them scream, and there was never the possibility of the victim identifying him. For him, it was a business; so he dressed as if he were going to a corporate job, a dark pin-striped suit, white shirt, and a fashionable tie. He even carried a briefcase.
Six blocks away from the judge's home, the cabdriver dropped Norman off, and then he walked the rest of the way. It was dusk, and he noticed the light was on in the den, just as his contact told him it would be. Confident, he rang the doorbell and waited. After several minutes the porch light went on, and a man in his late fifties opened the door.
* * *
"Excuse me, Jake. I'd better answer the door. My wife probably forgot her key again." Klein went into the foyer and opened the door. He never thought to look through the security hole in the door to see who was knocking.
The visitor didn't say anything, but the look on his face had the judge stepping back into the foyer, but it was too late. The bullet grazed his temple and he fell to the floor. Norman quietly shut the door.
Jake saw everything. The gunman apparently was too cocky to realize someone else could be in the house. He stayed where he was, stunned at what happened. He hadn't encountered this Norman person before, but Jake's contact had warned him about Norman several times.
Jake had never seen Norman's work. He would get into town either before or after the killing, never seeing it, being there, experiencing it.
Jake heard a groan and wiped his face with his hand to clear his head, then went to the judge. He thought of helping him into the chair in the foyer, but realized he had to leave. He wiped his prints off everything he thought he touched. Luckily, he'd declined a beverage earlier. Jake saw the phone, picked it up with a cloth napkin and placed the phone on the floor next to the judge's face, then punched in 911 with the napkin covering his finger.
There was so much blood. Jake took his tablet and pen and decided to go out the back door. He knew he should've stayed to give an account of what happened and to identify the shooter, but reality was the last thing that played on his senses. The urge to flee was so strong he could think of little else.
Jake went out the back door and ran to his car down the block.
* * *
Norman was now in the bathroom at the Minneapolis—Saint Paul International Airport. In the locked stall, he opened his briefcase and straddled it across the toilet seat. He pulled his jeans and T-shirt from a vacuum-sealed bag. With his slim frame, the suit he was wearing was easily rolled up, fitting nicely in his briefcase. He took out the gun, wiped it down to erase his fingerprints, and wrapped it in a monogrammed towel from the hotel he stayed in last year: Hilton, Los Angeles. He took out a bag with the same hotel name on it and placed the wrapped gun inside.
Before leaving the stall, he mussed his hair with his hands. With all the hairspray he used to hold it down, he took on the look of a punk rocker. He made sure no one was watching, and before he left the bathroom, he dumped the bag in the trash, then went through security.
So far, the disposal of the gun was fail proof. He could get a gun in the poor neighborhoods of any city he visited. Since he raised his price, he didn't get as many jobs as he once did. He thought at a higher price the jobs would stop, but as long as there weren't as many, he was happy. He didn't drink and hang out at bars, and didn't brag to friends about what he did for a living, so there was no chance of getting caught.
The flight attendant offered him a beverage, but he declined. Now was his time to sleep and forget all about what he did to a crooked judge in Minnesota, to forget the pain on the judge's face, and the way his hands held his head before he fell to the ground.
He knew exactly where to shoot to create damage, and a long recovery once the victim was out of intensive care. The judge was to oversee a trial in two days, but the Honorable Howard Klein would be in ICU for several weeks knocking on death's door, and they would get a judge to replace him. But Norman didn't care. He did his part and was paid handsomely for it.
Norman landed in Chicago, hailed a taxi to the train station, purchased a ticket, and waited an hour before boarding for home. He liked the hustle and bustle of the airport, and if he wanted to get a good cup of coffee, he could. However, he enjoyed not having to go through security, taking off his shoes, and emptying his pockets. There was something invasive about that, he thought. He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. When he arrived home, he was hoping to have a relaxing weekend without traveling.
* * *
The ambulance was racing to Fairview Riverside Hospital as an all-points bulletin aired on CNN. The Honorable Howard Klein was shot in his South Minneapolis home just after dusk this evening. The judge was able to get to the phone and call 911 just before he passed out. Monday morning he was to preside over a long-awaited trial. The courts will decide if they want to continue without him or to wait for the judge's recovery.
The police want people to be on the lookout for a man in his forties, with meticulously styled hair, glasses, and a birthmark on his left temple.
* * *
"Dammit, Ed, with Howard out of commission, we'll lose the case." He poured himself a bourbon. "The senator's kid will be locked up for a long time. I can't think of another judge that would get him off."
"With a jury, there's not much the judge can do anyway," said Ed.
"Howard was prepared to say the prosecution's evidence was inadmissible because it was obtained unlawfully."
"Why do you care about this kid so much? He's slime. He raped a minor and stole money from a safe in the parents' bedroom."
"The senator will be humiliated when his son is found guilty. He's a good man. His son is giving him a bad name."
"I'll ask again. Why do you care?"
Roy just looked at Ed Dawson like he'd said something in a foreign language. He remembered the day the judge came to his home and said he needed help in acquitting the senator's son. Roy didn't want anything to do with it. He and his wife had just talked about the incident and how they both thought it was a tragedy. But now he was offered money to help in the scam, and he couldn't turn it down. If he was ever found out, he knew his wife would leave him. But if she didn't, they would move away and start a new life.
"No reason," he replied. "I wonder how Howard is doing. I'm heading to the hospital. Do you want to come?"
"Hell, no! He's altered other cases before, and I hate to say he deserved what he got, but maybe this is an omen he should seriously consider paying attention to and retire."
* * *
"There's no change. He's still asleep," Mrs. Klein told Roy. "You have to find out who did this," she sobbed.
Roy Jackson didn't know what to do. Whenever he and his wife had been to the judge's house, Mary Klein had been a pillar of strength, never letting her guard down and, never letting on she suspected her husband was a joke to the justice system. Now she sat there wiping her eyes.
"Have you been in to see him?"
"I went in briefly, but I couldn't bear to look at him. He's so pale, and all the tubes hooked up to him, I'd rather sit out here."
Yes, that was Mary. If you didn't dress well and look good, she wouldn't give you the time of day. It even held true for her own husband after he'd been shot. Roy didn't know of a single person who looked good after something so tragic happened. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
She pointed toward Howard's room. "Just find whoever did this."
* * *
"Senator, you don't look well. Is there anything I can do? A glass of water? Something to eat?"
"No." He rubbed the back of his neck. Senator Gerald Ames just wanted to be alone. If he sent his housekeeper home, she would ask more questions. "I'm okay. I just need to get some work done." He got off the couch, turned off the television, and walked to his desk two feet away. "You could fix me a sandwich for later."
"Yes, sir, I'll bring it to you in an hour."
"Perfect. Thank you, Edna."
Edna had worked for him for over twenty years. She knew his son, his ex-wife, and the woman he'd been dating off and on for the past year. Edna knew everything, but one of the things she didn't know was that his son was no angel.
The senator knew the truth, though. Right after the divorce five years ago, Luke started getting into trouble. Now it escalated to rape, and Ames was embarrassed beyond belief. He thought by paying Howard to get Luke off, the community would think he was innocent. It was a case of mistaken identity. But now, his only hope lay in ICU, going in and out of consciousness.
Senator Ames turned on the television and surfed the channels until he found news about the shooting. Not much had changed. The judge was still in critical condition, and there were no leads on the shooter. The decision about the trial was still up in the air, but they had an inclination that it might be Judge Ann Benton presiding.
If a woman judge was assigned the case, Ames was sure his son would do jail time. He couldn't have that happen. His son needed to get off so he could put this whole incident behind him. He wanted to visit Howard in the hospital, but he knew the press would be all over the story, and he didn't want to call attention to himself, or his son.
* * *
Jake Farms had his own contact, but it seemed Norman was getting the same information. Jake tried to get justice without anyone getting killed, and until recently, he had never met Norman. There may have been a purpose for killing in Norman's mind, if there is a justified purpose why people were killed.
One guy was a police officer who was dealing drugs and beating his wife and children. He threatened his wife by telling her he would take the children away and she would never see them again if she ever told on him, all while having a mistress clear across town.
Jake went to the town where the wife lived after Norman killed her husband. Jake stepped in and made sure she and the victims had enough money in case they wanted to move, or to make their life, or the lives of their children better. Money did not solve the disgrace, Jake knew, but he felt he was helping in a capacity he wasn't able to before.
One man was a serial killer and the son of a police chief who was protecting him. Several people were dead, yet the community was unable to bring him to justice with his father protecting him, until Norman killed him.
A female governor was stealing funds, but the one thing she was doing that was very disturbing, she was running a prostitution ring with minors, promising them a better life. The girls would leave home and live on the streets. Not much of a promising life for impressionable young girls, especially when, after a few months, they were never seen again. His contact told Jake she was selling the young impressionable girls and shipping them to different states, but Norman killed her.
Jake was lucky enough to confide in the governor as Jake posed as a shady pimp and wanted to buy some girls. Jake was able to help five teenage girls find a safe place to live and have spending money.
* * *
In the morning Jake decided to write down every detail that happened at Judge Klein's home: When he arrived for the interview, the one and only question he had time to ask him, when there was a knock on the door, what Norman looked like, the judge on the floor, and the phone call to 911. He wrote it all down until he had ten pages written. Then he put it away and retrieved the newspaper from the front step, briefly looked through it, and then took a shower. Living in a small town, there wasn't much news except who had a baby, who died, who retired, who got engaged or married, who graduated, and lots of sports. With his backpack, he took his blue Schwinn bike out of the garage and rode to the library a mile away.
Since everyone knew everybody in town, the library didn't require a log-on for their computers. The librarian of forty years would know if you didn't live in town and wouldn't allow you to use the computer. Jake typed Judge Howard Klein into Google, and several entries appeared. One entry caught his attention. The public wondered why he didn't rescues himself from the case where Klein's nephew worked for the Foundation Company which was brought to court on charges of crooked business dealings. It was brought to the attention of the Court of Appeals and declared a mistrial. They took into consideration how egregious it was, even though Klein claimed he didn't know his nephew was working for the company, and his nephew had been suspended.
Another story was about Klein letting a drug dealer go free because of evidence he declared inadmissible. Judge Klein has been accused of throwing out evidence to make the perpetrator go free, stated the article.
The next one he clicked on was entered earlier this morning. Judge Klein is still in serious condition, and the controversial case of the Minnesota senator's son will be in court as scheduled on Monday morning, with a different judge presiding over the case. Senator Gerald Ames is disappointed that they aren't postponing it until Klein gets back to work. It sounded to Jake like the senator and the judge were planning something shady to prove the son's innocence.
Jake was surprised he was only wounded after seeing all the blood. Next, he put in the name of the senator's son and found a list of crimes he had been charged with in the past. He was always found innocent. It might be a coincidence, but in each case, Klein presided. Jake closed the Internet and looked in the library catalog for some books. He wrote down the numbers, retrieved the books from the shelf, and checked out.
"Jake, aren't you done with that garden yet? It seems these are the only two books left you haven't checked out of the twenty the library owns on gardens."
He laughed. "I planted some flowers last week and so far so good, but I want to put in one of those ponds that I can put goldfish in." He put the books in his backpack.
"They should have those at the hardware store. I don't think you'll be able to get it home on your bike. Let me know when you want to pick it up and I'll send Arnie with his pickup truck."
"You're too good to me, Adeline. I'll let you know."
* * *
Jake parked his bike in the garage and walked around to the backyard. He had rocks outlining where he wanted his pond and a few rocks where he wanted to build a deck sometime in the future. He had to make sure not to spend too much cash at once so people wouldn't talk about where he got the money. That was another problem. He needed to figure out what to do with his money. He donated money to organizations, but felt it wasn't enough. As far as Adeline knew, Jake had his own computer business, but no one knew he didn't have a computer.
Jake was deciding whether or not to give up helping victims. He was helping innocent people, but what Norman was doing was getting to him, especially after he witnessed Judge Klein's shooting. Could he walk away from the people who needed help? He would call his contact one last time and tell him he no longer wanted to work for him. Then he would cancel his answering service. After a while he might just get a phone and a computer. Most people in town had a cell phone and a laptop.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Justice in Omahaby Barbara E. Saefke Copyright © 2013 by Barbara E. Saefke. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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