The Raven Murders

By JW Lucas

In a city ravaged by the greatest number of murders in over a decade, a shooting incident at a sprawling public housing project leaves three teenage gang members and four adults dead. Two officers are critically wounded. The public is shocked and demanding an end to the carnage.
NYPD Capt. Dan Dragona and his Violent Crimes Unit are assigned to investigate what initially appears to have all the markings of a gang dispute over drug dealing turf.
A shocking discovery challenges that theory.
Among the adults shot to death in an apartment, one victim is identified as a South American political activist. Top secret government intelligence sources report he was transporting a dossier to be turned over to the State Department. It reportedly detailed the recent purchase of missiles from Middle Eastern terrorists that would be used for an attack against the United States.
Were these murders drug gang related, or was the motive fueled by international extremists who would kill to keep their intentions hidden?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JW Lucas
• Release date: Sep 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005416263

JW Lucas

JW Lucas has more than forty years experience with criminal investigations, both in law enforcement and the private sector. His investigations have been featured on network television, including a movie of the week re-creating a murder case that brought forward the defense of demonic possession.

Book preview

Chapter 1

A telephone ringing at four-twenty in the morning never brings good news. A car accident? Someone sick has been rushed to the hospital? Someone needs bail money? For NYPD Detective Captain Dan Dragona, a call at this hour means work. And work means someone has died horrifically at the hands of another.

He rolled onto his left side and fumbled for his cell phone on the bedside table. Restive lungs labored to suck in oxygen. Out of reflex, he squinted despite the room being pitch dark.

Yeah? he uttered, his voice low and gravelly.

Captain Dragona?

The voice on the other end was soft and feminine.

Yeah.

"Dispatcher Hawley calling from Central Dispatch. The Violent Crimes Unit is requested at a multiple homicides scene, Sullivan Houses, Building 2 in Port Morris. A Level One mobilization has been declared. The scene is not secure."

Dragona was silent as her message sunk in.

"Captain? Are you there? Captain! Wake up! They’re requesting your Unit at a multiple homicides scene, Sullivan Houses, Building 2, South Bronx. Level One response! The scene is still active!"

Yeah, okay. I got it. Wake up the squad, he murmured.

Being done as we speak, Captain. I’m very sorry to wake you. I’m just doing my job.

Again, that soft voice. She was good at delivering bad news.

Sitting up slowly, the muscles in his legs tightened as they straightened from the fetal position he’d been sleeping in. For an instant he felt sharp pain. He gingerly swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and slowly stood upright, his hand resting on the night table to steady himself. After a few seconds, the discomfort passed.

She had said a Level One response had been called. That meant all available patrols within the precinct, Emergency Services, EMS, and Fire Department Rescue were responding.

For the past six months Dragona had been leading a specialized squad of detectives investigating homicides committed with extreme depravity. They’d been called to crime scenes to view the carnage firsthand, but the scenes had always been secured. To respond to a still active incident this morning was his first warning it would be a long day..

He went into the bathroom, splashed water onto his face and stared at himself in the mirror. Hunched over, his hands resting on the sink, he saw his eyes were glassy, but not bloodshot. He straightened up and ran his fingers across his cheeks, feeling the stubble. Not too bad, he could get by with it.

Going back into the bedroom, he quickly dressed. He glanced at his unmade bed. With no time for hospital corners on the sheets this morning, he reached under the bed and pulled out his duty weapon, a Sig Sauer Model 226 nine-millimeter. Crossing over to the dresser, he grabbed the holster and a spare fifteen-round magazine. He went over to the cushioned bench at the foot of the bed and dropped the spare magazine into the side pocket of the leather jacket he’d left there last night. Twenty minutes after being awakened from deep sleep, he stepped out of his Williamsburg condominium.

He crossed the gated parking lot behind the building as he pulled his jacket collar high onto the back of his neck and shivered. It was the second week of March. The early morning air was crisp, the pavement wet from light rain overnight.. He pressed the unlock button on his key fob and settled into his unmarked police car. Using the two-way radio, he signed onto the air with Central Dispatch. This time, the monotone voice that acknowledged his message wasn’t soft and feminine.

Parked in the lot for a few moments, he leaned back in the seat to clear his head. Lately, there had been many middle-of-the-night call outs, but this one troubled him. In his mind he kept hearing her words "the scene is not secure."

As he headed out of the lot, he realized it had been a long time since he had been in the Port Morris section of the 40th Precinct, located at the southern tip of the Bronx. In his career, he’d worked in several precincts in the city. From that experience, he knew that the neighborhoods that make up the 40th, Melrose, Mott Haven, and Port Morris, were frequent sites for crimes of violence committed by gangs within their more than a dozen public housing projects. Could this have been a gang fight, he wondered?

Recent reforms in the judicial process, driven by politics, were resulting in vast numbers of violent offenders being released back onto the streets without having to post bail. Many of the offenders were gang members. Violent crimes in the city, especially murder, had surged to a record high number that hadn’t been seen in more than a decade. Sadly, this mornings’ deaths, no matter who had committed them, would be more statistics screaming for an end to the madness.

Suddenly out of nowhere, he recalled once reading that by the end of the 19th century, Port Morris had been a busy industrial center for stone works, furniture, and piano factories. In fact, Port Morris was known as the piano manufacturing capital of the United States. Why this minor fact of trivia had stayed embedded in his brain to surface at this moment, he didn’t know.

Pulling him back to the reality of the moment, the change from bustling waterfront and industry, to the despair the years had brought, was obvious. He took notice of the dozen or so homeless souls who had created makeshift shelters on the sidewalks in front of shuttered businesses along the streets.

In recent years, the residents’ dominant ethnicity had shifted to the cultures of Central and South America. Homelessness, unemployment, poverty, single-parent households, gangs, and illegal drugs had become the everyday realities that fueled the fires of violence among the two-hundred thousand people who called the South Bronx home.

As he drew closer to the crime scene, factory and storage buildings came into view. Many now abandoned, their facades were defaced with spray painted graffiti and gang tags. Garbage strewn across small weed covered vacant lots added to the scarred landscape.

In the dim early morning light, he could see silhouettes of the large brick public housing complexes that now stood where artisans had fashioned their wares a hundred years before. They were home to thousands of low-income families living crammed into the high-rise buildings. It was no surprise that the city often described as a melting pot frequently boiled over. He wondered what evil had invaded this once vibrant patch of land, now swollen with humanity.

Familiarity breeds contempt. Contempt breeds anger. Anger breeds violence, he thought to himself.

He called Central Dispatch on his radio and learned the incident command post was at the entrance to the housing project, in the courtyard of a renovated former storage warehouse complex on Taylor Avenue. Up ahead, lighting up the early morning sky, he saw the brilliant glow of flashing strobe lights from emergency vehicles surrounding the crime scene. He didn’t know what he was getting into, but he had an uneasy feeling.

The dispatcher had said multiple homicides. The thought again came to his mind this was gang violence. His Violent Crimes Unit had been working on homicide cases involving extreme depravity, and gangs were capable of that.

He flipped the switch for the red and blue emergency strobe lights in his car’s grille and came to a stop at a roadblock manned by three uniformed officers. He lowered the driver’s window and produced his badge and ID.

What have we got? he asked an officer who quickly approached his car. He was young. His nervous appearance and a lack of service ribbons on his uniform suggested he was fresh out of the Police Academy. He stared at Dragona’s ID and took a moment before responding. He quickly glanced to his right and left, as if checking to see that no one nearby would hear him.

We had a report of shots fired. The scene is still active. Officers responded to a possible armed robbery in progress. The first uniforms on-scene came under fire. They returned fire, but both of them got shot.

Hearing officers were shot instantly erased the feeling of fatigue Dragona felt from his deep sleep being interrupted less than an hour earlier.

How bad were the officers hit?

I don’t know. Two ambulances came out just as I got here. I think they had our guys on board. There’s so much traffic on the radio right now, I can’t get a clear picture of what’s going on. There was sporadic gunfire a few minutes ago. I’m hearing a lot of radio messages saying to take cover.

As he spoke, the officer nervously scanned his surroundings to see if he was in danger. Suddenly, the shrill scream of sirens coming from behind his car jolted Dragona. He glanced at the rear-view mirror and saw a caravan of emergency vehicles racing toward the roadblock. The lead squad car swerved, came up alongside him, and sharply braked to a stop. A second roadblock uniformed officer quickly went over to the new arrivals. After a quick animated conversation, the officer waved them on, wildly swinging his arm to heighten the urgency.

I’m going in, Dragona called out as he stepped hard on the accelerator to catch up to the cars. He didn’t need a nervous rookie patrolman to tell him he was heading into chaos.

As a younger man, Dragona had been an Army Ranger. He’d been in combat in the Middle East. The rush of adrenaline racing through his veins, the pounding of his heart, the short, rapid breathing were all familiar to him. Decorated for his bravery, he’d survived many battles and suffered wounds from his efforts. At this moment, he felt as if he was being transported back in time.

He turned into a pothole littered paved courtyard and leaned on the brakes, swerving around more than a dozen squad cars abandoned in an erratic pattern. Many car doors were left open, evidence of the haste of the responders, and the chaos of the violence they encountered as they arrived. Pulling behind an unoccupied cruiser, hard-earned instinct kicked in as he quickly scanned his surroundings.

He shut off the car and pulled the key from the ignition as he stepped out and ducked down. He quickly removed the Sig Sauer from his waist holster and pulled out the Captain’s badge hanging from a chain around his neck.

As he knelt alongside his car to settle his breathing, he looked around and saw dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers crouching behind parked cars and corners of buildings. For the moment, the scene was quiet, but his uneasy feeling lingered.

Suddenly, a burst of rapid gunfire pierced the calm. The shots came from an upper floor window of a tenement building on the left side of the courtyard.. Bullets hit the side of an unoccupied squad car twenty-five yards ahead of his position, shattering its windows. Out of reflex, he ducked. Gun in hand, he fought the urge to instinctively return fire.

Automatic weapon. This is not good, he thought to himself.

Crouching down, he slowly crept up to a group of officers huddled behind a police van ahead of his location. His sudden arrival startled them. They whirled around, their weapons pointing at him.

Dragona, Violent Crimes, he quickly announced to a uniformed Sergeant who appeared to be in command of the four uniformed officers near him.

The Dragon! Great! the Sergeant uttered, as he acknowledged the nickname the news media had recently given the Captain. You picked a great spot to land!

Dragona ignored the comment. He looked over and saw three bodies lying motionless in pools of blood in the center of the courtyard. A semi-automatic pistol was clearly visible lying next to one of them. The Sergeant noted his observation.

Gang-bangers who started this shitshow, he growled, nodding toward the obviously dead victims.

Dragona stared at the bodies as he slowly holstered his weapon. His immediate thought was that he had been right. This had been a gang dispute.

We were told the first two uniforms on the scene took them out in a shootout, but both officers got hit. Their backup officers pulled them to safety, the Sergeant explained, speaking rapidly.

They were shot up badly but were alive when the medics put them in the ambulance. That’s when the shooter upstairs in the building over there opened fire on us. He nodded toward a multi-story brick tenement building to their left."

How long has this been going on?

We’ve been here for almost an hour, he responded tersely, his eyes darting back and forth, rapidly scanning his surroundings. He pressed a portable two-way radio to his ear.

Hold it! Something’s going on! he whispered. After a moment he looked over at Dragona.

It sounds like ESU is getting ready to breach the shooter’s position!

Again, another burst of gunfire came from the building on their left. Bullets rained down and ricocheted off a brick wall a few yards from their position. Dragona and the officers ducked for cover as shards of brick spewed from the bullets’ impact against the aged wall.

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion across the street. Glass blew out from a third-floor window and rained down onto the pavement. Razor-sharp shards peppered the asphalt at the building’s entrance. White smoke billowed from the window.

Flashbang! the Sergeant shouted to his men. Hold your fire! Hold your fire!

Dragona glanced at the officers. Several were positioning to return fire. The Sergeant frantically waved his hand for them to stand fast.

There was another burst of rapid gunfire. This time, it sounded as if it was coming from inside the building.

Within a minute, an eerie silence settled over the scene, except for the rapid, heavy breathing of the officers surrounding him. The radio messages that had been coming across the airwaves abruptly fell silent.

Two minutes later, the Sergeant’s radio came to life. Multiple messages were reporting the shooter had been neutralized.

Dragona peered around the rear fender of the van and saw officers coming out from the shelter they had taken during the siege. There were dozens of them.

He slowly walked over to the three bodies lying on the ground, now surrounded by a half-dozen officers. The dead were young, late teens if he had to guess. Their exposed arms and necks bore blue inked crude tattoos. He bent over for a closer look at the pistol between the bodies and recognized it was a chrome plated Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter. He shook his head in disbelief that a kid in the projects could get his hands on an expensive weapon like that.

Standing erect, he looked around, wondering why his squad had been called in. This looked like a gang shooting. If the active shooter was part of it, he too was apparently dead. This case belonged to the precinct detectives, not his squad.

Captain Dragona! a booming voice called out. He turned to look for its source and saw a huge, uniformed officer striding toward him.

The perfectly rounded bald head atop the man’s broad shoulders was a familiar sight; Sergeant Earl "The Pearl’ Moore.

Earl was the driver for Deputy Chief of the Department, Malcom Prentiss. At six feet seven and three hundred pounds of chiseled physique, Sergeant Moore had an imposing presence.

An African American born and raised in Harlem, his size and quiet, humble manner growing up had protected him from the dangers inherent in his neighborhood. Through his public appearances in support of social services agencies, many in the Department viewed him as a role model for inner-city kids urging them to avoid a gang lifestyle despite the crime and violence surrounding them. He slowly approached Dragona.

The Chief is over at the command post. He sent me out to see if you got here yet. He wants to speak with you, the Sergeant said as he looked down at the bodies, shaking his head in obvious disgust. It was at that moment Dragona noticed a second handgun lying tucked under the body of another of the dead youths. He turned to the officers who were gawking at the bodies, crowding each other as they maneuvered for a better look.

Dragona quickly glanced around and noted numerous spent bullet casings scattered on the ground near the bodies

The officers were standing among them, engaging in conversations that were intense and animated, with several attempting to outdo the others with claims of the danger from gunfire they’d survived after responding to the scene.

Dragona knew this incident would be the topic of cop-talk within the city for days, but for the moment, his concern was the risk of evidence being destroyed. He glanced back at Earl Moore.

Hey guys! What are you doing? You know better! You’ve got to move back and seal off this area, There’s evidence here! Sgt. Moore barked at the officers, as if he’d read Dragona’s mind.

The group stared at him for a moment. Several of them looked at Dragona and noticed the Captain’s shield hanging from his neck. They backed off without argument.

After Dragona instructed the officers to use cones and crime scene tape to rope off the area, he and Sergeant Moore walked across the courtyard toward the front of the building where the shooter had hidden. He noticed that despite the early morning hour, a crowd of bystanders was gathering. They were mostly young men, teenagers, even a few who looked younger. The look of contempt and challenge on their faces was unmistakable. As Sgt. Moore approached, several of the youths blocking his path wisely looked down at the ground, obviously intimidated by his size. All except one.

Suddenly, Earl thrust out his arm, grabbed the kid by the neck, and slammed him hard against the side of the building. The others quickly backed away, tripping over each other to avoid the confrontation. Earl drove his right hand into the youth’s waistband and yanked out a small revolver, its grip wrapped in black electrical tape. The kid had concealed the gun under his shirttail.

Before the kid could react in protest, the Sergeant’s left hand smacked him hard on the back of his shoulders. His knees buckled from the blow. Don’t move! he commanded as he forced him to the ground.

Place him under arrest, he directed two nearby uniformed officers who had rushed over. He handed the gun to one of them. Frisk the others! he commanded. The officers didn’t hesitate, quickly pushing all the youths against the building.

What tipped you off? Dragona asked.

He kept reaching around his back. You saw his tattoos. He’s a punk; a wannabe gangbanger, he responded, as he turned and started walking over to the command center. Earl the Pearl Moore was a man of few words.

At the front entrance to the tenement building, Dragona saw Chief Prentiss standing with several members of the Department’s brass, including a uniformed Captain he surmised was from the local precinct. Out of courtesy, Dragona gave the men a half-assed salute.

A problem over there, Earl? the Chief asked his driver as he nodded across the parking lot.

Not anymore, Chief. One of them had a gun. I took it away from him. I guess I’ll need to write up a report.

I suspect you will. Hold off on that, I’ll find someone to help you with your statement, the Chief responded. He turned to Dragona.

Danny, this is Captain Stephen Post, the Precinct Commander. His detectives will do the initial on-scene investigation, but I’m assigning the case follow-up to your squad.

Captain Post offered his hand in greeting but didn’t speak. Dragona noticed the man was wearing his Class A dress uniform. Odd for this hour of the night, Dragona thought as he turned to the Chief.

From what I’m seeing here, this is a gang dispute. There’re three dead out in the courtyard, and it’s my understanding the shooter upstairs is dead. This seems cut and dry. I don’t understand what you want from my squad.

Things aren’t always as they appear, the Chief responded. We have four more dead in an upstairs apartment. From what we’ve learned so far, the ones who did those killings got away. We’re thinking the dead gang kids in the parking lot were their lookouts.

They opened fire on the two officers who were the first on-scene, and in the gun battle, the officers were hit. I was told they have multiple wounds.

Before the ambulance left for the hospital, one of the wounded officers said two possible suspects ran out of the building and escaped in a dark-colored car with Jersey plates.

The Chief’s words troubled Dragona. Four more dead in an apartment? Noticing Dragona’s concern, the Chief continued.

As I said, the two guys who ran are the ones we think committed the murders inside. They’re the ones I want you to identify and find. And Captain, we need to know why the people upstairs were murdered.

As he listened, Dragona processed what Chief Prentiss had explained. Five perpetrators, suspected gang members, conspired to commit four murders. The cops killed three of the suspects. That’s seven dead. The ESU killed another person, an active shooter. That’s eight dead.

Who were the killers who fled? The active shooter? Who was he? Why did all this happen? Why here in the projects? How did these kids get involved? Those were the questions. His job was to answer them.

Suddenly, the blaring blasts of an air horn caused the men to turn around and look toward the courtyard. An NYPD Command Post truck had arrived, followed by a half dozen dark colored SUVs. Dragona noticed two of

Reviews for The Raven Murders

[Kayla Parker Brooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I would love a Daryl Richardson and Dragona get together. Now that would be awesome! This was excellent! KB