Chapter 4

At that very moment, Awilda was in a gym in Missouri teaching a class of fellow Marines the fine art of subduing an unruly and uncooperative perpetrator without killing him. She had been teaching the course for the last two and a half years and had seen more Military Police candidates than she could count. Today’s class had a significant meaning for her. It was going to be her last. On Monday she would be leaving active duty. She still had a four-year commitment to the Marine reserves to fulfill, but she would be doing that in sunny southern California.

Awilda had applied for, and had been hired as, instructor of martial arts training at the Los Angeles Policy Academy. Once she completed several courses necessary to transition between the Military Police and its civilian counterpart, she was sworn in as a member of the City of Los Angeles Police Force, and was stationed at the Police Academy. Awilda was responsible for the training of not only each class of new recruits, but also, for all officers required to take eight hours of defensive tactics training every two years. The LAPD alone numbered over 9,000 officers. She started each new group of trainees with the same speech.

“In police work, the thing you do the least – fire your weapons in a deadly force situation – is the thing you train for the most; the thing you do the most – hands-on in a use of force situation – is the thing you train for the least. What is even crazier is that most experts know that defensive tactics is a perishable skill; that is: if you don’t use it or practice it, you lose it. So I encourage you to get here as often as you can, or better yet, seek outside self-defense training to augment your training here.

“I will be teaching you the very basics of several disciplines, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Judo, and Krav Maga. The first two are primarily sports with rules, they involve mostly seeking to disable your opponent and get him to submit. In a street fight, how often do you ever hear a perp say ‘I give up’? In the real world the fight is not over until you have your threat in handcuffs or under control with multiple officers assisting you. Krav Maga started as a military self-defense system in Israel, a pretty tough neighborhood. It is the art of learning how to protect your-self in a world with no rules – a street fight. The creed is not to be a canon, but to be more like a machine gun. You attack until there is no longer a threat.”

Six months later, she was teaching a class of veteran officers who were fulfilling their bi-annual defensive tactics instruction requirements, when a tall, extremely good-looking, and athletically built officer walked into the class. He crossed the gym floor with an air of confidence and cockiness.

“Sorry I’m late, I had a late night.”

“What’s your name, officer?”

“Detective Chad Johnson,” he replied with a hint of an attitude.

“Okay, Detective, you’re with me. We’re practicing take-downs to immobilization.”

The class resumed; each of the pairs of officers faced off against one another. Chad turned to Awilda; he was about five inches taller and probably outweighed her by at least forty pounds. He tried to overpower her with little finesse as he grabbed an arm and shoulder in an attempt for a hip toss. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself flat on his face with Awilda sitting on his back, his one arm behind his back being forced painfully towards his head, while the other arm was trapped, useless, by her leg. Awilda leaned over and whispered into his ear,

“You underestimated your opponent, Detective. You looked upon me as an inferior, unworthy of your best effort. This is the result. Don’t ever be late for my class again.”

For the rest of the two-hour class, whenever they paired off for practice, she always made him work exceptionally hard and by the end of the class he was soaked in sweat and had lost that condescending attitude.

“I was wondering,” he said. “What time do you get off duty?”

“Actually, this is my last class for today. What do you have in mind?”

“I’d like to take you to dinner, if you’re available. Sort of an apology to make up for my being late.”

“And for your attitude?”

“That, too.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you in the lobby after I shower and change into my civvies.”

That was the beginning of a whirlwind romance. Within three months, they were married and living in his home in one of the more desirable sections of the city.

A police detective really doesn’t have a set schedule. They are basically on call 24/7 and Chad, being on the Narcotics Taskforce, was never home. Awilda’s schedule was basically an eight-hour day, five days a week. The only variation was starting times, which varied so that officers could choose the time slots that worked out best for them.

This put a certain amount of strain on their relationship, along with the fact that at the age of forty, Chad was nearly fifteen years older than Awilda. There were times when she couldn’t control her Puerto Rican temper. Their arguments were intense, but the makeup sex was fantastic.

It was during one of these strained periods, just after their third anniversary, that Awilda found herself alone one evening. Chad was doing an all-nighter: a stakeout of a suspected drug dealer. Awilda had come home to an empty house; on the kitchen counter she found a file with their current Income Tax returns and a note asking her to sign them. In the past she had always just signed the returns and given them back to Chad. This time, however, having nothing better to do, she began to read each page more carefully. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, wages was consistent with two earnings with good jobs, interest and dividend income was not excessive. However, when she got to the line for rental income, there was a substantial amount, almost as much as their wages. Curious, she turned to Schedule E. There were multiple pages, listing three properties per page. Each property showed substantial rental income. These had to be multi-family rental properties and not just 2-family houses. When she scanned down the expenses on each property she noticed something even more unusual; none of the properties had mortgage interest listed. She continued deeper into the return, where she found a depreciation schedule listing each of the properties. What concerned her the most was that it showed that Chad had acquired at least one property per year for the last six years. The costs of these properties were listed. The total cost of all the properties, for land and buildings, was more than five million dollars.

‘Without mortgages, where was he getting the money?’

She sat there stunned. “Oh my god, he’s dirty.”

Awilda couldn’t sleep that night. She didn’t know what to do. How could she confront him? She couldn’t just ask him where the money was coming from. If she was right, she would be putting herself in grave danger. If she was wrong, she may be jeopardizing her marriage. At six o’clock the following morning, she got up, showered, and got ready for work. Before leaving the house, she left a note for Chad, hoping he was safe and that she would see him tonight for dinner.

That evening over dinner, Chad discussed what had happened the previous night.

“What a cluster-fuck; first we wait half the night and no one’s showing up. Then, the buyer’s car shows up at about 3:00 AM, and just sits there in front of the garage door. Almost an hour later our target arrives. The buyer backs up to let the guy pull into the warehouse and then follows him in. Before the garage door shuts, we can hear shouting and guns are being drawn by both sides.

“Just as we are approaching the warehouse from the front and the back, some old guy walking a dog just appears, seemingly out of nowhere. We’re caught out in the open with our guns drawn. We try to get the guy out of the possible line of fire. Instead of following orders, the guy starts shouting for the police, and lets the dog loose. All the noise outside spooks the bad guys inside, and before we can react, one of the cars crashes through the garage door and is down the street and out of sight before we know it. In the meantime, the back garage door opens and the target escapes through the back lot, through a chain-link fence, down the next street and onto the freeway.

“When we finally get into the warehouse, all we’ve got is a small table, a portable scale, and a trail of a white powder from the table and onto the floor, where it abruptly stops. That must have been where the buyer’s chemist was testing what we assume was coke. I’ve got one officer being treated for dog inflicted injuries, the body of a dead dog, shot by one of the uniforms, an old man screaming that he’s going to sue the city, and more likely than not, a dead snitch.”

It was not a good time to bring up the unexplained money.

Less than a week later three men interrupted her class: her boss, the Deputy Chief of Police, and a Police Department Chaplain. As the Chaplain walked directly towards her, Awilda began to tremble. The Deputy Chief dismissed the class, while her boss and the Chaplin led the distraught instructor to his office.

As best as they could determine, Chad and his partner were following up on leads that they had received pertaining to the botched drug bust earlier in the week. They had just left their car and were approaching an abandoned house, when a carload of gang members turned the corner and automatic gunfire erupted from the vehicle, killing them both. The vehicle stopped in front of the house, one guy walked up to each of the bodies and fired one more shot into the head of each of the detectives, and then he pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket and shoved its contents into Chad’s mouth. In the meantime, two guys opened the trunk of the car, dragged a body out, and dumped it in front of the house.