One Night in Bango

This story is part of an ongoing series.

The chronological order of my stories is listed in WifeWatchman's biography.

Feedback and

constructive

criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

Part 1 - Prologue

This chapter is dedicated to Chess Grandmasters David Bronstein and Leonid Stein.

"One town's very like another

When your head's down over your pieces, brother

It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity

To be looking at the board

not looking at the city."

------ Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (the male half of ABBA), and Sir Tim Rice, 'One Night In Bangkok', from the musical 'Chess'.

9:00am, Sunday, March 17th. St. Patrick's Day. I was wearing a green golf/polo shirt, khaki pants, and an orange t-shirt under the green shirt as I sat down at one of the tables in the Veasley Community Center. Young Timmy Austin was going to play chess against eight people simultaneously, and I was one of the eight minnows this young chess shark intended to consume. The other players were Sheriff Griswold, Fire Chief Emeritus Gillem, Chaplain Romano, Todd Burke, Barry Oliver, Professor Marvin Milton, and Lt. Myron Milton.

Attending and watching were Susie Haskins, Davie Marsdon, Frieda Franklin, TCPD Captain Teresa Croyle, Betsy Ross, and TCPD Commander Cindy Ross. Cindy was wearing a green collared shirt with the TCPD badge embroidered over the heart, khaki pants, and her Police gunbelt. Teresa was wearing a green dress (all-Catholic, wouldn't ya know). Lt. Mary Milton was there with her daughter Louise, and Betsy and Louise were having a baby-lovefest.

And of course, many of the 'Usual Suspects' that regularly came to the Veasley Community Center were also here. Old Mrs. Boddiker and Mrs. Williams made sure we all had coffee, water, or soft drinks. Timmy Austin's drink of choice was Cherry Coke Zero. There was twittering of parakeets, especially over the babies in the House.

"Why are you wearing green and orange today, Mr. Crowbar?" asked Timmy as we set up our boards. Everyone stopped to listen, I noticed.

"It's St. Patrick's Day." I said. "The Irish Flag has green, white, and orange stripes. Green is for the Catholics, and orange is for the Protestants."

"What is the white stripe for?" asked Timmy.

"To keep the Green and the Orange apart." I said, flat deadpan. "They used to fight wars all the time." That made Father Romano laugh heartily.

The tables were set up in a square, two players on each side. We began the simultaneous exhibition. Timmy first went around shaking everyone's hand. The rules were that as he came to each board, his opponent would move, then Timmy would make his move. We were not using chess clocks for these games. I'll comment on my own game, here:

Veasley Center Simul

White: Future Grandmaster Timmy Austin

Black: Your Iron Crowbar

Sicilian Defense, Alapin Variation

1. e4 c5 2. c3 Nc6 3. d4 cd4 4. cd4 d5

Not the most common order of moves for Black, and the computers say I'm already at a disadvantage.

5.ed Qxd5 6. Nf3 Bg4 7. Be2

Pinning the knight in hopes of winning the pawn, but Timmy broke the pin.

7...e5 8. Nc3 Bb4 9. 0-0 Qd7?

A mistake on Your Iron Crowbar's part. I had to take the Knight or play ...Qa5. Now I've lost a pawn to this 'young whippersnapper', as Sheriff Griswold would say.

10. de5 Qxd1 11. Rxd1 Nge7 12. Ne4 0-0 13. a3 Ba5 14. Nd6 Rab8

At this point I'm hoping to play ...Bxf3 and then ...Nxe5, as long as he doesn't play Bf4.

15.Bf4! Bc7 16. h3 Be6 17. b4 a6 18. Rac1 b5?

Dumb. Dumb Iron Crowbar. I just 'voluntarily' pinned my own piece.

19. Ng5 Bb3 20. Rd2 Rbd8 21. Bf3 Bxd6 22. ed6 Ng6 23. Rxc6 Nxf4 24. Rxa6

Oops, there goes another rubber tree pawn. I'm hurting now. At this point I looked around. Sheriff Griswold had resigned already, as had Todd. Chief Gillem was done, though playing on. Barry Oliver still had what looked like a game but I saw the insidious trap Timmy had laid for him. Father Romano was playing a Queen's Gambit Declined, a chess opening almost as old as the Catholic Church itself, and Father Romano was losing with the Black pieces.

That left me and the Mighty Miltons. Professor Marvin Milton was a strong player, and was defending the Ruy Lopez, another opening as old as chess itself. I don't know what Myron was playing, but it was a disaster... for Myron. I turned back to my own game.

24...f6 25. Ne4 Bd5 26. Nxf6+!

Gotta admit, this was a nice 'combination' by Timmy. I marveled at the efficiency with which young Mr. Austin brought matters to a successful conclusion. I'm the Iron Crowbar of crime solving; Timmy was being the Iron Crowbar of chess today.

26...Rxf6 27. Bxd5+ Kf8 28. Be4 g6

I noticed that I was the last player remaining. I'd seen the trap Barry Oliver fell into, but I hadn't seen what Timmy had sprung upon Professor Milton. After he resigned, I did the honorable thing:

28... g6 29. h4 1-0.

I turned my King over and congratulated Timmy. I then said "Hold up, Timmy." I reached down into my bag that was under my chair, which held my gunbelt (and service weapon), red crowbar, and an extra item for this occasion.

I held up a chess book entitled '

The Chess Struggle in Practice

', by Grandmaster David Bronstein. "Timmy," I said, "when I was not much older than you, my dad took me to play Grandmaster David Bronstein in a simul. GM Bronstein autographed this copy of his book for me, and I've kept it ever since. I know you will learn from this book, and you will treasure it as I do."

"Oh, wow!" exclaimed Timmy, his eyes wide as I handed him the book. "That's awesome! Thanks, Mr. Crowbar!"

"Wasn't Bronstein the one they forced to throw the World Championship match?" asked Professor Marvin Milton.

"Yes sir." I said. "Bronstein played Botvinnik for the World title in 1951. Bronstein was winning the last game, then made a move so bad that it was obvious he was throwing the game. The match ended up tied, so Botvinnik retained his title."

"Why did he do that?" Davie Marsdon asked.

"He lived in what was then the Soviet Union." I replied. "They did not want a Jewish man defeating their favored man for the World Chess Championship. At the simul I attended, when he was asked about it, Grandmaster Bronstein said 'It is better to be alive than be World Champion.'."

The older people in the room understood. Davie and Timmy were shocked. "Did they really do that? Did they kill people for things like that?"

"Yes." I said. "There was another Grandmaster, named Leonid Stein. He was from the Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. In 1973, he and World Champion Bobby Fischer were going to play a match, which the Soviet Authorities did not want to see happen. Grandmaster Stein died of a heart attack in Moscow... at age 39. It might have been natural causes, but we'll never know for sure."

"So," I said, struggling out of my chair, "you take care of that book, Timmy. Grandmaster Bronstein died several years ago, so he's not autographing any more books."

"I will, Mr. Crowbar." said Timmy. "Thank you." Everyone applauded as I shook Timmy's hand again.

"Everything's always a 'teachable moment' with you." Cindy whispered to me when she came up to me, meaning to needle me.

"And a lesson our children are not being taught in

Government

schools any more." I whispered back. Cindy nodded vigorously in agreement.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was now 12:30pm. As everyone began cleaning up, Cindy got a phone call, and went outside to take it. When she got back inside, she came up to me and said "Don, Lieutenant Governor Marshall has been trying to call you. She's called Headquarters three times already, and you apparently turned your phones off."

"I sure did." I said, not sorry. "All right, let's go to Headquarters and I'll call her back."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Going into my office, I settled down in my comfortable Command Chair, and then dialed the Lt. Governor's number. Sharon Marshall herself answered immediately.

"Commander Troy!" she said, her voice a mixture of relief and irritation. "I've been trying to reach you for hours!"

I curbed my irritation that she apparently expected me to be instantly available to her back and call, and said "I'm sorry, but I was doing some 'community service', and wasn't available. How can I help you?"

"Did you hear about the murder of Westphalia Police Lieutenant Paul Cash?" asked Marshall. "His body was found over in Pottsville early this morning. He and his family are friends of mine. I'd like for you to take a look into it. Pottsville Police Detective Shane O'Brady is aware I'm calling you, and he's expecting to hear from you."

Geez, like I don't have enough to do around these here local parts, I thought to myself. Still, it was the Lieutenant Governor of the State asking.

"Yes, Ms. Marshall, I'll contact O'Brady and see if I can be of any help." I said.

"Thank you, Commander." she said. The voice then went dead. It must be a habit of politicians to just disconnect like that, or maybe a trait of Governors and aspiring Governors.

I called Chief Moynahan to let him know what was going on, then went to change clothes for the trip to Pottsville.

Part 2 - The Crime and The Victim

At 2:10pm, I entered the Pottsville Police Department Headquarters. I was wearing a solid green pullover shirt, black pants, my SBI badge on my belt, weapon holstered under my shoulder, and my trenchcoat with the red crowbar in the inner pocket.

I asked at the front desk for Detective Shane O'Brady, who I'd been introduced to in the 'Pink Panther' cases, and worked with in the 'Ethical Dilemmas' case. He came up the hallway to greet me, tall, thin, very curly black hair, typically Irish. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt, black pants, badge on his belt.

"Ah, Commander, glad you could come." said O'Brady, shaking my hand. "Come on into my office." The Duty Desk Officer handed me a visitor badge, and I followed O'Brady down the hall.

He did not take me to his office, but to that of the Chief of Police, Lloyd Rogers. Rogers was tall, older, with white hair and beard and mustache, all short and neatly trimmed.

"Ah, the Iron Crowbar." said the Chief, affably enough. "Glad to meet you. What brings you down here?"

"I asked him to come down, sir," said O'Brady, "as did Lieutenant Governor Marshall, about the Westphalia Police Officer we found dead this morning."

"Ah, yes." said the Chief. "You here as SBI, or just consulting?"

"Well, Chief," I said, "I'm whatever I need to be, to help find the murderer of a fellow Police Officer." The Chief nodded. I was actually already clocked in as the SBI Reserve Inspector, but wanted the Chief to understand that I was here to help, not lord it over his Police Force as the SBI was wont to do.

"Okay, then." said the Chief. "O'Brady, take him around, see what you guys can find out. And keep me in the loop. Nice to meet you, Commander Troy."

"Likewise, Chief." I said. We went to O'Brady's office, which was about the size of my old TCPD Lieutenant's office, if not smaller. Tanya Perlman would be disgusted, I thought to myself with considerable amusement.

To my surprise, O'Brady did not sit down nor invite me to, but instead got his own trenchcoat. He was emulating my outerwear, I noticed, which was always a good thing, of course.

"If you'll drive, we'll go to the crime scene." said O'Brady. We went out, and to my black SBI SUV, almost completely unmarked, but with blue lights embedded in the windows, grille, and back bumpers. Once in the car, we pulled out, and he began giving me directions.

"Thanks for driving." O'Brady said. "I didn't want to talk inside the building, and didn't want to talk in one of our vehicles. As you know, Wilson Hammonds rules everything here with an iron fist. But this case is worse... U.S. Senator Samuel Russell called the Chief and our Sheriff about the case, and he specifically asked for me to be assigned to it."

"Russell, eh?" I said. "That explains why your Chief is in the house on a Sunday afternoon. So why is Russell interested?"

"I don't know." said O'Brady. "But he called about it."

"Must be big," I said, "what with all this political interest."

"And Wilson Hammonds will be calling about it too, especially if

you're

here in his county." said O'Brady.

"He been giving you problems?" I asked.

"Not really." said O'Brady. "He's been too busy trying to stop any State Budget bill that had any immigration reform in it. Word around here is that he got his ass handed to him on that."

"Yezzz." I said. "So, did you get anything on the victim?"

"Just the standard stuff." said O'Brady, his eyes roving everywhere as we drove along. "His name is Paul Cash. He was a Lieutenant in the Westphalia Police, had a really good record in their Homicide & Robbery Division. They asked if they could send a couple of their Officers to work with us, and our Chief said okay, professional courtesy and all. They may already be at the crime scene. Turn right up here."

We'd entered an 'industrial' section near railroad tracks. A fenced in area was marked off and being guarded by Police. It was an auto repair shop, and wouldn't you know it, it was a red metal building. I'd seen enough red metal buildings this month, I thought to myself.

O'Brady got us through the cordon and we went inside. A CSI team was milling about, working on the scene. I saw blood spots on the floor, markers for a

lot

of shell casings, and the outline of where the body had been. It was just in front of a door which led to the offices and restroom/locker room.

"This place has been suspected of being a chop shop for some time." said O'Brady. "We thought maybe drug deals were going down here, too, but the dogs came through this morning and didn't alert to anything." I nodded as I glanced around.

There were several uniformed Pottsville Police Officers still on the scene, and two men in plainclothes. "Detective O'Brady!" a uniformed Officer called out. As we went up to them, she said "These are the Westphalia Officers that came to look at the scene."

"I'm Detective Marvin Chester, Westphalia Homicide." said the younger man, who was tall, black-haired, and had a hard, chiseled face. "This is Cecil Mason." Mason was older, shorter, and had a quiet competence to him. I made observations as we shook hands.

"I'm Detective Shane O'Brady." said O'Brady. "This is Commander Don Troy, who is consulting with us on this case."

"The Iron Crowbar." said Mason. "Honor to meet you, Commander. That was one hell of a drug bust you made, taking out Marcie Harper's gang."

"Thank you." I said. "I had a lot of help on that. And speaking of help, I'm here to help find the bastards that killed a fellow Police Officer."

"What can you tell us about Lt. Cash?" asked O'Brady. "Any idea why he'd be found down here?"

"He was a good cop." said Chester. "Solved a lot of cases, got promoted quickly... like you did, Commander Troy, if you don't mind my saying so. He was a bright guy, good leader. We don't know why he was down here; he never mentioned any cases outside the Westphalia-Eastphalia jurisdictions. If he was working anything Vice, drugs or anything like that, no one in Vice knew anything about it... at least they're saying they don't know anything about it."

"Okay." I said, as if in thought. "Tell you what. Shane, why don't you and Detective Chester look around, and I'll have a word with Cecil Mason, here." With that, I led Mason back outside.

"I don't know how much you want known, even to your colleague in there," I said, "but I do know Internal Affairs when I see it. And that would be you, Lieutenant Mason."

"Not much gets by you, Commander." said Mason. "But thanks for not saying anything in front of anyone else."

"No problem." I said. "But a case is hard enough with a mystery at one end. It's too much with mysteries at both ends. So what's going on? Did Cash go bad?"

"The truth is, Commander, we don't know." said Mason. "He was killed way out of his jurisdiction, a decent ways from home. He was never known before to go outside the Twin Cities area on a professional case. He'd never worked in or with Vice, and he turned down an SBI Reserve appointment. No offense, but he despised the SBI."

"So do I. I'm just trying to clean it up from the inside, as a Reservist." I said. "But I need you to level with me. They did not send Westphalia I.A. down here for nothing."

"You

are

good." said Cecil Mason, perhaps a bit sarcastically. "All right, here's the story, what we know of it. Cash never said a word, but he was working on something. Maybe something big. Our Vice people were studying the Marcie Harper gang and the bust, and Cash told them that a couple of murders, which seemed insignificant at the time, might have been linked to the Harper gang. That was the first anyone knew he had any interest in drug gang activity. So he was looking into the Harper connection to those murders, but after a few days he said nothing more about it."

"So then people noticed he was out of the office a lot, and not really saying why." said Lt. Mason. "That's when his Captain called I.A., just as a precaution. We started a routine checkup, what some would call a '

security review

', but we had barely opened the file when we got the word that he'd been found dead down here."

"How long had he been going out on his own like that?"

"About a week. Maybe ten days." said Mason.

"Okay, thanks." I said. "If you don't mind, maybe we can------"

Just then, O'Brady came out of the building and waved us over. We came to the large open bay door, where O'Brady and a uniformed Officer were standing. The Officer was youngish, tall, dark haired, and reminded me in some ways of the late Corporal Peter M. Feeley.

"Commander, this is Officer Douglas Wilson." said O'Brady. "Wilson, give us your report."

"First, Commander Troy, it's an honor to meet you and be working with you." said Wilson. Sheriff Griswold would approve of his asskissing, I thought to myself.

"Likewise, Officer Wilson." I said. "What have you got for us."

"The Coroner's report is back." said Wilson. "Lieutenant Cash was struck 39 times by nine millimeter and .40 caliber gunfire, possibly from semi-automatic rifles like a Ruger PC carbine. Most of the bullet trajectories are either straight-on, or downward."

"You can see, sir," continued Wilson, as we stood in front of the door to the office area, "that a number of bullets struck the wall, here. Additionally, we checked his shoes for any residual substances, such as oil or grease, and he did step in something. We've found traces of it in the office area, then out this door."

"Excellent work!" I said enthusiastically. "My compliments to your CSI team."

"Thank you sir, I'll pass that on to them." Wilson said. "Our thesis, sir, is that Lieutenant Cash walked out of that office door and straight into an ambush. They blew him away, then left him there and got out of here."

"Was he in a gunfight?" I asked. "Any blood anywhere else?"

"No sir, none that we've found." said Wilson. "Also, there are no shells around where his body was found, so it doesn't look like he fired back at them. There

was

something strange, sir. He was wearing a sportscoat and slacks, and his gun in an armpit holster. When we found his body, he was only in his pants and a t-shirt. The sportscoat, his shirt, and the holster were found in a pile by the door behind him." He handed me some photographs.