The chronological order of my stories is as follows:
Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, The Murdered Football Player Series, Case of the Black Widow series, Teresa's Christmas Story, The Case of the Black Badge series, A Case of Revenge series, Trilogy Series.
Dark Side Of The Force, Ch 1-4.
Feedback and
constructive
criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.
This story contains graphic scenes, extreme 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 or racist 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 17 - Leads
The University's Bulldogs had lost its first football game, to a better opponent. Then they went 0-2 as they lost a game they likely should've won. My Wildcats, by way of contrast, were 2-0. Therefore on September 10th I was a happy Commander and Dr. Woodrow was also happy, while most of my Police Force was an unhappy bunch.
On that morning of September 10th, I was asked to come to Lt. Scott Peterson's office. When one enters Headquarters from the front, one hallway next to the Duty Desk in direct front goes to the left to Interrogation Rooms A-C. A hallway against the outer wall to the left goes to the Press room, which has a podium and rows of chairs and (most very unsecure) wi-fi connections for the reporters. A door to the left of the podium, in the right rear of the room as one faces the podium, was a short hallway that went to Lt. Peterson's office, which was about the size of Cindy's. There was no way to get from the Media section into the rest of the Headquarters.
When I got there, Lt. Peterson was behind his desk talking with KXTC reporter John "Johnny" Hardwood. Most reporters are very short, especially the ones on TV, and Hardwood was noticeable in that he was tall, though not nearly as tall as me. He was sitting in the chair in front of Peterson's desk.
"Commander, Mr. Hardwood here has been asking me some questions that might be interesting to you. Johnny?" said Lt. Peterson as I sat down in the small chair to the side of the desk.
"Commander, I was just asking Scott here about a tip I got." said Hardwood. "The source is anonymous, of course, but the information I got was that there was an altercation at Senator Nathan Allen's campaign headquarters a few days ago. Some guy burst in, screaming at the Senator. My source said that the man was subdued by the Senator's security people, and that he was roughed up pretty good. Allen then told his security people to bring the man to Police Headquarters, and that Allen said he'd follow up and press charges. I was following up with Peterson here, and he says there's no record of such an arrest."
"Commander," said Lt. Peterson, "I just checked the arrest logs from the day before Johnny says the incident happened until yesterday. No one was brought in by any security people; all arrests have been made by police officers."
"Any description of the man that burst into Allen's offices?" I asked.
"You mean
Senator
Allen..." Hardwood corrected, pissing me off instantly. I'd left off the title deliberately. "What I got was the man was early 40s, wearing a collared, button-down shirt with criss-cross green and red lines, khaki pants that looked worn, and brown, really beat-up shoes." Hardwood gave a further description of the man.
"Well,
Allen
, and I left the title off on purpose, Hardwood," I said, taking a hard shot at him for his rudeness in daring to correct me in my own Police Station, "did not make any such complaints to my Department that I am aware of. But let me ask you this, have you heard of the man who was found dead in the River in South Coltrane County the other day?"
Hardwood was red faced after my verbal lashing, and now I was asking him about news of which he was unaware. "Er, no, I haven't. Why should I?" he asked, his voice beginning to take a hostile edge.
"If you'll do some checking, Hardwood," I said a bit witheringly, "I think you'll find the description you just gave us matches very well with the dead man fished out of the River in Coltrane County. Peterson, see if you can pull up a couple of articles or a police report on it for Mr. Hardwood." I got up to go. "By the way, Mr. Hardwood, since you're so in love with
Senator
Allen, I won't expect you to connect the obvious dots and begin a good journalistic investigation. But the path to a Pulitzer is wide open to you if you take it." I left the room.
"Geez, what a prick." Hardwood said quietly. "No wonder Ms. Woodburn hates his guts so much."
"Guts is something the Iron Crowbar has in tremendous quantity, Hardwood." Peterson replied. "And you can quote me on this for the record: this Police Force loves that man and will follow him to the Gates of Hell and back."
----
"Cindy, did Parker and Washington get anything on that father that was found in the River in Coltrane County?" I asked during my meeting with my Lieutenants.
"Uhhh, not that I remember." Cindy said. She began shuffling through notes. "Sorry, sir, I'm not prepared; you ambushed me with that one."
"Don't stress on it." I said. "Stay after this meeting and I'll call in Teddy and Theo."
Some minutes later, after working through the agenda items, I excused Tanya and Teresa, asking Tanya to send Theo and Teddy in. Mere seconds passed before they were reporting in at the door. I had them come in and sit down.
"No sir, we didn't get anything." said Theo Washington. "We looked at where the FBI said his cell phone had pinged. The only area that he apparently stopped was in the north central strip mall where Nathan Allen's campaign headquarters is located. We asked some of the businesspeople there if they'd seen the man or his vehicle, showing them pictures, but no one remembered anything."
"Did you ask people at Nathan Allen's campaign headquarters?" I asked.
"We went in." Teddy Parker said. "Senator Allen wasn't there, and most of his staff was out. There were only three people in there at the time, and they all said they had not seen that man nor his vehicle."
"Sir, I told them not to waste too much time on that." said Cindy, partly to cover for her Detectives. "They looked at it for one day, then I put them on other assignments."
"And I don't blame you a bit for doing that." I said. "But I have a new lead that there
was
an incident at Allen's campaign HQ the other day." I gave them the details. "Now we don't want to mention yet that the man who allegedly invaded their offices is the same man who came over all dead in Coltrane County, but I want to find out if the event happened. So here is what we're going to do:
"Cindy, I'm taking this one myself, just because I personally want to be the one to front Allen and his people when the political shit hits the fan. Theo, you'll be with me. We'll stop by the Duty Desk and find out where Rudistan and Morton are, and maybe another couple of Uniforms... Johnson and McGhillie, if they're available."
---
Theo Washington and I pulled up to the front of Allen Campaign Headquarters. An astonishing thing happened as we got out of my SUV: the blinds were being drawn, the sign was turned from 'Open' to 'Closed', and the lights were being turned out.
"Let's go, scatter!" the campaign manager ordered as he and his fellow staff members rushed out the back door into the service alley... only to be stopped as two Police cars and four uniformed officers were waiting right there.
"Going somewhere, folks?" said Senior Patrolman Micah Rudistan, with a joviality that belied the seriousness of the issue. "You people wouldn't be trying tooooooo... evade police, now would you?"
The staff were shepherded back inside. As Rudistan followed, the campaign manager snarled "Where's your warrant, pig? You can't come in here without a warrant."
"Oh, I got probable cause now, little man." Rudistan said in a happy mood, not letting the punk frustrate him. "You boys and girls tried to evade police." He and the other officers came inside. McGhillie opened the door to admit Theo and myself. There was an audible gasp when I walked in, red crowbar in hand.
"Okay folks, this won't take long." I said. "Guys, send them in one at a time."
"No one say a word. Refuse to answer, demand a lawyer." the campaign manager shouted before we could stop him. "You police, I order you to leave if you don't have a warrant."
"You can file a complaint with the Town & County Council and/or the Inspector General's office." I said. "Guys, send them in, anyway." I said, then added with a menacing look at the campaign manager. "One at a time... one at a time. And if any of them refuse, even one of them, I'm going to arrest every last one of them and they can sit in jail for a while."
Part 18 - Visits
I was sitting in the Chief's office an hour after finishing at Allen Campaign Headquarters, reporting to him what had happened. Jack Muscone of the FBI was also present.
"They all refused to talk and demanded lawyers." I said. "But I learned what I wanted to learn. I asked them one question as I showed them the picture of the dead man: 'Did this man come into this office and attack Senator Allen?'. Their eyes gave themselves away; I believe it definitely happened."
"Looking dreamily into their eyes will not fly in getting a warrant or proving murder, Crowbar." the Chief growled.
"True, sir," I said, smiling, "but now that we essentially know the man went there, we can look into the case with fresh eyes."
"Fill me in." said Muscone. "I read the reports filed by the Missing Persons Branch, but I don't know the rest yet."