The order of my stories to read is:
Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, Case of the Executed Evangelist series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, The Murdered Football Player series.
The Black Widow, Ch. 01-02
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 8 - Last Will And Testament
After getting back to Headquarters from lunch with Jack Muscone Thursday afternoon, Paulina Patterson called me into the Chief's conference room. Inside were Paulina, Jeanine Olivet Burke, Esq., of the Women's Law Firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, and her partner Virginia Madison, Esq.
Jeanine, now my niece-in-law, was very heavily pregnant, and she was due to deliver Jack Burke's baby at any time now. But I was observing her lovely partner.
Virginia was a short, lithe redhead. Her hair was cut fairly short and combed straight out. Her magnificent body was incredibly toned to the point of muscular. She might have been a gymnast in her younger years. She was definitely a hottie.
When Cindy Ross came in at my request, Virginia almost squealed "Are you the one from the Miss Physical America competitions?"
"That's right." Cindy said.
"Oh, I'm so glad to meet you!" Virginia gushed, shaking Cindy's hand vigorously. "I was such a big fan of yours... still am, of course. Oh wow, I can hardly believe it!... you're such an inspiration to me!"
"That's very kind of you." Cindy said, blushing, her face turning almost as red as Virginia's hair.
"Ladies, what can we do for you?" I asked.
"Several months ago, Tom Burleson came to me and wanted me to write up his will. I did so, and probated it yesterday-" Virginia said.
"I thought you ladies were divorce attorneys." I said, interrupting.
"We are." said Jeanine Olivet. "But we've begun branching into other things, slowly and usually for people we know well. Go ahead, Virginia."
"Tom Burleson came to me and said he didn't want to use other law firms because they were part of what he called the 'good ole boy' network. And he's right about that." Virginia Madison said. "As to the will itself, there were some peculiar instructions in it. Among them was that if Burleson met a fate other than natural causes within five years, I was to give the police this." Virginia handed me a key. It was to a safety deposit box.
"The box is at Second National Bank." Virginia said. Second National was the second largest bank in the County and region, behind the J.P. Goldman Bank.
"Which was not Burleson's normal bank, if memory serves me correctly." I said. "Paulina, just to keep things very straight, we need to get a warrant before opening the box." I said.
"Already taken care of." Virginia said. "I took the liberty this morning, using the will as the reason. Judge Watts signed off on it. Of course I need to be present with you when the box is opened."
"Who was the beneficiary of the will?" I asked.
"Tom's brother and his family received some of the inheritance, but a big chunk of it went to a Wildlife Charity devoted to the cause of preserving fishing." Virginia replied.
---
Inside the Second National Bank's safe deposit box vault, I opened the box with Cindy, Virginia and Paulina looking on. Inside were some old coins, exactly $20,000 in cash, a fake passport and fake New York State drivers license, and a sheaf of papers.
"Oh wow... gold mine." I said to Cindy a few moments later as we looked at the papers. They were production forms from Ward Harvester, showing the amounts of ingredients to form lots of batches of ammonium nitrate as well as explosive compounds and base chemicals for other explosive compounds. "Paulina, we have probable cause."
"What do you mean?" the lovely black ADA asked.
"My degree is in chemistry." I said. "I can tell that these work orders are to make lots of compounds. Everything is typed, but you can see here that the amounts are upped by either 10% or 20%, and those are written in hand on the side of the typed numbers. I'm thinking that these are the extra amounts of these products Ward was making on the side."
"Wouldn't they have shown up in the FBI's evidence?" Paulina asked.
"No." I said. "I imagine the typed orders are what are on file. Burleson or someone else substituted the extra amounts, then those papers with the handwritten amounts were supposed to disappear. My guess is that Burleson, and possibly the other shift managers, would make the extra amounts then destroy the paperwork... but Burleson decided to keep a copy of some of the papers, either as protection for himself, or perhaps he was blackmailing Ward. Probably the former: if Ward were being blackmailed, he would not have allowed Burleson to keep it up very long, and Burleson would've died a long time ago. As it is, there are at least 30 work orders and pallet bagging records for various compounds here."
Cindy said "So Burleson was being paid extra by Ward to make these batches on the sly, and he kept these sheets for protection along with this cash so he could disappear quickly if he needed to. Perhaps Ward found out he was keeping this and had him killed for it?"
"Good thought." I said. "But I'm not sure Burleson personally committed any serious crime. So why someone felt the need to kill him is still up in the air. And Martin's objection still holds: why would Ward have Burleson killed
at the Ward plant
?"
"Got me stumped there." Cindy admitted.
"Me, too." I said, then continued: "Cindy, call Tanya Perlman and have her take a team and go through Burleson's apartment again, but this time use sonar on the walls, tear out the heating vents, look for cracks in the flooring, and otherwise look very hard everywhere for more cash and more papers."
"Paulina, go ahead and secure these papers, and use them as you see fit to get warrants. In fact... call Jack Muscone, and together with him get a Federal warrant to get everything, and I mean
everything
on Ward Harvester. Whatever y'all need to do, get those warrants. I want that information, especially on the production work orders."
Cindy and Paulina were already scattering as I put the box back into it's place in the vault and bagged the money and coins, giving Virginia an evidence receipt for them. "Virginia, thank you very much."
"Mmm, I can see that you are a man that takes charge." Virginia said. "I like that in a man."
---
Later that day, Tanya Perlman called me. "We found $20,000 in two bundles hidden inside hidden holes in the walls of Burleson's apartment, as well as a fake passport and fake California drivers license with Burleson's picture on them. He was ready to make a hasty exit if he needed to."
"Any packed bags or indications that he was about to make that hasty exit?" I asked.
"No, nothing like that." Tanya said. "Looks like whoever killed him got him by surprise."
Part 9 - All The University's Men
It was Friday morning and the large gathering of Media at the luxury Singletree Inn and Suites in the City showed that an important event was happening there. Security tried to keep the reporters off the officials as they came out of their morning meetings to go to another room for a sumptuous lunch.
Tim Dawdle and his cameraman tried hard to get into the throng to an official that Dawdle knew. "Sir, can you tell us if the NCAA is going to investigate the University for PED use? Sir, why is the NCAA not investigating this issue?"
"Tim," the man said, "you already know that we've already investigated those rumors and have closed our investigation. We're satisfied with the University's cooperation and response."
"Sir, that's not a denial, and I can provide the proof you need to open an investigation. So what can you tell- Uhk!" Dawdle said as a security guard roughly shoved him back, striking the pajama-boy punk in the neck, and obviously enjoying using physical force on such a puny little twerp. The official took the opportunity to hurry along.
It was a similar story with the Conference officials that he tried to interview, and it appeared that Dawdle was at a total dead end. But finally, as the afternoon meetings were in progress, the Deputy Commissioner of the Conference texted Dawdle and granted an off-camera interview in the Deputy Commissioner's suite at 5:45pm... and told Dawdle to bring any information that he had. Finally, a break! Dawdle thought to himself.
---
"Okay, Dawdle, this interview is either off the record or deep background." the Deputy Commissioner said.
"Deep background, and thank you for seeing me." Dawdle said. "I want to ask why there's no investigation of the University's athletic program despite widespread PED use."
"Well, the NCAA tells me they looked into it and have found nothing worth a full investigation." the DC said.
"But sir," Dawdle persisted, "isn't Coach Gonzales's leaving under suspicious circumstances worth looking into?"
"I'd have to say that we did contact the school about it." the DC said. "We also contacted the local police there after that player died. There's nothing we can pin on the University concerning the coach's decision to leave nor the death of that unfortunate player."
"You also have to understand this, Dawdle," the DC said, getting tired of having to look at the pajama-boy punk's face, "we can't just waltz into a school and start throwing our weight around, nor can the NCAA. We don't have subpoena power, we're not the police. We can investigate to some extent, and the University was very cooperative with us and with the NCAA. There's just nothing there."
