Killing Zone

by Rex Burns

  Green was vice chairman of the Downtown Denver Development Committee, and a member of the committees on Recreation and Culture; Housing, Community, and Economic Development; and Transportation. He chaired the Zoning, Planning, and Land-Use Committee. His special assignments included liaison with the County Corrections Board, the Downtown Area Planning and Steering Committee, and Urban Drainage and Flood Control. “Why are so many council members on the Transportation Committee?”

  “That’s Stapleton Airport—there’s a lot of receptions and trips for council members from the airlines. All official business, of course.”

  Wager grunted. “He didn’t have a desk here? Any place he would keep papers?”

  “No. He has a district office. Over on Colorado Boulevard. The address is in that brochure.”

  “Who appoints his replacement?” asked Stubbs.

  “Nobody. It’s by special election, and it’ll be very interesting.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s got to take place inside sixty days, by law. So the candidate who can get organized fastest has the best chance. That takes backing—money, people, contacts. You know who has that kind of organization ready to go right now?”

  Wager didn’t.

  “The mayor! His honor himself. But the current council’s run by people opposing his downtown development plan. Green was against it, you know. So he’s not likely to help out somebody in that camp, and my guess is he’s already for a candidate who’ll vote his way for election support. Yessir”—Fitch’s hair bounced once and his eyes lit with a gleam of icy laughter—“it’ll be real interesting.”

  CHAPTER 5

  FRIDAY, 13 JUNE, 1021 Hours

  Green’s district headquarters was in a line of single-story shops facing the crowded lanes of Colorado Boulevard. Flanked by shoe repairs on one side and a barber shop on the other, a wide blue-and-white sign in the plate-glass window said HORACE GREEN, YOUR CITY COUNCILMAN, and underneath that, DISTRICT HEADQUARTERS. Another sign dangling in the glass of the recessed doorway said OPEN. COME IN. They did.

  “Anybody here?” Stubbs wandered past the well-worn leatherette chairs and couches that formed a kind of lobby separated from the back by a plywood partition painted pale green. Wager recognized it as the same uneasy color that decorated so many of the city’s office walls. On a small table a glass-covered coffee warmer steamed slightly and a stack of Styrofoam cups stood ready. Above it, offering approval to whatever voter poured himself a free cup, the familiar face smiled down from a large poster that said ELECT GREEN. Across the room on another table stood small piles of brochures and handouts, and a stack of frayed magazines. A rack held today’s newspapers and a series of government information pamphlets, the kind with small type and long columns of print and no pictures. These looked fresh and unthumbed.

  Stubbs came back from sticking his head through an open doorway in the partition. “The place is empty.”

  “Try the bathroom?”

  The desk in the back office was littered in a kind of chaos that reflected haste and a lot of different jobs to do. Here and there a neater pile of memos or receipts stood like islands in the wash of loose papers, as if someone made periodic attempts at organization. A multiline telephone sat silent amid strewn pamphlets; and, within easy reach of the swivel chair, a large calendar tacked to the wall held scrawled notes in the white squares for each day of the month. Wager began to read the cramped writing.

  Stubbs came back from the small hallway that led to the bathroom and rear entry. “Nobody.”

  In the square for Wednesday, the eleventh, Wager found “Recep—Vitaco 7-9,” “PDC,” “Call Dengren/Collins,” and a list of half-a-dozen first names with times behind them. It was far more detailed than the few entries in the leather-bound appointment book they had received from Hannah Green’s mother. The only notes in that had been the long-scheduled meetings of council and the routine dates that could be projected a year or so in advance: quarterly tax payments due, birthdays, anniversaries. Wager guessed that the leather appointment book had been a Christmas present and Green had dutifully made entries in it to show the giver how useful it was. But his real schedule was kept on this cluttered calendar.

  “Can I help you gentlemen?”

  In the office doorway, a bakery box sagging in her hands, stood a large woman whose hair was clipped into a billowing Afro designed, Wager guessed, to make her wide face seem smaller. She was in her thirties and wore a neat, pale-blue suit that had a band of new black silk pinned around the left sleeve. “Something you gentlemen want here?”

  Stubbs showed his badge. “We’re police officers. Do you work here?”

  “Yes. I’m Julia Wilfong, the councilman’s administrative assistant.” She set the box on a corner of the desk and slowly tore the paper tape that sealed it. “I went out for some doughnuts. I keep expecting people to come by to pay their respects. But so far nobody’s come.”

  Her manners had a formality that emphasized her self-possession—as if, Wager thought, she was one of those people who had been through enough to fully understand her own weaknesses and strengths. “Have you worked for Councilman Green long?”

  “Ever since he was elected.”

  That would be over two years ago, when Green ran a campaign against the incumbent who had been accused of accepting bribes for awarding city contracts. Though nothing had ever been proven, the rumors were enough to turn the election. “Can you tell us when you saw the councilman on Wednesday?”

  “Once in the morning and then that afternoon. He came in as always, about eight or so, and we went over the day’s schedule. Then he met with some constituents. That afternoon we had the Zoning Committee meeting. He’s committee chairman and I take the minutes.”

  “What was his schedule for Wednesday?”

  She told him, pointing to the calendar and explaining its abbreviations. In addition to routine committee work, meetings, and functions, he had a dozen-or-so visitors to talk to.

  “Is that usual?”

  “A few more than some mornings, but not that unusual. People are always after something.”

  “Any idea what they wanted to see him about?”

  “Of course. They all check with me first—I’m the administrative assistant. Most of the time I can help them out and they don’t have to bother the councilman. Some of them want to anyway, though. Sometimes the councilman himself has to do it.”

  “What about these names? What did they want?”

  Wilfong took a pair of glasses from her purse, the kind with large round lenses that dwarfed her face and seemed to weigh on her nose. “This first one here, Rollo, that’s Rollo Agnew. He wants a permit to rent out part of his house.” She explained, “The zoning says no multifamily dwellings.”

  “Wouldn’t the city zoning office handle that?”

  “They already told him no. That’s why he came to the councilman—to get the zoning changed.”

  “Did Councilman Green help him?” asked Wager.

  “He told him the exact same thing I told him: It’s a local zoning regulation and if the neighborhood wants to start renting out, they can petition for a change. Rollo just had to hear it from the councilman.”

  “So he didn’t change the zoning for him?”

  “No. Councilman Green wasn’t about to stir up that whole neighborhood for the likes of Rollo Agnew. He didn’t vote for him, anyway.”

  The woman detailed the other names on the list of appointments: complaints about a dangerous intersection that the city had done nothing about, an elderly woman whose sidewalk assessment wouldn’t leave her with enough money for food, a bar owner whose liquor license was threatened with suspension, an ex-serviceman who wanted a job with the city. It was, as Wilfong said, a parade of people who wanted; Wager figured it was the kind of petitioning that every councilman heard, and none of it seemed serious enough to rate a bullet in the head. But the questions had to be asked.

  “Did Councilman
Green help all these people?”

  “Most of them. And the ones he couldn’t help understood why—he was good that way. Even when they didn’t get a thing, they went out of here satisfied that somebody had listened to them. Even Rollo Agnew.”

  “So you can think of no one who might have a grudge against him?” Stubbs asked.

  “Enough to shoot him, you mean? No, sir! He was a good man and a good councilman, too. He stepped on some toes—you got to when you make decisions. But he was a good soul, Officer. A good one!”

  Wager said, “Somebody didn’t like him.”

  Wilfong slowly folded her glasses away. “I don’t see how it could be any black person. They respected Horace Green—they admired him.” Her dark eyes glanced at Wager, a flash of smoldering heat deep in them. “What about that telephone call to Mrs. Green? The one from the racist who threatened to kill more of us?”

  “You’ve heard about that?”

  “Everybody’s heard about it, Officer. Question is, what are you doing about it?”

  “Mrs. Green has police protection,” said Wager. “And a lot of officers are working on the case, including us. Can you think of anyone at all who ever threatened Green or who might have disliked him enough to kill him?”

  “Whoever made that phone call, that’s who. God knows, there are people like that around.” In her low-heeled shoes, she was almost as tall as Wager, and her angry eyes looked levelly into his. “And if that’s who it was, there’s going to be some real trouble.”

  Stubbs said, “It could have been a crank call, Mrs. Wilfong.”

  “It could. And that’s what I’ve been telling the people when they ask about it.” She began arranging the doughnuts neatly on a tray, using a paper napkin to protect them from her fingers. Then she unfolded another napkin and laid it precisely over the even rows. “But then again it might not have been.”

  Like most black citizens, she didn’t want a riot, either. But the sting of old insult and anger lay close to the surface. “You made out the councilman’s schedule?”

  “The important things. A councilman doesn’t have time to be bothered by all that paperwork. Once a day he either came by or called, and we went over the agenda for that day and the next.” A calendar sheet showed the day-by-day and hour-by-hour spaces for appointments. Most of them were filled. “Every Friday, we went over the next week’s calendar. That was the routine—the councilman wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anything important he had promised to attend.”

  “Have you worked for other councilmen?” Wager asked.

  “No.”

  “And Green—Councilman Green—was in his first term?”

  “That’s right. He was coming up for reelection next time.”

  “He was planning to run again?”

  “We hadn’t discussed that—it’s a bit early. But I’m sure he was.”

  “You have any idea who’ll run for his seat?” asked Stubbs.

  “No, I do not. The man is not even in his grave, Officer.”

  “He wasn’t thinking of running for mayor?” asked Wager.

  “No—that was just newspaper gossip. I don’t know where the newspapers get that bull. The mayor’s in the same party. You’re not going to have somebody in the same party run against a strong incumbent.” She spoke like a schoolteacher explaining the obvious to ignorant kids. Which, Wager reflected, wasn’t too far from the truth: they were ignorant of a lot of the city’s behind-the-scenes politics.

  Councilman Green’s last day, Wednesday, had been a typical one. Wilfong showed them a page whose letterhead said CITY COUNCIL, CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER, complete with the city shield and a column listing the representatives of the eleven districts and the two at-large. All the headings and names didn’t leave much space for messages, but a paragraph listed entries for yesterday’s meetings, beginning with the Health and Social Services Committee at 9:15, the Recreation and Culture Committee at 10 A.M., a noon construction briefing and luncheon at the city airport, a 3:30 special Zoning, Planning, and Land-Use meeting that Green chaired. All council members were invited to a buffet reception at the Brown Palace Hotel, beginning at six and hosted by the Prudential Development Company.

  “They get a lot of free meals,” said Wager.

  The woman frowned. “They earn those meals. They get briefed on things like construction proposals and land development—the kind of things there’s no time for in the rest of the day.”

  “It’s a busy schedule, all right,” agreed Stubbs.

  “More than just what’s in the Bugle.” She pointed to the page in Green’s open appointment book. His day had started with a 7 A.M. conference with CCC, and some time had been blocked out for the morning’s petitioners at the district office. He had a 2 P.M. meeting with AFS, and the last item of the night—7:30 to 9:30—was the Vitaco reception that Wager had earlier noticed inked on the wall calendar. What wasn’t penned in, of course, was Green’s final appointment with whoever killed him.

  “What’s Vitaco?”

  Wilfong tilted her glasses to read the entry. “Oh, yes—that’s the company that wants to expand its manufacturing operations. They’re in our district.”

  “They need a zoning change?”

  “No. More water taps. That’s the purview of the Denver Water Board, which has its own authority apart from the City Council. But a lot of times they listen to what a district councilman has to say.”

  “Did he go?”

  “I believe he did.”

  “You don’t go with him to these things?”

  “Very rarely. If I’m invited.”

  The Vitaco reception would have been after the Brown Palace buffet. “Can you tell me who Dengren/Collins is?” asked Wager. He pointed to the 4:30 time slot that held the two names.

  “That would be Mr. Douglas Dengren and Mr. Rick Collins. They wanted to discuss the neighborhood improvement policy. They’re the co-chairmen of the Northeast Denver Action Committee.”

  “Did the councilman make that meeting?”

  “I don’t know. I personally have very little to do with that group. They prefer to act outside the party structure, and I prefer not to be identified with them in any way. They’re trying to build a support base in the popular mind by playing on the people’s grievances.”

  “Do you have their telephone numbers?”

  Silently, she thumbed through a Rolodex for the names and then told Wager the number.

  “What about this seven A.M. meeting with CCC?” asked Stubbs. “Who was that?”

  “That, gentlemen, is your own sheriff’s office. One of the councilman’s special assignments was liaison with the City-County Corrections Board. They meet at seven in the morning once a month.” She glanced at Wager. “A breakfast meeting.”

  He pointed at the two-o’clock line. “What about AFS?”

  Her brow creased with thought. “I don’t recognize that abbreviation, and the handwriting’s not mine.” Then she nodded. “American Furniture Service—that’s probably what that is. The councilman wrote it in himself.”

  “Are they in your district?”

  “No. They’re wholesalers. In addition to full-time employment for the city, the councilman also had to run his business.”

  “I thought Miss Andersen ran the business for him,” said Wager.

  “Not by herself she doesn’t.”

  “Do all of them have personal businesses?”

  “Mostly, yes. They can’t stop their businesses for the duration of their terms as councilmen.”

  “Did you help with his personal business, too?”

  “No.”

  “But as an aide, you covered the city business when Councilman Green was tied up with his own?”

  “That’s right. The administrative assistant’s job is very important and very time-consuming. There are many details and many items of business that the councilman himself doesn’t have time to negotiate.”

  “You do city business in his name?”

&nb
sp; “Routine matters, certainly. Office accounts, answering correspondence, researching issues pertaining to the district. Occasionally, I help draft motions and resolutions, but most of that’s done by the council staff.”

  “That would be Mr. Fitch?”

  “And his analysts and assistants, yes.”

  “So you didn’t see Councilman Green or hear from him again after that zoning meeting on the afternoon of the eleventh?” Wager asked.

  “No. He left the committee meeting and I came back here to type up the minutes.”

  “About what time was that?”

  “We usually get the work done in the time allowed. Councilman Green was proud of that; he liked to run a brisk meeting, so I suppose it was close to four-thirty when we adjourned.”

  She was interrupted by the rattle of the door as an elderly couple entered and, seeing the two white men, hesitated.

  “The constituents are beginning to arrive to pay their respects, gentlemen. If you need nothing more from me …”

  Wager held up a finger to keep her attention. “Was it usual for the councilman to stay away from home all night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was killed Wednesday night. He wasn’t found until Thursday afternoon. Did his wife call yesterday to find out where he was?”

  Wilfong thought back. “Yes—she did call. But she just asked if he was here. She didn’t seem worried.”

  “Wouldn’t you be worried if your husband was out all night?”

  “I’m very glad that my ex-husband is out of my entire life, Officer. I don’t know anything about the councilman staying out all night or what his wife might or might not have thought of it.” She lifted the napkin from the doughnuts and folded it before dropping it in the trash. “If you will excuse me now, I have to talk to the constituents.”

  1056 Hours

  In the car, Stubbs whistled a little off-key tune and kept time with a forefinger bouncing on the steering wheel. “You’re really hung up on Green’s staying out all night.”

  It was one of those loose threads that kept snagging his attention: why Green’s wife didn’t make an effort to find her husband when he didn’t come home. “I figure either Mrs. Green knew where he was or she didn’t care.”