The judge smiled and straightened a bit. Then playing to Alice and Johanson, and almost completely ignoring Frank, he said, “You bet. First of all, the reason I have an attorney filing for an injunction is because that tape belongs to the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, and...”
Frank shouted, “Oh, come off it. You know damn well that’s prior restraint, and no court is going to give it to you.”
The judge finally looked at Frank. “Not so. Not with an on-going investigation involved here.”
Frank raised his brow. “An on-going investigation? What the hell are you talking about?”
O’Bryan darted a quick grin at Alice. “If you’ll just calm down and listen, Frank, I’ll tell you.”
Frank shrugged and gestured that the judge had the floor.
With a nod in Frank’s direction, O’Bryan continued: “This tape was made because I was working with the Wayne County Prosecutor at that time, Prentis Gant. We arranged to have a hidden camera tape this whole transaction, in an effort to nail Anthony Peoples for attempted bribery.”
Frank exploded. “That’s bullshit. A judge in cahoots with the prosecutor to get some guy for bribery when he’s already up for armed robbery and murder?”
“Anthony Peoples wasn’t the main target in all this. It was his cousin ‘Pretty Rick’ Mahone. We figured Peoples would get the money from his cousin. We could trace the cash back to ‘Pretty Rick’ and put one of this town’s leading drug lords away for a good long time.”
Frank shook his head. “Billy, I can always tell when you’re bullshitting, and right now, it’s coming out of your ears.”
Alice got up from her desk again and stood behind it. “Frank, I’ll take it from here. From what I’ve seen and heard, I think it would be wise not to go ahead with this story, at least for the time being.”
Frank also got up from his chair. “Oh, for Christ sake, Alice...”
Alice raised her hand. “Frank, that’s enough. Jack, what do you think?”
Already knowing what was coming, Frank was shaking his head.
“I agree, Alice. I sure don’t like prior restraint. But in this case, I think we need to move very carefully.”
Chapter 88
In the station’s lobby at the visitor’s entrance, Gwen was sitting at her desk and listening on her headset to an irate viewer as she watched Francine running toward her down a long hallway. The young woman was clutching a cassette, and as she reached the lobby she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the uniformed Detroit Police officer sitting in the armchair watching TV, a large strawberry birthmark covering almost half his face.
Francine stared hard at the man, then glanced at the other two Detroit cops on the couch and finally at Gwen on the phone behind the desk. She turned and walked quickly down an adjacent hall leading toward the VP-GM’s office.
Chapter 89
In that office Judge O’Bryan was saying, “Frank, you’re just dead wrong on this one.”
“Yeah, well, twice in the past two days I’ve nearly been just plain dead...”
There was a sharp knock on the door, it opened and Alice’s secretary Margaret leaned in. “Frank, Francine from the newsroom says she needs to see you right away.”
“Maggie, I’m a little busy at the moment.”
In the doorway Francine looked over the secretary’s shoulder, nodding frantically. “It’s like really urgent, Frank.”
Reluctantly he headed for the door. “Sorry, I’ll just be a minute.”
Walking out of the office, he left the door open so he could glance back in as he talked with Francine.
Judge O’Bryan took advantage of the moment. “Alice, I really appreciate the opportunity to come in and tell you about my concerns.”
Alice smiled. “I’m glad you called. We appreciate the heads up.”
“You know, Frank and I go way back together, and I have tremendous respect for him. But the guy has just put himself under too much pressure lately. He really needs some time off.”
Alice nodded in agreement and watched as Frank took the cassette from Francine and moved back into the office. He closed the door and remained standing.
“Look, Alice, just give me two more minutes to explain the rest of this, and then do what you want.”
Alice stared at him for a moment, then said, “Two minutes, Frank.”
Chapter 90
Moving slowly up the hall, Francine reached the lobby and peered around the corner. The cop with the birthmark was no longer sitting there. She walked quickly to the desk. “Gwen, why was that police officer here?”
“Which police officer?” Gwen glanced at the two uniformed cops on the couch.
“Not those two. The one who was sitting in that chair.”
“Oh, he came with the judge who’s meeting with Alice.”
“Where’d he go?”
“The police officer? He asked if he could look around the station.”
“And you let him?”
“Francine, he’s the police.”
Chapter 91
Holding the floor, Frank felt good on his feet. “The fact is that everybody in a position to incriminate the judge here and Sam Dworkin is either conveniently dead or supposed to be.”
Alice nearly rolled her eyes. “What on earth are you saying, Frank?”
“I’m saying that ‘Pretty Rick’ is dead, murdered in his Masarati. Anthony Peoples is supposed to be dead, by the car bomb that took his wife and kids instead. Prentis Gant is dead, by his own hand, according to the cops, but I saw him that night, and my guess is he was murdered. And finally, I’m supposed to be dead. At least once and maybe twice in the last 24 hours someone’s tried to kill me.”
Alice’s eyes narrowed. “Frank, what are you saying? All I know about is last night, and I was told it was an accident, or a near-accident, that you shouldn’t have been walking in the streeet.”
Frank moved to a tape machine on a shelf next to the monitor and ejected the cassette that was in it. “Yeah, well, I’ll show you last night, and you can judge for yourself.”
Removing a sticky note from the cassette Francine had brought, he slotted the tape into the machine and pushed a button. “But today coming back here after interviewing Peoples, I was chased on the freeway and shot at. I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Shot at, Frank?”
“Yeah, Alice, shot at. I had to ditch my car on the freeway with shattered windows and bullet holes in it. We’ve got pictures of it.”
Everyone turned to watch the monitor. On screen Frank was standing on Jefferson Avenue waiting to walk and talk, nicely lit and framed.
“This is what happened last night.”
On the monitor, Frank once again started his walk and, as the grey Town Car began turning the corner behind him, spoke his opening lines. “Some people say I own this town. Well, they’re wrong. This proud old city belongs to each and every one of you...”
Again, the Town Car accelerated toward Frank. And again it nearly hit him and then continued past until the action stopped in a freeze-frame.
Alice said quietly, “Frank, you were very fortunate.”
“Yeah, maybe I was.”
Now on the screen the freeze was followed by a magnified version of the frame that produced a fuzzy close-up of the driver’s face.
“And we were lucky our camera was more or less hidden and perfectly positioned to get this guy’s mug on tape. Remember this face with a big mark there on the left side. I think we’re going to see it again.”
On the monitor the magnified freeze gave way to a courtroom scene featuring Judge O’Bryan. On screen he was saying, “This court feels strongly that...”
Whereupon the defendant, lunging past the court reporter, went for the judge’s throat. “You (bleep). I’ll rip your (bleep) head off.”
As the bailiff quickly wrestled the man away from the judge, the action again froze, and the picture was blown up to offer a detailed look at the bailiff’s face. Now there was a clear
look at a large, strawberry-colored birthmark on his left cheek and forehead.
Frank read from the sticky note. “The man coming to the judge’s aid, the man with the large red birthmark, is the judge’s bailiff, Officer Kenneth Miles. Officer Miles has been assigned to Judge O’Bryan’s courtroom for the past three years. And for two years before that, he was a member of the Detroit Police Department’s gang squad.
“Oh, and before that he was with the bomb squad.”
Now the monitor’s screen was split, filled with the two freeze-frame close-ups of the driver and the bailiff. They appeared to be one and the same man.
Frank continued: “And in case you still have any doubts, I’d say these side-by-side pictures strongly suggest that Officer Miles is also the man who apparently tried to run me down last night.”
He pushed the pause button on the tape player to keep the split picture on the screen. Then turning back to his attentive audience, he found his old pal the judge finally looking a bit uncomfortable.
“Alice, all I’m saying is, under the circumstances it seems right and appropriate to tell Anthony Peoples’s story and to include portions of the hidden camera tape that Peoples gave me. By the way, your honor, if you were really working with the prosecutor to nail Peoples and ‘Pretty Rick’ for bribery, why would Peoples have the tape in his possession?”
The judge was getting a little pink in the face. “How should I know? This is a guy charged with robbery and murder. Maybe he stole the tape.”
“Charges, which you dropped in exchange for a $50,000 bribe.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Frank turned to his news director. “Look, Jack, I’ll include the judge’s denial and his trumped up tale, if he really wants to stick with it. But this story needs to be told, and we’ve got everything we need to tell it properly. After which Peoples turns himself into the feds, we give them everything we’ve got as well, and it’s all settled in court.”
With a long drag on his pipe, Johanson blew smoke and nodded. “Alice, I think Frank’s right.”
She stared at Frank for a second. “There’s not much time. You better get back to the newsroom.”
“Thanks, Alice. I’m sorry, Billy, I really am. If you want to come with me now, we’ll put you on camera, and you can have your say.”
“Fuck you, Frank. I’ll see you all in court.”
Chapter 92
Looking desperate, Dennis stood in front of his computer. “Where the hell is Frank?”
As if on cue, the anchorman walked into the busy newsroom.
“So how we doing, Denny?”
“Frank, I was getting worried. We’re doing fine, but we’ve got less than 40 minutes, and I haven’t been able to get any response from Dworkin or the prosecutor’s office. Francine tells me you and the judge were in there with Alice and Jack.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about a response. I’ve got one from O’Bryan.
“Great. I’ll insert that while you go over the lead. So what did he say?”
Frank stopped on his way to the back of the newsroom and the hallway to the men’s room. “His honor claims he was working with Gant to nail Peoples for bribery.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course, it doesn’t. But give me a minute here to take a leak and put on my face, and I’ll give you a verbatim from the judge. Now what about legal?”
Dennis sat at his computer. “Harmon’ll be here in a few minutes, but he shouldn’t have a problem. We’ve been very careful. Everybody has their say, we’re just reporting the facts and I’ve pasted “allegedly” on everything.”
“Okay, good.” Frank resumed his walk to the back of the newsroom and then through the hallway to the men’s room door.
Inside, the place was empty, except for one stall with its door closed. He walked to up to a urinal and unzipped his fly.
Chapter 93
Inside that one closed stall, sitting fully clothed in his police uniform, was Officer Kenneth Miles.
He had found this men’s room by chatting up a bored stage hand, feigning an avid interest in Frank, and getting the guy to talk about the anchor’s pre-newscast routine. After taking a brief look around in here, he had then hung out in a corner of the newsroom, mostly hidden behind a newspaper, until Frank walked in, and it was soon obvious that the full story was a go.
Moving quickly, he had taken an alternate route to get into this stall before the asshole came in whistling to take a piss.
Now through a half-inch space along one edge of the stall’s wall, he could see the jerk, with a paper towel in his collar, primping at the mirror. For a second he touched the department-issued .44 in its holster. Then he lifted his right pant leg to grab from its holster the little Walther .22 he had taken off a punk-assed hit-kid with a drug crew a few years back.
He pulled up the other pant leg to expose the gun’s custom made silencer strapped to the side of his shin. Then reaching back, he flushed the toilet, and while the noise filled the room, he screwed the silencer into place on the Walther’s barrel.
One last thought now on making this little move. The judge was usually a pretty sharp guy, but in this case he’d become rattled and wasn’t really thinking straight. With Frank pounding away at it, this story about setting up Peoples and “Pretty Rick” for bribery, even with someone inside the prosecutor’s office ready to vouch for it, had little chance of sticking.
No, to give it at least a chance, he needed to put a couple in Frank’s head, drag him into this stall, pull his pants down and prop him on the shitter. Figuring he was taking a huge dump, they wouldn’t find him for several minutes, and by then he’d be out that back door off the newsroom, to pick up the judge and drive calmly out the station’s gate.
Then he’d see how things went and, only if necessary, execute his carefully formulated exit plan.
One more glance through the crack at Frank still primping, and he got up off the toilet, unlatched the door and stepped out of the stall.
Chapter 94
In the mirror Frank immediately saw Miles come out with the gun pointed at him, and he froze, half his face covered with liquid make-up. Only Frank’s eyes moved as he followed the cop circling a few steps behind him with the gun held in both hands and leveled at the middle of his back.
In front of the men’s room door, Miles stopped moving and asked, “You think that stuff might work for me?”
Frank continued to stare at him in the mirror. Fear filled his throat, but he swallowed hard and tried to keep his voice steady.
“I doubt it. Even with make-up, you’d still look like a killer.”
“Say goodnight, Frank. That was your last commentary.”
Miles raised his aim to the back of Frank’s head and began to squeeze the trigger.
And just then the door behind him swept inward, as the two cops from the lobby burst into the room followed by Francine. The swinging door caught Miles in the back and shoulder as the muffled gun fired with a thud. The bullet hit Frank’s mirrored image squarely in the face, shattering the mirror and showering Frank with fragments.
The two cops quickly wrestled Miles to the floor and disarmed him, while Francine rushed to Frank.
“My god, Frank, are you okay?”
Deeply shaken, he tried to breathe and nodded silently as he stared at the slivers of mirror on his suit coat.
After a few seconds he finally found his voice. “Seven years bad luck, Frankie.”
The young redhead took his arm and moved him toward the door. “Not for you, Frank. For him. Probably a lot more than seven.”
Chapter 95
On the news set, his make-up and hair in place, he felt close to calm as he waited for his cue. The floor director counted down, then whipped a finger at Frank.
“In my twenty-five years in the news business this may be the most painful and perhaps important story I’ve ever reported. As some of you may know, Detroit Recorder’s Court Judge William J. O’Bryan is
a long-time friend of mine. But tonight Judge O’Bryan is at the center of a number of serious allegations involving corruption and murder.
“Good evening, everybody, I’m Frank DeFauw. And tonight Channel 5 News has learned exclusively that Judge William O’Bryan, along with prominent defense attorney Samuel Dworkin and at least one other man who works in Recorder’s Court, may be involved in an alleged bribery scheme—a scheme that may have led to murder in an effort to cover up their alleged criminal activities.”
Chapter 96
Thirty-five minutes later, Frank was finishing his summary of “what we’ve learned so far,” as Channel 5 wrapped its extended coverage of the court bribery expose, which had even included Mary Scott interviewing her co-anchor on the I-94 shooting.
With b-roll running of a chaotic scene in the newsroom, Frank read:
“And just about 40 minutes ago, right here in our Channel 5 studios, in the men’s room off our newsroom, a third attempt was made on my life by this man, Kenneth Miles, a Detroit Police officer assigned to Recorder’s Court as a bailiff for Judge O’Bryan.
“As you heard earlier, only because of excellent police work by Detroit Police officers Frank Riley and Eric Fontana did I come out of this unscathed.
“Here you see Miles in the custody of Officers Riley and Fontana as they took him away to the Wayne County Jail where he’ll be held for an arraignment tomorrow morning in the very court where he has served as a bailiff for the past three years.”
Chapter 97
Of course, at 11 that evening, WTEM presented a full report on the alleged bribery and murder scandal featuring Judge William O’Bryan and defense attorney Sam Dworkin and involving Channel 5’s own Frank DeFauw as a major player. Again the report included most of what was seen on the five o’clock, but there were significant additions as well.
Anthony Peoples was interviewed by Frank live on the set, talking at some length about the experience of concealing his identity and finding safe refuge for several weeks, both in the city of Detroit, where he was known to a number of people, and in Cleveland, where he knew only his sister Vanessa, and where he had spent nearly four weeks after being deeply shaken by the death of Prentice Gant.
The Car Bomb (The detroit im dying Trilogy, Book 1) Page 17