The Strategist

by John Hardy Bell

  “How is she?” Camille asked.

  “She seemed good, considering the circumstances. There was a lot of family there at the time, little kids and stuff, so I didn’t stay long. But I had to see her. When she and Detective Graham came to my house, Detective Sullivan was the only one who seemed willing to listen to me. If it wasn’t for her, I think Detective Graham would have taken me out of there in handcuffs and shackles, or worse. I feel like she actually went to bat for me, and I wanted to thank her, and to tell her I was glad she was okay.”

  “She definitely went to bat for you, Stephen. And for good reason.”

  Stephen smiled, almost blushing with embarrassment. Then he continued. “Anyway, the reason I brought it up is because she told me that you were the one who deserved all the thanks. She said it was you who did all the fighting to make sure the truth came out. I know you went through a lot to get that truth out. So again, I just want to say thank you, not just for myself, but for everybody who knew Julia. From what the news says, this story could get a whole lot worse before it gets better. But I know justice will prevail in the end. I know it doesn’t always happen that way. But in this case, I have to believe it.”

  Camille nodded. She felt like crying again, and this time she succumbed to the urge.

  A wave of sadness washed over Stephen’s plump face. “I’m sorry, Ms. Grisham. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She quickly composed herself. “You didn’t upset me at all. In fact, I couldn’t be happier that we met. I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I can promise you that the people working this case now are right-minded, and they’re just as eager to uncover the full truth of what happened to Julia as I am. So you keep thinking positively about this. If nothing else, you’re inspiring me to do the same.”

  The sadness on Stephen’s face was replaced with a light smile. “Positivity is pretty hard to come by these days, but it’s all I have to get me through this.”

  “I understand from Detective Sullivan that you’re in school?”

  Clemmons nodded. “Paralegal studies.”

  “I hope you can continue that now.”

  “I plan to. Brown, Wallace, and Epstein offered me my old job back should the investigation turn out the way they assume it will.”

  “Do you think you’ll go back?” Camille asked.

  Clemmons briefly lost himself in thought, then shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I’m not sure about a lot of things yet. I’m technically still a suspect in Julia’s murder. So until I find resolution there, nothing else really matters.”

  Camille nodded. “I completely understand. And you will find resolution.”

  “I sure hope you’re right.” After a quiet moment, Clemmons extended his hand. “It was wonderful to meet you, Ms. Grisham.”

  Camille stood up, gently pushed his hand away and hugged him instead. “It’s Camille to you,” she answered.

  When they separated, Stephen lightly dabbed the corner of his eye. “Thank you, Camille.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Take care of yourself Stephen,” Paul offered as he walked Clemmons to the door.

  “There are a lot of wounds to heal, Mr. Grisham. But I’m working on it. ”

  In that moment, Camille realized just how much the two of them had in common. The time for healing had indeed begun.

  CHAPTER 55

  Dale Rooney felt like an irrelevant spectator as he first watched the reports of Stephen Clemmons’ arrest, the widespread doubt about his guilt, and his subsequent release on bail. Never once did those news reports mention the importance of Dale’s testimony. It seemed, in fact, that no one cared about Dale’s testimony, not even the police. Since giving his last statement to Detectives Graham and Sullivan, Dale had waited by the phone night and day in anticipation of the phone call requesting the positive identification of Clemmons that he was fully prepared to give. But no such phone call came. When Dale put in multiple calls to Detective Graham’s cell phone, none were answered. The star witness in the Julia Leeds murder investigation didn’t feel like much of a star anymore.

  He felt betrayed.

  It was a feeling that only deepened as he watched the news reports of Detective Graham’s murder and its possible connection to Julia Leeds. The man arrested for Graham’s murder, as well as the shootings of Detective Sullivan and Camille Grisham was a police officer. As if that didn’t shake Dale badly enough, the latest rumors were that this police officer had admitted to a role in Julia’s murder, and had named Graham and several other high profile officials as co-conspirators. Once again, Dale waited for his name to be mentioned.

  From the beginning, he felt justified in his actions because the police, and Detective Graham in particular, made him feel as if his eyewitness account was the key component to their investigation; the difference between a quick arrest and a twenty-year-old cold case. But if the reports about Joseph Solomon were true, Dale wasn’t helping the police department at all. He was being used by them.

  As the details continued to emerge about real story behind Julia’s murder, Dale wondered how long it would be before Stephen Clemmons’ innocence was confirmed, and the actual motivations behind his arrest were revealed. When the story is told years from now, and Clemmons is known only as the man who was set up by the police as a suspect in a murder he had nothing to do with, Dale had no doubt that his role as an all-too-willing accomplice in that setup would be highlighted. The only question that remained was would he be reviled like Joseph Solomon and the others, or would he be given proper acknowledgment as the unwitting mark that he turned out to be? The best that Dale could hope for was that whenever the story was finally told, his apology to Clemmons, the one that he desperately looked forward to giving, would be front and center.

  One thing was for certain, whenever the time did come for that story to be told, Dale Rooney would not be an easy man to find. The realtor had been hired, the ‘for sale’ sign had been put up in his yard, and the search for the life that should have been his fifteen years ago was thoroughly underway. This time when Dale mentioned his intentions to Maggie, she did not put up a fight. It seemed that something inexplicable had happened to them as a result of this otherwise horrific ordeal: Maggie noticed him again. When they spoke now, it wasn’t about a past full of regrets or a present full of resentment and misunderstanding. It was about a future they planned to spend together. If nothing else positive came from this situation, and so far nothing else had, Maggie had developed a newfound respect for her husband. Dale, in turn, rediscovered the wife, lover, and best friend he had forgotten ever existed. Even though that rediscovery came with a cost that he would have to live with for the rest of his life, Dale knew he wouldn’t change a thing.

  With Trinket the Pomeranian yipping in her lap, Maggie pulled up a website filled with real estate listings. “So what exactly did you have in mind?”

  Dale didn’t hesitate in his response. “Someplace so far removed from civilization that even the world’s most sophisticated GPS won’t be able to find us.”

  Now if only he could find that German Sheppard.

  CHAPTER 56

  There were eight people inside Mayor Sonya Richmond’s office. Aside from the mayor, none of them were public figures. They could drive down any street, shop in any grocery store or walk into any office building and blend in perfectly with anyone other ordinary person there.

  But the people in this office were far from ordinary. They were part of an unseen conglomerate that powered the economic, political, media, and social machine for the state and points far beyond it. Theirs was a circle of influence so secret and so powerful that no one except for its members even knew of its existence. And today they assembled to discuss a matter of the upmost importance.

  The circle was in danger of being compromised.

  It seemed that one of their own had managed to get himself into a situation that he could not get himself out of, and instead of calling upon those members of the circle with the re
sources and expertise to help him, he decided to resolve the situation on his own. The result was not only a personal crisis for the member, but a professional crisis for his wife – herself a highly valued member of the circle.

  With a firestorm brewing that involved large-scale financial and political wrongdoing, as well as rampant marital infidelity, the people in this room were charged with finding a swift resolution.

  For Sonya Richmond, resolution didn’t mean finding a way to save her marriage. It meant finding a way to cut herself loose from a man she had stopped loving years ago; a man whose only real value to her decreased exponentially with each new report that surfaced about his various misdeeds.

  His behavior had always been a potential liability for her. Before now she had always found a way to manage it. But with the existence of the disk and its impending release to the public, he had finally created a situation that went beyond her ability to manage.

  Even though she first learned of the disk days ago, Elliott had waited until the story broke on the ten p.m. news to tell her. She didn’t act surprised, but also refrained from telling him that she had already seen it. Instead she half-listened as he insisted that they could find a way through the situation as long as they stuck together. But Sonya already knew there would be no getting through the situation together.

  The election was two weeks away, and her twelve-point lead in the polls virtually assured that she would become the next United States Senator from the state of Colorado. Certain members of the circle had aspirations for her that were far greater, and with their help she would eventually get there too. But the senate was a necessary first step.

  Now, one flash disk threatened to destroy everything. The fact that Elliott had such a gross inability to keep his dick in his pants was bad enough. But the fact that that shortcoming was on full display in a video that was dangerously close to become a part of the public record was something she simply could not tolerate. She had to act quickly to mitigate the damage. And holding a press conference where she tearfully stood by her man while he declared his innocence was simply not going to do.

  The result was this meeting. The group discussed various scenarios for the better part of four hours before finally coming to a consensus. The ultimate decision was not an easy one to make. But Sonya knew it was the only one that could be made for the best interests of all involved, Elliott included.

  She requested that the other members be present when she called him into her office. They agreed, with the stipulation that Sonya would be the only one to speak. The decision may have been a collective one. But the responsibility to hand it down was strictly hers.

  Sonya understood, and with a heart that was surprisingly heavy, she summoned Elliott to the meeting.

  He was silent as entered. Meetings with this many members at once were rare. He knew everyone in this room, but had never met with all of them at the same time. He swallowed hard as he sat.

  “Hello Elliott,” Sonya said. Her tone was formal.

  “Hi honey,” he answered nervously, his eyes shifting from one member to the next. Finally he looked at her. “What’s going on?”

  Sonya fanned a stack of papers on her desk. “We… I have to tell you something.”

  Elliott sat upright in his chair. He looked at the group again. Every one of them held his glance. “Okay.”

  Sonya sighed, then looked at her husband with an unwavering stare. “We have to feed you to the wolves.”

  Elliott chuckled. “Feed me to the wolves? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that I can’t stand by you on this.”

  Elliott’s smile went away and he leaned forward in his chair. “What?”

  “I have a news conference scheduled for two-thirty today. I’m basically going to look into the camera and tell the entire nation that I’m completely disassociating myself from you. Call it a pre-emptive strike.”

  Elliott’s mouth quivered. “You can’t do that. You’re my wife. I didn’t do what they’re accusing me of. I didn’t kill anybody. Why would you even say…”

  “Elliott, please.”

  “Look Sonya, can we at least talk about this?”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing to talk about. If the world thinks you murdered that girl, then I’m not going to say or do a single thing that dissuades them of that notion. You can swear up and down that you’re not guilty of this. And at the end of it all, you might even convince some jury of that. But in the meantime, you’re going to drown. And I’m not about to drown with you.”

  Elliott’s mouth no longer quivered. In fact, he didn’t move at all. He simply stared at the Colorado state seal that was etched into the wall behind his wife.

  “I’m as much a victim in this whole thing as Julia Leeds is,” she continued. “By the time I’m finished, the voters of this state will think I’m more of a victim. I know it’s a terrible situation, Elliott. But what’s going on here is much bigger than you. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. If you truly believe in what we’re doing, you’ll understand why the sacrifice has to be you.”

  Elliott shook his head and looked at the group of stoic men sitting in front of him. “So that’s it? You’re not even going to try to make this better?”

  Not a single one of them flinched.

  Elliott turned back to his wife. “Anything that I did, I did it for you. For us. For our future.”

  “I wish I could believe that. I really do. But the reality is that you were only trying to save your own ass. If you were really thinking about me, you would have ended the affair and that bullshit Ace Project a long time ago.”

  Elliott buried his face in his hands. “What about our children?”

  “Considering everything that you’re accused of, they’ll be better off without you,” she answered with a coldness that was not entirely consistent with how she felt. But right now it didn’t matter how she felt. Right now, all that mattered was that the circle would remain unbroken.

  Once she took her rightful place in the senate and began the journey to even bigger and better things, she would look back on this meeting and realize how correct her decision was.

  But for the time being it left a hole in Sonya’s heart so big, she wondered if anything she ever achieved would fill it again.

  CHAPTER 57

  The press conference was being carried live by every major news network in the country, and as Camille sat next to Chloe Sullivan’s hospital bed, she hung on every single word. Mayor Richmond began by addressing the shootings of Camille and Detectives Sullivan and Graham and assured the public that the man arrested for those shootings would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But she never once mentioned Joseph Solomon’s name, his affiliation with the Denver police department, or his involvement in Julia’s murder. She did, however, go to great lengths to assure the voters of the state that her campaign was being run with the upmost honesty and integrity, and challenged anyone to argue otherwise. Every time she used the word honesty - and Camille’s latest count had the number at thirty-five - Mayor Richmond looked directly into the camera; her look of earnestness so practiced that it almost looked authentic. When she spoke of her husband, however, the mayor did not look into the camera once.

  She chose to address the charges against him by not addressing them at all. Camille hadn’t expected a mea culpa, but she did expect the mayor to vehemently refute the accusations of voter fraud and financial malfeasance. Instead she vowed a full commitment to her campaign and its supporters while due process was allowed to play itself out.

  “I cannot let the alleged actions of my husband, whether they are true or not, destroy a campaign that I’ve fought so vigorously to win. I expect that Elliott will fight these charges to the best of his ability, but I do not condone his actions, nor can I stand by him as he mounts a defense. My family has been embarrassed, I have been personally devastated, and the citizens whose lives have been most affected by these accusations have been bet
rayed. I will maintain the transparency that you’ve grown accustomed to during the remainder of this campaign, but I ask that you please respect my privacy, as well as that of my two children, when it comes to these very personal matters. Thank you.” Before Mayor Richmond could take a step away from the podium, she was bombarded with a series of rapid-fire questions.

  A young man in a black suit stepped up to the microphone. “I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen, but the mayor will not be taking questions at this time.”

  The inquiries continued, however. One question stood above the others and immediately commanded the attention of all those in attendance. “Mayor Richmond, what about the accusations that your husband was romantically involved with Julia Leeds? And the assertions that she was murdered because of it?”

  Mayor Richmond made her way back to the microphone over the feeble protests of the kid in the suit. “I’m aware of those accusations, but seeing as I have no knowledge of this supposed disk that the media is talking about, I have no comment except that I fully expect the criminal justice system to do its job. The truth will come out one way or another, and I will do everything in my power to see that the right person is prosecuted for Julia Leeds’ murder, whomever that person turns out to be.”

  Another barrage of questions followed. “What do you say to the members of Julia’s family who claim that you know more than you’re leading us to believe?”

  Mayor Richmond took a deep breath and looked into the camera once last time. “First and foremost, I offer my deepest condolences for their indescribable loss. Second, I want to see the person or persons who killed her brought to justice just as much as anyone else does. While the accusations against Elliott are shocking, I cannot let personal feelings deter me from discovering the truth. And discovering the truth is exactly what I plan to do.”