Once a Noble Endeavor

by Michael Butler

  ****

  On Friday morning at the eight o’ clock meeting, Team 1 was reinvigorated; the excitement was palpable. The novice’s luck, or more likely talent, had changed the demeanor of the whole squad. Morale was up, and Jack Mason knew immediately Nicky had changed the dynamic.

  Kristin Roberts was the most enthusiastic. “Nick, a new lead, and a really good one. Jack, once we have the Brooklyn IAs work up that address we have a new ball game. I heard people talk about VoIP, but this is the first time it figured into one of our cases.” Kristin began thinking about preparing an electronic communication—a record of the investigation dispatched out to agents and analysts, and stored in the ACS—known as an “EC.” She started her notes as she sat at the conference table.

  Brennan modestly made a quick observation. “Look, this is just beginner’s luck. I had domestic help too, but who cares. Just so you all know, I sent out an EC today to the Brooklyn satellite setting leads, and they are going to get everything they have on that telephone and address. My guess is that Aaffia had that as a safe spot—her point of communications.”

  Bob Phillips, the quietest of the group, offered his assessment. “We’ve been looking at this case for a long time. Some of us considered VoIP, but we had no place to start. Nick and Kevin gave us new life. With a little luck we are reborn.”

  The boss took over. “Alright, we are going to have the IAs work it over, but after that I think we are going for a search warrant. We’ll have the agents and forensics guys empty that place and there will be something else. Take it to the bank. Think about it over the weekend. The next team meeting is scheduled for 8:00 a.m. on Monday.”

  ****

  That night at about six Nick finally got home after a long and demanding week. With a feeling of exhaustion, but a good, satisfying exhaustion, Nick was so happy to see his trim, beautiful wife. Jodie was waiting with a home-cooked Italian meal and a slightly chilled bottle of Chianti.

  “Nicky, you magnificent Fed, I made veal parmigiana with salad and spaghetti with the best damn sauce I have ever engineered.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Mom and Dad took them out for the early evening so we could be alone.”

  Nick opened the bottle of wine, poured two glasses, and stretched out on his oversized favorite chair in the living room as Jodie curled up alongside him.

  “Tough week, Nicky?” Joann asked.

  “Yeah, but most of it I can’t talk about. This isn’t like the cops.”

  “Well, let’s talk about what you can talk about.”

  “Okay, let’s see. Jack Mason wears some really nice suits, I think he has them tailor-made. I want to get one. And I work on the seventh floor of the FBI building, mostly in a bank vault, but when I look out from my regular office window as usual I get dizzy just looking down.”

  “Nick, from the seventh floor? I thought you got over that?”

  “No, no, I feel okay going up, it’s when I look down that the feeling gets me.”

  “Well, don’t look down.”

  “I am trying to desensitize myself to height. You know I could climb up the outside of the Eiffel Tower a la King Kong, but you’d never get me off the top once I got there.”

  “How is the investigation going?”

  “Pretty good, actually, but I’m not sure where it will lead.”

  “Do you like the team?”

  “Joann, they are great. Incredible experience. I hope I can live up to the expectations everyone has about Team 1.”

  “You’ll do fine, just don’t look down,” Jodie said with a smile as she leaned over and kissed him.

  “Hey, you want to play a quick game of checkers before dinner?” Nick suggested with anticipation in his voice.

  “Dinner! Nick, that reminds me—don’t forget we have a dinner party with the Howells down the street tomorrow night. Yeah, Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Let’s see, that’s what I wrote down right here.”

  “The Howells, who are they again?”

  “You know, Margaret Howell is Elizabeth’s school superintendent at Saint Mary’s and Mister Howell Adrian is a big banker and lawyer. They are having thirty people come over for cocktails and dinner. It’s a big night, and I heard it goes pretty late.”

  “It sounds good to me.”

  ****

  The next evening Jodie was nervous about the impression they would make. As they dressed, Joann continued to think about the social importance of the event before them.

  “Nicky, it is important that we come off as interesting, informed, articulate and involved. They are important people in town, and I want them to think of us as…you know, ‘on top of it.’”

  “I’m with you all the way. I’ll tell them I’m a movie producer!”

  “Nicky, is this skirt too short? Tell me the truth. How about the sweater top?”

  “The skirt is definitely too short, but I think the sweater is a little too long, so on average I think you look pretty good. Nah, you look great. Hey, I love those sexy shoes!”

  The car ride to the Howells’ only took two minutes. As they walked up the stone entranceway to the large brick building which resembled a small estate, not just a house, Nick looked around. No cars. Maybe it’s a surprise cocktail party, he thought, laughing to himself.

  “What time does this thing start, Jodie?” he asked.

  “Promptly at eight, and it is eight right now,” Joann said with a serious look on her pretty made-up face.

  Nick rang the doorbell, but no one responded. He rang again, waited a moment, and then again.

  The door suddenly was abruptly flung open. Standing before Nick and Joann was a slightly overweight middle-aged woman in a terrycloth wrap with big curlers in her hair and an exhausted look on her face. Curtly, the woman asked, “Can I help you?”

  “Mrs. Howell, it’s me, Joann Brennan. We are here for the party. Are we a little early?”

  “No, sweetheart, you are a little late. The party was last night!”

  Joann just smiled as Nick said, “Well, I hope everyone had a good time and—” while Mrs. Howell ignored him and slowly closed the big, solid wooden door.

  As they walked back to car, the ever optimistic and positive Jodie, parsing her bright red lips, said with a smile, “I just have to have that robe!”

  Chapter 11

  “Mister Clinton, do you know what the parole board is trying to determine today?”

  “I think so, Mister Chairman. You want to make sure I have changed, that I no longer represent a threat to the community, and that I have been rehabilitated, is that correct?”

  “That’s right. We have to make a judgment about your suitability to be released into a free society, we must be convinced that you no longer have violent propensities and that if you are released you will get a job and be a productive member of that free society.”

  “Mister Chairman and members of this board, I have served most of my twenty-two year sentence. I have gotten a high school diploma and acquired an associate’s degree. I have learned to use a computer and I am a competent maintenance man. I have repaired plumbing and electric in this prison. I have painted its walls, fixed fences and the roof, I have cut grass and tended to the garden. I have successfully attended and completed psychological therapy. I am ready to be released, all I need is a chance.”

  “Mister Clinton, this board will reserve judgment. You will receive our decision in a few months.”

  Steven A. Clinton by most accounts was a well-behaved inmate and of the classic type eligible for early release. The warden recommended parole, and he was supported by the psychology staff. Shortly before his retirement, Doctor Weigand wrote in a report to the warden: “Steven has been a model prisoner. He is much changed from the character that reported to this institution so many years ago. His sessions with me have been profoundly enlightening. He has learned much about himself, accepted blame, expressed remorse, and discovered what caused him to act in such a vicious way. When Mr. Clinton becomes eligible f
or parole, please forward a copy of this report to the board and the state.”

  ****

  It was a bright early spring morning in upstate New York as Steven Clinton walked out the front gates of the maximum-security prison. He wondered why he had never been sent to a medium or minimum institution before his conditional release, but cared little at this point. With a brand new suit of clothes and a bus ticket home, Clinton started the short walk to town. The air was moist and chilled, but once he began to walk briskly he warmed up rapidly. He had grown accustomed to his pronounced limp, which had worsened through the years; at times it appeared that he was dragging his big left leg. Inside his trousers, hidden from view, the wounds from the bullets and the surgery on his legs were gruesome, resembling small, distorted railroad tracks made from scar tissue.

  The brown two-piece suit he was wearing was ill fitted and obviously inexpensive, tight around his chest and waist with a fine pattern of brown stripes that didn’t align on the fabric. As he entered the large bus station in town, many of the workers there immediately identified him as a released inmate, at first staring at him. After a moment, most, out of a sense of learned caution, slowly began looking down, casting their eyes away from his.

  Clinton was a much larger man than the one who had entered prison. All the years of working out with weights and his hearty appetite had increased his bulk. At six feet three inches he weighed at least 220 pounds, much of it muscle.

  The bus ride to New York was long and uneventful. Clinton took a seat in the rear of the vehicle and stared out the window, watching as the rural landscape slowly changed from hilly light green woods and farms to large suburban home sites and finally to the apartments and warehouses that characterized the Bronx. The bus made its first stop twenty minutes after it crossed the New York City border.

  It was after dark when Steven arrived at his destination. The residence to which he was assigned by the Department of Corrections was in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan, a working-class neighborhood that was populated by a combination of ethnic and racial groups in an area blanketed with graffiti. The place was chosen by the parole officials because it was relatively close to his family but far enough away from his former neighborhood to avoid the temptation of reviving old habits.

  Clinton’s bedroom was inside an old four-story brick walk-up surrounded by buildings sporting all the varieties of the colorful, pervasive spray-painted art so common in urban centers. The room was small and tidy with white paint peeling from the walls, a short bed and small closet with a chest of drawers pushed against the wall. Clinton laid his small carrying bag on the bed and walked down the dark hall to inspect the common bathroom. As he turned on the lights, he saw the roaches scatter in every direction, but most of leggy critters were scurrying down the drain in the sink as they usually did—a sight Steven had seen many times before. Looking at the bugs, he thought, I should be right at home here, as he turned off the lights and slowly walked back into the dim corridor leading to his room.

  It was about ten at night when Clinton finally climbed into bed. The covers and blankets were long, so he positioned himself so that his large head sat squarely on a pillow while his long frame was stretched the length of the bed with his feet hanging four inches over the other end covered by the long sheets. He slept soundly his first night out of prison and awoke at about six with the sun just beginning to breach the horizon. He had to meet the residence supervisor and begin searching for a job later in the day, he knew as he climbed out of the bed. He quickly washed and dressed and descended the stairway.

  Below, in the dining room, Clinton heard a bellowing voice ring out loudly, “Good morning, Mister Clinton!” While it was clearly a New York accent, Clinton heard a bit of a Southern twang in the deep, guttural sound as well.

  “Good morning, sir,” he responded in his own deep voice.

  “Please call me Mister Jackson. I am the residence supervisor and the man you will report to while you are here.”

  Tyrone Jackson was a black man of about forty-five years with gray, very short, almost shaved hair and a tight small mustache. He was lean and slightly above average height.

  “Yes, Mister Jackson. I was told to look for you and I was also told that you could help me get a job.”

  “Mister Clinton, like you I am an ex-convict, and like you I spent a lot of time in prison. I shot and wounded a man during a robbery and as a result I spent almost twelve years in jail upstate.” Jackson stopped talking and took a seat at the large breakfast table where he continued the introduction, “When I got out the only thing that set me straight was a job, and like you I was handy with tools. Eventually I got this job with the Department of Corrections and now I have a family and own a two-story building in the Bronx and I am working on a pension. You can do that too.”

  “I understand. Where did you work with your hands?”

  “A place that you are going to work at as a general maintenance operator. We have some very kind building owners further downtown that employ my charges in a variety of occupations. I always fit the man to the job, and you are, from what I have heard, a talented tradesman.”

  “Upstate I got involved in all of it. I pretty much can fix anything.”

  “Good. After breakfast I am going to ask you to meet Mister Roy Tolson downtown on the Westside. He is the manager of several buildings owned by the Starlight Corporation. He will set you up and get you started. You will begin work tomorrow.” He studied Clinton’s face for a moment and then added, “The salary is not great, but it is good under the circumstances. You will pay me for your room and board.”

  Later that morning Clinton took the subway down to a cluster of buildings coincidentally just south of the FBI facility in Chelsea. The buildings, lower in height than he had expected, were older, with dark brick exteriors, and had obviously been renovated inside. Some of them must have been warehouses, he thought as he walked to the administrative offices on the base floor of the central building. At the security desk he asked the guard to direct him to Mr. Tolson’s office.

  Looking up and obviously impressed by Clinton’s enormous size, the security man asked, “May I see some identification?”

  “I don’t drive. I only have this junior college ID and my Social Security card, but Mister Tolson is expecting me.”

  The guard looked at the two documents and pointed to a hallway on the left.

  Mr. Tolson’s office door indicated he was the general manager for the Starlight Corporation, which Steven noticed as he reached for the knob. As he entered a small waiting area, he could see through an open door on the other side of the room where a man was sitting in a somewhat smaller room behind an oversized dark pine desk. The gentleman was older, perhaps sixty, Clinton thought, and had a shock of almost pure white hair.

  “Mister Clinton, is that you?”

  “Yes, Mister Tolson. Mister Jackson sent me here to see you about a job.”

  “You’ve got the job. You will be one of my general maintenance men in these four buildings you see surrounding us. Let’s take a walk and I will show you around.”

  ****

  On Monday morning Team 1 met for a strategy session. The Brooklyn address had been run through all the databases over the weekend and found to shelter two college kids, one on each floor. According to telephone records and cross-referencing, the upper floor was rented by an NYU male undergraduate and the street-level apartment was inhabited by a female postgraduate student at Brooklyn College. There were no derogatory or suspicious activities uncovered during the exhaustive research, which included general name checks, customs and immigration inquiries, travel records, classified FBI data, criminal and NCIC inquiries and even traffic infractions. The landlord lived near 734 Dean Street in the same neighborhood, and he, too, appeared clean by all accounts.

  A check of the building records held by the city indicated available living or office space in the basement, and an open-source computer search showed that the basement had be
en offered for rent for business purposes or commercial space in local newspapers about two years earlier. Interestingly, there was still an active landline going into the basement. Aaffia must have prepaid the telephone bill somehow, analysts believed. Later they would discover she purchased an expensive three-year plan with unlimited calling.

  Jack Mason called the meeting to order and delved right into what the team’s approach would be to the new lead.

  “First, let me commend Nick Brennan for his refreshing, pardon the computer pun, our mission page. I think we are back on track with Nick’s new lead. Let’s go around the table and figure out our next step.”

  Ford immediately chimed in, “I think we should start by going to the Brooklyn satellite and pick their brains with respect to the community and the usual suspects.”

  Phillips spoke next, “I agree, but I also think we should have an application for a search warrant drafted. We have to search that building like you said, Jack.”

  Al Franks nodded in agreement but added a slightly different thought. “I think we are going to find that the basement apartment or office or whatever it is will be our treasure trove. Let’s have an agent and analyst visit with the landlord and find out more about the rental if there was one. If it is vacant we may not need a warrant.”

  It was Nick’s turn. “I agree with everything that has been said, but I think we should get the warrant for the basement level now, search it and interview the landlord later. We will have the advantage of searching and being armed with some information and then questioning the building owner.” He stopped briefly to collect his thoughts and then added, “If we find something that suggests an imminent threat, it is better to know sooner rather than later. If we can get permission from the judge for a surreptitious entry, all the better. I can get started on my affidavit right away.”

  Kristin Roberts was shaking her head vigorously. “Nick is right, let’s go for the warrant right away and head over to Brooklyn and talk to the guys in the satellite. Look, it is possible that Aaffia made up that landline number when she bought the computer, but if that’s the case she sure got lucky—a basement office in a Middle Eastern neighborhood with a live line. She could have just said to the salesman she had no landline.”