Political Poison

by Mark Richard Zubro

  “We need to investigate the poison and the vegetable juice,” Turner said.

  “Taste probably disguised the poison,” Fenwick said. “Don’t know how anybody can drink that shit.”

  “We can try to find out where he bought the stuff,” Turner said. “Might give us a clue.”

  Turner called Laura Giles to see if she knew where her husband bought his juice and ingredients. She sounded groggy. Turner gave her a few minutes to wake up. When he asked his question again she said, “I have no idea. I told you I knew he was into health foods. I don’t know anything else.”

  Turner called Ian at nine. His friend picked up the phone on the seventh ring and said, “This better be fucking important.”

  “I have the scoop of the century for you,” Turner said.

  “I don’t care. I was up late trying to seduce a twenty-one-year-old college student. The sniveling little creep strung me along for three hours, then claimed he had to go to his parents’ home and study for an exam today.”

  “I’m sure you were talking to him in the name of doing vital research,” Turner said.

  “Goddamn wrong. Kid was bright, articulate, witty, and cute.”

  “I’d be happy to discuss your love life,” Turner said, “but I’m trying to catch a murderer.”

  “I almost murdered the little creep last night,” Ian said.

  “I need to talk about reform organizations and who’s got what power in the city. I need to talk to Mary Ann Eliot again. I thought we might set it up for the same time.”

  Ian grumbled, but Turner told him he could sit in this time as long as the whole thing remained off the record. They agreed to meet for lunch.

  Fenwick came up to Turner’s desk and said, “I’ve got the address of Jack Stimpson, the media consultant. That fucker was lying last night. He knew more than he told. I want to put some pressure on him.”

  They drove to the north side address. Jack Stimpson and his wife lived in one of the trendiest and most expensive sections of Lincoln Park, on Fullerton Avenue just west of Clark.

  Fenwick was pissed about the shot fired at Turner the night before. As they drove up Wells Street, he said, “Why the fuck would they shoot at you? How did they find out where you lived? And is it connected to this shit-ass investigation? And why?”

  “You asked all that already,” Turner said.

  “Double fuck,” Fenwick said.

  “No matter how many fucks it is,” Turner said, “we have no way of proving anything now. You know how this is going to go. We have this huge task force of a zillion people. It’ll stay in the headlines, probably for a good while, because these people are prominent. If we get lucky, one of these millions of useless facts will lead to a miniscule connection. So far we’ve got very little besides one dead body, one missing person, and one attack.”

  “What about that kid’s room at the university?” Fenwick asked.

  “That might be connected. I don’t know. What I do know is whoever did all this has covered their tracks pretty goddamn well.”

  “I’m worried about the attack on you,” Fenwick said.

  “I’ve got my vest on.” Regulations didn’t yet require detectives on the Chicago police force to wear bulletproof vests. All uniformed officers were required to and many wore them. “And I can’t post twenty-four-hour guards on the kids. The neighborhood has been alerted and Mrs. Talucci said she’d talk to a few people.”

  “If I was in a fight, I’d rather have Mrs. Talucci on my side than half the cops in the city,” Fenwick said.

  At the Stimpsons a butler met them at the front door. They identified themselves and said they wanted to speak to Stimpson. The butler asked them to wait and shut the door.

  Fenwick said, “I’ve never seen a guy in a tuxedo except at weddings. Never been to a place that had a butler either. I guess that happens when you deal with a better class of murderer.”

  The butler returned a few moments later to usher them into the front hall. Hardwood floors that looked to have been polished that morning, and a ceiling that soared three floors to a massive silver chandelier.

  Jack Stimpson entered the room a few minutes later. He still had bandages on his head. He sat stiffly as if his ribs hurt. A woman entered the room and stood behind him. She wore a black dress, no jewelry, and little makeup. Turner and Fenwick rose.

  Stimpson introduced her as his wife Melissa. She remained standing while the others sat.

  “I talked to you last night,” Stimpson said.

  “We need to get to the bottom of what’s going on,” Turner said. “We need your help.”

  “We can’t help,” Melissa Stimpson said. “I told Jack we should never have gotten involved in local Chicago politics. We’ve done large media campaigns for national organizations. This city has such an awful political reputation. We know nothing about these people.”

  Turner said, “Maybe you could help me understand a few things.” Before either of them could object he continued. “Are you saying that Gideon Giles could afford to pay you on the same scale as a national campaign?”

  “We work in many campaigns. Usually not something as small as a local aldermanic election, but we’ve done it.”

  “Didn’t you wonder where he could get the kind of money to afford you?” Fenwick asked.

  “The checks never bounced,” Stimpson said. “The payments were always on time. You never know which campaigns will make the most money.”

  “Did you work closely with any of the liberal causes Giles championed?” Turner asked.

  “No. I was mostly involved with the campaign staff.”

  “You know Ricken was attacked and is now missing?” Fenwick said. “We think the attacks and the murder are connected.”

  Neither Stimpson spoke.

  Turner asked softly, “What did your attackers say to you last night, Mr. Stimpson?”

  Stimpson glared at the two detectives. Mrs. Stimpson put her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “They said nothing,” he said.

  “Did you know them?” Fenwick asked.

  “No. I told you that last night.”

  “Why don’t you leave us alone,” Mrs. Stimpson said. “My husband told you all he knew. Go away.”

  Politicians had fought to have Jack Stimpson be their media guru. He rarely backed losers and had a reputation for only supporting people whose politics he believed in, as opposed to the usual stereotype of the media consultant selling out to the highest bidder. Now here was this national figure lying through his teeth, and his wife helping in the cover-up. They must be frightened; of whom and why is what Turner wanted to know.

  “Can’t go away, ma’am,” Fenwick said. “This is part of a murder investigation. Can’t stop until we know everything.”

  Stimpson said, “The only one in the organization people fought with was Frank Ricken. Maybe it was the murderer who attacked him, and now that’s he’s missing, maybe the killer got to him and dumped his body somewhere. I know for sure Frank wasn’t one of those who attacked me last night.” The detectives left a few minutes later.

  “Frightened,” Fenwick said in the car. “Scared out of their minds.”

  Turner agreed. “But by whom? And why?”

  Fenwick shrugged.

  At eleven-thirty, they met Ian Hume and Mary Ann Eliot at the Melrose Restaurant on Broadway. They sat in a back booth away from the early lunchtime crowd. Mary Ann Eliot wore a black blazer, a gray skirt, and white blouse. Ian wore his slouch fedora, which he did not take off even for meals. At six-foot-six with bright red hair, Ian stood out in any crowd. Other than the hat his sartorial splendor was muted. Today he wore black pleated pants, a white shirt, and a Chicago Cubs warm-up jacket.

  The waitress brought coffee. They ordered lunch. Turner explained what’d happened the day before when they followed Mary Ann’s leads.

  “I’m stunned,” she said. “My father was definitely covering up.”

  “Could you get him to tell us more?” Fenwick asked. />
  She shook her head. “I doubt it. The old boy network is pretty much tottering these days, but it’s still clannish and closed to those who aren’t in. I doubt if I can do anything to help you there, but I thought you’d get more information from him. I wish I’d known you were going to visit Martha Chambers. I know her extremely well. If you want to go back there, I’ll go with you.”

  “That’ll help?” Fenwick asked.

  “It should. She and I have worked together for years now. You’re white males. That may have been the problem.”

  “What is that place really?” Fenwick asked.

  “You mean the building that houses her organization?” Eliot asked.

  Fenwick nodded.

  “It’s exactly what it purports to be,” Eliot said. “She’s absolutely trustworthy and a good friend.”

  Turner said, “What about the election when Giles beat the committeeman, McGee. We keep hearing about mysterious deals and shifts of power as if we had some kind of banana republic coup against him. How do we find out what the hell was going on?”

  Mary Ann shook her head. “Since the first Mayor Daley, some of the committeemen have lost power. Their strength was in providing jobs and services to the people in the ward. The position of Fifth Ward boss didn’t have a lot of power, but Mike McGee shouldn’t have lost.”

  “So you told us yesterday,” Fenwick said. “That’s what everybody says, but nobody can tell us what deal Gideon Giles made or who with.”

  “You’ve got to offer people something,” Ian said. “Money, power, influence, position. Politics is built on who’s going to do me some good.”

  “So who’s got all kinds of good done for them since Giles got elected?” Turner asked. “No one so far has any facts on any secret contract deals, skimming money, or buying land based on inside information.”

  “Maybe somebody realized he wasn’t corrupt, couldn’t believe such a thing of a Chicago alderman, and decided to revoke his alderman ID,” Ian said.

  Being an indicted or convicted Chicago alderman was hardly news. Often indicted and frequently convicted of pastimes, which included bribery, extortion, mail fraud, or income tax evasion, seventeen of them have been convicted since 1972 on any number of corruption charges. The voters seldom threw the bums out. Better to know the local crook than to have him or her sneaking around behind your back. That Giles wasn’t corrupt was one of his big selling points.

  Ian said, “Frankly I find it refreshing to hear that the creep was on the take.”

  “I thought you liked him,” Turner said. “He supported a lot of issues you worked for.”

  “I liked his support on the issues. Him I could do without. Listening to him for more than two minutes was like being beaten to death with an all-day sucker. He was always up, always hopeful, and all those teeth in his goddamn smile needed to be shoved down his throat.”

  Mary Ann Eliot said, “I can try some old friends in the 11th Ward. They may know of some connection I’m not aware of I’ll make a few calls before we go to the South Side.”

  After their sandwiches arrived, Turner asked Ian about the reform groups in the city.

  “You don’t know the impossibility about what you’re asking. You start with all the religious crowd, move to the hot topics of the moment, like the homeless. Then you’ve got all the human rights activists. You’ve got pro- and anti-cop groups. South Africa’s been big for a while. Add your endangered animals and plants …”

  “Endangered plants?” Fenwick asked.

  “Who knows when someone might pull up the last showy lady slipper in Wauconda Bog?” Ian asked.

  “Wauconda Bog?” Turner asked.

  “I did an article about them a couple years ago connected with how gay groups could network with other rights causes. How other reformers got things done. I do an article, I remember this shit. Besides the guy in charge of the ‘save the lady slipper’ crowd was young, sexy, and gorgeous. I found all kinds of excuses to call him. Plus I got myself onto some of their mailing lists. I’m still on them. Once they’ve got you, they never let go.”

  “Any of them violent?” Fenwick asked.

  “They write letters, call press conferences, try to get media exposure. Not a lot of machine gun—toting environmental terrorists. Most of them are middle-class do-good liberals.”

  “No violence?” Fenwick asked.

  Ian thought. “I’ve never met any I thought would do anything more violent than smash a cockroach, and a few of the groups not even that much. I could try and find out which ones were most connected with Giles. What have you found among his papers?”

  “Lots of shit from every group,” Fenwick said, “but nothing that shows tons of money flooding in.”

  “Most of those groups don’t have a lot of money,” Mary Ann said, “and most of them don’t bother with Chicago alderman.

  “He had a shitload of posters up from these groups,” Fenwick said.

  “Collecting posters is fairly easy,” Ian said. “What we need to find out is if he had any money coming in from any of them.”

  “Or any large sums going to some of them,” Turner said.

  They dropped Ian at the Gay Tribune offices and then stopped by the alderman’s office. She left them to make a few calls. When she came back she said, “Let’s try Martha Chambers first.”

  “Did you get any results on Irish political power?” Turner asked.

  “I called in some heavy markers to try and get people to talk,” she said. “As soon as I said a word about the murder, people got real quiet real quick.” She pointed at Turner and said, “Several people mentioned the attack on you. Word is on the street that you are not a popular man.”

  “I don’t get it,” Turner said. “I’m just a cop investigating a murder.”

  “Nothing is just anything in this town when it comes to politics,” Mary Ann said. “Whoever was secretly supporting Giles has to be worried.”

  “We don’t even know if someone was doing something illegal to get him elected,” Fenwick said.

  “Doesn’t have to be illegal,” Mary Ann said. “Somebody who is powerful might not want his support for Gideon Giles to get out. Double-dealing is a well-practiced art in this city, and violence is not unknown as a way of solving a potential political embarrassment.”

  “Killing me would affect the politics in this city?” Turner asked.

  “What you might find out could,” Mary Ann said. “Don’t take this wrong, but you probably aren’t what’s important, but what you might find out is. That shot could simply have been a warning to be careful. A note saying keep your mouth shut if you find out something incriminating.”

  Together they drove to the south side. Outside the five-story building, Mary Ann Eliot ignored the glass that crunched underfoot, the pavement crumbling beneath her, and the surly teenagers who stepped aside as she marched to the door. The same gentleman who greeted them yesterday smiled at Mary Ann Eliot but frowned when he caught sight of the two cops. He ushered them up the grand staircase and to the solid oak door at the end of the corridor.

  Martha Chambers and Mary Ann Eliot exchanged hugs and murmured, “It’s been too long.” Finally seated, Mary Ann explained their business.

  Chambers said, “I talked to them yesterday. If I’d known you knew Mary Ann, I would have been kinder.”

  “This is a murder investigation,” Fenwick said. “Withholding information in a case like this is illegal.”

  She wagged a finger at him. “I didn’t say I knew anything yesterday. I said I’d have been kinder. Today I know something. Mary Ann’s presence makes it that much easier for me to want to help you.”

  Fenwick returned her stern gaze. “We’re just trying to do a job,” he said.

  She broke off the stare and sighed. “Yes, I suppose you are.” She straightened the lapels of her jacket, sat up erect in her chair, and folded her hands on top of the blotter in the center of her desk. She said, “The Fifth Ward should have had a black alderman ma
ny years ago. Partly it’s inertia. Partly the liberals who represented us always voted our way. Lot of reasons. Then this guy Giles came along. A lot of minority politicians had been looking forward to the day Mike McGee stepped down. We thought we’d have our big chance.”

  “Why not run against him?” Fenwick asked.

  “It’s a lot easier not to run against an entrenched incumbent,” Mary Ann said.

  “And he’d done a lot of good for this ward,” Martha added then continued, “When Giles came around, none of us in the old guard supported him. We may not have been in love with Mike McGee, but he was okay. We saw the election of Gideon Giles as a roadblock. Then money and jobs started drying up for those who supported McGee.”

  “Who cut the jobs?” Turner asked.

  “City Hall. Politicians don’t control jobs the way they used to in this town, but believe me, paying back those who support you is still a big-time business. Mike McGee could no longer pay back. He could no longer serve as clout for anybody. A group of us called on him to find out what was wrong. He seemed as confused as the rest of us. The decision had to be coming from City Hall.”

  “We got nowhere talking to somebody at City Hall yesterday,” Fenwick said.

  “Who’d you talk to?” Mary Ann asked.

  They told her.

  “He’s a nobody,” Mary Ann said.

  “I don’t get it,” Fenwick said. “I thought Mike McGee was on the outs with the big-time politicians in this town.”

  “Mike knew his place,” Martha Chambers said. “He never went so far that they stripped him of his patronage. He could talk a good line in the press, but he was careful never to alienate anyone when it counted.”

  “Do either of you have a solid contact at City Hall who could give us information?” Turner asked.

  Both hesitated then shook their heads. Mary Ann said, “I could check some sources, but I don’t think I know anybody that high up who could make decisions like this.”

  “I don’t at all,” Martha said. “Are you sure the murder is contacted to Giles winning the alderman’s or the committeeman’s race?”