by Anne Hagan
Nate, a junior partner in a Chicago firm well known for its successful defense of white collar criminals, raised an eyebrow. “How did she think you’d be able to help her?”
“That’s just it. I really don’t know. She seemed to think I had some sort of old connections that I could tap on her behalf but, well, we just didn’t get very far with that whole line of reasoning on her part. Our first meeting ended quickly and she was killed when she was trying to connect up with me to meet again.”
The kettle started to whistle on the stove. He removed it, poured boiling water into the two mugs and began to steep our tea. “So you came up here then from Ohio to try and...I don’t know...talk to these connections and find out...what?”
“I came up from Ohio because someone has framed me for her murder.”
His head shot up from his task, eyes wide, “Dana, I don’t do criminal defense for murder...”
“I’m so sorry Nate! I didn’t mean to startle you. That’s not why I’m here.”
Nate blew out a long, hard breath and shook his head. “It’s a little far-fetched to think that you would murder someone to begin with so I apologize for my initial reaction but you being here if you’re charged in Ohio does beg some questions...”
“Agreed; I understand. I’m here because the only clues I have to who might have killed her led me here. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is in charge and they don’t seem to be interested in pursuing anyone for it but me.”
Nate picked up both mugs from the counter and motioned me with his head, “Let’s move into my den. I think we need to start from the beginning.”
“Is Michael Roan available please?” I was calling from Nate’s den phone to the see if I could get an appointment with the head of security at the casino where Terri had worked.
“Mr. Roan is not in today,” the admin who answered the phone told me.
“Can you tell me when he will be in please?”
“He’s scheduled himself for tomorrow ma’am.”
On a Sunday? Score for me! “Can I make an appointment to come in and speak with him tomorrow?” I’d worked with Michael Roan on a consulting job in my previous position. We’d gotten on well and I was sure he’d remember me. As a security consultant, I had been privy to some inside information on casino operations. I wasn’t welcome to just wander around on the gaming floor, given that knowledge. Getting an appointment with him was my best bet to not get myself in hot water in Illinois too.
“I’ll have to contact Mr. Roan and check with him ma’am. We’re doing a powerboat promo tomorrow. It will be a busy day for the casino.”
“I see. Is it possible for me to contact him now then?”
“No ma’am. I can’t give away his personal contact information.”
“Alright then. Please let him know that Dana Rossi would like to speak with him tomorrow, as early as possible.” I gave her my cell number and hung up Nate’s phone. I’d just have to turn the cell on and off occasionally and check for messages. It was the best I could do, under the circumstances.
Now I’m probably stuck until at least tomorrow not knowing a damn thing more than I already know.
###
Late Saturday afternoon, June 21st, 2014
Nate’s older sister Sarah and I were having a very late lunch and catching up with each other in her little condo overlooking Washington Park. We’d been very close when Nate and I were together. Now, she was coming to my rescue and putting me up, at least for the night.
After lunch, Sarah was going to let me raid her closet for something appropriate to wear to meet with Mike Roan since we’re about the same size and I was living out of a little duffle bag.
“I really appreciate you helping me out. Thanks so much!”
“What are old friends for?”
“I’m just glad you still want to be friends.”
“Dana, I’ll be honest; I always thought Terri was all wrong for you.”
“Look, I know you were upset when it didn’t work out between Nate and me but you know that...”
“Dana, honey...it wasn’t that. Baby I knew you were gay before you did! I just mean that Terri wasn’t the right woman for you...not even close.”
“I thought she was...at first.”
“I know you did but you were in love with the idea of being in a relationship with another woman. You couldn’t see what I could see. She knew I saw right through her though. That’s why she had you push me and all of your other friends away.”
“It would have been great if you would have told me all of this back then!” I leaned over toward her corner of the little table and gave her a playful punch in the arm.
“You wouldn’t have listened. You weren’t ready to see it yet.”
I smiled at her, “When did you get to be so wise?”
“All those years of training!”
“Aren’t you even a little bit scared I might be a murderer like the state cops in Ohio think I am?” I teased her.
She laughed, “Please! I know you. It doesn’t take years of clinical psychology practice to know that you’re not a killer. You don’t have the mindset for it. Heavens, when Nate first brought you to Chicago and you wanted to join the police department, I just shivered at the thought of the situations you might find yourself in.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence!”
“Dana, with or without your help to ‘investigate’,” she made air quotes, “the folks back in Ohio will figure out you aren’t capable of what they think you’ve done mentally, completely aside from your current physical limitations.”
“Now you’re talking like a shrink...”
“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
Chapter 21 – Bright Lights
Sunday Morning, June 22nd, 2014
Michael Roan left me a message Saturday evening while Sarah and I were out enjoying a summer evening watching random softball games in the park. It seems like I’ve been spending a lot of time in parks lately and while I’ve enjoyed most of it, I was tired of the crutches and not being able to walk and run and do the things I used to be able to do when I felt like the world was closing in on me.
Now I was on my way to Joliet to meet with Roan. I finally felt like I was going to get somewhere after a couple of days on ice.
It was 10:50 when I pulled into the Harrah’s employee lot. The big customer lots were still pretty empty but when the powerboat giveaway promotion started at 1:00, there was probably going to be a standing room only crowd on site vying for a chance to win it. Michael would be waist deep in security concerns by noon or so, I figured. I just hoped I could pick his brain sufficiently before he had to hit the ground running.
“It’s good to see you again Dana,” Michael Roan shook my hand. “I understand you’re not with SCS anymore?”
“No. No. I’ve been in investigations with the Customs Service for the last three years but I’m about to be medically retired.”
Roan looked at my crutches, “On the job injury, I take it?”
“I was shot during a big bust.”
He raised his eyebrows, “Wow. I would never have expected that from ‘mild mannered’ Dana.”
Brother, you don’t know the half of it! I shrugged and lowered myself into a seat in his little office just outside of the nerve center of casino security operations.
“So what brings you in to see me today? We don’t interface much...ever...with Customs.”
“It’s personal business today.”
“How so?”
“You employed a woman here by the name of Terri Sweeting, correct?”
Roan looked at me sideways but nodded, “We did.”
“I’m aware that she’s no longer employed here and, if the story that she told me is true, I’m also aware of the circumstances surrounding why she’s no longer in the employ of Harrah’s.”
“You do understand that I can’t talk about employment issues without the consent of HR?”
“Yes, I get tha
t. This isn’t about her employment or the lack of it with the casino. It’s about the investigation that I’ve been led to believe is the reason that she’s no longer here.”
“The investigation itself?”
“Yes. So, you were, in fact, investigating her, correct?”
“We were.” He didn’t offer anything else.
He’s not going to give an inch. “Michael, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. I knew Terri Sweeting back when I was working with SCS. We’d lost touch for a few years and then out of the blue she came to see me in Ohio last week. She said that she had a problem that revolved around what went down here and she thought I might be able to help her. She indicated that was receiving death threats.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Understood...not directly, you wouldn’t. What she wanted me to do was to find out who Aggie was fronting for.”
Roan reacted almost imperceptibly to the name ‘Aggie’. I could tell from his slight flinch at the name that at least some of what Terri had told me was true.
“Dana, no matter what Sweeting told you, I can’t reveal the details of an ongoing investigation to her, to you or to anyone outside of our law enforcement partners in the matter.”
“Terri Sweeting is dead. She was murdered in Ohio last Saturday in between meetings with me.”
Roan snapped back in his chair. “Murdered?”
I nodded.
“Okay, look, I don’t know what she told you about what she was involved in here,” he waved his hand toward me, “so why don’t you give it to me in a nutshell, first?”
“Fine. Terri said she and four other people were involved in a cash for players club card scheme. They were giving player’s club cards to Aggie that were loaded with casino free play and comps. Aggie was giving them cash for the cards which they were then splitting between the four of them.”
“That’s pretty much it, yes.”
“Well, supposedly, the death threats started when you guys or the authorities you involved in the investigation of the whole mess went after whoever Aggie was fronting for. Terri didn’t have that information and she wanted it, apparently to save her own ass, but now it’s too late for that.”
“This just happened a week ago, right?” At my nod, he continued, “So how is it that you’re continuing to be involved rather than there being an official police investigation? This is the first anyone has come to me.”
He has me. I have to come clean. “Michael, Terri and I had an initial meeting last Friday afternoon that nothing came of. I didn’t think I could help her and I told her I wouldn’t and sent her packing.” No sense dragging Mel into this...
“Last Saturday morning she called me begging for another meeting. I relented and drove to where she asked me to meet her but she wasn’t there. To make a long story short, she was killed near our meeting site and her killer or killers knew enough about me to frame me for her murder.”
Michael blinked several times rapidly but didn’t say anything.
“The Ohio Highway Patrol is leading the murder investigation. They don’t have the resources to follow up on such a loose lead. To prove my own innocence, I need to try.”
He steepled his hands over his desk blotter and looked at me earnestly, “Somehow, I believe you. You don’t strike me as a cold blooded killer and I don’t see where you had anything to gain from her death.”
“Thank you for that.”
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing that I can tell you that’s going to be helpful to your case.”
“Michael look, I can have my attorney subpoena the casino and any law enforcement agencies involved...”
He shook his head vigorously, “It isn’t that.”
“What then?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
I spread my hands out and stared at him.
“Look Dana, Aggie is Augustine Fero. She’s a member of the Gangster Demons street gang.”
I rolled my eyes. Not again!
“You’re familiar with the Demons, I take it?”
“They’re the source that caused this to happen,” I pointed at my left leg. “So the Demons are involved but there’s nothing to tell?” Skepticism dripped from my query.
“That’s just it; Fero was getting loaded cards off of Terri in exchange for cash. From what we can tell, the cash she was paying out came from the gang. What we don’t know is what the Demons wanted with the cards. They’ve made no attempts to cash any of the club cards in that we can attribute to Terri and her accomplices.”
“What?”
“Nothing Dana. We can electronically track every last card. Not one of them has ever been used at Harrah’s and the only ones that were physically found by law enforcement were the ones Aggie was given by Terri during our sting operation.”
“What about other Harrah’s properties?”
“All of our casinos use the same player’s club card but comps and free play you get at one property can’t be used at another property. They’re specifically awarded to entice you to stay at or to come back to the same place. They would have had to of put the cards in play here to get any value back out of them and they haven’t.”
“Has anyone attempted to use the cards at other properties legitimately to, say, start accumulating earned comps there?”
“No, not at all. Since they were initially created, not a single card as ever been read by any sort of a card reader at any Harrah’s property.”
I was dumbfounded, “What the hell was their scam then?”
Roan shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
###
Late Sunday Night, June 22nd, 2014
My mysterious caller had said I’d find my answer in Chicago. So far, I had a whole lot of nothing.
According to Roan, the entire sting operation had been botched from the word go. Augustine Fero had ended up charged only with the misdemeanor offense of receiving stolen property. In a stunning lack of thought and planning, Roan’s team and the Cook County Sheriff’s Department had given Terri cards with names on them but no loaded free play or comp amounts for the sting set up. When those cards were later turned up in Fero’s possession, they had no cash value associated with them so a gang lawyer got the felony charge initially leveled against Fero reduced to a misdemeanor. Because the Sheriff had moved in to bust Fero too quickly, her contact got away. Fero dummied up, spent a month in the Cook County lock up and then walked.
I have to find Aggie Fero. She’s the only known link that can help me find Terri’s killer!
I tried to make myself comfortable in the bed in Sarah’s guest room but I was in a little pain and more than a little keyed up. I was missing Mel for one thing and I also reminded myself that Joshua King would be expecting me first thing in the morning.
I can’t go back to Ohio until I can find out something that’s going to save my skin...
Chapter 22 – Indictments
9:05 AM, Monday, June 23rd, 2014 – 6 Weeks to Election
“Mel,” Holly ducked her head into the Sheriff’s office, “The Grand Jury just returned an indictment against Kelly Rice for ‘Accessory After the Fact’. I just thought you’d want to know right away.”
Mel put both hands down on the desk top, “Well, didn’t they work fast this morning after leaving it hanging Friday evening so they could adjourn for the weekend?” She shook her head in an exaggerated display of disapproval.
Holly pursed her lips and shrugged. “The DA is already working on getting you a warrant.”
“Please bring it in to me as soon as we have it. I’ll have to go and get her myself.” Mel smirked but didn’t let on what she was really thinking then she sat back in her chair and stared at the stark white ceiling.
Holly watched her, “Are you alright today Mel? You seem a little out of sorts.”
Mel tried to paste on a half-smile, “I’m worried about Dana. She waited out the weekend before turning herself in so she wouldn’t have to sp
end it sitting in a lock-up somewhere. She’s supposed to meet with her lawyer and go to the OSHP this morning but the only thing I’ve heard from her since Friday night is a text saying she needed to take care of some things and she’d be back in Ohio soon.”
“She left the state?” Holly was incredulous.
“Apparently so.”
“Wow. That’s so not cool...er...sorry Sheriff.”
“It’s okay. I agree with you. I just wish I knew what the hell was going on.”
###
9:30 AM, Federal Courthouse, Columbus, Ohio
Lieutenant Nichols shook the Attorney General’s hand. “Thanks for the assist with the indictment sir.”
“Not a problem LT. You just go and find this Rossi woman. Who knows what else she’s capable of.”
“Nichols nodded. We had word that she was planning to turn herself in this morning so we held off on continuing our search for her when we didn’t turn her up Friday or Saturday. That’s our mistake and it won’t happen again. We’ll find her and nail her.”
“See that you do LT. That she’s hiding out or running or whatever it is that she’s doing speaks volumes. See that you do.”
###
11:00 AM, Zanesville, Ohio
Mel parked her county SUV behind her Deputy Joe Treadway’s cruiser. She thought it best that they serve the warrant on former deputy Kelly Rice together so there wouldn’t be any future complaints of negligence, brutality or any other such thing. Rice was an unknown force these days and Mel wasn’t taking any chances.
Rice’s vehicle wasn’t in evidence in the area near her townhome style condo. Mel tapped on the door once and then again while Treadway looked on. There was no answer.
Treadway stepped over to the only front facing lower floor window.
“Anything?” Mel asked him.
“I can see the living room and a dining area. There’s no one in view and nothing that looks unusual.”
“She’s not working so where could she be?”