A Deadly Development

by James Green

  “Allegedly, Burke, allegedly!” Burke could feel some of Williams’ warm spittle on his face. He decided not to wipe it off just yet.

  “Chief, it all added up, and like Tom said, the man himself said he did it,” Thurber said.

  Well, I’ll be, Burke thought. Jack is all right, I don’t care what anyone else says.

  “Says the man who he himself sneaked into this very office and stole a bookend without permission and certainly without my ok!” Williams thundered.

  Fucking Michaels, Burke thought, he told Williams about the bookend. How else would he have known?

  Williams was staring at Thurber. “Oh yes, Detective, I know,” he snarled, “You’ll find I know everything that goes on in this department.”

  Williams stopped. He strolled over to the window on the south wall and stared into the night.

  “Like I said, we have a major problem. To say the Mayor is upset would be a major understatement. She told me in no uncertain terms to fix this mess-- your mess,” he turned and pointed at Jack and Tom, “and that’s what we are going to do. Right now.”

  He walked over to Michaels. “Didn’t you tell me that junkie who got run over on I-70 was a suspect? That these two morons were the ones who chased him into traffic?”

  Michaels nodded and simply said “Yes, sir.”

  “Well,” Williams went on, “looks to me we know who killed Mr. Vithous.”

  “You cannot be serious,” Tom said, not believing what he was hearing. In all his years on the force, he had seen corners more times than he could count. But he never heard of – much less seen – the wrong person purposely fingered for a crime he didn’t commit. His father was right, trust no one.

  “You’re god damn right I’m serious. We’ve got a police safety sales tax coming up for a vote this fall, an incredibly important vote that we need Mayor Hughes not only to endorse, but to campaign for with all her might.”

  Williams was staring right through him.

  “You two are going to write up in your official report that you found a laptop stolen from this very office in the junkie’s apartment.”

  “But Chief, he had nothing to do with it,” Burke complained

  “You’re not hearing me, Sergeant,” Williams countered, his face reddening. “You’re going to file a report this very evening that will attest to that very thing.”

  Williams paused for a moment, plotting his next scheme.

  “Then, we will have someone else write up the report saying Pete Knaak, for no apparent reason, decided to leap from the top of the City Hall observation deck,” he continued.

  “Unofficially, we will let the press know that Knaak was distressed by the failing health of his beloved wife.”

  “With all due respect,” Thurber interrupted, “I ain’t signing shit, and I know Tom ain’t signing shit either.”

  Williams moved close to the bookcase, and gazed upon the remaining bookend, speaking in a whisper. “Don’t be so sure, Thurber. You might be right about Burke. I’ve heard that being a hardheaded asshole runs in his family, and that walking the beat back in uniform might not be enough to dissuade the Burke clan.” He stopped for effect. Burke returned the stare. He wasn’t intimidated easily, and certainly not now, with the rage building within.

  “But, I am going to guess that if we were to dust this bookend for prints, we would find only one set on it - yours,” he smiled directly at Thurber. “And I’m sure that I could get the Mayor to sign an affidavit that would say that there was only one bookend in this office, not two.”

  Burke looked over at Thurber. Jack looked like he was about to throw up. Burke knew that Jack was only two years away from a full pension. Thurber didn’t speak for a long time, but Burke could tell by his body language he was defeated. He stared over his large belly at the tips of his shoes.

  “Fine,” Thurber sighed, “I’ll sign all the official reports, but on one condition.”

  “Do you really think you are in the position to be asking for favors?” Williams asked, looking contemptuously at Thurber.

  “Tom doesn’t have to sign nothing, keeps his stripes and can stay on the murder squad.”

  Burke tried to interject, “Jack, don’t do that!” but it was too late.

  “Deal,” Williams said to Thurber, his hand already out for a handshake. Thurber shook Williams hand, but he couldn’t look him in the eyes.

  “Tom, I suggest you use some of that built up vacation time you’ve got,” Michaels said. “Starting tonight. I don’t want to see you or hear anything about you for the next two weeks.”

  Williams opened the office door, looking pleased. “Well, I think we’ve put enough lipstick on this pig for now. Thurber, you come back with us to HQ to get all that paperwork filled out. I want this investigation finalized tonight.”

  Williams walked up to Burke, his mouth up next to Burke’s ear. He could feel the Chief’s hot breath. “Burke, I don’t want to see your face anywhere until at least April.”

  Friday, March 17, morning

  The hardest part had been finding the pay phone. Burke hadn’t looked for one for years, and when he needed one, they had been elusive. He finally found one outside of a grocery store in the old northeast neighborhood. He left Bethany a rather lengthy message. Her cell phone must have been off because it hadn’t rung; it went straight into her voice mail.

  “Hello, Ms. Edwards, we met last Saturday evening at the Thai noodle restaurant. I have some information that I think you will find incredibly interesting and could be the story of your career. Please meet me at the corner at the southeast corner of 39th and Stateline Road at 7 a.m., tomorrow. That’s 39th and Stateline on Friday, March 17 at seven. Bring your notebook.” He had cringed at that last part; it sounded incredibly lame, but his brain was fried.

  The sun was now above the horizon. Burke walked the three blocks from his apartment to the corner. Would she show? He hoped so, but he couldn’t be sure. About the time he was getting nervous that she hadn’t taken him seriously when an older, blue Honda Civic slowed to a stop, with Bethany Edwards at the wheel. She rolled down the window.

  “Sergeant Burke,” she said, “I hate getting up early on Saturdays, but I must say, you have me intrigued.” He opened the passenger door and got in.

  “Believe me, you won’t be sorry. Are you ready for an inside scoop, all off the record?”

  “Absolutely,” she said as they started heading north.

  Burke asked her to drive to somewhere where they could park. Bethany said there was a park close by, and Burke said that would be fine. They parked in the empty lot, and Burke decided it was best to start with a bang. He unzipped his coat, and pulled out the missing bookend, zipped up in an evidence bag.

  It hadn’t been hard to find. The biggest problem was waiting long enough for the area to clear out so he wouldn’t get caught. After the warning from Williams, he had gone home for a long period, his body pulsing with anger and adrenaline, wondering what to do next. He was so mad, so in shock about how things had gone so terribly wrong, that he had left his car in the City Hall garage and had walked the entire way home. If he hadn’t had dress shoes on, he would have sprinted home, just to burn off some of the rage he felt, but that wasn’t feasible, so he walked. The rhythm of his steps kept the beat of the thoughts swirling in his head, over and over again. Knaak, Vithous, Hughes, Williams. All of it. What a mess.

  Eventually he arrived at his apartment. As he walked up the stairs and pulled out his keys, he decided that he wasn’t going to let them get away with it. He was going to wipe that smug smile off Chief Williams Ken doll face. He was going to make Captain Michaels regret siding with Williams. And he really was going to make them regret sullying his family’s name. Fuck Williams, he thought. Then he realized he needed the missing bookend. Only he and Pete Knaak knew it existed. And Pete Knaak was in the morgue.

  Once home he showered, picked at some leftovers and waited. He drifted off for a while, but only for an hour or so. He h
adn’t checked his home messages for the day, so to pass the time, he did. Two messages from his mother; and one from his real estate agent.

  “Hey Tom, it’s Seth. Julie signed the offer this afternoon. She said you two talked. Anyway, I need you to sign them, too. Any way you could stop by after work? I will be in the office until six.”

  Tom checked the time on his cable box. It was 11:45 pm. He got his phone out and texted Seth.

  Late day at office. Can I sign on Monday?

  To his surprise, he got an immediate response.

  We need to move sooner than that. Can stop by office in a.m. Say nine?

  Burke texted a quick response.

  Make it eleven? See you then.

  He then turned his cellphone off and put it in his top desk drawer. He wouldn’t be using it for a while.

  Burke got out his computer and started to search. He looked at a variety of flights, LA, San Diego, and Miami. Then he saw a destination that was a good fit. He got his credit card out, entered his information, and booked his flight. Burke turned his printer on and waited for it to print out his boarding pass. After a few seconds, the boarding pass slid out. Burke took it, folded it into his wallet, then turned the printer and the computer completely off.

  Next, he dug around his closet for a flashlight and a crow bar out of his toolbox, put on a black turtleneck, black gloves, and the darkest jeans he could find. He shoved an evidence bag into his front pocket, and drove his personal vehicle back towards City Hall. He purposely took side streets, taking his time. Perhaps he was being overly cautious, but he didn’t think so. Upon entering downtown, he drove to the east side and parked in a surface parking lot that was almost completely empty. His heart was in his throat when he got out of the car, but he was determined. He was going through with it.

  He walked with purpose; fast, but not too fast to draw attention. Downtown was almost entirely deserted. It was Friday morning now -- his watch said 1:32. The bars wouldn’t close for another half hour, so anyone leaving after last call wouldn’t be around yet. He was careful to avoid KCPD headquarters; instead he walked two additional blocks west of City Hall on 10th Street, then circled back using alleys whenever he could. Cutting across a parking garage, he walked across Oak Street, and to the western entrance of City Hall. The crow bar felt heavy and awkward in his hand; he could feel some sweat on the back of his neck and in his gloves. He realized he was nervous. Thinking about doing something like this was one thing. Actually doing it was entirely different.

  He was in luck; the bookend was in the second storm drain he opened. It was less than a hundred feet from the basement level of City Hall. Burke figured Knaak most likely had forgotten he was even carrying it until he stepped out and had realized it was still in his hands. Knaak had disposed of it quickly. Burke dropped carefully into the sewer with the flashlight in one hand. Using his other hand, he pulled out the evidence bag –and with extreme care—dropped the bookend into the bag. Burke realized he hit the jackpot. The bookend was in pristine condition since it hadn’t rained or snowed since Friday. As he looked carefully at the bookend through the bag, he could see some of John Vithous’ hair, along with blood and even small amounts of flesh.

  “Bingo,” Burke whispered to himself. He moved quickly to exit the sewer and placed the manhole back on.

  He was circling back now, almost at a trot, but not quite. He had slid the bookend into his coat pocket and could feel it rub against his stomach with every step. The crow bar had been harder to conceal. Burke decided to just slide it in the back of his pants, but it was too hard to walk with. He decided to do what Pete Knaak did – he threw it down a storm sewer.

  Burke had taken about three steps when the blue and red lights came out of the darkness.

  “Stop right there!” the voice behind the light shouted.

  Shit, Burke thought. His gut was a knot; he had no idea how he was going to talk his way out of this one.

  “Hands where I can see them!”

  Burke raised his hands slowly, hoping the bulge in his jacket wouldn’t be noticeable. But, he knew that if he was the cop, he would frisk him the second he got a chance.

  “Tommy?”

  Burke squinted through the darkness. He couldn’t make out the face just yet. And then suddenly the knot in his stomach dissipated.

  “Hey, Kevin,” Burke replied, “you scared the shit out of me.”

  Kevin Sullivan’s shoulders relaxed and he removed his hand from his service revolver. He reached into his squad car and turned the lights off. It took Burke a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness again.

  Burke knew Kevin mostly as a little kid. Kevin was the last of seven Sullivans. The baby of the family. He was twelve years younger than Bobby and Tom. Burke knew he entered the academy a few years ago and joined the force, but their paths rarely crossed. This night, Tom was very relieved that they had.

  “We’ve had some complaints about car break ins down here. Don’t think we’d be sweating it, except a Councilman’s car got broken into a few nights ago, so now it’s a priority. You know the drill.” Sullivan rolled his eyes.

  “Yes, I do,” Tom replied, now leaning up against Kevin’s patrol car. He realized he hadn’t been breathing, so he inhaled, but not too much. He didn’t want his cousin to realize how nervous he was.

  “Anyway, I’ve been spending some time down here each night, hoping to catch someone in the act. When I first saw you in this get up, I thought I had my man.”

  Burke looked down at his clothes. He did look ridiculous, like a spoof of Mission Impossible. He tried to play it off.

  “Insomnia,” Burke replied, “can’t sleep. Bad day at work, so thought I’d walk.”

  Cousin or no cousin, Kevin wasn’t buying it.

  “Uh huh,” he said, “you always sleep in gloves and a hat?”

  Burke gave in.

  “Ok, you are just here looking for petty crimes, right?”

  Kevin nodded.

  “Well, I’m not stealing anything. Honest.” Burke held up his hand and crossed his heart with his right hand.

  “What’d you throw back there?” Sullivan motioned back to the storm sewer.

  “Just an empty. Didn’t want to get an open container violation.”

  Sullivan shook his head and then broke out in a big smile.

  “I don’t even want to know, do I?”

  “Nope, you don’t,” Burke agreed, “And you would being doing me a big favor if you never mentioned this to anyone.”

  “Mentioned what?”

  Burke grinned.

  “Thanks Kevin. I owe you.”

  Do you need a lift?” Kevin motioned to his car.

  Burke shook his head.

  “No, but thanks. I’ll just walk home.” They shook hands, and Tom was off again –backtracking through the parking garage and alleys.

  He walked two blocks thinking the whole time – Did that really happen? He shook his head and smiled. Sometimes having a family full of cops really pays off.

  Just a few hours later, he carefully placed the bookend on Bethany Edwards’ dashboard. Burke launched into his story. He told her how they had figured out the murderer was Pete Knaak - how Vithous was blackmailing Knaak. He told Edwards that her suspicions had been right; Viceroy was a shady deal, only one of at least a dozen. He spoke about Vithous wanting a partial ownership in the second phase of Viceroy, of how Vithous pulled the ordinance off the docket, and then how he threatened to spread rumors about a love affair between Knaak and Mayor Hughes. How Knaak had snapped, killed Vithous. And then when confronted, how Knaak had thrown himself off the observation deck of City Hall instead of going to jail.

  She sat very quietly, taking notes at a furious pace. She didn’t ask any questions, she just nodded and occasionally made eye contact with Tom to let him know she was paying attention. He could tell that she was overwhelmed but he pressed on.

  “Chief Williams ordered us to lie on the official police report to say there w
as stolen property found at the apartment of Thomas Douglas. There wasn’t any stolen property there; Douglas had nothing to do with it.”

  “Why would he do that?” Bethany had finally broken her spell of silence.

  “He didn’t want the bad publicity,” Burke replied, “he wants the public safety sales tax to go through and didn’t want to anger the Mayor further. The Mayor was already furious, he thinks us telling the world the Mayor’s personal attorney killed her favorite aide would infuriate her more.”

  “It would bring up a lot of questions,” Bethany offered. “Have you seen this morning’s headlines? Everyone is talking about Pete Knaak’s suicide. Two deaths out of the Mayor’s office less than one week. Not a good time to be the Mayor.”

  “True, but I guess I’m an old fashioned cop; I believe you should tell the truth,” Burke said, “and, Douglas might have been a druggie and a petty criminal, but he wasn’t a murderer. He already paid more than enough for his sins.”

  “So you guys falsified the report like he asked?” Edwards asked.

  Burke shook his head.

  “I didn’t, but they made Jack Thurber sign it. They blackmailed him – but I don’t want to get into the particulars of that right now.” He felt bad for Jack. Jack had been the one upstanding person in the whole crappy week. He owed him, and he had no idea how he would ever pay him back.

  “I’m on vacation for the next two weeks. Their hope is that this all goes away in the next few days. A tragic suicide and a junkie murderer is a much smaller story than a revenge murder between members of the Mayor’s inner circle implicating to economic development schemes.”

  Burke stopped. Now came the lie.

  “Here’s your proof that all what I said is true,” Burke said as he pointed to the bookend. “Pete Knaak told me before he killed himself that he threw the bookend off the side of the Paseo Bridge the night of the murder. Turns out that he didn’t throw it far enough. I found this last night, in some deep weeds, on the southern side of the bridge, right by the jogging trail.”