Bottle Kill Ch. 02

Roark: "But after his fiancée Charlene died nine years ago, Boone's record cleaned up almost completely. He began dating single, unattached women, and when he did he had increased security with him, culminating in his relationship with Tiffany Westgate that began nearly a year ago, and a big upgrade in his security as they became more serious and then engaged to be married."

"Out of curiosity," said Jerome, "how did you find all that?"

Roark said "I looked up Boone's history of Poker tournaments, then looked in that area for Police reports and Court records during the same time and up to a year later."

"Good work, Roark!" Jerome said. "See? Data mining does pay off. We have suspects now." Coleman was not enthusiastic about the mundane parts of Police work, such as gathering data at his desk. He preferred to be in the field, at crime scenes and interviewing people. Jerome knew that, and made sure to praise Roark for the good work, even if he (Roark) didn't like doing it. Good leadership on Jerome's part, his Police Commander would say.

"So what do you guys make of this?" asked Captain Claire Michaels, who had walked in while Roark was talking.

Joanne Warner said "He had a decades-long reputation for philandering with other men's wives, maybe some alleged date rapes or drug-and-rape scenarios, and getting into altercations. And the ones Roark found may just be the tip of the iceberg, as far as we know. So that really does expand the pool of possible suspects."

Julia Rodriguez said "I have noticed another pattern. In his younger days, Boone was more aggressive in his pursuit of women, especially other men's wives. He also pushed back on accusations early on, refusing to settle the lawsuit with Timothy Jones, and getting into a knock-down, drag-out fistfight with that Solomon guy. But later on, he avoided the confrontations, and settled the case on the State Line River Reservation."

"And the Feds began coming hard after Boone in the later years." said Teddy Parker. "Maybe they were beginning to catch on to him."

"There may be another reason, though." said Lt. Jerome Davis. "As you know, I worked with Commander Troy on the Riverboat Gambler case in Southport." (Author's note: 'Riverboat Gambler', mostly Ch. 01-02.)

Davis: "The island the boats sailed to was owned by that Reservation, and Jimmy 'The Creek' DeAngelo has strong ties with the Southport Mob. The one thing they don't like is disorder in their operations and giving the Feds any reason to mess with them. I'd imagine they didn't let that incident with Boone go, and asked the Feds to purse Boone on it, so he settled and got out while the getting was good... for his health."

Roark: "My question is: do you guys think Boone was in the act of strangling his fiancée Tiffany and someone came in and stopped him by whacking him on the head?"

"And then conveniently finished the job on Tiffany for him?" Claire Michaels asked pointedly.

"That's a point." said Roark.

"And if it was self-defense, or defense of Tiffany," Joanne asked, "why not just call the Police and say that?"

"Okay, so much for that." Roark said.

"And Boone had a history of temper and violence that was easy for us to find out, so the danger to anyone making a self-defense killing of him is minimal." Joanne persisted.

"O-kay! You don't have to pile on." Roark said acidly.

"And your ideas are valid." said a voice in the back doorway to the room. Everyone looked to see me, Your Iron Crowbar, coming through that door into the room. I continued: "And I share Lieutenant Davis's praise of your excellent work in finding all those cases, Mr. Roark."

"Thank you, sir." said Roark, though still unhappy.

"Sir, do you really think that is what happened?" Joanne Warner said, her voice connoting disbelief.

"I did not say that." I replied. "I said the ideas were valid, and they are. Likely? Not so much. But the larger thought that two persons could be involved is very good. One person was strangling Tiffany, was surprised by Boone's arrival, and the killer's confederate whacked Boone on the back of the head with all the hatred of Rye whiskey that he or she could muster. Then either one finishes off Tiffany."

Julia Rodriguez said "So Mary Carson has motive, but she had just gone on the elevator going up to the 8th floor, and that video we do have. So that'd be a trick getting back down to the fourth floor. But... but she does have a boyfriend in Peter Paulson, and possibly Mike Malone is wrapped around her finger, too."

"Good points," I said, "but do you guys think ex-Secret-Service or ex-State-Patrol Officers would commit murder like that? Especially if they don't know of Mary's potential inheritance?"

"And some of them sleeping with Tiffany on the side." said Julia Rodriguez. "I'd think they'd want her to remain alive, and take their shots getting her to marry them, rather than kill her."

Just then Teresa Croyle came in. "Sir, as you and I well know, over a hundred million dollars is one hell of a motive to create mischief." She spoke as someone who'd inherited that amount, only to give it to University Hospital. (Author's note: 'Centuries'.)

"No doubt about that." I said. "I stand corrected."

"Sir," Teresa said, "I came to tell you that my contact in Dallas came through. We just got the full Dallas Police report on Jacquelyn Vinet's death."

"Cool beans." I said. As I turned to leave, I said "I'll leave you with one more thing. For all we've heard about 'Tex' Boone's fits of rage and acts of violence, I'd really like to know how a man with that much of a hot head and temper was able to convert ten million dollars to over $150 million in the the bond markets, of all places. And he did that legitimately, so don't think I'm saying something sinister there. I'm drawing your attention to his psychological disposition..."

Part 11 - Death In Dallas

"What took them so long?" I asked as I began looking at the electronically scanned papers of the report in my office. Teresa was sitting in a 'hot chair' and doing the same on her Police iPad.

"It's a 34-year-old case, sir." Teresa replied. "They had the paper records but they had to be dug out. Rosalyn put two rookie FBI Agents on it, and they actually did a pretty good and fast job, once they figured out where to look."

"That's true. I was too harsh." I replied. "Okay, she was killed in the kitchen of her restaurant. Found about 1:00am, about two hours after closing time. All the other employees had gone home, and she was doing paperwork while waiting for her husband 'Tex' Boone to come pick her up."

Teresa said "She was stabbed with a large kitchen knife that had been part of a set near the meat prep station. The blow caught her right between the ribs on her left side and pierced her heart, and that was pretty much that for her."

"Boone found her and called 9-1-1, but she had already been dead at least 20 minutes when the ambulance got there." I said. "It took the ambulance ten minutes to get there after the 9-1-1 call. Police also arrived quickly... oh! you get one guess who the first Detective on the scene was."

"Knowing our luck, Angela Harlan." Teresa replied, naming the Black Widow, the despised Traitor to the TCPD Badge. (Author's note: 'Case of the Black Widow'.)

"Give that girl a crowbar." I said. "Yep, Angela Harlan. She did write up a good case report, though. She was always good about that. Says here the video recorders showed nothing in the front dining area nor the street outside, but there was no coverage of the kitchen area. The back door was unlocked, as well, but that meant nothing because she'd left it unlocked for her husband to be able to come in."

Teresa said "The case was later transferred from Harlan to two Robbery/Homicide Detectives that had been investigating a rash of burglaries at businesses like the restaurant. They speculated that the burglar or burglars didn't know she was there and came in the back door to take stuff. She heard a noise, came out of the office and surprised them, and one of them grabbed the knife and stabbed her before she even knew what was going on."

I said "But Angela made a case note that she did not agree with that theory. She suggested that the back door being unlocked should have alerted the burglars that someone was there. Good observation and deduction, if you ask me. She also wrote that the papers Jacquelyn was working on at the desk in the office were the books, and that an audit of those papers showed the restaurant was beginning to be behind in paying vendors. Angela speculated she and Boone argued over the money, they ended up in the kitchen, and Boone stabbed her in a fit of rage."

Teresa: "But Boone's story held up, and the Robbery/Homicide Detectives were able to confirm his story, his whereabouts, and his movements for almost all of the timeframe. Interviews with family friends showed that the Boones appeared to be a happy couple with no problems nor domestic violence issues that they knew of. They also exonerated Cliff Southworth, the silent partner who eventually bought out the business from Boone. I do have to wonder why he'd buy it if it was in financial trouble, especially with their renowned head chef dead."

I thought for a moment, then said "You know, you make a point. I wonder if they pursued the possibility that Cliff Southworth killed Jacquelyn, maybe during an argument. Maybe he wanted to buy out the Boones, they didn't want to sell out to him, so he kills her. Boone sells out, moves away from Dallas, and Southworth got what he wanted."

"Trying to solve a 34-year-old mystery in Texas sitting here at your desk, are you now?" Teresa asked acerbically, needling me.

"No, I have plenty to do in the here and now." I said. After going through the rest of the material, I said "Well, I don't see much here that helps our current cases. Disseminate this to the Detectives and to Intel Branch... and warn Tanya whose name is mentioned in here."

"Wilco, sir." Teresa said. She knew as I did that it was the Black Widow that had murdered Tanya's fiancé, Corporal Peter M. Feeley... little Pete Feeley's father...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

2:00pm, Wednesday, February 10th. Senior Detective Christopher Purvis came into the Main Conference Room, where Captain Michaels and I were discussing the case. We had him sit down and tell us what he'd found. Purvis had been a Uniformed Officer and then Vice Detective, and now was Intel Branch's financial crimes guru. His hair was just a shade too artificially black, causing people to say he used shoe polish on both ends of him.

"Sir, ma'am," Purvis said, "Cliff Southworth did buy that restaurant from Mr. Boone, and he paid what was a fairly evaluated price. Though they lost Chef Vinet, he brought in a couple of young chefs that specialized in French-Asian Fusion, Chef Masaharu and Chef Kennichi, and the restaurant continued to do well for ten more years."

Purvis: "Then Mr. Southworth died of an aortic aneurysm that he'd developed by working too hard and too often in the oil fields in bad weather. His family liquidated his assets, including selling the restaurant. The two Fusion chefs left, and the restaurant went downhill rapidly."

"So there's no 'there' there." I said.

"Nothing I'm seeing, sir." said Purvis.

Just then there was a knock on the door, and Lt. Mary Milton's pink-hair-framed face popped in. "Sir, ma'am," she said, "I have good news, bad news, more good news and more bad news."

"Don't keep us in suspense." I said. "Come on in and tell us."

Mary came inside and said "The good news is that Coroner John Quincy Kelly's people found the file on Heather Corvalis McMillan. The bad news is that the majority of it is redacted, blacked out on paper, and there's no electronic media file they could find. The autopsy is there, but where her death occurred and where on her body she bled out is redacted."

"What else?" I asked.

Mary said "The good news part two is that the Police report number was not redacted, so I was able to look it up. It is not a paper record but purely a digital one, and I found it."

"Good!" I said. "What's the bad news part two?"

"It was encrypted by the late Captain Harold Malone," said Mary, "and none of his passwords that we know of work..."

Part 12 - Power Of Dixie Land

4:10pm, We were sitting in the Intel Center. Lt. Myron Milton was at one station, attempting to break the password on the Police report file. His wife, Lt. Mary Milton, was at the station next to him.

Sitting behind them were Sheriff Griswold, Me, and Lt. Commander Teresa Croyle. Having been in Captain Malone's Vice Squad, and with multiple Purple Orders to show for it, Teresa knew Captain Malone's mind as much as anyone with us today. The current Sheriff had been Malone's Police Chief, and I was considered to be pretty good at breaking codes.

"So how does this work, Myron?" I asked as I watched Myron study two screens side-by-side, one with a garble of letters and numbers on it.

"Sir," Myron replied, "the encryption is our Police software's standard encryption, and I can see here what the encrypted code looks like, using our purloined $30 million program." (Author's note: 'Time Flies', Ch. 03.)

Myron: "Unfortunately, the program won't reverse engineer the actual encrypted code, and that's probably a good thing. But when I type in a password, it shows the encrypted result on the other screen, and I can see how close we are. So far... we are not close. I believe it's a four-word passphrase, but it's not his name, his wife's name, something like 'Town and County Police', etc. If there's anything you guys know about him that could help, I'd love to hear it."

Sheriff Griswold said "Malone had a lot of street smarts and low cunning, but he wasn't a book-smart kind of guy, and he probably wouldn't remember a lot of different passwords in his head like Crowbar here does."

I said "I see where you're going with that, Sheriff. He wouldn't want to write down this particular passphrase, as he's not encrypting it to keep it safe from casual hacking, but to hide it from anyone as best he could. So it has to be something he would remember by heart, just in case he had to cover his ass by decrypting the file. And you've already tried the obvious stuff. Any ideas, Teresa?"

"No sir." said Teresa. "And not much besides his wife was near and dear to his heart."

"Hmmm..." I said, my mind going into something of a reverie. "So what was near and dear to him?..." And then it hit me.

"War Ea-gle, fly down the field," I sang, "never to con-quer, always to yield..."

"Oh, you're cute." Teresa said acidly. And then it hit her, too. "Wait! That's it! Myron, let me drive!" Myron got out of the way and Teresa typed into the console: 'Power of Dixie Land'.

Nothing happened.

"What was that?" Mary Milton asked.

"The last four words of the Auburn fight song." I said with a grin. "Malone was an Auburn fan, as is this here Iron Wolf... for reasons I can't comprehend."

"All those brains, yet the simplest and best things elude you." Teresa fired back, making Mary chuckle.

"It's close, though." Myron said. "The code it processes into is close to the encrypted password."

"Oh!" Teresa said. "Here, let me try again, and capitalize the 'o'." She typed in 'Power Of Dixie Land'... and the file decrypted!

"War Damn Eagle!" Teresa shouted as everyone cheered and applauded.

"Outstanding." I said. "All of you. That was damn good work. Okay Mary, look at the data and come give me the Cliff Notes in my office. I've got to change to civilian clothes. There's a Faculty reception for the Molecular Biology Conference, and I've been tasked to escort my lovely wife to it..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Teresa also was going to the reception, with her husband Todd Burke. We were sitting with the Chief, Sheriff, and Captain Michaels in the Chief's Conference room. Teresa and I were in civilian clothes, and nice civilian clothes. I was in my dark gray suit with armor in the lining, and my blue tie with little TCPD logos on it. Teresa was wearing a simple and tasteful navy blue dress and matching high heel pumps that showed off her hourglass shape and magnificent legs to perfection.

At 5:00pm there was a knock on the door, which opened to reveal Lt. Mary Milton.

"Come on in." the Chief said. "Have a seat. What did you find out?"

Mary said "Well, uh... I have some data, ah... and it's... well, look and see, sir." She handed me a folder turned to a page.

I read it and saw what she was stammering about. I looked up at Teresa and said "This might not be easy for you to hear."

"I appreciate your concerns." Teresa said flatly. "Now stop wasting all our time and get on with it." That was Teresa...

"Okay, Mary, go ahead." I said as I extended a hand for her to sit down next to Teresa.

"Yes sir." Mary said as she sat down. "As you all know, Coroner Steven Lester Haines and Captain Harold Malone were of the same political persuasion. Apparently Haines had Captain Malone bury the Police investigation of Heather McMillan's death."

"Was it a crime?" Teresa asked. "Was she murdered?"

Mary said "No ma'am, it doesn't appear that way." She paused, then said "The reason I could find no record of her being at the Hospital nor any medical clinic in the County is because she did not die at any of them. She died at the Planned Parenthood clinic."

"I see, said the blind man." I said. "She went in for an abortion, and I suspect it ended badly for her."

"Yes sir." Mary said. "They botched it. Their standard procedure, still in practice today, is that after the procedure the patient has to wait for an hour to make sure there were no problems. When they checked on her at the end of the hour, she was dead. Apparently the anesthetic they used was too strong or she had a reaction to it. She didn't wake up, and apparently no one noticed that she was bleeding out. Her uterus had hemorrhaged."

I saw Teresa's face fall; her own mother had bled out and died in childbirth with her, and of course she was remembering that. "Are you okay?" I asked her.

"Yes sir, I'm fine." Teresa said, gathering herself and looking up at me. "Keep going."

Mary said "That was 20 years ago, when Planned Parenthood was facing tremendous political pressure by anti-abortion groups nationwide. If this incident had gone public, the repercussions to Planned Parenthood and the Democrats that were fighting fiercely to support them would've been brutal."

Mary: "Soooo... since Mrs. McMillan was dead, they didn't take her to the Hospital. We'll probably never find out who they called and what was arranged, but Captain Malone, then a Lieutenant, responded personally to it. His report said only that he was notified and that he personally made the initial investigation."

"That was before the Town and County merged." Sheriff Griswold said. "I had just become a Captain in the Town Police, and Malone was pissed because he thought he was going to get the slot."

"Who was the Police Chief then?" I asked.

"The Town Police Chief was Jefferson Gleason." said Griswold. "His son is now the Sheriff in Hammondsville across the State Line to our west. Chief Gleason is the guy that became Sheriff and died of a heart attack not too long before you got here, Crowbar."

I said "I suspect his son the Hammondsville Sheriff is going to suffer a similar fate, seeing how overweight he is and how he chain-smokes cigars. But sorry to interrupt, Sheriff. Who was our County Police Chief then?"

Griswold: "The County Police was small, and did not have a Chief per se, just a Captain in charge. His name was Colby, and he was current Councilman Jack Colby's uncle. He also died of a heart attack, and it is said that his death was one of the catalysts that led to the merger of the Town and County governments."