Casting Aspersions Ch. 01

As Phyllis led Elsie away, I said "New to the SBI, Mr. Johnson?" as I extended my hand.

"Yes sir." said Johnson, shaking my hand. "I was hired as part of the new SBI-IDE. Started July 1st. I was in Town, at the University Hotel, and I got a call about a death on Campus. Being the nearest SBI Agent, I came on over. A couple of others have also come in, though."

"Cool beans." I said. "Let's listen in on the M.E.'s instructive comments, shall we?" We moved closer to listen.

Martha was saying "Definitely poison, but likely not cyanide. No almond smell, nor residue in her mouth. We'll do a full toxicology scan. I've drawn blood for the State Crime Lab, as well."

"Good. Thank you." said Tanya. Then she raised her voice a bit and said "Who here can give us a synopsis of what happened?"

"I can, ma'am." said SBI Agent Johnson. "I'm SBI-IDE Agent Johnson. There was a dinner in the main ballroom next door, which was the opening of the symposium. University President Wellman and Dr. Joseph Zenger, who occupies the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Chair of Journalism and is the head of the Journalism School, made the keynote speeches."

"This smaller room held a side meeting after the dinner." said Agent Johnson. "President Wellman, Dr. Zenger, and several reporters met, including Diane Williams and Tim Sioban of KSB, and Bob Jovan of one of the national networks. President Wellman left, went through the main room greeting people, then he and his wife went home. So far it's not clear when the others left the room, or if they did before the incident occurred."

"The deceased, Ms. Louella Hopper," said Agent Johnson, "came into the ballroom about 11:00pm. Apparently she had not attended the dinner, and had checked into the University Hotel at 10:00pm, then came over here. After spending a few minutes greeting friends in the ballroom, she came into this room. She was talking with Tim Sioban when she began gasping for air, as if she were choking. She clutched at her throat, then collapsed."

"Did anyone attempt CPR?" I asked out loud.

Johnson consulted his notes. "No sir, I don't think so."

"NO." called out a voice. I turned to see an older man coming towards us. "I am Dr. Zenger. I was in the room and an eyewitness. We checked for a heartbeat, but there was none. I don't know how to perform CPR, and I guess no one else in the room did, either. Someone called 9-1-1, and the paramedics arrived very quickly, but by then it was too late. They were saying she was dead when she hit the floor."

"Who else was in the room with you at the time she collapsed, Doctor?" I asked, unconsciously taking control as I was wont to do.

"She was speaking to Mr. Sioban at the time." said Dr. Zenger. "He knelt down beside her to help, but was unable to. The bartender was behind the bar, and yelled out that he was calling 9-1-1. There were a few of others, Diane Williams, I believe, and a couple of men, but I'm not sure who those others were."

"Thank you for that, Dr. Zenger." I said. "My apologies for interrupting you, Agent Johnson. And if you haven't figured it out yet, you are now in charge of this crime scene. Work with Mr. Tarleton of the Campus Police, here."

"Thank you, sir." said Johnson.

"Who are you to put him in charge?" someone asked. Silence was instantaneous in the room, and it was 'deafening'. Even Martha the M.E. looked up in shock at that.

"And you are?" I asked the person who said it, a man in his upper 30s or lower 40s with prematurely graying hair, wearing a cheap, ill-fitting suit, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested.

"SBI Agent Porter." the man said. "And I've got seniority on Johnson."

"Ohhhhhh." I said. "Well, then, if you don't mind refreshing my memory... exactly when were you promoted to Inspector?"

"That guy is the SBI Reserve Inspector." said another SBI Agent to Porter. He was a younger man, upper 20s, in a decent-looking and better-fitting suit.

"Oh. Whatever." said Porter dismissively. He turned and walked towards the other side of the room, seeming to drag the other Agent along as if he were exerting the force of gravity upon him.

I turned to Johnson and Tarleton and said "Carry on. And keep me informed." I gave them both my SBI card.

"Yes sir." said Johnson. He and Tarleton moved out smartly.

Tanya said to me: "You're not going to go over there and bust that guy Porter's chops?"

I replied: "I've been told that good Iron Crowbars pull their punches if it's not necessary to destroy the opponent."

Tanya was stunned, but then said with a grin: "I know what Cindy's going to say when she hears about this."

"Cindy has a crowbar." I said. "And she's a Commander. Whatever she says, I'd better not hear it out of your potty mouth..."

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

I heard Tanya's iPhone chime. After reading the text, she turned and drove out of the ballroom.

A moment later, the younger SBI Agent came up. "I'm sorry about my partner, sir." He said.

"So why isn't he over here apologizing?" I asked. The man shrugged his shoulders, and I asked "What's your name?"

"Shaw." said the Agent. I extended my hand and he shook it.

"What section are you with?" I asked.

"We're 'at large' right now." said Shaw. "We were with the Narcotics Task Force, but were not accepted into the IDE. We thought we'd be terminated, but Director Goodwin kept us on, along with a few others. He says we're 'without portfolio', and we'll be sent to help other units, like the BFE (Firearms and Explosives) or OFI (Financial Investigations) at times, and we'll be sent to incidents like this, which no department clearly covers."

"That's an interesting way of doing things." I mused. "How long have you been with the SBI?"

"I've been with them for six years." said Shaw. "Porter's been here longer, but I'm not sure how much longer. I know it sounds bad to you, sir, that we were NTF and not hired by IDE, but we both have good records."

"I'm sure you do, or you would've been kicked to the kerb like a lot of others were." I said. "Okay, this is Johnson's case and the Campus Police's jurisdiction, so work with him if he wants you too, or you can go on home." Shaw excused himself and went to talk to Agent Johnson.

"What do you make of it?" asked Jack Muscone as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to me.

"No data yet." I said. "For all we know, the poor woman choked on something she'd just put in her mouth, or she may have very coincidentally had a heart attack and died on the spot."

"And you don't believe that for a minute, do you." said Jack; it was a statement, not a question.

"Ah ah ah, you know the deal." I half-sang; that was from an old Army jody. "We treat it as suspicious until the evidence shows us it's not."

"True." said Muscone. "But you're not being very proactive right now." I realized he was seeing my eyes darting all over the place.

"I'm letting those with jurisdiction gather the data for me." I said. "Oh! There's one thing I can do." I fished my iPhone out of my pocket and speed-dialed a number.

"Paulina," I said, "I'm sorry to wake you up, but this could be big. I need you to get a warrant for the TCPD to secure Louella Hopper's computer, either in her hotel room or her car... yes, she's the woman that was murdered here... no, I want us, the TCPD to get it before anyone else does, we can give it to them later... okay, thanks. I'll call the Duty Desk."

After calling the Duty Desk, I disconnected, then said "So, Jack, what's the deal with Louella Hopper and the Feds?"

"Really not much more than I told you earlier." said Jack. "We knew she was snooping around the Wurtzburg/Craig investigation, so we fed her some cow patties to see if her legal beagles would bite, and they haven't so far."

"What was the b.s. you fed her?" I asked.

"Ohhh, we said the Iron Crowbar fed us some info about it that he got from McGinty's Materials." Jack said.

My neck made like an owl's as I turned my head to look at Jack. "I hope you're kidding about that." I said severely.

"Of course I am." said Jack, his voice sounding humorous. Then he realized that I was upset. "Wow, you're wound pretty tight about that."

"It's not funny." I said with asperity, my eyes flashing fire. "If you really had put that out there, then somebody might try to murder me or harm my family to get to me. Putting that out there would put us in real, no-shit danger, Jack."

"Relax, I was just trolling you." said Muscone, trying to calm me down. "Seriously, what we put out there was some stuff about Les Craig that isn't true. We went to the Federal Judge and the U.S. Attorney, and got a warrant to execute the sting, hoping to see if Louella was funneling information to Bettina Wurtzburg."

I nodded, but said nothing. I was not really mollified by Muscone's reassurances, and I think he knew it.

I had a bad feeling about it. Some would call it a 'vibe'...

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

*Whirrrrrrrrrrr*

Tanya Perlman drove into the room. "Commander," she said as she pulled up to us, "can you come into the other room with me? We need your advice."

"Uh, sure." I said. I followed Tanya out of the room and into the large ballroom next door, where many dinner tables were still set up. To the right, near the door, my mother and Elsie Gringer were seated.

"We need to ask you something, son." said my mother. "We are wondering if we should report to the Campus Police about Louella's intended meeting with Elsie and myself tomorrow morning."

"Let me ask this first." I said. "Elsie, do you know what the meeting was about?"

"No, Don, I don't." said Elsie. Yes, we were still on first-name terms. "She said she was gathering information and wanted to talk with us about it. Since she asked me to contact Phyllis and bring her, I thought it must be something she wanted us to help her dig up. Phyllis is very good about finding things out, you know."

"Oh yes, I've known that for well over 30 years." I said. Not much got past my mom in my childhood, I am sorry to say. "But Louella didn't mention exactly what it was she wanted to talk about?"

"No." said Elsie. "And I didn't ask, because I thought we'd find out at breakfast tomorrow morning."

"Speaking of that," I said, "were you here for the dinner this evening?"

"Yes, I was." said Elsie.

"Were you expecting Ms. Hopper to be here for the dinner?" I asked.

"I didn't know for sure who would be here." said Elsie. "Some people won't come in until tomorrow...now later today, I guess."

"So you weren't going to meet with her tonight?" I asked.

"No, she asked to meet tomorrow morning." Elsie said.

"Since she wanted to meet with me, too," said Phyllis, "she may have thought I wouldn't be able to get here until tonight or tomorrow, and she certainly wouldn't expect me to be at the dinner."

"And a dinner like this with so many people is hardly a good forum for a private discussion." Tanya added.

"That is true." I said. "So what's the issue?

"We are debating whether or not we should we mention that meeting appointment to the Campus Police and SBI." said Phyllis. "I'm thinking we should not, especially since we have no clue about what the meeting was about."

Tanya said "And I think they need to say something, since Louella might have written it down in an appointment book or something."

"That's also good thinking" I said. I thought about it for a moment, then said "Okay, here's what we can do. Captain Perlman, you are the TCPD's point person for this case. You may not delegate it; you are The One. Work with Auxiliary Detective Troy on it. The first thing to do is to take Elsie's formal statement and Detective Troy's statement. You can share them with other LEOs later, at your discretion, when it might be advisable to do so. And Elsie, and Mom, if anyone asks, you say you gave the Police your statement, that Police being Captain Perlman, here." Elsie and my mother nodded.

As I got up, I said "Also, I've already called for a warrant for Louella's computer, so be aware I'm expecting to confiscate it soon-------"

At that moment, Bettina Wurtzburg and her cameraman came into the room, his camera on his shoulder and obviously (to me) recording. "Turn that camera off, right now!" I said angrily. "Or I will confiscate it."

"You ever heard of the First Amendment?" barked Bettina.

"You ever heard of interfering with a Police investigation?" I fired back. I pointed at Scott Turnbull, Bettina's cameraman. "Get it out of here, now." Bettina nodded, and Turnbull very reluctantly left the room with it. And by the way, it had recorded only static, as if the Slender Man was in the room.

"Commander Troy, what is the status of this investigation?" Bettina asked, trying to block me from leaving.

"We're compiling a list of possible suspects now." I said, and I noted the fleeting suprise on Tanya's face, but no surprise on my mom's; she knew what was coming.

"Is there anything else you'd like to say for the record?" Bettina asked.

"Yes." I said. "You're one of the suspects." And with that I exited the ballroom.

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

Returning to the crime scene room, I stood to the side holding my hat over my heart as the body was removed. Then I came up towards where the body had been on the floor.

"Where's Porter?" I asked, looking around and not seeing him, but seeing Shaw.

"I'm not sure, sir." said Agent Johnson, who then said: "Sir, is there anything to which you'd like to draw my attention on this?" Big kudos to this guy for asking, I thought to myself.

"No, but here are some questions for you guys to look into." I said, then listed them:

"Why did Louella Hopper arrive at the University Hotel so late?
Was she scheduled to be at the dinner?
If not, why did she bother coming over here, when the dinner was over?
Who did she talk to, both in the ballroom and this room?
What was said in her conversations with anyone she talked to?
What, if anything, did she eat or drink while in the ballroom and this room?
What stories was she working on for her columns?
Did anyone have a past or current grudge against her?"

"You don't ask for much, Inspector." said Agent Johnson with a smile.

"I'm not asking for anything at all." I replied. "Those are questions for you to answer, and if you do so, you'll very likely being making an arrest or two without my name even coming into the picture."

After a pause I said: "Okay, I think I'm heading back to TCPD Headquarters. Captain Tanya Perlman is the TCPD's point of contact regarding this case, and I'll let you know of anything I find. Y'all have a good evening." After shaking hands and giving out and receiving cards all the way around, I took my leave.

Part 5 - Night Moves

2:00am, Tuesday, July 16th. Lt. Micah Rudistan appeared at the door of my office, with a laptop computer in an evidence bag. Sergeant Carter was behind him.

"We got it, sir." said Rudistan. "It was in her room with her luggage, which was not opened. We went through the luggage, but there was nothing but clothes and makeup, the usual stuff."

"Good." I said. "But I get the idea you have a story to tell about this."

"Yes sir." said Rudistan with his usual jovial grin. "While we were there, two men in suits came down the hallway, and it looked like they were going to stop at the door to 614, Ms. Hopper's room. But they walked on by, then at the next door one of them tried the key, and the other guy said 'We're on the wrong floor. We should be on the 5th floor.' Then they walked back to the elevator."

"Did you get any images of them?"

"Yes sir." said Sergeant Carter. "My Officer Cam got a partial as they passed by the door, and we got elevator cam footage from the Hotel people. I might've told them that our warrant covered that, too, even though that may not be true."

"Sounds like something a sneaky Police Commander might tell them." I said. I brought up the video files they'd put into the evidence servers. The Officer cam footage was too blurry, but the elevator cam had a good shot of their faces."

"Oh my." I said. "I recognize one of them." I was looking at the face of SBI Agent Porter...

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

"Good morning, sir." said Vice Lieutenant Mary Mahoney Milton as she came to my office a few minutes after Rudistan and Carter had left.

"Good morning." I said. "Thanks for coming in." I had her come with me to the Duty Desk, where we took the evidence-bagged computer and brought it under two-man control back to my office.

"A woman named Louella Hopper dropped dead at the University Convention Center tonight." I said. "She's a fairly well-renowned gossip columnist, and appears on KSB frequently. I want you to break into her computer under this warrant and download the contents into our evidence servers." I showed her the warrant.

"If you'll hook it up, sir, I'll do it here." Mary said. I hooked into the network and Mary started working on it. She plugged in a jump drive, and the password was quickly decoded.

As Mary worked, she said "A lot of journalists are going to the safer passphrase encryption of at least seven phrases using diceware. I'm surprised she hasn't."

I said "Well, this is her travel laptop------- oh, crap! I forgot..." I fished out my Police iPhone and made a call. "Jack! Where did Louella Hopper live?... The City?... I have a warrant to get her local laptop, but we need one to get her home and work computers... oh, crap. Okay, thanks."

After disconnecting, I said "Work fast, Mary. They tried to get a warrant for Louella's home and work computers, and KSB fought back, citing journalistic privilege."

"We're downloaded." said Mary. She took an external drive off the computer. "Here's an extra copy of her files, in case they tell us to erase what's on the evidence servers."

"You anticipate my e-ver-y want." I said.

"I've trained with the best, sir." Mary replied. Sheriff Griswold would approve of her asskissing, I thought to myself.

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

*Whirrrrrrrrrrr*

Tanya Perlman drove up the hallway of Police Headquarters at 3:10am. I met her at the doorway to the anteroom of my office and said "Let's go into the Main Conference Room."

We did so and settled in where we could watch the monitor. I said "We've got Louella's laptop downloaded, but KSB is already starting to fight our warrants. So I want you to see this while we've got it. Where's Mom, by the way?"

"She went home." said Tanya. "She's exhausted. She's not getting any younger, you know."

"Yeah." I said. "Okay, we have Louella's last three columns with the City Gazette Online, which we don't need a warrant to get. And we have the draft on her computer of her next column. I also copied the YouTube videos of her last few pieces with KSB, before they take those down."

"Wow." said Tanya. After a pause she said "Don, I know you hate and distrust the Press. But do you really think KSB is going to go 'scorched earth' and take down the videos?"

"If not them, someone." I said. Then I said. "Did... did Jack talk to you about Louella Hopper?"

Tanya nodded. "He told why he went with me to the University Convention Center, and that her name had shown up in connection to the Bettina/Les Craig investigation."

"Good." I said. "So I'm sure you see the links of the chain: Louella wanted to talk to Elsie Gringer, who is Bettina Wurtzburg's aunt. Bettina and KXTC are close affiliates with KSB and Tim Sioban... who Louella was talking to when she dropped dead. Now I'm not blaming anyone... yet... but when I said Bettina was a suspect, I wasn't kidding. She might have motive."

"Having said that," I continued, "I'm not sure why Louella wanted to talk to my mother. Elsie might've been right that Louella wanted Mom to investigate something, or perhaps come to me as an intermediary, a go-between. And that would suggest that whatever Louella found is not Bettina-related. So the starting point of this investigation for me... oh, I'm sorry, for you... is to see if Louella put out something or was going to put out something that somebody did not like."