Casting Aspersions Ch. 01

"Like that movie Conspiracy Theory." Tanya said. "Guy put out four theories, one of them happened to be real and they tried to kill him for it."

"Something like that." I said. "Okay, I'll leave the examination of this data to you. I've got a couple of things I need to do in my office..."

Part 6 - The Investigation In Earnest

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Channel Two News!" yelled the redheaded MILF reporter from near Promontory Point, with the University in the background below her, at 7:00am, Tuesday, July 16th. "We are bringing you continuing coverage of the death of renowned columnist Louella Hopper at the Entertainment Media Symposium on the University campus last night!"

Bettina began: "The 42 year old journalist was a columnist for the City Gazette and a KSB News Contributor. She was attending the symposium sponsored by the University's Journalism School when she simply fell to the floor. Though several persons rushed to her immediate aid, she died by the time paramedics arrived from nearby University Hospital. The Coroner's Office has not issued a cause of death, but the Medical Examiner did release a statement saying that foul play cannot be ruled out at this time."

Bettina: "Law enforcement representatives of the Campus Police, TCPD, SBI, and FBI were on the scene investigating the death, but it it not clear who has jurisdiction nor who is leading the investigation. The TCPD, SBI, and FBI have all refused KXTC's repeated requests for comments, and the Campus Police made a statement that they are waiting on the autopsy report to draw any conclusions about Ms. Hopper's death."

More Bettina: "And in local news, the Town & County Council meeting scheduled for tonight is expected to quickly go into Executive Session to discuss the Board of Inquiry reports on the BOW Enterprises hostage situation and the death of Police Lieutenant Ivar Irwin, as well as the Medal of Valor application submitted by the TCPD for Lt. Irwin. The BOI's report on the hostage crisis was mixed, partially due to the lack of cooperation from the TCPD and especially Commander Donald Troy and Captain Teresa Croyle. The BOI recommended 2-1 against awarding the Medal of Valor to Lt. Irwin."

Bettina: "US DOJ Civil Rights investigator Jocelyn Moran gave a statement to Channel Two News stating that US DOJ investigators would be in attendance at the Town & County Council meeting, including the Executive Session, under a Court Order issued by Federal Judge Ruth B. Taney. The US DOJ is investigating Town & County Mayor Daniel Allgood for allegations of racial discrimination against the Council's only black member, Reginald B.F. Lewis."

Yet More Bettina: "And in State news, Mike G. Todd, attorney for Commander Donald Troy, stated to several Press outlets that Commander Troy would not honor a subpoena from the State House Judiciary Committee in its Impeachment investigation of Governor Val Jared. Todd stated that Commander Troy had already testified before the Committee regarding the Braselton-Rodman incident, and that with the Legislature not in session and there being no formal Impeachment inquiry, any subpoenas regarding that investigation are not valid..."

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

As Bettina was giving her propaganda speech, a.k.a. her morning report, I was saying prayers of thanks... that Teresa Croyle did not carry a crowbar.

We were watching and drinking coffee in the Chief's Conference Room. When Bettina had announced that the BOI had recommended against Irwin being awarded the MOV, Teresa had literally come out of her chair and shouted "WHAT?!"

"Are you o-kayyyy, Ms. Croyle?" Chief Moynahan had asked. Teresa turned and glared at him.

"No sir, I am not." she stated definitively. She then turned to me and asked "What the hell is that about, Commander?"

"Have a seat." I said, as kindly as I could make my voice sound. "Sit... sit." I said, pointing at her chair until she sat down in it. "What happened is that Silas convened a three-man BOI, consisting of himself, Finneran and Fitzgerald. Mr. Morse and Mr. Landau were not invited. No witnesses were called, the Board just met. Mr. Fitzgerald complained and objected about it, but Silas shot him down. Silas also threatened Fitzgerald, which got Silas a warning from the Sheriff later on."

"Damn right." muttered the Sheriff, who was sitting next to me.

"Anyhoo," I said, "there's nothing illegal nor technically improper about Silas's actions. J.P. Goldman told me that he'd voted to send the MOV application through the BOI process in an attempt to get the whole hostage situation resolved to our greater good, but Silas completely undercut him on that. Mr. Goldman is furious with anger, and will not be forgetting that any time soon."

"Damn right." muttered the Sheriff.

"Is the Council going to have any of you in their meeting tonight?" asked Chief Moynahan. "I know I haven't been invited, at least not yet."

Sheriff Griswold said "I've asked Crowbar, here, and Captain Thompson to be there, as 'assistants' to the Sergeant-At-Arms. John Colby said he intended to ask Crowbar and Captain Croyle to be there to answer questions regarding the crisis."

"And I received my invitation, in gold foil on Her Majesty's Own cream paper." Cindy said. "Okay, not really. It was just an email. But I was asked to attend."

"I got that email, too." said Teresa.

"Why you, Commander Ross?" asked the Chief.

"As a courtesy, since I'm an MOV recipient." said Cindy. "That was Mr. Colby's official reason. His real, unspoken reason is because, unlike the Iron Wolf here, I carry a crowbar and am willing to use it if things get out of hand at the Council meeting."

"Which means I don't have toooooo." I said in an excellent imitation of a 'Scrubbing Bubbles' television ad. At least Tanya laughed at the joke.

"I never get invited to all the cool parties." Tanya lamented.

"You're already busy, Lady Ironside." I said. "Solving the Case of the Murdered Gossip Columnist."

"Anything new on that?" asked the Sheriff.

"Come to the meeting at 8:30," said Tanya, "and ye shall know the truth."

"And may it set me free, O Lord!" growled back Griswold.

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

Classroom 'E' was the setting for the meeting. All of MCD was in attendance, as was Lt. Myron Milton. SBI Agent Johnson and Campus Police Detective Tarleton had come in, and I made introductions all around. My mother Phyllis and Jack Muscone had come in as well.

Martha the M.E. came in, and Lt. Jerome Davis fawned on her with coffee and a doughnut, for which she was grateful. "I'm getting too old for these all-nighters." she said.

"So am I, Martha, so am I." I said. As we settled into our seats, I found that I was in charge; the Chief and Sheriff were in a meeting. "Okay, let's get started. Martha, whaddya got for us?"

"I have not yet filed my official autopsy report, pending the return of corroborating results from the State Crime Lab." said Martha. "And this is the first I've spoken of this: Louella Hopper was murdered. I found a small spot on her hip where she likely was injected with a drug. It appears to be a very small hypodermic syringe as opposed to an epi-pen syringe. There are breakdown products of a very complex neurotoxin in her system, and I caught it because I'd been reading about a similar case just a few weeks ago in the City."

"Tell us about that case, if you don't mind." I said.

Martha said "A man in his 50s was brought to the Emergency Room of St. Mary's Hospital in the City. He was barely alive, and he died in the E.R. despite every effort to save him. The autopsy revealed the breakdown components, but everyone was baffled as to what it was. Then a doctor with the Defense Intelligence Agency happened to read about it, and he contacted the FBI in the City about it. Would you like to tell the rest, Mr. Muscone?"

"I can." said Jack Muscone. "It was a new drug being synthesized in Central and South America, and was discovered by our Special Forces on, shall we say, 'visits' to that region of the world. It's a purified neurotoxin based on cobra and coral snake venom, but has some enhanced qualities for speed and efficacy, possibly a sarin-type agent."

"And this is not classified?" asked a stunned Joanne Warner.

"Yes and no." I said. "We will not be reading about the missions of our Special Forces teams down there. But the chemicals are already on Wikipedia, along with sarin, soman, VX, and other agents. Thanks to the Internet, their chemical structures, chiral centers, i.e. how to make them, everything is out there."

"In this case at St. Mary's Hospital," said Muscone, "they thought at first that maybe he'd been bitten by a snake or a spider, as they found a small puncture would on his hip. And then the DIA doctor contacted them about it."

"Who was this guy?" I asked. "The guy that died, I mean."

Martha the M.E. said "I have his autopsy here, which I'm adding to the evidence file. His name was Jerry Fussell, 56 years old. The M.E. there noted he had heart disease and possibly diabetes that was not being treated, so he wasn't in the best of health. The autopsy doesn't say any more about him.

Tanya Perlman said "I'll look him up."

She made a note on her pad as I said "In case you don't know, I've asked Captain Perlman to personally be in charge of our part of the investigation of Louella Hopper's death. One reason for this is certain information that has come to us, and another reason is the potentially sensitive nature of what Louella Hopper might have known as a gossip reporter, for lack of a better term. Captain Perlman will be working with SBI Agent Johnson and the Campus Police on this. What I want the rest of you to do is to assist her in her inquiries as well as being ready for other cases that might come up."

Tanya said "Before the Commander sneaks out of here, Myron, tell us what you found out about Louella Hopper."

"Yes ma'am." said Myron Milton. "Most of this was compiled by Mary last night. Louella Hopper was 42 years old and a graduate of our University's Journalism School. She's been an 'entertainment columnist' ever since, very similar to what Elsie Gringer does. But Elsie tends to stay on the people side of things, like what women wore to celebrity weddings, who is on the guest lists of University President Wellman's parties, the social scene stuff; while Louella tended to go for harder dirt, such as sexual affairs, what politicians were doing under the table, stuff like that."

Myron: "Louella has gotten a number of journalism awards when some of her gossip turned into hardcore scandals. Twenty years ago, in the State to our east, their U.S. Senator, a man named Charles Porker, was living up to his name: he was having sex with sweet young interns and campaign staffers... male interns and staffers. And he was a Republican, so there was no Media attempt to bury the story. Other reporters started digging, and the embezzlement, illegal campaign contributions, bribery, and other charges followed, but it was Louella who started that ball rolling."

"Like Drudge and the blue dress." I said. (Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about.)

Myron said "Exactly, sir. Anyway, she translated that notoriety into a good career in gossip journalism, though she's wrong as much as she's right. She's written four books: one on breaking the Porker story; one on Jasmine Nix, which was a positive and supportive book; one on the history of Yellow Journalism and gossip columnists; and one on the late Lieutenant Governor Graham Collins, which was most very unflattering."

"Another Kitty Kelly." said Cindy Ross.

"Yes, ma'am." said Myron. "Louella made pretty good money from the book sales, and has a relatively good income from her syndicated column and being a KSB contributor. Her finances are average: mortgage on a condo, car payments, two credit cards with a few hundred on each of them. Nothing special, at least so far."

Just then there was a knock on the door, followed by Chief Moynahan, D.A. Miriam Walters, and ADA Paulina Patterson walking in. "We have some bad newwwwwwws." said the Chief.

"Have a seat, sir. Don't keep us in suspense." I said.

They sat down, and Miriam Walters said "KSB has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court, trying to get Louella Hopper's laptop computer back and force us to destroy the evidence the TCPD downloaded from it. They are claiming First Amendment journalist privilege."

"That's a crock of pure excrement." I said angrily.

"And we are fighting KSB all the way on it." said Miriam Walters. "The Judge assigned to the case is Rodney K. Watts, and he has already denied KSB's emergency motion to squash the evidence. But the overall lawsuit was not yet decided. If it ultimately is found in favor of KSB, any evidence you get from the laptop may be thrown out."

"And there's more." said SBI Agent Johnson. "Tim Sioban of KSB refused to answer questions by me and the Campus Police about what he and Ms. Hopper were talking about when she fell down and subsequently died, citing journalistic privilege. Inspector Maxwell is considering getting a warrant and arresting Sioban, and forcing him to answer the questions or take the Fifth the normal way."

"Or go to jail for Contempt of Court?" asked Paulina. "He'd love that. The publicity, the martyrdom for the Press cause..."

"The only thing I don't like about that," I said, "is that I didn't get to say it myself before you did." There were some chuckles at that.

"But the more serious point remaaaaaaains." said Chief Moynahan. "The Press is fighting us every step of the way on this."

"So KSB doesn't want a reporter's murder to be solved, eh?" I replied. "I'd say that is very suspicious on their part. Would you agree, Captain?"

"Absolutely, sir." said Tanya Perlman.

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

11:00am, Tuesday, July 16th. My mother and Tanya were sitting in my office with me.

"Okay, what's new?"

Tanya said "First, Jerry Fussell. He was a Private Investigator in the City, and apparently was Louella Hopper's main P.I. to confirm or refute things she heard about and wanted to verify and go to press with. I daresay that is what Geiger is going to be doing for the Town & County Examiner in the near future."

"Hmm, interesting." I said. "What else?"

Tanya continued: "Louella's next column for the City Gazette had five major items. The first was that the Feds, at least the U.S. Attorney, would like to give Peter Blassingame full immunity from his crimes in exchange for Edward Blassingame giving the Feds everything he has on his operations as well as those of what we call the 'Swamp Frogs'."

"That's just moot." I said moodily. "The crimes against Peter are State and local: murder and rape. The Feds cannot give him immunity for those."

"We're just reporting, son, not saying it's right." my mother said. "Go ahead, Tanya."

"The second item," said Tanya, "is that Dr. Richard Searles of our University Hospital has been dating celebrity actress Mia McNamara and that they are going to announce their engagement soon."

"I see no reason why someone would commit murder over that." I said. "Dr. Searles is a widower, rich, handsome, charming, and Mia McNamara is a drop-dead gorgeous blonde. My only question is... how does he get all those beautiful women?"

I did not mention that Dr. Searles's wife Gloria was the best kiss my lips ever tasted, and I'd really wanted to do more with her. (Author's note: 'The Medical Murder Mystery'.) Alas, Gloria's unfortunate death prevented me from finding out if the rest of her was as good as that kiss...

"You are the last man in the world to be complaining, Mister Iron Crowbar." Tanya said with her cherubic grin, her eyes twinkling very brightly.

"Okay, okay." I said, unable to disagree. "What's next?"

"The third item," said Tanya, "is that T-Square was the one behind the beating of Lester Holder. She claimed to have sources that told her it was T-Square and his 'Regiment', not you, that executed the beating of Holder, since Tasha is T-Square's niece."

I nodded. "If there's fire under that smoke, it's a possible motive."

"Yes sir, if there really is proof." Tanya said. "The fourth thing was that she was stating in her column that the civil rights investigation of Mayor Allgood was pre-planned with the intention to charge him with racial crimes, then the Governor would be impeached if he did not suspend Mayor Allgood. She claims to have evidence of pre-planned collusion to make that happen."

"Oh, that could be big, if it were true." I said. "I can't believe the Press would allow that to be published and read by the Public, but if it got out, it'd be big."

"Yes, son." said my mother, then she said, her voice connoting warning: "But that's not all there was." She nodded to Tanya, whose lovely face lost its cherubic happiness.

Her words sent a chill down my spine as she said "Sir, the fifth item was that she had confirmation from Federal Government sources that you have found McGinty's Materials, and that they are still in your possession..."

To be continued.