Consent of the Governed Ch. 05

"I might add," I added with malicious delight, "that Ms. Coretta K. Scott was the Assembly Member present that met the quorum and allowed business to be conducted." Coretta K. Scott's look of pure hatred at me was equalled only by that of Kelly Carnes.

"Mr. Mayor," said J.P. Goldman, who was still standing, "I am accusing Assemblywoman Scott of lying about the events that occurred that day. I ask that you have a Sheriff's Deputy swear in Ms. Scott, so that whatever she says is under oath, and she can be charged with perjury if she lies again."

The objections by the Democrats were furious, and it took a lot of the Mayor's gavel being slammed onto the table to get them to shut up. Daniel finally said "I agree with Councilman Goldman that this witness should be sworn in if she is to continue. Will you take an oath to tell the truth, Assemblywoman Scott?"

"You're an illegitimate Mayor and a racist." snarled Coretta K. Scott, who then walked away from the podium, and kept on walking until she and her entourage had left the chamber.

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

Lionel Carmela looked out the window of the luxurious condo on the eighth and top floor of the Tower Condos, which stood next to (and east of) its twin building, University Hotel, on the southern edge of the University campus. The window faced north, and Carmela could see in the last of the fading light the Psychology Building on the north side of the main quad, still guarded by four Campus Police Officers, but with no protesters present.

He turned back into the main room when he heard his visitor being admitted to the room by Peter Kasner. Kasner was one of Dr. Wellman's assistants, and was a mole for Carmela. (Author's note: 'The Babymaker', Ch. 05.)

"Mr. Pat Stellum, KXTC, sir." said Kasner, introducing Carmela's visitor, KXTC reporter Pat Stellum.

"Thank you, Peter. You can go for the night." said Carmela "Come in, Mr. Stellum, have a seat." Carmela set himself down first in the comfortable chair, the window to his right, the sofa facing the window to his left. Stellum sat down on the sofa's left side, as distant from Carmela as he could get without being obviously rude.

"Nice place you've got here." Stellum said.

"It belongs to a University booster that shares my views and vision of the country's future." said Carmela, not giving the real identity of the owner of this condo. "So, what's going on out there?"

"The Council is meeting now to ratify the Budget the Assembly passed." said Stellum. "Passed with full funding for the Police. Two white Democrats reneged on their fellow Democrats and sided with the Republicans."

"Yes, they're facing uphill battles in their elections." sad Carmela. "Where is Donald Troy? And his minions? And his wife and children?"

"Troy is at the Council meeting, and Commander Croyle is there, also." said Stellum. "Ross is at City Hall, in a meeting with Sheriff Griswold and Chief of Staff Oswald, and her wife and daughter are at Cindy Ross's mother Maggie's condo. Captain Muscone and FBI SAC Jack Muscone are at their home with their children. Fredricson, Patterson, and Evans are at the Iron Crowbar's house on the mountain top with all their children and their dogs. That place is damn near impregnable, from what my FBI sources tell me."

Carmela got up and walked over to the window, then cracked the door open since the glass was reflecting the inside of the apartment too much. He felt the cold rush of air in his face as he looked up in the now-full darkness, seeing The Cabin high above him on the hillside, with no visible lights on inside. The place looked empty.

Maybe his hired hitman had already attacked, and now had Carole Troy in his possession, Carmela thought to himself. But no, he would've heard something already if that had been the case.

"Hmmph." he said as he closed the door and returned to his comfortable seat. "No lights on up there. Are you sure they're there? Not at the Mountain Nest?"

Stellum said "As far as I know, yes. I do know for sure they're not at the Mountain Nest. Fencing is being installed around that place, under Police and Federal supervision. Electric fences, sensors everywhere. Your people will never be able to mount a sneak attack from the back side like the other night."

Carmela: "Yeah, and their dogs won't be able to shit anymore without it being recorded. Okay, after you leave you need to find out for sure where Fredricson and her children are. If they're not at that house on the hilltop, you need to find them and tell me where they are. It's imperative we know where they are, and know it tonight."

Stellum wanted to ask why, but he knew better. So all he said was "Okay, I'll check around. So what else do I need to know?" He was asking under an 'agreement' whereby he gave Carmela information in exchange for 'scoops' that would allow him to get stories first, if not help gin them up and set them up. He had no problem making this Faustian deal with the rabidly Socialist and dangerous professor... who just might be the next University President next year.

Carmela said "In the next few days, I expect Laura Fredricson to resign from her posts at the University and from the Staff at University Hospital. She will not say why, and that will be your cue to insinuate that she's resigning before information comes out that she helped Sidney Wellman with his money-laundering deals with Henry Wargrave, and that those deals, and not the CIA, were the real sources of her grant money."

"Is that really true?" Stellum gasped in spite of himself.

"Does it matter?" replied Carmela, fixing his dark eyes on Stellum. "She can't disprove it, unless she and the CIA show the grant money and why it was granted... classified, clandestine projects involving her psychological methods of torturing political prisoners abroad. They'll never do that, and the CIA will force her to resign if she doesn't see the light herself. That's the story, and once you get the ball rolling, you can sit back and let the building disaster crush that bitch between the two walls coming together with her between them."

Stellum nodded. "Sounds good. I'll get things ready. Can I tell Bettina about this, so she can prep KXTC for it?"

Carmela shrugged, then said "Well... wait until the cunt resigns, and then tell Bettina what you have from a confidential source. She'll let you run with------"

The lights went out.

In the total darkness and silence, Carmela said "The generator will come on in a minute." They sat there for at least a minute, then Stellum turned on his iPhone light. Carmela went to the window, and saw that University Hotel was on generator power, and other buildings nearby were also without power, but the rest of the Town and the School had power; it was a localized outage event.

"Well, why the hell haven't the generators kicked in?" Carmela said, looking out the window again..

*SQUEAK! CRRRREEEEAK!*

"AWK!" Carmela heard Stellum gasp as the iPhone went to the floor. Someone had an arm around Stellum's neck, cutting of his air and rendering him unconscious!

"Who's there?" Carmela called out, his voice fearful. He could barely see the inky figure. And then the shadow moved. It was indeed a person!

Terror in his soul, Carmela steeled himself for a burst of activity to reach the gun in the drawer next to his chair. Despite his loathing of the Second Amendment and indeed the entire US Constitution, and despite his calls for the confiscation of everyone else's guns, he still hypocritically kept his own.

"What the hell! Who the fuck are you?" he yelled out as the shadowy figure came around the sofa and approached him.

"Your worst nightmare." the ninja replied in a whispery but definitely female voice.

*FWUP!*

Carmela felt the sting of the dart stabbing into his neck. He reached up and grabbed it. His effort to fling it away was slow. Then he realized he was falling to the floor, and he was unable to move his arms to break his fall. He was being incapacitated with a paralyzing agent...

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

The house at the end of Reservoir Road, the 'Safe Room' house where Tim Burris had lived and died (Author's note: 'Safe Room'.), had been on the market for some time, then was bought at a way-undermarket price by Cindy Ross as a fixer-upper. She'd fixed it up and even simply furnished it, but it still had not sold; indeed, three deals had fallen through.

"The biggest problems are how it's situated on the hillside." Cindy had said earlier in the day as she'd admitted Laura, Paulina, Molly, Stephanie Steele and all their children and the dogs inside. "The stairs outside are steep, and if the driveway ices over in Winter, cars can't get up or down. And if a tree on the hill behind the house and above it uproots, it could slide down right over the retaining wall and into the back of the house."

Laura said "But the safe room is still good, yes?"

"Oh yes." said Cindy. "I even had the air filtration system for the 'cylinder' shelter down there repaired and upgraded, but I've never tried using it, so I wouldn't trust it. But in the 'Braille' room with the door bolted, all of you would be okay for at least 12 hours, and then you'd have to run the ventilation system to get good air in there."

Now in live time, there were Sheriff's Deputies situated at the Sheriff's home on Reservoir Road. People would normally assume they were there to protect the Sheriff, but they were actually guarding the last house on the left...

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

"The motion carries, 8-2," said Mayor Daniel Allgood, "and the Town & County Budget for next year is ratified." Some in the thinned-out audience applauded. Teresa and I fist-bumped, then shook hands with the Sheriff and Cindy, who'd come up to us just moments before.

"Kelly Carnes and Reginald B.F. Lewis voted against it, eh?" the Sheriff growled. "I wonder why the other Democrats didn't oppose it."

Teresa said "Susan Weston seconded the motion, to show her support for full funding of the Police, so she was required by the Rules of Order to vote for it, and that all but guaranteed its passage."

I said: "And the rest of the Dems voted for it because of the Education portion of the bill... it's a per-student distribution, but they've already found ways to put extra in for the southside schools, which will infuriate the wealthy northern suburbs. Malinda Adams and Sheila Sorrells face relatively strong challenges in the Election, as well as potential primary challenges in two years, so it was in their interests to ratify it."

Edward Steele and Ian McGhillie came up to us, and we all shook hands with them. I said "Why don't we all go someplace very visible and very public to eat. My treat."

"Well, if you're paying for it, of course I'm in!" beamed Our Sheriff. We all chuckled.

"Applebee's near the Mall?" Teresa suggested. We did indeed go there, and were seen by many good Citizens as we had a good dinner to celebrate the RE-funding of the Police...

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

Pat Stellum opened his eyes as he felt his body being shaken. "Wake up, jerk." the whispery voice said. "I want you to witness this."

Stellum became aware that he was lying on his side in front of the sofa in Carmela's benefactor's condo, his hands manacled behind him and his ankles also zip-tied together. In front of him, between the sofa and the window that let in the merest bit of light, Dr. Lionel Carmela was lying on his back, his hands manacled behind him, underneath his back, and his feet also manacled.

"So," said the lithe ninja in all black, complete with a full hood mask, who was now kneeling over Carmela, straddling him. "you were going to kidnap and kill Laura Fredricson's daughter, that sweet little girl, to force Fredricson to resign, eh? You're despicable. Pure evil."

Stellum was shocked. That was how Carmela was going to force Fredricson to quit? he thought, what little decency he had in him sickened by the realization.

"Oh yesssss." hissed the invader in black, as if reading Stellum's thoughts. "This piece of dog shit put out a contract to kill Donald Troy's daughter. And now you get to watch him pay the price."

Stellum saw the silhouette in the window of an arm being raised with a cylinder in one hand. Then the other hand reached up and removed the covering. To his horror, he realized that it was an ice pick.

Carmela had an idea of who it was sitting on his chest, and he was also horrified when he saw the ice pick. He tried to bluff. "Go ahead, kill me." he said. "My death guarantees the death of the entire Troy family, and there's no way you nor Troy can stop all of them from dying."

"Maybe." the whispery voice said. "But who said I'm going to kill you? You know what they say in the Arab world... an eye for an eye." Stellum saw the ice pick being lowered towards Carmela's head.

"Blinding me won't work, either!" Carmela screamed out, fear consuming him.

"You don't understand." the assailant whispered. "Oh yes, you're going to lose one eye tonight. But not the other. If anything happens to the Iron Crowbar's family, especially his daughter, then I'll be back for the second eye. Anything happens to them, and you'll wish you were dead, but you'll go through the rest of your life totally blind."

Carmela tried to struggle to push his assailant off of him, but he was still paralyzed by the effects of the drug injected into him. Pat Stellum could only watch in horror as the assailant slowly lowered the ice pick to Carmela's left eye...

"NO! NO! NOOOO!!! AAAUGGGH! AAUGH! AHHH!!..."

Part 30 - Eye of the Crowbar

We were finishing our dinner at Applebee's, and I'd just paid the check, when my Police iPhone rang. Cindy and Teresa got texts at the same instant.

"Troy." I said, answering. "Whaa?.... where?... okay, I'll be there in a few minutes." After disconnecting, I said "There was an assault at Tower Condos. No deaths, but one man severely injured, and a second man tied up but otherwise unharmed. Let's go, Teresa. Sheriff, Cindy, if you'd care to join us, feel free to do so."

"Any idea who the victim is?" the Sheriff asked.

"Lionel Carmela." I replied...

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

Teresa rode with me and the Sheriff with Cindy. As we pulled into the Tower Condos parking lot, an ambulance was pulling out, it's red and white lightbar flashing brightly.

As we were getting out of our Police SUVs, I heard Cindy said "Teresa and I get texts. Don gets called. What does he have that we don't have, Sheriff?"

"A red crowbar." replied the Sheriff. "And the most powerful brain in this County."

"Second most powerful, Sheriff." I said, thinking of Carole. "Maybe even third, with my mother visiting us."

"Modesty is a human trait, Commander." growled Griswold. "I will excuse it... since you bought dinner tonight."

There were a number of Police vehicles in the parking lot, but only the vehicle at the parking lot entrance was burning a blue lightbar. As we went inside the lobby area, there were no Officers, but there were a couple of reporters, one of them being Amber Harris. She did not approach us, but her cameraman videoed us going through the lobby to the elevator.

When we stepped out of the elevator on the 8th floor, we were met by Patrolman Culver, who took our names and badge numbers. Lt. Jerome Davis came up to us to take us to the crime scene.

"Who called it in?" I asked immediately, and Jerome was ready.

"The call came from Pat Stellum's cellphone, sir." said Jerome. "But he didn't make the call. I'll explain when we get inside." He extended his hand for us to enter the room ahead of him.

On the floor of the main room, about halfway between the couch and the window overlooking the University campus, was a pool of blood. Nearer the window was a smear of blood with an evidence marker next to it. Between the smears of blood was a bloodied ice pick, also marked for evidence photo-taking.

At the breakfast room table off to one said sat Pat Stellum, who looked as if he'd been crying. He didn't even react when he saw me come in.

"Sir," said Davis, handing me a tablet with a series of photos, "when we got here, we found Stellum lying on the floor right in front of the sofa, his hands bound behind him and his ankles bound together. Dr. Lionel Carmela was lying on the floor on his back, his hands bound behind him."

"And he's the source of that blood, I observe." I said.

"Yes sir." said Davis. "As you can see from the photos, his left eye was gouged out. That spot over there, with the Exhibit 'B' marker, was were his eye was found. It was shredded, and the eye was pulled out of the socket; the optic nerve was still attached to the eye. I don't think they can possibly save it, but the paramedics took it when they took Carmela to the hospital."

"Wow." I said as I finished going through the photos, then handed the tablet to the Sheriff. "I see that red spot on Carmela's neck. Was he shot with a dart there?"

"I don't know, sir." said Jerome. "If there was a dart, the perp took it with him."

"Took the dart but left the ice pick?" I said. "No, never mind that. It's actually smart to leave the ice pick, as long as there's no fingerprints or the perp's DNA on it. So... what has Stellum said? And why was he here?"

Davis: "Stellum said he was invited here to interview Carmela. I took the liberty of taking his recorder and listening to what was on it... which is nothing, nothing at all. He explained that by saying he'd just gotten here and just sat down with Carmela when the lights went out. Then he felt an arm around his neck, choking him. When he woke up, a figure in all black was sitting on top of Carmela with the ice pick, and was telling Carmela that he... or she... would come back and take his other eye if anything happened to your daughter Carole.:

Davis: "Stellum then started sobbing, and said he watched the perp gouge out Carmela's eye. Carmela was screaming in pain, then apparently lost consciousness. The perp went over and got Stellum's phone, and pressed Stellum's fingers to the button until it opened, then the perp called 9-1-1 and said someone was screaming in this apartment. The perp left by the front door, and Carmela woke back up and started saying 'Tracy Stone' over and over."

Just then, Detective Sergeant Julia Rodriguez and Senior Detective Teddy Parker came up to us. "Sir," Julia said, "you need to see this." She pointed to the side table between the chair and sofa, then held up a revolver in an evidence bag, and another bag with ammunition in it. "The revolver is a.357 Magnum, and the ammo is.357 Magnum with semi-wadcutter bullets."

"Jeeez-us Christ." I said. "Not only is Dr. Anti-Second-Amendment hypocritically possessing a firearm, he loads it with semi-wadcutters that would go through the walls and take out someone in another apartment. He could easily, easily, have used.38 Special rounds with expanding bullets that might not travel so far... or is this his gun in the first place?"

"Carmela's fingerprints are on the gun and the loaded cartridges, sir." said Julia. I nodded, then Julia said "The first Officers on the scene and the Paramedics said they heard Carmela say the name 'Tracy Stone' over and over. He was pretty incoherent, but they heard it clearly. And Pat Stellum also said he heard Carmela say 'Tracy Stone'. We need to talk to her, even if it comes to nothing------"

*Whirrrrrrrrrrr*

"Mind if we come in?" asked Captain(P) Tanya Muscone, who was going to by promoted the next Monday. "One last case for the girl in the wheelchair?" With Tanya was her husband, and following them was Supervisory Special Agent Melina Allgood...and Special Agent Tracy Stone!

"Nooo, I don't mind." I said. "Come on in." Jerome Davis went through the particulars of the case for Tanya and the Feds.