Dream within a Dream Ch. 03

I added: "It's not enough to kill him, I could do that today if I wanted. But that leaves his organization in place, and only needing a new leader to fill it. No, I want to bring him down, within the constraints of the Constitution, put him on trial, imprison his network of hundreds. And then, and only then, can I face Pete Feeley's gravestone and also his son and say that my work is done on his behalf."

"So what are you going to do now?" asked Muscone.

"Work on the clue your boss gave me today." I said. "Was it not obvious?"

"I guess not." said Jack. "Then again, I'm not in danger of being burned at the stake like you constantly are."

"White Roots, Jack." I said. "White Roots."

Part 12 - Dora's Doom

Monday morning, August 31st. At 9:00am I was in the Chambers of Judge Karl Zeigler of the Westphalia District Superior Court. It was his Court that had sanctioned the agreement with Dora Ellis several years before.

"Your Honor," I said "First, these are the sworn affidavits of several persons, including police officers and an FBI Agent, that they heard Dora Ellis state under questioning pertaining to the 'State v. Priemus' plea agreement that she was never part of a white supremacy organization."

"However, I have this documentation that while she worked at a bank in the DFW area, she opened an account for a group called 'White Roots'. They are a small group of redneck militia types in eastern Tennessee. Dora not only opened accounts for the group, which they used to move money around, but she also attended functions of this group in Tennessee. This FBI undercover information from three years ago provides proof of that." I put down pictures showing Dora at a function of this militia group in the Tennessee mountains.

"Only members can attend those function, Your Honor." I said. "Therefore, Dora lied essentially under oath and definitely under the auspices of this plea agreement. I'd like the plea deal rescinded, and the opportunity to question her. I further believe this plea deal negates her right to plead the Fifth--"

"This is preposterous!" gasped Forrest Gillis, representing Dora's interest in this hearing in Chambers. I'd surmised that he would not say anything so that he could see exactly what I had, but now he was fighting for his client. "She's given up no rights, she hasn't lied, and this bozo hasn't proved a thing!"

I saw Gillis reach his hand into his coat pocket. He was going for his cellphone to surreptitiously send a message that would ultimately warn of my move against Dora. Alas, radio signals were not getting to nor from his cellphone, nor any others in the room; it is possible that my favorite little device was active, and had fresh batteries to keep the power going.

The judge looked at the information. "I have no idea at all about the legal implications of all this." he said. "I would imagine that it will be tangled up in the Courts for years. But you've got enough for a start, in my opinion, Commander. Do you know where this Dora Ellis is now?"

"Yes sir." I said. "She's within the State, and we're ready to make the arrest if you issue the warrant." Indeed... Dora was in my Town & County, trying to hide in plain sight, so to speak. She'd have to do better to fool Your Iron Crowbar...

"Okay, I'm issuing that warrant now." said the judge. "You may proceed to bring her in for processing and a preliminary hearing."

"Something wrong with your cellphone, there, Mr. Gillis?" I asked Gillis. His face turned beet red as he brought his device on out, seeing there was no signal.

"What is that, there?" asked the judge, his face turning harsh as he looked at Gillis.

"Nothing, Your Honor." said Forrest, putting the cellphone away. Only then did I pull my cellphone out, having turned off the jamming device with one finger before dialing a number on said cellphone. I was calling Captain Ross.

"Bring the Blue Crowbar down." I said into the phone. "Bring it down hard."

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

Dora was meeting with two men in the back of the Farmers Market Restaurant on the southwest side of Town, actually on the west side of the River across from the old King & Ebenezer plant. Farmers came here to sell their products, many of them actually agents for BigAgraFoods, pretending that this was an old-time and honored institution of barter and sale.

"Okay, so I'll bring the chemical agents out in two separate shipments of 'farm products'," said Dora, "and we'll distribute them to places in the nigger-towns. I'll need you, Mr. Cook, to get the distribution devices from Ward Harvester that will disperse the agents. When the signal goes out, we'll hit 'em hard. We'll kill hundreds at each site before they even know what happened."

"And then they'll blame Islamist terrorist groups for the attacks." said Thomas P. Cook. "Our people in the Media are ready to chant that mantra. They won't say it's only niggers being wiped out."

Just then, the third person at the table felt the buzzing of his cellphone. He looked at the message, and worked hard to keep his face from blanching. "If you'll excuse me," he said, "I need to go to the restroom. It may be a few minutes. You keep negotiating and putting the plans in place, Mr. Thomas."

With that he got up and went towards the back. He quickly snuck through the back areas and out the back door, seeing a vast farm field before him. He strode around the building to his car, got in and pulled quickly out, going north along County Road 5.

Two TCPD police cruisers whizzed past him as they hurtled at high speed towards the Farmers Market and the restaurant, their blue lights blazing but no sounds emanating from their sirens. Other police cars and a van hurtled over the bridge over the River and shot up from the south. At the restaurant, they poured out of the vehicles.

"I need to hit the restroom, also." said Cook. The other man calling him 'Mr. Thomas' had been a code warning. He would heed it just in time, and made his way out of the room just as the heavily armed, uniformed officers crashed into the room.

"GET YOUR HANDS UP!!" shouted the SWAT Assault Team, their military-style rifles and the lasers on them trained upon Dora Ellis. Within seconds she was slammed to the floor, searched for weapons, handcuffed and carried out of the room, screaming and cursing. Within seconds, all Police were gone, and the patrons of the restaurant were left utterly shocked and confused...

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

The Court hearing at 2:00pm in Westphalia was swift. Dora Ellis was charged with being in violation of her plea deal, and was told that she was to be arrested and processed. Her lawyer was fighting every step of the way, and the judge said that she might get bail but could not leave Westphalia's county, and that she'd be ankle-monitored.

After being processed, her picture taken again (she refused to hold up the nameplate with her name on it), fingerprints and DNA samples taken, she was brought into an Interrogation Room.

"Don't worry," said the lawyer Gillis. "I'll have you out of here in no time. This bullshit won't hold once we get Judge Leahy of the Appellate Court on it."

"Why didn't you fucking warn me?" Dora asked under her breath.

"I tried to." whispered Gillis. "The cellphone signals in the judge's chambers were dead. They may block transmissions from in there." He did not mention that his cellphone signal had come back strongly, and as the Iron Crowbar was transmitting the order to bring the hammer down on Dora, he was warning someone else... someone far more important and powerful than Dora.

The door to the Interrogation room opened and in walked the tall, broad-shouldered redhead, wearing civilian clothes and carrying a red crowbar. Dora looked at him with contempt; the lawyer looked at him with a mixture of fear and anger.

Right behind the Iron Crowbar was an athletic woman with platinum blonde hair and ice-blue eyes, and carrying a blue crowbar, also in civilian clothes.

"Dora," I said, sitting down, "you are going to sit in jail for years waiting for the appeals and court cases to work their way through the system. Each new appeal by your Gresham & Mason legal eagle here will be carefully considered as new precedents in law, taking considerable time to process."

"I'm not with Gresham & Mason." said the lawyer. "And I'll have her out of here by sundown."

"And if you don't?" I replied. "Gosh, just one night in this jail, Dora... at the mercy of the police officers that remember your lover Lance Priemus killing one of their own and his wife, under some pretty ugly circumstances." I shook my head. "Tsk tsk, I sure wouldn't want to be you."

"Don't let him scare you." said the lawyer.

"Oh I'm not trying to scare her." I said. "I'm just painting the picture here. But I'm also in a position to offer you a deal, Dora, a new deal. You tell me what I want to know, and the original plea deal will be reinstated. You'll walk out of here, and your daddy can hide you somewhere safe from me. But if you don't talk, and literally within an hour or so... then none of it is going to matter if you are still here after sundown."

"I am sick and tired of these bullshit threats." said the lawyer loudly. "This is being recorded, you know."

"I hope so." I said. "I hope my offer was recorded. Dora, your lawyer told you that you'd never be arrested, that your plea bargain was inviolate... and now it's being torn to shreds. Your lawyer is telling you that you have nothing to fear, but I think you know in your heart that your very life is at stake here. That's not a threat. I think you know what's going down, here."

"I'd rather die than talk to you." said Dora. "You have no fucking idea what you are up against. You are just a puny little ant compared to us. Yes, I might die, and I'm willing to die for the 'Cause', but when you're swatted like the bug you are, will it be worth it for you?"

"And what 'Cause' is that?" I asked.

"Just don't say any more, Dora." advised the lawyer Gillis.

"Hold on a minute." Dora said. "So, Mr. Iron Crowbar, what are you offering me, and what do I have to give in exchange?"

"Again," I said, "you truthfully and fully answer my questions and your plea deal is reinstated. You can leave this State, which I highly recommend that you do and never come back."

"How about this." Dora said. "I'll tell you what you want to know about Priemus. I won't betray my family or anything outside of what happened with Priemus, but I'll tell you the whole truth about him... and then I walk free."

"Geez, Dora," I said, "I could tell you what happened with Priemus now. In fact... why don't I just do that, and you correct me where I go astray, okay?" Cindy was watching from the corner of the room, trying not to laugh, having heard and seen me do this many times.

I started: "You were lovers with both your husband Danny Ellis, a small-time drug pusher, and Lance Priemus, also a small-time Mafia-wannabee who dressed well and talked the talk but did not walk the walk. Apparently Priemus fell out of favor with your people, either your family or the bankers or the man working behind the scenes, who is the real Puppetmaster here. Maybe they found out he was a C.I. for the Town & County Police Department." The lawyer's face became gravely concerned when I said that.

I continued: "So you and Danny were told to take Priemus out... and how it was to be done. You were given a drug with which to spike his drink at the bar. Once he was under that, you got him into your car then drove him away. You stopped to change the license plate on the back of the car so that it would come up as his name. While doing that, Danny was cajoling Priemus and talking about raping a black woman."

I said "Then you drove by where you were told a black cop would be waiting on the side of the road. Someone wanted him eliminated, too; maybe he found out about a drug operation going into the City. But at any rate he was slated to die and told to go set up a speed trap at the place where he did. You drove by, he went to stop you, called in the license plate, then got out of his car to ticket you."

"And then," I said, "your confederates jumped him. Not Danny or Lance, who were in your car, but the people in the car following behind you. It was them that got the jump on the cop, disarmed and tied him up, then you transported him to his own home."

"You got there," I went on, "and the wife came to the door, where Danny said the husband was drunk and he wanted to help get him inside to sleep it off. She opened the door and was captured by Danny, Lance, and those in the other car. Then the husband was brought inside at the point of his own gun and with you, Dora, threatening to kill his wife."

"Inside, the wife was raped repeatedly in front of her husband. And not just by Danny and Lance, but the men in the other car. You see, that's where everyone else has gone wrong all this time... they never considered that this was an organized event with more people. But the medical examiner's report, which was to be scrubbed of anything that didn't point to Priemus, left one thing in: that the woman had sustained more damage during her rape than your testimony under the plea deal would generally account for, that generally would happen with just two men raping her a couple of times. I got that 'second opinion' from a medical doctor; indeed, a gynecologist of the highest ability.

"I suspect you gave Lance oral sex to get him hard, then had him rape the wife in front of the husband. The other men wore condoms to keep their DNA from being found, then Lance went last, sufficiently riled up by your sexual ministrations and the cheers and jeers of everyone else. Drugged, pack mentality, all that stuff. He rapes the woman not knowing what he's doing. Then you take him home to sleep, change the license plates back, and let things develop from there."

"Lance took the fall." I said. "Yes, he was a white supremacist like you were, that's how you met him. He may have murdered before; I certainly don't think a totally innocent man was put to death by the State. But he did something that pissed someone off... and that someone was so hateful of him that he had poisons introduced into Lance's execution drugs, to make him feel great pain before he died. That's a lot of hate, a lot of hate, to make that kind of effort to do that for no really beneficial reason."

"And with you there watching, as well." said Dora. "But the thing was committed by then. And it was beneficial: it makes everyone else realize that they'd better toe the line or they, too, will be feeling some real pain."

"So, who did it?" I asked. "Did you promise Watch Captain Lockhart sex to arrange it?"

Dora's eyes did not flicker. "No. I had nothing to do with all that. I might've fucked that piece of shit Lockhart to get what I wanted from him, which was loyalty. But I don't think you realize how many of us there are, how many places we're embedded inside of, and what we can do. But that doesn't matter. I didn't care how Lance died, as long as he did die. I don't know how those drugs were put in there. I really just don't care."

"I think you're lying." I said. "You know. You see, Dora, you are not what you seem. You were caught selling drugs for Danny, and Captain Susan Wexler of the City Police offered you a deal: be a C.I. for her and she'd get you off. Then she came to you and said that you weren't to be a normal C.I., but you could help her take down the Black gangs that were polluting her City. You jumped on that, and helped Susan take down Black rings while White drug pushers went untouched. They were paying Wexler for exclusivity, and you helped Wexler provide that. 'White Roots' was that gang, and Danny was also a part of it. Captain Wexler helped you make some serious money."

"But once all was said and done," I said, "With Priemus in prison, on death row thanks to your testimony... someone turned on you. Danny was killed off... yes, Dora, he was killed by the very people you're still trying to protect, not just as part of a drug raid... and you were told to be in the crowd at Jacksonville Prison, where you were all too easily caught by my people. Figure it out, Dora, you're being betrayed. Your usefulness to him has ended."

Dora just looked at me. I stared into her eyes and shouted "Say his name!"

"This is ridiculous." said the lawyer. "Dora, this guy is baiting you with lies. Don't believe a word of his shit."

"No," said Dora, "every word he said was the truth. Yes, there was a second car of people. Yes, it was a massive gang rape, and I enjoyed watching every minute of that nigger bitch getting what she deserved. Priemus wasn't that drunk, though; he enjoyed his part of it very much. But so sorry, Mr. Iron Crowbar, I will not betray our great leader. His name shall not pass my lips."

I got up, knowing I had heard the last word of Dora Ellis on this matter. My gambit had failed; she had spurned my offer not only of her freedom but of her life.

And she knew it: as I turned to go, Dora said loudly "Commander, I may die, but I won't betray my good race as you are doing. I'll die for the sake of the Cause! Tell my father I'll die a WHITE woman!"

I left that room, Cindy following. After that, there was nothing more to be said.

Part 13 - Epilogue

Tuesday morning, September 1st. After watching Bettina's news report, Cindy and I went into my office. Chief Emeritus Griswold had come in and joined the coffee klatch. After talking to everyone for a few minutes, he also came to the office and was now sitting next to Cindy in front of my desk. I noted him peering at my Trojan Horse, then the framed badge of the late Corporal Peter M. Feeley hanging on the wall.

"Interesting artwork, wouldn't you say, Ms. Ross?" asked the old Chief. Cindy's eyes fell upon the matchstick Trojan Horse, then the painting of the Fall of Troy propped against the wall on the floor in the space between the shelving and the back wall... and she fell into a reverie...

Meanwhile, Griswold said to me, "So, Crowbar, you've taken this case to new levels that we never dreamed of in the past."

"Dream... funny you should use that word, Chief." I said, not revealing why I saw the unintended pun in the Chief's words. "But it would not have mattered if you'd have known then every thing that we know now. Our Moriarty would've cut bait and retreated further into the shadows, been more careful about his tracks, and I wouldn't be building the case against him that I am now."

"I'm glad to hear that." said Chief Griswold. "I've been wondering if I could've done something that would've made a difference back then."

"No," I said, "it is what it is. Well, maybe the fish in your lake would've appreciated it if things had been different."

The Chief chuckled as Cindy came out of her reverie. I was wondering what she was thinking, but just then my assistant Helena buzzed me, saying Jack Muscone was here. I invited him in. Jack looked pensive as he came inside.

"I just got word," Muscone said, "that Dora Ellis was found dead in her holding cell early this morning." Cindy let out a little gasp and Griswold was peering at me out of the corner of his eye; I would imagine that my face showed that this news lagged a couple of steps behind my vision.

"She was in protective custody." continued Jack. "And she wasn't killed by the police there as retaliation. She wasn't physically injured. Apparently someone got a drug to her that she self-ingested. The coroner over there is expediting an autopsy."

"She killed herself, then?" Cindy asked.

"Looks like it." said Jack. "The FBI wants to know if the same drugs were used that killed Priemus. That would be your Shadow Man's way, wouldn't it?"