Falsely Accused Ch. 05

Bettina: "Meanwhile, Dr. Sidney P. Wellman, President of the University, issued a statement strongly condemning the protesters and thanking Commander Troy for protecting those inside the Psychology Building. He also stated that Professor Laura Fredricson will continue to do her work, though with increased Campus Police and State Patrol protection.

"Other professors at the School, led by Women's Studies Professor Jan Camp, have demanded that Dr. Wellman put Professor Fredricson on leave, citing that Professor Fredricson's presence creates a danger to her fellow Faculty and students at School. President Wellman dismissed Dr. Camp's demands, and suggested that Dr. Camp needs to do more work in her own field of study and stop worrying about his job or Professor Fredricson's job. And now let's go to Nick Eastwood for Sports. Nick!"

"Thank you, Bettina!" said the handsome blonde Nick Eastwood. "The University Athletic Department has announced that the Mascot 'change of the guard' ceremony will take place before the Bulldogs' first game against Taco State on Saturday, September 2d. Chief III will turn over the Mascot Collar to his son, who will become Chief IV, and Chief III will retire to a dog's life for his remaining years. As to the Bulldog players, they are eager to begin what they believe could be a special season, and have already circled October 28th at the Wildcats as an important date on the schedule!"

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

There was no banter in MCD nor Vice. No one came in early. Detectives in MCD were expected to arrive before shift change at 8:00am, which in Commander Troy's opinion (which counted the most) meant by 7:45am. Most came in earlier to work out and join the coffee klatch, but this morning there was no activity until 7:40am.

"It's bad." Cindy said to Teresa as they drank coffee in Cindy's office at 8:30am. "I've never seen the TCPD so demoralized, not even after Julie Newton betrayed us."

"It's bad at the Precincts, too." said Teresa. "I talked to the Precinct Captains in the last half hour. It's almost completely silent. No one is talking. Irwin said it was the same all weekend. And 122 tickets? We're gonna hear about that from the Council."

"I just can't believe Sheriff Allgood did what he did." said Cindy. "If Commander Troy is cleared by the Board of Inquiry, Daniel has made an enemy, and an enemy he truly does not want to have."

"Speaking of that," said Teresa, "I've made one, too. I heard Captain Charles was furious that I put his son Sergeant Charles on suspension. The Union may grieve it, too."

"Naw, Chief Griswold told him what really happened, that Sergeant Charles wrongly listened to Harlow." Cindy said. "The Union is also holding off on grieving it until Commander Troy's Board of Inquiry."

"Todd is keeping Carole and Jim along with his own kids at the BOW Enterprises day care center, so they're protected." said Teresa. "Todd jacked up security there, as well. Anyone tries to crash the fence, and the Crown Chemicals incident will look like a picnic in comparison." Cindy gave a pursed smile and nodded briefly.

"Laura is making a point to go in to work this morning at the School." Cindy said. "So that leaves the one remaining question: what is the Iron Crowbar up to?"

"Up to no good, as usual, I suspect." Teresa said. "As he himself would say: it is possible that suspending him was more of a mistake than the Enemy realizes..."

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

I was driving the Black Beauty into the City. Eddy the Bounty Hunter was with me. He had offered to help me on my mission to exonerate Peter Dwayne Gordon, and had told me he would help without pay, that this was not a matter of money. To say I was surprised was an understatement, but I did agree to buy him breakfast and lunch.

"Okay," I said as we drove through Nextdoor County, "I found three Court cases involving Kendra Luskin, all of them civil trials with settlements. My FBI friends are quietly looking into them for me. They're all cases where she accused a man of either sexual harassment or rape. Then I found another case, where a man was put in prison for rape, and you get one guess who his accuser was."

"Luskin." said Eddy.

"Yep." I said. "His name is Quint Danielson. Never been convicted of a crime beyond speeding before. Accused of date rape by Kendra Luskin, and convicted. Some anomalies in the trial, too."

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

"Well, your appetite is unaffected by everything." said Lindy Linares as she and Martin Nash came up to our booth at the City Diner, near the Federal Building in the City.

"I totally concur with the philosophy of Senator Jimmy 'Coffin' Cerone, that nothing is solved by not eating." I said. As Lindy sat down next to me and Nash next to Eddy, they told the waitress that they'd eaten already, and I asked her to bring coffee for them and put it on my tab.

"Here's what we got on those cases." said Lindy. "A couple were sealed, but can be subpoenaed by Peter Gordon's lawyer." She handed me a file folder full of information.

"Thanks." I said. "I'll start reading it after we finish here. So, what's going on in FBI land?"

"Jack is miserable." said Lindy. "He's lost his best friend, that being you."

"Yeah, I miss that ol' double-cheeseburger-eating son-of-a-gun, too." I said.

"He's more worried about what might happen to us, his team." said Nash. "The only reason we're still here is because we've all refused to be transferred. My uncle is trying to keep us together, but he's retiring by the end of September. Word is that Dana Fox and some others are just waiting to for him to walk out the door, and then they're going to rip us all apart... to the point we might not be FBI Agents any longer."

"Well, there's an open position for Police Commander in the TCPD." I said.

"Sheesh, sir," said Nash, "there's no way anyone else could fill that position, not after all you've done."

"I appreciate the sentiment." I said. "In the meantime, keep your ears open and your heads on swivels. It's going to get worse before it gets better..."

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

His name was Don... well, Donny. Donny Tate. He was 26 years old, medium height, slender, somewhat nerdish, brown hair. And he looked totally defeated by Life. His eyes were empty; there was no passion nor purpose behind them.

"My dad is the head of City Global Insurance." said Tate. "I was working there, in the Accounting Department, and studying for my CPA. And then one night at a big party for now-Senator Richard Nunn, this woman starts flirting with me. She was really hot... I mean smoking hot. I've never talked for five minutes with a woman like that, much less had one pay attention to me."

"What happened?" I asked, to get the conversation moving along.

"Well, she took me by the hand and led me out of there. We found a room with a sofa on it, and she was all over me. She sucked me off... I didn't last a minute... then she had me playing with her boobs and her pussylips until I was hard again, then she sat down on my cock and fucked me. I didn't last another two minutes and came in her."

"After that, she told me to go back to the party, that she had to clean up first." said Tate. I went back and waited for her, but she never came back. The next thing I know, the Police are banging on my door the next morning, and they arrest me, accusing me of raping her!"

"Did you go to trial?" I asked.

"No." said Tate. "The bitch went to my dad... said that she'd drop the charges, in exchange for a check, somewhere in the mid six figures. They drew up a contract, where she dropped all charges and we can't talk publicly about it. If we do, she can have the charges reinstated."

"That's null and void if you're subpoenaed to testify in Court." I said. I wasn't really sure that was true, but I needed this guy to testify. He agreed to, if he had to.

"What happened after that?" I asked.

"Well, I had to leave my dad's company." said Tate. "Too many people knew something was up. And my shot to be a CPA was gone. Right now I'm doing some work for a temp accounting agency, and I do taxes in the Spring."

I had a thought. "Tate, after all this is over... how good are you at forensic accounting?..."

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

"Governor, will you also suspend Donald Troy from the SBI?" shouted John Hardwood at the Governor as the politician tried to enter a Midtown building to give a speech. A gaggle of reporters shouted questions along those same lines.

"Okay, I'll make this one statement, then say no more." said the Governor. "Inspector Troy is not on active SBI duty, but is part-time under the rules of the Reserve program. He is not suspended, and I'm not sure how someone not on active duty can be suspended. In general, we expect he will not come onto active SBI duty until his local issues are cleared up. That is all I have to say."

"So you're not suspending him?" shouted Hardwood. "You have no problem with Troy murdering a man?"

"I never said any such thing, Hardwood." said the Governor. "And if you say that on television, you'll be sued for libel."

"Is that a threat, Governor?" Hardwood shouted. "Are you threatening the Press now? Are you the Gestapo like Troy?" The Governor was quickly whisked inside the building. Other reporters congratulated a grinning Hardwood.

"You reamed the son of a bitch!" someone said to him.

"I sure did." said Hardwood, very happy with himself. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg of what we're going to do to that God-damned Republican, and to his 'boy' Troy..."

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

Darren Stevens was next on our list. He was tall and lanky, dark brown hair, and had a naturally cynical voice.

"I worked at an advertising firm, McElwain & Tate." said Stevens. "I had the portfolios of the company's biggest clients. I also was doing some work for Zack Millner, the Democrat running against Samuel Russell for U.S. Senate. About 18 months ago, we had a Christmas party. A woman began talking to me... flirting, really... and wanted me to go with her into another room. She half dragged me down the hallway before I could stop her and get back to the party room."

I had an insight. "You didn't want to go with her," I said, "because you don't play on her team, so to speak."

"Yes, Mr. Troy, that is correct." said Stevens. "I am gay. I had no interest, sexual or otherwise, in Ms. Luskin. Anyway, I didn't think anything of it until a couple of days later, when I was called into Mr. McElwain's office. He said Ms. Luskin had filed a lawsuit against me and the company for sexual harassment. Seems she had 'witnesses' that said I'd taken her down the hall, not the other way around."

"To make a long story short," said Stevens, "I told the company to fight, to countersue, as I did. And I told them why her charges were fraud and blackmail. Well, they settled with her, though for far less than she wanted... and they fired me. Officially, for sexual harassment. But I know the real reason they fired me was because of my sexual orientation, and that was their perfect excuse to get rid of me in a way that I couldn't fight them over."

"How did your own countersuit go?" I asked.

"Poorly." said Stevens. "It's almost as if that Court was rigged. When Luskin settled the suit with the company, she dropped her suit against me. I wanted to continue my suit against her, but it was dropped as being countersuit. My attempts to re-file as a free standing lawsuit were dismissed with prejudice, and I lost the appeal."

"So what happened to you?" I asked.

"I've been unable to find good work in my own profession." said Stevens. "But I'm good behind a camera... filming... well, films."

"Gay porn." I said.

"Not much gets by you, Mr. Troy." said Stevens.

"When all this is over," I said, "I might be able to find some work for you and your talents, in both advertising and filming..."

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

Two other stories were similar to Donny Tate's. That afternoon, Eddy and I went to Jacksonville State Prison with SBI-SIS Lieutenant Norm Chow. Quint Danielson was brought into the interrogation room, and his handcuffed hands were locked to the table.

"You don't have to lock him to the table." I said to the guard.

"Regulations, sir." said the guard. "He's a violent offender." The guard left us alone with Quint.

"Well, I tried." I said. "Quint, we're here to get your story about Kendra Luskin."

"Yeah." said Quint. He was an athletic man, with a bald head and a relatively big mustache. His eyes were blue and somewhat introspective; I could see he was not a dumb brute.

"I saw on TV that that Luskin bitch was at it again." said Quint. "Is there any way I can help?"

"Tell us your story." said Chow.

Quint told the story which was almost exactly the same as Peter Gordon's... Luskin had accused Quint of raping her in his car after taking her out to dinner. Quint said it was consentual, and that Luskin had initiated sex, and was all over him, and witnesses at the party where they'd met, and the restaurant where they'd had dinner had testified she was all over him. But he'd been convicted, anyway... by a second jury after the first one could not reach a verdict. The jury selection of the second trial had some strangenesses about it.

"What work were you doing when you were arrested?" I asked Quint.

"I was a Life Coach." said Danielson. "I was a speaker, and ran motivational sessions at a lot of those football camps. You know, telling them to 'embrace the suck' like the Navy SEALs teach, stuff like that. And I worked with athletes individually. I have a degree in Psychology, not to the level of your wife, Commander Troy, but I did good work with athletes and sports competitors."

"So... why would Luskin target you?" I asked, confused. "Who would want to fuck you over, as the others were?"

"I don't know." said Quint.

"Did you ever find out something, some secret?" I asked. "Did you witness something you weren't supposed to?"

"Not that I know of." said Quint, his eyes avoiding mine as I peered at him. He then said "I just have one question: if you can get Peter Gordon acquitted, do you think you can get me a new trial?"

"I'll do what I can." I replied.

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

I was very introspective as we drove from Jacksonville to Midtown. Finally, I spoke.

"Norm," I said, "what do we know about Quint Danielson?" I knew he'd been looking up Quint's information on his iPad as we were driving. The Black Beauty was a personal hotspot, by the way.

"Nothing out of the ordinary." said Chow. "He was a coach and a motivational speaker. Pro teams paid him a good bit to work with their players, especially baseball pitchers and batters that were in slumps. He had no convictions of anything more than a couple of speeding tickets here and there. He had a good reputation until the rape conviction."

"It does not make sense." I said under my breath.

"What's that, sir?" asked Chow.

"I understand why the others were targeted by Luskin." I said. "I don't understand why Quint was targeted. We need to dig harder into him and his past."

"Yes sir." said Chow. "By the way, I have the Police report of the case, including Luskin's original complaint, and the transcript from the trial, as you asked."

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

"This is awesome!" said Mike G. Todd as Eddy and I presented our evidence to him. "If this can't get Peter acquitted, then there is no System of Justice in this country."

"Or this world." I said. "Take special note, too: Luskin's first report to the Police in the Quint Danielson case, and her testimony in the trial is verbatim what she reported to the TCPD at the Hospital and in her statement the next day at the Station."

"Wow." said Mike. Then he frowned. "Where are these witnesses now?" he asked.

"In a very safe place." I said. "Under my protection." I did not mention, nor did I need to, that 'The Vision' compound in Coltrane County was most very secure.

Part 19 - Patience Exhausted

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Fox Two News!" shouted the redheaded reporterette at 7:00am, Tuesday, August 22d. "The Police Captain's Union has filed a formal complaint with the Court that the Board of Inquiry is dragging its feet in investigating Commander Donald Troy's shooting of a protester last week!"

Bettina: "The Captain's Union is complaining that the Board of Inquiry has not even formally convened nor taken any testimony in the case. Inspector General Horace S. Wellman filed a brief that his Office has not been contacted at all by the Board of Inquiry, and that the delay is extremely unusual."

Bettina: "Furthermore, the Police Union, which represents Police Officers below the rank of Captain, has stated that Police Officers are inquiring about going on strike if Commander Troy's case is not resolved more quickly. Fox Two News has learned that the morale of the TCPD is very depleted, and the vast majority of Police Officers are firmly behind Commander Troy and his actions, and are demanding his immediate return to duty."

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

I was wearing my semi-formal jacket with ribbons as part of my uniform for the Board of Inquiry hearing. It had not been scheduled for today, but the pressure put on the Board (and the Sheriff) by the Unions had had the desired effect: a fire had been lit under the asses of the County Government.

The Lead Commissioner of the Board of Inquiry was an older black man, who often led these such Boards. One of the other Commissioners was Mr. Fitzgerald, who was normally friendly to the Police. But the last Commissioner was a man named Finneran, who looked like a sloppier version of Dick Ferrell with his droopy brown mustache. He was a friend of Thomas P. Cook, and therefore a virulent enemy of Your Iron Crowbar.

Before I took the stand, there were several other witnesses. One was Captain Teresa Croyle, who told her story, emphasizing the lack of response by certain Officers to my calls for help. Sergeant Charles took the stand, and admitted that he'd made a bad decision to listen to Commander Harlow instead of Captain Croyle, which had resulted in a delay in Officers getting to the scene. Lt. Irwin and Sr. Sergeant Hewitt testified to what they knew.

Commander Harlow then testified, and stated that she believed Charles acted correctly, that Irwin and Hewitt and Croyle had disobeyed the orders of a Superior Officer, that being her, Commander Harlow. When asked by Fitzgerald why she ordered a stand-down when Commander Troy and his family were in existential danger, Harlow vigorously stated that the protesters were peaceful, and that Commander Troy and his family were not in danger of their lives.

Then Cindy was put on the stand. She detailed how our attempt to evacuate Laura and the children was cut off by the very sudden appearance of a large number of protesters. "It was as if they were waiting for us to arrive, then they came out of nowhere and surrounded us completely. It was an ambush." she said. She also detailed her actions inside, including beginning the investigation process by securing my gun and the shells.

It was a full but hushed room when I took the stand. I detailed everything that happened, including the plan to evacuate my family and the sudden appearance of the protesters, which dovetailed with Cindy's testimony. I then described everything I'd seen at the window. "They were bracketing the window." I said. "Their first throws were off target, but getting closer. If another had been thrown, it would've broken through a window and set the building on fire."

I was peppered with questions from Finneran. "Commander, you're renowned for solving cases by anticipating the criminals' actions. Why didn't you anticipate this and have a beanbag shotgun or tear gas to combat the protesters?"