Fire in the Embers Ch. 03

There was a loud groan in the room from everyone but me as Bettina said "Judge Leahy's ruling carefully answered the objections of the State Supreme Court, and seemed designed to give the Town & County Council no loopholes through which they can squeeze."

Bettina's smile became more malicious as she said "Judge Leahy was particularly harsh in his language towards the Town & County Police Department, and stated that Commander Donald Troy must comply with his order to release the tapes or else Commander Troy is to be jailed on Contempt of Court charges until he does comply. He even went so far as to say that Commander Troy's resignation from the Police Force, while most welcome, would not save Troy from jail if he did not turn over those files and any encryption codes to access them."

"However," said Bettina, "the Town & County Council must decide whether or not to appeal the case, and they are calling an emergency immediate meeting to decide what actions they will take. Experts believe that the Council will appeal, thus staying Leahy's order until the State Supreme Court can again take up the new ruling by Judge Leahy."

"Who are these 'experts' she keeps citing?" I asked, derision in my voice.

"You look a-maaaaaa-zingly calm about this, Commander." said Chief Moynahan, no slouch at observation and deduction himself.

"Why, Chief!" I exclaimed. "You, sir, were in the Cavalry... don't you believe in the Cavalry coming to the rescue?"

"Welcome to the party that is the Iron Crowbar, Chief Moynahan." said Tanya Perlman, her cheeks rosy with merriment. She knew by now that I must have an ace up my sleeve.

Bettina had been droning on about the case and about Jack Burke's prolific sex life when suddenly we heard her say "What? What's that?" We paid attention, and Moynahan turned up the volume.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Bettina said, almost screaming, "We have a shocking new development in the Burke Tapes case! A Federal judge has blocked Judge Leahy's order to turn over the tapes! In addition, the Federal judge, acting upon new information by the FBI, has ordered that the Burke sex tapes be classified, as in military-type classification! In a briefing with the Federal judge, the FBI and other Government agencies stated that information on the Burke tapes could be crucial to an ongoing Federal investigation, and that the release of that information might compromise national security information!"

"The Federal judge has ordered that Commander Donald Troy, who currently holds a Top Secret security clearance, to take personal charge of the classified information, and to work with the FBI to secure it in the same manner that other federally classified information is handled!" Bettina continued. "With this new development, it is very unlikely that the Jack Burke tapes will ever be revealed to the public, and that the women on the tapes will never be named publicly!"

Everyone was looking at me as I calmly and serenely looked at the television set. They did not notice that Daniel Allgood had almost collapsed with relief. When he finally looked over at me, I looked at him and just said "Fourth and goal. And touchdown on the final play of the game."

"Well, Sheriff," said Chief Moynahan, "you did tell me to never doubt the Iron Crowbar, no matter how farfetched he seeeeeems to be at times."

"I should've listened to my own advice." said Daniel, still shocked by what he had just witnessed.

"How did you do it, Don?" asked Moynahan.

"I did nothing. It was the Feds. And the FBI did not lie to the Federal judge." I said. "One of the women on those tapes... is a Federal agent, whose identity is classified, cannot be revealed per the law, and will not be revealed."

I did not need to tell most of them that the Federal agent was one of the best 'wet boy' snipers in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency; and while the tapes wouldn't reveal that about her, neither I nor my wife, a Deputy Director of said Agency and sister of said Federal agent, were going to nitpick such details...

Part 14 - Inquiries

A little after 1:00pm I got word that the Graysons were regaining consciousness at University Hospital. I hurried over with Cindy. Detectives Nash, Parker, and Diana Torres were already there, along with Sergeant Rudistan and Sr. Patrolman Morton, and they seemed shocked when I came in.

"Sir," said Nash, "I was about to have Torres and Parker talk to Mrs. Grayson, while I would talk to Mr. Grayson with Sgt. Rudistan listening in."

"That's fine." I said. "I'll listen in on Mr. Grayson. Captain Ross, do you want to listen in on Mrs. Grayson's comments?"

"If it'll help." Cindy said. "She might feel a little more comfortable with another woman there."

I followed Nash and Rudistan into Mr. Grayson's room, as Morton secured the door from outside. Dr. Robin Grayson still bore the signs of the severe beating he'd taken; his face was bruised all around his eyes and nose, his upper lip was swollen. He could barely open his eyes.

"Dr. Grayson," Nash said, as soothingly as he was capable of making his voice sound, "can you tell us what happened?"

Grayson said "My wife and I went out for the evening. Dinner and a movie. First night alone we'd had in a while. When we got home, they... were already in the house. All of them wearing all black... black ski masks, only eye and mouth slits. They grabbed us when we walked into the library room. They began... yelling and screaming... they wanted to know where a tablet was. I don't use tablets... nobody at BigPharmaCorp does... and my laptop was in my office."

He then gave the grisly details of being forced to watch his wife being repeatedly raped by the five or six men in the room. He kept shouting and pleading that he didn't have any tablet, but they just kept on raping her and beating her, and it became a savage exhibition of pure animal cruelty, a 'feeding frenzy' of violent sex forced upon a helpless woman.

Then they began torturing him. They grabbed a fireplace poker and stabbed it in his ass, but he still just yelled that he had no tablet. Then one man had a pocket knife and said he would slit Grayson's wife's throat if Grayson did not give up the tablet. Grayson said that he had no tablet and did not know of what tablet they were talking about. The masked man stabbed him and he blacked out.

"Let's give him a few minutes." I said to my Detectives. "Mr. Grayson, I'll be back later. Just rest." We left the room.

Cindy was coming out of Mrs. Grayson's room. She told the wife's story, which matched the husband's, except the wife didn't know her husband had been stabbed; she'd blacked out and was in and out of consciousness while being raped.

"Commander, she asked to speak to you specifically." Cindy said.

"All right." I said. I followed Cindy into the room. Mrs. Grayson was an attractive woman in her thirties, with brown hair and large eyes I call 'doe' eyes. She had some blackening around those eyes where she'd been slapped hard a few times, but I knew her most grievous wounds were not visible on her face.

"Hello Mrs. Grayson," I said. "I'm Commander Troy. You wanted to see me?"

"Yes." whispered the woman, who spoke with a surprisingly steady voice. "They did this to me to make my husband turn over a tablet to them. He doesn't use a tablet in his work. What tablet did they mean?"

"I'm not sure." I said, lying through my teeth. "We've only begun investigating the case."

"Commander," Mrs. Grayson said, "my husband... is not the most honest man in the world. I know he's had affairs in the past. And I may not be you, but I don't have to be you to figure out that those men weren't just making up what they wanted."

"Ma'am, you do your husband a disservice." I said. "I don't think he'd let you take the abuse you did if he could've stopped it. And maybe these guys wanted this tablet thinking there'd be BigPharmaCorp research was on it, and they were plain wrong about that."

"Commander, they never mentioned research, or drugs." she said. "They said the wanted the tablet... with the pictures on it." I turned to Cindy and Torres. Torres handed me her sheet of notes, and I read what Mrs. Grayson had told them. The men had asked for the tablet with the pictures of the woman, and her husband had said he had no tablets of any kind.

"I'll check into this, Mrs. Grayson." I said. "But I'll say again that your husband may well be telling the truth... both you and he were badly brutalized and yet he had nothing to give them to stop it."

"Just tell me the truth when you find out, Commander." said Mrs. Grayson, fire in her eyes. Now just how was I supposed to save this man's marriage? I thought to myself. I did know that I wasn't going to help destroy it further.

"Captain, you're with me." I said. "Mrs. Grayson, you get some rest. Let us find out what happened, and in the meantime I hope you won't blame your husband for the evil actions of others." With that, I left the room, Cindy in tow.

"Okay guys," I said to the waiting Detectives in the hall. "Captain Ross and I are going to have a moment with Mr. Grayson."

"I'll come with you--" said Martin Nash, but I broke him off.

"No." I said. "I want to talk to him alone. Captain Ross will be witness to it. And if you want to know why, it's because this man is a Vice President of one of the biggest and most politically powerful companies in the State, and I don't want anyone but the Police Commander taking shit from that company and the politicians they've bought off."

That froze Nash long enough for me to get into the room with Cindy. She blocked the door while I came up to Grayson.

"Dr. Grayson," I said, "Captain Ross here knows about your previous visit to me, and she is the only one besides you and me that knows the full story. Did these criminals mention Emma by name?"

"No." said Grayson. "They said they wanted the tablet with the pictures, but never mentioned her name."

"Why didn't you just tell them you'd already given it to the Police?" I asked.

"Because they would've murdered us both, right then and there." Grayson replied. "I knew that our only hope was to never acknowledge that I knew of the tablet, or that I ever had it. They'd already raped my wife, there was little else they could do. To be honest, I was surprised to wake up in this hospital; I knew I'd been stabbed. But... thank God she lived, and the children weren't there..."

"That's probably true." I said. "It had to be very hard for you, but you did the right thing. But listen: your wife is wondering why they did this, and she doesn't think they were after BigPharmaCorp research. I've told her nothing, and I won't tell her anything, but you're going to have to decide how to save your marriage."

"What do you think I should do?" Grayson asked.

"Tell her that Commander Troy believes the criminals had erroneous information, and that you didn't have any tablet to give them." I said. "And good luck to you."

Back in the hallway, I handed Nash my notes, which said simply that the criminals didn't ask specifically about BigPharmaCorp research, and that despite my methods of questioning, he could not say what they wanted. "Okay Nash," I said, "consolidate these interviews into one report for me. At this point, the reasons for this attack are becoming murky."

"What about that refined heroin sample from that drug raid?" asked Nash. "You don't think that's part of it?"

"I don't think this attack is part of that." I said. "I think there is a mole, but it's not Dr. Grayson. We'll have to look elsewhere for that, and that aspect of it may have to be worked by our FBI friends..."

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

As we drove back in my Police SUV, I asked Cindy "What do you think?"

"Mrs. Grayson said one of the men raping her smelled particularly bad." Cindy said. "And her description of his eyes and mouth under the mask just made me think of Dirty Lennie. I really wonder if it might do good to pick him up and razz him about it, see if he trips up."

"It's a thought." I said. "Though Dirty Lennie isn't known to be a rapist, just a filthy drug pusher."

"What do you think about it?" Cindy asked.

"Let me just put it this way." I said. "If I were the Consultant and I'd figured out that Emma's tablet was in Grayson's hands, I would probably not put together this crude and violent way of getting the tablet from him. I'd just send him a little note saying that I was going to tell his wife all about his affair with Emma unless that tablet was turned over very quickly."

"Maybe he did do that." Cindy said. "And Grayson said what was true: that he had no tablet. So the Consultant then had a crew go in and search the house, which including torturing the Graysons."

"That's a definite possibility." I said. "Another one is that someone else was behind this attack, not our Consultant. And that means there is a competing force wanting to offset the Consultant by having something on him, which would keep the Consultant at bay from harming him, or her, or them."

"But they'd have to know about the tablet, and what's on it." Cindy said. "And even I didn't know about it until you told me. You really kept that one under wraps. And by the way, that exonerates you as being behind the attacks... you have the tablet, and its information is on the evidence servers, so you didn't need to do this."

"True enough. I'm glad to be cleared." I said, half-mockingly. "But it definitely creates more questions than answers."

"Commander," Cindy said, "there's something I need to ask, or say. Martin Nash wasn't very happy when you went in to interview Grayson without him, Nash. The Detectives are going to be asking the questions of what tablet, why did the perps want the tablet, and why did they go after Grayson."

"I hope they will." I said.

"Don," Cindy said, using my first name to underscore her point: "Martin Nash is a good Detective. Methodical, sometimes dull, but he has more imagination than he lets on. They already know that you knew something when you sent them to interview the Graysons about the refined heroin. So what are you going to do if Nash finds out we the Police already have the tablet... and you didn't tell him?"

"Me," she continued, "I get it why you didn't say anything, and wouldn't have if the Graysons hadn't been attacked. But Martin... he's not going to understand. From the outside viewpoint, it looks like you're holding back, even hiding things. And Nash is 'Boy Scout' personified, if you know what I mean."

"You're right." I said, realizing that I'd overlooked this. "Think I should tell him?"

Cindy realized the full implications of those actions, as well as the implications of keeping the secret.

"I'll follow your lead, Don." she said. "Whatever you decide, I'll support. I've been withholding the truth to this point, also, but I know and trust you have my back. I'm just thinking about your credibility with your own people if this comes out and they get blindsided..."

Part 15 - Crowbars and Axes

"You guys are working late." said FBI Special Agent in Charge Jack Muscone on his call to my Police cellphone. It was 7:30pm.

"We've got a raid tonight." I said. "I'll be monitoring from Headquarters."

"I see." said Jack. "I just wanted to let you know that I checked with the people watching the Belfort Badge Gang, as we call them, and there was some cellphone activity to burners a couple of days ago."

"Okay, maybe this is the start of something." I said. "Somebody put together that crew of perps that attacked Dr. Grayson and his wife. If it was them, you might have your first leads."

"My guys agree with you." said Muscone. "We're checking to see if the burners are part of a larger pack or shipment, that is, if someone bought a bunch at one time and these are part of the set. If it's part of a lot, we can expand the numbers we're looking for."

"Cool beans." I said. After we made our goodbyes, I called Martin Nash into my office. He was still at work and arrived instantly.

"So, Martin, what do you have?" I asked.

"Not much, sir." said Nash. "I've been talking with Parker and Cummings. Torres is going on the raid tonight so she's getting ready for that. What we're wondering is that if this attack was not to get BigPharmaCorp research, then why did it happen?"

"Good question." I said.

Nash said "Joanne brought up a few things, and I don't mind telling you that she's almost like you in bringing up things from limited facts. The first thing she noticed is that there were five or more likely six perps. It would cost money to hire them, so there is money behind this."

"True." I said.

"The statements of the husband and wife generally match." said Nash. "Both said the perps were demanding a tablet, not a laptop but a tablet, and that this tablet had pictures on it. They didn't mention research, nor refined heroin. We toyed with the idea that Grayson sold some of that refined heroin for money, and BigPharmaCorp sent perps after him. But he had no money problems, and they didn't ask about heroin."

"So where does that leave you?" I asked.

"Joanne still believes there is a correlation between the refined heroin found at the Douglas apartment and this case." said Nash. "I agree that it's extremely coincidental, but I'm thinking it may really be a coincidence, or unrelated cases. I think that tablet is the key, and whatever is on it holds the answer."

"Do you think these perps were hired to attack the Graysons?" I asked. "Or just a burglary crew?" Nash looked at me a little strangely.

"Sir, this had to be a specific attack." he said.

"I agree." I then picked up my phone and called Cindy's office. "Captain Ross, would you join Detective Nash and me in my office?" Cindy arrived almost before I could put the phone in its cradle.

"Have a seat, Captain." I said. As she sat down besides Nash, I said "Both of you understand the nature of Confidential Informants? That sometimes we get information of which we can't really discuss the source?"

Both nodded. I handed them both pairs of latex gloves, like we wear at crime scenes. As they put them on, I brought an evidence packet out of my desk drawer. Opening the plastic sleeve and making a notation of it, I pulled out the manila envelope. And out of that I pulled out an iPad tablet. Martin Nash was looking at it, stunned. He did not notice that Cindy had shown no reaction on her ruggedly pretty face.

"It is not fair for you to have a mystery at both ends of an investigation, Mr. Nash." I said. "Ergo, I'm letting you know some confidential information, which I hope you will keep as confidential as you can. Do you remember the Emma Washburn case?"

"Ahhhhh." said Nash, remembering. "Emma had a tablet that was missing, that we never found."

"Yes." I said. "And it was turned in, to me, under an agreement like that of a confidential informant. I put the evidence into servers, but I didn't tell anyone due to the agreement made in acquiring the tablet itself. And, as I'm sure you're figuring out, this could well be the same tablet these perps erroneously thought Dr. Grayson had."

"What's on it?" asked Nash.

"You know I've been pursuing a master criminal, that I call the Consultant of Crime." I said. "He is a pornographic actor with Emma Washburn on videos on this tablet, and a mighty poor one at that. Not enough by itself to convict him of anything. The attack on the Graysons shows that he is not aware that I have it; apparently he thought they had it."

"So will the information on that tablet help us solve the Grayson crimes?" Nash asked.

"Probably not." I said. "The perps were professional hires, probably did not know what they were going after beyond a tablet. Mrs. Grayson said one of them smelled dirtier than the others, and you might bring Dirty Lennie in and give him hell for a while. But other than that, you likely won't be able to prove any connection between them and the bastard behind it."