Jupiter Rising Ch. 03

"Good morning Catrina and Meredith!" the beautiful Indian reporterette said. "We are being joined by our Fox affiliates around the State for breaking news!" After she was joined and had greeted the Statewide audience, Priya said "State Senators Moe Molinari, the Republican from Westphalia & Eastphalia, and Jimmy Cerone, the Democrat from Southport, are beginning a joint Press conference now. Let's join them in progress!"

"Thank you for coming." said Jimmy Cerone as he and Molinari appeared on the television screens of the State. "We're here to tell everyone that the news report you heard on KXTC and KSB and the SNN networks was a total lie!"

"That's right." said Moe Molinari, looking a bit angry. "I was at that meeting. What that dishonest reporter Wurtzburg said was totally untrue. Commander Donald Troy did NOT ask anyone to acquit Governor Jared. In fact, he made a point to tell my colleagues to vote how they saw fit. The reason Commander Troy was there was to inform my colleagues of the blackmail threats against them."

Molinari: "It would seem that some of my colleagues were told that a Democrat Legislator had McGinty's Materials, and would expose them if they did not vote to convict the Governor. I will be asking the SBI to investigate these blackmail allegations."

Cerone came to the microphones and said "I'm getting sick and tired of the lies by the Media about Commander Donald Troy. He's a good man and a good cop. And if KXTC and KSB continue their campaign of disinformation against him, I will vote to acquit Jared and encourage my Democrat colleagues in the State Senate to also acquit him!..."

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

"This is getting fun." said Tanya Perlman happily as we watched in my office to start the Angels meeting.

"Not really." I said. "I appreciate what Senators Molinari and Cerone did, but I have work to do to overcome Bettina's report trying to damage my credibility."

"I'm getting sick of her." said the Iron Wolf, Teresa Croyle, a 'Teresa Cunt' look on her otherwise lovely face. "There's got to be something we can do about her!"

"Hell," I said, "we had her up on treason charges, and the Swamp Frogs got her out of it." (Author's note: 'Casting Aspersions'.) "I don't know what else we can do... within the constraints of the law, of course."

"Exactly." said Teresa menacingly.

"Okay, don't start going all 'Iron Crowbar' on me." I replied. "Anyhoo, we have a meeting with our Detectives and Intel people at 8:30, then a meeting at Campus Police Headquarters about the Stoddard murder at 10:00. So let's get through as much as we can before then. Whaddya got, Iron Wolf?"

Teresa said "We're ready for Peter Blassingame's hearing, which is likely tomorrow, but could be delayed to Wednesday. Security contingents around the Courthouse, extra security for whatever jail he might be held in overnight, if that becomes necessary. I personally think Gwen Munson insisted on his presence just to cost us money."

"I wouldn't bet against that." I said. "Lady Ironside? Anything besides the Stoddard murder? Anything on the Amber Harris incident?"

"No sir." said Tanya. "No leads at all on that."

Part 14 - Disturbance in the Force

8:30am, Monday, February 10th. The meeting in Classroom 'E' was well attended. The Police Chief brought in four boxes of doughnuts, which disappeared with unsurprising but tremendous speed.

"Okay, who wants to go first?" asked Captain Tanya Perlman.

"I'll go." said Lt. Mary Milton. "I got a few tidbits that may or may not be relevant to our case. First, I followed up on the discussion about Dr. Stoddard's students. He's had a number of students leave before finishing their advanced degrees with him, which on the surface looked suspicious, but were explained away when I dug deeper."

Mary: "Over the past eight years, Dr. Stoddard has had eight students leave. Two transferred to the Naval Academy, one to the Air Force Academy, and one to the US Military Academy at West Point. Three others transferred to Dr. Stephanie Steele's tutelage, and one to State Tech. I think Detective Rodriguez will have more on them in a minute, so I won't steal her thunder on that."

Mary: "I also found out that Dr. Stoddard is losing two Federal grants, but I could not find out specifically what the projects were that he was working on for them. I did not talk to my father-in-law about those, and thought it might be better to ask some of you in here with Top Secret clearances to pursue those lines."

I said: "I'm not sure we really need to. Dr. Stoddard has sent no less than four of his students to the Nation's military academies, so it's not too hard to surmise they worked with him on military applications of his theoretical work, then went on to apply those as members of the armed services. And those grants being pulled now suggests that someone in Washington, D.C. no longer has interest in his work for and with the military."

"Could that be a motive for his murrrr-durrrr?" queried Chief Moynahan.

"Yes sir." I said. "In fact, Dr. Lionel Carmela is so rabidly Leftist, anti-Police, and anti-U.S.-Military, that this information puts Carmela right at the top of the list of persons-of-interest. And we know that Carmela has no love lost for Dr. Stoddard nor Dr. Steele. Okay, what's next?"

"Sir," said Detective Julia Rodriguez, "I have to say that I believe Campus Detective Stone has been holding information back from us. We re-interviewed Stoddard's students as well as Dr. Steele's, and heard some things we had not heard before, but should have."

"Like what?" I asked.

"First," said Julia, "one of Dr. Steele's students said he thought he heard something like a bump in the room next to the classroom during the class... and that room would be Dr. Steele's office. He didn't think anything of it at the time... in fact, he said he couldn't really tell from where the sound occurred... but turning his head toward the sound caused him to look at the clock on the wall, and it was 3:55pm. He said he did tell the Campus Police that."

"Second," Julia said, "in re-interviewing Stoddard's and Steele's students and others, apparently Stoddard and Steele did have arguments. Stone told us that the students argued with each other, and she told us those two outsiders, Rob Lawton and Dana Stirewalt, heard the professors arguing... but not that the students had heard the professors argue. When I asked why they didn't tell the Police this information before, they said they had told the Campus Police Officers that had interviewed them."

"Oh really?" I said, acid in my voice.

"Uh oh." said Chief Moynahan. "It's official. The Iron Crowbar is disturrrrrbed."

"Yes sir, I am." I said. "But I'll put that aside for the moment. Any idea what the arguments were about?"

Julia said "They didn't hear the entire arguments, but just bits and pieces. The arguments occurred right around the time Dr. Steele was publishing her latest paper, which has had a strong reception, both positive and negative, in the Astronomy world. The students couldn't tell if they were arguing about Dr. Steele's claims, or about her publishing the paper in the first place."

"What would the problem be with publishing the paper?" asked Mary Milton. "That's what professors do... well, it's what they're supposed to do."

"Did he expect to be able to review her paper first, since he was the head of the Department?" asked Lt. Jerome Davis.

"He might have expected it as a courtesy," I replied, "but from what my wife has told me in the past, it's not necessarily a requirement. But that's her Psychology Department. I don't know what Stoddard expected of his people."

"Are professors secretive about their work?" asked Lt. Davis. "Maybe Dr. Steele didn't want anyone to know what she was publishing until it was published?"

I said "They don't want their claims jumped, to be sure. And maybe that's what Stoddard's beef was, if indeed it was his beef that led to arguments."

"Don," said Cindy, "is this a bad time to bring up those patterns from Dr. Steele's work ending up in Police Departments nationwide?"

"No, it's a great time to bring those up." I said. I explained to everyone about the serial killer patterns linked to Dr. Steele's papers. (Author's note: 'Four Square', Ch. 03.).

"Would that serial killer go after Dr. Stoddard?" Cindy asked.

"Maybe we should start looking for serial killer patterns in this County." said Teddy Parker. "Or in this area, or even Statewide."

"Yes, someone could do that." I said. "As part of that, that someone is going to have to read Dr. Stoddard's papers, find out what he currently was working on, and see if there's a pattern. And ditto that for Dr. Steele's work."

"I'll do it." said Sr. Patrolman Sidney Plant, who was somewhat nerdy. "I'm not at Dr. Steele's level of theoretical physics, but I know some math, and I like that kind of stuff."

"Thank you for stepping up, Mr. Plant." I said. "And I think you'll be excellent for it. You'll be able to see the types of patterns we're looking for."

"Moving this along," said Captain Perlman, fearlessly regaining control of the meeting from me, "do we have anything else? Any other suspects?"

"Nothing concrete, ma'am." said Sr. Patrolman Penny Scott. "No one we interviewed over the weekend could think of anyone that would want to harm Dr. Stoddard. They were shocked at the suggestion Dr. Steele would want to harm him, and didn't know of anyone that had anything against her such that they'd try to frame her."

"Well..." I said, "there's one person that fits that category: Dr. Lionel Carmela. His hatred of me and Laura has extended itself to Edward and Stephanie Steele."

"You think it's him, sir?" asked Jerome Davis. "He was on the scene just after the crime was committed, and he had no real reason for being there."

"Except to protest my presence, which was his stated excuse." I said.

"Well, sir," said Mary Milton, "we just don't have much, yet." Her look at me said more than her words.

"You're doing very well, all of you, even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment." I replied. "Keep at it. Something will break for us..."

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

As I got back to my office, my personal iPhone rang. It was Eddy the Bounty Hunter.

"I've got two things for you." said Eddy. "First, Tracy Stone was very active with Women's groups when she was in college, especially her Freshman and Sophomore years. Member of the State Organization for Women, the SOWs, and other on-Campus and off-Campus women's groups, but not the really militant ones, and she never got arrested at any protests. She used to volunteer for Malinda Adams's campaigns, until she was hired by the City University Police."

"That's good to know." I said. "What else?"

Eddy said "I found out one reason she couldn't get hired out of the Police Academy. I got a couple of people to tell me that Dr. Lionel Carmela, head of the Political Science Department at the University, was instrumental in keeping Stone from getting any Police jobs after she graduated Academy. They said he would tell people she was dirty, cheated on tests, things like that. I can't imagine why that bastard's word would carry weight with anyone other than Satan himself, but he was sabotaging her as hard as he could for a while."

"Hmm, that's interesting." I said. "Okay, thanks. The check is in the mail. Let me know if you find out anything else..."

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

After that call, I had Lt. Mary Milton come to my office. "I suspect you have something you want to tell me, just me, and nobody else but me?"

"Yes sir." said Mary. "I told you about Tracy Stone, and I subsequently began investigating Dr. Lionel Carmela. And I almost immediately began running into roadblocks."

"What kind of roadblocks?" I asked.

"Federal ones." said Mary. "For example, Carmela came to the University as a full Professor fifteen years ago. Before that, he was an Associate Professor of Political Science at California, that being Berkeley. But when I try to get information on what he did there, what groups he belonged to, things like that, I get redacted files at best, and denied other files... by the Department of Homeland Security if not the Intelligence Community itself."

Mary: "While at Cal-Berkeley he wrote six major papers, three of which got national and international attention. One could've been an Economics paper, and expanded on Keynes's theories but added what was described as a 'hard left edge'. Another paper expanded on Karl Marx's theories, and was widely panned and debunked, but it established Carmela as one of the most Leftist professors in the Nation, if not the world."

Mary: "The third paper, published shortly before he left Cal-Berkeley, was nothing short of a treatise outlining how to overthrow the Constitution and the United States Government by economic means coupled with violence, beginning with demonstrations and riots, then outright revolution. That one got him put on the Federal Government's watch list as a potential subversive, and it made him too hot for even Cal-Berkeley to hold."

Mary: "Soooo, he somehow got the position here. And it's made our Poly Sci Department here a disaster ever since. He's published two major papers. The last one describes how to take over Government positions, including getting the right judges into the right places so that when rigged elections are contested, those judges can dismiss the challenges to the rigged results. It also discusses how to use riots and demonstrations to gin up discontent with elected leaders so that 'fundamental change' can be made in upcoming elections."

I said "Send me a copy of that. I need to read it... it looks like what is about to happen in this State, as well as the country."

Mary said "I sent it before I came in here, sir. Anyway, Dr. Carmela only has four students under him in the traditional sense. But he has a larger circle of students that are colloquially called his 'Politburo', and his students are watched by the Campus Police, the SBI, and the FBI as potential agitators for violence. Carmela has protested and even gone to Court over his students being watched."

Mary: "But the shoe can be on the other foot, as well. He's been sued several times for attempting to give students 'withdrawn failing' grades when they try to drop his class, even though they weren't failing. He lost two of those cases when the students secretly recorded him telling them he was failing them because they were politically Conservative. He's also been sued for trying to get students kicked out of school for alleged, trumped-up ethics violations, and he's had four restraining orders filed against him. And you won't be surprised to hear who one of those was filed by..."

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

10:00am, Monday, February 10th. We assembled in the Main Conference Room at Campus Police Headquarters. Commissioner Briscoe and Chief Moynahan were present, as were myself, Detectives Rodriguez and Parker, Lt. Mary Milton, SBI Agent Terence Johnson, and Campus Detective Tracy Stone. ADA Savannah Fineman was also there. Captain Perlman had been scheduled to attend, but notified me that she was diverting herself to the State Crime Lab building to meet with their Chief Chemist, Christina Cho.

After getting coffee and being seated, Agent Johnson deferred to Detective Stone. She said "We've found some new information that might suggest motive and means for Dr. Steele to have murdered Dr. Stoddard. First, others have come forward with information that Dr. Stoddard and Dr. Steele had heated arguments, and that he may have tried to prevent her from publishing her most recent paper."

"And second," continued Stone, "we've been looking into the finances of the Steeles. Dr. Steele might not've pulled the trigger herself, but she could have hired someone to make a professional hit. To that end, she or her husband or daughter could've moved money to pay for that pro hit."

For some reason, everyone else, including Terence Johnson, was looking at me. I glanced back at him, and then to Tracy Stone again, and the room got awkwardly silent.

"If I may ask," said Julia Rodriguez, "how did you get the warrant to investigate Edward and Selena Steele's finances?"

"We applied for one." Tracy Stone said snarkily. Julia's eyes flashed fire, and I saw that Chief Moynahan had had just about enough, as well.

"Commanderrrrr," drawled Chief Moynahan, "you are no longer on the bench, and that's an orrrr-derrrr. I want your input on this situation."

"Yes sir." I said, being a good soldier and obeying my Chief's orders. "I have one question: what judge issued the warrant. The Magistrate Court?"

"No sir." said Terence Johnson. "The Magistrate Judge is ill, so Judge Harry Nance of the Superior Court issued the warrant."

"And who sought it?" I asked. "You guys directly?"

"I did." said ADA Savannah Fineman. "The warrant is valid."

"No, it's a fishing expedition." I replied. "You're trying to find facts to suit your theory, and that in the face of plenty of evidence that exonerates the suspect. I could sit here and theorize all day that someone else did it, but I can't just go get a warrant on a whim."

"The gun used in the crime belonged to Selena Steele." said Tracy Stone. "That, and the possibility of Dr. Steele hiring someone to kill Dr. Stoddard while she was in her class, were plenty enough. And Dr. Steele's finances are co-mingled with her husband's."

"Lots of warrants have been issued on less than that." said Commissioner Briscoe.

"True, but that doesn't make it right, especially for Selena's finances." I replied.

"But it was her gun!" Tracy Stone exclaimed. Yes, as the Chief had said earlier, my harmony was being disturrrrrbed, and I thought it was most fortunate that Julia Rodriguez didn't carry a crowbar, from the look she was giving Stone.

"Okay, Ms. Stone, let's play the game." I said sternly. "You are suggesting that Selena Steele's gun being used in the crime gives you probable cause to get a warrant... to see if she hired someone else to kill Stoddard. I call that... a contradiction. And as Ayn Rand correctly wrote, 'Contradictions cannot exist.'."

"And to those points," I continued, "if Dr. Steele or her family did hire a pro to kill Dr. Stoddard, their money was poorly spent. Real and good professionals would much more likely use a .22 caliber weapons than a 9mmP or .357/.38 caliber. A pro certainly would not take the extra step to break into Selena Steele's home and steal her weapon; that risks capture."

I went on: "Additionally, a pro also would've likely murdered Dr. Stoddard at a time and in a place where there were fewer people around. In his office, getting in his car in the parking lot, while he was alone at the Observatory, or traveling to or from it on that quiet, lonely road over the hill. So I'm going to discount the hired pro hit."

"But they still could've gotten someone else to do it for them." said Savannah Fineman.

"True, but good luck to you proving that to a Jury beyond the shadow of a doubt." I replied acidly. "So, Detective Stone, to continue playing the game... you have some things to explain, to wit: the body was not in Dr. Steele's office before she went to her 3:30 class. Whatever you think of Carole's powers of observation, I believe that both she and her friend Marie would've seen a dead body on the floor when they went into that office before Dr. Steele's class." Julia Rodriguez was trying not to snicker.

I continued: "The blood pool suggests Dr. Stoddard was shot in the office and fell to the floor and died where he was found. You can ask the Medical Examiner for confirmation on that. What it really says is that if he'd been shot elsewhere and moved to that position, we'd either have no blood pool, or we'd have a blood trail. He wasn't wrapped in plastic or anything... again, check with the M.E. on that... and the only closet in the office did not have any blood in it, so he wasn't stored there and brought out later."