Secrets of Apple Grove Ch. 04

The chronological order of my stories is as follows:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, The Murdered Football Player Series, Case of the Black Widow series, Teresa's Christmas Story, The Case of the Black Badge series, A Case of Revenge series, Teresa's Summer Race, The Trilogy series, Dark Side Of The Force series, Caught In The Act series, The Phyllis Files 1-2, Case of the Murdered Bride series, The Credit Card Caper series, The Phyllis Files 3, The Hot Wives Investment Club series, Seriously Inconvenienced series, Case of the Paper Trail series, Christmas Mystery Theater, The Porno Set Mystery series, The Medical Murder Mystery series, The Eightfold Fence series, The Phyllis Files 4, Pale Morning Light series, Silverfish series, Cold As Ice series.

Secrets of Apple Grove, Ch. 01-04

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

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Part 18 - Tunnel Rats

Tuesday morning, April 14th. At 8:00am I knocked on the door of the Police Chief's office and poked in my head.

"Sheriff, can we come in?" I asked.

"Oh!" said Daniel Allgood sarcastically. "By all means, Commander Troy, please do come in! Please, have a seat, make yourself at home! You too, Special Agent Muscone." I sat down quickly. Jack followed a bit more slowly.

Daniel was wearing his "western" outfit, a white western shirt, bolo tie, brown Sheriff uniform pants with darker brown piping down the side, his badge affixed to his belt. On the desk was the Stetson cowboy hat he was accustomed to wearing, with a smaller version of his Sheriff badge affixed to it. Made my Tilley hat look plain, but Daniel was still a dirty nasty Leg that had no Airborne wings to attach to his hat.

"Soooo glad you could join us again, Commander!" Daniel said, standing behind the Chief's desk. "If' you would be so kind as to condescend to tell me what's going on with this diamond heist from our Evidence Room, I'd be delighted to hear the solution to the case."

"Gladly, Sheriff," I answered, my mocking voice answering his witheringly sarcastic tone with me. "While I totally agree that the breach of the Evidence Room is a problem that we will soon solve, I can assure you that no diamonds were stolen from the Evidence Room."

"How in the--" Daniel started, then realized I was playing him, and hard. He was angry, his face red, but the gears in his mind started turning. He finally sat down, looking skeptically at me, then sighed and said "Okay, let's hear it."

"As Agent Muscone will tell you," I said, "when we recovered the diamonds at the warehouse, the SWAT team took possession of them. What no one knew was that FBI Agents Muscone and Eduardo Escobar were waiting by the SWAT paddywagon. Senior Sergeants Hewitt and Charles handed the FBI agents the diamonds, signed off on the transfer paperwork, the diamonds always under two-man control as evidence, and my guys took possession of some very nice cubic zirconia."

"You're... you're kidding." gawked Sheriff Allgood.

"No, Sheriff." I said. "I fully expected this assault to get those diamonds back. The person for whom they were intended was going to be very desperate to get them, I realized, and I'm sure he's even more desperate now. But the diamonds are safely secured in the FBI's vaults in the City, and it would take a nuclear bomb to get at them."

"That's right." said Jack Muscone. "They're part of our overall case against someone we're starting to put together some good stuff against."

"And you didn't see fit to tell me." Allgood said. It was an accusation.

"That is correct, Sheriff." I said, looking Daniel hard in the eye. "First, it was to keep the secret: only Hewitt, Charles and myself knew on the TCPD side. I didn't tell Perlman nor Ross, either."

"You didn't clear this with me, just did this on your own." Allgood said. It was an accusation and then some.

"With respect, Sheriff," I said, "I would've told Chief Griswold, I would tell the next person to become Police Chief... and I did tell the current Acting Chief of Police." (That was myself, of course.)

I added, my voice severe: "Daniel, we're not going to run to you as Sheriff with every little thing. We don't do that now. We keep you in the loop to a certain extent, but you're the political guy way above us, and you won't hear about every little raid we do or decision we make ahead of time. It was my decision to make, and I acted upon it."

"I..." Daniel said, then thought about it. "Okay, I see where you're coming from. Lesson learned: I'm not the Police Chief. But why didn't you tell me this when I called you on the phone? I might've gotten a little bit of sleep if you had."

"Because of the Evidence Room breach, Sheriff." I said. "I didn't want that getting out that we have a problem there. And before I get to that, can we call Chief Griswold to come in? He might want to see this."

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

Chief Emeritus Griswold's large handlebar mustaches were twitching with merriment as he listened to the story. I had gathered Cindy, Tanya, Captain Marc Aaron of Physical Properties, and Curly Goodwin of I.A., as well. I had not invited Deputy Chief Brownlee, who to my surprise remained in his office.

"Now you know how we feel, Sheriff." Cindy had said to Daniel upon hearing the full story. The Chief laughed.

"I don't blame the Commander for not telling you, Sheriff." he said. "So, Crowbar, why am I here?"

"Chief, you remember our past conversation about the possibility of a secret passage to our basement areas?" I said. "Remember that guy we caught in the Evidence Rooms, that took cyanide and had a copy of my Lieutenant badge on him? I think I now know how he got in, and how these diamond hunters got in. We didn't find it before, but I think we can now."

"Ah, yes," said Griswold, "I remember all that."

"You guys knew there was some secret passage to our secure areas?" Daniel said, "And you didn't do anything about it?"

"Oh, we looked for it." I said. "But we thought it must be in Internal Affairs, and we can't go in there. I also didn't expect a successful breach of the Evidence Room; after all, we caught the bozo in there last time. But now, I think we can find the passageway, with clues left by the perp himself. Let's go."

Everyone went downstairs. I said hello to the two officers sitting on guard duty in front of the Evidence Room door. I took out a device with a light that was like a fluoroscope and turned it on. Eerie blue sparkles appeared on the floor.

"Not a good testament to the quality of the cleaning around here, Captain Aaron," I said, "but the silver lining is that we can see where people walked. The blue specks in this light are the chemicals used in those smoke grenades they used."

The trail led to the Armory. As we went in I saw specks around the padded wall. to our right, the wall that was between the Armory and the I.T. areas.

"Okay, if the door here that leads onto the range itself is opened, it sets off an alarm." I said. I opened the door and a loud alarm sounded. The Armorer quickly came over with a key and shut it off.

"And as you can see, to our Armorer's annoyance, the alarm works very well." I said. "So, the secret door must be in this wall right here in front of the door, as the mussed up specks in this light suggest." I pulled at the padding, and to my surprise it opened on a hinge when I tugged hard at it."

"Wow, I missed this last time I checked." I said. I then started feeling around what looked like the wall and felt a knot just behind the padding next to the opened one. Pushing on it, the wall opened!

"Oooh," said Cindy, "secret passage to the Conservatory."

"Or to the Crime Lab, if I don't miss my guess." I replied. "Perlman, you're with me."

I peered into the darkness as I drew my gun, then felt inside along the wall. There was a light switch, and I snapped it up. A set of lights came on, like lights in a subway passage. A very narrow corridor led down between the walls of the Armory and the I.T. areas.

"Where does this go?" I heard the Sheriff call out behind us.

"Like I said, probably the Crime Lab building." I said. I walked forward, Tanya right behind me.

"Oh my goodness." said Tanya as she followed me into the passage. "I'm surprised how clean it is." Indeed, the concrete blocks of the walls were painted gray and the concrete floor was smooth and surprisingly clean. There weren't even any useful footprints.

"Yes." I said as we began walking down the corridor. "I think it was built to be used, but for some reason it was closed off."

Just past where I surmised the end of the Armory Range would be, the corridor angled off somewhat to the right. Tanya and I continued down, picking up the pace, hearing the footsteps of the others echoing behind us.

A turn to the left gave way to a set of stairs. We climbed them to the landing, seeing the door on the right that was obviously a wall. Pulling it open, we saw a shelf right in front of us with lab glassware on it. It was a wall to the storeroom of the Crime Lab.

I carefully moved the glassware to the sides, then crawled out, Tanya following. We then created a sensation by walking into the main Crime Lab hallway. The Crime Lab's director, Dr. Woodrow sprang out of his office.

"What the heck?" he asked. "How did you get here without coming in the door?"

"Come," I said, "let me show you."

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

"Should we seal it up?" asked Sheriff Allgood as we met in the main conference room. Present were the Sheriff, myself, Deputy Chief Brownlee (who the fuck called him in? I wondered), Captain Aaron, Chief Griswold (at my insistence), Dr. Woodrow, and Lieutenants Ross and Perlman.

"I wouldn't." I said. "If there ever was a need to evacuate, or some kind of hostage situation or an assault on the Police Headquarters or the Crime Lab, we could use it."

"Oh come on, like that would ever happen." said Brownlee disdainfully.

"It almost happened once before." growled Chief Griswold. "When the Commander saved that baby and eliminated his nephew Ned at Ward Harvester." Brownlee and Aaron looked shocked as Griswold continued "I agree with the Commander, don't seal it up."

"We can install regular steel doors with heavy locks at the entrances." I said. "And some alarms on the doors that would notify the Duty Desk and perhaps all the Precincts's Duty Desks if those doors were opened on either end."

"I like that idea." said Sheriff Allgood. "I'll bring it up with the Council tonight. In the meantime, we'll have to rig some sort of temporary alarm system, and for crying out loud, everyone: don't go talking about this to every officer on the Force."

The Sheriff wrapped up. "Okay, Brownlee, Aaron, Dr. Woodrow, thank you for your time. Right now, I need to talk privately with the Commander and his Lieutenants. Chief Griswold, if you would stay, I'd appreciate it."

Once everyone else was gone, Allgood had Tanya bring me and Cindy up to speed. We were shown the video of the motorcyclist and her rider for the first time.

"Ho-lee cow." I said under my breath. "Well... we now know they used that passage to get to our Evidence Rooms, so I'm not surprised at that aspect of it."

"Who are they?" asked Daniel Allgood.

I replied "Sheriff, you might remember during the Black Badge case when Brody and Gunn were arrested, then released on bail. We believe there was a plan to kill them, which was thwarted by the FBI taking them into Federal custody. This motorcycle was caught on tape riding towards the scene, with a slender rider who matches the driver of the motorcycle in this tape. This time, there are two perps."

"How did they know the passageway was there?" growled Griswold.

"I think Captain Malone knew it was there, Chief." I said. "I think he told a confederate, who then told our Enemies."

"Any idea who that might be? The confederates of Malone?" asked the Sheriff.

"No, Sheriff." I said, outright lying to him. The less people that knew this secret, the less people that might be murdered.

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

"By the way, Daniel," I said just before lunch, when he, Griswold, and I were alone in the Chief's office, "have you and Melina been hanging drapes?"

"What?" Daniel said, utter confusion on his face.

"Right when she and I first got married," I said, "my mother told me that our first fight would be when we tried to hang drapes."

Daniel's face reddened. He looked over at Griswold.

"Not much gets by the man, Daniel." the old Chief said, his mustaches twitching again.

"No damn kidding." Allgood said. "No, not drapes. Buying furniture. Then your wife asked her to go up to Apple Grove and keep your mom safe, so things never really got resolved."

"Send her some roses." said Chief Griswold. "And when it comes to nesting, let her win."

"Hmmm, nesting." I said, reminiscing. "And she's moody, and eating a lot... anything you'd like to tell us, Daniel?"

"No, I'm pretty sure she's not..." Daniel started, then started thinking about it.

Part 19 - The Knave of Diamonds

Lunch was at the Cop Bar, where Laura, Cindy and I watched Jack consume his double cheeseburger with gusto. That reminded me to ask my wife something.

"Laura, is Melina pregnant?" I asked. My wife looked at me funny.

"Not that I know of." Laura said.

"Even so, I foresee her making an appointment with her gynecologist soon." I said. "That being you, of course."

"Actually, she made an appointment with me yesterday, for tomorrow." my wife said. Cindy just shook her head, grinning.

"Okay, guys, we meet with my boss at 2:00pm." Jack said as he finished his cheeseburger and we polished off our dishes.

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

"So, do you have something for me?" asked the Deputy Director in the office normally used by Jack Muscone here in the Town's FBI office. We were meeting alone, and I could feel not only his air of power and authority, but something else: excitement.

"Yes sir." I said. I gave him one of the jump drives I'd created while in Apple Grove. This one did not contain the "extra" information, but did have everything else. "Links to the Oldeeds Group, Superior Bloodlines, and Henry Wargrave... all rolled into one."

"Excellent. Wonderful!" exclaimed the Deputy Director. It was the most emotion I'd ever seen out of him. "So, explain to me what's going on here."

"With respect, sir," I said, "perhaps I can do that at the meeting we're about to attend... so that everyone hears the same story, and I only have to tell it once."

"Sure." said the Director. "Let's go in there now." We went down the hall to a small conference room. These offices were limited in space... in fact, few people even realized the FBI had this presence in Town, because they were squeezed into other back offices.

Inside the conference room were FBI Agents Jack Muscone, Sandra Speer, Lindy Linares, and Eduardo Escobar, CIA Deputy Director (and my wife) Dr. Laura Fredricson, and recently appointed FBI Consultant Cindy Ross.

"Thank you all for coming." the Director said as he and I sat down. "Okay, Don, tell us what you found."

"Yes sir." I said. "I initially went up to my boyhood hometown of Apple Grove to investigate a cyber-attack upon law firm files that involved my father. I found that there was indeed a hack attack on files related to a charity called 'Victory Christian Ministries', a.k.a. 'VCM'. This entity was created by the Reverend Jonas Oldeeds and his organization. It was nothing more than a front for international smuggling, as well as laundering money and paying out kickbacks to corrupt politicians."

I continued: "Just so you know, I don't think my father knew of the criminal side of all this. He was a deeply religious man, and fell under the spell of Oldeeds, who was totally unworthy of anyone's trust. My father was used by Oldeeds, as were many others. My father did not do very much with Oldeeds on this VCM thing; he basically filed organizational paperwork and other legal papers. He also did that for other small entities created for Oldeeds, but so far I have not found them to be fronts for illegal activities.

"But there is more." I said. "Maybe before he died, but definitely afterwards, the existing VCM began being used by another group to funnel money into certain places. And I am becoming increasingly aware that these places are being set up as local bases for the Superior Bloodlines group."

"As you guys know," I continued, "Superior Bloodlines is dedicated to white supremacy, but unlike the Klan or redneck groups that talk a lot and use violence, these guys are working very quietly behind the scenes. My thinking is that they believe there are race wars coming, and they're gearing up to take up that battle against the militant Blacks."

"To that end," I went on, "they need arms. And the world's most well-connected and efficient arms dealer is one Colonel Sebastian Moran... well, you guys know him as Henry R. Wargrave."

"Don't you mean 'Moriarty'?" asked the Director with what was for him a grin.

"No sir." I said with as much alacrity as I could muster. "Wargrave is, or I should say was, our Moriarty's right hand man. Wargrave has been playing a double game, burning both ends of the candle at once: he was playing with the so-called 'Big Boyz', the national and international power players that go to the Bilderberg conferences and all that, while on the other hand he was working with the Shadow Man in illegal activities. I believe Mr. Wargrave was behind the recent diamond smuggling operation that my excellent Vice Detectives recently foiled."

"Yes, they did excellent work, as did you, Commander, in recovering those smuggled diamonds." said the Director, "And we agree with your belief that Wargrave was behind that. Please, continue."

"Yes sir." I said. "So while I was up in Apple Grove and its surrounding hell hole of a county, I stumbled across some things that seemed very familiar to me: a rigged election, that one for Sheriff while ours here was for a State Senator; dirty law enforcement just like once was here and was seen in Lower Alabama recently; and some attempts to lay groundwork for racial strife and even violence over time. And I think there may be the beginnings of this in another small town and county... that of my Vice Lieutenant Teresa Croyle's girlhood town."

"Oh my gosh." said Cindy. "I can see that, now that you mention it... but how did you know?"

"I'll get to that in just a minute." I said. "And Teresa's town is not yet fully infected. This little Town of mine is being cleaned up, in no small measure due to the exit from the scene of Captain Malone. But Apple Grove is imprisoned in the iron fist of this group, and it will be hard to eradicate them."

"So Apple Grove showed you where Oldeeds, Superior Bloodlines, and Wargrave all intersected?" Muscone asked.

"To a point." I said. "I'm not saying that these entities are all working hand-in-glove with each other, though Oldeeds was something of a racist himself and his organization doesn't seem to include blacks in its Flock. Wargrave was only briefly connected to Oldeeds, and through this Victory Christian Ministries charity. Then Wargrave found out about the human trafficking and disassociated himself from Oldeeds... which angered Oldeeds very much, by the way."