Time Flies Ch. 03

Pencil Neck Keller spoke in his smooth, even way of talking: "Bettina, Jared's crimes are among the most shameful in the State's political history. His abuses of power are so egregious that even if he did resign, the Legislature has the right to continue the Impeachment, which they should do so that Jared can never hold public office again, and the truth of his crimes can be completely exposed to the People of the State."

Bettina: "Dr. Keller, is there any hope of bringing criminal charges against Commander Donald Troy for abuse of his Police power as well as perjury in previous testimony before the Legislature?"

Pencil Dick Keller: "Bettina, we can always keep hope alive that Commander Troy will get what should be coming to him. But for now, exposure of Val Jared for his actions while Governor are what the Legislature, and also the Media, should focus on like a laser beam."

"Thank you Dr. Keller." Bettina said happily. "And finally, Channel Two News has learned that ADA Franklin Washington may take a leave of absence from the District Attorney's Office as he pursues the judicial seat currently occupied by Judge Harry R. Nance. Sources tell Channel Two News that Washington's decision is, quote 'imminent', close quote..."

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

"So they'll name the dead man Fisher, but won't say Hamm's name?" I noted as we drank coffee in the Chief's Conference room, once again sans Deputy Chief Ross, who was meeting with Captain Damien Thompson in her office. "I don't mind them not saying Hamm's name, but they should at least be consistent."

"And what, no 'Commander Troy refused to comment' from Bettina, there?" asked Lt. Commander Teresa Croyle.

"Did you even know about the Appellate Court decision, Don?" asked Captain Tanya Perlman.

"Yes." I said. "Mike Todd got the notice late yesterday afternoon, but had time to file the appeal with the State Supreme Court. We were pretty much expecting that from Leahy, so we had it ready to go at literally a phone call's notice."

"I'm not a lawyer," said Teresa, "but isn't the law squarely on your side, Don? How could Leahy overturn Folsom's ruling?"

I said "He only said the lawsuit could go forward; he didn't rule for the other side. And I agree that you're right, and the law is on my side. But Leahy is activist, and very Leftist, and he wants to use the Judicial Branch to crush Christianity just like Nance does."

"Think your case might be the one that ultimately reaches the US Supreme Court," asked the Sheriff, "and reverses that 'separation of Church and State' crap?"

"I'd love it if it was, Sheriff." I said. "But I'm not optimistic that'll ever be overturned---"

*BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!*

It was my Police iPhone. I answered it, said "Bring him to my office.", then disconnected. "That was the Duty Desk." I said as I stood up. "Artis Lattimore is here and wants to talk to me. If you'll excuse me..."

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

Artis Lattimore came in, and accepted my offer of coffee. After he sat down, he said "Thanks for seeing me, Commander." It may be stereotypical to say this, but I began realizing that Lattimore was a lot more articulate than he appeared to be, and that appearance might've been an intentional act on his part.

"You said it was urgent?" I replied, getting right down to it.

"Yes sir." said Lattimore. "It's about Jackson Ripley. There's a couple of things you need to know. First, the reason we had some drug intel that you guys didn't have yet is not because we were trying to one-up you. Ripley was the source of that information."

"Ahhhhh." I said. "I think I know what you're going to tell me: Ripley is a DEA Agent."

"Yes sir, that's it." said Lattimore. "And he's always been one. That story that he was a P.I. in Southport was pure cover, and it was also a cover story that he was in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was really DEA then, too.

"That makes sense, on a lot of levels." I said. "I'd imagine Ripley has been undercover in Turpin Heights, in the State south of us, down from Southport."

"Yes sir." said Lattimore. "And the DEA worked out an arrangement with D.A. Walters for him to pose as in Investigator in her office for a while. She agreed to do it, in exchange for setting up that incident with the TCPD outside of Luigi's. But after he said that about your and Paulina's daughter, Ms. Walters had to terminate the agreement."

"Is Ripley part of Dwight Stevens's team?" I asked.

"I don't know that." said Lattimore. "What I do know, and the reason I came here today, is because Ripley asked me to meet him for a beer last night. He said that murder spooked him. The DEA has been after that Fisher guy for a while, and for him to come over all dead should have them taking a breather and figuring out what was going on."

Lattimore continued: "But that's not what they're doing. Some guy named Merkle is trying to set up a drug buy with the perps, and he wants Ripley to go to the meet with him as his 'bodyguard'. Ripley's worried about it. This is not a good situation to go into."

"So why doesn't he just refuse, or just tell them they need to hold off?" I asked.

"He did." said Lattimore. "Well... he voiced the concerns about it. Merkle told him they were going through with it anyway, because if they didn't they'd lose months and years of work. And from what Ripley was telling me, he wasn't being given a choice."

"Is Rutherford Lyndon the SAC?" I asked.

"I don't know for sure." said Lattimore.

"So who are these perps with whom Merkle wants to make a deal?" I asked. "Any names?"

"I don't know." said Lattimore. "Ripley never told me, he just said there was a ring that was a major pipeline to the Campus students. If it was that guy in the Sanitation Department you arrested, he didn't say. He was just worried about the way they were trying to go into this drug buy."

"Final question: does Miriam Walters know you came to me with this?" I asked.

"Yes sir." said Lattimore. "I'm not the one to be doing end runs around my boss. I told her what was going on and said I thought we should tell the TCPD about it. She said it was my decision to say something or not, and she'd back me either way."

"Well, I'm glad you did come in." I said, standing up. "It certainly helps my confidence in you and my guys working together."

"Thank you, sir." Lattimore said, also standing. "And sir... D.A. Walters ain't like Krasney, and she ain't one the bad guys. And I'm not sure what's going on with her and Franklin and Paulina, but I don't think Ms. Walters is a racist."

"That's my feeling, also." I said. "My issues with her are ones of trust. But moving forward, here's something I need you to do..."

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

"Wow, that's surprising." Teresa said as we held the Angels meeting in the Chief's Conference Room. The Sheriff and Police Chief were no Angels, but they were in the meeting, as well. I'd just briefed them on what Artis Lattimore had told me.

"Looks like I'm going to have to have another long conversation with Ms. Walters." growled Sheriff Griswold. "She absolutely should not have held that information about Ripley from us."

"And worse," Teresa said, "if our Officers had reacted to Ripley's baiting, they could've been charged with the double whammy: assaulting a Federal Agent in addition to anything else. That's really dirty pool on Walters's part, and I'm really not forgiving it."

"And it has crossed my mind that the US DOJ Civil Rights Division might've had a hand in it." I said. "Taking Lattimore at his word that Miriam didn't put Ripley up to what he said about Tasha, that means it was either the Press behind it... or the Feds."

"Geez, whatta mess." grunted Sheriff Griswold, shaking his head.

"And it's going to get worse, much worse, before it gets any better." I said. "But for right now, I've got a lot of questions about this murder and the drug case stemming from it. And I need to get a hold of Dwight Stevens as soon as possible. So, would you all care to join me in a meeting with the Detective Corps?"

Part 13 - Moving Inexorably

As I came into Classroom 'E', I said quietly to Tanya "I can't get hold of Dwight Stevens nor Muscone. Can you call Jack and see if he'll take your call, and tell him it's really urgent?"

"Sure." said Tanya, knowing I would never ask her to do that if it weren't really urgent.

As we settled down around the table, the Chief said "Okayyyy, Captain Perlman, what do we havvvvve?" Tanya nodded to Lt. Mary Milton.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mary, "here's what we have, including what Myron was able to help us with. First, James Hamm's personal cellphone remained at his home last night, and began moving this morning... but straight to his office on Campus. Second, no burner phones from within 300 ft. of his house have been detected. It's impossible to say that about his office, because there's so many University students in the area with cellphones."

Mary: "We also worked on the burners that texted Fisher's phone. The locations the phones were at coincided where his cellphone was, so we think the burners were his, also. Why he would text to his own phone is something the Iron Crowbar will have to tell us."

"Elementary, my dear Milton." I said. "He was preserving the records of the texts sent to him, in case something 'wet' happened to him... which did. So what did his burners have for us?"

Mary said: "First, those burners only sent texts to Fisher's cellphone. None were sent to any other phone. But since we had the phone numbers, we were able to get the numbers that called or texted Fisher's burners. There were six different ones over time, and they were burners, too. Probably changed out every so often, like Fisher's were. But we don't have the means to determine where those burners were without a FISA warrant, nor what any of their texts might have said. And none of them ever called Hamm's work place or home phones, so we don't have enough connection to get any kind of warrant on him."

Mary: "We looked further into Hamm's credit cards, where he went, stuff like that. We were trying to find if he had a regular circle of associates. But he doesn't. He'd occasionally purchase the services of an escort girl, but never the same one more than one time, and he used different escort agencies. He frequents bars along the University Avenue neighborhood of bars, but not the same ones in anything we could make a pattern out of. He does not associate with with others in the Sanitation Department, as near as we can tell. There's just nothing that sets a pattern, just no 'there', there."

"Can I ask a question?" asked Detective Julia Rodriguez. We all nodded, and she said "Are we absolutely sure that Hamm is part of a drug ring, not to mention involved in the Fisher murder?"

"Not yet, of course." I replied. "But we have some circumstantial data that gives us a connection. Hamm has expensive tastes and habits. He is the Sanitation Department manager that 'handled' Fisher, so to speak. Hamm set up Fisher's pay structure that gave Fisher a job he didn't have to go to all day every day. He has every right to invoke his legal rights, of course, but his attempts to stop any of his employees from talking to us seems strange along the 'he doth protesteth too much' concept. So it's a thread that we've found, and it seems the harder we tug on it, the more Hamm squirms."

I continued: "But you make a good point. We should not assume that Fisher was dealing drugs directly with Hamm. There could easily be a middleman."

"It likely is a middleman, sir." said Christopher Purvis. "Hamm and Fisher could easily have found ways to communicate verbally, and not have to send texts."

Theo Washington asked: "If Fisher is part of the drug pipeline, was he the buyer or the seller of the product? And was the meeting where he was shot a drug buy, or did someone just shoot him, as in a pro hit?"

Captain Perlman said "The last code message on his phone could easily have been a meeting for a buy, especially if what we think is the date and time in that code... they coincide with the date and likely the time of the murder. However, we had Uniformed Officers go to both the Southpoint Mall and the Mall northwest of Town, and no blood or anything was found that would suggest the murder happened at those locations. They also got inside the malls and didn't find blood anywhere."

"That's good, thorough work." I said. "Commander Croyle, extend my compliments to your Officers." Teresa nodded, then I said: "It's a good question, Theo. I have some anecdotal data... thin, unconfirmed, but still a data point... that another drug buy is being set up. So if Fisher had the drugs on him when he was murdered, his killer would have two keys of product in his or her hands now, and would not need more for days if not weeks."

I continued: "Also, Fisher was a longtime dealer of money, either through legit investments or not-so-legit money laundering. And he even had $28,000 seized from him in an asset forfeiture. So I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate for now that Fisher had the cash in the transaction."

"Sir," said Grubby Paul, "another data point is that drug buys usually are three-on-three meeting, and definitely at least two on each side. Going alone is just asking to get capped."

"And he was capped." said Julia, generating some brief laughter. "But I don't know what the DEA is doing, so I'll make the right career move and agree with Commander Troy." That generated a bit more laughter.

"So does that mean Hamm was the supplier of the product?" asked Vice Detective Statler. That started some back and forth, with some adhering to Tanya's assertion that the code texts weren't needed between Hamm and Fisher, and others saying they still could've used the codes to confirm meetings. Over time, everyone began to notice that Your Iron Crowbar was looking at the ceiling... in a deep reverie.

When I finally came out of it, Tanya said "If someone put a Bear Bryant hat on your head, Commander, you wouldn't have realized it."

"Har har." I said. "Something struck me about all this, something that fits the data better than the buys being between Hamm and Fisher. I might suggest that Hamm provided Fisher the money, and Fisher made the buys from a third party, and got the drugs to Hamm."

"So a third party shot Fisher?" asked Julia Rodriguez.

"I didn't say that." I said. "Hamm still could've shot Fisher, though we obviously need to find motive for that."

Christopher Purvis said "There are no records of Hamm buying nor owning a gun, for what that's worth."

"Which is not much." said Tanya. "If he knows his way around drug circles, he could easily pick up a 'clean' piece. I have two big questions. First, who reduced Hamm's charges, and why. And second, how might he have been distributing product to his customers? There has to be connections there, and trails leading to someone. And we need to find those trails."

"I entirely agree." I said. "So, let's talk generally about who is running drugs in my County. Who could be the third party these bozos are working with?"

Lt. Rudistan deferred to Detective 'Grubby' Paul, who said: "Going back a few years, since the Beanstalk Gang and the Viscottis were shut down, T-Square was the major player in the County's drug markets. But he went clean, so we've got several contenders."

Grubby: "First is T-Mac, once T-Square's lieutenant but now on his own. T-Mac is still supplying the clubs in the Tenderloin District. He's getting his product from an out-of-County supplier, though, likely someone from the City with the Jasmine Nix faction. A deal with the likes of Fisher or Hamm isn't his style, and he's a buyer of product for dime bag distribution, not a seller of bricks by the key."

Grubby: "Next is the rising threat from The Eighth Street Latinos. Captain Malone and subsequently T-Square used to run the Latin gangs out of here; they really came down on them hard. So did Pastor Westboro, but for his own reasons. The Hispanic community in this County is not large, but it's growing in Coltrane County and further south of here. The leader of The Eighth Street Latinos is believed to be José Raoul Ramon, known as 'Raoul'. He's been around these parts for a long time, and sparred with Captain Malone's friends in the Beanstalk Gang, but managed to keep himself out of jail. Now he may be building his own gang. He's a candidate for this type of drug deal, but he's not known to be a killer, and only gets involved in violence in defense or retaliation."

Grubby: "Next is Jacquez Wilson. We've been watching this guy as a militant organizer for black causes, and his hatred of whites and especially the Police is unlimited and unappeasable. He's working his way into the Southwestern Ghetto, and just looking for an excuse to run T-Mac's people out of there. He is a mean m-f-er, and is known to commit rape and murder at the drop of a hat, but we doubt he'd do business of any kind, much less drugs, with White people or Hispanics."

Grubby: "Last is a group that call themselves the 'Smooth White Boys'. We think they're just a front for the Kappa fraternity, which is well-known as a white superiority Fraternity. They were going to be kicked off Campus for flying the Confederate Flag at their Frat House, but they sued for violation of their First Amendment Right of Free Speech and won. But they're on a short leash with the University, so they keep at least half of their membership names secret."

Grubby: "One reason the Smooth White Boys are still in business is because they have become the de facto sole source for drugs on the University Campus. You want a dime bag, you talk to a Kappa. You want a quarter key for a big party, a Smooth White Boy will hook you up. Somehow they have without violence become the drug monopoly on Campus, especially after the Taus were taken down by the Iron Crowbar. Finally, we're not sure who the leader of the Smooth White Boys is, but we're working on getting some intel on that.

"Good report." I said as I stood up. "Okay, I've got some calls to make and data to gather. Y'all are doing great, so keep pushing. Get the Crime Lab techs to go back over Southpoint Mall... it's still the likeliest place the crime occurred, and they might can detect cleaned-up bloodstains..."

Part 14 - Talk Amongst Yourselves

"This is ridiculous." said Julia Rodriguez as the MCD Detectives worked at their desks. "There are so many moving parts to this murder, from him being moved and found in that field, to the wristwatch being set wrong, to the code texts. We're missing something."

"I'll tell you something else that has been nagging the hell out of me." said Roark Coleman. "I was on the streets as a beat cop and then in Vice for a long time. And from what I'm seeing, either of these guys could be undercover. The way Hamm is acting, spending money, getting attention... that's classic undercover acting. And Fisher saving those code texts and his double life... that could also be cover."

"That code is nagging at me." said Teddy Parker. "Take a look at this again." He expertly used his computer mouse to bring up an image of the codes on the big screen matrix of monitors on the wall. "The part we haven't figured out... the '40a' and '50b'... I have a feeling that's important."

"I was talking with Lieutenant Mary Milton about that." said Lt. Jerome Davis. "Her people in Intelligence thought 'a' might be 'ahead', and 'b' might be 'behind', as in '40 minutes ahead' and '50 minutes behind'."

"Ooooh, I like that!" Julia said.

"Only problem is," Jerome said, "that last message said '40a', meaning ahead, and his watch was actually set forty minutes behind. So it doesn't fit the data."