Unresolved Ch. 01

As I came around and sat down, I made observations and deductions. Alison McFarland was in her 30s, and blonde. She had once been into the fitness thing like Cindy, but was not bulked up like Cindy had once been. Alison was a bit stockier, her body an hourglass shape more like Teresa's magnificent frame, but I thought that if Alison let it go, she could become 'big'. In contrast to Cindy's ruggedly good looks, Alison had a more 'sweet' looking face, and was very pretty.

"Thank you for seeing me, Commander." Alison said.

"My pleasure." I said. Then I peered at her and said "I perceive that you are General Alexander McFarland's daughter."

Alison was taken aback for just a second, then recovered. "Why yes, I am." she said. "How did you know? Have you met my father?"

I smiled. "As a matter of fact I have, just a few weeks ago." (Author' note: 'The Nuclear Option'.) "And I would not be a very good Detective if I did not notice the strong family resemblance to him in your face, as well as the last name."

Alison smiled. "Yes, I did take after him more than my mother."

I nodded, then said "So! What brings you to my Town & County? And how can I be of help?"

Alison said "I do a podcast, which I call 'Unresolved'. I investigate cold case crimes and missing persons cases. I was looking into one that occurred here twelve years ago, and when I heard the newscast about that double murder you had this morning, something about it struck me."

She went on to tell me about the Susan Dawn Phillips case. As she did, I was getting the vibe again, that this was important stuff, that would put me on the right track on this case. And I marveled at my luck in the Universe moving things to make this happen for me.

Lucky. Lucky Iron Crowbar.

"So she was found in Nextdoor County?" I asked. Alison confirmed it. I called Cindy on the phone and asked her to come into my office.

"Whassup---- Alison? Alison McFarland?" Cindy said as she recognized Alison.

"Cindy Ross!" Alison said, getting up and hugging Cindy, though I noticed the hug was a bit perfunctory for both women. "How are you? It's been.. years!"

"Yes, it has." Cindy said, sounding as if she were still stunned. I had Cindy sit down in the other hot chair.

"Did you get to meet General McFarland when he was up here in March?" I asked. "Alison is his daughter."

"Oh, really?" Cindy asked. "And no, I didn't really get to meet the General. I was minding the store here." Cindy said. She turned to Alison and said "So what brings you here?"

"My podcasts." said Alison.

I added: "And this case this morning has points of interest connected to the cold case she's been recently looking at. I'll fill you in later, but I need to you to call Chief Molly Evans of the Nextdoor County Police Department, and have them check out that area next to AGC Trucking."

"The Fucking Field." Cindy said. Seeing our reactions, she said "Well, that is what they call it."

"I see, said the blind man." I said, then went on: "If you'll ask the NCPD to ride up there and see if anything went on last night... fresh tire tracks, stuff like that... I'd appreciate it. If they find something, we'll go over and check it out..."

Then I thought about it, and said "No, tell you what... tell her we're coming over, and if she'd like to join the party, we'd love to see her..."

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

"So you did become a Police Officer." said Alison to Cindy, who was sitting in the backseat of my Police SUV as we were driving towards Nextdoor County. "You always said you wanted to be one... or an FBI Agent."

"And she's done very, very well." I said. "Deputy Chief of the TCPD."

"Oh, wow." Alison said levelly, then asked. "So why are you two carrying those crowbars? Oh, wait... you're the Iron Crowbar?" Her voice sounded much more impressed at that recognition.

"Yes, he is." said Cindy. "Your father didn't mention him?"

"I haven't talked to my father in a while." admitted Alison. "Except for a few texts."

"So, are you a journalist?" Cindy asked, a bit incisively. "Are you with the Media?"

"Lord, no." said Alison. "As you know, I graduated with a degree in Finance. After I left 'Miss Physical America', I went back to school and got my Masters in Business Administration, and began working with a Venture Capital firm, researching companies as possible investment opportunities. That started up my penchant for doing investigations, and I began doing the podcasts on the side. Then that just exploded, and while I still work on a contract basis with the VC firm, I'm doing something I love doing now."

"Ah, the secret to Life." I said. "Doing something you love... and getting paid for it."

"So if this young lady is Deputy Chief," Alison said, perhaps trying to tease Cindy, "why aren't you Chief yet?"

"He turned it down." Cindy said.

"Yes. Yes I did." I said. "If I was Chief, I'd have to be in my office, doing paperwork that the Deputy Chief would be sending me. Instead, I get to investigate and solve crimes... and put all my paperwork on the Deputy Chief's desk." Alison laughed. Cindy rolled her eyes at me.

We crossed the County Line and drove past AGC Trucking, then came up to an almost-invisible two-track road that turned right and went south. An NCPD Police SUV was parked and waiting.

"Hi guys." I said to Molly and Detective German as we got out of the vehicle. "Alison, this is Chief Evans and Detective German. Guys, this is Alison McFarland, who has been examining a cold case that may have bearing on this morning's case in our County. And you know Deputy Chief Ross, of course."

Alison had been looking from one blonde to the other. "Oh, you're related, aren't you?"

Molly grinned. "You're pretty sharp-eyed yourself. Yes, we're sisters."

Alison said "Commander Troy immediately recognized me as my father's daughter, so it's got me observing people."

"And speaking of observations," I said, "let's make some. Chief, did anyone drive down this path this morning?"

"No, and call me Molly, Don." Molly instructed, not mentioning that I was the father of her two sons. "We just came out and parked at the entrance to wait for you."

"Great!" I said. I looked around, then began walking down the path. "There's tire tracks along here, but a bunch of cars have gone both ways along the road, so we're not going to get much here. Let's drive further in."

We drove further along the path, which diverged into two paths, one going left and the other veering right but going pretty straight. The straight path had all the tire tracks so I went that way. Then I stopped as I saw the tracks diverging into the meadow, leaving one clear set of tire impressions.

"Looks like two or thee cars parked here in the grass." I said. "This car came further along." Cindy was taking photos of the tire impressions, and sending them back to Myron at TCPD Headquarters. I began looking around, and saw where people had trodden along the grass. Then there was an area where the grass was kicked up some, with clumps of grass and mud.

"Something happened here." Cindy said, and it wasn't just her eyes doing the observing.

"Yeah, you're right." I said.

Alison was walking down the path towards the copse of trees at the southern end of the property, which hid a creek running west and ultimately draining into the River in our County. Detective German had passed me and was walking around further down the field.

"Over here!" German called out. We went over, with me admonishing Cindy and Molly to not walk over any footprints that might be there. When we got to where German was, he pointed at a pair of light blue panties.

"Yes, they were on a girl very recently." I said. "They haven't been here very long at all. They're a bit damp, but they haven't been rained on at all." I also noticed another dirt track road, leading northeast, but with no tire impressions of any value.

Cindy was going to photograph the panties, but I said "Molly, why don't we get a CSI team out here."

"Yes, let's do." said Molly. "And whatever they find, consider me to have asked you to take over this case."

A moment later, Alison was back. "I think that copse of trees matches the location where Susan Phillips was found dead." she said.

"Yes, it was." said Detective German. "I read up on that case while we were waiting for you to arrive. It was never solved..." They began talking as I continued to look around.

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

12:00 high noon, Thursday, April 18th. We were going to go to lunch, but Captain Perlman, Detective Rodriguez, and Lt. Myron Milton asked to talk to me. So we went into the Main Conference Room, where we introduced Alison to Tanya and Julia.

"You did the work, Julia." said Tanya. "So tell the Commander what you found."

"We found out the identity of the female victim." said Julia. "Her name is Wendy Withers. She's from Alvaton, which is the County Seat of Edison County, just south of Westphalia, east of the Interstate. She was a Freshman at the University, and had not yet declared a major. She was active in the Glee Club and the Baptist Student Center. She also had pledged the Pi Omega Sorority."

"The Pi Omegas?" Alison almost exclaimed. "Susan Phillips was a Pi Omega Sorority pledge when she died!"

Julia said "And Kitty Summers was a Pi Omega Sorority pledge, also."

"Three times is a pattern." Tanya said. "Julia, take some help in plainclothes, all women if you can, and go to the Pi Omega Sorority House. See if they know that they're missing a pledge."

"And try not to tell them anything as you ask questions." I said. "Watch them carefully. Treat them as suspicious characters. And before you go, here's something for you to know but for them not to. We examined that field in Nextdoor County known as 'The Fucking Field', and found some female underwear that had not been there very long. I'd love to hear that someone blurted out that some Sorority activity went on out there recently."

"Yes sir." Julia said. She got up and left the room.

"I need to send someone to her dorm room, too." said Tanya. She texted Joanne Warner with instructions to get a warrant and go visit the dorm, then said "Okay, Myron, tell them what you got."

"Stephen Henry did not have a lot of numbers in his contact list, but the girl he has a lot of pictures of is the face on one of the numbers." said Myron. "From that phone number, we've discovered that her name is Dottie Smith. She's a Senior, majoring in Biology, with a 2.25 GPA. She's not a member of any regular sororities, nor any major student clubs or associations. We've tried to call her cellphone, but it goes straight to voicemail."

"Can I see the photos of her in Stephen's phone?" I asked. Myron brought something up on his tablet, then handed the tablet to me. I saw photos of a decent looking but not especially attractive girl, not fat, but nowhere near Teresa'a hourglass body nor Laura's magnificent legs.

"At the risk of being offensive and politically incorrect," I said as I flipped through the photos, "Dottie and Stephen are the kind of people that tend to end up together. Neither is especially attractive, they're both nerds and majoring in the Sciences. Stephen looks happy in his photos of them together, but Dottie looks... ambivalent. Not scowling or unhappy, just... meh."

"Could that be a clue to the murders?" Alison asked.

"It does make me want to know what their relationship was like." I replied. "And it makes me wonder why he had Wendy Withers in his car. Yes, we need to talk to Dottie Smith, if we can find her." After a moment of thought, I said "Any word on the brown Impala?"

"No sir." said Tanya. "The techs are looking at camera footage from all over, and have found nothing."

I said "Extend the APBs to the entireties of our State and the States west and northwest of us, and sent alerts to all the counties on the west side of the State, in case they try sneaking back in. My going theory is that these guys have a connection to the University, maybe a Fraternity, and would want to return home."

"I've already sent out the APBs," said Tanya, "but I'll send out fresh ones with the new emphasis."

I nodded. "So how did you guys identify Wendy Withers?" I asked as I looked at her DMV photo on Tanya's laptop, seeing that she matched the dead body in the Morgue, sans bruising..

"Our sketch artists put together a drawing of what she would look like without having her face so badly beaten in." Tanya replied. "We showed it around on Campus, but no one would say they knew her... but then the Campus Police got an anonymous tip on their hotline. A male, using a burner phone, and apparently using some kind of technology to disguise his voice. The Campus Police is sending us the audio recording of the call."

"All right, then." I said. "That's great work. And Alison here is my good luck charm for the day: her coming in with her story has really helped us get ahead of this." As I said that, I got a bit of a vibe, and let my peripheral vision take in Cindy's countenance. Was it just me, or was there a fleeting look of irritation on my cousin's ruggedly pretty face?

Part 6 - Senate In Session

I was going to ask Cindy and Alison to lunch, but Alison said she had errands to run, and Cindy said she was going to lunch with Betsy, Callie, and Laura. So I spent an hour doing some research of the various Fraternities and Sororities on Campus. I also familiarized myself with the locations of the Pi Omega Sorority House and the other Greek houses near it.

The lunch day was saved when FBI Special Agent in Charge Jack Muscone called and asked if I wanted to meet him at the Cop Bar for lunch. Double cheeseburgers were in mortal danger, but I accepted the invitation anyway.

To my most very pleasant surprise, my wife Laura had arrived with Jack. We had the new back room of the Cop Bar to ourselves, as the Fire Department leadership had just left. We sat down, and the waitress simply asked "Your usuals?" With a smile I said that would be fine: Double Breakfast Burger Plate for me, Double Cheeseburger Plate for Jack, with a bottomless basket of perfectly seasoned fries. Laura said she'd eaten already, which was true (she'd had lunch with Cindy, Callie, and Betsy), so she just had Coca-Cola Zero, and pilfered a few of our fries.

"So... what's new?" I asked Jack.

"We've taken up the bit against Senator Russell again." Jack said. "When that amateur podcast came out about Kitty Summers, and Hallerton made charges against Russell, I figured that was just Hallerton trying to gin up publicity against the Senator again. But then we got a call from our new Assistant Director, Owen Lange, who said the Washington brass wanted us to see if we could bust Russell's balls with this."

"Good!" I said. "So who is this Owen Lange?"

Laura said "His formal position is Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division, which is under new EAD Robin Isley of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, say that three times fast. I also got word that both of them were recommended for the Assistant Director post that was open... by General Alexander McFarland, after he was here in this County overseeing the EMPTY QUIVER event."

"That's what I heard, too." said Muscone. "McFarland said we had the Iron Crowbar, but we could've used someone like Lange as well. I think he meant well in saying that." Jack finished, his voice connoting anything but. "Anyhoo, I'm the SAC of the City Field Office, and under him. Cardigan is SAC under the Information and Technology Branch, which has a different EAD and Assistant Directors."

"As a SAC, either you or he is also the FBI 'representative' for the Director of National Intelligence, also." I said.

"In theory." said Muscone.

"Like your chess book Theory and Practice," Laura said, "it's not as smooth as that. Especially in the City's Field Office. But let's not delve further into that, shall we? You were saying, Jack?"

Muscone continued: "I don't know much about Owen Lange. I've never met him, though that will change this weekend when he flies into the City to meet with all of us. From what I do know, he's ex-Navy, and he has reputation for being one tough hombre. Kind of like what LCDR Waring was."

I nodded. "We've been crossing a lot of Navy guys lately. Not that that's a bad thing."

Jack said "Just between you and me and the lamppost, I've been getting trickles of information on just what Admiral Keating was. Not only was he a true Guardian of Justice, but he was putting together a group of people that could be really helpful to our side against the Swamp Frogs. Waring and his team were among them, but there are others. I don't know who they are, though." I just nodded.

"Admiral Keating's death was a huge loss for our side." Laura said sadly.

"Yes." Jack said. "Anyway, Lange will want to meet you, and soon. I'm hoping he's going to like you when he does meet you."

I grinned. "Well, we'll see how it works out. Sounds like he won't let me bust his chops, like I had to do to your former EAD." (Author's note: 'Riverboat Gambler', Ch. 02.)

"I still don't know how you pulled that one off." Laura said.

"The power of the Crowbar, my dear." I replied. "Okay, we were talking about Russell."

"Yes." said Jack. "I contacted Jayne Hallerton after the public allegation came out, and she put me in touch with Kitty Summers... who is hiding under a different identity, fearful for her life. Kitty told me what was in that podcast... that there had been a hazing ritual involving some kind of 'Hunger Games' contest, where fraternity boys try to capture the sorority girls and have sex with them, and sometimes by force, against the women's will."

Muscone continued: "We're not sure if it's one Fraternity or more, nor which Fraternities it might be. It does appear to be a Pi Omega Sorority ritual, as that sorority is involved in every case we know of, and Kitty confirmed that the Pi Omega Sorority was the one she pledged and the one that forced her to go on the hazing ritual. Unfortunately, she had nothing else, at least nothing she would tell me."

Muscone went on: "So we, meaning Team Lazarus, tried to figure out why Russell would exert his influence to cover up the crimes, if Hallerton's accusation is to be believed. Care to guess what we came up with?"

"I do have a couple of ideas." I said. "Laura, do you remember your student Tiffany Barclay, who was murdered by her father a while back?" (Author's note: 'Midnight City'.) "What Fraternity imprisoned her in a closet overnight?"

"Oh!" Laura said, jolted by the sudden memory. "I think that was the Tau Fraternity."

"Yes, it was the Tau Fraternity." I said, very sure. "They're well known for sexual escapades, and only women desiring sex or paid for sex dare go into their Fraternity House. They're also well known for being the Fraternity of rich Elites and their sons. If they were involved, someone like a Swamp Frog U.S. Senator, also known for violent sexual acts, might help them."

"Four hundred years ago." Jack said, shaking his head. "We also came up with the SAE Fraternity, well known for getting into trouble to the point they were almost disbanded; and the Kappas, who are the redneck, 'Old South' Fraternity, and fertile breeding grounds for white supremacists that might treat women shabbily."

"I'm looking most skeptically at the Taus." I said with a slight gleam in my eye as I played my trump card: "Guess who their current President is? An arrogant young man named... Peter Blassingame."

"What?" gasped Muscone. "Edward Blassingame's son?"

I nodded. "I texted Detective Rodriguez to have her people get some background information on the Taus, what they're like, what their reputation on Campus is. Now, I have another question for you, Jack: are you hearing anything about the Rovers BAU?"