A Deadly Development

A Deadly
Development

James Green

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 James Green

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

March 10

March 11

March 12

March 13

March 14

March 15

March 16

March 17

Friday March 10 – 5:53 p.m.

John Vithous was deep in thought, trying to
finish the final email of a very long day. He would have rather
ignored it, but thought better of it. Had he been paying attention,
he may have heard the elevator opening in the lobby, but not
likely. The express elevator ran up to 29th floor and then back to
the lobby, whether there was anyone in it or not.

Vithous rarely noticed things like that
anyway. He was busy responding to the latest attack on his boss, or
at least his perceived latest attack. To John Vithous you were
either totally with him or totally against him. No middle ground,
no blurring of the lines, no equivocating. He had built a twenty
five year career in politics building up allies, and even more
importantly, destroying enemies. To him, it was a game, really - an
adrenaline rush to engage in battles with the enemies and then
crush them.

His boss valued his talents. She wouldn't
ever admit it publicly; it would not be prudent from a political
standpoint. Jane Hughes cultivated her public persona as a matronly
gregarious mayor. It wouldn't behoove her to be portrayed as a
political mudslinger. She made every effort to make it seem beneath
her. Besides, that's what John was for; that's what she paid him
well for. She felt it was money well spent.

Vithous latest battle was with the local City
Hall reporter, a pain in the ass named Bethany Edwards. Edwards had
questioned a new development proposed for the riverfront. This
article was just a follow up in a series of articles Edwards had
been writing themed "The Mayor's Inner Circle" An earlier article
showed how a donor and friend of Mayor Hughes was able to get her
permit expedited to open a new restaurant. What Vithous saw as
business as usual, Edwards kept alluding that there was something
underhanded or even devious. Her holier than thou attitude grated
on Vithous - it pissed him off. Although he usually let her know
about his displeasure in person, he felt he couldn't wait because
he had gotten wind that a new article was to appear early next
week. He had been tipped off by some council member who Edwards
thought was a great source, but in fact was just a mole for John.
Vithous had to kill the story before it even got going.

His typing stopped briefly as his ears
registered an unusual sound. City Hall was built at the height of
the Depression. Many hailed it as a great example of Art Deco
architecture. It sat on one of the highest points in the city. Even
on relatively calm days the hall made odd sounds, and on an evening
like tonight when the wind was really howling and devoid of any
people, it emitted all sorts of creaks and groans. Vithous stopped
briefly, shrugged it off the sound as nothing out of the ordinary
and went back to typing furiously. It would be the last email he
ever wrote.

Friday, March 10 6:38 p.m.

Four more reps
, he thought. Four more
reps and he would be done for the night. Tom Burke strained every
fiber in his body to finish his arm curls. Sweat pored off his
forehead as he finished his evening work out.

The gym was quiet, almost empty. The earlier
afternoon rush had given way to the early weekend evening doldrums
- anyone with a social life had left by now. Burke couldn't help
but notice. He was paid to notice things, and even when he tried
not to make a mental note of surroundings, he couldn't help
himself. He tried to convince himself that he preferred the gym
empty. It allowed him to work out on any machine or weights he
wanted without having to wait. But the reality was a lonely
apartment awaited him upon finishing his workout, so he was in no
early to finish up.

His cellphone broke up the thought. Dispatch
gave details of a murder, which wasn't a rarity in Kansas City on a
Friday night. What was rare was the location - the Mayor's office
at City Hall. This piqued Burke's interest. As a Police Sargent in
the Murder Squad, Burke was a member of an elite team that was
called in for these types of high profile cases. He quickly
showered, changed and headed for his car.

The trip to City Hall from the gym was a
reverse timeline of Kansas City's expansion. Burke started by
driving through neighborhoods full of post-World War II ranch
homes, which gave way to 1920 and 1930 Tudor homes. This was the
neighborhood that he grew up in. His mother still lived in the home
he and his sisters had spent their childhood in. Even though his
parents were still married, his father hadn't lived there for
almost 30 years.
Real Catholics don't get divorces
, his
mother said. Instead, they just suffer, Burke thought. Tom Burke
smiled at that - his mother had the suffering piece down to a
science.

The smaller homes gradually gave way to the
larger and more palatial homes where many of the power elite lived.
That included Mayor Jane Hughes--her house was one of the most
impressive of the lot. She had expensive parties, or so Burke had
been told. Some of his buddies who were still beat cops had been
hired from time to time to provide security. They had talked about
all the food, all the people and all the booze. Thomas Burke
thought they sounded terribly boring, but the guys on the force
like to gossip as much old ladies.

Burke's car snaked through the Country Club
Plaza, then into the Westport area. When he was still in uniform he
spent a lot of time in Westport, both on and off duty. Westport was
the bar area of Kansas City, and when he was in his 20s he was
there either breaking up fights or causing them, depending on what
night it was.

Westport was still relatively dead at this
point--he looked at the clock on his dashboard – 6:52. About three
more hours, Burke thought, and then things will get interesting.
Bar fights, DUIs or an occasional shooting. The Westport business
association tended not to advertise those aspects of the bar
scene.

He then went past Union Station, through the
Crossroads district and finally pulled into the downtown district
and City Hall. The sun had started to set, but the front of City
Hall was awash in lights--all the media was there setting up their
live shots. "Fucking vultures," Burke sighed. They paid someone,
usually a college kid to sit and monitor the police radio. As soon
as a call came in reporting a murder in city hall, they were all
over it. He hated the TV news--felt they just sensationalized all
the violence in the city without actually talking about the root of
the problems, or asking why. They just made a big splash, then left
and moved on to the next bloody story. Burke was thankful that KCPD
had a media unit who would get the fun task of handling all the
press. He wasn't sure he'd be able to keep his composure if he had
to deal with them.

He swung his car into the basement garage of
City Hall. Standing in front of the entrance was Detective Jack
Thurber. Thurber was desperately trying to suck every bit of
nicotine out of his Camel cigarette before having to discard it due
to the city's anti-smoking policy. Thurber had been the first
member of the murder squad on the scene. He told Burke that two
uniformed officers had initially responded to the 911 call. Upon
arriving, they quickly had determined that a murder in the Mayor’s
office was a big deal. A third officer was called in and then a
duty officer called in the EMTs and the firefighters.

Thurber was working at Police Headquarters
across the street when he was called. It took him less than two
minutes to arrive at the scene on foot. Although a full decade
older than Tom, Thurber was a newer member of the murder squad.
Once he had ascertained the back of John Vithous’ skull being
bashed in was no accident, he had called dispatch, instructed the
uniforms to not let in anyone in or out, and went downstairs and
waited for his partner Tom Burke to arrive.

Jack Thurber had two ex-wives, a two pack a
day habit and a penchant for irritating people without even knowing
he was doing it. What made him an acceptable cop was the fact that
he was dogged in his work, didn't take no for an answer and hated
to lose. He recently been transferred from Vice, where he had
apparently burnt his last bridge. Burke tolerated him for the
most part.

The murder squad had recently been
reorganized. Only 42 % of homicides had been cleared the year
before. This didn’t sit well with the politicians, especially since
it was an election year. The new police chief had added an
additional squad, bringing the total to four. Each squad had seven
detectives and one sergeant. Instead of being on a twenty-eight day
shift, they now worked fourteen days shifts. Burke had been on day
eleven of his latest shift when his phone had rung. Although the
changes had been heralded, Burke had not seen any uptick in
clearance rates. Homicide was still overwhelmed and
understaffed.

They acknowledged the few uniforms guarding
the entrance with a nod. One returned the gesture and said "Hey,
Tom - you didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night, did
ya?" and Burke just smiled and went inside. Thurber followed and
they made his way past the security desk that was empty when he
noticed a bank of security cameras. He definitely would be asking
to see a copy of all of those cameras tapes for the day. He also
assumed there was a log sheet of some sort that he would need to
look into.

Thurber punched a button to get an elevator
and took the long ride up to the 29th floor. While riding to the
top Burke thought back to all the times he visited the Mayor's
office. He could think of three or four --and on all occasions that
was when he was a school kid taking a tour. Once, he was even
allowed to sit in the Mayor’s chair, which at the time seemed like
a very big deal.

The elevator doors opened and they stepped
out into the lobby of the 29th floor. A large mahogany desk sat at
the end of the lobby with two swinging doors that during the day
kept out anyone the Mayor's security deemed undesirable --directly
behind the desk were large doors to the City Manager's office which
sat dark and empty. To the left was the entrance to the Mayor's
office. Yellow crime scene police tape covered the entrance and two
more uniformed officers were waiting for them

"Hey Tommy, Jack” said the older officer. Tom
recognized him as being one of his father's friends, but at the
moment his named escaped him --something Italian like Gallo or
Risso. "What do we got?” Burke asked. The older cop held up the
police tape so Tom could slide under and walked into the
office.

For all the power Mayor Hughes exercised, her
office was quite a letdown. An L-shaped common room that was
crammed with cubicles for far as Burke could see. The tackiness of
the 1970s met the grandeur of the 1930s. Some bureaucrat had even
decided at one point to put in a suspended ceiling, resplendent
with ugly popcorn-like ceiling tiles. Tom thought that whoever had
done that should have been shot.

“Meet John Vithous, a.k.a. her honor's
right-hand man, aka our croaker,” Thurber said.

Burke walked up to the cube nearest to the
Mayor's own office and pulled a pair of latex gloves from his
pocket and put them on. Vithous head lay up against the side of his
desk his hair matted down with viscid blood. It was clear whoever
had hit Mr. Vithous was a very angry individual, Burke thought.

"I'm guessing somebody decided to use Mr.
Vithous' head as a piñata,” the older cop said.
What the hell
was his name? Risso, no Russo - that was it - Jimmy Russo.
"I
think you're probably right, Russo,” Burke replied. Jimmy Russo
expression betrayed a small twinge of surprise and then some
delight in that Tommy Burke remembered his name.

He didn't like being called Tommy. He had
spent the last 20 years or so to get people to stop calling him
that. His father was Tom senior, so while at home while growing up
he was forced to answer to Tommy. He hated being named after his
father. He wanted to be his own person. But, he had no choice in
the matter so 'Tommy' it was. The only thing worse was "Little
Tom,” which thankfully no one still alive ever did.