A Deadly Development (2 page)

He couldn't blame Jimmy Russo, he was just
trying to be nice and to Russo "Tom Burke" was still his father,
who probably at this very moment was holding down the corner stool
at bar in Waldo, boring the hell out of whoever he was talking
to.

Burke carefully studied the work area -- it
was a mess of papers, newspaper clipping, public policy studies,
memos and a phalanx of books that were piled everywhere. John
Vithous was either a very busy man or a slob, or perhaps both. Tom
noticed that a new addition to his cubicle was splattering of
blood, everywhere.

"Doesn't look whatever he was hit with is
around- -our killer must have calmed down enough to take it with
him," Tom thought out loud.

"Maybe it was a prized possession," Thurber
snorted.

Sgt. Tom Burke quickly went to work utilizing
the KCPD murder protocol that had been drilled into his head. He
made sure the bare minimum of people would be allowed in and out.
He instructed Thurber to start the crime report diagram of the
scene. The key was to preserve the crime scene -- to keep things
exactly, or close to exact as how it was the moment the murder
happened.

In the first few moments he was there, Burke
was on his phone constantly, talking to his direct supervisor,
Captain David Michaels. Michaels was in his car and en route. Burke
called the log officer and requested that a technician from the
Evidence Department be summoned. Part of that work would include
utilizing a luminol, a special fluorescent light that highlights
blood. It would reveal where any blood was and what type of
splatter was made, even if the killer had tried to clean up after
his was finished.

"Who found him?” Burke asked Russo.

"Cleaning lady," Russo nodded over to a
cubical a few rows down where an older black woman sat with a
stunned look on her face. Obviously she wasn't expecting to find a
body while emptying the Mayor’s trash.

"What time?"

"Around 6:30 - the 911 call came in at
6:32.”

Russo then seem to read his mind.

"She's home now, the Mayor,” he explained.
"They got a hold of her security detail; apparently she was at an
event over at Bartle."

Smart
, Burke thought.
Get her home
and out of the limelight before she has to start

answering questions. Chief Williams would be
pleased.

He got down to more details with the other
members of the murder squad. They needed all the emails that
Vithous had sent and received that day. That would require a
warrant. They needed a copy of the Mayor's schedule for the day and
Vithous' schedule. They should to talk to the head of City Hall's
security, to find out how secure City Hall was, or more likely how
not secure it was. After thinking through all the things they
needed, he decided he would first talk to the cleaning lady.
Thurber, Burke and Captain Michaels divvied up the rest of their
duties as the evidence technicians arrived. Those guys always gave
Burke the creeps, no matter how many times he dealt with them. To
them it was all an analytical puzzle to be solved, not a human
being who was no longer was breathing.

The cleaning lady was not much help. Olivia
McQueen’s shift had begun at 6 p.m. She was a member of cleaning
crew that divided the floors into thirds. That night it was her
turn to clean floors 26-29. Around 6:30 she took the elevator to
the top floor and entered the Mayor’s office. She did indicate that
she had often found Vithous working at night, so at first she
wasn’t shocked when she saw the light on in his cubicle.

"He works late a lot, when I first saw his
cubicle light on I thought nothing of it,” she sighed. She looked
physically exhausted and fiddled with her nails, peeling back the
ends of them in a habit that she obviously did when she was
nervous. Thurber insisted on asking several more questions, but
eventually Tom felt sorry for Olivia and with an extreme glare in
Thurber's direction he let him know to leave the old lady
alone.

Thurber was about to protest when they were
interrupted by KCPD's media officer, Captain Rick Kahn. "Jesus,
Tom, were you ever going to check in, or were you just going to let
me sit down there with my dick hanging out, and no information to
give out?" Kahn was always excitable, easily worked up. Burke found
him to be a constant annoyance.

"Rick, you know the media is usually my
utmost concern but at the moment I was still gathering preliminary
information." Tom didn't even try to hide the sarcasm.

"They're busting my balls because they want
an ID before the end of the 9 o'clock newscast."

Burke glanced at the clock – 7:48. The media
had plenty of time and he wasn’t interested in their deadlines,
anyway.

"Well, Rick you know you're always in my
thoughts, but last we heard, next of kin hasn’t been notified yet."
Burke made a call to the Duty Officer and was informed that a
patrol unit had just arrived at Vithous’ Crestwood home where they
were talking to his live-in girlfriend. Once it was verified next
of kin was aware, Burke went on to give the particulars that Kahn
desired; a homicide, a one John Vithous, bludgeoned to the head, no
suspects at the moment.

“Jesus Christ", Kahn said, "they're going to
have a fucking field day with this one." Indeed they will, thought
Sergeant Thomas Burke. Indeed they will.

Saturday, March 11, morning

The annoying beeping sound of a delivery
truck backing up to the next door restaurant awoke Tom promptly at
8:47. Although the truck made the same delivery every Saturday
morning, it still managed to wake him up even after living there
for over six months.

It had been a late night. Burke had spent
over 3 hours at City Hall, questioning coworkers of Vithous who had
trickled in as word had gotten out. They were for the most part
very emotional and not very illuminating. John Vithous had worked
in City Hall for a few months. Before that, he ran Jane Hughes’
reelection campaign and had been a consultant for numerous elected
officials. Most in Kansas City; a few in Jefferson City, and even
one in Washington, D.C. Burke made a mental note that he would need
to speak to Vithous’ predecessor, but that could wait until Monday.
At the moment, he had more pressing matters to attend to. He spent
the remainder of the evening waiting for the coroner to arrive,
grilling the City Hall security chief, and avoiding Rick Kahn.

Burke got the fun duty of accompanying the
body to the morgue. He had watched the coroner from Truman Medical
Center formally declare Vithous dead, watched the evidence
technicians carefully bag Vithous’ hands to preserve evidence that
might be under his finger nails, and then watched as they zipped
him up in a body bag. For some reason, that part always seem absurd
to him, it was akin to sealing up leftovers after a meal.

When they was about to wrap it up for the
night, Captain Michaels’ cellphone rang and it was instantly
evident that it was a serious call. Michaels’ put a finger in one
ear and walked into the hallway for a few minutes. He reappeared
with the phone outstretched and said “Chief Williams wants to speak
with you.”

Williams was the relatively new police chief.
He had been on the year for a little over the year, and unlike many
of his predecessors, Williams was an outsider. He had been Chief of
Police in Cincinnati and the word was his innovative programs on
crime tracking, and a holistic approach to law enforcement had
impressed the Mayor and Council. Burke didn’t know if Williams was
full of shit or the real deal. He had only seen him a few times and
only in large settings where he never had actually talked to the
man.

The new Police Chief of Kansas City had come
in and almost immediately began to make changes in how the
department operated. Many of those changes irritated the regulars
within the force. Williams was considered not part of the
fraternity; he had an MBA - he looked like he could be in an ad for
shampoo or maybe an upscale country club. In fact, there were jokes
that he looked like he came out of central casting. Those who had
worked on the force for years, and toiled on the streets of Kansas
City, in the cold, the heat, and fighting the same fights year
after year without any discernible progress, found Williams to be a
know-it-all full of charts, computer printouts, statistics and
vapid promises. In short, many couldn't stand him.

Burke wasn't nearly as hard on the Chief.
Partly it was his nature not to instantly judge people; years of
experience had taught him that often things are not as they seem.
Part of it was due to the fact that Burke was tired-- tired of the
cronyism, tired of the old-boy network, tired of the underlying
racism that permeated the KCPD. Many of his brethren were honorable
people who worked in the best interest of the city. But many -and
in Burke's estimation way too many - were cynical, bitter pissers
who instead of providing a service, actually were a detriment to
the force, and indirectly, to Burke himself. Williams coming in and
shaking things up, looking for accountability, pressing for
benchmarks, holding division commanders personally responsible for
results might not be a bad thing. If he could keep the group from
completely revolting, perhaps many of the bad seeds would be weeded
out over time and more dedicated officers would replace them. If
not, it would be at least interesting theater for the next few
years.

Williams wanted to touch base. Burke gave him
all the information he had, not leaving out any specifics. He had
heard through the grapevine that Williams had an amazing memory and
would not forget anything and if he left it out he probably would
pay for it in the future. They then talked at length about the
Mayor; she apparently had already called the Chief and in a very
stern manner laid out exactly how she wanted this case to be
handled. She wanted it to be thorough, but not sensationalized. She
wanted it be a high priority, but not so much that it looked as she
was asking for special treatment. She also wanted Burke to visit
her personally at her house tomorrow morning at eleven.

“I assured her you were the right man for the
job, but she still wants to meet you. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Just show up, assure her we are on the case and don’t linger around
long.” Williams conveyed.

"That shouldn't be any problem at all,"
replied Burke who caught his reflection in a mirror and noticed he
was smirking while saying it
. How could Williams think he was
the right man for the job? He doesn’t even know me.
His eyes
moved from the mirrors to a window overlooking the north lawn of
City Hall. He could see the cadre of television reporters -
beginning to tear down their equipment.
What a circus,
he
thought.

Lastly Williams wanted to talk about
perception. Professionalism was the key, Williams emoted. No
leaks-- not to the paper, not to radio, not to blogs, not to
anybody. “We’ve got a public safety sales tax that is going to come
up for a vote soon. We cannot afford any negative publicity. In
these tough times, no tax increase is going to be easy. So, we need
to be careful. At the moment, we control the message, Burke,
remember that.”

“Yes sir,” Burke replied before hanging up.
With that, the conversation ended and Burke found himself on an
elevator with two EMTs and a gurney moving slowly to the basement
at City Hall

He had arrived back at his apartment around
two. He couldn't sleep; not because the murder itself was shocking
to him, he had seen plenty of bodies over his career. Rather, the
thought that someone was out there, somewhere in his city had done
it and at for the moment, gotten away with it. They were going to
get a huge head start on him, and he didn’t like it.

He thought about that the entire ride home.
He let things gnaw at him, even though he tried not to. Once home
he ate a cold piece of pizza he found in the mostly empty fridge,
crawled into bed and picked up a Civil War history - to get his
mind off the case.(You have him unable to sleep before he eats
pizza & reads—might want to rewrite the paragraph

It apparently had worked, because Tom Burke
felt the same book jammed up against his rib cage as the beeping of
the delivery truck being placed in reverse reverberated throughout
his apartment.

He tried to spend as little time as possible
there. It wasn't a bad apartment, but it wasn’t a home either. It
was the area of 39th Street also known as "restaurant row". It was
easy to get to work, and obviously gave him lots of choices for
food. He couldn't cook worth shit, and with the long days and odd
hours he liked having options.

But, the apartment signified something to
him. It signified the failure of his marriage. No forty-one year
old man should live in a one bedroom apartment. It made him feel
empty, sad and all together miserable to be there.

Burke parted the blinds to look out his
window across the alley to look at the delivery truck. Yesterday's
cloudy, windy day had given way to sunshine filled morning without
a hint of even a breeze. Kansas City in spring time was always a
mixed bag when it came to weather. Burke could tell the day was to
be much colder; the visible breath from the delivery driver as he
got the invoice signed for showed that. He had hoped to get more of
a respite from what had seemed to been an endless winter. It seemed
that his hopes were not to be.

Burke rolled back over in bed grabbed his
cell phone and scrolled down the list until he came to the name
‘Bobby’ and hit the send button.

"I was hoping you'd call."

Tom smiled. He and his cousin seemed to read
each other's minds.

"I want to pick your brain,” Tom replied, "I
want to know who this guy’s enemies were."

"Well, we'd better sit down and have some
coffee because it's a long fucking list, including yours
truly."