A Deadly Development (4 page)

Many murders fit that profile -- neighbors
killing neighbors, a drunk shooting someone in a bar over a
perceived slight, a husband killing his wife over alleged
infidelities. And on, and on. Suspects often told him that they had
felt ‘disrespected’ and that is why they killed. That explanation
always infuriated Burke. How could they think becoming a murderer
would earn them respect? Who teaches these things?
Good luck
getting respect in your five by eight cells for the rest of your
life.

The cases like Vithous’ were the rare ones;
ones with no obvious motive and with no witness. He began to get
close to the Mayor's home and his mind for the moment took a
respite from his previous cases.

As he drove past Loose Park, he noticed that
the park was almost devoid of human activity. On nice warm days,
the park would be filled with children on the playground, feeding
the ducks, people with their dogs, joggers running on a track that
went around the entire length of the mile-long park. When he was
younger he spent many hours at the park -- picnics with family
members and when older, unsuccessfully trying to meet girls with
his friends while playing Frisbee - or god forbid, hacky-sack.

That thought amused him; he had not thought
about it in many years. It was amazing how time flew like that --
one day you are living with your parents without bills, or many
responsibilities and then before you know it you’re hunting down
killers for a living. With that thought, a heavy sigh audibly
escaped from his chest.

The Mayor's house was only a few blocks from
the park. It was Georgian style; with beautiful columns and red
bricks highlighted with white shutters. There was a long circle
driveway in front. The lawn was perfectly manicured, nothing out of
place. Burke pulled into the driveway and parked right behind a
black Ford Expedition that he knew was the Mayor's official car. As
he got out, he walked up the brick steps, took a deep breath and
knocked on the door.

Steven Hughes answered the door. Hughes had
made his money in real estate. His father had started the company
in the 1940s and by the time son had taken it over it had boomed.
They specialized in new subdivisions and strip malls and timed the
market perfectly. White flight out of the inner core had only made
the business boom further.

Burke identified himself and was led inside.
Hughes walked briskly down an ornate hallway and pivoted on his
feet to the left, into a library. Hundreds of books from floor to
ceiling covered all three walls in the room. An enormous oak desk,
which had to be an antique of some sort, dominated the room. On the
north wall was a beautiful fireplace which had a roaring fire
going.

Nothing was out of place, not a book opened,
not a piece of paper on the desk, not a chair askew, nothing. It
was as if Burke had walked into a
Better Homes and Garden
photo shoot. Steven motioned to Burke take a chair in front of the
desk and stated, "The Mayor should be down shortly." Steven Hughes
walked out of the library. Burke could hear his shoes on the marble
floor as he walked down the hall toward the back of the house.

It seemed odd to Tom that he would refer to
his own wife as "the Mayor,” but then again, politics in general
perplexed him. Why subject yourself to constant ridicule? He knew a
lot of people hated cops, but at least he could be anonymous with
it. He'd been in street clothes for over half his career, and made
a point of only showing his badge if need be. Most of his neighbors
didn't even know what he did for a living. No such luck for a
public official, everyone knew who they were. He couldn't imagine
stopping at the grocery store or a restaurant and hearing everyone
complaining what a shitty job he was doing. He got enough abuse
when he was in uniform.

Jane Hughes entered the room with her hand
extended and with a smile that Tom recognized from every piece of
campaign paraphernalia she had distributed over the years. It was a
matronly, dynamic smile. Her short gray hair was accented nicely by
her blue/gray eyes. Even though it was a Saturday, she was in a
navy blue business suit.

Tom went through the motions of introducing
himself, talking about standard procedures and where they were in
the investigation. He really didn't have much -- the murder was
less than eighteen hours old. He was then going to launch into a
series of questions he had prepared in his mind on the drive
over.

Jane Hughes at first listened politely, but
then interjected, "Sergeant. Burke, I cannot begin to tell you how
upset I am that this has happened. I detest all violence, but to
have taken place in my office, to have my most trusted advisor
brutally murdered at his desk is unacceptable. What do you plan to
do about it?"

Her smile was gone the moment she started
speaking. Tom was impressed how quickly she was able to move from
smiling politician mode to snarling chief executive mode.

"Well, Mayor Hughes, we are doing all that we
can, all resources will be utilized in this case," Tom replied,
noticing that the glower from the Mayor's face had not diminished,
and he took that to mean she was not yet satisfied with his answer,
"This obviously is not the run of the mill murder - it happened in
too public a place with too few people to have a motive to bludgeon
Mr. Vithous to death. I believe whoever did it, knew Mr. Vithous
and had been to your office many times before. He knew he would
find Vithous alone and knew he could act."

The Mayor looked away from Burke and stared
out the window toward the park. She stared silently for a full
thirty seconds, Burke tried to figure out if this was some sort of
test. Finally, her shoulders slackened, she turned to him and said
curtly, "Chief Williams assures me that you are the right person
for this case. I hope for both his sake and most certainly yours,
he is correct. I will not stand for this; do you understand me,
Sergeant? Find this murderer and find him fast." And with that, the
Honorable Jane Hughes walked swiftly to the door before momentarily
slowing down her pace to tell Tom she presumed he could show
himself out. The interview was over. But as Tom immediately
recognized, he had not asked a single question. Instead it was he
who was held under the microscope. He cursed himself under his
breath, and quickly exited the house before he cursed loud enough
for anyone to hear.

On the way back to the office, Burke took a
moment to look at his personal cell phone and promptly saw he had
three messages. Two were from his mother, and one from his real
estate agent. Burke used the # key to skip his mother’s messages
entirely. She could wait. He did want to hear what his realtor had
to say

Hey Tom, it’s Seth West. I’ve got good news
and some…well let’s just talk about the other news. Call me when
you get a chance.

Burke hit the ‘call back’ button on his
phone. West answered on the first ring.

“Seth West.”

“Seth, it’s Tom Burke. You said you had some
news?” Burke was driving north back to headquarters. If he made all
the lights, he hoped to be back in the office within twenty
minutes.

“You’ve got an offer.” Burke felt his stomach
tighten up. He had wanted this news. He needed this news. The
proceeds from the house would hopefully be enough for him to make a
down payment on a loft downtown or in the Crossroads. Something
much nicer than he was currently living in. But, the house sale was
the last item of business from the divorce. The finality of it all
hit him like a clenched fist.

“That’s great news,” he heard himself say.
“Is it a decent offer?” The house had sat on the market without a
single offer for months. He was beginning to wonder if it would
ever sell.

“It is,” West stated, “but like I said, we
have an issue. Julie thinks it’s too low.”

Burke exhaled deeply. Why did Julie have to
make this so hard? Why did she fight him every step of the way? The
marriage was over, and no amount of stalling by her was going to
change it.

“Did you try to convince her otherwise?”

“Yes, as you know I’ve been trying to get her
to lower the price forever, anyway. Tom the house has been sitting
there for a long time. I know Julie is emotionally attached to it,
but she needs to be realistic. I was hoping you could talk to
her.”

Tom grimaced. He didn’t want to talk to
Julie. Not about the house, not about anything. He felt the
beginnings of a low throbbing pain at the back of his neck.

“Sure, I guess. I don’t think it will help,
but I will try.” He wondered if she had planned this. If she had
turned down the offer flat just so he would have to talk to her. He
hoped that wasn’t the case.

“Great, I told them that this was from a
divorce so it might take a couple of days before we can come back
to them. When do you think you could call her?”

Burke looked at the dashboard clock.

“Probably not until tomorrow at the earliest.
I am swamped with work.”

“I understand, but Tom, the sooner you get
back to me, the better chance we have of selling. I’d hate to lose
these people. They are newlyweds and from the sound of their
realtor, they really want this house. But, I’m worried they won’t
wait. As you know, there’s a glut of houses on the market in
Brookside.”

“Seth, I will do my best. I promise. I’ll
call you the minute I get off the phone with her.” Burke hung up
the phone and threw it in the empty seat next to him. The tension
in his neck was working its way up to the back of his skull. He was
getting a nasty headache. Julie would have to wait. He would have
to be in a better mood before he called her.

Saturday Evening, March 11

Tom Burke had to admit that John Vithous
could curse with the best of them. “Fuck” was used as both as an
active and passive verb, and a noun, adverb and occasionally an
adjective. “Shit” seemed mostly in the realm of nouns, although
there were some verbs involved. “God damn” was sprinkled throughout
his prose. Put them all together and Vithous’ emails had the vibe
of a
Deadwood
script, but without David Milch’s
brilliance.

Getting a warrant for the emails hadn’t taken
long. The high profile murder in City Hall caused the judicial
system for once to move expeditiously. Burke had gotten the news
the second he got back to his office and sat down. At the moment,
Burke was reading Vithous’ official emails, he would look at the
personal stuff later. Since John Vithous seem to live at City Hall
and do nothing besides work, he didn’t think the personal email
would lead to much. Ditto with Vithous’ personal cell phone. At the
moment, he was satisfied trolling through the prodigious emails of
one Jonathan Vithous.

By Burke’s count, Vithous had written
seventy-eight emails from his official city account in the last 24
hours of his life.
Seventy-eight
. On the last official day
of his life, Vithous had emailed at 12:05 a.m., 1:38 a.m., 2:15
a.m., 5:54 a.m., and 6:30 a.m. And that was before he even got to
City Hall. Obviously the man did not sleep much.

Burke had managed to get a hold of the
Mayor’s official security and ascertained that Vithous had arrived
at City Hall at 8:20 a.m. Over the next twelve hours he managed to
compose seventy-three emails. That was over six an hour.

Some of the emails were very detailed--
asking the City Attorney about an upcoming ordinance, instructing a
staffer to get background information on an event the Mayor was
invited to. Others were much more succinct, or rather terse.
Burke’s favorite was a response to an email from the Mayor’s
communications director wanting input about doing a sit down
interview with a local TV reporter, known to be a blow-hard. The
communications director’s email was very well written (naturally)
seemed overly earnest and had several bullet points weighing the
pros and cons of doing such an interview. At the end of the email,
she asked Vithous for his input.
John, I know you are very busy,
but I would really appreciate any insight or guidance you could
provide on this matter.
Vithous’ response? Five words “
Stop
wasting my fucking time.”
Burke chuckled at this. How many
times had he been tempted to write such a thing, but thought better
of it?

The one email that piqued his curiosity most
of all was the last one.

Bethany:

While I would like to help you in creating
fantasies about the supposed subterfuge between the Mayor’s office
and the Viceroy Development, I have neither the time nor the
inclination. It is patently clear that you lack the basic
understanding about economic development law and how development
deals are conducted in Kansas City. This being the case, I will not
waste my time trying to disabuse you from your wrong conclusions
and inaccurate assertions.

I believe a better use of my time would be
to speak to Carl Roth about your inability to even get the basic
facts straight.

J.V.

Impressive, Burke thought. He was able to
compose an entire email without a curse word and still was able to
completely humiliate the recipient. Burke felt a good place to
start before the official forensics report came in would be to call
Bethany Edwards.

She was not hard to reach. One call to Rick
Kahn got Burke her cell phone number. She answered on the second
ring.

“Bethany Edwards,” she answered. It was clear
to Burke wherever she was, it was crowded and boisterous.

“Ms. Edwards, this Sgt. Tom Burke with the
Kansas City Police Department’s Murder Squad. I’d like to ask you a
few questions if I might about John Vithous.” Burke could hear the
sounds of the crowd and then Bethany yelling over it.

“Sgt. Burke, it’s hard to hear you but if you
like you could meet me in person.” She told him that she was at a
popular Thai noodle shop in the Crossroads.