A Deadly Development (8 page)

Burke paused for a moment to collect his
thoughts. He wanted to learn more from Murray; antagonizing him
wouldn’t help his cause.

“Like I said, I don’t care about your
personal life, I do care if John Vithous blackmailed you.”

“Fine. Yes, he blackmailed me. And you want
to know the worst part, Detective?” Murray asked. “It’s not that I
was derailed from running for a job I had wanted for years. Or the
fact that I think I could be a much more effective and equitable
mayor for the city. No, the worst part is that I had to go home and
have a discussion with my wife telling her that she might hear
things about me, but she had to believe me they weren’t true. I had
to try to explain to her that because one night I had given a
female employee, who happens to be attractive, a ride home. And
because of that generosity, John Vithous was telling people I was
having an affair because I had the nerve to think about running
against his sainted boss.” His voice had amplified enough that
Murray had finally noticed that he was almost shouting. He stopped
and lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

“Hell, I probably should have screwed her,
considering the fallout. At least then I would have gotten
something out of it. Most of the people who work in this building
think I actually banged her, anyway. They look at me differently.
They whisper about me in the elevators. They think less of me. All
of that for some political gain for our wonderful Mayor
Hughes.”

Burke had stopped writing again. He was
watching Murray’s face, seeing if it was betraying him. He had
become adept at knowing when people were lying to him, bad liars,
anyway. Years of talking to suspects had honed his skills. As far
as he could tell, Don Murray wasn’t lying. Or if he was, he was
extremely good at it. That seemed unlikely, seeing how he was in
the Mayor’s dog house with his career permanently aground. A better
liar would have a leadership position. But not Don Murray. He was
just biding time, collecting a paycheck until term limits forced
him to get a real job.

“I have to ask, where were you Friday night
from about 5 pm until 9pm?” Burke inquired.

Murray smiled.

“For once in my life, being around Jane
Hughes works in my favor. I was at Bartle Hall, at the same event
she was. Now, I wasn’t sitting at the table up front with her, no,
I was relegated to the table behind hers. Right next to her
security detail,” Murray smiled. He was obvious he was very proud
to announce the fact.

“Just usual procedure,” Burke replied. “I’ll
be asking all your colleagues the same thing.” He had started to
close his notebook, but thought better of it.

“One more thing, Councilman, if you don’t
mind?”

“OK,” Murray relented, “but I have a meeting
in 5 minutes, so it will have to be quick.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Burke assured him.
“I was just curious, what does it take to get a city street
rerouted so it abuts some private property?”

“Ok, Sergeant, I have to admit, I wasn’t
expecting that type of question,” Murray looked confused. “Say
again?”

“If I was a property owner who had some
potentially prime real estate but did not have access to a city
street, what would it take to get the road moved?”

“It would take a hell of a lot,” Murray
responded. “It depends on the particulars, but off the top of my
head it would take a bunch of survey work, condemnation of property
if the land where you were moving the road wasn’t publicly owned.
It would take public hearings, stakeholder input, that type of
thing.”

Burke could tell that his question got
Councilman Murray’s juices flowing.

“If you clear all those hurdles, then you got
to get your public improvement funded. That means you got to go
through my old committee, T and I...”

“T and I?” Burke asked.

“Transportation and Infrastructure – T and
I,” Murray explained. “As I was saying, any capital improvement
that size needs to have City Council approval. Plus, you have to
encumber the funds.”

“Encumber?” Burke was writing frantically,
but still failing to keep up.

“It means get the money out of the general
fund and set it aside until the project is built,” Murray went on,
“You see, the city has a five year capital plan. Projects are
prioritized and laid out five years in advance so there is
coordination around the city and money is split pretty much evenly
for each Council district. Just curious, how big is your road and
how far would you be moving it?”

“The road would be four lane, divided with an
island,” Burke was picturing what he saw just the morning before.
“As for the distance, somewhere around 150, to 200 yards.”

“Then you are talking major dollars,
Sergeant, probably close to a million dollars.”

“A million dollars?” Burke was incredulous.
“For a road?”

“Yes, you are forgetting that any project
would have to have environmental impact studies, traffic studies,
and you would have to pay any property owner for the land you had
condemned. Plus you have to pay prevailing wage to all the workers
who build it. It adds up.”

What Murray was telling him was just
reinforcing what he had seen and what Bethany Edwards had told him.
Viceroy wasn’t a lucky break. It was a well-oiled machine that had
been pushed along at breathtaking speed with great care.

“And the Mayor, I assume she would have to
be involved?” Burke was thinking out loud.

“Absolutely,” Don Murray stated, “capital
improvement projects are approved by citizen oversight committee,
she names the chair.” He was holding up fingers as he was counting
the steps.

“Then the Mayor has to assign the ordinance
needed for approval to a committee. Like I told you, she knows
which committee offers the path of least resistance.”

A third finger now popped up from his
fist.

“Then if you are utilizing state and federal
dollars to help pay for it, you need to coordinate with the city’s
state and federal lobbyists. Those firms are hired by the Mayor’s
office and coordinate with her staff. So yeah, I would say the
Mayor would be involved.”

Burke had one more question.

“What do you know about Viceroy?”

“Sergeant Burke, I’m going to be late to my
meeting.”

Monday March 13, afternoon

“Explain to me again how a housing
development has anything to do with our murder?” Jack Thurber asked
while cramming several French fries into his mouth. Thurber still
chewed with his mouth open and was fifty years old, Burke thought:
Who the hell does still does that?

“Mixed-use development,” Burke corrected him.
And he did solely to piss Thurber off.

“Fuck me, Tom, mixed-use, no use, what do I
care? I’m trying to solve a murder. You apparently are trying to
play Monopoly.”

It was almost 3:30. They had spent over seven
hours at City Hall, talking to anyone and everyone that had a
connection to John Vithous. Burke got to meet all twelve members of
the City Council, including his own representative, who apparently
had a younger sister who went through the entire Catholic school
system with Burke. He had pretended to remember the woman, which
was a lie, but he thought better of hurting the Councilman’s
feelings. Who knew? Maybe he would come in handy someday.

“I don’t know if ties directly to our murder,
but it was the last thing our victim ever emailed about and does
appear to look more than a tad bit shady,” Burke responded. But
Thurber was right, Burke realized. At the moment, it really didn’t
have anything to do with a murder. Maybe graft, but he couldn’t for
the life of him make it anything more than that.

“What do you think our next move should be?”
Burke replied, eating some of his salad.

“I don’t know how you eat that rabbit food
shit, Tom, I really don’t.” Thurber had a look of disgust on his
face as he piled in another fistful of barbecue sandwich in his
face. Burke decided to avert his eyes before he became
nauseated.

“Michaels wants us to do
something
,”
Thurber stated while pulling out his notes again and turning the
pages until he found what he was looking for. “How about we go talk
to this Douglas character that got busted boosting laptops and
purses.”

“You really think that clown graduated from
petty crimes to capital murder? Now who’s reaching?” Tom smirked as
he said it. He enjoyed busting Jack’s chops as much as Jack did
his.

“If nothing else, it gets us out of here for
a bit and out from Michaels’ stink eye until he goes home,” Thurber
offered. “Beautiful out there too, got to be at least 60.”

Burke sighed and then shrugged.

“What the hell, let’s get out of here.”

It was only a five minute drive to Douglas’
apartment near downtown. It took fifteen because Jack needed smokes
and insisted they stop at a convenience store on the way. Once
there, they ran into a couple uniforms that were on break, and Jack
decided it was a good time to start bull shitting. Burke was too
tired for the social scene, so he retired back to the car to drink
his Gatorade.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Thurber
asked as he threw in a carton of cigarettes in the back of the car.
“Too good for the men in blue?”

“Just tired. Long day.”

“And to think, some people think Tom Burke is
a prima donna!” Thurber responded, his voice full of sarcasm.

It was apparent from the moment they drove up
to the property that Mr. Douglas had failed in his career of petty
theft, because he lived in a dump. The type of dump you would go to
shoot up some dope or hide a prostitute. Burke had visited more of
these places than he cared to remember. They all were pretty much
alike. The entry smelled of dried urine and stale cigarettes.

The brick apartment had to be almost 100
years old. At some point, it might have been a nice place to live.
It was three stories, with screened front porches and even some
Greek columns. But time and neglect had set in. Even more damning,
Interstate 70 had been plopped down less than fifty yards from the
front door. The constant roar of traffic was almost deafening.

Thurber had lucked out. The apartment was on
the first floor, so his impending coronary was less likely to
strike this day. Burke could tell he was relieved. Still, Jack was
sweating, in only sixty degree weather.
The man could sweat in a
snowstorm
, Burke thought.

A couple pounds on the door and an
authoritative “Open up. KCPD!” had led to nothing. They were about
to give up when Thomas Douglas came walking around the corner with
two plastic bags from Kwik Trip in his hands. However, the second
he saw Burke and Thurber, he dropped the bags and ran.

“Shit!” Burke said as he took off after him.
He knew Thurber would be worthless in a foot chase.

For a scrawny white guy with crappy leather
shoes, the boy could move. Burke was gaining on him, but it was
taking more time than he would have liked. Running in a suit and
jacket were not ideal and the kid started with a 20 yard lead.
Burke inched closer, until he saw the Interstate. “
Would Douglas
be that crazy?”
Burke thought, but before he could answer his
own question Douglas used one hand to jump over the guard rail and
into the fray.

A cacophony of screeching tires and horns
erupted. Douglas made it two lanes until his luck ran out. The
semi-truck driver didn’t even hit his brakes. He hit him going at
least sixty miles an hour. Burke watched as Douglas was launched a
good 15 feet in the air, before hitting the top of the semi,
tumbling backwards like a ragdoll, hitting the pavement and then
being promptly run over by a SUV behind the truck. It was
gruesome.

“Fuck!” Tom screamed, to no one in
particular. He was thinking of the paperwork nightmare, and how the
rest of his day, and most likely his evening, were ruined.

“Stupid fuck!”

“Did he just do what I think he did?”
Thurber yelled, still thirty yards behind Burke. Thurber was
gassed, his hands on his hips.

“Yep,” Burke responded. “Call it in.”

The rest of Monday had been ruined. Over an
hour and a half at the scene. Then an additional two hours
answering Michaels’ pointed questions and filling out
paperwork.

Burke’s favorite part was how people kept
honking at them as they waited for the ambulance and the coroner to
arrive. The Missouri Highway patrol had closed down two of the
three westbound lanes, and traffic had slowed to a crawl. It was
clear from the body bag and the blood stains that someone had died.
One businesswoman, in a white gleaming SUV about the size of a
cruise ship was unrelenting. She sat on her horn, and would not let
up. Burke finally had enough.

“Lay off the goddamn horn!” he shouted. She
promptly flipped him off.

“I’m trying to get to my daycare before it
closes and I get fined, asshole!” she screamed out the window.

Burke pulled out his badge and walked towards
her.

“Hit that horn one more fucking time and
you’ll be getting more than a fine from the daycare,” he
shouted.

It worked. The woman sheepishly rolled up her
window and failed to make eye contact for the entire time she was
stuck in traffic.

They had gotten back to headquarters around
seven, and Burke had headed for the gym before going home. Every
time he got tired or wanted to put down the weights, he thought of
the woman flipping him off. Then he would do a few more reps.

He got home exhausted and drained. He saw
that his mother had called once again, but he didn’t have the
energy for that. He also needed to call Bethany Edwards back, but
that would have to wait until the morning. He showered and wanted
to go to sleep, but there was one call he couldn’t put off.