American Conspiracy

by M. J. Polelle

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  From the wall of Dugan’s on Halsted, the poster-sized photo of young mayor Richard J. Daley smiled on Jim Murphy, who returned the smile with a lift of his Guinness pint. “Here’s to the luck of the Irish. We’ll need more of it.” He turned to Nicole on the stool next to him. “And to you for your help.”

  Nicole clinked her hurricane glass of piña colada against his pint. “It was your hunch.”

  True, but Ollie the chemist had turned hunch into fact. Mora’s tantalum-and-zirconium knee implant had a melting point higher than the capacity of the dysfunctional blast furnaces at Kinzie Steel. On behalf of his employer, Vulcan Metallurgy, Ollie had determined the blast furnaces at best reached a temperature of around 1,660 to 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. But tantalum only melted at 5,463 degrees Fahrenheit and zirconium at 3,463 degrees.

  He also was indebted to her. She had found Mora’s tantalum-and-zirconium knee implant in the slag heap outside Kinzie Steel. But it didn’t feel like a debt. It felt like a gift.

  With that evidence, the luck of the Irish got him to first base where he obtained a search warrant for the interior of the Kinzie Steel mill. The unusual replacement joint made it probable the knee implant belonged to Mora. With the warrant, he did a thorough search of Kinzie Steel. Inside the mill he made it to second base when his officers found two tumblers in Senex’s office. One bore the partial fingerprints of Angelo Mora and the other those of Sebastian Senex.

  The luck of the Irish stopped at the preliminary hearing before trial. At the hearing he was tagged out sliding into third base. The preliminary judge found no probable cause to try Sebastian Senex for the murder of Angelo Mora. Case dismissed.

  “Why,” Nicole asked, “didn’t the judge find probable cause to try him?”

  He shrugged without explaining his suspicions. It would sound like sour grapes and who knew? Maybe it was. Maybe his native city had made him overly skeptical. But only the naive wanted express proof of a quid pro quo. Nowadays, the quid and the quo were always understood without being expressed. This wasn’t the 1930s where the predetermined bangs of a gavel meant an envelope of cash had changed hands.

  The case was transferred twice to two different judges before it wound up before the judge who dismissed the murder charge. The judge socialized with the sleazebag defense attorney who had a fixer reputation. The attorney had made a substantial contribution to the judge’s reelection campaign. The case had the smell of a fix. Not sour grapes. Cops had different noses from civilians. They were sommeliers when it came to the subtle aromas of corruption in the Windy City.

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “It’s a heater case. Too much publicity. The state’s attorney refuses to refile it without more evidence. He’s afraid of appearing to persecute a pillar of the community.”

  “Strange place, this Chicago.”

  “Not if you’re from here.”

  “Hold on.” She slipped off the stool and put coins into the jukebox. “Just in Time” sung by Sarah Vaughan filled the air. She stopped in front of a mirror to fix her hair.

  “Look on the bright side,” she said slipping back onto her barstool. “The superintendent is bound to formally appoint you commander.”

  “Hope so. Being commander is what I want. To shape up the district, I’ll need the superintendent’s full backing.”

  “Making you interim was just his way of testing you. You’ve passed. Crime has gone down in your police district, and Senex is going down soon.” She patted his arm. “And you’re going up.”

  “I know I can clean up the Thirteenth District.”

  “When’s the president,” she said, “giving her press conference?”

  He looked at his cell. “Anytime now.”

  “Think she’ll make good on her threat?”

  “Not her.” He remembered how she had chewed him out for stopping her Jaguar on Lake Shore Drive. “All talk, no action . . . like most politicians.”

  “I think you’re wrong.” She hummed for a moment to the tune of the song on the jukebox and then broke off. “Is the state attorney’s office at least going to charge Senex for the gangbanger deaths?”

  “If they’re not going after Senex for Mora’s murder, what do you think?”

  “No.”

  “Bingo.”

  He had implored the state attorney’s office to at least go after Senex for those gangbanger deaths and disappearances. Back off, they told him. They said he was turning his feelings about Senex into a vendetta. He was too involved with the death of his son. They scorned his belief that gangbanger blood was used for parabiosis experimentation to rejuvenate Senex. They turned him out the door and said not to return without more evidence.

  Despite their bluster, he knew why no assistant state’s attorney wanted to take the case. They wanted records of wins and no losses so their boss, Mr. State’s Attorney, would have an election talking point. Taking a long-shot case wasn’t in his interest or theirs. They feared being known as losers if they weren’t victorious. For too many of them, justice was a zero-sum game where all that mattered was whether you won. Not how hard you tried to get justice.

  At Nicole’s request, the bartender switched channels to the press conference. “Look.” She pointed to the TV set over the bar. “It’s already started.”

  On the TV screen, President Dallas Taylor reminded a reporter that when her attorney general had sought to enforce Promethean Pharma’s obligation to negotiate the inflated price of Anoflix, the company ceased producing the drug. It did so to evade its duty to negotiate.

  “What is the administration’s next step,” another reporter asked.

  The president replied that her administration had no choice but to invoke the Bayh-Dole Act. That act provided the authority to compel Promethean Pharma to issue licenses to other pharmaceutical companies willing to manufacture and distribute Anoflix at a reasonable price. The patent would still remain the intellectual property of Promethean Pharma.

  Hands shot into the air like eager grammar school children wanting recognition. She recognized the CNN reporter. The reporter asked whether any pharmaceutical companies had so far been issued compulsory licenses. Taylor answered in the negative but added that Health and Human Services was engaged in a worldwide search for likely manufacturers.

  “Still think she’s all talk and no action?” Nicole asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  Just then Marco and Katie came through the door of Dugan’s to join them. The two crowded around Jim and Nicole on their barstools.

  “More good news I hear,” Katie said, slapping her brother on the back. “I talked to Bryan last week. He says you two are getting along better.”

  “Thanks to you, Katie. You’re the family glue.”

  Without his sister there’d be no truce with Bryan. Ever the peacemaker, she had arranged one between them. In return for a trial visitation where the man Jim still considered his father would temporarily stay with Bryan in DC, Bryan would shelve a custody lawsuit for the time being. She took it on herself to chaperone their father to DC until he was in Bryan’s safe hands. Bryan would return their father when upcoming Justice Department business required his return to Chicago.

  “Time to go to the superintendent’s office,” Marco reminded him. “He expects us.”

  “It’s in the bag,” Katie nudged her brother. “Commander Jim Murphy.”

  “We have a saying,” Marco said. “Never promise the sun before it rises.”

  With Jim Murphy in the passenger seat, Marco Leone turned the squad car into the parking lot of police headquarters at Thirty-Fifth and Michigan. On the way, Marco updated Jim about the investigation into the theft of the superintendent’s Lexus and its subsequent use in a gangland killing.

  He barely paid attention to Marco’s report because that wasn’t what the meeting was
about. The superintendent would grill him to find out if he had what it took to turn his district into what it should be. He had prepared a wealth of ideas for de-escalating tensions in minority neighborhoods and reforming a stop-and-frisk policy.

  As he entered the office, the superintendent looked up from his desk. “Have a seat, Jim. Good to see ya.”

  The superintendent liked to use a first-name informality in formal situations. The scuttlebutt was he did this out of a desire to be everybody’s friend. He was the compromise choice for superintendent between a police board and mayor at odds. As a result, no faction in the city was truly happy with his recent appointment.

  The superintendent was a cop’s cop rising from the ranks with a knack for keeping his head down and picking the winners in office and city politics. He also had kept his nose clean when it came to the daily temptations every cop faced. From a diversity viewpoint he was perfect. With a father half Irish and Hispanic and a mother of African American heritage, he had for the moment pacified major political constituencies.

  “It’s a busy day,” the superintendent said. “So I’ll get down to business.”

  In his mind Murphy rehearsed his expression of gratitude when the superintendent would tell him he was officially the new commander of the Thirteenth District. He was eager to explain his plans so the superintendent would know he had made the right choice.

  The superintendent’s smile faded. He asked in a hushed tone lowered almost to a whisper, “Any progress on my stolen Lexus?”

  “Wha . . . ?” Murphy recovered in time to remember the briefing Marco had given him in the squad car. “The Lexus was used in an attempted drug buy and in a drive-by shooting after the buy went sideways. One person dead. A patrol car found it in Fuller Park. Torched and now a burned-out shell. Probably gasoline accelerant.”

  “Je-sus.” The superintendent ran his hand through a curly thatch of hair. “They stole it right out there.” He pointed out the window behind him. “Right under our noses at police headquarters, in the parking lot. Can you believe the balls?” He hunched over his desk toward Murphy. “It doesn’t look good.” He cast eyes down on the desk. “Any reporters get wind of it?”

  “Not yet. It’s bound to break.”

  “Do what you can to keep it under wraps.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “We got to spin it. Maybe the car’s not mine.”

  “The secretary of state has your name on the title.”

  “Come up with something.” He scratched his head. “Any leads?”

  “A confidential informant fingered the Latin Barons . . . a splinter group from the Latin Kings.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No.” Murphy squirmed in his seat. “The CI says undercover officers stopped the car after the carjack and before the buy.” He rubbed his throat. “The officers . . . according to the CI, mind you . . . skimmed the cash the Latin Barons had taken for the buy . . . and then let them go.”

  “Je-sus. Dirty cops?” The superintendent looked toward the ceiling. “Cut me a break up there.” He lowered his eyes and locked them on Murphy. “Anything to it?”

  “The CI’s a crackhead with a long rap sheet.”

  “I need to know one thing . . . Is he reliable?”

  “That’s why we use him.”

  “Set up a sting. See if the undercover cops take the bait.”

  “Right on it.”

  “Thanks for coming in, Jim. Now back to my inbox.” He reached for a stack of papers in the lower part of his two-tiered inbox. “That’ll be all.”

  “Nothing else?” he asked.

  “Should there be?” He slapped his forehead with his hand. “Of course.” He ran his hand through his thick hair. “I can’t appoint you commander of the Thirteenth District. A transfer will be taking over.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Street cops don’t like what they call a cheese-eating rat who rats on one of their own.” He held out his hands in resignation. “I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying it is . . . and as the super I have to be concerned with CPD morale.”

  “You’re saying I didn’t do my duty by cooperating with the FBI.” He squeezed the arms of his chair. “Is the FBI now one of the bad guys?”

  “Listen up, Detective Murphy.” His muscles tightened around his jutting jaw. “I have to run a department in the middle of a crime crisis.” He struggled to stand up. Too much time behind a desk had turned his stomach to flab. “I’ll give it to you straight.” Once up, he held on to the edge of the desk. “Cops are asking for transfers out of your district. They walk the other way when you approach. They don’t like you. I need someone else for commander. Case closed.”

  “I’ll clear my things out of Cronin’s old office at once.”

  “Not so fast. We need time to transfer in the new commander. You’re still my interim.”

  “How can I do my job if they know I’m only interim?”

  “Just don’t rock any boats . . . and don’t rely on backup if you’re in the field. It might not come.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Geez . . . I wish it were otherwise but it’s not. Good day, Detective.”

  Murphy saluted and walked out of the office. The luck of the Irish.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “You promised to help, Sebastian. We’ve tried everything but she’s fading.”

  Sebastian Senex poked at his crab cake sandwich in Bullfeathers restaurant near Capitol Hill. Brock Brewster’s refusal to take no for an answer tested his patience.

  “If it cured your Huntington’s, it might cure my wife.”

  Senex nodded to the passing lobbyist on his payroll but blew off the lobbyist’s attempt at conversation for a more important matter. He had to take Brewster in hand before things spun out of control.

  “I don’t want to lose her.” Brewster closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Without her prodding I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

  With that assessment Senex agreed. She provided the political fire in the belly her husband lacked. Senex and the wife had their extramarital fling without Brewster being the wiser. Why she broke off the affair was beyond belief. She dumped a winner like him for someone like Brewster. And now he was supposed to help her? She had made her bed with Brewster, not him. Let her lie in that deathbed.

  “Are you listening, Sebastian?”

  “What about your promise to go to court?”

  “I kept my promise. I sued to stop the Speaker from becoming president.” Brewster put down his forkful of salad. “It’s not my fault we got thrown out of district court in record time.”

  “You didn’t appeal.”

  “Are you serious?” Brewster pushed away the salad bowl. “Clyde Pomeroy died in the explosion on the subway train. A dead man can’t be president.”

  “That’s not the point.” Brewster motioned the waiter over for the check. “I have my sources. You decided not to appeal before he died.”

  “What, in God’s name, is the point?”

  “The point is you planned to disobey me.” He dabbed at his lips and chin with the napkin. “How can I trust associates who keep secrets?”

  “You baffle me.” Brewster stopped talking to sign an autograph for a passerby. “We are without a president. Until the House selects one, we know Dallas Taylor is a danger to the country. And yet your concern is I didn’t jump high enough when you whistled?”

  “Here’s the bottom line, Brewster.” Senex left cash on the table for the bill. “The Speaker’s dead. You didn’t plan to fully keep your part of the deal. So, I don’t owe you anything.”

  “Don’t owe me?” His eyes widened. He leaned in toward Senex. “Like you wanted, I’ve exhausted myself buttonholing and buttering up every congressman I can lay hands on to get elected president.”

  “Like I wanted?” He expel
led air through his teeth and lips. Pfft. “You loved doing it. You pleaded for my help, although your wife urged you to stay away from me.”

  “She and I had our differences.” He lowered his head and stared at the table. “But I love her. She needs me now.”

  “Your devotion is admirable.” Senex replaced his wallet inside his jacket. “But it’s not just your failure to appeal. If I give you the treatment protocol, the secret will get out before Promethean Pharma can profit from it.”

  “I can keep a secret.” Brewster took Senex’s hand. “For my wife’s sake.”

  “Stop begging.” He pulled his hand away. “I’ll think about it.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  “We didn’t ask you to fly out to DC.” The US Capitol Police sergeant wiped pizza grease from his mouth. “We just wanted assistance.”

  The sergeant tossed the half-eaten pizza slice back into the delivery box on the conference table. It landed on the leftovers of a pepperoni pizza with a pseudo-mozzarella topping the consistency of heart plaque. “Chicago’s not the only place, you know, that has telephones, faxes, internet, and mail service.”

  “I had to be here anyway,” Jim Murphy said, “to testify in your superior court.”

  Styrofoam coffee cups ringed the table with the leavings of unfinished Danish and doughnuts on paper plates. The station-house cuisine made him feel right at home.

  “What for?”

  “Family business.” None of your business got no further than the tip of his tongue.

  The mad dash by cab from the DC airport to testify in court and then on to the Capitol Police headquarters left him cranky. He had to keep his cool. The Chicago Police Department needed help from the Capitol cops on a multistate drug bust. It wouldn’t pay to piss them off.

  “Why’s it so warm in here?” Murphy popped open the top button of his shirt.