Desperate Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  The meeting itself had shocked him down to his toes. Having had no idea why the governor wanted to see him, the offer of the vacant senate seat was absolutely stunning. When Dahlstrom began talking about the recent unexpected death of Minnesota’s junior senator, for the first few minutes Prentiss was totally confused why he was even in attendance. And when the governor dropped the bomb on him, he was too stunned to speak.

  Prentiss parked the car in its space in the garage and went into the house through the kitchen. Once inside he went straight to the bar in his study. He quickly tossed down the first double shot of single malt then poured another. The alcohol had given him enough of a jolt to get his mind working again and he took the big leather chair behind his father’s walnut desk to contemplate his future. Some significant opportunities had been handed to him and all he had to do was fill the senate seat for a few months, vote the way the leadership wanted, then step aside when the new Congress was sworn in. How hard could that be?

  When his time in the senate was up he would have a decision to make. Dahlstrom had dangled a seat on the Minnesota Supreme Court in front of him or maybe a federal judgeship which a governor does not appoint but can have a great deal of influence in who is selected. But it was Paul Thatch who may have come up with the best suggestion. Even a few months in the U.S. Senate would give Prentiss the connections to score a position with any number of high powered D.C. lobbying firms. The starting pay at one of these places for an ex-senator was a cool half million per year. And it went up from there. There were former congress members and senators making five to ten million per year.

  As he sipped his scotch, he looked up at the ceiling of the study and thought about Catherine. He assumed she was upstairs in bed asleep since it was almost midnight. Prentiss thought about her and what to do with her. Dahlstrom had made it clear she was to attend the afternoon press conference when the announcement would be made. Then what? Should he bring her to Washington or leave her here? He would need her to help him socially which of course meant politically. He would have preferred to simply leave her in Minnesota but that was not practical.

  Prentiss tossed down the last of his drink and stood to go upstairs and wake her. Instead of leaving the empty glass on the bar, he poured two more fingers from the Waterford decanter before heading for the stairs.

  He rapped his knuckles on her bedroom door loud enough to wake her then tried the door handle. Catherine had wanted to put a lock on her door but Gordon would not allow it. Stepping into the room, he flipped the switch for the lights just as she was sitting up. Catherine held her left hand in front of her eyes to shield them from the sudden light and with obvious irritation said, “What do you want, Gordon?”

  “I have something I need to tell you,” he answered as he moved her vanity chair next to her bed. He sat down on the chair and as she pulled the blankets and her knees up to her chin then slid across the bed as far away from him as she could get, he proceeded to tell her his news.

  “The governor wants to appoint you to the U.S. Senate? I don’t understand,” she said when he had finished.

  “Why not? I’m perfectly capable of doing the job!” he said, the anger showing on his face.

  “It’s not that,” she said trying to soften her questioning of his appointment. “It’s just that you’ve never been very politically involved. At least not at that level.”

  “Yes, I see your point. In fact, we talked about that,” Gordon said more calmly. “He told me he wanted someone who wasn’t overly political but was a solid Republican.”

  “And you say Harold Jennrich was there?” she asked.

  “Yes, why do you ask?” Gordon said.

  “No reason,” she answered. She immediately understood what was going on even if Gordon was too dense or narcissistic to see it. Catherine knew why this was happening. Ted Dahlstrom was doing his friend, Harold Jennrich, Gordon’s boss on the Hennepin County Courts, a favor by getting rid of a judge he probably despised. She also felt absolutely appalled at the thought of her monster husband becoming a United States Senator and afterwards, a state Supreme Court justice or federal judge. She managed to hide it from Gordon but she was literally becoming nauseous.

  Gordon then told her about the press conference scheduled for the afternoon and what was expected of her. He sat on the edge of her bed, leaned over toward her, sternly looked her in the eye and said, “You will be the dutiful, cooperative, loving wife. Do you understand?”

  She nodded her head, a look of fear in her eyes and quietly muttered, “Yes, Gordon, I understand.” At the same time she was thinking, almost frantically, of how she could stop this insanity.

  At one o’clock that afternoon, Prentiss, Catherine, and Governor Dahlstrom were standing at the podium in the Capitol building. At least two dozen TV and print reporters were arrayed before them while Dahlstrom made his announcement and introduced Judge Prentiss and his lovely wife Catherine to the herd of journalists, all of whom were stunned by the governor’s selection.

  Prentiss spent about twenty minutes making a very brief statement basically thanking the governor and vowing to represent the people of Minnesota to the best of his ability and then answered a few questions while Catherine did her best to act happy. She even managed to coherently answer two questions herself before the governor’s press secretary rescued her and ended the dog and pony show. All the while Catherine wanted to flee to get back home and spend time thinking through the decision she had made.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Bruce Dolan was at the desk in his splendidly furnished corner office with his door locked for privacy. Despite the fact that Conrad Hilton assured him his office was not bugged, he had it swept at least twice a month and was still careful about what he said concerning Leo and any of Leo’s endeavors.

  Dolan was going over the list of Leo’s clients Conrad had provided for him. There were twenty-two names in all and Dolan figured there were far more than that in total. The list was a good start and he was trying to select a half dozen or so for them to begin with.

  The intercom on his phone buzzed and he hit the button to answer it. “Yes, Laura, what is it?”

  “Do you have your TV on Bruce?”

  “No, why? What’s going on?” he asked as he opened the top right drawer to retrieve the remote. He pointed it at the forty inch flat screen in the corner and pushed the power button.

  “Turn it to Channel 8. The governor’s holding a press conference.”

  “Okay, I will, thanks,” Dolan replied as he changed the channel and hung up the phone.

  The picture changed and he immediately saw Ted Dahlstrom standing at a podium answering a reporter’s question.

  “Holy shit,” he quietly said to himself when he saw who was standing to Dahlstrom’s left side. He pushed the volume control button to increase the sound and heard the governor say, “Judge Prentiss is being sent to the U.S. Senate precisely because he is not a professional politician. He’ll do an excellent job representing…”

  “You have got to be shitting me!” Dolan said out loud. “Ted Dahlstrom is sending that idiot Prentiss to the Senate. Who could come up with that idea?”

  He hit the mute button on the remote and reached for the phone to call Leo Balkus. Before he hit the number one speed-dial button, he thought better of it and hung up the phone. Instead he stood up, folded the paper with the list of names, retrieved his suit coat from the valet stand in the corner behind his desk and headed for the door.

  He was putting the list in his inside coat pocket as he reached the reception area where several office staff and lawyers had gathered to watch the press conference. He stopped to watch next to the receptionist’s desk who looked up at him and asked, “What do you think?”

  “I have no idea what this is about,” Dolan replied. “Some kind of political payback for something but I can’t imagine what. I’m going out for the rest of the day. Do I have any appointments this afternoon?”

  “Just one,” she replied. “A Lyle
Hackett at 3:30.”

  “He’s just going to drop off a check. Tell him something came up, get the check from him and if he needs to see me, set it up for a couple days from now.”

  He pulled his Cadillac XTS into traffic heading for downtown Minneapolis. Using the car’s built-in phone, he called Conrad’s cell which was answered on the third ring.

  “Yeah,” Conrad said.

  “It’s Bruce. We need to meet right away. Now.”

  “I figured you’d be calling. You must’ve heard about Prentiss.”

  “Be at that place we met last time. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Eighteen minutes later Dolan parked his car in the same lot at Wirth Park he had used three days before. He strolled down the same walking path until he saw Conrad sitting in the shade under the same tree on the same bench they had sat on before. It was a cloudy and cooler day than normal with rain predicted for later in the afternoon. This would explain the smaller than normal crowd in the largest park in the city.

  He joined Conrad on the bench and with no preliminary small talk said, “Okay. Prentiss just got moved to the top of the list.”

  He removed a small notepad of paper, a pen and the list of names from the inside pocket of his suit coat. Dolan unfolded the list, looked it over and wrote eight of the names on a page of the notepad, tore it off and gave it to Conrad.

  “Tonight, after closing, I want you to go into Leo’s computer and pull all of these files onto your computer and erase them from his. Can you do that without leaving a trace?”

  “Sure, no problem. Why so many?”

  “We need to confuse him. We don’t want to let him know who we’re looking at.”

  “What about the DVD’s?”

  “I’ll get those. Don’t worry about it. I have a set of keys he knows nothing about.”

  “What do you think we can get from Prentiss?”

  “A half a million easy. A senate seat is worth a lot more than that. Just be careful that Leo’s computer guy can’t trace you. To get the DVD’s I’ll go in after the place closes. Are you tapped into the security cameras outside the restaurant and in his office in a way so you can make the cameras show what we want? So the cameras don’t see me or record me? They just record an empty office and parking lot?”

  “Sure. No problem. I can splice in a continuous loop of both.”

  “Good. You monitor the feed from your place and when the restaurant is empty, you call me and I’ll go in. What about the security alarm inside his office?”

  “I can block that from the outside,” Conrad answered. “Leo will notice the discs are missing.”

  “No, no. I’ll replace them with blanks. I know what kind he uses.”

  “Bruce,” Conrad nervously said. “Are you sure you want to do this? If Leo ever gets wind of it, he won’t ask questions, he’ll…”

  “I can handle Leo. Don’t get cold feet on me now, damnit! I told you, we’ll get easily three to four million each from this and then, poof, I’m gone. You need to make plans too. After we do this we can’t hang around here. Disappear somewhere and live quietly and well.”

  “Yeah, it would be nice if I don’t have to spend another January freezing my ass off in this place.”

  “Exactly. Listen, I’m going to take off. I’ll call you later.”

  Dolan parked his car a couple of spaces away from the back door to Leo’s office. He pushed the buzzer, looked up at the camera and opened the door when he heard the lock click open. He went into Leo’s office to find the gangster alone and pacing back and forth in front of his desk. Leo stopped when Dolan entered, looked at his lawyer but said nothing.

  “Leo,” Dolan said nodding at him in greeting. “What’s wrong? You look like something’s bothering you.”

  “What’s wrong? It’s this Prentiss thing,” he replied.

  “What Prentiss thing?” Dolan asked feigning ignorance.

  “You haven’t heard? That idiot governor is going to appoint him to the U.S. Senate to take over for the dead fag, Maslin,” Leo snorted. “That’s what’s bothering me. I’m trying to figure out the best way to handle this.”

  “Dahlstrom appointed Gordon Prentiss to finish out Maslin’s term? You’re kidding. This has got to be a joke.”

  “Turn the goddamn TV on,” Leo said pointing at the screen hanging on the wall opposite the couch. “It’s all over the news.”

  Dolan picked up the remote control from the corner of Leo’s desk, stepped around the desk to the middle of the room and turned the TV on as Leo slumped down on the couch. Dolan stood watching as Melinda Pace confirmed what Leo had told him. He watched for a couple of minutes then used the remote to shut off the set, sat down in a chair across from Leo and pretended to think over the news.

  “Leo listen,” he finally said. “Having a U.S. Senator in your pocket might not be such a bad thing.”

  “Why? You think I’ll apply for a corn subsidy? I need this asshole on the local bench, not playing senator for six months in Washington. Besides,” he angrily continued, “I don’t need any help with the feds.”

  “Really? Why is that?” Dolan quickly asked. This had been a subject that had bothered Dolan for a long time.

  “Don’t worry about that. I spoke out of school. I won’t let him accept this. I’ll use the pictures and film I have to keep him right where he is. Right where I need him.”

  Doan had anticipated this and was ready with a suggestion. “Let it cool down for a couple of days first. He’s not going anywhere for at least two or three weeks. It will take him that long to clear his caseload and get everything reassigned. Give it a few days then talk to him. Let the dust settle. He’ll need to come up with a reason for backing out of it.”

  Leo silently contemplated his lawyer’s advice then said, “Okay, you’re probably right.”

  Leo stood up and said, “Let’s go out to the restaurant and check things over. I got some people coming around in about an hour for a meeting. As long as you’re here, you can sit in. Then we’ll get some dinner.”

  At exactly 2:00 A.M., Conrad called Dolan’s cell phone to let him know the last of the employees had left the Blue Lady. Dolan was sitting in his car on a side street a half a mile from the restaurant when the call came in. He got out of the car and dressed in black jeans, sneakers, and a black hoodie while carrying a small canvas bag, Dolan walked the streets until he came to the parking lot behind the restaurant and headed toward the backdoor.

  The lawyer knew exactly where the cameras were located so he strolled through the lot and walked passed them with his head down and his shoulders slumped. If the cameras were recording, he would appear as a man just walking through the lot and nothing more. When he was out of range of the cameras, he called Conrad who assured him the cameras did not pick him up and that the picture of an empty lot was all they were getting.

  Satisfied, and praying Conrad would not betray him, he went back to the back door he had entered that afternoon and used his key to get in. Once inside Leo’s office, he put on gloves and spent fifteen minutes removing the DVDs he wanted and exchanging them with the blank discs he had brought in the bag. Dolan finished what he came for, left through the back door and almost ran back to his car. Once inside the black Cadillac, he sat in the driver’s seat, his forehead resting on the steering wheel and waited another ten minutes for his breathing, temperature and heart to return to normal before driving off.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Vivian Donahue was doing something she rarely did, in fact, something she diligently avoided. She was watching television in the mansion’s small theater, at least small in comparison to a full-sized commercial theater. It came complete with stadium seating for thirty and a two hundred inch high definition specially made television screen.

  Vivian had received a phone call from a friend, a state senator who was a close friend of the family, notifying her of the governor’s press conference. There was a knock on the door and a moment later, her favorite grandchild, Adrienn
e entered the room, said hello and took the seat next to her grandmother.

  “What are you watching, Gram?” Adrienne asked.

  “I’m afraid I’m watching a fool do something stupid dear,” she answered.

  “Is he announcing his choice to fill the senate seat?”

  “Yes, unfortunately he is.”

  “Who did he pick?”

  “Judge Gordon Prentiss,” Vivian answered shaking her head.

  “Who?”

  “Exactly,” Vivian replied.

  “No seriously, Grandma. Who is he?”

  Vivian held up her left index finger as a gesture to indicate she wanted to watch more of the press conference as Prentiss stepped up to the podium. The two of them watched in silence for the next fifteen minutes while Prentiss read a brief, prepared statement then fielded a few questions. Even after the governor’s press secretary had ended the announcement, Vivian continued to stare at the large screen with a puzzled expression on her face.

  “That woman must have been Mrs. Prentiss,” Adrienne said. “She didn’t look very happy about the whole thing.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Vivian quietly answered. “And Ted Dahlstrom has some serious ‘splainin’ to do, as Desi Arnaz used to say.”

  “Who is Desi Arnaz, Grandma?”

  At that moment there was another knock on the door and when the bodyguard on duty opened it he informed Vivian that Tony Carvelli had arrived.

  “Thank you, Candace. Take him to the library and I’ll be right there.”

  As the two women stood to leave, Vivian turned off the TV and Adrienne said with a sly smile, “What’s up with you and Tony, Grandma?”