The Strategist

by John Hardy Bell

  And she was capable, despite the memories that continued to haunt her, despite the demons that refused to stop whispering failure in her ear.

  Now was the time that she would finally stand up to fight. She still wasn’t sure if she trusted herself not to fall again. But it didn’t matter if she did. Avenging Julia’s death would be all the motivation she would ever need to pick herself back up.

  The pity parade is over, she thought as she saw her father standing in the driveway.

  Suddenly, Daniel Sykes’ face began to fade and the demons whispering in her ear were barely audible. Camille wasn’t sure how long she could keep them at bay, but right now she didn’t care.

  It just felt good to finally stop running.

  CHAPTER 31

  Walter Graham sat at his desk in silence. He hadn’t spoken a word to Detective Sullivan since their meeting with Camille ended. It wasn’t that he didn’t have anything to say, he simply didn’t want to say the wrong thing. Camille had thrown him a curve ball the likes of which he could have never imagined, and in his mind he had already whiffed at it several times. He was confident that Sullivan hadn’t seen his frayed nerves in the conference room. But he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep them hidden.

  When Sullivan emerged from the bathroom and proceeded to make a bee-line for his desk, he knew he would have to keep up appearances a little while longer.

  “It’s been half an hour, Walter. Are you planning on talking about what just happened, or are we just going to pretend that Camille Grisham was never here?”

  “I’m not pretending that she wasn’t here. I just don’t think anything she said is particularly worth talking about.”

  A look of disbelief flooded Sullivan’s face. “Nothing worth talking about? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “She’s an emotional wreck, Chloe. Her best friend was just murdered and she’s grasping at anything she can get her hands on to find out who killed her. Look, she even said so herself, she has no direct evidence that Elliott Richmond had anything to do with Julia Leeds aside from an affair. Granted that’s not a good thing to do when you’re married, but last time I checked, adultery is not a capital offense. Nor does it lead to murder. There’s no evidence that ties him to Julia’s house. In fact, if you watched the news, you would have seen that Richmond and the mayor were attending a fundraiser in Aspen that day and decided to stay the night. I’d say that puts him pretty goddamn far from the crime scene.” Graham had actually rehearsed this speech in his mind for the better part of twenty minutes. He was quite pleased with the way he executed it.

  Sullivan didn’t seem as impressed. “Why would you go on that rant in the end anyway? She was this close to giving us the disk, then you start in with that nonsense about the badge. It’s no wonder she walked out.”

  “Nice to know you thought it was nonsense.” Graham’s face turned red as he ran his hand across his goatee. “Anyway, she wasn’t giving us anything. Camille Grisham’s whole spiel was complete bullshit. I don’t understand how you can’t see that.”

  “Walter, we have a responsibility to the victim and her family to conduct as thorough an investigation as possible; and that includes listening to Camille Grisham’s bullshit.”

  “Are you lecturing me now?”

  “I’m not lecturing you. All I’m saying is that you should have given her at least some benefit of the doubt. As impossible as it is to believe, there could possibly be something to it, something that could lead us in another direction. We need a break Walt, because you and I both know, Impala or no Impala, what we have on Stephen Clemmons right now is less than circumstantial. Yes we’ve arrested him, and the public will probably think they can sleep better tonight. But a grand jury would laugh if we presented our current case to them. At this point we don’t have a choice but to continue to investigate whatever comes up, no matter how crazy or unlikely it seems. Otherwise, we’ll never solve this thing.”

  All Graham wanted her to do now was leave. And he was willing to say whatever he had to in order for that to happen. “I don’t know, Chloe. It really sounds like you’re lecturing me, and I don’t think I appreciate it.”

  “You know what? Maybe at this point you need one.”

  “Maybe I do. But not from you.”

  Sullivan shook her head and walked back to her desk. Graham thought he heard her say ‘asshole’ under her breath as she sat down. If she’s lucky, one day she’ll find the courage to tell me that to my face, he thought to himself as he turned back to his computer.

  But his mind was far from work. Graham had been preoccupied with his cell phone and an important call that had yet to come. He made a phone call of his own five minutes after Camille Grisham left their office, and the voicemail he left was urgent; so urgent that he expected an immediate callback. But it hadn’t come. And the longer he was made to wait, the more the armor that protected his increasingly fragile psyche began to crack.

  Just as he was about to check his phone to make sure it was still working, it began to vibrate. His mind scrambled in fifty different directions as he picked it up and rushed away from his desk and into the stairwell. He didn’t care how it looked. He didn’t wonder about the panic that had surely risen in his face. He only cared about the reaction he would get to the unfortunate news he was about to deliver. If he knew the man on the other end of the phone as well as he thought he did, the term ‘nuclear explosion’ would only begin to describe it.

  Graham tried to catch his breath as he pressed ‘talk’, but couldn’t. He proceeded anyway.

  “There might be complications, sir. Significant ones.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “Boy, I never know whether you’re coming or going,” Paul said as Camille climbed out of the taxi. “Here I am thinking you’re in bed and instead you pull up behind me in a taxi. Have you always been this impossible to keep up with?”

  Camille shrugged as she walked up the driveway. “You should know the answer to that is a resounding yes, considering you raised me to be that way.”

  Paul smiled. He always looked so prideful when he smiled at her, like the words ‘nice work dad’ were always in the forefront of his mind. “Where have you been?”

  Camille stopped a few feet in front of him, fearful of how fast the smile would go away once she told him. “I went to see Graham and Sullivan.”

  His smile went away faster than she thought it would. “Honey, why didn’t you call me? I could have taken you. Was there some movement in the investigation?”

  Camille looked down at her New Balance sneakers, knowing that she was going to be getting a lot of use out of them soon. “They’re arresting Stephen Clemmons.”

  Paul’s look of concern was quickly replaced with one of confusion. “So why were you there?”

  “I called them.”

  “Why?”

  Camille looked down at her shoes again, silently ordering them to keep her firmly planted where she was. “Because I discovered some information about Julia that I thought they might find useful.”

  “And?”

  “I realized it wasn’t useful to them at all.”

  Paul put a hand up. “Okay, now I’m thoroughly confused. Did this information have to do with Clemmons?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  With fingers that suddenly felt numb, Camille reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the disk.

  Paul squinted as he looked at it. “What’s this?”

  Camille walked a few steps closer to him. “Something that you may not be at all prepared to handle.”

  “I don’t like the way that sounds.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “Scale from one to ten, ten being unbearable.”

  Camille didn’t blink. “Twenty-five.”

  Paul’s square jaw suddenly went slack.

  She wrapped her arm tightly around his. “Let’s go into your office. I have to show you something.”

  Once inside, Camille took a
seat in front of the computer while her father anxiously stood over her shoulder. She slid the disk into the USB port and quickly found the video file. Before she opened it, she looked up.

  “Okay dad, this is going to sound really weird, but I need you to turn away from the monitor for a few minutes.”

  Paul smiled nervously. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No I’m not.” Her look was dead serious, and Paul responded accordingly.

  She fast-forwarded through the first forty-five minutes of the video until she reached the point where Julia appeared in the bedroom fully dressed, then she paused it.

  “You can turn around now.”

  He did so, the nervous smile still firmly planted on his face. When he saw what was on the monitor, the smile went away. “What’s this?”

  “A video of Julia,” Camille answered.

  “I can see that. But what else am I looking at here?”

  “I can’t tell you the whole story right now. I just need you to watch.”

  Paul nodded and took a seat next to Camille as she pressed ‘play’. He sat motionlessly as the scene between Julia and Elliott Richmond played out in front of him. He bucked slightly when Richmond approached Julia with his finger pointed in her face. But other than that, he didn’t make a sound.

  When the video finally ended, Paul turned to Camille with damp eyes. “Where did this come from?”

  “Julia,” Camille answered as evenly as she could.

  Paul shook his head. His stare was distant and confused.

  “Maybe I should explain now.”

  “That would be a good idea.”

  Camille proceeded to explain everything, from her visit with the lawyer, to the safe deposit box, to the hundreds of documents on the disk, to her theory about Richmond.

  As she had expected, her father was rendered speechless.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

  Paul blew out a loud breath. “When you said twenty-five out of a one to ten scale, you weren’t kidding.”

  “I’m sorry, but I had to show you.”

  “I’m glad you did. I take it the part you didn’t show me involved the two of them…”

  “Yes.”

  Paul nodded. “And you showed this to Graham and Sullivan?”

  “I only told them about it.”

  “What was their reaction when you told them Elliott Richmond was involved?”

  Camille shook her head. “Lots of barking, most of it done by Graham.”

  “Meaning he didn’t believe you?”

  “I’m sure he believed me. He just didn’t care.”

  Paul looked genuinely shocked. “I know the guy is a major-league asshole, but how could he not care?”

  “Because Richmond’s wife is his boss,” Camille answered pointedly. “And apparently no one in this city named Richmond is capable of doing anything the least bit questionable.”

  “We all know that’s not true.”

  “Graham doesn’t.”

  Paul stood up and began pacing. “Can I see that letter again?” He stopped only long enough for Camille to hand it to him. Once he began reading, the pacing picked up. “You showed this to them and they had no reaction to it?”

  Camille shook her head. “For all Graham knew I could have written it myself.”

  Paul sat down. “I have to admit that even I’m having a hard time processing this. You realize that Elliott Richmond is the most politically-connected man in the entire state, right?”

  “He’s also one of the most popular. Powerful campaign strategist, generous philanthropist, seven handicap. I know all of that. And I’m not the least bit moved.”

  “And you really think he was involved in Julia’s murder?”

  “I don’t think he was involved in her murder. He was directly responsible for it. It’s right there in black and white, dad.”

  Paul read Julia’s words out loud. “He did this to me.”

  “Even if I didn’t actually witness him threatening her, which I did, those words would be enough.”

  Paul put the note on the desk and took a deep breath. “Your conviction is certainly enough for me.”

  Camille felt a wave of relief wash over her. “I’m happy to hear you say that.”

  “I’ve always trusted your instincts, Camille. They’re a cop’s instincts. And despite what you may think, you still have them.”

  Camille shrugged, not sure if she was ready to accept that. But something inside was speaking to her, and the more she listened, the more connected to the old Camille Grisham she became. She couldn’t deny how emboldened it made her feel. “All I know is that I personally plan to string him up for what he did. I don’t care how well-connected he is.”

  A hint of concern returned to Paul’s face. “I can appreciate the sentiment, believe me. But are you sure that’s something you even want to think about right now? Things are happening at a lightning pace here. And frankly I’m worried that it’s already been too much for you to deal with. If you try to take on this thing with Richmond by yourself, it could be enough to completely break you down. I won’t let that happen.”

  “It’s already happened, dad.”

  “I won’t let it get any worse.”

  “As much as you may want to, you can’t protect me from this. I don’t need protecting. Julia was the one who needed protecting. And I didn’t do it. I need to make up for that.”

  “You don’t get to blame yourself, Camille.”

  “The only thing I’m blaming myself for now is wasting time going to Graham and Sullivan when I should have gone after Richmond right away.”

  “Okay, let’s slow down here. How exactly would you have gone after Richmond?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I could have started with his wife. She’s pretty accessible these days.”

  Paul’s chuckle was betrayed by the look of abject horror on his face. “Goddamn it, I think you’re actually serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious. Considering everything I just showed you, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because there is a smarter way to go about it.”

  Camille wasn’t interested in being smart, but she respected him enough to remain quiet while he continued.

  “You still have a few contacts in the Denver field office, right? You could show the video to them. I realize that Julia’s murder is technically out of the Bureau’s jurisdiction, but they could certainly put some pressure on the department to broaden their scope, especially if they have documented proof that Elliott Richmond is involved in large-scale fraud.”

  Camille sighed. “My contacts in the field office are loose at best. Besides, in cases like this, Bureau may as well stand for Bureaucracy. The higher up the food chain this goes, the more bogged down the process becomes. Graham and Sullivan’s investigation is moving along at an insanely fast rate. They’ve had Clemmons targeted from day one and apparently they now have enough to arrest him. Graham especially seems hell-bent on making Clemmons the guy, to the point where he would probably manufacture evidence against him if he had to. If he’s officially charged, that means the feds case against Richmond would be more about corporate malfeasance than Julia’s murder. From there the process could drag on for months, maybe longer. In the meantime, Richmond gets more time to mount a defense, and considering his financial means, I’m sure it would be a very effective one. By the time the trial of yet another corrupt politician finally begins, Julia’s murder will be forgotten about altogether.”

  Paul shook his head. “So I’m assuming that was a very detailed way of telling me that going to the FBI is out of the question.”

  “For now, yes.”

  Paul threw up his hands as if to surrender. “Okay Camille, I’ll bite. What’s your plan?”

  “In her note, Julia instructed me to forward a number of the Excel documents to her personal lawyer. She said he would know what to do with them. When we’re done here I’m going to call him to set up a meeting.”

  Paul
nodded. “That sounds reasonable enough. What then?”

  Camille smiled, though given the heavy weight of the moment she wasn’t sure how appropriate it was. “Well, since a phone call to the mayor is officially off the table, I suppose I’ll have to think about it.”

  Paul leaned across the desk and grabbed Camille’s hand. “Look, I know what you’re feeling right now. Three years into the job, a good friend was killed off duty because he walked into a 7-Eleven at the wrong time of night. Tore up the entire department. When we talked behind closed doors, it wasn’t about arresting the asshole who did it; it was about digging a hole in the ground and throwing him in it. So I know how intoxicating revenge can be. But with time we collectively got a hold of ourselves and right now Officer Albright’s killer is alive and rotting in a Cañon City prison cell. Sometimes the process needs a kick in the ass. And in this particular case, it does. If you have to be the one to do that, then so be it. But it has to be done within the framework of the system, Camille. Sometimes the process may be slower than we’d like, but we still have to allow that process to work itself out. We took an oath to do it that way.”

  “With all due respect to everything you just said, we both know that if the process is allowed to work itself out the way it usually does, Elliott Richmond is going to get away free and clear. Like you said, he’s the most politically-connected man in the entire state, which also means he’s one of the most closely-protected. No one in their right mind is brave enough to even insinuate that he could do something like this, even with the existence of that video. Detective Graham already expressed his level of personal offense at my suggestion. Besides, I gave up the badge, which means I also gave up the oath associated with it.”

  Paul moved his hand away from Camille’s and stood up. It was the first time she saw anger in his face. “I can’t tell you what to do, and I obviously can’t tie you to that chair, so I’m going to ask that you just consider what I’m saying. You can’t take this on right now, not because Richmond is too formidable, but because the emotion of this situation is. You’ve been riding this adrenaline wave all week, you’ve barely sat still, and I’m sure you haven’t eaten. When you come down from this, you’re going to come down hard, and I don’t want you out there on some wild-eyed crusade when that happens. I’m not against you on any of this. All I ask is that you give yourself time. This has been one of the worst weeks of my life, so I can only imagine how bad it’s been for you. Don’t make the situation worse by doing something that’s fueled by anger. For me, please don’t.”