Dark Money

by Larry D. Thompson

  Walt shook his head but smiled. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that’s a pretty good description. The suspension is routine. The DPS considers it an officer involved shooting, particularly since the governor was wounded. The whole detail that night is suspended while the Rangers conduct an investigation. Fortunately, we still draw paychecks. And here’s the silver lining to this cloud over my head. I briefed Colonel Burnside this morning. He asked about you and I told him I was going to be staying here. I’m not supposed to be involved in the investigation, but he was delighted that I would be so close to you. Wants me to keep him informed. I was required to surrender my DPS Sig Sauer; only my personal weapon is identical. Any developments?”

  J.D. heard the question and returned to the kitchen. “I want to hear the latest.”

  “Good timing,” Colby said as she placed a giant bowl of spaghetti and a slightly smaller bowl of meat sauce on the table beside a green salad.

  After everyone had filled a plate, Jack said, “One thing of interest. I forgot. When you left yesterday, had we learned that the outside security cameras had been turned off?”

  “Yeah, I was at the meeting when that came up.”

  “We had some of the deputies go through the camera discs for the past week. Didn’t find anything around the house. However, one of the front cameras caught an old pickup that paused in front of the driveway for a couple of minutes. The camera was directed more toward the driveway than the street. So, we only got the bottom half. Appears to be an F-150, probably white with several layers of dirt on it.”

  Walt swallowed a bite. “Can I have a look?”

  “Sure, I brought a copy of that disc home. If J.D. will let us have the media room for a few minutes, I can put it up on a giant screen.”

  “I guess the interviews haven’t turned up anything?”

  “Nothing, yet. A few guests managed to get out before I could get the house locked down. We should have all of them in a couple of days.”

  “You got any suspects?” Colby asked

  Jack shook his head.

  “Still, Dad, someone inside the house had to be in on it. Security cameras don’t all go out at once, just a few hours before the party.”

  “J.D. is right. Only we have a house full of people that afternoon. Could have been any one of at least a hundred. We need a break. Can we look at that film, now?” Walt asked. “And, Colby, that’s wonderful spaghetti.”

  Colby smiled. “You have to give Jack a little credit. The sauce is his old family recipe. He swore me to secrecy before he showed me how to make it.”

  The media room had been a library when Jack bought the house. He bought the largest television he could find, surrounded the room with sound and placed eight reclining and vibrating leather loungers on two levels facing the television. They took four seats on the front row, and Jack handed the disc to J.D.

  “This only shows a view of the driveway and the pickup, nothing more.”

  J.D. pushed “play” and the cul de sac appeared with nothing in it. Then the pickup came into view. The camera angle was such that the license plate was obscured. All that could be seen was the side of the vehicle from the street up to the bottom of the windows. It moved slowly and stopped in front of the driveway. The digital clock counted off two minutes. Jack froze it just before the pickup moved away. “See anything interesting?”

  “I think so,” Walt said. He moved to the screen that was six feet by eight feet. “See here.” He pointed to the right front bumper. “There’s a small indentation on it, like the driver must have hit a parking lot pole or something, maybe three inches in diameter.”

  “Good catch. On the small screens, we had overlooked that.”

  “Anything else.”

  “I think the window is down,” Colby said. “Little hard to tell. Maybe the air conditioning wasn’t working on the truck.”

  “Or maybe someone lowered the window to take cell photos of the house and driveway.”

  “Dad, it’s definitely a Ford F-150. Old one. My guess is somewhere between 2000 and 2004 model. And definitely white under all that dust.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s not going to be much help. People in Texas drive those pickups until the engine freezes up, somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 miles. And white is the most common color. Still the dent on the right bumper is something we didn’t have before.”

  17

  “Jack, Roger Culbertson here.”

  “Morning, Roger, tell me something good.”

  “Don’t really have anything. Between Randall’s guys and mine, we’ve knocked on practically every door in Westover Hills. Haven’t turned up any stranger that night. Also checked all those condos and houses off Roaring Springs. Nada. Randall has the video feeds from Shady Oaks. Don’t know if he’s found anything.”

  “I’m still at home. Walt is staying with me a few days. I’ll call Randall. This afternoon we’re meeting with Kevin O’Connell. He’s still at the Renaissance Hotel, resting up. Oh, here’s one little bit of information. We looked at that video of the driveway and the pickup. Had it on a large screen. There’s a small dent in the right front bumper, probably only about three inches across. Not much, but it’s all we have for now.”

  Jack filled Walt in on the conversation, then called Meacham at the Westover Hills Police Station. Meacham had noted his phone i.d. before he picked up the receiver. “You got anything, Jack?”

  “Not much. Roger tells me you struck out in the neighborhood.”

  “Yeah, but I do have the video from Shady Oaks. Did see a couple of pickups that seemed to be out of place.”

  Jack nodded at Walt. “Can we come by to look at those?”

  “Sure, any time.”

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  They arrived at a small but attractive police station that had a redwood and stone façade. When they entered the double doors, Jack introduced himself to the receptionist who directed them back to Meacham’s office. They knocked and entered. Meacham was just finishing a call and motioned them to have a seat. The office window looked out onto a wooded area with a creek.

  Meacham ended his call. “You want to see those two pickups in the club parking lot? I loaded them five minutes ago. Turn your chairs around so you can see the television.”

  Meacham’s office television was about forty-two inches and the clarity was good. “Here’s the first, a red Toyota Tundra. We’ve already checked out the license plates. Belongs to a family on the south side. Appears to be a teenager driving it.”

  Jack shook his head. “How about the other one?”

  “There you go.”

  An old, white ford came into view, moving slowly through the lot.

  “Can you back it up a few frames and pause on that right side?” Walt asked.

  When Meacham did so, Walt walked up to the television and peered at it from two inches away. “Can’t be sure, but I think that’s the dent we saw.”

  Jack nodded his agreement.

  Meacham looked puzzled. “You want to clue me in?”

  “Sorry, Randall. That pickup was on video, stopped in front of the Hale mansion two days before the party. The camera could only see the lower right side. It has a small dent on the bumper, same as that one.” He pointed to the screen. “Was that made two days before the event?”

  “Yep. You can see the digital clock in the upper right hand corner.”

  Walt was still kneeling close the television. “Jack, I can’t be sure, but I think that’s a woman with dark hair driving. Hard to tell. Randall, anything on other cameras? Maybe at a guard house.”

  “Nothing at the guard house. It’s manned during the day. I think the last shift ends at six in the evening. Members decided they didn’t want a camera there, recording their comings and goings. And they don’t like a lot of cameras in the parking lots. Not what I would recommend, but they don’t have a lot of crime at the club.”

  Jack rose and Walt followed suit. “Would you make a copy of
that video? I live just over in Rivercrest. If you’ll let me know, I’ll drop by the front desk to pick it up. We’re on our way downtown to talk with Kevin O’Connell. And would you check with whoever was at the guard house to see if they recall anything about that pickup?”

  18

  As they made their way downtown in Jack’s pickup, he asked Walt, “What do you know about Kevin O’Connell?”

  “Mean, hard-nosed son of a bitch. I’ve been around him a few times at the Republican Governor’s Conference and at other meetings where the Republican high rollers show up. When he’s raising money, he turns on the charm, whether it’s one on one or in a gathering like the other night. Behind closed doors, he demands that the politicians he supports march to whatever tune he’s playing. If they don’t, he’ll dump them on the side of the road. I hear he pays his employees well, but treats them like crap, fifteen hour days, six or seven days a week. Simon Legree had nothing on him.

  “Lately, he’s been singing the Tea Party anthem. Had a run of bad luck in the past couple of election cycles, mainly because he was still backing the old school Republicans who wanted to work with the Democrats. He took some pretty good lickings with some of the senatorial candidates he has backed recently. Only, you’d never know it to talk to him. I heard him say they were just a few minor hiccups. Governor Lardner is both an admirer and also a little bit scared of him. Lardner needs O’Connell in his corner if he’s going to take a shot at the White House.”

  Jack turned into the circular drive in front of the Renaissance Hotel, just a couple of blocks from the courthouse complex and stopped behind a chauffeur-driven black Mercedes. The valet handed Jack a ticket. “Now you be sure that you park this pickup in a place where it won’t get banged up. It’s a whole lot more valuable than that Mercedes.”

  The valet looked at Jack to see if he was joking. Jack wasn’t smiling, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “Tell you what. Just put it over there in that space by the curb. Here’s a twenty for you to hold it there for about an hour.”

  “You got it.” The valet grinned.

  They were directed to a house phone where Walt asked to be connected to O’Connell’s room. When O’Connell answered, he identified himself and was given a room number. Walt led the way to the elevator and punched the button for the tenth floor. They got to room 1042. Walt knocked. The door opened, and they were greeted by a small man, somewhere around fifty, slender with a prominent Roman nose and a receding hairline. His arm was in a sling. He could never win an election, Jack thought. His image would turn too many people off.

  “I think I recognize you,” he said to Walt. “Still, I need to see some identification.”

  Walt handed him his driver’s license. Jack leaned on his cane and flashed his reserve deputy card.

  O’Connell looked at them and back at Walt. “If you’re part of Lardner’s protective detail, where’s that identification?”

  “Protocol. Since Lardner was shot, my detail and I are on administrative leave until the Rangers complete their investigation. I can give you the cell number of Colonel Burnside, the head of the DPS, if you want to check me out.”

  “I suppose that won’t be necessary. Come in, but you need to make this brief. I don’t have a lot of time to waste with two local cops. Turn off your cell phones and put them on the coffee table. I don’t permit any recordings of my conversations.”

  The room was a corner suite. O’Connell pointed them to a sofa. He sat in an easy chair opposite them. Before either Walt or Jack could say anything, O’Connell turned to Jack and launched a tirade. “Tell me who you are.”

  “I’m Jack Bryant. I’m also a lawyer. Here’s my card.” Jack handed him a cheap card he had ordered on line. Fancy cards didn’t impress his clientele.

  O’Connell studied the card. “Oh, you’re the one, the special prosecutor. You two need to get something straight. How the hell could this have possibly happened? I’ve held fundraisers all over the country and never had a problem. You guys let one lone shooter kill my good friend, Edward Hale, leave the governor near death and shoot me. Incompetence. Utter incompetence. Mr. Frazier, I’m going to do my best to see that you’re suspended permanently. And that goes for the rest of your detail.”

  Jack had enough. He rose from the couch, trying to control his temper. “Just a goddamn minute. I understand this costume party was all your idea. I doubt if another fifty men could have stopped what happened. They might have caught her after the fact, but the damage would have already been done. Just where the hell did you come up with something so idiotic. Costumes and real guns. They don’t mix, Mr. O’Connell. You’ve got a bad case of dumbass and want to blame someone else.”

  O’Connell also stood and walked to gaze out the window at the courthouse. When he turned, his face was red with eyes mere slits. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Idiot. I’m not the idiot. Security is not my job. If you couldn’t handle it, you needed to tell someone. Don’t blame me because you screwed up.

  “Do you know what this has done to me? It’s devastated my business. To start, there are no guarantees that those donors at the fundraiser are going to honor their pledges. Since we are not being recorded, I can tell you that I couldn’t blame them. Then, this has gotten national attention. I’ve been sitting in this hotel, calling people I could always rely on for contributions to our candidates and causes. A lot of them are ‘not available’ and won’t return my calls. This was going to be my biggest campaign by far. I’m raising money for several Tea Party senators. If Lardner or someone like him gets the Republican nomination for president, a billion dollars from my efforts is not out of the question. Now I’ve got to figure out how I can recover from this fiasco. If I can’t, there will be more than hell to pay. I’ll be suing everyone involved, including you and your detail, Frazier.”

  “You can do whatever you damn well please,” Walt interrupted. “Only, before we leave I need to ask a few questions about that night.”

  O’Connell nodded, his face still contorted in anger.

  “About two hours elapsed from the time the party started until the dignitaries took the stage. Where were you during that time?”

  “Working the room. There was a ton of money there that night. Even setting aside the Hales, there were other billionaires. I wanted to get to know all of them better.”

  “How well did you know the Hales?”

  “They helped me get started in this business. Twenty, thirty years ago I worked for a couple of friends of theirs and got them elected to the Texas House. The Hales were wealthy by any measure back then, but nothing like today. They didn’t like the way the country was headed. Even George H. W. Bush was too liberal for them. They started small and quietly put their money in political campaigns. Before long, they were swinging a big stick in Washington and state houses all over the country.”

  “You know anyone who would want Edward Hale killed?”

  “I could give you a list of a hundred, maybe a thousand Democrats who wanted him out of politics. Killed? That’s going a little too far.”

  “How well do you know Governor Lardner?” Walt asked.

  “We’re professional friends. We agree on what’s good for the country. I was hoping he would sign me up as his chief fundraiser. I think he would make a fantastic president.”

  “Tell us about the party,” Jack said.

  O’Connell managed a slight grin. “It was spectacular. I had never come close to raising what I did that night. Well, I should say that I never had so much money pledged. SOS and Stepper may never see a penny.” His eyes glazed over as if seeing into the future. “I could see it being duplicated in states all over the country.” He paused. “Then it happened. The shot was just barely loud enough to be heard over the uproar in the ballroom. The governor went down.” He pointed at Walt. “I saw you covering the governor and one of your other guys grabbing Susan. Then there were more shots. I got hit. Edward was trying to follow the governor and was killed, probably instantly. I won
dered at the time why one of you guys on the stage couldn’t have been shooting at the killer. They called it cover fire back when I was in the army. Might have saved Edward’s life.” He glared at Walt. “If you were in charge, the goddamn buck stops with you.” He pointed to the door. “Now, get the hell out of my room and out of my sight.”

  19

  On the morning after the shooting, Miriam bleached her Raven black hair and dyed it red. Next, she took the bandage from her leg, finding that the area around the wound was red and warm. She needed to get back to the compound where they had a medical cabinet ready for a war. It was well stocked with pain pills and antibiotics. She re-dressed her wound and picked up all of the wrappings, boxes and paraphernalia from the night before to stuff in a garbage bag. She put on jeans, her running shoes, and a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt, packed her small bag and took one look around the room. No sign that it had been used as an infirmary the night before. She limped to the elevator and pushed the button. When it opened she was greeted by an older couple. She nodded and turned to face the front. When the door opened on the first floor, she walked to the side exit, doing her best to hide her limp, only to find that it was raining hard. A cold front was on the way, pushing a thunderstorm ahead of it. She opened the door and limped and hopped to her truck. When she turned the key, the gas gauge read half full. Enough to get her to Abilene.

  I-30 led to I-20. Traffic thinned the farther she got from Fort Worth. Miriam’s leg was aching, forcing her to use her left foot for the gas and brake pedals. She pressed her hand to her forehead to confirm she was running a fever. When she arrived at a rest area east of Abilene, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. She found a parking space with no cars nearby and quickly changed her rear license and dumped the trash bag. Then she was back on the highway. She stopped for gas, food and a restroom break at a combination Shell station and McDonalds in Abilene. She noticed cameras around the pumps but had no choice. Leaving the restroom she paused to pick out a baseball cap, paid for it, and pulled it low over her eyes when she returned to her truck.