A Mother's Vow

by Ken Casper

  A Mother’s Vow

  * * *

  By

  Ken Casper

  www.KenCasper.com

  Originally published in 2005 by Harlequin

  Copyright © 2014 Ken Casper

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9894867-8-1

  E-book formatting, cover art

  and design by Jessica Lewis

  http://authorslifesaver.com

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation with the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  “MOTHER, I THINK this man was murdered.”

  Catherine Tanner’s head snapped up from the police reports she’d been reviewing. She had been only half listening to her daughter’s rambling on about her preparations to teach the second grade in the coming school year.

  “What are you talking about, dear? Who?”

  Kelsey held up that morning’s Houston Sentinel and pointed to an obituary. “This man, William Summers. I think he may have been murdered.”

  “William Summers,” Catherine muttered, as she took the newspaper. “Is the name supposed to mean something to me?” She scanned the death notice. The sixty-seven-year-old retired teamster had died after languishing in a coma for the past year, following a fall from his roof.

  “He’s the man who told Dad about the missing uranium.”

  Evoking the memory of Jordan had a predictable effect. Catherine felt herself pulling in, withdrawing from the conversation.

  “What missing uranium?” She felt like the straight man in a very bad knock-knock joke, parroting everything her daughter said.

  “We were having lunch at the deli around the corner from his office when this man came over and asked Dad if he was the editor of the Sentinel. When Dad said he was, the guy told him the numbers in that day’s newspaper article were wrong. There should have been sixty barrels of yellowcake in the warehouse on the waterfront that the Superfund was cleaning up, not forty.”

  Yellowcake. The first step in enriching uranium for nuclear reactors—or weapons. Its potential, especially in the wrong hands, made it a commodity that needed very careful guarding and tracking.

  “How did Summers know that?” Catherine asked.

  “He said he was the warehouse foreman when the place closed in ‘77 and the last one out the door. He insisted there had been sixty barrels of uranium stored there.”

  As the man in charge of the city’s largest newspaper, Jordan was meticulous about ensuring the accuracy of his information.

  “What was your father’s reaction?”

  “He asked him if he had any proof. Summers claimed he did, so Dad jotted his name, address and telephone number in his pad, thanked him and said he’d be in touch.”

  Catherine glanced at the picture on her desk, the one taken two years ago when the mayor swore her in as police chief of the country’s fourth largest city. The unmistakable pride in the smile on Jordan’s face as he stood behind her threatened now to bring fresh tears. She blinked them ruthlessly back, ashamed of her momentary inability to cope with the loss of the man she had loved so deeply.

  “Why haven’t you ever mentioned this before?”

  Kelsey screwed up her mouth. “Because Dad died right after that, and I had other things on my mind.” She rushed on to add, “Besides, you know I rarely get to read the newspaper anymore. I wouldn’t even have thought of it now if I hadn’t noticed the obit on your desk and recognized the name.”

  Catherine cleared her throat. “I still don’t understand why you think this man Summers was murdered?”

  Kelsey snorted. “Well, let’s see. In front of a bunch of people he blows the whistle on a cache of uranium missing from an abandoned warehouse, claims he can prove it, and that very night he falls off his roof. The timing doesn’t strike you as a bit strange?”

  “But that was a year ago—” Catherine picked up the newspaper and scanned the article again “—and he only died yesterday.”

  “Without ever regaining consciousness.”

  “A year-long murder. It’s a stretch, Kel.”

  “Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me coincidences are in themselves suspect?”

  “I’m a cop,” Catherine reminded her daughter. “It’s my job to be suspicious. But if I investigated every coincidence, I wouldn’t have time for anything else.” She stood up. “Let’s get out of here before someone comes charging in with a reason for me to stay. We haven’t had lunch together in ages—”

  “Mother, it’s only been two weeks.”

  “Ages,” Catherine repeated with a smile, eager to escape the happy dark eyes of Jordan Tanner. Her daughter was all she had left. She snatched her leather shoulder bag from the coat tree by the door and stepped into the crowded, noisy outer office.

  “Annette,” she said to her administrative assistant, “we’re going to lunch. I have my cell phone if you need me, but try not to call unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  The thirty-something brunette nodded. “Got it, Chief. I won’t buzz you unless City Hall is burning down.”

  “Call the fire department instead,” Kelsey said with a wink.

  Annette chuckled. “Enjoy your time together.”

  “In the mood for Chinese?” Catherine asked, as they entered the elevator. She pressed the button for the sixth floor where they could cross over to the high-rise parking garage. “Mei Lu told me about a new place in Chinatown that specializes in Sechuan and Hunan.” Lieutenant Mei Lu Ling, who worked in white-collar crime, had been one of her students at the police academy. “You like spicy.”

  “Love it.”

  They took Catherine’s black Lexus, which, though a personal vehicle, was fitted with a police radio. She kept it at a very low volume, soft enough not to be a distraction to their conversation, loud enough for her to passively monitor what was going on in her city.

  The restaurant on the outskirts of Chinatown was little more than a storefront operation with plain square tables and straight-back wooden chairs.

  After being seated by an elderly man with nicotine-stained fingers, a waitress came to their table and greeted them. The large, plastic-coated menus listed a typical variety of choices ranging from hot-and-sour soup to kumquats.

  “I’ll try the Kung Pao chicken.” Kelsey handed the menu to the waitress.

  “Crispy duck for me.” Catherine didn’t share her daughter’s o
r late husband’s taste for hot spices.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little extraordinary,” Kelsey said, as if their previous conversation hadn’t been interrupted, “that the very day Summers hands Dad a blockbuster of a story, he falls off his roof?”

  Catherine watched the waitress pour their green tea. She picked up the small handle-less cup and blew over the steaming contents before answering. “It could have been just what it appeared to be, Kel, an accident.”

  “Yeah, right, Mom. The warehouse is owned by the Rialto Corporation. Doesn’t that tell you something?” She removed her chopsticks from their paper wrap and split them apart. “Then the next day Dad mysteriously drops dead.”

  “Whoa.” Catherine’s heart did a jolt. “Are you suggesting a connection between your father’s death and Summers’s?”

  Their meals arrived and for a moment the sight and smells of the hot, fragrant food distracted both of them.

  “I don’t know.” Kelsey sampled her spicy chicken and nodded approval. “But the idea’s been bothering me for a long time.”

  Catherine had had her own doubts from the beginning. She’d grilled the cops who had responded to the 911 call, as well as the medics who had tried to resuscitate her husband on the jogging path in Memorial Park. Even questioned the medical examiner who’d signed the autopsy report. She finally backed off when word began to circulate that she was so distraught by her husband’s death that it was interfering with her job.

  Then six weeks ago, Abby Carlton, another of her former students at the police academy, came to her with a disturbing story she’d recently heard from a homeless drunk by the name of Harvey Stuckey. Catherine had had it looked into, but it turned out to be more delusion than fact. Doubts, however, continued to linger.

  She sighed. She’d expected to grow old with Jordan, imagined the two of them sitting in rockers on the front porch in their golden years watching their grandchildren play.

  The first glitch in the plan had come when their only child informed them the day after graduating from Rice University that she was joining the School Sisters of Our Lady to become a nun. Glitch? More like a thunderbolt knocking them both off their feet.

  “Denial is one of the steps of grieving, Kel,” Catherine said now. “It’s natural for us to see villains behind misfortunes. But you above all should know we can’t second-guess the will of God.”

  “I’m not second-guessing God,” Kelsey snapped, then sucked in her breath when she realized she’d raised her voice. She brushed back her short gray veil in a nervous gesture. “I’m just not sure if Dad’s death was the Lord’s will or someone else’s.”

  Neither am I, Catherine thought. Neither am I.

  AFTER DROPPING Kelsey off at the convent, Catherine sat in the car for a minute rubbing the bridge of her nose, her mind rerunning their conversation at lunch. She had a meeting with the Civilian Review Council at one-thirty. That left her just enough time to make a quick stop at home.

  She went directly to her bedroom. Even after all these months the scent of her late husband still lingered in his closet. The initial sense of contentment and feeling safe was immediately followed by a sharp stab of loss and loneliness. She reached into a box on the floor and removed the small notepad she had given him as a Christmas present fifteen years ago.

  Sitting down on the bed, she brushed her hand over the fine calfskin cover, soft and shiny now from years of handling. His hands had held this object, only minutes before he died. The warmth of the smooth leather against her fingers stirred a connection. She bit her lips. Her throat burned and a sob threatened.

  Steeling herself, she opened the pad. She’d only glanced at it when it arrived from the athletic club, along with the rest of the things from Jordan’s locker. As she flipped pages, the sight of his handwriting brought fresh tears that blurred her vision. Brushing them away, she read the last entry: William Summers, an address and phone number.

  If Kelsey was correct, if the teamster’s fall and subsequent death were the direct result of his telling Jordan about missing talcum-fine uranium powder called yellowcake, Jordan’s death the next day may not have been an accident, either.

  “THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME Fontanero has been accused of running a protection racket,” said Dieter Walsh, chairman of the Civilian Review Council.

  “And he’s always been cleared,” Paul Radke, Catherine’s deputy chief and the head of Internal Affairs, reminded him.

  “Where there’s smoke there must be fire,” Walsh countered.

  “In other words,” Radke retorted, “if you make accusations often enough, they must be true.” He took a breath. He was a big, imposing man who didn’t often lose his temper. “I refuse to railroad a cop with nothing more than a bunch of unprovcn allegations.”

  The CRC reviewed all internal investigation recommendations before they went to the police chief’s desk. By then, Radke would have mediated any disagreements between IA and the council, so Catherine could be given a consensus report. Today was different. The IA team chief had recommended dropping the charges against Fontanero for lack of evidence, while the CRC, led by Walsh, just as adamantly refused to concur.

  The final decision was Catherine’s. If she accepted the IA suggestion and the CRC decided to go public, she’d face more press allegations of a police cover-up. If she sided with the CRC, her own people would perceive her as caving in to political pressure.

  She’d long suspected Sergeant Fontanero was dirty. His name cropped up too regularly on a host of complaints, but none of the allegations against the twenty-year veteran ever stuck. In Catherine’s mind, that meant he was either the unluckiest guy on the force—or the luckiest.

  “I understand your concern, Dieter,” Radke said. “But we’ve run sting operations against him twice in the last year and a half. We came up with zip both times.”

  “Because he gets tipped off. He needs to be kept under surveillance for at least three more months” Walsh persisted.

  Radke threw up his hands. “We don’t have the manpower for this witch hunt. We have complaints of soliciting sexual favors by—”

  “They’re probably bogus,” Walsh admitted.

  A group of prostitutes claimed officers had arrested them only after they’d refused to service them for free. The charge wasn’t uncommon, but it was difficult to substantiate, a typical case of he said, she said.

  “Then there are the allegations of police harassment and planting evidence by those truckers who were found carrying narcotics,” Radke went on.

  Catherine held up her hand. She’d heard enough. This discussion was going nowhere.

  “Fontanero has been officially notified he’s the subject of an investigation,” she noted, “so right now the chances of a successful sting against him are extremely small, unless he’s stupid—” she offered a thin smile “—and that’s one thing he’s never been accused of. I’m closing this case.”

  She could feel Walsh’s temper mounting.

  “That doesn’t mean we do nothing.” She turned to Radke. “If Fontanero isn’t on the take, someone is out to get him, in which case, we owe it to one of our own to look out for him. Let’s find out who’s behind this campaign to smear him. Also make sure Fontanero and his family are protected.” A subtle way of keeping Fontanero under surveillance without officially admitting it.

  “You all right with this, Dieter?” she asked.

  “It’ll have to do, I guess.”

  In spite of her Solomon-like compromise, Catherine had no illusions that she’d solved the problem. She’d already dismissed more than a dozen bad cops from the force during her tenure, but there were more.

  Radke presented three more cases for which the recommendations were unanimous. The charges against one cop were dropped, another received a written reprimand for excessive use of force, and a third, who admitted to taking a bribe, was allowed to resign in lieu of termination.

  Finally they came to new business. A suspect in a vehicular homicide had
accused Detective Allan Clemson of planting evidence at the scene of a crime while suppressing exculpatory information that would have exonerated him. IA’s preliminary findings were that the allegations appeared to have substance. The DA had dropped the charges against the suspect, and the chief of homicide put Clemson on suspension with pay pending further inquiry.

  This case was particularly distressing to Catherine. She’d worked with Clemson years ago when she first came to homicide, respected him as an honest cop and learned a lot from him. More recently she’d entrusted him with a very personal matter. Now she had to wonder if her trust had been misplaced. Was he a cop who had simply gone sour, or was he part of the network of corruption that was plaguing her administration?

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  “OFFICER PAGER is here to see you, Chief,” Annette announced over the intercom an hour later.

  Derek Pager was poster-handsome, standing tall and straight in the doorway. His uniform shirt was precisely tailored to his athletic frame, his pants sharply creased.

  He took three steps forward and saluted.

  She returned the courtesy. “What can I do for you?”

  Catherine had an open-door policy, allowing any member of the department to come to her directly with their problems. Doing so could be tricky, however, since it meant bypassing supervisors. Pager, a rookie, wouldn’t make the decision lightly. What could possibly be so important that he would break protocol?

  “Ma’am, I just ran into a guy in the parking lot. Almost literally, as a matter of fact. His name is Harvey Stuckey.”

  Catherine pressed her lips together as unpleasant emotions twisted inside her. “Close the door.” When he had, she motioned him to one of the visitor chairs across from her. “What about him?”