A Deadly Development

by James Green

  “Fuck off Jack, you couldn’t have caught him if he had run to Arkansas. Hell, you’d be still chasing him if you hadn’t dropped dead by now.”

  “Knock it off!” Michaels growled. “I don’t have time for your stupid comedy routine. I have the Chief and the Mayor all over my ass on this. We need results. Now! What do I tell them?”

  “Tell them that the investigation is moving forward. We are being thorough,” Burke responded. “A possible suspect got killed running into traffic. We are still working the case hard. I already have eliminated one suspect this very morning and it isn’t even 9:30.”

  Burke was fibbing some on this. He doubted Houlihan was a suspect, but he hadn’t called the restaurant yet. They wouldn’t be open for another couple of hours, so he hadn’t bothered. Michaels wasn’t in the mood for this type of detail, so he kept his mouth shut.

  Michaels grunted and leaned back in his chair.

  “It will have to do for now, but you two knuckleheads better have someone, in custody by Friday!”

  “Yes sir,” Burke and Thurber responded and left Michaels’ office without even being asked.

  “What now?” Thurber asked while plopping himself into the chair in his office.

  “Let’s go talk to Douglas’ probation officer,” Burke said while putting on his jacket, “It’s a short walk and there had to be some reason he ran the second he saw us.”

  “You don’t think he really killed Vithous?”

  Burke shook his head.

  “No, but it can’t hurt to close the door on him as a suspect. We can just cross him off our incredibly short list of two. I met with the ex-chief of staff this morning. He’s a dead end. Plus we aren’t going to get Vithous’ financial records until late this afternoon. We might as well do something productive.”

  Burke headed for the door and Jack followed him outside.

  It had heated up considerably since he left the restaurant. Kansas City’s capricious weather was in full swing. Workers from police headquarters, the Jackson County Courthouse, City Hall and several law firms were making the most of it. They were sunning themselves, sitting on benches, retaining walls, and a park that was just north of City Hall. “Wish we had the time to sit and sun ourselves,” Burke said.

  They cut through Illus Davis Park to the Missouri Western Probation Office, which was housed in the Federal Courthouse at the northern entrance of the park. They flashed their badges, entered the offices and asked for Douglas’ probation officer.

  A short woman, maybe in her fifties, with bushy blonde hair and large glasses appeared. She was wearing a loud, flower print jacket and slacks. They followed her into her cramped cubicle.

  “It’s just horrible about Thomas,” she said with real sympathy. She looked like she might cry.

  “You liked him?” Thurber asked.

  “He wasn’t bad. Of course he did steal things. But, Thomas only did it when he fell off the wagon and started using drugs. He had a sad life. His father beat him and his mother. He ran away at fifteen and ended up living in an abandoned building on Independence Avenue.”

  “People down there like young naïve boys,” Thurber commented.

  Burke frowned. He didn’t think Jack needed to be so crass in front of the woman. But she nodded her head. It wasn’t the first time she had heard such things.

  “He tried though. Really tried. He attended Narc Anon meetings. I know that for a fact. But he would slip up and start using again. And then the stealing would start.”

  “You have any guesses as to why he ran away from us?” Tom asked.

  “Well, he had missed his last two appointments with me. My guess is he thought you were there to arrest him for probation violations.”

  Like that would ever happen, Burke thought. With the homicides, assaults, rapes, armed robberies and countless other crimes going on in the city, KCPD wasn’t too concerned about a small time junkie who stole laptops. Plus, you couldn’t write him a ticket for his crimes, like a speeder or a jaywalker.

  She looked closer at his file.

  “He was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic recently. Maybe you just spooked him.” A frown came across her face.

  “Well, we do know he was using again,” Thurber offered. “We found a small amount of heroin in his jeans pocket.”

  “I guess I am not surprised,” the probation officer responded glumly, “you see a lot of lost causes in this job, detectives. I had hoped that maybe Thomas was different, but I guess he wasn’t.” She closed the case file, with a sense of finality. Burke and Thurber thanked her for her time and left.

  They took their time walking back to headquarters. Thurber insisted on stopping at a mobile food vendor, or “roach coach,” as he liked to call them, to grab some lunch.

  “This guy is a total dead end,” Burke said, “there was no stolen property in his apartment, he didn’t have any money, hell, he didn’t have any furniture.”

  Burke paused while Thurber ordered.

  “I can’t believe you won’t fucking eat anything from one of these places,” Thurber said as he paid for his Italian sausage sandwich, larger fries and an even larger Coke. “This stuff is really good. The City has health inspectors, you know.”

  “Yes, the City has tens of health inspectors monitoring thousands of restaurants in our fair city,” Burke replied. “I’m sure they do an outstanding job.”

  “Such a cynic, Tom. Who knew?”

  “Actually, I am more worried about the caloric content than the cleanliness of their operations. You know, it wasn’t a fluke you couldn’t catch Douglas yesterday.”

  “Neither did you, asshole,” Thurber retorted, “If I recall correctly, it was a blue semi that brought our suspect to a halt.”

  Burke laughed at that. Thurber was a douchebag sometimes, but a funny one, nevertheless.

  There was some good news when they came back. Vithous’ financial records had arrived. It didn’t take long for Tom to find some discrepancies.

  “How much did you say Vithous made at the City?” Burke asked Thurber. Thurber thumbed through his notebook.

  “$124,750,” Thurber replied.

  “He owned way too much for that kind of money.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Thurber responded, “You’d have thought you died and gone to heaven if you made that kind of money.”

  “Yeah, but look at his.” Tom pushed the printouts in front of him and pointed.

  “He owned the house in Crestwood that he shared with the live-in girlfriend outright. That house has easily got to be worth $350,000. Plus, he owns a home in Cabo San Lucas. It too appears to be completely paid for. He has $43,000 in savings. And over $8,000 in his checking account”

  “Maybe he was better at pinching pennies than you and me.”

  Burke pressed on.

  “He owns a 2009 Lexus RX 350 free and clear.”

  This was met with a blank stare. Thurber wasn’t getting it. Burke sighed.

  “What’s the one thing that you, Vithous and I have in common?” Burke asked.

  Thurber thought for a minute.

  “We’re all brain dead?” he offered. Jack smiled broadly. He had enjoyed that one.

  “No dumbass,” Burke pressed on, “we are all divorced. Divorces cost a lot of money.”

  “You live in that crappy duplex out south. I live in a crappy apartment on 39th Street. This asshole owns a really nice house in Crestwood. And his ex-wife lives in a really nice townhouse in Leawood. He drives an expensive SUV, plus he has a Mexico getaway he jets off to apparently whenever he wants to.”

  “Maybe the girlfriend is a sugar momma,” Thurber offered - just to pull Burke’s chain. He was getting punchy.

  Burke felt a buzz in his breast pocket and pulled out his phone. A text had arrived from a number he did not recognize.

  Need 2 talk 2 u soon about finances re: Viceroy. Bethany Edwards

  Burke stopped for a moment and typed a quick reply.

  Service Station co
ffee house at 6pm work? Burke

  The response was almost immediate

  Yes. See u then.

  Tom put the phone back into his breast pocket and continued.

  “She works for the State DMV as a supervisor. I heard that from several people when I was interviewed them yesterday.” Burke ran his fingers through his thick hair.

  Thurber finally got serious.

  “Money can be a pretty big motive for some people to kill someone. But who?”

  “Not a two bit junkie who boosts laptops at City Hall, that’s for sure,” Burke replied.

  “I think we need to know a lot more about Mr. Vithous’ financial dealings,” Thurber said, “how do you want to approach it?”

  “Why don’t you circle back with the people who knew him best, the ex, the girlfriend, whoever at the office he was close to,” Burke replied, “I’m going to talk to some politicos who might have some theories how Mr. Vithous became Mr. Rockefeller.”

  The Service Station coffee house sat on a triangular piece of property on the edge of the Crown Center redevelopment area. It had been for many years an actual gas station that Burke sometimes used to fill up on the way home from work. About five years ago, it closed briefly, and reopened as a hipster coffee joint for the young professional crowd.

  Burke wasn’t a regular customer, but he knew the coffee house was close to the newspaper and was also only two miles straight south of police headquarters. Although he wasn’t thrilled about having to make yet another stop before heading home for the day, Bethany had piqued his interest. She seemed persistent, which reminded Burke of himself.

  He parked right out front and walked in. The coffee shop was mostly empty. Burke ordered a medium coffee with soy from a hirsute barista who had enormous rings in his ear lobes. The lobes were stretched like an elephant’s ear and waggled whenever the barista talked. Tom was grossed out by the look. He was a ‘live and let live’ type, but couldn’t help think this guy was going to be sorry when he was about sixty and his earlobes were dragging up against his shoulders.

  Tom took his coffee, poured in some sugar and stirred it in. He looked up and spotted Bethany toward the back of the shop, her back to a large window. She had a white Apple laptop open, typing furiously, oblivious to her surroundings.

  “On deadline?” Burke asked while sitting down.

  “Always, Sgt. Burke,” Bethany replied. “With all the layoffs and forced furloughs they are expecting even more from us. Stories, blogs, twitter updates, you name it.”

  It was dark outside and the light from her laptop screen glowed off her glasses giving her an almost owl-like appearance.

  “So, you wanted to meet,” Burke said, while taking a large sip of coffee. He realized that he should have ordered a decaf at this hour, but it was too late now, “What’s up?”

  “Technology is a wonderful thing, Sergeant Bethany stated while typing away, “What used to take me a trip to the county courthouse and hours of research now takes less than thirty seconds from my computer.”

  Edwards finished typing and rotated the laptop so Tom could see the screen. A webpage was opened entitled “Economic and Community Development Viewer.”

  Bethany slid her chair next to Burke and began to manipulate the map.

  “This is a GIS interactive map the county recently put on their website,” she said as she used the pointer to zoom into a parcel of land just south of the Missouri River. Tom could easily make out the new road he had recently jogged by and the satellite picture was even clear enough he could easily make out the jogging path.

  “The yellow lines highlight property boundaries,” Bethany said as she continued to zoom in, “and check this out.”

  She double clicked on one property and a bubble appeared with the exact address, parcel number, current owner, property area and two links entitled “view property report” and “where are my tax dollars going?” The current owner was listed as “Viceroy Property, LLC.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” Tom admitted while looking at closely. The bubble even had a picture of the property.

  “It gets even better,” Bethany replied, clicking on the property report. A new browser window opened, and in it was all the information about Viceroy – the owner’s address, the amount of property taxes paid, even what Viceroy had paid for the property, which was virtually nothing.

  “Here’s what really got my juices flowing,” Bethany said while closing out the property detail window and going back to the map. See this property right here, next to Viceroy?”

  Tom nodded while looking at a thin sliver of property on the eastern portion of the development.

  “That originally was owned by Viceroy, but they recently did a warranty deed and gave it to a new owner.”

  “Gave?” Tom asked.

  “Well, technically they sold it for one dollar, but you get my drift,” Bethany replied clicking on the new property owner information. “It doesn’t look like much but there is enough land to build apartments, or a mixed use development, or heck, even a coffee shop like this.”

  The new window displayed information on “NestEgg, L.L.C.” Burke didn’t recognize the address of the owner.

  “This took some digging,” Bethany said, clearly proud of herself, “that address is just a front. The physical address is for an office building up by the airport, but there isn’t any NestEgg office in that building. Instead, the owners of NestEgg pay a monthly fee to use that address for the mail. The service forwards the mail to the real address.”

  “Did you happen to get the real address from the service?” Burke asked. He was impressed. Maybe he had underestimated Edwards. Bethany shook her head.

  “They wouldn’t give it to me, but I have other methods at my disposal,” with that she leaned over to her computer bag and pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Burke.

  “Any L.L.C. has to be registered in the State of Missouri with the Secretary of State’s office,” Bethany went on. A broad smile overwhelmed her face.

  “Recognize that address, Sergeant. Burke?”

  “Holy shit,” Burke said, not believing his eyes. “That’s Vithous’ Crestwood address, isn’t it?”

  “The very one.” Burke could tell she was very pleased with herself, to the point of smugness. She had earned it.

  “Does the name of the principal of NestEgg ring a bell?”

  “It does indeed,” Burke replied while staring at the name on the screen. “The live-in girlfriend. I didn’t know DMV supervisors were developers.”

  “Vithous covered his tracks pretty well,” Bethany went on, handing Burke more paper. “He was smart to put the LLC in her name. He was smart to have the phony address on the property report. His only slip up wasn’t changing the address on his original submission to the state to get his LLC.”

  “This is why he was so touchy when you started digging into Viceroy,” Burke said. “It was more than just protecting his boss. It was about protecting his own ass.”

  “Turns out Nestegg own several properties in Kansas City. All obtained via warranty deed. All carved out of large developments that were recently approved by the City Council. And all purchased for the remarkably low sum of one dollar,” Bethany leaned back and looked like the cat who ate the canary.

  “The son of bitch wasn’t only a prick, he was dirty,” Burke said. “Any chance you have the names of all those property owners who gave property over to NestEgg for nothing?”

  “Even better,” Bethany replied, handing him one last sheet. “I have every property owner, every developer, and their attorneys.”

  At first glance, Burke was elated, but then he saw something on the sheet that made his smile vanish instantly.

  “Something wrong?” Edwards asked, noticing Burke’s frown.

  “Nothing you did,” Burke said, “this is great. Can I have this?” He held up the last sheet.

  “You can have all of it,” Bethany replied, “I have the originals back at the office.”

&nbs
p; Burke stood up quickly.

  “I’ve gotta go. You’ve given me a lot to go over. This is great, really. Thank you so much. You’d make a hell of cop.”

  Edwards smiled. Burke could tell she was enjoying this.

  “Does it pay more than a beat reporter?”

  “That,” Burke said while walking out, “I can’t say. My guess is we both are overworked and underpaid.”

  The feeling of well-worn flooring under his feet was very familiar. Fifty years of spilled beers and cigarette ash had given the hardwood a special patina. The stale smell of smoke was now gone; a smoking ban had relegated smokers to the patio out back or out in front.

  Charlie, the bar’s owner had complained to Burke at the time that the ban would end the place. “You city people are killing me,” he said exasperated on a warm fall day, when the doors were open wide and sounds of traffic on 63rd Street rolled through the bar in waves. Burke didn’t argue. He knew that “the city” meant everything to people like Charlie. Over the years he heard complaints about code enforcement, fire protection, park maintenance, you name it. It would seem fairly obvious that cops had nothing to do with such things, but people complained anyway.

  Despite Charlie’s dire warnings, the bar survived. In fact, it was thriving. Many people who had refused to go to bars because of the overwhelming smoke were now coming in. Twenty years ago people would have called them yuppies; Tom had no idea what they were called now.

  He had brought Julie here on their second date. At first, she was less than enthused. “I’m not a big bar person,” she protested. But her defenses melted fairly quickly. Tom bought a pitcher and introduced her to throwing darts. Bobby was there with his wife, and Lisa Sullivan went out of her way to make Julie feel welcome. Julie’s long black hair cascaded over her shoulders as she struggled to throw darts anywhere near where she was aiming. She laughed at her futility and Tom caught himself laughing too. He never laughed out loud that easily. Her jeans hugged her hips and ass, and her tan skin highlighted her blue blouse. One pitcher became two, and Tom knew he was already in love. The night ended with even more laughs and hugs and sweet salty kisses. It was a night that he wished he could relive again.