Hidden Charges

by Ridley Pearson

  3

  Throughout his meeting with Haverill, Jacobs had found himself distracted by thoughts of Susan, who had left him earlier for continued research. Back in his office, he tried to clear his head and concentrate on the number of tasks ahead of him. He was thankful that he had delegated much of his daily work to Dicky Brock in Dispatch, who seemed to relish being overworked, for Jacobs had plenty on his mind just working on the explosion and the developing conspiracy he, Rappaport, and Susan had uncovered.

  He flipped through the stack of memos and separated two from the pile that would need follow-up. Then he tackled his mail. The third envelope down caught his eye: a Green business-return envelope.

  He opened it carefully, aware of what it was. The pasted letters read:

  I must play fair and give you a clue…. He immediately called Shleit and left word to call back. He was still staring at the note when Mary-Jo knocked against the open door and stepped into his office. He thought it odd that, in married Mary-Jo, he detected a hint of jealousy and standoffishness.

  “You just got a message from the hospital,” she informed him clinically.

  “The hospital?”

  “County Hospital. A Mr. Martin Rappaport was assaulted yesterday. The message is that he is recovering well and that he or the police will be in touch with you sometime later today.”

  “Assaulted?”

  “That’s the message,” she said pointedly, turning to leave.

  “Mary-Jo, what is it?”

  “What’s what?” she said, blushing.

  “Why the crisp attitude?”

  She squinted, and for a moment he feared she might cry. “Some fantasies die hard,” she managed with a forced smile.

  He didn’t know what to say.

  4

  Roy Walker looked straight into the camera. He had watched Jesse Jackson speak on television many times, but he had never fully realized how intimidating cameras were. Behind him loomed the mall’s enormous facade. “We face a grave situation. Our city has deserted many of its people. The Yankee Green has deserted the city. Hillsdale exists in a divided time, when equality gets passed off for profit. What kind of society are we?

  “What kind of city promises to shelter evicted tenants only to repeatedly break that promise? Is that our city? Is that what the citizens of Hillsdale want? Black or white, it doesn’t matter. The common denominator of the people who now live near Washington Street is not color but economics. We are called “poor” people. But we’re not poor. We’re just poorer. Where the Green now stands, our homes once stood. Where do we live now? Away from the jobs. Away from the stores. We’ve been sent away.”

  “Is that why you’re calling for a protest tomorrow?” The reporter was a young man in a blue blazer. He was clearly impressed by Roy Walker and excited by the interview.

  “This protest is about equality. It’s about downtown politicians put in office by Yankee Green; it’s about evictions and promises made that were never kept. This mall is not what you may think. Ritzy? Sure. Glitzy? Sure. Entertaining? Probably. But don’t be deceived. It stands here for only one reason: to take your money from you. It’s a big hungry monster that will keep eating until there’s nothing left. There’s no end to its appetite.

  “Nearly two thousand people were evicted to make room for the various stages of Yankee Green. Our homes were bulldozed by direct order of our own city government. We were promised restitution, and we were promised low-income housing. We have received neither.”

  “What do you expect to gain from the protest?”

  “To gain?” Walker grinned. “Sore feet,” he said. “I’m here addressing the community because we need support. We intend to picket in front of the Green’s five major street entrances. Gain? We’d like more than promises. Results wouldn’t hurt anybody.” Again he grinned, comfortable and self-assured. “I’ll tell you what. Most of the minorities in this town were picked up and moved across the tracks ten years ago with promises of better living conditions, more jobs, and better schools. Don’t get me wrong; it was all quite legal. The mall was coming to town. It was the perfect opportunity to clean up Hillsdale. But once this mall was in place and the politicians were in office, those promises went down the tubes. Maybe all we hope to gain is a little self-respect. Maybe all we’re hoping to do is inform the concerned citizens of Hillsdale of what is going on while they’re shopping their six hundred stores and riding their eighty-some rides.

  “This mall is a monster. It ate up Hillsdale’s poor, and pretty soon, if everybody doesn’t wake up, it’s going to eat up the rest of Hillsdale as well. Think about that this November. It’s time we returned political power to people who understand Hillsdale’s problems. I’m not endorsing any particular candidate. I just think it’s time we wake up.”

  The camera panned away from Walker. The giant walls of Pavilion C rose from the sea of cars like a castle from a moat. On the roof a single satellite dish pointed toward the blue sky—a beastly ear cast to the heavens. The complex looked impregnable. A monster, perhaps, but one with a clean coat and brushed teeth.

  The interviewer thanked Walker and saw him to his car. “We’ll be here tomorrow. Good luck,” he said enthusiastically.

  Walker nodded and drove off.

  Back at the van the young reporter told his cameraman, “We’ll edit that down to twenty-five seconds of raw juice.” He beamed. “When we get back, see if we can get in edit room A. I want to show this to Max just as soon as possible. This stuff is gonna knock him out.”

  “You’re new here. I wouldn’t get too excited,” the cameraman said casually, wrapping up wires.

  “Why not? That stuff was dynamite.”

  “Maybe so, but Yankee Green is our biggest local account by a long shot. Don’t fool yourself. By the time Max gets through with this, it’ll look like a mall endorsement. Mark my words. You don’t go bad-mouthing your biggest sponsor. That’s bad business.”

  “They’ll edit the content?”

  “Edit it? I doubt if they’ll even run it.”

  5

  Susan caught Jacobs in his office just before his midmorning rounds. The room smelled lightly of perspiration despite the air conditioning. His hat and jacket were tossed casually over the typewriter, and the blinds were pulled against a sun that had battled with the clouds and won.

  She pushed the door closed.

  “Come in,” he said, standing.

  “Sit. Please.” She took a chair.

  “It can’t be that bad,” Jacobs said, returning heavily to his chair and concentrating on her.

  “Does it show?”

  He nodded.

  “Are you familiar with anagrams?”

  “An anagram is a word made by rearranging the letters of another word.”

  “That’s what I feel like I’m doing. Only I’m working with events. I’m trying to create the bombing you had the other day from other bombings that have come before. Anagrams can be a game as well. When you play it as a game there is that moment when you are looking at all the letters and suddenly a word jumps out at you. That happened to me today, only when I put it all together, it became a puzzle again. May I try it out on you?”

  “You have my undivided attention.”

  “I read through all the computer printouts—all the articles—today. I was able to rule out a few more suspects. Our list is growing smaller, thank God. As is typical in this kind of thing, it was the one I was least interested in that ended up the most interesting. I do this every time I research something. You’d think I’d catch on after a while.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Not now. Let me run this by you.”

  “Go on.”

  “It was the judge. Remember? One of the items we had on our list was a judge who had been murdered by a car bomb nearly six years ago. A man was arrested, sentenced, and convicted. I gave it less priority. But it’s like we talked about, you have to read between the lines. I was hitting one dead end after another on the other le
ads. Like I said, I was able to narrow down the field. I took another look at the judge. I used his name and searched several databases. The problem was, it was really a Hillsdale case, and The Herald doesn’t have a computerized data base.

  “I found it on a Boston database. Same judge. I was able to trace a number of cases he tried before his death. He served on an appellate court. One of the appeals was brought by a John Steuhl. S-t-e-u-h-l. It rang a bell. I went back to my other articles on the judge’s death. John Steuhl was the man who killed the judge with a car seat full of dynamite. That renewed my interest in the judge.”

  Jacobs adjusted himself and concentrated. She was talking quickly.

  “I called my friend with the District Attorney’s office—the one who gave me Proctor. He didn’t remember the name, but he asked a friend in Boston to pull the file and give me a call. I just hung up from that call.”

  “You’re even prettier when you get intense. You know that?”

  “Don’t change the subject. This is where it gets good, Sherlock. John Steuhl was appealing a case he lost against the owners of Yankee Green. Ever heard of the place? His father died of a heart attack while being evicted when the Green first underwent expansion. You remember that?”

  “How long ago?”

  “A little over six years.”

  “Before my time here.”

  “I found an article on it. The old guy refused to leave his apartment and had a heart attack while the police were trying to roust him. Died before he reached the hospital. What never made the papers was that the son tried to sue High Star. And lost. Twice. The second time, he killed the judge who tried the case.

  “My anagram started to come together. I had a man who had used dynamite to kill a judge, and his motive was anger at the Hillsdale mall. So I looked into John Steuhl.

  “Anagrams are fun because once you see part of the word, the rest of the word comes pretty easily.” She looked to the ceiling, collecting her thoughts. Jacobs could see her fitting the parts of her anagram together.

  She said, “As a young man, John Steuhl joined the Navy as a SEAL. He went through all the usual training—it’s very rugged from what I hear.”

  “Demolition work. That would explain his knowledge of explosives.”

  “Yes, exactly. Anyway, about the only thing of any importance is that he suffered a near-fatal injury on a training exercise. The Navy crossed signals. Steuhl and his squad were assigned a night exercise to blow up a ship planted by the Navy. Problem was, some pilots were assigned to drop bombs on the same dummy ship. What it boils down to is that Steuhl’s patrol was incredibly close to the ship when the bombs were dropped. Two of the frogmen died—I found an article about it in the LA Times—and Steuhl lost a full third of his skull. Nearly died. Spent months in a naval hospital. When he came out he had brain damage. Learning disabilities, slurred speech.

  “He was finally released two years later and continued psychiatric counseling at a military hospital. About this time his father died. A year later, he blew up the judge. Police were baffled until a series of notes led them to Steuhl.”

  “Notes!”

  “Evidently, he wanted to be caught. He didn’t feel safe in the outside world—this according to his doctors. They sold it well. He was declared criminally insane. His attorney plea-bargained it to second-degree manslaughter. And here’s the kicker. They put him in a home for the criminally insane. No parole from those places, as I understand it. That’s where my puzzle fell apart. He was our best bet by far. And he’s behind bars for life.”

  Jacobs was anxious in his chair. “Any photos? Did you see any photos of him?”

  “No. Most of this was done by database and telephone. No pictures. There may have been some in the papers. I could try and find—”

  “Would you, please?”

  “Of course.”

  He stood, encouraging her out of her chair and over to the door. “I’m going to run this by Shleit. Like you said, Steuhl’s our best bet by far.”

  “But as far as we know, he’s locked up. Might be smart to have Shleit check that for us. I have a couple of other candidates—”

  “Can you leave me the stuff?”

  “Sure.” She handed him a stack of pages which he tossed carelessly onto his desk. Her eyes stayed with her papers.

  “I’ll take a look at it,” he said, nudging her toward the door. He bent down and kissed her. “Meanwhile, try and find me a picture of Steuhl, okay?”

  “You think he escaped?” When he said nothing, she returned the kiss. “I’m on my way.”

  6

  Alex Macdonald took a seat directly across from Haverill’s desk and looked into the eyes of the young woman in the photograph. Macdonald was known for his casual air; today he seemed to have a lot on his mind.

  He glanced around the office. It reminded him of something from a TV show—Dallas, maybe. He wondered if the couch folded into a double bed, and whether or not the bookshelf concealed a wet bar.

  His normally jovial expression absent, he said to an equally pensive Haverill, “Let’s cut through it, shall we, Marv? You gained access to some very private information and then passed it along to certain powerful people. Although I don’t want the debt load, I went looking for the five hundred K to make up the difference on the Treemont deal, and lo and behold, I couldn’t find a single investor willing to play ball. Imagine that.”

  “You’re overextended. What I did was look into your investment in that development in Florida. It was a fluke, actually. I read in the Times that the county wouldn’t grant any more water to developers, and I remembered hearing you were into a big operation somewhere down there. It didn’t take long to find out the rest.”

  “So you knew where I stood when we talked the other day. I’ll say one thing for you, Marv; you certainly play a good game of beating around the bush.”

  “We need each other, Alex. That’s all it comes down to. I’ve admired your work for the last several years. You get things done where other people simply talk. I’m cut from the same cloth. My commitment to a downtown office center is a matter of public record. It’s going to happen at some point. Why not profit from it?”

  “Here’s how it works,” Macdonald said matter-of-factly. “You put up eight hundred and fifty K, not four hundred. For that you get a hundred thousand shares of preferred, which will give you about a twenty-three percent interest in the downtown development corporation. The extra cash helps me shed some of my debt load and make things a little lighter. If and when we go to the development stage, you pull your weight by having a talk with your friends downtown and working a badly needed tax concession for the project, like you did for the Green.

  “We arrange financing through Forest Long’s venture group—maybe offer them thirty percent—and get the project moving. After five years—five years from date of completion, that is—I have an option to buy half your hundred thousand shares back with a preset ceiling at ten a share. That returns you to about a thirteen percent ownership, which is what you expressed interest in.”

  “The details will have to be worked out. The ten-dollar ceiling is unacceptable, but I see what you’re driving at. On the whole, I favor the plan. However, as you know, if I’m to be involved, it would have to be silent, so the idea of me negotiating your tax concessions is out. That will have to be done by your people, but I’m more than willing to share my experiences with them.

  “We need each other, Alex. You need a partner with ready capital. I need The Hauve and could use some diversification into downtown. What do you say?”

  “Let’s put it on paper and see where we stand. Since we’re such good buddies, we’ll split the legal fees whether or not we reach an agreement. How’s that for partners?”

  “Done.” Haverill rose and approached Macdonald with an open hand. The two men shook hands, Macdonald the less enthusiastic.

  “To be quite honest, Marv, I don’t like the way you operate. No matter how legal it is.”

&nbs
p; Haverill shrugged. “We do what we have to do. Isn’t that right, Alex? It’s not always pleasant, but as long as it’s effective…” He shrugged again. “Let’s shake on it. We can work out the formalities in the next few weeks. I’m perfectly willing to make the stock transaction.” He paused. “You will make your offer on the Treemont building this afternoon, won’t you?”

  “As soon as I get back.”

  “Timing is everything to me.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  7

  The bomber had problems. Yesterday, the string he had attached to the EMERGENCY switch in the elevator had broken. Later, he had been chased through the tunnels. These two events had forced him to check his tape recordings at shorter intervals. And now he had just heard his name mentioned. It was obvious that this woman, Susan Lyme, considered him a likely suspect. She knew about the judge. To his relief she also believed he was still in jail.

  He knew, from listening to the bug that monitored Jacobs’s office, that Security would be watching all entrances to the utility tunnels carefully. He couldn’t enter as he had this morning, too risky. By now they might have a photo of him. Dispatch controlled several hundred surveillance cameras, and late yesterday afternoon the cameras in the new pavilion had gone on-line. They were now being tested. Movement through the new pavilion would be impossible.

  Once he made it inside the utility tunnels he felt confident he could avoid detection—and escape if necessary. But how to find a way inside? The only absolutely foolproof way he knew of was through the tops of the elevators. But the elevators would be closely watched.

  The elevators were out. If you want to hide something—really hide something—put it in plain view. He decided to try the obvious.

  He parted his hair along his scar and changed into blue work pants instead of jeans. He tried moving around his apartment without his glasses. He moved awkwardly and knew it. He left his apartment for the last time. He left the note in plain view. He left everything in his closet. Let them find it. Tonight would be spent in the catacombs of Yankee Green.