Gates of Power

by Peter O'Mahoney

  “What?”

  “It’s cancer. In my lungs, in my liver, in my kidneys. Spreading everywhere. Nothing the doctors can do.”

  “Laura, that’s awful. I’m so sorry…”

  “You can drop the sentimentality. It’s too late for that. This old gal is going to meet her maker, and make no mistake. It’s going to happen soon enough, and no amount of sentiment is gonna stop that. My time has come.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Three weeks. I got the diagnosis on my birthday.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Yep,” she replied slowly, her voice bitter and breaking.

  For a second, I thought she might cry.

  But Laura Cooper was made of strong stuff and held it together, just.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

  “Everybody asks me that. And to everybody I say the same thing: no!” She paused, then fixed me with a steely stare. “But then you’re not everybody, Jack; are you? And there is something you can do.”

  “Anything, Laura. Name it.”

  “I want justice for my Claire. Justice for our Claire.”

  “How?”

  “That subhuman Alexander Logan got away with killing her and all those little children by blowing out his own brains, but what about the person who gave him the weapon, the person who gave a mentally unstable fifteen-year-old boy a firearm. We all know someone did that; you, me, the police. He had no access to a weapon, and suddenly, there he was with an unregistered gun. That’s not coincidence, someone gave him that weapon. Someone gave him the opportunity to murder those people. But we still don’t know who. I want you to find out. I want you to bring them to justice. Promise me that you’ll do that, Jack. Promise this dying woman that you’ll get justice for Claire.”

  “Laura, you know there’s nothing I’d like more, but all leads went nowhere. The police and I looked into this, and we came up with nothing; whoever it was is a ghost.”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t look hard enough. Don’t just give up on a job half done. We may not have seen eye to eye over the years, you and me, but I always thought the man Claire married was a fighter. A fighter doesn’t give up until the final bell rings. Go back to it, Jack. Go back and find justice for my daughter.”

  She folded her arms and sat back in her chair as if the conversation was finished, as if counsel had been given and there was nothing more she wanted to add.

  What could I possibly do?

  The woman was practically on her deathbed and was pleading with me for help.

  But could I help? I really didn’t think so.

  I’d looked into this years ago and had hit a brick wall. I understood her frustration as a bystander not directly involved in the investigation on the ground, but frustration didn’t solve cases, evidence did. And evidence was thin on the ground even back then.

  As I was pondering this and my response to her, she did something unexpected and out of character: she reached forward and tenderly held my hand.

  She looked into my eyes.

  “Please,” she whispered, tightening her fragile grip.

  I looked back at her and for a moment saw the similarity between her eyes and Claire’s. With my other hand I held onto hers too.

  “Okay, Laura,” I said, “I’ll do it. I can’t promise you that I’ll succeed, but I promise you that I’ll go back to it and try.”

  And with that she smiled.

  Chapter 5

  People follow routines.

  And the more they follow routines the less aware they are. The commonplace becomes the least observed. Watch tourists in a new location, they look at everything around them; it’s fresh, new, captivating. Watch locals, and you’ll notice a sort of tunnel vision of familiarity as their norm; they see less, observe less, and see the same things in the same way.

  As surveillance targets go, today’s was proving very unaware, the rut of routine having dulled their senses to almost null and void. There was little chance they would spot me, but I took precautions nonetheless: never giving my sole attention to anything, so as not to become fixated on the target at the expense of everything else, where I might, for instance, miss someone putting a tail on me; and carrying out my surveillance in that sweet spot where I was close enough to observe but far enough away not to be alert. People rarely have the capacity or inclination to monitor things a long way away from them, so it’s a good idea to dwell there when tailing a moving target. That was fine for now, but today’s target would require something a lot more up close and personal, at least later on, to obtain the sort of information I required.

  By now it was late afternoon and I’d been following Kelly Holmes for the last three hours. She’d had her nails done, been to the gym, and met a male friend for coffee. It wasn’t the most stimulating way to spend my day but tailing someone could have its moments. If it was a difficult target, I’d enlist several trusted operatives, back up for me and Casey, which could then be switched when necessary, so if the target proved aware, they didn’t clock the same ugly mugs in every location they went. And ditto the above for vehicles, with us using several to minimize the chances of detection. But today I was working solo. I wanted to converse with Kelly Holmes alone, to strike up a conversation as if I was a random stranger, and I had a plan.

  Casey had discovered Kelly’s credit card statements the night before after a bit of late-night dumpster diving, providing us with a wealth of information. Casey had drawn the short straw with that task, but she had her own trademark solution to the smell: a dust mask smeared with copious quantities of Vicks. The credit card statements had given us details of an online dating site Kelly Holmes used. I say ‘dating site,’ but high-end casual liaison site would be more accurate, if the website’s promo material was anything to go by. Being a minor public figure, she had obscured her profile so the fanboys wouldn’t know it was her, but if you knew what you were looking for, it was easy enough to find.

  Casey had set up a fake account with Kelly Holmes’ perfect suitor and arranged a date: tonight, at a piano and jazz bar, Lazy Joes. Only Mr. Perfect was going to stand her up and I’d be there waiting to take his place.

  Framed photos lined the softly lit deep red walls of the entrance hall, all the big names of the jazz and blues scene who had played here over the years, a nod to the pedigree of the venue, letting you know from the moment you stepped inside that this was no modern version of retro cool, but authenticity itself. History had taken place here and was embedded in the building’s fabric. Beyond the hall sat the main arena, intimately sized with plush red seating and tables covered with freshly pressed cloths, polished wine glasses and decorative candle lighting. The place oozed glamour, and tonight’s clientele, who were now slowly arriving, were dressed to match.

  I arrived purposefully before Kelly Holmes and took a seat at the cocktail bar. I’d made her reservation with tonight’s fake date at the adjacent table, so I picked up the drink menu and settled in. Several paragraphs waxing lyrical about the abilities of the bar’s resident mixologists and their trademark inventions, and finally I found what I was looking for: the whiskeys.

  Double shot on the rocks of Ireland’s finest while I waited for her arrival.

  And waited.

  And waited some more.

  Three whiskeys later and with the full set of a jazz combo on stage, and I was beginning to wonder if it was her who was going to stand me up, when, finally, she walked on in.

  Dressed to the nines in a tightly fitting little-black-dress that left little to the imagination and highlighted her alabaster pale skin, she cut a mighty fine form for a woman in her mid-forties. It may have been two decades since her modelling career, but her high cheekbones, curly auburn hair and hourglass figure still had the heads turning as she strolled with poise and presence to her seat.

  She’d kept me waiting, and I decided to do the same to her, not as payback, but so I could observe her reactions while in a state of disengagement
, taking note of her unconscious body language. And it was body language that was going to give me the best indicator of truthfulness or deception on her part.

  A direct link exists between our emotions and our physiology, so during those brief moments of increased stress when lying, our true emotions leak out through our gestures, gaze and posture. But to read these effectively you have to establish someone’s baseline ‘normal’ behavior, and then note any deviations. I wanted to establish Kelly Holmes’ baseline, observe what gestures occurred during stress, then see if those same gestures cropped up, even fleetingly, when we conversed. In this way, I could gauge if she was lying.

  As the minutes ticked by, I watched her composure slowly slip away. The tell-tale checking of her phone, ample mojito refills, and subtle squirming in her seat spoke of her growing frustration at Mr. Perfect’s no show. This was not a woman used to being stood up, at least not since her divorce to Gates. I’d read a couple of her post marriage interviews where she’d proudly boasted of becoming a strong, confident woman whom no man would ever walk all over again.

  I texted a message from Mr. Perfect: Stuck in traffic. See you in ten.

  She began tapping the edge of her phone on the table.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five taps.

  Then she put it down flat.

  I sat back and watched the pressure cooker build, the annoyance slowly spreading across her face, as ten minutes became twenty, and twenty became half an hour. I could have entered the fray sooner, brought her frustration to an end with my approach, but I took my time, while pondering the ever-present question on my mind: could she be the killer?

  I texted again: Nearly there. Only ten minutes away.

  She did the frustrated tapping routine and began pursing her lips.

  Sound underhanded and manipulative? For sure, but my client was facing a solid twenty plus in the joint for murder, so there was no room for niceties. Kelly Holmes was a suspect, plain and simple. My priority was the case and Alfie Rose. Not the enjoyment or mockery of a Z-list celebrity on a night out listening to jazz and looking for casual love.

  With an impatient click of her finger, she demanded the bill from the waitress.

  As she got up to leave, I made my move.

  “Seaside Postcards,” I said flatly, looking her in the eye as she came within earshot.

  She stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Best darn performance I ever saw from a newcomer on Broadway.”

  “You saw it?” she asked, taken aback. “That was over fifteen years ago.”

  “Twice in one week. Spellbinding.”

  I stood up from the bar stool and reached out a hand, “Jack Valentine. Theater critic, in a former life.”

  “Err, Hi, Kelly Holmes, Broadway actress, in a former life.”

  Yeah, in case you’re wondering, I was lying about the theater critic bit. I’d had a colorful past before becoming a PI, but of the many gigs I’d tried my hand at, theater critic wasn’t one of them.

  It was a set up.

  Casey had done some digging and found out that Kelly Holmes’ proudest work, and the only work she’d ever received a modicum of critical acclaim for, was her one and only part in an obscure Broadway production of Seaside Postcards. Other than that, her work had been panned, and rightly so.

  She had quit the Broadway role after Gates’ affair with the wife and two daughters of a Congressman hit the headlines. She never got another gig on Broadway and her career became a series of meaningless bit parts in daytime soap operas. If she had wanted to be considered a serious actress, then it hadn’t happened. Her fate was forever to be defined instead as one of three things: wife of Brian Gates, ex-wife of Brian Gates, and now ex-wife of the late Brian Gates.

  But tonight, I was defining her the way she always yearned for. She took the bait, and soon we had settled in at a table together and were embroiled in her favorite subject: Kelly Holmes. I indulged her ego, bestowing her with searching questions as to the interpretation of her Broadway character and motivation for the role.

  A painful hour of contrived, pretentious guff in response, about her latent desires to communicate and reflect something powerful back to the audience, and I eventually turned the subject to Gates.

  She was several drinks in by now and happily unburdening herself.

  “Brian liked to see himself as a Peter Pan-like figure, you know, the boy who never grew up, young at heart, a seeker of escapism, and all that. And in a sense, he was like Peter Pan. Only not in the way he thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you know that the original Peter Pan was devious and heartless; sadistic; evil, even. And a killer. All that Disneyfication that happened later is a far cry from the character J.M Barrie first dreamed up. Brian Gates might not have been a killer, but he was all of the rest, and plenty more besides.”

  She took a big swig of cognac.

  “Don’t ever believe the happy-go-lucky media version of the man. The real Brian Gates was one almighty son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Are you following his case?” I asked.

  “Isn’t everyone?”

  “What do you make of the gamer, do you think he did it?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. But Brian was hated, viscerally hated, by a lot of people. Sure, a lot of idiots loved him in equal measure, but they never knew him. It could have been one of hundreds of jilted husbands whose wives Brian seduced.”

  “What about that producer of his, didn’t his wife leave him to be Gates’ fourth? Packman, something… Pat Packman. Yeah, that’s it, you think it could have been him?”

  For a split-second, I thought I saw a micro-expression of panic flash across her face, followed by its quick suppression.

  “No. Not a chance. Not Packman. That was years ago. The two worked together, had a good relationship, in fact,” she said, not once breaking eye contact with me.

  “You ever meet him?”

  She picked up her phone and tapped it on the table while pursing her lips, in the exact same manner as earlier.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five taps.

  “Couple of times, I think,” she replied, again not once breaking eye contact.

  That she unnaturally held my gaze was interesting.

  It’s a common misconception that people don’t hold eye contact when they lie. Not so. Eye contact is broken all the time during conversation, with our eyes darting about in all directions to better access information.

  But so ingrained is the false belief that people don’t hold eye contact when they’re lying, that often people do the exact opposite, firmly holding your gaze while telling a lie in the belief they’ll appear trustworthy. The incongruence of her gaze, and the reappearance of her phone tapping pursed-lipped stress gesture, left me certain she was lying.

  But about which part?

  I already knew that Packman hated Gates, but why lie about that and to what end?

  Or maybe she was lying about Packman not being the killer. If so, what did she know?

  Or was it that she was more familiar with Packman than she was letting on?

  I plied her with more questions and a couple more drinks to try to find out, but she proved unyielding, as if a defense mechanism had kicked in after the mention of Packman’s name, which only convinced me more than ever that there was something she was concealing.

  She turned the conversation to trivial matters, and soon after began overtly demonstrating her availability: little head tosses, playing with her hair, gentle touches of my hand, and confident smiles followed by slow looks away.

  They were all too easy to read. But that was intended.

  As she finished her drink, she turned to me with amorous, bedroom eyes.

  “Are we getting out of here?”

  “We are,” I stated without warmth. “Only it’s in separate taxis.”

  Chapter 6

  The most essential stage of any private investigation work isn’t the examination of the scene, the interviewing of
witnesses, or the review of circumstances surrounding the incident. Nope. The most essential step, the one that often gives away the most information, is the collection of information about the person hiring the investigator.

  Ordinary, regular people with ordinary, regular lives don’t hire private investigators. People who are in trouble, people who have messed up, hire investigators. And more often than not, they’re hiding something.

  Alfie Rose grew up in the neighborhood of Logan Square, on the Northwest side of Chicago, and a lot of his classmates still resided there. The area was currently undergoing gentrification, but it still had its suspect characters, drugs, and criminal activity. Late night bars sat next to Mom-and-Pop shops, coffee shops were next to cheap defense lawyer’s offices, and the upscale car yards were only a block from where a lot of homeless slept. I’d had a lot of work in the suburb over the years and knew the local characters well enough to go hunting for information.

  Over the past few years, Alfie Rose’s image had been carefully crafted by social media posts, television appearances, and online videos showing ‘who he really was,’ but his persona was so well managed by social media experts that looking into his online activity didn’t provide much information.

  And I wasn’t interested in the successful Alfie Rose.

  I was interested in the Alfie Rose that was picked on, beat up, and belittled at school.

  As I walked around the streets of Logan Square, looking for my target, I took in a lot of the smells. I passed one of the old apartment buildings, and the smell reminded me of Uncle Dennis, who used to live in the area. As I got older, I came to realize that Uncle Dennis was a very bizarre man, but to a child, he was always amusing. He handed me my first dirty magazine at ten years old, passed me my first shot of whiskey at twelve, and gave me my first driving lesson on the same day. He didn’t care about the law. He didn’t care about any rules. That’s probably why he died in prison after he was arrested for DUI for the fifth time.