Windy City

1 Inside Man

The sun was threatening to come over the horizon.

The misty fog hanging over the scene of the shooting gave it the feeling of evil.

This feeling of evil, lurking in wait, was not unique to only the Windy City but universal in both large and small cities. The history of this evil was rooted in the history of mankind.

It was the evil of projecting hate for those that were different.

Power was always a key differentiator.

With power came wealth and often wealth ushered in power.

Those in power looked down upon those below them. The discrimination that resulted was usually limited to making those below suffer by making them give more money to the rich.

The current evil that was in action was that of white against brown of any shade. It had been perpetrated by two men in blue for no other reason than they felt it was their right.

Jesse Franklin, deputy chief of police, ducked under the yellow security tape as he held out his badge for the young policewoman.

He had recently hired her and assigned her to this duty. He was sure this was her first murder crime scene.

The yellow taped area blocked off most of the corner of the intersection in a way that allowed traffic to be guided around the scene. An older model black Ford was at the center of the scene.

He walked over to the car and took in the young black man sitting in a pool of blood looking as if he were sleeping. He saw that a gun was still in the driver’s right hand.

For a moment he watched the coroner examine the body of the driver. He noted that the blood pooled in the driver’s seat had run down the driver’s left leg. Jesse was sure that the driver had bled to death.

The driver was dressed as if he were going out for a run. He was not dressed as the typical drug dealer that Jesse normally saw.

The dispatcher had received a call about a drug dealer that had resisted arrest.

Jesse did not see a drug dealer.

He asked the coroner about the shooting.

The coroner told him that the man had been shot three times, once in the head and twice in the chest. He used his hand to show that the shots were from the driver’s left side at what looked like a downward angle.

He went on and said that the wounds seemed to indicate the man had been shot while sitting in the driver’s seat.

He leaned the driver up against the wheel and used a pointer and pushed it into what appeared to be a bullet hole.

The coroner said that they would likely find a bullet somewhere in the seat back.

What was clear to Jesse was that a young dead black man was about to be zipped into a body bag that the coroner’s assistant had just wheeled up to the car.

He had seen too many similar cases. Usually, they were easier to accept as drug deals gone wrong. This scene and the coroner’s showing him what appeared to be a bullet hole in the seat back pointed him to two rogue cops.

He looked around and saw the two policemen that had been involved. They were part of the group of cops that did a variety of shady errands that Jesse arranged for the Chicago Mafia. He wondered about this situation and what had really gone down.

He walked over and asked what had happened.

The story from the two police officers was that they had approached the car because of a broken taillight. They claimed the driver had opened the door of the vehicle and raised his gun to shoot at them. They shouted for him to drop his gun and when he didn’t, they shot him, and he fell back into the driver’s seat.

They went on to say that they had found a stash of drugs on the passenger side floor.

Jesse saw through the lie.

He was sure the two had set up the scene to make it look like they had shot a drug dealer. He decided not to challenge the two but to wait for the coroner’s report before taking any action.

He knew that at a minimum he would assign these two to some district where they would not be involved in any more killing of young black men. The two would get the standard two weeks desk duty and then he would return them to street duty. For now, that was all that he planned to do with the case.

He was glad that it was Friday, and he would not have to deal with the details of the incident until Monday.

He looked around the scene before leaving. The sun had broken over the horizon and had made the fluffy white clouds appear.

He loved the day night cycle and the atmosphere of living by the lake.

When he arrived back to his office, the flashing light on his phone seemed to emulate the flashing light of a police car.

He really disliked that light.

He pressed the button to hear the message. He let out an internal groan when he recognized it as a coded message from the office of the Chicago Mafia Boss, Gennaro Visentino.

Jesse thought of Gennaro as a true Mafia God Father figure.

He really did not need any complications on an already screwed up Friday morning.

He knew that he would have to contact him to see what Gennaro had in mind.

He turned off the voice mail. He opened his desk drawer and extracted one of his many burner phones from the back.

He then let his support know that he was going for a quick walk to unwind.

He was following a standard routine that he had practiced for many years. He never made calls to Gennaro from his office, and he never used the same phone more than once.

He walked toward the Lake and made his call.

Gennaro graciously thanked him for a quick response. It always impressed Jesse that Gennaro was always polite. Jesse also knew that Gennaro was just as deadly as he was polite.

What Gennaro had to say had his hair standing on end. It seemed that the office of the Illinois Lieutenant Governor was seeking to hire a Cincinnati police detective, Alex Evercrest, to investigate corruption in the Chicago police department.

This detective had earned national recognition for her ability to resolve every case she had been assigned to. She had experienced multiple attempts on her life and was recognized as a dead shot when she pulled her weapon.

Alarm bells went off in Jesse’s head.

Jesse knew about one of her cases, just a couple of years ago, that had involved a coal barge that had lit up the Chicago skyline.

Single handedly she had taken out an attack gunship helicopter and destroyed a tug and coal barge.

The report was that she had been unarmed and fishing when the attack began.

She had been unarmed when the DEA greeted her on her return to the fishing dock.

She claimed that she had been fishing and knew nothing about the burning barge.

The body count was said to be at least six, but no bodies had ever been recovered.

He brought his attention into focus as Gennaro asked him to call her and warn her not to accept the assignment. He wanted Jesse to make it clear in no uncertain terms that accepting the offer would mean certain retribution by the Chicago Mafia.

She was to understand that there would be not second chance to change her mind.

Jesse reacted negatively to making a call threatening the detective’s life.

He did not want to be the one to make the call, but this was not a situation that he could say no to.

He preferred a controlled beating that allowed the person to feel the pain personally, however he decide to obey Gennaro.

The had alarm bells kept going off in his head.

He would proceed with ultimate caution.

He had no other choice. He agreed to make the call.

The weekend was not going to be as relaxing as he had planned.

He had a nagging feeling about the situation.

He called an acquaintance on the Cincinnati police force and asked about the Black detective.

He learned that she always got the people involved in the case she was assigned to solve. He learned that she was very likeable and friendly and that her opponents seemed to underestimate her.

That evening, he took a sleeping pill and went to sleep.

Even then he woke up several times.

The rest of the weekend seemed to drag. He went online and reviewed the stories about the black detective that he found in the national news snippets.

It gave him indigestion.

He took the pills for indigestion and heart burn, but they did him no good.

After reviewing her past accomplishments, he knew that she would not scare.

He was certain that his call would be a waste of his time.

He kept going over what he would say in when he warned her. He intuitively knew that it did not matter what or how he would say it and that she had a track record that said she did not scare.

Why make the call?

He remembered throwing a rock at a huge hornet’s paper nest and watching the immediate surge of a black stream of small hornets heading straight for him.

They somehow were able to follow the trajectory of the rock.

He had the feeling that the phone call would be like throwing a stone at just as dangerous black detective.

He expected that this detective would follow the money trail. He felt that his lifestyle would put him under the magnifying glass. He was living in a luxury condominium and had a forty-five-foot yacht anchored in Burnham Harbor.

He had let his boss know about his “family inheritance” so that he could move into the luxury condo.

He later had purchased the yacht. At that time, he had let his associates at the station know that his parents had left him a small fortune.

He had been told that he was a lucky person to have parents that had been frugal and set him up for the good life.

There had been no inheritance, but it provided the cover he needed. The truth was he had to use his own money to pay for his parents’ funerals.

He had told his wife the same story about an inheritance. She had been surprised because she did not think his parents had much money to leave him, but she did not question it.

She loved the three thousand square foot condo he had leased and partying on the yacht.

She did not care much about going out of the harbor to go fishing so he usually did that with some of his work associates.

He had few personal friends, and he kept it that way so that he did not have to explain his lifestyle.

All his property, including a luxury condo in Miami, was registered under his wife’s maiden name.

He felt confident in having covered his trail. He had made much of it public and the real money was offshore.

He had made sure that his personal bank account balanced with the income he made. He and his wife had modest investments in an IRA.

The money he “earned” with the mafia connection went to an offshore account in the Caymans and he seldom tapped into it. He was waiting until he left the department before touching it.

Jesse felt that he was secure in his personal position, but what he had learned about Alex Evercrest’s ability worried him.

He hoped that he would not have to throw too many of the cops that did his bidding under the bus.

It would be bad for his cash flow.

He came in on Monday and around nine he took one of his burner phones and went out for a walk.

He called the Cincinnati police station and asked for Alex Evercrest. He was on hold for a short time and then he heard a pleasant voice say, “May all be well with you, this is Alex how may I help you?”

He knew that in any other situation he would like her. She had perfect diction and it was clear she was very friendly.

The hornets coming out of their nest flashed in his mind. They were small and their buzz was almost un hearable.

He tried to hide his real voice by deepening his tone, he told her that accepting a position to root out corruption in the Chicago Police Force would endanger her life and the lives of her loved ones.

He was surprised at her chuckle and her response of thanking him for helping her make up her mind. She then went on to say that the two of them would soon meet and he should be ready to spend a great portion of his future life behind bars.

He then heard a click.

She had ended the call!

Her response put him in as state of panic.

She had reacted in a much more aggressive way than he had expected.

And she seemed so sure she would know who he was.

He took out a second burner phone and called Gennaro, let him know that his call had landed on deaf ears and that the Cincinnati detective had indicated she planned to accept coming to Chicago to root out the spoiled eggs that were on the police force.

He looked out toward the lake as the silence reverberated through his head.

He felt some sense of relief when he heard Gennaro say that he would take care of the Cincinnati detective and that he should relax because she would never make it to Chicago.

He liked the way Gennaro was choosing to deal with the situation.

He envisioned a fly being splattered by a fly swatter.

He returned to the office. His support handed him the coroner’s initial report. He carefully read through it and knew that the two cops had killed an innocent man.

He put in a call to check on the victim’s previous arrest records. There were none. He knew of no drug dealers with no arrest records.

A call from the Internal Affairs letting him know that they were looking into the shooting made it clear that he needed to get the two officers off the force. He knew Internal Affairs would find out the same information that he had.

He called in the two cops. He asked them again to tell him what had happened. It was clear that the two had spent the morning embellishing their story.

They handed him a written report. They had the black driver getting out of the car and then reaching for his gun. They had immediately called out, “police, you are under arrest and then as his gun came out, one of them had shot him twice in the chest and the other shot him once in the head.

As he listened, he picked up the coroner’s report that clearly indicated the shots had been at an angle that indicated the shooters were standing and shooting down at the victim.

The two officers had made up their stories. They were lying to him. It seemed to him that the two probably killed an innocent person and tried to make it look like a drug bust.

He looked at them and told them to read the coroner’s report and that they had an appointment with Internal Affairs.

He advised them to improve their story telling and that at least the lies should match the facts that were in the Coroner’s report.

He then suggested they resign, walk out of the office, and go find jobs elsewhere.

He asked them for their guns and assigned them to two weeks of desk duty. He was washing his hands of their case.

He was throwing them under the bus.

The two said that they were resigning and would find jobs elsewhere.

He was relieved. He felt he had more important things to worry about.

He had no idea that the more important worry was coming at him faster than he anticipated.

He was totally blind to the fact that Alex Evercrest’s mother was the one that had created the tsunami of catastrophes that was about to overtake his life.

He should have paid closer attention to the name of the lawyer that had asked for the police reports on the case cops who were being prosecuted for shooting a black driver of a car stopped for speeding. If he had paid closer attention, he would have linked Alex Evercrest with her mother, Rose Ann Evercrest, the lawyer who had repeatedly asked for information that he had blocked.

2 Connections

Rose Anne took pride in winning her cases for her clients.

Her practice grew as her win record became known.

She represented many affluent white clients but made it a policy that she would represent an equal number of black or people of color.

Her practice of doing ten percent pro-bono work turned out to be the best public advertisement that she had for her business. She made a point that her pro-bon work also crossed the color barrier and made sure that at least seventy percent went for those most discriminated against.

She had several young lawyers that she had hired because she felt they were among the best she could find. She had always made the claim that the best people represented the least expense for a business because their successes generated more income.

Her monetary compensation for the best put her employees among the highest paid in the Chicago legal system. It also made them among the most loyal employees.

Rose-Anne knew many of the details of Alex’s successful cases. She had been horrified by the flaming spectacle that Alex had lived through out on the lake when Alex had single handed destroyed a helicopter gunship, burned a barge and the tug pushing it and had killed at least five.

She had been aboard the yacht that carried the entire Cincinnati detective unit out to go fishing. Then as they were fishing, she watched in amazement as Alex dodged bullets to get everyone to safety. Alex then used her skill to disable the speed boat of the attacker. When they got to the peer, she saw the blood dripping from Alex’s gun hand as she ran up the dock to try and stop the attacker.

She always knew her daughter was very good at what she chose to do.  It was then that she realized that her daughter was phenomenal, and she was an attack dog when threatened.

She was aware of and thought that Alex had even taken out the leader of the Gulf Cartel. That was a case where Trey had almost been killed and Alex was out for payback. She knew that after that case, a new cartel boss made his appearance.

Rose-Anne had come to realize that her daughter was both brilliant in mind, deadly in fighting crime and she was one of the best across the entire country.

When she learned that a local Cincinnati lawyer had been able to get her to help him on two cases, Rose Ann decided that she would see if she could arrange for Alex to deal with the broken Chicago Police force.

She was frustrated with dealing with the case of three policemen accused of killing an innocent driver that had been stopped for speeding.

The shooting had been captured on video from an overpass by a person who happened to be walking across at the time of the arrest. The video seemed to indicate that it would be an open and shut case.

After taking on the case, she had asked for the police reports and for any other evidence that had been gathered.

She was stonewalled.

She came away empty handed.

She had submitted her request to the top Chicago Police leaders with no result.

She decided that something had to be done to clean up the system. The police department seemed to have become a law onto itself.

They did whatever they wanted.

She reached out to her college roommate friend, Jane Stradford, who had been elected as the Illinois Lieutenant Governor.

The two agreed that a lucrative offer for Alex's services to come for a special assignment to root out corrupt police was a great idea.

Jane commented that it would stretch her budget but if she could make a dent in eliminating the corruption, she felt it would be worth it.

She said that she would make the best offer that she could and hoped that it would be attractive to both Alex and her bosses.

Jane commented that she knew how tight her budget was and figured that the police budget in Cincinnati would be just as tight and they would welcome a generous financial arrangement.

She put together the offer and sent it out so it would be in Alex’s boss’s hands on Monday morning.

On Monday both were surprised that Alex’s initial inclination was to turn down the offer but that she would spend the day to think about it and consider it.

Rose-Anne let Russel know about her request to have Alex come to Chicago to root out bad cops and about Alex’s hesitation.

He had responded that he thought as a mother she should not be asking her daughter to take on the Chicago mafia.

It was as dangerous as facing a helicopter gunship with a fishing pole.

Rose Anne’s response was that she had not asked her to take on the Mafia but to look for bad cops.

Russel replied with a question, “Who do you think bad cops work for? Their Mafia bosses will not take it lightly and they control their environment with violence.”

This stopped the reply she had been thinking of giving him because of his gunship remark.

She had overlooked that obvious Mafia connection.

She was disturbed as she walked away after the discussion.

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