Authors: Rex Burns
“Did any do it?”
“A few claimed they did.” The Afro wagged from side to side. “But I think they lied. Councilman Green loved his wife and children, and as far as I know he was faithful.”
“Would it surprise you to learn he did have a mistress?”
“If you already know, why are you asking me?”
“I’m asking if it would surprise you.”
“Yes. Obviously.” She frowned. “Is that what you’re saying? That he did?”
“No. I’m just trying to see him in the same way as those who knew him.”
“You want to see him that way? Well, here’s how I saw him: He was a fine man, an outstanding councilman, and a credit to his race. Anybody who goes into politics is going to have mud slung at him, Mr. Detective, and a black man is going to get a little extra from racists and bigots. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but I do know that whatever bad they said about him was a lie.”
He watched the quick anger ebb to leave her face placid.
“How did he get along with the other members of the Zoning Committee?”
“Fine. He was a good chairman.”
“No hassles with any of them?”
“Hassles?” She shrugged. “They had their share of disagreements—every committee does. That’s what the system’s about: You have your disagreements and then work out something that satisfies everybody. Or nobody.”
“Can you give me an example?”
She thought back. “The convention center site—that was a major issue with the whole council. The mayor wanted it one place, the council wanted it another. Horace—Councilman Green—was on the mayor’s side in that one because it would have put it closer to the black community.”
“I thought he was against any redevelopment that cleared out homes.”
“There’s redevelopment and then there’s redevelopment. The convention center would have been set where there weren’t any homes to worry about, and it would have meant jobs for people who need them badly.”
“So he and the other councilmen argued over that?”
“Pretty hard, sometimes. Especially with Albro.”
“He’s vice chairman of Zoning?”
“That’s the one. And it turns out he has a cousin who owns a lot of land uptown where he wanted to put the center.” She rubbed thumb and forefinger together.
“A payoff?”
“Nothing that obvious. But you can assume that Albro and his cousin have a little understanding. Just don’t you dare say I told you that, you hear me?”
“I’m only interested in homicide, Mrs. Wilfong.” Wager glanced at his notebook, but he didn’t see anything because, now that the topic was raised, he was concentrating on steering the conversation and he didn’t want his eagerness to show. “Have you ever heard of any rumors of payoffs or influence peddling on the committee?”
“With Albro, you mean?”
“Or anyone else.”
She looked at Wager, her eyes flat and expressionless. “Who’ve you been talking to?”
“A lot of people, Mrs. Wilfong.”
She straightened out the stack of magazines, her eyes shifting from them to the gauze curtains swaying slightly in a breeze, to the Black Forest clock ticking steadily on the wall between two large paintings of flowers. Everywhere, in fact, except at him.
He waited.
“Councilman Horace Green was an honest man!”
He waited.
“Why don’t you say something? Why do you just keep sitting there?”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what you’ve heard.”
“You are? You’re that sure I heard something?”
“What did you hear?”
“What I heard isn’t proof of anything. There are people out there who would like to see Councilman Green’s name dirtied.”
“How?”
“By telling lies about him.”
“What kind of lies?”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
That didn’t require an answer.
Julia Wilfong stood and walked across the room to tap one of the paintings straight and then to the window to stare though the gauze into trees whose branches spread just beyond the glass. “It’s not proof of anything!”
“If you’ve heard something, Mrs. Wilfong, somebody else has probably heard it, too. Why don’t you tell me what you think the truth is?”
Lips tight, she came back to the brightly flowered couch and sat again. “It’s not so much anything that’s been said. It’s the way a few things were done.”
“In the committee, you mean?”
“Yes. There’s a certain builder—he needed a zoning change, and he got it on a routine vote sponsored by Horace.”
“But it wasn’t a routine change?”
She shook her head. “It meant an R-l to R-2 change—residential family to residential multifamily—and no one in the neighborhood knew anything about it until after it was done.”
“What kind of property was it?”
“A retirement complex. Nursing homes, retirement homes—they’re big things now. It used to be schools and apartment complexes, now it’s retirement facilities. Builders are getting ready for the aging population, you know.”
“What happened?”
“This developer bought an old school building and converted it into a retirement complex. He got it cheap because it was in an R-l neighborhood—the only use it was supposed to have was as a school, nothing else.”
“So after he bought it, he had the zoning changed and that increased the property’s value?”
“He remodeled it, then sold it for four, maybe five, times what the whole thing cost him. It was very good business.”
“Didn’t anybody in the neighborhood ask about the building while it was being remodeled?”
“The builder didn’t draw attention to it—he didn’t begin remodeling until after the zoning change was approved, of course. Moreover, it’s right on the edge of the zone—there’s an R-2 area a block away—and most people don’t know the zoning boundaries of their neighborhoods. This one, for instance, is a mixed zone now.”
“What about the sign-offs from city departments? The impact studies and the posted notices?”
“Building inspection’s only one part of the licensing procedure. Zoning’s another. Most of the inspectors don’t know anything about the zoning—they merely look at what they know: electrical, plumbing, fire codes, that sort of thing. And remember, they weren’t involved until after the change was effected.” She added, “As for the posted signs notifying residents of a proposed zoning change, there was some question as to whether they were properly displayed for the required period. Whoever was supposed to check on it, didn’t—the order was lost. The change did appear on the council’s agenda for both hearings, but not many people routinely read that document.”
“So the change was acted on. With Councilman Green’s support.”
“Yes. And since it was in his district and no one on the committee knew much about it—and there weren’t any objections from the neighborhood—it passed. Then, with that record from the committee, it passed the council as a piece of routine business.”
Wager, too, watched the curtains sway slightly, the black edge of the windowsill first a sharp line against the gauzy light, and then an obscured and rippling shadow as uneasy as his own thoughts. “Do you have a name for the builder?”
She nodded. “K and E Construction. Kaunitz and Ellis.”
SATURDAY, 14 JUNE, 1411 Hours
The word in Headquarters, when Wager returned, was that District Two had asked for reinforcements from the Reserves as well as from the uniformed divisions in the three other police districts. Both the motorcycle patrol and the horse patrol had been placed on standby, and medical personnel at Denver General were also on alert—though to Wager that seemed unnecessary, since Saturday night was always busy at the hospital’s Knife and Gun Club. The tingle of excitement managed to stir the stale air of the hallways, and Wager glimpsed an occasional hurrying face that looked naked and out of place without the usual weekday crowds around it. He guessed that up on the fourth floor the Intelligence Unit would be setting up a briefing for the various commands and later for the Metro SWAT teams, and this afternoon the armory would be a busy and quietly tense place sharpened by the clean smell of gun oil and the efficient rattle and click of breech mechanisms. It wasn’t a drill.
That was the refrain that stripped away the usual wisecracks and the show of careless familiarity with threat that a lot of cops liked to use to prove how salty they were.
It wasn’t a drill.
The phrase brought a wide look to eyes that passed in the hallways, eyes—Wager knew—that were allowed to show only eagerness and no hint of fear. The phrase even gave a spring to his own walk as his quick stride carried him past the location board and into the Homicide office.
A note in his message box said “Call Lt. W. ASAP” and Wager, thinking “All right, he’s a sap,” set it aside. Two calls from a William Jones had come in and the number on each slip was Fat Willy’s. He knew what the man wanted and it wasn’t going to be Wager’s favorite chore. But he promised he’d try. He dialed Papadopoulos’s extension, not really surprised to find the man still on duty. “Nick? It’s Gabe Wager.”
“Something you want?”
The bastard would want something from Wager some day. As sure as the sun crossed the sky, Nick-the-Greek would want a favor some day. But right now Wager was the petitioner and he had very little leverage. “That informant I told you about, he’s the one who tipped us to the cop-threat. I’d like to give him something back.”
“Give him our thanks and the good citizenship award.”
“Come on, Nick. What can I tell him about Franklin and Roberts?”
“Tell him they’re still in a holding cell.”
“You know what I mean.”
“And you know what I mean, Wager. Those scumbags are up for their last fall and I’m going to be the one to tuck them away for twenty-five to fifty.”
“From what I hear, the case against them isn’t all that strong.”
Papadopoulos chewed that over a moment. “I don’t know what you’ve heard. And I don’t much give a damn, because it’s not your case. I’m the assigned officer, remember? Now if you want to be their defense attorney, I’ll send a copy of the charge sheet to you. Otherwise, Wager, butt out.”
“Gracias, amigo.”
“Thein pirazi.”
Wager’s hand rested on the telephone and his fingers drummed a moment. As sure as the sun crossed the sky … But that didn’t help Willy now. A lot would depend on what more he had to offer. He swallowed a mouthful of now-lukewarm coffee and turned to the next item from the message box. Another slip told him that Fullerton had telephoned at 1252. Wager punched the numbers for the extension in Intelligence.
“Thanks for calling back, Gabe. Have you come across anything more on that threat?”
“No.”
“We’re taking it seriously—we’ve got some corroboration from other informants. Just a minute—” A hand covered the mouthpiece and then the voice came back. “Any possibility of getting you or someone from Homicide to be on-call tonight? The chief wants me to ask volunteers to come in. You know what that means.”
It meant no comp time—you volunteered. “You want me in uniform?”
“No—just show up if the call goes out. We’re trying to get people from each plainclothes unit—people familiar with the street.”
That made sense: Homicide, Burglary, Assault, Rape—all the plainclothes units had officers who spent years building up contacts on the street. If some son of a bitch pulled anything, they might be able to recognize him later in a lineup. At best, they might even be able to stop it before it got bad. “I’ll see what Stubbs can do, too.”
“Great.” Then he added in a softer voice, “By the way, I also got a line on the White Brotherhood. They’re supposed to be having a meeting up in Morrison sometime this weekend.”
That was a small foothills town about ten miles west of Denver. “When and where?”
“Don’t know. Won’t, until the last minute. That’s the way they work it for security.”
“Have you heard of any possible links to Green?”
Fullerton’s voice dropped even further. “Nothing. I asked—in a roundabout way, you understand—but nobody’s bragging. I figure if one of those scumbags did it, we’d hear about it because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. But nothing doing.”
“I’d appreciate you staying on that.”
“As much as I can, Gabe. I’ve already told you I can’t push it. I’m taking a big chance tipping you about the meeting.”
“I understand, Norm.” He also understood there were ways of doing it if Norm had really wanted to. Still, it was a hell of a lot more cooperation than he got from Papadopoulos, and he was grateful for that much. “Thanks.”
Wager was staring into space thinking about K and E Construction when Stubbs walked in. “Place is like a circus around here.” He sank into his chair and wiped a handkerchief across his forehead. “And hotter than hell’s basement outside. What’s new?”
“Damned little—what’ve you got?”
He flipped open his notebook to tell Wager what he’d learned about the evicted families. It wasn’t much. “I got in touch with every name except one—Calvert. Nobody knows where they went—probably living under a bridge somewhere. Most of the people never heard of Councilman Horace Green, and those who did weren’t blaming him for the eviction.”
“Despite what Dengren told them?”
Stubbs snorted. “From what I could tell, the only one listening to Dengren is Dengren. Anybody who heard about Green thinks he was killed by a white supremacist. And I tell you, there were a few times today that my arsehole puckered when I turned my back on a doorway.” He wiped again. “Tonight’s going to be a bad one.”
Wager told him about Fullerton’s request for volunteers. “I said I’d ask you.”
Stubbs gave his little off-key whistle and didn’t look happy. “I was supposed to visit the in-laws tonight, in Colorado Springs.” But he finally said the right thing. “Yeah, why the hell not. A riot couldn’t be any worse than visiting them. I just hope we get some comp time for all this crap.” He began dialing the phone and a few seconds later was apologizing to his wife, “I can’t help it, honey, it’s the job. You know that. Yeah … Yes, I will … As soon as I can … Me, too.”
Wager only half heard Stubbs’s words; in his mind, he was still going over what Julia Wilfong had told him and the possibilities her information had raised. Green was possibly cutting deals on the Zoning Committee. Of course, he may not have been, but the rumor had come now from two directions, and one of them—his aide—was worried about it. That gave it some weight. Nothing definite, no solid evidence of any wrongdoing, yet she had been worried and didn’t want to say much more about it, so you had to give weight to that. At least one zoning change had been just a little bit irregular. Which was like being just a little bit pregnant. And it made the contractor a hell of a lot of money, as well as raising a possible threat if Green had decided to tell anyone about it.