ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS – CHAPTER 7
I've been on the receiving end of what Hobson can do even when he's telling the complete truth. He stood in front of the judge and told the truth, but how he said what he did, and the points he emphasized put me in the worst possible light. Part of me wonders if he did it intentionally. But what was really strange about the whole thing was that he ended up having the judge killed by the suspect. I know that Hobson had confronted the judge about something, but I don't know what. But I do know that Judge Roemick was killed and Hobson was right there, orchestrating the whole thing. This is where dealing with Hobson becomes so difficult. Was he after me, the judge or the suspect; or did he use the situation to burn us all. I'm gonna find out one day.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
When Gary opened his eyes, the first thing he realized was that it was late. He had been getting up at 6:30 every day for the last 6 years, why not today. The second thing he realized was that he was smelling coffee, and that was not a common thing to smell when he hadn't been awake to make it. The third and last was the realization that Cat was sprawled across his mid-section, purring away like an engine. Raising his head slightly; so as not to disturb Cat, he saw Meredith sitting in his usual chair and reading the paper. He looked at her and raised his eyebrow in silent inquiry.
"Morning sleepy, nothing until twelve thirty this afternoon, so you actually get to help your partner today."
Gary just lay back and enjoyed the novelty of the situation. "So what are you up to today?"
"I'm at the Sun-Times again today. I'm gonna look up some stuff and see if I can't get a story published; either here or in DC."
"Don't you think that's a bit risky, I mean anyone looking for you is gonna think to check the Sun-Times?"
"Maybe, but I'm hoping that I've bought myself a bit of time with the way I came out here. I didn't leave much of a trail."
"Well, as long as you don't get yourself hurt, I'm not gonna complain. So, you're gonna try and get the story out there so hopefully the heat on you will be turned down?"
"That's the plan."
Yawning and stretching, and dislodging Cat from his perch, Gary got up off the couch, well if I've got all this time, I think I'll catch a shower. You heading on soon?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna finish my coffee and hit the road."
Gary leaned out the bathroom door "hey Meredith, thanks for the coffee, and be careful today, promise?"
"Yeah, I promise, now get clean."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Brigatti's morning had been awful. She had shown up early in order to check out the waitress for Marissa; but had immediately Armstrong had dragged her into his office. Unfortunately it wasn't just Armstrong; her captain was there as well. "So Toni, using outside consultants now on murder investigations?"
"If I hadn't, it would have been written off as a suicide; like some people were insisting" Toni fired back, knowing that her captain was one of the people pushing for it to be called a suicide. Brigatti had always been about as diplomatic as a thrown mallet; and at the moment she was beyond caring that her captain's face was crimson.
"Listen Brigatti, you had someone outside the department look at crime scene evidence, you know what the kid's lawyer is gonna do with that."
"Bullshit, a guy I'm seeing brought me dinner and pointed something out; it wasn't planned and he didn't touch any of the evidence or compromise the situation in any way."
"That's the other thing; I'm not comfortable with you seeing someone that's as shady as Hobson seems to be."
For an instant Brigatti's eyes flicked from her captain to Armstrong, who didn't even have the balls to meet her gaze. "You trying to tell me what to do with my personal life, my personal time?"
"Of course not."
"Is my work deficient in any way?"
"Uhm, well . . . . . no, not really."
"Good, because if you were trying to tell me who I could and couldn't see I'd be on that phone in a heartbeat, and I doubt you'd like the outcome of that call. Now, I'll try to be sure that unauthorized people do not get involved in investigations in the future. Unless you have anything else to say, I've got three other cases pending and I need to do my job." She turned and fired out of the office and headed for a free terminal, preferably one far away from Armstrong. Several of the officers had seen her like this before, and were smart enough to get out of her way. Winslow thought about trying to heal the breach, but took one look at Toni's face and decided that discretion was truly the better part of valor, and chose to wait.
Brigatti was so upset that she had to try three times to enter the waitresses name into the missing person database. Swearing at herself for her klutziness and at Armstrong for just being, she finally got it right and then eased back in the chair and took a deep breath. She had known that Armstrong was a bit obsessed about Hobson, but she hadn't realized until now just how deep it truly ran. While she was waiting, she considered her options; she could move to another precinct or some other area, she knew of an opening in Vice at the moment, she could simply request a new partner, or she could try to clear the air, or at least reach a truce with Armstrong. She was trying to decide her course of action, when Armstrong found her.
"Hey Toni, I'm just trying to watch out for my partner."
"Really Paul, cause it felt like you were stabbing me in the back and twisting it pretty good."
"Come on Toni, you can't tell me that as much stuff as Hobson's involved in, you seeing him won't create a conflict of interest."
"Does the captain know about your brother in laws' record?"
"What?"
"Dealing wasn't it, arrested twice; did you consider that possible conflict when you were dating your wife? Have you made it known to the captain whenever you get involved in a drug case?"
"That's not relevant."
"But me dating a guy that's never been convicted of anything is?"
"I know that there's something going on Toni, you know there is too, you're too good a cop to not know it. I just don't want to see your career wrecked over this guy, sincerely."
"I appreciate that Paul, but I'm a big girl now, and I'm not blind, if Hobson's up to anything, I'll see it. Right now however, I really do have some work to do, and so do you, so if you will excuse me" and she turned her back on him. Armstrong debated on saying more but decided that now was not the time.
Her database search had produced several possibilities; she downloaded these files so she could check a bit deeper and hoped that the others were having a better day.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Meredith was going through the same argument for the third time. "No I won't be writing the piece, I will simply be the source of the information, so there's no conflict with the Post."
"But your name will be included in the article; the Post could use that as a basis for a suit."
Meredith tried not to look disgusted with the man, he was obviously an attorney; but her time in DC had made her intolerant of the 'cover your ass at all cost' mentality that too many lawyers had. "Listen up dipshit, I'm not serving as the author, I will not appear on the by-line; therefore the paper's liability is zero; and if you don't know that then you're dumber than you look."
The editor looked at the lawyer, "if they pushed it, would they win?"
"Probably not" the lawyer conceded.
Turning to Meredith he said "then let's do this. Who do you want to write this Meredith?"
"Molly Green" she answered "I like her style and she's got guts."
"OK then, call up Molly and get cracking."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Gary was running again, or maybe still would be a better word. Regardless, his first save had taken a bit too long; the guy just would not believe that there was something wrong with his car, and refused to look at the engine. Instead he just smirked and revved it whenever Gary was trying to tell him what would go wrong. It had worked out in the end, the guy revved his engine higher than before, and the oil line let go with an impressive bang. Originally that was going to happen on the Dan Ryan in the middle of rush hour and cause four deaths, including the smirking idiot in front of him. Gary just gave the moron a little 'I told you so' grin and headed on. Now he was trying to find a kid on a skateboard. A kid who had played hooky and gotten into his parents booze. Now he was skating around Oak Park drunk off his gourd and would soon decide to slalom down the middle of Madison Street. Gary had gotten off the El and gone to the place where the kid was supposed to be hit. But there was no kid, at least not yet. He was standing there, trying to figure out which direction the kid would be coming from, when he saw a skateboarder approaching. There were a couple of problems, though. One the paper had said that the victims name was Alex, Gary now realized that it was short for Alexandra. Two, the paper had neglected to mention that Alex was only wearing underwear, and only the bottoms at that. Oh boy he thought to himself, this was gonna be awkward. He took his leather jacket off and dashed out into traffic, wrapped the coat around the girl while plucking her off her board and sprinted for the far side of the street. She was safe at least, but now he had to deal with a drunken, naked teenager who was pissed off that her board had been crushed by a semi.
"I woulda missed it" she blearily maintained.
"No, you wouldn't have, if you had still been on your board you'd be a mushy spot in the road right now."
She gazed at him for a second, her eyes having difficulty focusing "who the hell are you anyway".
"My name is Gary, and I'm with the 'Chicago Skateboard Safety Council', so you're in big trouble missy. You should be thankful that only your board got mashed, I could have banned you from every skate-park in Illinois if I wanted to." While he had been talking to the girl he had also been removing his sweater. No tags no ID. "Here, put this on" he said, handing her the sweater.
She nonchalantly removed the jacket and put his sweater on; Gary averted his eyes at the last second and prayed that no-one would decide to ask what was going on. She was an average sized girl, but the sweater still came to almost her knees. Gary put his jacket back on and flagged down a cab. Checking the paper, he gave the driver the girl's address and enough money to get her there.
"If I hear about you being on a board in the next month, I'll have you banned from the streets, you understand?"
The girl gave a bit of woozy acknowledgement and proceeded to pass out in the cab.
'Dangit, that was my favorite sweater' Gary thought as the cab rolled away. He checked the paper again, to make sure everything was OK. It was but as he was putting the paper away, a new article caught his eye. "Reporter Killed in Drive by Shooting"; it just said a female reported would be killed and another one injured, but that it would happen right in front of the Sun-Times. He checked the time, it was gonna be close.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Brigatti's day had gotten a lot better. Forensics data had come back with some pretty damning evidence against a suspect in one of her cases. Now it was time to sweat the truth out of the weasel and close the case. She had also narrowed the waitresses ID down to two probables; Andrea Miller of Des Moines, Iowa or Teressa Walters of Memphis, Tennessee. Toni couldn't remember if the girl had an accent or not, but she would just ask Marissa. There was no way that the blind woman could miss an accent, even if it was trying to be covered. Brigatti looked up; her scumbag of a suspect was being walked in right now. Idly she wondered to herself why smart people thought it would be easy to get away with killing someone. Well, whatever the reason, this smart guy had screwed up and now it was time for one of the best parts of her job; getting to the truth.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
It was weird for Meredith. She had never been on this side of an article, where she was the source, not the writer. She had known Molly Green before she had headed out to DC and since then had kept track of her work. After a couple of minutes with her, Meredith knew that she had made the right choice wanting Molly to tell the story. Molly was thorough, professional, and didn't hesitate to ask difficult questions. Meredith laid the whole thing out; the Mob recruiters, the corruption at the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) and the funneling of money away from the tribes. Molly wanted to check a couple of things out for herself (a good reporter never fully trusts any source) and she wanted to add an angle on the reservation conditions for tribes that did have casinos.
"So, it won't be out today, but no problem getting it into tomorrow's paper; assuming everything checks out. Hey, if I need to get hold of you, where are you staying?"
"A place called McGinty's, you know it?"
"You're staying with Hobson?"
"You know him" Meredith asked, acting a little flustered. Of course she knew that Molly knew who Gary was, but she didn't want to let that on.
"We've run into each other on occasion. He helped me with a story about a guy on death row. Great story, turns out the guy was innocent, but it was spooky working with Hobson. Every now and then he'd just jump, like he'd been shot, and start off in a totally different direction. Like he knew what was gonna happen. Anyway, it's like I said, Hobson's spooky."
"You think he's psychic or something like that."
"I really don't know I'd like to think I don't believe in that kind of thing, but just being around him for a bit can really make you think about it. Didn't you two date for a while?"
"Yeah, then the Post called, and it was onward and upward."
"You miss Chicago?"
"I miss the Cubs, the pizza and a few of the people, otherwise a place is a place" Meredith lied.
"Speaking of pizza, you wanna catch a late lunch?"
"Sounds like a winner, but one condition, no shop talk."
"Absolutely, hey let me make two calls and I'll be right there."
"I'll be in the lobby."
"OK, see ya in a sec."
Meredith wandered down to the lobby, wondering if Molly had picked up on her lie. She missed Chicago so much that it hurt sometimes. But she couldn't figure out a way to keep her career and be anywhere near Gary Hobson for any length of time. She was chatting with the guards when Molly showed up, not five minutes later. They headed out onto Orleans and turned left, towards a place called Lenny's that Molly swore had the best pizza in the city. They were chatting about how the Cubs and Sox both looked better than usual when Meredith became aware of two sounds, the sound of running feet and the sound of screeching tires. She had just begun to register what these sounds meant when she was tackled from behind. At the same moment gunfire erupted from the street. Meredith immediately scrambled to the curb in order to put an Oldsmobile between her and the shooters. She turned back to see if Molly was hit or anything, but what she saw was Gary dragging Molly Green over to the same car. The gunshots stopped as quickly as they had started and Meredith once more heard the sound of shrieking tires. She looked up too late to get a good make on the car, but could see that it was dark blue and had government plates. Shaking a bit from the adrenalin rush, she looked over at Molly and asked "would you consider that confirmation?"
Molly just nodded her head; she didn't seem to be up to talking at the moment.
Meredith looked over at the man who had saved her life again "thanks Gary, perfect timing as usual."
"Your welcome" he looked at the two women, "you both OK"?
Molly looked up and finally registered Hobson's presence. "Thanks Hobson, I owe you one."
"No problem; tell you what, get your food critic to add a star to McGinty's rating and we'll call it square."
Molly Green just laughed, but as the realization of what had happened and the timing of her rescue she looked over at Meredith "like I said, spooky".
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Needless to say, there was police involvement. Gary was less than thrilled when Armstrong showed up to try and figure out what had happened. Of course he was leaving the questioning of the two reporters to Winslow and was grilling Hobson himself.
"So, what's going on Hobson?"
"I was just coming to see Meredith, the guard told me that she and Molly had just left, I went out after them and saw the car; specifically I saw the windows were a bit open and there were guns sticking out. I knocked the two ladies down and we hid behind that green Oldsmobile over there. The car drove off and you guys showed up."
"How did you know this is where she'd be?"
"She told me this morning."
"How did she see you this morning?"
"She's staying at my place; we're old friends so when she showed up I offered her a place to stay."
"So why is she in Chicago?"
"I guess she needed a break."
"Come on Hobson, she's a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, she could afford a month on the Riviera, why Chicago, why you?"
"I guess you'll have to ask her, I'm just glad she's here. I haven't seen her for five years so it's been fun catching up."
"Any idea as to who would want her dead?"
"No, but she's a reporter from DC, I imagine that a lot of people would like a shot at her."
Paul looked over to see Meredith reading Winslow the riot act and figured that Hobson was 100 right about that. "Anything you noticed about the car?"
"Dark blue sedan, government plates, at least three guys, I couldn't tell you anything about them; oh, and the windows were tinted, even the windshield."
"You sure about that?"
"Yeah, it struck me as weird; I didn't think it was legal to do that."
"It isn't, that's why the government plates don't make any sense, unless they're stolen."
"Sorry Armstrong, don't know what else to tell you."
"Not much else to say Hobson, if you think of anything; well you know the drill."
"You'll be the first person I call."
"Be sure about that."
"Later Armstrong."
Paul just nodded and walked over to Winslow to try and rescue him from the two women. He managed to pry the younger detective away, and Meredith and Molly headed over to Gary. "You two still hungry?"
"What?"
"The guard said something about you two catching a late lunch, I'll buy."
They just smiled in thanks and the three of them headed off to Lenny's.