The Car Bomb (The detroit im dying Trilogy, Book 1) (22 page)

“
Anthony Peoples was working with the late Prentis Gant to make a bribery case against the judge and Sam Dworkin. And the car bomb that killed Peoples’s wife and kids back in May was intended for Peoples and the videotape they knew he had of a certain conversation in the judge’s chambers. I’ve got a copy of that tape right here.”

Frank raised the cassette he’d been holding, and the judge finally stirred in his chair. “Frank, you’re making a terrible mistake. Alice, I told you...”

Alice intervened. “Frank, the judge told us you might have a tape that only he could explain.”

“
Fine. Let’s play the tape, and then we’ll hear what he has to say.”

Back in the edit booth, Eddie was in the process of magnifying the image of the front of the Town Car until just the windshield filled the monitor screen. The picture was grainy and unfocused, but Francine thought she could see something interesting now about the hooded driver’s face.

“
Sorry,” said Eddie, “that’s probably as good as it gets.”

Francine picked out one of the cassettes she was holding. “Okay, but now, Eddie, can you put this tape in and get it on the other monitor?”

Eddie took the cassette and slipped it into the tape machine. “Anything for you, babe.”

Alice sat with her hands folded on her desk. Along with all three men turned in their chairs, she was watching one of the monitors built into the wall opposite the desk. A stoic look covered each of those male faces, including the judge’s, as he watched himself in fuzzy shades of grey on the hidden-camera tape:

“
That’s okay, Sam. What I’m gonna do, Anthony, is dismiss the armed robbery and murder one charges against you because of insufficient evidence.”

Dworkin: “Sounds like a good deal to me.”

Peoples: “And if I don’t give you this bag?”

Judge O’Bryan: “Well, your case is a close call, and I need what’s in the bag to convince me you don’t deserve to spend the rest of your life behind bars.”

Peoples: “Well, fellas, sounds fair to me. (pause) It’s all like you said, tens and twenties. Fifty thousand if you wanna count.”

Judge O’Bryan: “Oh, I’m sure you counted right, Anthony. In any case, as the old saying goes, we know where you live.”

Dworkin: “It’s really quite a sight.”

Francine and Eddie sat forward in their chairs, still working together in the edit booth. The young redhead liked what she was seeing on the monitor.

“
Fabulous, Eddie. How long will it take?”

“
To get this on a tape for you?”

“
Yes.”

“
Oh, maybe a whole hot minute.”

“
Great. I’ll make some calls.”

“
Okay, babe.”

Picking up the remote, Alice got up and moved a few steps around her desk until she was standing next to Johanson and could get a better look at the monitor’s picture of the judge’s desk loaded with cash.

Frank turned back in his chair. “That’s probably enough for now.”

Alice pushed a button on the remote, and the monitor went black. She returned to her chair, as Johanson and the judge turned back in their chairs.

Frank gazed at his old friend. “Well, Billy, you want to explain that to us?”

The judge smiled and straightened a bit. Then playing to Alice and Johanson, and almost completely ignoring Frank, he said, “You bet. First of all, the reason I have an attorney filing for an injunction is because that tape belongs to the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, and...”

Frank shouted, “Oh, come off it. You know damn well that’s prior restraint, and no court is going to give it to you.”

The judge finally looked at Frank. “Not so. Not with an on-going investigation involved here.”

Frank raised his brow. “An on-going investigation? What the hell are you talking about?”

O’Bryan darted a quick grin at Alice. “If you’ll just calm down and listen, Frank, I’ll tell you.”

Frank shrugged and gestured that the judge had the floor.

With a nod in Frank’s direction, O’Bryan continued: “This tape was made because I was working with the Wayne County Prosecutor at that time, Prentis Gant. We arranged to have a hidden camera tape this whole transaction, in an effort to nail Anthony Peoples for attempted bribery.”

Frank exploded. “That’s bullshit. A judge in cahoots with the prosecutor to get some guy for bribery when he’s already up for armed robbery and murder?”

“
Anthony Peoples wasn’t the main target in all this. It was his cousin ‘Pretty Rick’ Mahone. We figured Peoples would get the money from his cousin. We could trace the cash back to ‘Pretty Rick’ and put one of this town’s leading drug lords away for a good long time.”

Frank shook his head. “Billy, I can always tell when you’re bullshitting, and right now, it’s coming out of your ears.”

Alice got up from her desk again and stood behind it. “Frank, I’ll take it from here. From what I’ve seen and heard, I think it would be wise not to go ahead with this story, at least for the time being.”

Frank also got up from his chair. “Oh, for Christ sake, Alice...”

Alice raised her hand. “Frank, that’s enough. Jack, what do you think?”

Already knowing what was coming, Frank was shaking his head.

“
I agree, Alice. I sure don’t like prior restraint. But in this case, I think we need to move very carefully.”

In the station’s lobby at the visitor’s entrance, Gwen was sitting at her desk and listening on her headset to an irate viewer as she watched Francine running toward her down a long hallway. The young woman was clutching a cassette, and as she reached the lobby she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the uniformed Detroit Police officer sitting in the armchair watching TV, a large strawberry birthmark covering almost half his face.

Francine stared hard at the man, then glanced at the other two Detroit cops on the couch and finally at Gwen on the phone behind the desk. She turned and walked quickly down an adjacent hall leading toward the VP-GM’s office.

In that office Judge O’Bryan was saying, “Frank, you’re just dead wrong on this one.”

“
Yeah, well, twice in the past two days I’ve nearly been just plain dead...”

There was a sharp knock on the door, it opened and Alice’s secretary Margaret leaned in. “Frank, Francine from the newsroom says she needs to see you right away.”

“
Maggie, I’m a little busy at the moment.”

In the doorway Francine looked over the secretary’s shoulder, nodding frantically. “It’s like really urgent, Frank.”

Reluctantly he headed for the door. “Sorry, I’ll just be a minute.”

Walking out of the office, he left the door open so he could glance back in as he talked with Francine.

Judge O’Bryan took advantage of the moment. “Alice, I really appreciate the opportunity to come in and tell you about my concerns.”

Alice smiled. “I’m glad you called. We appreciate the heads up.”

“
You know, Frank and I go way back together, and I have tremendous respect for him. But the guy has just put himself under too much pressure lately. He really needs some time off.”

Alice nodded in agreement and watched as Frank took the cassette from Francine and moved back into the office. He closed the door and remained standing.

“
Look, Alice, just give me two more minutes to explain the rest of this, and then do what you want.”

Alice stared at him for a moment, then said, “Two minutes, Frank.”

Moving slowly up the hall, Francine reached the lobby and peered around the corner. The cop with the birthmark was no longer sitting there. She walked quickly to the desk. “Gwen, why was that police officer here?”

“
Which police officer?” Gwen glanced at the two uniformed cops on the couch.

“
Not those two. The one who was sitting in that chair.”

“
Oh, he came with the judge who’s meeting with Alice.”

“
Where’d he go?”

“
The police officer? He asked if he could look around the station.”

“
And you let him?”

“
Francine, he’s the police.”

Holding the floor, Frank felt good on his feet. “The fact is that everybody in a position to incriminate the judge here and Sam Dworkin is either conveniently dead or supposed to be.”

Alice nearly rolled her eyes. “What on earth are you saying, Frank?”

“
I’m saying that ‘Pretty Rick’ is dead, murdered in his Masarati. Anthony Peoples is supposed to be dead, by the car bomb that took his wife and kids instead. Prentis Gant is dead, by his own hand, according to the cops, but I saw him that night, and my guess is he was murdered. And finally, I’m supposed to be dead. At least once and maybe twice in the last 24 hours someone’s tried to kill me.”

Alice’s eyes narrowed. “Frank, what are you saying? All I know about is last night, and I was told it was an accident, or a near-accident, that you shouldn’t have been walking in the streeet.”

Frank moved to a tape machine on a shelf next to the monitor and ejected the cassette that was in it. “Yeah, well, I’ll show you last night, and you can judge for yourself.”

Removing a sticky note from the cassette Francine had brought, he slotted the tape into the machine and pushed a button. “But today coming back here after interviewing Peoples, I was chased on the freeway and shot at. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“
Shot at, Frank?”

“
Yeah, Alice, shot at. I had to ditch my car on the freeway with shattered windows and bullet holes in it. We’ve got pictures of it.”

Everyone turned to watch the monitor. On screen Frank was standing on Jefferson Avenue waiting to walk and talk, nicely lit and framed.

“
This is what happened last night.”

On the monitor, Frank once again started his walk and, as the grey Town Car began turning the corner behind him, spoke his opening lines. “Some people say I own this town. Well, they’re wrong. This proud old city belongs to each and every one of you...”

Again, the Town Car accelerated toward Frank. And again it nearly hit him and then continued past until the action stopped in a freeze-frame.

Alice said quietly, “Frank, you were very fortunate.”

“
Yeah, maybe I was.”

Now on the screen the freeze was followed by a magnified version of the frame that produced a fuzzy close-up of the driver’s face.

“
And we were lucky our camera was more or less hidden and perfectly positioned to get this guy’s mug on tape. Remember this face with a big mark there on the left side. I think we’re going to see it again.”

On the monitor the magnified freeze gave way to a courtroom scene featuring Judge O’Bryan. On screen he was saying, “This court feels strongly that...”

Whereupon the defendant, lunging past the court reporter, went for the judge’s throat. “You (bleep). I’ll rip your (bleep) head off.”

As the bailiff quickly wrestled the man away from the judge, the action again froze, and the picture was blown up to offer a detailed look at the bailiff’s face. Now there was a clear look at a large, strawberry-colored birthmark on his left cheek and forehead.

Frank read from the sticky note. “The man coming to the judge’s aid, the man with the large red birthmark, is the judge’s bailiff, Officer Kenneth Miles. Officer Miles has been assigned to Judge O’Bryan’s courtroom for the past three years. And for two years before that, he was a member of the Detroit Police Department’s gang squad.

“
Oh, and before that he was with the bomb squad.”

Now the monitor’s screen was split, filled with the two freeze-frame close-ups of the driver and the bailiff. They appeared to be one and the same man.

Frank continued: “And in case you still have any doubts, I’d say these side-by-side pictures strongly suggest that Officer Miles is also the man who apparently tried to run me down last night.”

He pushed the pause button on the tape player to keep the split picture on the screen. Then turning back to his attentive audience, he found his old pal the judge finally looking a bit uncomfortable.

“
Alice, all I’m saying is, under the circumstances it seems right and appropriate to tell Anthony Peoples’s story and to include portions of the hidden camera tape that Peoples gave me. By the way, your honor, if you were really working with the prosecutor to nail Peoples and ‘Pretty Rick’ for bribery, why would Peoples have the tape in his possession?”

The judge was getting a little pink in the face. “How should I know? This is a guy charged with robbery and murder. Maybe he stole the tape.”

“
Charges, which you dropped in exchange for a $50,000 bribe.”

“
That’s nonsense.”

Frank turned to his news director. “Look, Jack, I’ll include the judge’s denial and his trumped up tale, if he really wants to stick with it. But this story needs to be told, and we’ve got everything we need to tell it properly. After which Peoples turns himself into the feds, we give them everything we’ve got as well, and it’s all settled in court.”

With a long drag on his pipe, Johanson blew smoke and nodded. “Alice, I think Frank’s right.”

She stared at Frank for a second. “There’s not much time. You better get back to the newsroom.”

“
Thanks, Alice. I’m sorry, Billy, I really am. If you want to come with me now, we’ll put you on camera, and you can have your say.”

“
Fuck you, Frank. I’ll see you all in court.”

Looking desperate, Dennis stood in front of his computer. “Where the hell is Frank?”

As if on cue, the anchorman walked into the busy newsroom.

“
So how we doing, Denny?”