A Deadly Development (10 page)

“And she offered you the Chief of Staff Job?”
Burke stated.

“You want to know the crazy thing?” Houlihan
asked. “I didn’t even want the job. She had to talk me into
it.”

“Why not?”

“Because, what do I need that headache for?
It’s a real job with real hours and all those personnel issues,
dealing with City Council egos. I was sixty-four years old at the
time. I was winding down. I was ready to move on.”

He stopped for a moment to greet two men in
power suits that were done eating and were walking out. Burke could
tell Houlihan knew them well and that they had done business
together. What type of business he could not be sure. What Burke
could be sure of was that Dick Houlihan would never truly be
retired. He
loved
the game, the backslapping, bullshitting,
handshaking and scheming. No way was he going to give that up if he
could help it.

“So, what changed?” Burke was getting
impatient. He needed to get to headquarters before Michaels got
there. He knew his captain wasn’t happy with him. He didn’t need to
make it worse by showing up late.

“She talked me into it, the Mayor that
is.”

Burke looked dubious. Dick seemed to read his
mind.

“No really,” he said, “I’m being serious. She
can be very persuasive when she wants to and she knew I loved
politics–the power, the deal making, all of it. Even though I
thought better of it, I caved.”

“So how come I’m talking to you here now, as
opposed to John Vithous - besides the obvious reason he’s
dead?”

Dick took in a long, deep breath, held it in
for a moment, and then released it. His entire body seemed to
shrink.

“What I hadn’t known is that John Vithous had
got back into her good graces. He had provided free polling during
the first mayoral campaign without my knowledge. He got a foot in
the door– that he promptly slithered his way past.”

“That was over four years ago, what happened
during the last campaign?” Burke checked his watch and wasn’t even
subtle about it. He needed Houlihan to get to the point.

“He became more involved as her first term
went on. At first it was a meeting, then a few, next thing you know
he’s sitting in every Friday afternoon kitchen cabinet
meeting.”

“Her top lieutenants?”

“Yeah, same idea. Fewer people – me, Pete
Knaak, the communications director, sometimes the Mayor’s husband
and Vithous.”

Houlihan stood up quickly.

“Do you mind walking me to my car? I’ve got a
nine o’clock. appointment downtown I need to make.”

“Sure”

They walked to the front door, Houlihan
greeting at least four different people before they made it to the
exit. Burked opened the door open for him and waited. He could feel
the cool spring air rolling over his face and chilling his hand as
it held on to the wrought iron door handle. Two minutes later, he
was following Houlihan’s large frame around the corner, to the
parking lot directly behind the restaurant. Houlihan fingered his
keyless entry system in his hand, unlocked the brand new Cadillac,
but didn’t get in. He rested his ass and back up against the car to
face Burke.

“Fast forward to the last campaign. Vithous
is polling every two weeks. Numbers don’t look good. Jane is
furious. Vithous, the little cocksucker, tells her it’s the policy
decisions I have promoted that are hurting her. That we look like
we are too entrenched with the business community and the special
interests and not enough with the neighborhood groups. Which is
ironic as hell, because John Vithous has had his hand out to the
business community since you were born.”

Houlihan took off his suit coat and carefully
placed it in the backseat of his car. He continued.

“I get a call –I am not shitting you – a call
on a Friday night. I’m with the missus, watching a movie, so I let
it go to voicemail. On the message, Vithous tells me that the Mayor
has decided to go in a new direction and my services are no longer
needed.”

“She didn’t even call you herself?” Burke
asked. To Tom, that seemed rather cowardly.

“Nope, he started on day one doing her dirty
work. My guess is she remembered how pissed off I had been the
first time she fired me. And Vithous got to the task at hand right
away. A leak had already appeared in the Kansas City Insider blog
saying I had some heart issues and wasn’t up to the job. I’m sure
Vithous leaked that crap. It was all sewn up before I even got home
from the show.”

“Gives someone a hell of a good reason to
kill someone,” Burke offered

“Yes it does, and I probably wouldn’t be this
forthcoming if I hadn’t been at the Kauffman Center Friday night
for the opera. I’ve got 2,000 witnesses to confirm that to you
detective.”

“Sergeant,” Burke corrected him, “and the
murder happened long before the opera started, so try again.”

Houlihan looked off into the distance, trying
to remember what he had done before the opera. He apparently
thought of something, because he snapped his fingers and pointed at
Burke.

“I was at Lidia’s eating with the wife before
the opera. Reservation was for 5:30. Feel free to check it out.”
Houlihan smiled, opened the car door and sat down.

“I will,” Burke replied, “you can count on
it. I appreciate your time, though.”

Burke began to walk to his car, but only got
a few steps.

“Hey Burke,” Houlihan shouted, “You know what
I really think happened?”

Burke turned around and shrugged.

“I think Vithous massaged the poll numbers
from the get go. I think Jane Hughes was never in trouble. She
easily would have been re-elected. He needed a reason to convince
her to get rid of me and bad poll numbers were awfully
convenient.”

“You tell her that theory?”

Houlihan shook his head.

“That bitch?” he said as he grabbed the car
door to close it. “I haven’t said a word to her since her henchman
fired me. She can go to hell.”

The car door slammed, and Houlihan pulled out
and began to drive away. As he got close to Burke, he rolled his
window down.

“Tell your old man hello,” Houlihan shouted,
as he drove past him.

Burke nodded, and watched Houlihan make a
hard left and then a right onto 47
^th
Street and
disappeared heading east.

“Shame he has an alibi,” Burke said to
himself as he walked across the street and got into his car. He put
the car in gear and headed downtown.

Twenty minutes later he was back at
headquarters. Another morning and no real suspects. The
pseudo-suspect was in the morgue, Dick Houlihan didn’t look
promising, and Captain Michaels was even less happy than the night
before.

“Tell me, gentlemen, how do you not collar a
two-bit criminal before he decides to decorate I-70 with his
blood?”

“Well, I was going to catch him, but Burke
decided to be the hero and chased the guy into traffic,” Thurber
offered, trying to be funny.

“Fuck off Jack, you couldn’t have caught him
if he had run to Arkansas. Hell, you’d be still chasing him if you
hadn’t dropped dead by now.”

“Knock it off!” Michaels growled. “I don’t
have time for your stupid comedy routine. I have the Chief and the
Mayor all over my ass on this. We need results. Now! What do I tell
them?”

“Tell them that the investigation is moving
forward. We are being thorough,” Burke responded. “A possible
suspect got killed running into traffic. We are still working the
case hard. I already have eliminated one suspect this very morning
and it isn’t even 9:30.”

Burke was fibbing some on this. He doubted
Houlihan was a suspect, but he hadn’t called the restaurant yet.
They wouldn’t be open for another couple of hours, so he hadn’t
bothered. Michaels wasn’t in the mood for this type of detail, so
he kept his mouth shut.

Michaels grunted and leaned back in his
chair.

“It will have to do for now, but you two
knuckleheads better have someone, in custody by Friday!”

“Yes sir,” Burke and Thurber responded and
left Michaels’ office without even being asked.

“What now?” Thurber asked while plopping
himself into the chair in his office.

“Let’s go talk to Douglas’ probation
officer,” Burke said while putting on his jacket, “It’s a short
walk and there had to be some reason he ran the second he saw
us.”

“You don’t think he really killed
Vithous?”

Burke shook his head.

“No, but it can’t hurt to close the door on
him as a suspect. We can just cross him off our incredibly short
list of two. I met with the ex-chief of staff this morning. He’s a
dead end. Plus we aren’t going to get Vithous’ financial records
until late this afternoon. We might as well do something
productive.”

Burke headed for the door and Jack followed
him outside.

It had heated up considerably since he left
the restaurant. Kansas City’s capricious weather was in full swing.
Workers from police headquarters, the Jackson County Courthouse,
City Hall and several law firms were making the most of it. They
were sunning themselves, sitting on benches, retaining walls, and a
park that was just north of City Hall. “Wish we had the time to sit
and sun ourselves,” Burke said.

They cut through Illus Davis Park to the
Missouri Western Probation Office, which was housed in the Federal
Courthouse at the northern entrance of the park. They flashed their
badges, entered the offices and asked for Douglas’ probation
officer.

A short woman, maybe in her fifties, with
bushy blonde hair and large glasses appeared. She was wearing a
loud, flower print jacket and slacks. They followed her into her
cramped cubicle.

“It’s just horrible about Thomas,” she said
with real sympathy. She looked like she might cry.

“You liked him?” Thurber asked.

“He wasn’t bad. Of course he did steal
things. But, Thomas only did it when he fell off the wagon and
started using drugs. He had a sad life. His father beat him and his
mother. He ran away at fifteen and ended up living in an abandoned
building on Independence Avenue.”

“People down there like young naïve boys,”
Thurber commented.

Burke frowned. He didn’t think Jack needed to
be so crass in front of the woman. But she nodded her head. It
wasn’t the first time she had heard such things.

“He tried though. Really tried. He attended
Narc Anon meetings. I know that for a fact. But he would slip up
and start using again. And then the stealing would start.”

“You have any guesses as to why he ran away
from us?” Tom asked.

“Well, he had missed his last two
appointments with me. My guess is he thought you were there to
arrest him for probation violations.”

Like that would ever happen
, Burke
thought. With the homicides, assaults, rapes, armed robberies and
countless other crimes going on in the city, KCPD wasn’t too
concerned about a small time junkie who stole laptops. Plus, you
couldn’t write him a ticket for his crimes, like a speeder or a
jaywalker.

She looked closer at his file.

“He was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic
recently. Maybe you just spooked him.” A frown came across her
face.

“Well, we do know he was using again,”
Thurber offered. “We found a small amount of heroin in his jeans
pocket.”

“I guess I am not surprised,” the probation
officer responded glumly, “you see a lot of lost causes in this
job, detectives. I had hoped that maybe Thomas was different, but I
guess he wasn’t.” She closed the case file, with a sense of
finality. Burke and Thurber thanked her for her time and left.

They took their time walking back to
headquarters. Thurber insisted on stopping at a mobile food vendor,
or “roach coach,” as he liked to call them, to grab some lunch.

“This guy is a total dead end,” Burke said,
“there was no stolen property in his apartment, he didn’t have any
money, hell, he didn’t have any furniture.”

Burke paused while Thurber ordered.

“I can’t believe you won’t fucking eat
anything from one of these places,” Thurber said as he paid for his
Italian sausage sandwich, larger fries and an even larger Coke.
“This stuff is really good. The City has health inspectors, you
know.”

“Yes, the City has tens of health inspectors
monitoring thousands of restaurants in our fair city,” Burke
replied. “I’m sure they do an outstanding job.”

“Such a cynic, Tom. Who knew?”

“Actually, I am more worried about the
caloric content than the cleanliness of their operations. You know,
it wasn’t a fluke you couldn’t catch Douglas yesterday.”

“Neither did you, asshole,” Thurber retorted,
“If I recall correctly, it was a blue semi that brought our suspect
to a halt.”

Burke laughed at that. Thurber was a
douchebag sometimes, but a funny one, nevertheless.

There was some good news when they came back.
Vithous’ financial records had arrived. It didn’t take long for Tom
to find some discrepancies.

“How much did you say Vithous made at the
City?” Burke asked Thurber. Thurber thumbed through his
notebook.

“$124,750,” Thurber replied.

“He owned way too much for that kind of
money.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”
Thurber responded, “You’d have thought you died and gone to heaven
if you made that kind of money.”

“Yeah, but look at his.” Tom pushed the
printouts in front of him and pointed.

“He owned the house in Crestwood that he
shared with the live-in girlfriend outright. That house has easily
got to be worth $350,000. Plus, he owns a home in Cabo San Lucas.
It too appears to be completely paid for. He has $43,000 in
savings. And over $8,000 in his checking account”
“Maybe he was better at pinching pennies than you and me.”

Burke pressed on.