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Old 05-22-2013, 01:52 AM   #37
tshiggins
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
Default Re: Five Earths, All in a Row

New York Police Commissioner Ralph Weston checked his hat and coat and made his way into the Cobalt Club. It had been a long and exciting day, and he needed to unwind with a drink before he went home. The wife would sniff, but as long as he arrived early, Mrs. Weston wouldn't complain. Much.

Especially since the repeal of prohibition meant his presence at the club didn't threaten his political standing.

Not that it ever did, all that much. New York wasn't Chicago, but the Big Apple's ability to wink at slight contraventions was one of the city's most pleasant cultural traits. Besides, Mrs. Weston's social standing was in for a meteoric rise, in the near future, and that always put her in a forgiving mood.

"Well, hello, commissioner! Please, won't you join us?"

Of course, pleasant conversation always helped ease one's burdens, and the reason Monte and Margot were two of his oldest friends (How did they meet, again...?) was because they were such excellent listeners. Smiling, the New York police commissioner took the proffered chair.

"Thank you, Monty, I believe I will. The usual, please, Clevon."

"Right away, sir."

Margot smiled, and touched his arm in that delicate manner he found so appealing.

"Commissioner, I do believe congratulations are in order, if my little birds aren't all a-twitter over nothing."

"Your little birds are as astonishing as ever, my dear. Yes, we should make the official announcement, tomorrow morning, but the appointment has already made back-room rounds at the Capitol. The departure of my predecessor was met with such surprise and relief that I believe Mr. Roosevelt could have appointed John Dillinger to be the next director of the FBI, and won Senate approval. We anticipate no difficulty, on that score."

"Mrs. Weston will be so excited! When will the two of you depart for Washington?"

"I've already spent several days, there, Margot, and the two of us will travel there, by train, in two days. We'll need to pick out a residence, of course, and the briefings have already begun."

Weston patted his briefcase, and Margot's companion smiled with delight.

"Any juicy scandals in there, Weston?"

The commissioner chuckled.

"No, not at all, Monty. That was rather more the forte of my predecessor, actually, and I have better things to do than listen at bedroom keyholes. The rumors of war grow more dreadful, every day, and the FBI is charged with the responsibility for counter-intelligence. I shall have quite enough to do, without re-creating Mr. Hoover's library of secret files."

Weston waited until Clevon had brought the snifter of brandy and left, before he pulled out the packet of paperwork from the case. The soon-to-be former New York Police Commissioner sighed heavily, and the grooves on his face deepened.

"In the meantime, the FBI staff has begun to brief me on more prosaic matters. These are particularly disturbing. Apparently, what we thought was a random series of murderous assaults on young men and women of color may have a common thread."

Monty leaned forward, eyebrows arched with interest, and tried to get a peak at the report. Weston slapped the cover closed, and the younger man jerked back, looking slightly hurt.

"Oh, come on, commissioner! You can't just drop a bombshell, like that, and then not tell the story. Give!"

"Sorry, Monty. FBI business, you know. Don't even know why I mentioned it to an amateur detective such as yourself."

Margot cut in.

"Now, now! Monty, the commissioner came in here to relax a bit. I don't imagine he'll get to do much of that, in the foreseeable future, so why don't you give the poor man a break? Commissioner, I insist I must intrude on your wife's prerogatives, this once, and ask you for a dance!"

Weston's face lit up with a smile. He swallowed the last of his scotch with a gulp, stood up and offered his arm to the delighted Margot Lane. He walked her to the dance floor, the folder on the table temporarily forgotten.

Margot's companion slid it over, and flipped through the report. Monty glanced at each page, briefly (he needed no more than a quick glance...), returned the folder to the briefcase and locked it securely. After all, Weston might grow suspicious if he saw it left out, when he would clearly remember that he had stashed it, away, before he left the table.

************************************************** *****

Virginia lay cold and slushy, far to the north. However, winters in Mississippi seemed to mostly consist of day after day of cold, miserable rain.

At least, that was the understanding of the new director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This was his first trip south of the Mason-Dixon Line since his honeymoon in the Florida Keys, and that was 23 scorching Junes, ago.

The police chief of Greenwood, Mississippi, blinked in amazement as FBI Director Ralph Weston picked his way across the puddled street on the outskirts of town, toward the roadhouse reluctantly guarded by blue-clad officers huddled in their patrol cars. His men didn't want to be here. He didn't, either. If the FBI claimed this as their jurisdiction, then let them shiver in the rain.

Let them go inside and deal with that... mess. The chief had to meet with some of Greenwood's community leaders about all this. The local "gentlemen's club" would need to lay low.

Weston exchanged the required greetings to the sullen police chief, nodded to the uniformed officers, and then made his way to the door of the roadhouse. James Clarke, the special agent in charge, had apparently been watching for him, and met him, there, with a handshake.

"I'm surprised to see you here, director. This is a big mess, but I didn't think it warranted a flight down from Washington, in this weather."

"Normally, something like this wouldn't. Or, well, it might not. After I read your initial report, though, a few things jumped out at me."

Weston glanced at the Greenwood police chief out of the corner of his eye.

"Let's take this inside, shall we?"

"Well, alright sir. If you insist. You'll need paste under your nose, though. The corpses are gone but there was a lot of blood, and it doesn't get cold enough in Mississippi in March, to freeze things."

The two men made their way inside. The smell was bad. Weston had been around worse.

"So, what's the score, sir, if I may ask?"

"I wanted to double-check some of the finding in your report. I need to know if anything's changed."

"What do you mean? What parts?"

"Your report included detailed descriptions of the gunshot wounds on the victims."

Clarke swallowed, and the lines at the corners of his mouth deepened.

"Yes sir. Noticed that, did you?"

"Yeah. No more than three shots, each. Most only one. Every shot from one of two .45 caliber pistols, mostly likely M1911A1 auto-loaders. Every shot to the torso or the head. No wounds to extremities except those consistent with reflexive defensive moves, in the form of pass-through bullet wounds to the hands and lower arms."

Weston looked around the room, the floor criss-crossed with ghostly chalk outlines. He started to sigh, and then stopped before he gagged.

"No bullets lodged in walls or the floors, except those that passed completely through the bodies of the victims, or those fired by them. Every suspect .45 round matches a wound. That means no shots missed. Has that changed?"

"No. No, sir. It has not."

"What can you tell me about the victims? What do they have in common? Other than the fact they were all white men and were all slaughtered in a roadhouse bar with a Confederate battle flag on the wall?"

"It took us awhile, and we're still confirming, sir, but none of the locals are exactly forthcoming. However, our preliminary information seems to indicate they may have all been members of the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan."

"Is the chapter very active?"

"Records seem to indicate they are, sir. Or, they were. They had a particularly violent record. Beatings. Lynchings. The whole gamut."

"Yeah. Yeah. It fits."

"Fits what, sir?"

"I've seen this sort of thing before, on the New York waterfront. Individuals who met a particularly violent death who, when investigated, seemed to have particularly brutal pasts. Said death dealt out by no more than one or two people who demonstrate a level of murderous skill that borders on the... extraordinary."

Clarke's lips drew into a thin line.

"Yeah. Er, yes sir. I agree."

"My predecessor records similar incidents up and down the East Coast, and even a few cases over in California, especially around the docks of San Francisco. Also, the Chinatowns in New York and Los Angeles, starting about 10 years ago. He opened an 'Extraordinary Circumstances' file, about them."

"I... may have heard something about those files, sir. But this is nowhere near the coast, and there aren't any Chinamen anywhere near Greenwood, Mississippi. Do you think it's the same guy? Do you think it's... him?"

"If it is, what would you think of trying to catch him? Stop him?"

The muscles clenched in Clark's jaw.

"If we can, sir, we should. Vigilantes, especially ones this violent, need to be brought in. The only thing is, sir...."

"Yes?"

"Well, the only thing is, sir, that if it is him, I'd want more men. I'd want an army. This man scares the hell out of me; out of anybody sane. He's worse than that guy in the cape. Much worse."

"I agree. Well. It may come to that. So, have you found anything else?"

"Yes, sir. The office in back has a wall-safe. It was well-hidden, but we found it open, and it had some documents."

"Tell me."

"There was a ledger book, sir. It has a list of names we don't recognize. Alongside each of the names were other names -- including the names of some of the victims who died, here."

"Get on it, Clarke. Work the list. Find them, for me. You can be sure that he's looking for them, too, and wherever they are, that's where he'll be."
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"Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon.

Last edited by tshiggins; 05-22-2013 at 07:13 AM.
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