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  • A Case of Revenge Ch. 03

A Case of Revenge Ch. 03

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A Case Of Revenge, Ch. 3
by The WifeWatchman

The chronological order of my stories is as follows:
Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, Case of the Black Widow series, Teresa's Christmas Story, Case of the Black Badge series.
A Case of Revenge, Ch. 1-3

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, extreme language, and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial or racist language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

Part 13 - Deadly Vengeance Business

It was the last weekend in May, and the Ladies Auxiliary Clubhouse was filled with the chatter of women who had come for Dr. Laura Fredricson's baby shower. Laura and a number of other women were at the front table, where Laura would soon be opening gifts. As the crowd milled about, Eleanor Burke went to her black and white purse in the back left corner of the room, her mind closed and focused completely upon her one goal: revenge.

Reaching into her purse, she took out her revolver and swiftly put it into a little pocket in her dress. She then walked towards the front, moving steadily but swiftly, the ghost of her son Jack seeming to walk along with her.

Coming up the aisle to within three feet of Laura, with an internal exultation of the vengeance soaring in her soul, Eleanor drew the gun out of her pocket, aimed it right at Laura's chest, and fired.

--------------------

Some days before, on May 22d, Phyllis had invited Detective Cindy Ross for tea and a chat on the back patio of the Mountain Nest.

"Thank you so much for coming, dear." said Phyllis as she poured Cindy some jasmine tea.

"Nice view from here." Cindy said. She was also remembering the Christmas Eve party that had taken place here, and the transformation of her life and that of her friend Teresa's that had taken place, thanks to this older woman's son.

"Yes, it is." said Phyllis. "Unfortunately, what I must talk to you about will not match the beauty of the view. I need your help. It's about Eleanor Burke, and her son Jack."

"Is that the guy who was murdered with Marie Arruzio?" asked Cindy. "And he was Teresa's boyfriend some years ago, and I think he knew Melina, too."

"Yes," replied Phyllis, "and 'knew' in the Biblical sense would be the correct word about his relationship with these women. What you may not know however, was that young Jack was set up and framed for rape while in college, which set in motion a decade of events that I'm afraid are about to culminate in an Act of Vengeance."

Cindy thought about it, as she realized Phyllis wanted her to, then said, "So you think Eleanor Burke is going after someone... you saw her at the range, practicing shooting."

"Yes, very insightful of you there, my dear." said Phyllis. "Yes, I fear that Mrs. Burke might try to do something we all will regret later."

"Can't we get some kind of restraining order against her? Get the judge to confiscate her gun?"

"What gun?" Phyllis said. "It's not registered, no record of its purchase. That doesn't mean it's illegal for her to have it, as in this State and many others guns are not required to be registered, and private sales require no records. But we can't get any kind of order from a Court without probable cause."

"Yeah." said Cindy. "I heard Don once say the worst part about the job is that we can't stop crimes in advance, we can only act after the crime is committed."

"Yes." said Phyllis, "But we can be vigilant, and move in to stop the crime as it happens, but before she can do any damage."

"How are we going to do that?" Cindy asked, being the foil to the mom as she was often to the son. "We can't follow her around, and if she sees us she'll be on guard. How can we watch her every second of the day?"

"My dear," said Phyllis, "you have not yet asked the most pertinent question of all."

Cindy thought about it, then realized Phyllis's goal. "Ohhhhh.... who is Eleanor's intended victim?"

"Splendid! Exactly." said Phyllis, proud of her student as she subtly trained and guided her. "And I happen to know that the intended victim will be at my daughter-in-law's baby shower in a few days. I fully expect Mrs. Burke to attempt something very sinister there. But we will be watching. Here is what I need you to do, though..."

-------------------

Upon seeing the purse that Eleanor Burke had come to the baby shower with, Phyllis quickly walked to her car and got an identical one from the trunk. She felt so fortunate that the woman that sold purses at the high-end mall in the northwest of Town had loaned her the four styles of purses that Phyllis had observed Eleanor Burke to carry over the last number of days. Of course Eleanor Burke had not seen Phyllis following her, because Phyllis was not what one would expect to see when being followed by the Auxiliary Policewoman. But more on that later...

Walking back into the Ladies Clubhouse, Phyllis noted that Cindy had engaged Mrs. Burke in conversation. Most of the women here, regardless of age, were wearing clingy dresses which showed off some very lovely women's bodies. Cindy, however, looked just a little bulky in her light blue shirt and navy blue pants and jacket. The jacket must be very warm, Phyllis noted, but it was important.

With Eleanor distracted, Phyllis quickly swapped her purse for the one Eleanor had left in her chair at the back corner table. Walking a few feet away, Phyllis quickly searched the purse, finding the gun. She emptied it of cartridges, putting the shells in the pocket of her own dress. Making sure there were no more cartridges, Phyllis then switched the purses back, no one the wiser, the bullets going into her own purse.

--------------------

*Click! Click! Click!*

As Eleanor repeatedly pulled the trigger, only the sound of the hammer falling was made, as the gun was empty. Even so, as Eleanor had pulled the trigger the first time, Cindy Ross's body was already blocking the shot, and Cindy's body armor under her shirt would've absorbed the gunfire that fortunately didn't happen.

Melina has seen the flash of the gun just as Eleanor had pulled it out, and she had instinctively placed her body right in front of Laura's, somehow knowing who the target was going to be. Then Melina watched as her former mother-in-law tackled a screaming, shrieking Eleanor Burke to the ground, with Cindy falling on both of them and securing the gun.

Then chaos erupted for a couple of minutes. It was a party of all women. And all of them decided to start shrieking and crying right at the same moment.

-------------------

"I don't care what you say, Lewis." growled Chief Griswold into the phone as I sat in his office listening, less than half an hour after the attempted murder of my wife. "I'm calling up two SBI Reservists, but if you or your filth show up in my County, you're dead. If the Iron Crowbar doesn't get to you, I'll kill you myself!"

Then the Chief had made four more phone calls in my presence: one to the Governor, which was immediately taken; one to Deputy Director Tom Conlan, to let him know what Director Lewis was trying to do; one to Molly Evans; and one to Robin Ventura of the City Police, who had been selected for the Reserve commission, and who had surprisingly accepted, the first thawing of relations between the City and State agencies in a long, long time. It did not hurt my feelings that Detective Ventura was also the daughter of University Campus Police Commissioner and Provost Marshal Dexter Robinson.

The problem with this case was that the intended victim was the wife of a Town & County Police Lieutenant, that being Laura as my wife. I was deemed to be too close to the victim to be objective, and that was an absolutely correct assessment. But SBI Director Lewis, who somehow got wind of this within minutes of it happening, had demanded that Chief Griswold turn over the entire case to the SBI, as he claimed no one in the TCPD could be objective. To say the Chief had shot that down with the verbal equivalent of a Vulcan anti-aircraft gun would be an understatement.

---------------------

It was nearing suppertime. Phyllis and Cindy had given their depositions to Molly and Robin, and Police officers had finished taking statements from every person at the baby shower. Needless to say, the party had been ruined, and Laura would be opening the presents later and sending thank-you notes.

After being taken to University Hospital and checked out, Laura came by the Headquarters, gave her statement, then stayed in my office with me. She'd been apprised of Phyllis's knowledge of the situation. Warrants had been procured for the gray-bound report compiled for the Burkes, and Todd had produced it from Eleanor's safe. Michael Burke came to the Station with Todd and was in Interrogation-A, not yet formally under arrest. Needless to say, Eleanor was in Interrogation-1 on the perp side, having been arrested.

When the report came in, the Chief ordered it be brought into his office, where he breached protocol by letting me read it (but not take it out of the room). I was now fully aware of the Jack Burke story. And I became aware of one thing that was in the report... and one thing that wasn't.

"I always had the idea that you were the professor that chased Jack away." I said to Laura in my office. "I knew Melina was working for you in college to make extra money. Too bad we never met back then."

"It wasn't our time yet." Laura said. "I knew of you as Melina's boyfriend, then fiancé. I saw that Jack was leading Melina down a dark path. Thank God she didn't try any drugs while she was... dating Jack. Amazing how things can come so close to going one way, then fate intervenes and things go completely down a different path.

"Psychologists will be coming in to evaluate Eleanor Burke." I said. "But they can't be ours nor from the University because of your involvement."

"Yes, she's in for a tough time, I'm afraid." Laura said. "I don't really feel any ill-will towards her, and I had no idea she had developed such hatred for me."

I said "She's obsessed over what happened to Jack for years, and that report does its best to make her believe that you were behind everything that happened to him. Heck, I'm considering this to be attempted murder, but by someone else using Eleanor Burke as a pawn and a weapon."

"If that's true, you'll have to let me handle it at the Federal level." Laura said.

"What about Ivy?" I asked. "We're already getting stories from Robin Ventura's police friends that the Burkes were there a few days ago, and trying to get information from the Federal Witness Protection Program-- about Ivy. Michael Burke is not under arrest yet, and neither Todd nor I think he had any knowledge of what Eleanor was going to do. But is he a danger to Ivy?"

"I know you won't like hearing this, darling, but I have to say it again: leave that to me and to the Federal level. Ivy is safe, and the Federal Marshals are making a decision on whether or not to tell her about this."

-----------------

I did listen and watch the interrogation of Michael Burke from the anteroom of Interrogation-A. The once-healthy, once-vigorous man looked absolutely shattered by the events of the day. Todd was staying in the room with him for support, and Jeanine Burke had come down to represent Michael, though he was cooperative and answered every question. I began to see from his story that the long years of not knowing what happened to their son had taken a huge toll on the Burkes.

"I don't think he's involved." I heard the Chief say to Martin Nash and Robin Ventura. They agreed with him. "Did Eleanor say anything that would implicate Michael?"

"No sir." said Robin. "But she's pretty much babbling incoherently right now."

"All right." said the Chief. "I'll check with Paulina. Unless she objects, we can release Michael Burke into his son and daughter-in-law's custody."

That only left one thing to do. The ol' Iron Crowbar had not been dulled by these events to the point that he did not see the plan that had occurred...

-------------------

"The Lieutenant wants to see you two in his office." Tanya Perlman said to the two women as afternoon gave way to evening. "And he is not a very happy camper right now."

The two women were Cindy and Phyllis, who were in the anteroom of Interrogation-1, listening and watching as a psychologist talked to Eleanor Burke, with SBI Reservist Molly Evans and Detective Martin Nash also in the room. Nash was considered independent and objective enough to participate in the investigation, so said Deputy Director Conlan of the SBI over the vociferous objections of Director Lewis. Governor Jared had stepped in and muzzled Lewis; such was the power of Chief Griswold's connections, I noted happily.

-----------------

"Ladies, I am more than a little displeased about what I'm hearing about the two of you allowing that woman to go so far as getting shots off. You put my wife in danger." I said, standing at the side of my desk and glaring down at the women sitting on the sofa by the door.

"Son, you know that--" my mother started.

"First, mother," I said, intentionally interrupting my mother, "this is not a mother-son conversation. It is a Police Lieutenant to Auxiliary Policewoman conversation." My mother's eyes flashed fire; my eyes matched hers, not backing down an inch. Cindy just looked at the floor.

"Yes, sir." Phyllis said, a bit of sarcasm in her voice, but she knew not to push me. "What I wanted to say was that you know that the Police can't do anything until the crime is attempted; we were helpless before then."

"You should've told me what you were planning. Especially you, Detective Ross." I said.

"Yes sir." Cindy said. "I'm sorry I didn't. I should have." She was taking the high road, knowing that she was in 'deep kimchi' with me. She'd been sitting silently, leaning forward nervously. My mother was practically defiant.

"Don't blame her, son." said Phyllis. "I told her not to say anything, and we both knew that if you knew about it, you wouldn't let us do our plan."

"You're damn right, I wouldn't!" I near-shouted, the dam about to break upon my restraint. I took a breath to calm down. "That was my wife that gun was aimed at, ladies! If Eleanor had had another gun on her person, or one extra bullet to put in the gun.... if you'd been one fraction of a second slower in covering her, Cindy, then Melina would be dead-- yes, I heard that Melina put herself in front of Laura, too-- and Laura might be dead as well. Ladies, I am...." I stopped, again trying to regain control.

"But we weren't too slow, son." my mother said. "And we caught her in the act after neutralizing the real threat. We couldn't watch Eleanor every day from now on. We had to do this."

"No, no you didn't." I said, knowing that my mother's plan had been brilliantly conceived though exceptionally dangerous, and only the knowledge that it was my own wife that had been in danger causing me to be so angry.

"First of all, if you had told me, I might have let Laura make the choice to do it, but she should've been aware of the threat to her person.

"And second... Detective Ross, you are wayyyy too valuable to me to be so willing to take a bullet like that, even if you had body armor on... one extra bullet, one shot high that hits you in the head, and..." I just stopped. Cindy was trying to hide a smile that I'd let on that I cared as much as I did.

"It is both your good fortunes that I'm off this case completely." I said. "I would imagine that the Chief will have similar words to mine when he talks to you about this. All right, get out of my office until my heart rate gets back down. Scoot!" They scooted, even my mother knowing it was time to high-tail it out of there. As they got up, I said "One more thing, Detective Ross... she may be my mother, but until she becomes Chief of Police and outranks my ass, remind yourself of your chain-of-command in situations like these."

"Yes sir." Cindy said, not seeing the twinkle in my mother's eyes, as my mother had understood the underlying forgiveness in those comments.

---------------------

I did not get a chance to speak to Eleanor Burke. She was quickly declared unfit to stand trial due to mental incompetence, and she was committed to the State Asylum for further evaluation and treatment.

I'm not sure what happened in the Chief's meeting with my mother and Detective Ross, but no formal written reprimands were placed into their files. I suspect the Chief considered his verbal spanking enough after I'd gotten through with them, and that he'd 'let them off with a warning', so to speak.

Part 14 - Better Business (State) Bureau

On the morning of May 27th, the full DNA report of the samples recovered at the Vicki Oldeeds crime scene, including what was taken from her raped vagina, was handed to Britt Maxwell on a jump drive.

"Did you look at this?" Britt asked the girl.

"No ma'am." the girl said. "There was a match in the database, but the name is encoded, and only you can decode it."

"Thank you." Britt said, dismissing the girl. She plugged the jump drive into her computer and ran the program to examine the evidence. The original evidence was still in the University Campus Police system and in the physical evidence room; this was a digital copy of the tests run. She entered the password to decode the names involved.

"Oh, shit." she muttered to herself, letting her fall back into the comfort of her chair. "Oh my fucking God."

The 'standard' test for the last year was to see if the psychopath Ned was involved, and Ned's DNA profile had garnered an 80% match. That wasn't enough, and it triggered an automatic comparison to the State and Federal databases, and a 99.9% match had been obtained.

Britt was remembering the years of legal and police battles with this guy, how she never was able to get him for his sexual improprieties... but she had him now. The victory was not a happy one for her, though; indeed, it was empty and hollow. She now wondered what she should do, as this was going to affect her relationship with people she'd really come to know and love.

The 99.9% match to Vicki's rapist was to Don's nephew, Todd.

------------------------

News travels fast. Within one hour of Britt receiving the test, a visitor appeared in her office. It was Dr. Laura Fredricson. The two women were close friends, to the point they'd had MFF threesomes with Laura's husband Don. Little did Britt know that was about to change.

"Hi, Laura!" said Britt as the other woman walked in. "Have a seat! How are you and the baby? Recovered from that sneak attack on you?" She was trying to be jovial, but Laura had a strange, serious look on her face.

"We're just fine." said Laura, sitting down. "And the baby should be arriving in mid-June. But the reason I am here is not social, Captain Maxwell. It's professional... and it's about my 'other' profession."

"How can I help you?" said Britt, becoming wary.

"I know that you have just received some data in the case of Mrs. Jonas Oldeeds." said Laura. "I need for you to turn over to me all of your reports and all of your evidence from that case."

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