Black Velvet Ch. 02

I went back and went up to Todd. "Todd, will you come with me for a moment?" I said. He was surprised, and more surprised when I had Cindy and Teresa both come.

Taking them to that back office, I let Todd go in first. The woman took her shawl off her face and head.

"Mom!" Todd gasped.

"Hello, son." Elizabeth said as Todd came up to her and hugged her warmly. "I'm so sorry about Jeanine."

"Me too, Mom." Todd said, still hugging her. All over the world, there is comfort in being hugged by one's mother in time of grief...

Then Elizabeth looked at the rest of us. "Hello, Baby Brother." she said. She then walked up to Cindy. "Bonsoir, ma cousine." my sister said to her cousin.

"Hello." Cindy said. "Not the best of times to get acquainted."

"No, it's not." Elizabeth said. Then she peered at Teresa

"Well, son," Elizabeth said, "you finally figured it out, and asked this beautiful woman to marry you. Congratulations to you both." As Teresa peered at my sister, Elizabeth said, "As I'm sure you've deduced, I'm going to be your mother-in-law. Unfortunately, circumstances won't permit me to be a very good one for you."

"I understand." Teresa said. "I appreciate you coming here for your son's sake. You're taking a risk in doing so."

"Yes." said Elizabeth. "I cannot appear in the front room, with Michael Burke being there, as well as my own mother. That would... not do at all."

"No doubt." I said.

"And I was so glad to hear how you took down JACKAL, mon petit frère.." Elizabeth said. "Nasty, nasty man. And the rescue of your wife... oh dear, not everyone here knows about that. Sumimasen." Cindy's face had shown her lack of understanding.

"Don't worry about it." I said. "We need to be getting back. Thank you for coming, ma soeur." I hugged Elizabeth, and to my surprise she hugged Cindy and Teresa. We made our way out as Elizabeth and Todd made their goodbyes.

As Elizabeth was leaving, I saw the shock of white hair in the dim light. "Hello my dear niece, it was very brave of you to come. My acolytes will assist you in getting out of your brother's County."

"Thank you, Uncle Harvey." Elizabeth said. Then she was out the door, and it was almost as if she were never here...

"Your wife's rescue?" Cindy asked me as we made our way back to the front rooms.

"That is one to be told sitting on the deck of the Cabin, sipping Scotches, and petting dogs." I replied.

"You're supplying the Scotch, too." Cindy said.

"And the dogs." I replied.

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

And while we were in the back, Sheriff Daniel Allgood and his wife Melina had come in. As I had thought with Laura and Michael: 'Awk-wardddd'. But Todd handled it well.

Finally, it wound down, and we were able to go home. Michael Burke was escorted by a TCPD Officer back to his home, and Teresa took Todd home.

Cindy and my mom came with us, to The Cabin. Her sister Molly was keeping all the kids, including little Todd Burke and young Jack Burke. I immediately noticed that Bowser did not like little Jack. At all.

"Yeah, Jack and the dogs didn't get along too well." Molly said in reply to my spoken observation. "He tried to pull Bowser's tail, and Carole got right in his face protecting her dog. She might've saved Jack from being bitten."

"Good girl." I said. Carole came over to me and gave me a hug, Bowser following her over. I picked her up and said "I think it's some kids' betimes. Cindy, are you staying here tonight?"

"NO!" shouted Carole. "I don't want to go to bed!"

"Me, neeether." sulked little Jack. "When is Mommy coming to get me?"

Those words shocked all of us, and the silence was awkward. Then someone acted.

"We will talk about that in the morning, sweetie." Cindy said, picking up little Jack. "Right now, it's time to go to bed and dream sweet dreams."

"Okay." Jack said, responding well to a woman... like father, like son, I thought to myself. Laura and Molly attended to the others, while I took two good dogs outside.

A few moments later, Cindy joined me, carrying two glasses and a bottle of single malt Scotch...

Part 10 - Match Game

Thursday, February 9th. I was in my semi-formal uniform, ribbons over my right jacket pocket, Medal of Valor around my neck. The funeral was going to be at 1:00pm. BOW Enterprises men were going to be pallbearers, including Teddy Franklin and Barry Oliver.

I received a phone call. It was the Beaver Ruin Sheriff calling. "Glad I caught you, Commander." he said. "Our State Crime Lab ran some expedited work on the material found under Mrs. Burke's fingernails, and they think they have a preliminary match. Have you heard of anyone named 'Jeff Fuqua'?"

"Oh my gosh." I said. "We just had a murder case where his name came up."

"Would you happen to have a DNA profile on him?" asked the Sheriff. "We'd like to run a comparison. It'll save time, even though we're going to ask the FBI to run it against their national database."

Something was nagging at me. "Sheriff, would you do me a huge favor? Ask your Crime Lab to send the recorded results of that DNA profile to our State Crime Lab, directly to Lieutenant Tanya Perlman, and to send a copy to me. They can do that through computer files and emails. We'll send the profile we have on over to you, and all of us can run the profiles and see what matches."

"We'll do it." said the Sheriff.

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

At 11:00am, Lt. Tanya Perlman came driving into my office, followed by FBI Special Agent In Charge Jack Muscone.

"We're going to the funeral together." said Tanya. "I came in to ask what that computer DNA profile is about?"

"You checking it against the semen found in Terry Schultz's vagina?" I asked.

"Yes sir." Tanya said. "My techs are making the comparison now."

"As are the Mouseketeers." I said. "And unbelievably, we may have a hit that will identify the killer of Jeanine Burke. He happens to have been the killer of Terry Schultz of our recent 'Red Flag' case."

"For someone who does not believe in coincidences," said Jack Muscone, "you sure as hell get a lot of them." I chuckled.

"That's true in one sense, though I'm not all that surprised at this one." I said. "If Fuqua is who I think he is, and associated with who I think he is, then he was a plant here, had to leave after Terry was waxed, and it would be natural that he was available and they'd use him as the hit man on Jeanine."

"Four hundred years ago." said Jack Muscone. Tanya just smiled her beautiful smile.

"By the way, Jack," I said, "Les Craig has been calling me about these black velvet cases. Whassup wit' dat?"

"I'm not sure." said Muscone. "He called me about it. My impression is that he wanted me to convince you to let him help work on it."

I saw a gleam in Tanya's eyes. "Spill it, Lady Ironside." I said.

"Jack doesn't like it when I say this." Tanya said. "He's not worried about his job or his team, but a lot of FBI Special Agents are looking for that chance to move up. Les Craig is dealing with Organized Crime in Southport, but he's not going to get very far because there's nothing new there. But if Craig can get onto this serial killer thing and make hay with it, he gets noticed... in a positive way."

"That's Iron Crowbar thinking, there." I said. Tanya grinned happily. I then said "But I get the idea he already knows something. Is there some background in all this?"

"I don't know." said Muscone. "But I do know this... if there is, I know exactly who is going to dig it up..."

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

The funeral was elegant, but very sad. Chaplain Father Romano had come to me and volunteered to lead the Funeral Mass. Todd said Jeanine was not religious, so I accepted Father Romano's offer.

The Catholic Church, which was across the street from First Baptist Church, was full of friends and family and other Townspeople. I came closest to crying when Father Romano said the Jeanine's life was cut too short... no doubt about that... but that she had made a difference in the time she was given. No doubt about that, either.

Michael Burke looked absolutely crushed by the events of the past few days. He was going to stay in Town, and the FBI was going to interview him the next day at TCPD Headquarters, having asked and received the Chief's permission to use our facilities.

As she had sung at Joe Smedley's funeral, Paulina Patterson sang 'Amazing Grace' at Jeanine's ceremony. Paulina had an incredibly beautiful voice; it was easy to see that the T-Square family had a gift for singing, and Paulina was much better than her brother. I also noticed the rather large number of black persons who had come. Jeanine had built bridges, not burnt them. I could only hope those bridges would remain...

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

Returning from the funeral, I went to my office. I put the Medal of Valor in the safe, then checked emails. The Duty Desk had emailed that the Sheriff from Beaver Ruin had called again.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you, Commander." said the Sheriff when I returned the call. "The FBI came in and took jurisdiction of the case. They had a Federal warrant, and said the case was connected to something big they were doing. They came and took all of our evidence from the State Crime Lab, as well. I would have insisted on keeping it, but the State people cower before the Feds."

"Thank you for telling me, Sheriff." I said. "You wouldn't happen to know the specific Agent, would you?"

"Oh, I thought you'd have known that." the Sheriff said. I felt shock when he told me the name.

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

"Myron," I said, "keep working on that DNA profile match, and hide it from the FBI."

"Oh, it's done run, Commander." said Myron. "And we put the results in the Terry Schultz evidence files on the server. The guy who killed her... killed Jeanine Burke. And it looks like it's Jeff Fuqua, for sure."

"Thanks, Myron." I said. Good, I thought to myself. That's Iron Crowbar 1, FBI 0.

Part 11 - Shrouded in Velvet

Half an hour later, Jack Muscone was in my office with me. "Professional hit, it appears." he said. "So it appears..."

"But it's not what it appears to be... is it?"I said. "There's something bothering you, very badly, and you can't put your finger on it."

"Four hundred years ago..." said Muscone, just looking at me, faintly shocked at my peering gaze at him.. "So why don't you tell me what's bothering me."

"Do I really need to spell it out?" I asked, almost angrily. And then it was my turn to look shocked. Jack really didn't know! I realized to myself.

"What?" asked Jack. "What is it?"

To be continued.

Bonus question: What happened at that crime scene? What does the Iron Crowbar know that Special Agent Muscone does not?