Ring of Silence Read online

  Both detectives said, “We’re sorry for your loss.”

  Both women said, “Thank you.” They all shook hands, then sat.

  Turner saw that Barb Dams had gotten the visitors coffee. The women held hands as they sat. Both looked like they hadn’t had much sleep.

  Mrs. Bettencourt asked, “What’s going on with the investigation?”

  Turner said, “We’re still talking to people. We’re trying to find out what they were doing up on that roof. First off, why was he staying at a hotel instead of driving in?”

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “He didn’t want to deal with driving in and out, avoiding rush hour. He liked to be right on the scene. He liked to talk. People opened up to him. He hated to stop the flow of rhetoric, good or bad. He didn’t want to be driving home late at night all exhausted.”

  “He was one of the organizers of this meeting?” Turner asked.

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “Oh, yes, a driving force. He wanted to create a new order of politics in this country. This was going to be a foundational set of meetings and talks.”

  Turner asked, “Why did they invite all these violent groups?”

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “He wanted to work with them. He wanted to show them the way that peace could work. He’s the one who organized that silent protest against Preston Shaitan.”

  “They knew each other before this conference?”

  Mrs. Bettencourt nodded. “Oh, yes.”

  “How did they get along?” Turner asked.

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “Henry always thought of Shaitan and all the rest as a challenge. He had goals with each person he met. He always said, even if they couldn’t agree on anything, a discussion always made him a better person.”

  “And was he?” Fenwick asked.

  “Was he what?” Mrs. Bettencourt asked.

  “A better person after each encounter?”

  “He tried to be.”

  Fenwick asked, “What was the point of getting all these people together?”

  She said, “Simply that, to get them all together. That was a triumph in itself. Accomplishing an actual result was often secondary to a we-were-all-together-and-didn’t-kill-each-other scenario.”

  Turner said, “He was a peaceful man, but who gave him the hardest time in these groups, who were the biggest rivals or most recalcitrant about working together? Anyone that would want to harm him?”

  “Anyone could be difficult at any time.”

  Turner asked, “How did that silent protest work?”

  A ghost of a smile appeared at one corner of Mrs. Bettencourt’s lips. “Henry and I worked on that together, but it was really Helena who implemented the whole scheme.” She smiled at her friend. “Tell them about it.”

  Helena spoke for the first time. “Oh, the meetings we attended. The anger! Shaitan was such a complete and utter shit, and I say that as one who knows not to speak ill of the dead. The actual problem was twofold: to get people to show up and then to get them to be silent. So many wanted to scream, and shout, and fight back. But the idea of being peaceful caught on. We filled the admittedly smallish auditorium. He came out to speak, and there was this vast silence. A few scattered people clapped but then stopped after a few seconds. We caught them off guard. It was hell getting so many of the tickets. Even though they were free, we had to circumvent the few protections the organizers had in place. They didn’t know what was happening.”

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “I bet he didn’t think he was going to get more than twenty people. Back then, he usually didn’t.”

  Helena Avila nodded and resumed. “At first, he looked pleased and smiled as he walked to the podium, but then he got there and realized there was only a scattering of applause from the back. Our people had gotten there early. He went nuts. He raved. In what little he said, he took positions even more extreme than he had before. But the response was silence. Can you imagine? When the silence became overwhelming, Shaitan ran from the stage. Even his fans gave up. They were too scattered, too startled. They came for violence and rhetoric. They got nothing.”

  Turner said, “I admire that.”

  “It was all Henry’s idea. He was a good man. I just helped.”

  “Would he have been going to meet Shaitan last night and if so why?”

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “Specifically, I have no idea. He didn’t say anything to me about meeting him, but Henry thought he could talk to anybody.”

  Helena Avila said, “Shaitan was evil incarnate. I’ve found it’s always better, if you can, to out-organize the opposition. That crowd was easy. See, they’re all about their own egos, but you probably know that.” She smiled again. A gentle smile. “We weren’t going to make the same mistakes as those who are violent do.”

  “What were those?” Fenwick asked.

  Ms. Avila said, “We weren’t going to let it be known beforehand how many of us there were. If someone became violent toward us, we were going to surround them with peace and love. See, so many of those who attend rallies want violence, are looking for violence. Of course, it’s gotten much worse in the past few years. When they discover that there are others who may outnumber them and who could do violence to them successfully, they tend to back down.”

  “You threaten violence?” Fenwick asked.

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “I think our very presence threatens them.”

  Ms. Avila shook her head. “It was exhausting. All that planning.” She sighed. “We did so much work, but it helped for only that one evening. It didn’t stop him in the slightest from going right on with his speaking tour. I’m not sure any of these protests do any good. In his case, he just went on to his next venue in the next city.”

  Mrs. Bettencourt patted her arm. “There was no violence. And remember we heard that when he got backstage, first he cried then he nearly broke down from rage.”

  “But we didn’t stop him.”

  “You know what Henry always said, baby steps.”

  Turner asked, “Were there rivalries among the protesters?”

  Avila said, “Shaitan was rivals with everyone. If you had an ego, the slightest bit of intelligence, you and he clashed.”

  “About what?”

  “It didn’t make any difference, I don’t think,” Avila said. “I think he just took contrary positions. If one day you said the sky was blue, he’d say it was pink. And the next day, if he felt like it, he switched sides.”

  “Who were Henry Bettencourt’s other rivals? Or who among the people at the groups were rivals and might be willing to do violence?”

  “You should talk to all of them. Every single one of them in that tent-city had an agenda. So few wanted to talk about non-violence. You’ve got to interview the protesters. The administration let that tent-city be on campus, and it expanded from there. The local police District wants to get rid of them. The school won so far, but you’ve got to talk to them. Both sides. They’re all there. They’re all upset by these killings, left and right.”

  “Did Mr. Bettencourt have specific enemies or friends?” Turner asked.

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “Henry thought of everyone as a friend. He could be trying that way.”

  “Anyone specific?” Turner asked.

  Mrs. Bettencourt shrugged. “You could talk to Andy Siedel. He was Henry’s right-hand man. He might be a good person to start with.”

  Avila spoke up. “And you should probably check with the infiltrators from the FBI, and presumably the Chicago police department. You should know those or be able to find out who they were.”

  Mrs. Bettencourt added, “And private investigators hired by big businesses who wanted to make sure the 1% had an in to what was going on.”

  Fenwick said, “Were they there to disrupt things?”

  They both nodded. Mrs. Bettencourt said, “Of course.”

  “How did you know who they were?”

  “You go to enough of these, you begin to learn who is really with you and who isn’t.”

  “Do you
know their names?” Fenwick asked.

  “Not their real ones.”

  “We found guns in the safe in your husband’s room.”

  “They weren’t his. We don’t own any guns. He made the mistake of caring and working hard for people. He wanted peace, not violence.” She wiped away a tear with a tattered tissue. Turner moved the box on his desk closer to her. “I told him to be careful.”

  Fenwick asked, “What was the relationship between the three of you?”

  Avila looked to Bettencourt whose cheeks turned slightly pink. She said, “We were in a polyamorous relationship.”

  Fenwick said, “I’m not sure what that means.”

  Mrs. Bettencourt said, “He and I were married, but we were free to date other women. The three of us have been in a relationship for two years now.”

  “You live together?”

  “Most weekends.”

  “Did he date other men?”

  “Not that he talked about. He was straight.”

  The detectives didn’t mention Ian’s confessed interlude with Bettencourt.

  Friday 12:02 P.M.

  As their heads disappeared down the stairs, Fenwick said, “Were all these people screwing each other?”

  “Apparently.”

  “I must run in the wrong circles.”

  “The right circles all screw?”

  “Apparently.”

  Turner said, “And at least some of the protesters were all mad at each other?”

  “Except Saint Henry Bettencourt.”

  “But it sure sounds like some could have been mad at him. We got left and right going nuts on each other. Or at least a lot of possibilities.”

  “So can we say the protesters are upset because people are being murdered left and right?”

  Before Turner could strangle him for the horrible pun, Fenwick said, “Maybe that’s why people are shooting at me, to stop me from being funny.”

  Turner muttered, “Justifiable homicide if I ever heard it.”

  “I heard that,” Fenwick said.

  “You were supposed to.” Turner sighed then said, “One thing about you being wounded and both of us being pissed off about all this, is that when you are in that mood, you tend to make fewer stupid puns.”

  “They aren’t stupid.”

  “Some totally stupid. Some less stupid. But all stupid.”

  “You liked one.”

  “Once.”

  “You’ve laughed.”

  “I can’t help myself, and laughing isn’t liking.” Turner sighed. “We gotta go talk to these tent people, protesters. See if we can find the FBI informant and the 1% person. See if there was a Chicago police presence.”

  Fenwick said, “If we didn’t have a presence, we were criminally negligent.”

  “As long as they weren’t agent provocateurs.”

  “But would any of this cause these two specific guys to be killed?”

  “I guess that’s what we need to find out.”

  Barb Dams appeared at the top of the stairs. She had a ream-thick stack of papers in her hands. She flopped them onto Fenwick’s desk. “These are all the reports on all the groups of and individual protesters from any kind of law enforcement agency I could think of and that I could get info from. Fong helped as well.” She held out a flash drive. “All that’s on this as well. Fong and I flagged the ones who had any history of violence.” She picked up about half a ream of paper from the top of the stack. “That’s these. I flagged them on the flash drive as well, and emailed the whole thing to you.”

  They both thanked her.

  Dams shrugged. “There’s a Code of Silence, and it cuts both ways. There’s also real police work that gets to the bottom of this shit.” She thumped the stack of papers, turned, and marched away.

  Turner said, “I’m glad she’s on our side.”

  Fenwick said, “If she and Fong are traitors, we’re lost.”

  Friday 12:15 P.M.

  Roosevelt and Wilson hurried into the squad room and rushed over to Turner and Fenwick.

  Wilson said, “We heard you found the Taser.”

  Fenwick said, “More like it found us.”

  Roosevelt said, “And you’re not dead.” Wilson whacked Fenwick on his not-wounded arm.

  Wilson asked, “You know what this means?”

  Fenwick said, “A shit stream of trouble for all of us?”

  Wilson said, “And it’s not funny.”

  Fenwick said, “I’m working on it.” He got glared at. He shrugged. “They can’t all be gems.”

  Turner said, “It means somebody’s out to get us. The most obvious thing is that somehow it’s connected to Carruthers.”

  “He was in custody,” Wilson said. “He couldn’t have planted the Taser on that roof.”

  Turner said, “Yeah, but he has defenders.”

  Roosevelt said, “But I don’t get this. The killer put the Taser up there? Has to be. Why?”

  Turner and Fenwick shook their heads.

  Turner guessed. “To create uncertainty? But the deeper meaning of course, is that the killer was at the scene of the Carruthers fiasco. Or the killer had a friend or at least someone he or she knew at the earlier scene, who just happened to pick up the Taser and choose to give it to him or her.”

  Fenwick said, “Begins to strain credulity.”

  Turner said, “Or it wasn’t the killer, and someone is fucking with us just for the hell of it. Unless this whole thing is being well-planned and strategically organized from one central point.”

  Roosevelt said, “I just find it so hard to think of that whole Carruthers incident as little more than a joke.”

  Fenwick held up his wounded arm.

  “Okay, wrong again,” Roosevelt admitted.

  Wilson said, “Any one of a number of people could have died.”

  Turner said, “When he took the Taser, if it was the killer, was he planning to kill these two guys at that time? That’s an awful lot of forward planning.”

  Fenwick shook his head. “Fortuitous happenstance.”

  Turner said, “It’s not making sense.”

  Dams hustled up the stairs and over to Turner and Fenwick. “You didn’t hear this from me, but word from the secretary’s network, is that the U.S. Attorney Walter Whitaker is going to ‘investigate’ the Carruthers incident.”

  “How many is that now?” Fenwick asked.

  Turner said, “According to what I can gather from Yutka and Molton, and the usual procedures and the new practices, at the moment, we’ve got a Cook County criminal court investigation about an attempted murder charge against Carruthers for the kid and/or Fenwick.” Turner continued to name and tick off the investigations on his fingers. “The Bureau of Internal Affairs, the Independent Police Review Authority, and the Chicago Police Board. A Cook County Grand Jury is investigating if cops lied about any of this, and now the U.S. Attorney, Whitaker.”

  Dams added, “Don’t forget the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.”

  Fenwick groaned. “They’re all going to want to talk to us.” He pointed to Roosevelt and Wilson. “They’re going to go after you guys. You did the initial on-scene investigation.”

  Roosevelt said, “I don’t give a shit. We wrote reality. We wrote what we saw. We wrote what people said, what you guys said. We submitted dash cams and crowd cams. Bullshit. We did right.”

  Dams said, “They’re all fighting about who is going to investigate first. And who can screw up each other’s investigation. I’m sure you’re right about a civil rights investigation.”

  “Against Carruthers or us?” Turner asked.

  Fenwick sighed.

  Turner shook his head. He said, “It’s perfect.”

  They all gaped at him.

  Turner continued, “If you wanted to delay, obfuscate, get away with murder or attempted murder, you do a Keystone Kops thing. You announce you’re all running around like mad. Hell, even open a few things that aren’t investigations. If some
time in the future a random victim gets a few million from the City Council, who cares? The Code of Silence has won. That’s how it usually works. That’s how it always has worked.”

  Dams nodded at Turner. “It’s what they’ll try. It’s been their pattern. I will keep you posted when I hear anything.” She left.

  Friday 12:32 P.M.

  On their way out, they stopped in Molton’s office. They gave him a brief summary of the interview with the wife and their plan for the afternoon.

  Molton said, “I’ve got more meetings downtown. What a crock.”

  Turner said, “Could you get us the name of the Chicago police infiltrators into the tent city?”

  Molton said, “No problem.”

  Next, they stopped at Chicago Central Hospital to see DeShawn Jackson, the kid they saved. The wind had begun to gust. It felt good as it attempted to dry the dampness on every inch of their skin. Puffy white clouds had begun to appear.

  The information they got from Roosevelt and Wilson’s report said the boy’s mom was a nurse and his dad was a postal worker on the south side of the city.

  As they neared the room, a tall woman emerged. She spotted the detectives, hesitated a second, then rushed past the guard at the door, and hurried to them. “I’m Doris Jackson. You saved our son.” The mother crushed Fenwick in an embrace. She had a figure of some heft, at least as much as Fenwick, perhaps a bit more. As much as anyone ever could, Turner supposed, she enveloped him in an embrace. Fenwick smiled and crushed her back. Then said, “My arm.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. You were hurt.”

  “Just a couple scratches, but the arm does ache when pressed.”

  She patted his good arm. Then enveloped Turner in a less full embrace. “And you were there. You stopped that awful police officer. Was he insane?”

  “Just doing my job,” Turner said.

  Once in the room, they were introduced to Lionel Jackson, the father, a man with grizzled white hair who stood up and said, “Thank you.” He extended his hand which Turner and Fenwick shook.

  “How is he?” Turner asked.