Crime & Punishment Pt. 04

"If only he stilled loved me," Laura said the tears beginning to flow.

"I'm sure Pat still loves you," Susan said without much conviction.

"We made love the other night." Laura said sadness in her tone.

"See I told you. It's just that he's a male and needs some time to get past his pride," Susan said.

"No it was pity sex. I was cooking diner. I had opened the canned peas and had them heating on low. I had made the instant mash potatoes- that's the hard part. Then I put the steaks in the broiler,'' Laura said and began to cry.

"Hey what's the matter?"

"I set the stove on fire. The grease from the steaks caught fire. Pat had to come and put it out," she said getting control of her tears.

"Why are you trying to cook?"

"I am trying to be a good wife. I guess- I got hysterical. He held me and told me it would be alright and then we made love. I came the moment he entered me. It is so much more intense now -well at least for me it is," Laura said then she looked hard at her friend.

"I need to tell you something. Pat has a juvenile record. He nearly beat a man to death," Laura told Susan.

"How did you find that out?"

"I was at the legislative office building when I ran into an old law school friend who works there. It was during the time they were reviewing Pat's appointment. Well we had lunch and she asked me about it. I pretended I knew and told her it was nothing. Later I asked Mr. Solomon, he said not to worry, Pat had been young and provoked." Laura was looking guiltily at Susan as she finished.

Susan understood. "It turns you on. With everything Pat has done and proof of his violent nature, you're a bit afraid of him and that's exciting." As Susan said this Laura nodded.

"So?"

"Well I use to take him so much for granted, now it's like living on the edge of a volcano. I should hate it but I don't, it's really sexy." Laura tried to smile at this.

Then a thought struck Susan, her husband must have known, but never said anything.

*****

Philip Sloane was in the Halfway Diner. He had no idea if it was actually halfway between any two places. Two weeks before he had been hired by the State's newest special prosecutor as a consultant. It had taken the newly elected DA of Van Patten County three days to fire Phil. It was surprising that it had taken that long. Phil had been promoted to chief investigator in VanPatten County by Patrick Sullivan. When Sullivan lost the election Sloane as Sullivan's appointee was a marked man. He possibly could have filed a Civil Service complaint, but all he wanted was a few more years of service before he retired. Better to look elsewhere. He was sixty-two he didn't have time to play with fools.

He had gone to see Pat Sullivan to warn him about the federal investigation. The attack on Sullivan was not gang related-any fool could see that. The assailant who was killed, by then Sergeant now Lieutenant, Jack Brandt was not black nor a member of a biker gang. He was a Dartmouth graduate down on his luck due to a taste for cocaine and a gambling habit. The fact that the man died solvent said it all if you knew the facts.

Sloane had gone to an AHH hockey game at the Knickerbocker Arena with an old friend in the US attorney's office. They had been invited to sit in one of the VIP boxes. Sloan was not surprised when members of the local FBI office just happened to be invited as well.

The agents began with innocent innocuous questions, but they were clearly fishing very close to the right pond. Phil was a master of the art being practice on him. He soon learned everything they knew and was misdirecting them away from the truth. Sloane felt he owed Sullivan at least a heads up. Two days later he casually dropped by the Justice Building in the Empire State Plaza Complex. What the locals called the South Mall a confusing description since there was no North Mall and the entire collection of building resembled as one critic had sagely said "a Mausoleum built by space aliens."

Squeezed into the back of the Justice Building's second floor were three little rooms which now housed the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Official Integrity and Standards. A small sign marked the end of the corridor housing the clerical personal of the State Attorney General's office and the beginning of the small domain now referred to as SPOIS.

Sloane was greeted by Sullivan's secretary Katrina, a pretty very young Hispanic girl, who had followed Sullivan for the Van Patten DA's office. Sloane noticed that she was dress to kill. She quickly and without fanfare showed Sloane in to the head man's little office. Sloane didn't wait to be asked his business or to pass idle small talk he lunched right in to what he knew of the FBI investigation.

Sullivan was an emotionless SOB with a pair of brass balls; he heard Phil out then immediately made his recruiting pitch. He wanted Sloane to work for him. Sullivan made it very clear he was not going to accept a no answer.

"So I get a contract as an independent contractor. I perform work and hopefully get paid in sixty days. I lose my unemployment, get no credit toward retirement and maybe don't get paid at all," Phil said.

"CORRECT," Sullivan said.

"Ok when do I start?"

"Now I need you to go to Western New York and investigate the assault on Senator Hoffman's wife."

"Do I at least get travel money?"

"No, run an expense record, the AG will possibly reimburse you," Sullivan said.

So here Sloan was at half past eleven at night scrunched down on a seat in the last booth in the small diner waiting for the unsuspecting Elisabeth Duncan. The former Mrs. Federo was the managing nurse of the Mercy General Hospital, a small place that was suffering from the financial limitations placed on health care providers. Its main income came from the emergency services it supplied and general medical services to the Alton State Prison, a medium security women's facility.

Mercy was thirty miles from the next hospital and fifteen miles from the prison. It supplied needed services to the prison inmates and the local community that was significantly dependent on the facility. As head nurse of the ER, Beth as she was called, was principally responsible for the administration of those services.

Beth Duncan was an RN when twenty years ago her husband Ted Duncan was killed in an auto accident leaving her with three children and little insurance. She had worked hard and put all three through college. Her work ethic brought her to the top of her little pond at the hospital. Jason Federo was well aware of that.

Jay as he was known was a lothario. He sized Beth up pretty well as lonely and venerable with all the kids gone. She was married to him before she realized what he really was, but she was a strong women and soon was looking to divorce the lazy leach, but it cost her and put her right back in the single and alone category.

Beth set the assignments for the nurses. She was the kind of person who took the least desirable shift for herself. Three to eleven on Friday and Saturday nights was what no one wanted. She let another nurse get that off as she had no one who was looking to go out with her. She was fifty-nine and felt every year of it. Every Friday and Saturday she stopped for supper at the Halfway at the end of her shift.

Saturday night the Halfway was crowed there was no other place open for a long distance. Beth usually had to sit at the counter, but if there was a booth open she took it. Phil was positioned so he could not be seen from the isle sitting in the booth, it looked open. Beth came in and headed straight for what looked like an open booth. Only as she began to sit down did she notice Phil.

"Sorry I didn't see you," she said getting back up.

"Please join me I don't need the whole table and I would welcome the company," he said. One of his strongest assets as an investigator was how harmless he looked. It took some work, but in the end she joined him. He asked about her job. She was wearing hospital scrubs. She told him what she did and he was suitably impressed.

"My job with the state is so dull," he said. He never said what he did. Soon he had her talking and had a date for Wednesday, her day off. He spent the next three weeks working on her. When he was not dating Beth he was bothering the staff at the state prison.

Janet Hoffman was employed, though not any longer, as a Correctional Services Counselor. She had seventeen years in that position and many friends at the Prison; they did not like talking to outsiders. They were a closed insular community, but that was their weakness, they knew everything there was to know about each other. It took a while but he listened to what wasn't being said. When people don't want to tell you something bad enough you can tell. Sloane knew how to ask the innocent question that revealed the hidden subject. Dodge the question and you answered it.

It took a while, but Sloane learned all about the Rev. Jean Paul Belmount and Janet Hoffman. What he was missing was the last piece, the part Beth, who was in charge of the ER the Friday night Senator Hoffman brought his wife in, knew.

Beth was nervous and unsure of what to expect. She had taken Phil home with the expectation of taking him to bed, but at their age some consideration needed to be given to physical limitations. As they climbed the stairs toward her bedroom in her modest Cape Cod style house, she was worried about her sagging breasts and the extra weight around her hips. The wrinkles on her thighs, ass, and belly would hopefully go unnoticed if she kept the light low. But she was also excited for the first time in three years; she had a man to take to her bedroom.

"Phil," she said turning to him, "It's alright if you don't want to."

In reply he began to undress her, he was in no hurry. He kissed her lips and then the bare flesh as he uncovered it. He gently attacked her breasts as he slipped off her bra. He lay her down on the bed and removed her panties. He shed his own clothing and slid into bed beside her.

Beth felt the warmth of his body then the stiffness of his maleness as he cuddled and kissed her. He slowly let his lips descend as his fingers began to probe first her breasts and then between her legs. His touch was light tender unhurried. He was no boy she realized. He intends to take his time she thought, "How nice."

As his lips descended over her body she knew where he was going.

"You don't have to do that," she said.

"HUSH," he replied, it wasn't a request, but a command. She relaxed and let it happen.

Abruptly he was licking behind her knees and up her thighs. His hands were everywhere.

Phil reached her profusion of pubic hair and pulled it with his teeth, it hurt and aroused her. He brushed her labia and then encircled them with his tongue. Her first husband had gone down on her only twice and Federo not at all. What was happening was a new experience.

Phil was a master of his craft from long experience. He teased and withheld satisfaction. He watched her breathing and estimated her arousal. He intended to devastate her, leave her a limp quivering mass of flesh. It took forty plus minutes for her first orgasm, she was begging for release by then. When she was barely recovered he began to fuck her. Two hours later they had done it all Missionary, Doggy, Cowgirl and positions she could not name. She lost track of her orgasms.

They lay cuddling together, she was exhausted and sleepy.

"Now did that make you forget that silly subpoena," Phil said.

"Oh why did you remind me," she said.

"Sorry, but as I said, it probably has nothing to do with you," Phil said, in fact he knew it did not. He had Sullivan issue it figuring she would turn to him for assistance and she did. His response was to take her out to a nice expensive diner and then seduce her.

"But you don't know Phil, the only thing I can think of is that poor Hoffman family," she said with real pain in her voice.

"You mean the State Senator? What has he got to do with you?" he said knowing all too well.

"I was on duty the night his wife came in," she said.

"So what, it's just a wife abuse case, and the medical records are sealed. You have no problem do you?" he said.

For a moment she was silent.

"Maybe they want to know about the miscarriage," she said in a hushed whisper that he could barely hear.

"That poor family," she went on, "I don't want to be the one to hurt them."

"Maybe it was the Senator's," he prompted already knowing the answer.

"No, she asked if it was black, we couldn't tell, she was not far enough along, but she asked like she knew the answer," she said this and then fell into tears. Sloane comforted her, held her and told her it would all be alright and hated himself for his deceiving a good woman.

*****

Katrina came in and said that I had a visitor. She was wearing a skirt that was even shorter than usual and her blouse clung to her breasts in a most suggestive way. If she had a bra on in was shear and skimpy. I needed to have a talk with her.

"Mary Ellen wants to see you," she said

"Who?"

"Mary Ellen Seamon, we worked with her in the DA's office."

"Did she say what she wanted?" I asked and Katrina gave me that look that I was becoming familiar with that said I was an idiot.

"Mary Ellen how nice to see you," I said. She was wearing what I call the female lawyer uniform, a dark pin-striped skirt suit. It had a tight jacket that framed her breasts and a skirt that dropped to her knees. She wore three inch black and white pumps and black hose. She was, in other words, looking every bit the young female lawyer.

I showed her to a seat and waited. It took her a minute.

"I was hoping you had a job for me," she said.

I tried not to answer too fast.

"Sorry Mary, don't have a budget yet. No money to pay anyone."

"Kat is working here and I heard Sloane was," she said.

"Yes but they're not getting paid right now. They have contracts that say they get paid if and when we get a budget," I answered.

"Fine I'll take one of those," she said.

"But you're working; you have a job in Van Patten," I said.

"Right, I've a job but no career. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in traffic court, I want to be a trial lawyer," she said.

"Be reasonable. You can go work and get paid elsewhere; here there's nothing, but a vague possibility."

"Your wrong, you're here and I want to learn. We worked well together when you were DA. I know you don't think much of me, but I'm here willing to work and I'm not going away. If I must I'll hang out in the hallway until you hire me. Besides you need one woman in the office who's not trying to lure you into bed. I'm gay in case no one ever told you. I know you're too obtuse to have noticed on your own." She was stating her position and accepting no answer but yes. I'd not known about her sexual orientation but it made sense now that I considered.

"OK you win, get a contract from Kat and start whenever you want."

She didn't realize it, but she had put the pressure on me. Now three people needed to be paid and it was certain there would be more. I needed a budget. The AG had been generous. He gave me temporary office space and spare equipment and office supplies. The independent contractor scam was an old trick to get around Civil Service, it allowed you to hire outside help for a limited period, but this was no substitute for a budget. When my staff put in their vouchers to be paid I would need funds to pay them.

I needed a budget appropriation. I hated to do it but I did not know where else to turn. I would need to eat my pride and put a good face on it. Being a politician was not what I had wanted out of life, but as my mother is fond of saying, "You don't get everything you want in this life."

His office was overly bright, the sun glared through the windows, but Saul Solomon did not seem to notice. We sat in two comfortable chairs; in addition there was a love seat and a coffee table. The coffee he was serving looked strong.

My mother also says that: the only thing worse than a poor loser was an ungracious winner, I had fought Saul Solomon and lost. I had come close to winning, but he had won the case. True he controlled the Judges, but I had known that going in. Where he really beat my friend Steve and I was in his control of the Court Clerk. He took us off the Court calendar and kept us there. You can appeal a decision, but it's dam hard to appeal the lack of one. As a result I was married and likely to stay that way. The question I had now was Saul a gracious winner?

"You take yours black no sugar I believe Mr. Sullivan," Solomon said handing me a china cup of the extra dark liquid.

"Yes thank you," I said. As I looked at the cup I was struck by the pink rose pattern. Rosenthal china like my Aunt Sophia had. He noticed me looking.

"I don't have many left they were my grandmothers. I enjoy having them here, a bit of a crutch to remind me where I come from," he said.

"Do you miss it?" I asked.

"Sometimes but what I miss is mostly gone. New York is a most unromantic place, it changes abruptly. Take yourself for example; a year ago you were someone entirely different a lowly ADA in a very small county, now you are the exalted State Special Counsel for Public Corruption. What you do from here on, good or bad, changes your life, those lives around you, and the lives of many you will never know," he reflected.

"Trouble is I have no budget," I said getting to what had brought me.

"Yes, but surely you've discussed this with the Governor," he said with a knowing smile.

"The Governor said when he told me of my appointment that he would include the office in his next budget, but until then I'd need to depend on the AG. That just doesn't work. I need my own staff which means coming up with the money to pay them."

"Rather awkward situation asking the legislature to fund the person investigating them, particularly when it's someone they don't know, kind of an outsider," he said seeming to mull over the problem.

"I was wondering if you could give me any advice," I said getting back to what had brought me here and wondering how much he would twist me.

Saul smiled and then said: "What you need is a good lobbyist or two. I might know someone."

It was now my turn to smile, "Someone?"

"Pat you now have to think of yourself as an important man. Such men get what they want, if they know how to ask for it. There will be a supplemental budget in July with lots of maneuvering and with the right help you could get some interim funding."

"So can you help me?" I asked, hating myself as I did it but realizing he was making it as easy as he could for me.

"Yes I think I can. No promises, but if you retain this office to help you I will do everything I can." He said a smile on his face. He wasn't gloating, he was telling me he was pleased to have me as a client.

"I guess we better discuss fees then," I said.

"Mr. Sullivan I'm a lobbyist that's why you're hiring me. My job is to influence those who make the laws. There are many ways to do that, some are even legal," he said with a laugh.

"However, representing the man who will sort their dirty laundry and pass on their sins large and small, will say to them that I have influence where it counts. I'm not asking for any favors, just your gratitude," he said giving me a very sincere look. Then he continued, "As far as the firm is concerned I'll be doing a favor for the husband of one of our partners," he said this and leaned back.

"Well I can't argue with the price. Do we need a written retainer or will a handshake do."

"In this case a handshake will do."

Saul was a gracious winner and if what people said was correct, someone who knew when to change sides.

*****