Return of the Black Widow Ch. 02

"And in other news, the Council voted to drop their defense of the lawsuit by Dr. P. Harvey Eckhart over taking the Community Center property by eminent domain, and they voted to award Dr. Eckhart's Charitable Trust the title deed to the property in exchange for the money he has already paid. In a statement to Channel Two News, Council Members Thomas P. Cook and Kelly Carnes have stated that they believe the Council's actions were unlawful, and intend to file a lawsuit to enjoin the Council from awarding the property to Dr. Eckhart's Trust."

"Finally, the Council set into motion the process for electing a replacement for the late Pastor Raymond Westboro. Westboro was exposed as the leader of a huge national criminal syndicate by Commander Donald Troy, and Westboro committed suicide rather than be arrested by Commander Troy..."

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

"How did your father take the news of the Community Center?" I asked.

"He's happy about it." Cindy said. We were sitting in my office after the coffee klatch. The 'C-Level' meeting, meaning 'Crowbar-level', would be in a few minutes. I'd banished the 'Detective Fiction' name; it just didn't fit the straight-laced Lt. Wes 'Coldiron' Masters, nor the acerbic but honorable Warrior, Lt. Teresa 'Police Cross' Croyle. Cindy? That was another story... just kidding. She's the most honorable of the bunch, I thought to myself.

Cindy continued: "His Charitable Trust for this property is composed of two people in equal measure to run it: you and me. He thinks it'll still be some time before the legal issues are settled. My question to you is: who are you going to get to run for Westboro's seat on the Council, and keep our numbers in the majority?"

"I wish it were that easy." I said. "The rules are that someone running for that seat either has to live in the district or have his or her primary work address in it. Westboro used First Baptist Church as his address. Since it's mostly businesses and apartments in that area, it'll be interesting to see who might run. And I have no marked cards in that deck."

"Too bad." said Cindy. "I was hoping Krasney would run for it, and then Jenna would very likely win the District Attorney job. But he's staying in the race he's in."

"To be honest, I don't blame him." I said. "He's always wanted a Council seat, and it's the Mayor's job that's his true lodestone. But he needs to lay more groundwork for a run at either post, and this vacancy kind of snuck up on him as a surprise. His risk-reward isn't good for a run at this time."

"That's what I was saying about Jenna's run for D.A." Cindy said. "So, changing the subject: I've been meaning to ask you this about Angela Harlan. You said something while explaining how you solved the Westboro case, and it was that Angela Harlan and maybe even Julie Newton's loyalties were perhaps induced by brainwashing?"

"Yeah." I said. I got out my anti-bugging device and activated it, then said: "Something along those lines. And after... what I went through... I'm more and more convinced that Westboro did something to them, especially to Angela, to make her go bad. We know of some of the drugs Ned made... he could've made others, drugs that could've caused abnormal reactions, especially mixed with hypnosis or other brain-altering techniques."

"Like my father's?" Cindy asked, peering hard at me.

"Uhhh..." I faltered, then collected my thoughts. "I would venture to say that your father knows a few things, and can do a few things, that in the wrong hands could be devastating. The post-hypnotic suggestions, where a word triggers actions that a person wouldn't normally do, like what Eleanor Burke had done to her. And your father wasn't the first to use those techniques; the Soviets were studying that stuff for decades. I'm sure the CIA and MI-6 have been equally aggressive in their researches... well, actually I know it from experience."

"True." said Cindy. "And I've done a bit of my own research on all that. What happened to Eleanor is a short-term trigger, probably only good for a one-time action, and only good for a few hours at best. Angela... was much more and much longer than that."

"Yes." I said. "Deep down, I think Angela had some latent hatreds of Selena Steele, but she only acted upon them because the Consultant took advantage of her somehow and brought those hatreds out. Maybe Angela was more bad than anyone realized, and once unleashed, she was unstoppable. But would she have acted if she had not been induced to do so?"

Letting that question hang in the air, I continued: "And Julie Newton was a bad seed from the start, but she was actually loyal to Harold Malone, and she was likely a white supremacist on top of it all. And once again, the Consultant was able to do something to act upon that. In fact..."

I stopped. It hit me. Hard. I saw it, saw a thread clearly that had been eluding me before. I pushed my mind as hard as I could to explore it...

"Don?" Cindy asked, her voice cutting through my mind.

"Huh?" I gasped, coming out of it. "Uhhh... I... I just thought of something..."

"And you've been in that zone of yours for the last ten minutes." Cindy said. Indeed, that amount of time had elapsed from the clock on my wall. Oh, wow...

Just then, Lt. Masters appeared at the door. "Come on in." I said, thinking he was coming to the meeting. I was still trying to marshal my thoughts and bring myself into the present.

"Sir, ma'am," he replied, "I just got word from the Duty Desk that a body was found in the Tenderloin District... and it has the markings of the Black Widow on it..."

To be continued.