The CleanSweep Conspiracy (20 page)

“I thought we were. But now you’ve scared the hell out of me,” Matt said. He paused before adding, “I hope we have been. I hope so.”

“What are you going to tell them about meeting me?” Carling seemed to be thinking about something. “Do you trust them? How can you be sure?”

Matt leaned forward, looking down at his shoes. He noticed popcorn and peanut shells from a previous occupant and brushed the remnants away with his foot as he began telling Carling how he’d met them. “I didn’t believe or trust them. Not at first,” Matt whispered as a female security guard walked up the stairs. She stopped halfway up.

Apparently, she really didn’t care why two fans were sitting alone at the top of the third level in a mostly empty stadium.

Matt continued whispering after he saw her turn and start back down the stairs. He held his program up to shield his face, mimicking the detective.

“Watching Susan Payne on the news, I figured she was just another empty talking head doing nothing more than reading from a script. I learned she’s smart and has a steely resolve. Her cameraman’s a straight shooter.” Matt immediately wondered how he had come up with a cliché like that, something from an old Western movie.

“Go ahead and check me out,” Carling said. “Ask around, and when you are convinced we’re all on the same side of this story, you should tell them about me. But I don’t think it would be wise for the four of us to meet. Payne has interviewed me in the past. She seems OK, as far as I know.”

“Why would a cop help me? Why would
you
?”

“I took an oath to uphold the law
—
to protect and serve. I still take that oath very seriously, and that promise seems to be running contrary to the things CleanSweep is up to. They are doing an end run around due process, and it stinks.”

Matt gave that some thought. Looking over, he saw something on Carling’s face.
Fear
,
sadness
, and
disillusionment
were just three words that came to mind.

“In your blogs, you mentioned people disappearing. Do you have any idea what has happened to them?” When Matt shook his head, Carling went on, “It’s far worse than you think.”

Then Carling said abruptly, “I’m outta here. Before we make contact again, tell Susan Payne about me. Convince her we need to work together.” Matt was shaken by the anxious tone that had suddenly crept into the man’s voice. Then the detective began coughing and dropped something on the floor by Matt’s left foot.

Carling stood up unexpectedly, squeezed past Matt, and started down the steps. Matt expected him to turn around and wave. Instead, he was surprised to see Carling pause by the ramp wall and take a flask from his jacket pocket. He took a long swallow, put on his fedora, and disappeared from sight around a corner.

What spooked him?
Matt wondered.

Before he got up, he looked down and saw another white envelope. He waited for three full innings to pass before he reached down to pick it up. The Eagles were trailing by eleven runs, and Matt decided had watched enough paint dry. He stood and walked down the steps with the envelope folded and secured in his pocket.

Oh hell, I forgot to ask what KBO meant,
he thought.
I really do need to Google it.

CHAPTER 24

Do You Trust Him?

“W
hat were you thinking
—
talking to a cop? I don’t care if I
do
know him, or if he said we’ve met before,” Hurricane Susan was living up to her name. She was livid, furious with Matt. “What made you think you could trust him?”

“I didn’t at first
—
”

Holding up her hand, Susan cut him off with a withering look.

“Let him talk,” Carl said, but his words had little impact on her anger.

“We’re sticking our necks out,” she insisted to Carl. She turned to Matt. “What were you
thinking
?”

“If you take a breath, I’ll tell you!”

They had met in a luxury suite of rooms at the Loon Lake Resort. They agreed on making this their rendezvous point because it was the opposite setting to the seedy motels they had used before. That, and it was several miles north of the city. Matt was glad to be out of there for a little while, and the location was far enough away that there was no lingering smell of smoke
—
an added bonus.

Matt looked out over the golf course outside the window. In spite of the rain, a foursome was getting ready to tee off. When he saw a vivid flash of lightning nearby, he questioned the golfers’ collective wisdom. He pulled the curtain shut. Susan’s angry words were still echoing around the room. When she stopped venting, he told them about Carling’s phone call. He explained the streetcar ride and first note. Then he added the story about meeting Carling at the baseball game.

“He’s afraid of the same things we are, but he didn’t come right out and say it at first. Why would he insist on such complex ways to avoid surveillance? He wants me to tell you guys that he’s on our side.”

“I remember him now,” Susan said, her tone calmer. “He’s the one who wears the hat, the fedora. I asked him about it once.”

“What choice do we have now, anyway?” Carl asked. “If he knows about us, he could have already turned you in.” He pointed at Matt. “But he hasn’t
…
yet. Why don’t we have some coffee before it gets cold?” He got up and went to a nearby serving table. Taking cups from a tray, he reached for a carafe and filled them, the vapor rising like smoke. He handed them around.

Sipping, they each sat quietly with their own thoughts and concerns.

I enjoy good coffee, but this stuff tastes bitter. It’s crap,
Matt thought, but he kept it to himself, not wanting to offend Carl, who seemed to think it was gourmet quality.

“I was following a lead,” Susan said.

“
We
were following a lead,” Carl snapped.

Matt noticed a different tension between the two now. They seemed more and more like a married couple swapping gibes.

Susan ignored Carl. “When I looked at my notes about the numbers of people who have seemed to vanish, I began to see a pattern in the
kind
of people that have been disappearing. Isn’t it curious?” She ran her fingers through her hair. “There used to be an old bag lady I always passed on the way to the newsroom. You know who I mean, Carl
—
the one near our studio’s entrance. Maybe she’s not that old, but she looked it. Once, I tried speaking to her, but she ignored me and kept talking to some invisible friends.” Susan wrinkled her nose. “And she smelled as bad as she looked. People walked past her and pretended not to see her. She was always sitting close to one of those subway ventilator grates, the ones that shoot up warm air. Then, one day, she wasn’t there.”

“Her name is Ellie
—
or was,” Carl said. “She’s harmless. In fact, she has an interesting story.”

Susan cut him off. “Have you seen her lately, this Ellie person? No, you haven’t.”

“I’ve noticed stuff like that, too,” Matt said. He told them about riding the trolley and watching the ballet lady and the other man, both of them there one day and gone the next. “What’s going on?” He took out the envelope Carling had dropped at his feet at the stadium. “He made sure I got this before he left the game.”

He held up two pages and summarized for Carl and Susan what was written on them. “This,” he said, waving one page, “is a copy of an order to the cops. They have to turn over all their notes and files on specific people to CleanSweep agents. The order contains a very specific list of names
—
the homeless and persons with known mental illnesses. It doesn’t stop there. CleanSweep is also interested in individuals with any physical or mental handicaps. They are also keen on criminals, especially those with gang affiliations.”

“Add to that list distinct skin tones, accents, and other characteristics like that,” Susan said.

“Get this,” Matt continued, “CleanSweep agents have the power to arrest and detain
without a warrant
.”

“Damn, this is scaring me. It’s worse than I thought,” Susan said.

“Amen to that,” Carl added.

“There’s more,” Matt said. “Police are ordered not to interfere with CleanSweep agents who are transporting detainees. That’s what is making Carling so mad.”

“By the time the activists realized what was happening,” Susan said, “it was too late. Their demonstration was stopped with an emergency court order. The special policing powers given to CleanSweep agents are similar to provisions made by the War Measures Act, that holdover from 1914 and the beginning of the First World War.”

Matt looked up from a page he was reading and nodded. “Apparently it was OK to suspend habeas corpus and all the other civil liberty ‘niceties,’ all in the name of making us feel safe. I don’t feel very safe right now. Do you?”

The three sat in an uneasy silence made worse by the growing darkness. It was after sundown, so Carl got up to turn on a lamp. It did little to cheer the room or uplift their spirits.

“I may only be the videographer, but I have a question. What do we know about those buildings near Spadina Avenue? What they are for? I’m talking about the ones that have been renovated in the past couple of years. I’ve thought there was something queer about the one just north of Sullivan Street. Why would they lay a new streetcar track spur through an overhead door and directly into that building?”

“I saw that and didn’t pay any attention,” Matt said.

“There’s a new CleanSweep logo on the cornerstone of the building,” Carl said, looking thoughtful. “I was on a southbound streetcar one morning when we had to stop so that an approaching tram could make the turn toward the building. The trolley was painted dark gray and the windows were screened to keep the interior from view. I watched an oversize garage door go up, and the trolley went through. The door came back down
—
fast
—
before I could get a glimpse inside. Most unusual, wouldn’t you say?”

Susan nodded. “Did you get a photo?”

Carl cut her off with a wave to indicate that of course he had. He held up his smartphone. The three the rear of the trolley entering the building in the video, followed by a shot of the door being lowered.

“I didn’t know what to think at the time, but now
…
”

Susan took the phone and stared at the last scene. “There’s something about that streetcar
…
” she said, her finger tracing a line on the screen. “I saw one like it last Wednesday. The windows were all shielded so you couldn’t see in. It’s the kind of tinting that’s used on car windows when the driver wants to stay hidden from view. I wondered what it was and thought it must be some kind of test car, or maybe a training car. I even made a note to check with the transit authorities about it, then forgot.” She took a notebook out of her purse.

She fanned through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “Here it is,” she said, holding it up for the two men to see. “Last Wednesday. Here’s my note to call Sal Petrecelli. He’s my contact at the head transit office
—
remember him, Carl?”

“There’s more,” Matt said. He told them about an e
-
mail he’d received from an anonymous source. “I almost put it in the file I reserve for crackpots. It was about vans driving around, mostly at night. The person who wrote it said he had seen at least two folks, good neighbors, being led to the vans in handcuffs and taken away.” Matt shook his head. “I found it hard to believe. Why would ordinary
-
looking people be taken away like that? It sounded too alarmist. I guess I don’t
want
to believe it.”

“Things are starting to add up,” Susan said. “I don’t feel at all comfortable with what I’m imagining right now.”

“I don’t know about you two,” Carl said, “but I’m wondering if it might not be a good idea to have someone like Detective Carling on our side.”

Susan and Matt nodded their agreement.

“We need to be extra careful from here on out,” Carl said.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Matt snapped. He leaned back in a chair with his fingers laced behind his head. “Why don’t we put our notes together now? There’s never been a better time for teamwork,” he said as he picked up a notebook from the table at his side. He turned to a blank page and held his pen poised. “What do we really know so far?”

They lost track of time as they worked through the night. When they were finished, the three looked at one another. Papers were spread on the bed and on the three tables in the room. To someone walking in, the scene might look as if documents had been scattered around at random. The three accomplices knew better. The papers tracked a pattern back to the beginning of their investigations. Matt had certain facts previously unknown to Susan and Carl. They, in turn, had bits and pieces that Matt had been unaware of. They were most surprised, however, to find the similar facts they had each uncovered in the middle of their respective investigations
—
overlapping events that painted an ugly picture of Charles Claussen and CleanSweep.

Matt spoke first. “Claussen is the key person behind this. He used his money, and he almost certainly has connections within the government. What else would explain the order to the police and the government so readily giving CleanSweep such sweeping
—
pun intended
—
power to arrest and detain?”

“Agreed,” Susan said. “What we don’t have is a way to look inside his organization. Just that stuff Tanner gave you. It’s important, but it’s not proof of a conspiracy. We don’t have the smoking gun
—
yet. And the lid’s been sealed tight since the rioting began.”

“Who will believe us with just this?” Matt said, sweeping his arm around the room. “Claussen has his reputation behind him. Who will believe Matt Tremain, except for some loyal blog readers? We need something more, and it’s out there. I can feel it. We need the missing link.”

Susan’s phone started ringing, its ringtone set loud enough to be heard in spite of background noise. In the quiet of the room, it was as jarring as a blaring fire truck siren. The noise was so loud it bordered on obscenity.

She looked down at the phone number displayed. “It’s not a number I recognize,” she said, holding it up for Carl to see.

“I don’t recognize it, either. What about you, Matt?”

“Nope, I don’t have a clue.”

Susan let the call go to voice mail. The three went back to work, reexamining everything, putting all their facts together in a master list.

“Let’s have our next meeting at the farmhouse. It’ll be easy to see if anyone is following us there,” Carl said. He gave Matt directions.

Susan put her phone away. They all agreed it had been a hard night’s work.

Then Matt’s phone suddenly chirped. He looked at it, then turned it off and told them, “I’m heading back to the city. Carling has set up another meeting.”

They started picking up the documents, taking care to preserve their order. They didn’t want their efforts to go to waste. Finally, there seemed to be nothing else to say or do. Matt watched Susan place her hands on her hips and lean back to stretch out tired muscles. He thought he saw the tension in her face spill away when Carl rested his hand on her shoulder.

“By the way,” Matt asked as they were all leaving, “do either one of you know what
KBO
means?” His question was met with blank stares and shrugs. “Not a clue,” they both said at the same time.

They walked to their car, laughing to relieve the tension.