The Honey Trap: A Rev Polk Mystery

By Wade Fowler

A Rev Polk Mystery

Investigative reporter Revere Polk of the Daily Telegraph is stunned when Pennsylvania Governor Casey Lawrence, a liberal Democrat, suddenly reverses course and decides to back the privatization of the state lottery, a proposal of the far right.

When a colleague is murdered while investigating whether the governor is being blackmailed, Polk picks up the gauntlet. Catastrophes pile up like a chain-reaction accident on Interstate 95.

Polk narrowly survives a bomb targeting a topless dancer alleged to be sleeping with the governor.

His National Guard unit is called to service in Afghanistan.

And his live-in girl friend, New Cumberland Chief of Police Olivia Pearson, announces she is pregnant.

Meanwhile, Polk is paralyzed by the certainty that he is not alone within his own skin. His great granduncle, Jake Addison, speaks to him from within. Jake, a notorious and profane naval aviator, died forty years ago.

Is Rev crazy, or is he Jake Addison reincarnate?

The answer is ensnared in The Honey Trap.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781620066829

Book preview

Prologue: An Awakening

2:30 p.m., Monday, January 2, 2012, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Why are you here?

Now there’s a deep question, Revere Polk said. I’ve asked God, and he hasn’t gotten back to me on that one yet.

Henrietta Winslow laughed. This is going to be fun.

What?

Cracking you open like a walnut.

I’m already cracked.

She laughed again.

They were seated across from each other in comfortable armchairs positioned on the wide side of a five-by-seven foot faux oriental carpet, the centerpiece of a conversation nook in Dr. Winslow’s office.

Talk to me, she said.

I’m dreaming.

Nothing unusual about that. In fact, it’s healthy.

These dreams aren’t. They belong to someone else.

What makes you think that?

He shook his head. It’s just when I wake up, it seems like I’ve been . . . I don’t know, violated somehow.

What wakes you up?

Rev lied: I don’t know.

Winslow stroked her chin. If you can’t be honest with me this intervention isn’t going to work. You’re at a crossroads here. Choose your path carefully.

That sounds like a warning.

Nope. Just friendly advice.

Rev shuddered. OK. Here it is. I’ve been having dreams of flying.

Like Icarus?

Rev caught the allusion. No. I’m not sprouting wings. I’m at the controls of an airplane—a PBY Catalina.

What’s that?

It’s the name that comes to me in my dreams. A World War II vintage seaplane made by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. I know because I Googled it.

Winslow rutched in her chair. OK. So you’re dreaming that you’re a pilot. Why does that trouble you?

It’s the specificity of the dreams. I feel the climbs, the dives, the banks, and the rolls right here in my stomach. Rev patted his belly for emphasis. I smell a hot engine and feel the controls . . . hands and feet, yolk, throttle, flaps . . . everything. Shit! I could fly the damn thing and I don’t know how to fly.

Vivid dreams aren’t that unusual, Winslow observed. All of us have them at one time or another. Why are these dreams so troubling?

Rev stared out Winslow’s office window, his eyes unfocused. He took a deep breath. It’s the voice. I hear it in my dreams. And lately I’ve been hearing it when I’m awake, too.

The voice isn’t telling you to kill puppies or drown kittens, is it?

Winslow’s eyes sparkled and Rev realized she was kidding.

No, but it has intimated that there ought to be a bounty on psychologists.

Winslow laughed. I deserve better than that, don’t you think? I’ve helped you with PTSD after Iraq. I helped you deal with your girlfriend’s murder. I helped you with your guilt over jumping into bed with your girlfriend’s best friend.

Rev held up a hand. Enough. I don’t need a catalog of my sins. I know them well enough. Hell I live with them every day.

What does the voice say?

I can never remember. When I’m awake . . . it’s like an echo bouncing off canyon walls. It’s baritone and it’s southern. But I never can quite make out the words. You’ve got to help me, Doc.

Well there is one thing we haven’t tried.

What’s that?

Hypnotic regression. I hypnotize you to take you back to incidents in your past to see if they may have some bearing on what’s bugging you in the present.

That doesn’t sound very scientific.

We’ve tried science. It didn’t work. Another sort of therapy is in order. That’s why you’re here.

Seems like you’ve answered your original question, Rev observed.

Only because you refused to do so.

So what now?

Winslow motioned to a chaise lounge situated in a dark corner of her office.

You lie down over there. I put on some mood music, and we see what happens.

Sounds like a seduction.

Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not that sort of pro. You in or out?

Rev took a deep breath. In, he said. Rev arose, crossed the room, and arranged himself on the chaise lounge.

Winslow punched a button on a tape player situated on a bookcase next to the chaise. A James Taylor tune issued forth from hidden speakers. Frozen Man.

That’s what Rev was. Frozen in regret. For what he had done in Iraq. For the death of his erstwhile girlfriend, Sophie. For taking up with Sophie’s best friend, Liv Pearson, before her corpse was cold (Sophie’s that is). God, his life was fucked up. He needed this psychiatric enema, so he might as well bend over and take it.

OK, Doc. Let the healing begin, he said.

Do you like James Taylor?

Yeah. He’s mellow.

"That’s why I like to use him as background. This is a medley from his One Man Band CD. All acoustic. It always relaxes me, which is the point of hypnotism. Deep relaxation is all it is. It helps you get in touch with your subconscious."

Thought that was what alcohol is for.

Alcohol gets you in touch with your unconscious. That’s not what we’re after here. Now I’d like you to describe a place where you have always felt safe and secure.

Rev scrunched around on the chaise.

She laid a hand on his forearm. Come on, Rev. We’ve been through this before. Psychotherapy is built on a foundation of trust. For this to work you have to tear down all the barriers—expose yourself to intimate scrutiny.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Winslow saw it and quickly said: And no. I don’t want you to take off your pants.

That did it. Cracked the ice. He took a deep breath. Considered her request carefully for the first time.

The place I’ve always felt the most comfortable was beside a fire on a cold day at Nona’s house.

Your grandmother. She raised you. Right?

Yeah, after Mom died and Dad ran off. But I can’t go back there. She sold the house. The place isn’t hers anymore.

Sure it is. In your mind. No one can ever rob you of those memories. That’s where I want you to go. Now get comfortable. Let the music wash over you. Listen carefully to the subtext beneath the music. Imagine the sounds of Nona’s household. Picture the scene in your mind. Feel the warmth of the fire and the comfort of knowing the people who love you are close at hand.

The CD changed tracks. Copper Line blended into Shower the People, which faded into A Mean Old Man.

Rev lost himself in the music, only marginally aware of Winslow’s quiet voice in the background. He only heard bits and pieces as she kept talking.

That’s right, Rev, give yourself up to the moment. Inhale for ten seconds. Slowly. Now exhale slowly for twenty seconds. I’ll count it out for you. Seventeen. Eighteen . . . Now I want you to tell me about Nona.

From far away, he recognized his own voice responding. Nona is a pepperbox. Small. Half my size. But her personality . . .

Yes.

She’s bigger than all of us put together.

She is an old soul. So are you. I can sense it. Let’s go back forty years. Tell me the first thing you can remember.

My knee hurts. I skinned it. Nona put some ouchy stuff on it. My skin is pink. His voice childlike. Petulant.

Mercurochrome?

That’s what Nona calls it. She’s blowing on my knee. She says ‘I’m sorry, Revie, but sometimes we have to do things that hurt if we want to get better.’

How old are you now?

Two. Relaxing on Winslow’s couch, Rev was conscious of raising his hand with two fingers extended in a peace sign. He heard himself laugh. Realized his adult self was amused by the absurd juxtaposition with his juvenile self.

The CD track changed. Sweet Baby James.

OK. Now I want you to think back . . . let’s say 75 years.

C-cc-cold. I’m really cold.

Why?

Y’all got to be kiddin’. It’s always cold in Alaska. Least ways in November.

What are you doing in Alaska?

Taking pictures from the air—a photographic survey. That’s what the brass calls it.

You’re a pilot?

Hot damn, ma’am. That’s what I am . . . for the U-nited States Navy.

How old are you?

Forty-two.

What’s your name?

Chief Petty Officer Jake Addison at your service, ma’am.

Rev stirred on the couch. He could feel his feet kicking and his fists clenching.

Winslow’s voice calmed him down.

It’s OK, Rev, you are doing fine. Relax. Breathe deeply. Listen to the music.

James Taylor sang to him. Secret O’ Life.

And Winslow talked him in for a safe landing in the present. OK, Rev. It’s time to wake up now. Your session is over.

She clapped her hands.

Rev awoke, swung his feet over the edge of the chaise, and sat up slowly.

You remember anything? Winslow asked.

Yeah. A name. Jake Addison. He’s Nona’s late uncle.

He’s more than that.

How so?

Instead of answering, Winslow arose and crossed the room to her desk. She returned with a notepad and a pen. Sitting down again in her chair she scribbled for a while, then tore off a piece of paper and handed it to Rev.

What’s this?

A referral to a colleague of mine. Her office is in Baltimore. She’s a specialist in parapsychology.

What’s that mean?

Your hypnosis session confirmed something I suspected.

What’s that?

You are dealing with something that happened years before you were even born. Something that happened to Jake Addison.

My great-granduncle?

Like I said. He’s more than that. He is you, Winslow said.

Rev was stunned. You’re talking about reincarnation?

That’s something you can take up with Dr. Albright, Winslow replied. This one is way outside my wheelhouse.

I used to be Jake Addison, Rev said, more to himself than to Dr. Winslow.

That’s right, shipmate, Jake replied. ’Bout time you came to grips with that. You and me have a lot of catching up to do now that you’ve . . . awakened.

Did you hear that? Rev asked.

Hear what?

A man’s voice.

None other than yours, Winslow said.

I’ve got to get Jake Addison out of my head, Rev said.

That’s also something to take up with Dr. Albright.

Don’t I get a vote in that, too? Jake drawled.

Chapter One

11:30 p.m., Friday, January 6, 2012, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

The stripper known as Crystal Cleavage made her way toward his table, bumping and grinding through a miasma of cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and testosterone, fresh off her set at the Pink Pony. On stage a shopworn prostitute named Galaxy strutted to Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls for the benefit of a bachelor party. The song choice was apropos, but the groom-to-be and his drunken entourage didn’t seem to mind that Galaxy’s stuff was better left un-strutted.

He had selected this spot, set far back from the stage, specifically to avoid intimate contact with the dancers. He had no dollar bills to dispense and no desire for a lap dance. Crystal had summoned him here. He acquiesced because they had a history rife with repetition despite his best efforts to forestall it.

Do you really enjoy doing that?

Doing what? Her feigned innocence belied her outfit. A G-string, pasties, and a thin dressing gown did little to obscure her assets both fore and aft as she pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from him. Young, tall, honey blonde, green-eyed, and buxom, Crystal outclassed the other dancers by several city blocks.

Her legs, in the vernacular of the bawdy house bard, extended all the way to her ass.

Parading naked for the amusement of men.

You love a parade, or at least you used to. She winked and licked her lips.

He recoiled, raising his arms and waving them like an evangelist beckoning the sinners to the altar. We’re related for Christ’s sake. I want better for you than this!

I’m your stepsister. We are not related by blood, other than that which I shed the first time we―

Enough!

She laughed. Don’t be such a prude, bro. You didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to do. I seduced you because virginity was such a drag.

Yours or mine? he asked, his bitterness palpable.

It was your first time, too?

Nah. Steph Baker. In the tenth grade. In the basement when Mom and Dad were at one of your soccer games.

She cocked her head to one side, activating her bullshit sensors.

Liar.

Slut.

She stuck out her tongue. Stuffed shirt!

It was if two people resided within his stepsister’s skin: a temptress in one breath, a silly schoolgirl in the next.

So why did you ask me to meet you here, other than to humiliate the both of us?

I’m not humiliated, she retorted. I’m empowered. The men in here? They belong to me, the poor bastards. They think they own me. But it’s the other way around. I don’t please. I tease―at two bills an hour, on average.

There are better ways to earn money, he said.

Such as being a high-and-mighty lawyer? That, by the way, is why I asked you to stop by.

You need legal advice?

No. You do.

How so?

Your boss. He’s doin’ the dirty with some of the dancers here.

He put his finger to his lips. Not so loud. We might be overheard.

She smiled. So, counselor, you concede that sexual impropriety on the part of your employer does not lie beyond the realm of possibility?

He shrugged. He’s a man’s man, and his wife . . .

Is a conniving bitch. Crystal finished the sentence for him.

I didn’t say that.

Your boss did. He’s a regular here, an adrenaline junkie. Doesn’t shy from a quickie in the alley if the price is right and the girl is willing. Says ever since his second tour in Afghanistan, nothing gets him off like danger. There’s a big payday here for the both of us, but I need your help springing a honey trap.

I’m not interested in selling out my boss, he said.

You’re already selling him out. If he knew who you were in bed with, he’d throw you under the bus quicker than you can say scat.

How do you know with whom I am in bed?

There’s no shortage of loose women and loose talk in a titty bar.

He leaned forward. Come on, sis. Cut me a break. I’ve got my own game going here.

Yeah, and if you don’t let me play too, I’m going to tell your boss what you’ve been up to. And don’t play coy with me. You know what I mean.

He’d never believe it. You have no credibility. You’re just . . .

A slut? Maybe so. But these give me all the credibility I need. She grabbed her breasts and jiggled them, enjoying his discomfort. Come on, bro. Let me play, too.

What do you have in mind?

On stage, Galaxy bent over and shook her ass in the face of a bachelor party reveler. The jukebox blared, providing musical accompaniment for a crime against good taste.

Crystal Cleavage leaned forward, centering her stepbrother in the crosshairs of her 38s and committed a felony of her own.

Here’s what we need to do, she said.

Chapter Two

11:30 a.m., Tuesday, January 24, 2012, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

The floor beneath Rev Polk’s feet trembled as the presses hit third gear down in the basement, churning out copies of the metro edition of the Daily Telegraph. Rev looked up from his computer screen and let his eyes wander. Sunshine streamed through banks of windows on the east side, bathing the newsroom in a warm glow on a cold winter morning.

The shutter of Rev’s internal camera clicked, capturing the moment like a still from a motion picture. In that image written forevermore to Rev’s metaphysical hard drive, Roxy Burton, the lifestyle editor, chatted with George Berk, the slot man on the copy desk. Her fingers floated in the space between them like butterflies. Roxy couldn’t talk without moving her hands.

Back in the sports department, a collection of desks grouped to Rev’s right, Sammy Smith, the sports editor, muttered around the end of an unlit cigar, his eyes moving back and forth across hard copy. Sammy didn’t truck with computers. He did his editing on paper and gave the changes back to the reporter. It was an anachronism that management tolerated because Sammy could pump up a mediocre sports story with just a couple slashes of his red pen.

The big door leading to the southern stairwell banged open and a copy boy, a high school kid, who for some strange reason aspired to be a print journalist in the electronic age, backed onto the newsroom carrying a big stack of newspapers. He plopped the pile down on the nearest desk and began distributing the newspapers among the various departments.

The Daily Telegraph still offered its readers an afternoon paper, the metro edition they called it, a tabloid designed for commuters to read on the bus on their way home from work. But the editor, Grayson Collingsworth, had become increasingly strident in the last two months. The p.m. product was dying. Circulation and profits were down, down, down, corresponding with Collingsworth’s mood: foul, foul, foul.

Rev thought of these things as he crossed the newsroom to pick up a newspaper, unwilling to wait for the copy boy to arrive at his workstation. Rev had hurried back from a nine a.m. press conference at which the governor had dropped a bombshell. Nothing got his adrenaline pumping like deadline writing. His synapses sizzled, still in the afterglow.

Collecting his prize, he made his way back to his desk, sat down, and snapped the paper open, grunting in satisfaction when he saw his story in the hard news spot, front page, upper right, with a three-deck headline over two columns.

Governor reverses field

Opts to support lottery

Privatization plan

It didn’t matter to Rev that a six-graph synopsis had been up for 40 minutes on the website. He snapped the paper a second time for emphasis. This was journalism. The newspaper’s website was no better than TV and radio, in Rev’s humble opinion. Synopses are for sissies.

His enmity for the electronic media was unchanged by management’s recent embrace of it. This was the real thing. It had substance, weight, and it would endure much longer than the newspaper’s current system software, which was incompatible with the six or seven versions that had preceded it.

A hundred years from now, no one would be able to read the stories stored in bits and bytes, the programs that created them moribund. But newsprint? It’s immutable, baby.

Rev took solace in that thought as he reread his story to make sure the copy desk hadn’t messed it up.

By Revere Polk

Daily Telegraph Staff Writer

HARRISBURG, PA, Tuesday, January 24, 2012 – In a dramatic reversal of position, Pennsylvania Gov. Casey Lawrence indicated today that he will entertain legislation now hung up in the State House Finance Committee to privatize the state lottery.

The plan, the brainchild of state Rep. Shelby Winters, R-Bellefonte, would put the management of the lottery, which generates $530 million annually in support of the Office of Aging, up for competitive bids.

I think that there is an opportunity here to infuse the budget with a substantial amount of revenue without raising taxes while at the same time ensuring that senior citizens’ programs continue to be funded at their current pace for the foreseeable future, the governor said before a stunned press corps in the briefing room at the state capitol.

I know that this announcement will not be welcomed by many of my Democratic brethren, but the time has come in the state budget process to think creatively and to reach out across the aisle when the other side comes up with a viable alternative to a dismal status quo.

The privatization plan is based on a model developed by Jonathan Kelley Associates LLC, which would be among the top contenders to manage the lottery. Kelley, who lives most of the year in London, is a notorious recluse and reputedly a front man for oil money flowing out of Russia.

Winters was delighted by the governor’s change of heart, saying: The privatization plan will generate nearly a billion dollars up front, by the most conservative of estimates, and guarantees annual revenues equaling or exceeding what is now being generated under state operation. There are certain things the private sector does better than the public. And one of them is making money.

The governor’s announcement at his regular Tuesday morning press briefing drew immediate and sharp criticism from his Democratic base. Winters’ bill would give the new managers license to open up all sorts of new games not envisioned under the original legislation empowering the lottery, said Roosevelt Franklin, D-Philadelphia, the ranking Democrat on the House Finance Committee. "The availability of even more lottery games will prey on the very poorest among us, and while it will infuse the state budget with a one-time lump sum, a steady stream of revenue over the years is by no means assured.

Typical of most Republican plans, this one balances the budget on the backs of the working man. To generate the kind of revenues Winters’ plan promises, would require the furlough of hundreds of state employees now making a decent living wage, replacing them with underpaid, overworked employees willing to accept positions beneath their station due to the horrible state of the commonwealth’s economy.

Anticipating that criticism, the governor, in his press conference, said that one of the modifications he will insist upon will be the gradual furlough over several years of state workers now employed by the lottery, a generous severance package, and employment counseling and placement services, all at the expense of the new managers of the lottery.

Those words of assurance fell on deaf ears at the Harrisburg Chapter of the Pennsylvania Association of State Workers, an affiliate of the AFSME. Governor Lawrence is a traitor, said chapter president Sylvester Adkins. He won the governor’s house with the help of union workers and he will lose the governor’s house in the next election cycle due to his treachery.

Chapter Three

2:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 25, 2012, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Sprewell Madison and Russell Thompson sat knee-to-knee in a tiny anteroom on the third floor of the glass-fronted Locust Street Building in Harrisburg.

They had been escorted to the room by two buzz-topped rent-a-cops half their size, Sprewell from the basement mail room, and Russell from a first-floor ladies’ room, which he was cleaning at the time.

The two men―one white and the other black, respectively―both were enormous, almost 13 feet and 500 pounds between them. Neither of the rent-a-cops had the authority or the physical attributes to compel Sprewell and Russell to do anything they were unwilling to do. They would stay until they decided to leave.

Sprewell and Russell (not their real names) knew each other well, but they couldn’t show it because there was no way to tell whether they were being watched. They were undercover cops, state police troopers to be more precise, attuned to the risk of indiscretion.

They had assumed their jobs with Jonathan Kelley Associates LLC, three months ago, Russell as a janitor and Sprewell as a courier. Three grueling, mind-numbing months of work yielded the secure passwords to the firm’s Cloud accounts―lots of searching under mouse pads, desk blotters, and paper clip trays when no one was looking. But the forensic guys couldn’t follow the suspected electronic trail from the Russian mafia to a Native American casino to an offshore account in the Caymans.

There had to be another level of security, another layer of intrigue to peel away. But how?

Their being called together into the same room was ominous. They took pains to ignore each other when their paths crossed at work. So why had they been summoned to this tiny airless anteroom?

Their chairs faced a desk, back dropped by a bank of windows. Locust Street, one way east, lay three floors below. Behind the desk directly in front of the windows two large klieg lights affixed to tripods lurked like props in an inquisition chamber. The lights were pointed squarely at their chairs.

Sprewell was the first to risk speech.

Wonder what’s up with the lights.

Dunno, man.

A circuit closed with an electronic kachunk. The klieg lights flashed on and built from a startling intensity to a blinding one. It was like staring into the sun. Both men shaded their eyes with their hands.

A door opened to the right of the desk and someone entered the room moving like an animated stick man, a skeleton skinned by the intense light. A chair scraped, and Stick Man sat down behind the desk. I’d close my eyes if I were you, he said.

Turn out the light, asshole, Russell said. I can’t see a fucking thing.

That’s more or less the point, Stick Man said. His voice was high-pitched but smoky. Contralto you might call it. You two are quite the pair, sneaky as silent farts in a sewer plant. Stick Man sniffed. But I have a bloodhound’s nose. I had you pegged on day one.

Whatchew talking ’bout? Russell said, staying in character.

What law enforcement agency are the two of you working for? Feds, local, or state?

You so smart you tell us, Sprewell said.

He had a tiny voice for such a big man.

OK, Mr. Knox. I will. You seemed surprised. I know your real names. Know who you work for, too. Ted Knox and Tayshaun Russell. Neat trick using your last name as your first, Tayshaun. Probably made it easier to remember who you are supposed to be?

Stick Man had a nasty laugh.

I’ve done some checking up on the two of you. Haven’t had exactly sterling careers with the state police, have you? Well I suppose sometimes you have to cross the line when you’re a good guy pretending to be a bad guy. Skimming cash from a drug bust? Tsk, tsk, Mr. Russell. Sleeping with prostitutes? Bringing the clap home to your wife, Mr. Knox? Or should I say ex-wife? Not cool. Not cool at all.

Knox lurched forward in his chair, rising to a half-crouch.

I wouldn’t come any closer, if I were you, Stick Man said. You’ll never see the bullet that kills you in this light.

Knox closed his eyes tight and settled back into his chair, clenching ham-like fists.

That’s more like it, Stick Man said. You two farts have fallen into a cesspool, but do as I say and you’ll come out smelling like roses. I want you to keep in contact with your handlers, but you’ll be giving them stuff that I feed you.

Why would we want to do that? Knox asked.

Because I’m paying you so well.

Huh? Russell said.

For the past month you both have had active offshore accounts in the Caymans. Bank balances of seventy thousand each. Do as I say, and I’ll add ten thousand a week for as long as you are in my employ. But if you refuse my offer, or if you accept it and betray me, your superior, Lieutenant Frank DePalma, will get a tip about your offshore accounts.

So we’re guilty even if we’re innocent, Knox said.

Won’t work. DePalma a smart guy. He catch on real quick, Russell added.

Oh it won’t be false info. It will be golden. It will lead you to some real bad guys, some of whom just might happen to be my . . . adversaries.

Aren’t you the clever one? Knox said. That doesn’t seem like much for ten large a week. What’s the catch?

"Well there is another little matter than needs the attention of men with your training and