Page 87 of Maddy's Justice

“Evan will be going with them,” the island’s owner said.

“Not a problem, I’m sure.”

Within twenty minutes, after landing, Evan, Odessa, and the twins were on a private executive helicopter. No flight plan was needed or reported. Less than two hours later, they landed at a two-thousand-acre, forested compound in Northern Wisconsin, southeast of Lake Superior and almost exactly midway between Duluth and Green Bay.

Back in Chicago, there was a short limo waiting for the island’s owner. It was early enough for traffic to be less than standstill. Before the helicopter landed up north, he was comfortably checked into his suite at the Chicago Four Seasons hotel.

Paxton O’Rourke hated her boss. Alex Kane was a political appointee. Barely twenty-five years old, a Yale law school grad, he was second only to the Chicago U.S. Attorney, Abigail Finster. Kane was a politically connected featherweight who not only stayed out of courtrooms, he had no business going inside of one. His incompetence and inexperience made that a necessity. His political connections were all he needed to help him go far at the DOJ in Washington.

As much as Paxton loathed the little tyrant––Kane was barely five-feet six inches tall––worse, was being summoned by him. With only two minutes to go to be on time, Paxton left her office for the meeting.

“Come in,” she heard him say after knocking on his door.

Paxton entered her supervisor’s office and almost laughed when she saw him sneak a peek at his wall clock. She was one minute early.

“You wanted to see me, Alex?”

“Yes, thanks. Have a seat. Give me a minute,” he replied.

Kane was reading a document while making her wait. It was an annoying habit he had. Pretend to read something while making a subordinate wait. My time is more valuable than yours.

Kane scribbled his signature at the bottom of it, then placed it in his out basket. He carefully capped his Montblanc pen, placed it in his middle drawer then finally looked at Paxton.

“It’s been decided to end this fruitless investigation of James Labelle,” Kane abruptly told her.

“Why? What are you…”?

“Paxton, for once, don’t argue with me, please,” Kane said. “You’ve been at it for almost a year. What do you have?”

“Insider trading and money laundering,” Paxton replied.

“Really? Admissible evidence?”

“Not yet, but we know…’

“Knowing and proving,” Kane said. “Besides, I’m not convinced you even know that he’s doing these things.”

“He is, you know it…”

“I don’tknowany such thing. Besides,” Kane said holding up a hand to stop her. “this isn’t my idea, although I agree with it. This comes from Washington.”

“I thought the U.S. attorneys were all independent,” Paxton said.

“In theory, yes, but we all have bosses and we need you elsewhere.”

By now, Paxton’s disappointment level had skyrocketed. For over a year she had led an investigation team of two FBI agents and two SEC agents. All of them were convinced James LaBelle, uber rich founder of Labelle Commodities, LLC, was a first-class crook. Proving it was the hard part.

“Where?” Paxton cautiously asked.

“On the Great Lakes case…”

“That’s an antitrust case,” Paxton quickly interrupted him. “I’m a criminal prosecutor and…”

“An assistant U.S. attorney and a very good litigator. You work for the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Remember?”

“I don’t know dick about antitrust. I didn’t even take it in law school.”

“You’ll learn. They need a first-class litigator…”

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