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Maybe it would behoove us to think about how this would have played out if Liz had not shot Natividad. I'm sure that was NOT part of the plan. What would have been Natividad's fate? Liz said he was out of his mind after "he killed a man" (presumably Francke). Maybe Tim got an idea shortly thereafter, that they were going to pin the whole thing on him. How would that have played out? Liz messed up the plan? I think it's why they scrambled to find a patsy, someone who was not part of their gang of thieves, Frank Gable, because Tim's people had little reason to keep the secret once he was dead. Maybe.

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I think a higher-up corrections official was calling the shots. McAlister hired Natividad, and Natividad enlisted the help of others vis-a-vis Konrad Garcia's mean culpa to Kevin Francke. McAlister arranged to have the premises ready for the murder along with hiring Natividad. But the problem is, if McAlister told Natividad to make it look like a suicide, why was a knife used? I think a corrections chief had his own personal operative on the plan, someone who was closer to the chief than McAlister, and that person knew the goal was to get his briefcase and/or computer, as well as kill Francke. Maybe the super tall big guy in the trenchcoat? Someone who could subdue Francke while Natividad stabbed him to death?

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Good info. Ran into a guy a while back whose brother (in very good shape) died of a heart attack around that time period in Salem. When he went to clean out his apartment, it had already been gone through by some sort of authority figures. He suspects his brother knew something. Any evidence or speculation that other people were "cleaned up"?

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There was at least one other murder, of Frank Thompson, that might have been connected to the Francke case, or at least to the pervasive corruption in Salem at that time.

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