Electing To Murder (11 page)

“Can you think of any reason why he might have come here to town?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Really, I mean, you’re running a campaign for president of the United States,” Mac replied skeptically. “Don’t you think it could have had something to do with that given Mr. Stroudt is involved in politics?”

“Maybe,” McCormick conceded. “But I don’t really know because he never contacted me, Detective. I don’t know why he was in the Twin Cities.”

“Do you think he would have intended to contact you if he’d had the chance?”

McCormick shrugged his shoulders, “Maybe, Detective, maybe. But again, he never did call, so I don’t know. I can’t be the only person he knows here in the Twin Cities.”

“How about an e-mail or a text anything like that?” Lich asked.

“No, nothing.”

“Do you know why he would have been killed?” It was a sneaky question.

“Umm …” McCormick hesitated, just a second, but just enough that Mac noticed and enough that McCormick knew he noticed before he could recover. “I don’t … know why he was killed,” the deputy campaign manager answered haltingly.

Mac stared at McCormick for a minute and glanced to his right for a second to Sally who saw the hesitation too. The deputy campaign manager knew more than he was letting on. Mac wasn’t getting the vibe that McCormick had anything to do with the murder but he knew something about what Stroudt was doing or might have been doing. He wanted to dig into that more but needed a moment to think about how best to do that. So he did what he always did when he needed a minute, he wrote on his notepad. As he did so, he looked up from time to time at McCormick and then over to Kate Shelby as well. The political operatives were stoic, trying to look relaxed but they were a little uncomfortable now. Mac started thinking about his next series of questions when Lich jumped in, as if on cue.

“Judge Dixon, sir, how about you? Did you know Jason Stroudt?” Lich asked.

“I knew of him, Detective. He wrote fairly prolifically with his blog site, The Congressional Page, so that is what I know him from.” The Judge went on for about five minutes about what he knew of Stroudt’s writing and political commentary. It was a filibuster, a combination of the Judge pontificating and giving his political operative time to recover from McRyan’s questioning.

“Did you know him personally, Judge?” Mac inquired, jumping back in.

“I don’t think I do, Mac,” the Judge responded, his deep voice booming over the phone. “And I know that sounds like an odd answer but intentionally so. I have a good memory of whether I’ve ever met someone. I don’t believe I ever met Mr. Stroudt but I am familiar with him and his work.”

Mac had a thought and asked, “Judge, how about Adam Montgomery?”

“His business partner?” the Judge asked.

“Yes, what do you know about him?”

“About the same as I know about Stroudt,” Dixon answered, and proceeded to give a shorter but similar answer as before regarding Stroudt, The Congressional Page and articles on campaign finance reform and Super PACs. “Why do you ask about Montgomery, Mac?”

“We can’t find him,” Mac answered and was looking right at McCormick and Shelby when he said it. Neither of them was surprised. No raised eyebrows, no frowns, just stoic, as if they
knew
that to be the case. Judge Dixon was silent as well. Mac just let the statement dangle in the air for a minute and let the unease build.

From Ohio, the Judge must have sensed the discomfort as well and asked a question of his own. “Detective McRyan, may I ask a question?”

“Sure, Judge, go ahead.”

“Have you found anything in your investigation that would suggest why Mr. Stroudt came here to town? If we knew that, maybe we could be of some help.”

McRyan smiled inwardly. They did know something and now the Judge was fishing. Mac decided to play along. “I can tell you, Judge, that as of now, there was nothing we found in his hotel room that told us
why
he came here.” Mac emphasized the why intentionally. The Judge took the bait.

“But you found something?”

Mac shot a glance over to Lich who shrugged his shoulders as if to say “why not.” “Judge, we’ve reconstructed his last couple of days as best we could. Stroudt and Montgomery flew into Nashville on Tuesday, had dinner, drinks and stayed overnight. On Wednesday they rented a car and it looks as if they drove into Kentucky as we have a credit card receipt for a gas station in Cadiz, Kentucky. Do you know where that is?”

“Southwestern part of the state, lake country I think,” McCormick replied quickly, too quickly.

“How do you know that?” Mac asked suspiciously.

McCormick snorted, “Detective, my job requires me to know where the votes are. I know every county in every state of the country and Cadiz is the county seat for Trigg County.”

“Really,” Mac replied skeptically, his bullshit detector on full alert. “So you’re familiar with a little town of 2,700 people in western Kentucky?”

McCormick shrugged, “What can I say, that’s the job.”

“In a state you have no shot of winning,” Mac retorted and then added, “last I saw on Real Clear Politics you guys were down over twenty points in Kentucky. I bet you haven’t run an ad in that state, in the primary or the general.”

Mac and McCormick stared at one another, smirking, while everyone else sat silently.

The Judge broke the silence, “Where did he go from Kentucky, Mac?”

McRyan just glared at the political operative, so Lich answered. “Our next hit is that he bought a plane ticket in St. Louis and flew up here to the Twin Cities yesterday morning. So he was driving through Kentucky, Wednesday afternoon, and then ends up in St. Louis yesterday. I would note that he had a return flight to DC booked out of Nashville for yesterday morning but obviously didn’t make that flight. Neither did Montgomery. Stroudt arrived here from St. Louis at 10:00 a.m. and checked into The Snelling sometime around 2:45–3:00 p.m. We put time of death around 4:00 p.m.”

“The old prosecutor in me is curious, how was he killed?”

“Slashed across the neck, damn near decapitated,” Dick answered.

“And all you found in the room was a boarding pass?” the Judge asked, still fishing.

“That’s it, Judge. No luggage or carry-on bags. No toiletries, nothing. Odd, don’t you think?”

“I do, Detective. I do. Whatever he had with him the killer must have taken.”

“That’s what we think as well. So let me ask everyone a question. Where were all of you at 4:00 p.m. yesterday?” Mac asked, not looking up from his notepad, pen at the ready.

The Judge laughed through the phone, “Nice, Mac,” he added in a tone that indicated he was starting to tire of the questioning. “To answer an unserious question seriously, we were all on a conference call at that point yesterday in our campaign offices talking to the governor.”

“I can vouch on that,” Sally added with a tone that suggested Mac was pushing it, if not with the Judge, certainly with her.

Mac could see she was uncomfortable and to a certain degree he was now just having fun pushing McCormick’s buttons. He steered back to more probative territory. “Okay,” Mac started, “let me ask a couple more questions. Judge, did you know why Stroudt was in Kentucky?”

“I don’t.”

“How about you, Kate?”

“No idea. I don’t know either Stroudt or Montgomery.”

“How about you, Mr. McCormick?”

“No idea.”

Mac asked a different question of McCormick, sensing he was still on edge, “Did you know he was in Kentucky?”

“Umm … No, I didn’t.” The hesitation gave him away again, even if the answer didn’t. He knew Stroudt was there.

The Judge came to McCormick’s rescue, “Detectives, we all have a conference call we need to get on for the campaign. I’m sure you understand.” And the tone said, even if Mac didn’t, the interview was over.

“No problem, Judge. We appreciate your assistance.” Mac and Lich pushed themselves up from the table and Sally led them out of the room.

Sally walked them to the elevator and then couldn’t contain herself. “You don’t honestly think they had anything to do with this, do you?”

“Nah,” Mac answered for himself as well as Lich. “McCormick, however, would make a lousy poker player. He
and
the Judge know more than they’re letting on. I know it and …”

“…I know it too,” Sally finished his sentence for him, kissed him on the lips and then stroked his suit coat lapel with her right thumb. “Just proceed carefully. There may be more at play here than a simple murder investigation.”

Mac sensed Sally was right. “Maybe you could find some time tonight for a little dinner and you could warn me some more?” he asked and then with a mischievous smile, added: “Besides, if I get the right phone call later, I may have some
really
good news to share.”

Sally’s eyebrows shot up, picking up his tone? Mac hadn’t told her about the imminent sale of the Grand Brew. “I might be able to arrange that, the Judge is talking about giving us the night off after eight p.m.,” she answered, and then gave Mac a kiss good-bye.

* * *

“I’m starting to think you’re melting under the pressure, Sebastian,” the Judge said lightheartedly. “Mac raked you over the coals pretty good there. After a while he was doing it for fun.”

“He doesn’t actually think we had anything to do with this, does he?” McCormick asked anxiously, still recovering from McRyan’s inquisition.

“No, he doesn’t, he asked those questions because he knew he was making you squirm. He did that for sport,” the Judge answered. “And it worked. But what was most important to him is he knows that we know more than we let on.”

“So he’ll probably be back,” Shelby anticipated. “That can’t be a good thing.”

“Media will be all over us if we have a homicide detective poking around the campaign the last few days before the election,” McCormick added. “Hell, he could fuel that on his own.”

“He won’t do that,” the Judge answered.

“Why not?” McCormick replied.

“Because Mac McRyan detests the media almost as much as he detests politicians,” the Judge answered and then told them the good news, at least in his mind. “Listen, gang, McRyan knows what is at stake politically and he’s too smart to do anything that would harm us in that fashion. I don’t need to tell him that, and if it does need to be said, Sally will take care of that and I guarantee you Mac will listen to her. I’m not worried about that. McRyan will be discreet. The more interesting development in my mind is that a very savvy, methodical and determined detective is on this case and I can tell he is thinking about the case in the right way.”

“You think he understands that Stroudt’s killing is not some random murder in a local hotel?” Shelby asked.

“Exactly, Kate. McRyan smells that Stroudt saw or did something between Nashville and St. Louis and that’s what got him killed. We know that to be the case and he’s pretty far down the road thinking that as well. If we give him time, I bet he pieces it together and if his history is any guide, he will not stop until he gets answers and the answers he wants are the same ones we want.”

“You think we should help him then?” Sebastian asked.

“Yes.”

O
ne fifty-three p.m. Foche yawned and then sipped his now lukewarm twenty-four-ounce Super America coffee as he watched the main entrance to the Landmark Towers. Coldplay’s “Paradise” purred out of the car radio on Cities 97 as the engine hummed and the heater kept the vehicle temperature at 68 degrees. On the other side of the street his second unit watched the front of the building as well, having been stationed there since morning. They had people staked out at numerous locations now, including Montgomery’s home in Maryland and his parents’ home in Delaware, as well as at The Congressional Page offices.

Foche arrived on the scene as part of following McRyan, something he’d been doing since sunrise. There were stops at the Department of Public Safety, both campaigns for Minnesota’s hotly contested Sixth District and now the national headquarters of the James Thomson Campaign for President.

Foche was on his own for now. Kristoff was now directing his full attention to tracking down Montgomery and applying all of his technical resources to that problem. Kristoff had immense technical resources at his disposal to throw at problems and the full fusillade was being applied to this one. Kristoff’s last text a half hour ago indicated there were some potential developments on that front. They didn’t have Montgomery yet but new avenues for finding him were emerging. It would just take a little time. In the meantime, they needed to make sure McRyan and his partner didn’t find him first.

The security specialist, Foche preferred that term to describe what he did as opposed to mercenary or merc, had spent the morning trailing the two St. Paul homicide detectives. His tablet sat on the passenger seat to his right. Kristoff had forwarded him the full profile on McRyan and Lich, the two men he was tailing.

Detective Richard Lich made for interesting reading. To say the man had a colorful personal history would be putting it mildly. His professional history, however, was fairly pedestrian—a functional cop with many years on the job.

Mac McRyan, on the other hand was an entirely different story. He did not fit the profile in any way, shape or form for a cop. Summa Cum Laude from the University of Minnesota and William Mitchell College of Law. His test scores, all the way back to his nearly perfect SAT in high school, revealed a brilliant mind. His record on the force revealed an unusually high closure rate on his cases and a dogged approach to his investigations. As he read through the profile, what jumped out at Foche most was the detective’s relentless nature. It oozed out of the background information he was reading. And what this little trip to the Thomson campaign, as well as the others McRyan took this morning told him, were that the detectives weren’t buying that Stroudt’s death was a random drug buy gone bad. They were rightly thinking that it was what Stroudt did professionally that led to his death. He and Kristoff thought a killing at a seedy hotel would be met with bland indifference. Clearly this was not the case.