Electing To Murder (26 page)

“Twenty-two?” the governor replied, stunned.

Sally held up her hands, “Before anyone panics, they have a number of machines in states that are either clearly ours or the vice president’s. We haven’t spent two minutes thinking about Kentucky, Oklahoma, Alabama or Texas because they’re not coming our way, but DataPoint has machines in big chunks of those states. They also have them in much of the Northeast where we lead just about every state by twenty points or more. The vice president hasn’t been up in that neck of the woods since the primaries. Those states don’t worry us.”

“Which states do?” Dixon asked.

Sally exhaled. “Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia and Colorado. DataPoint has a big market share in those states.”

Dixon, rarely one to show any emotion, cringed. Those were four of the most hotly contested states.

“What about Ohio?” Thomson asked.

“Not that we see,” Sally answered, pointing to Ohio on the map. “DataPoint is not the supplier to any part of that state that we’ve seen.”

“But we have four of the states that are very much in play,” the Judge stated. “And DataPoint has their machines in those states.”

“Looks like it,” Sally answered. “The spread in Colorado is about six points right now, correct?”

“Yes,” replied the Judge.

“Then if we were to assume the worst, isn’t that going to be a hard one to explain if the vote shifts six points?”

“Maybe,” the Judge answered. “Depends on what happens between now and Tuesday.”

“Wait a minute,” the governor ordered and then remarked. “DataPoint has machines in those states, but isn’t the relevant question how recently the machines were put into those states?”

“Yes, sir. That’s one key question of many. We don’t know the answer—yet,” Sally answered. “We need to find out. With the day getting started, we can start calling around to the states and get some answers. If it was a long time ago, then it would probably be more difficult to manipulate the machines. However, maybe repairs were needed? Maybe upgrades were installed? We need to find answers to all of these questions.”

“Of course, if machines were put in recently, that would be of serious concern as well,” the Judge added.

“How about going to the source on this?” Governor Thomson asked. “How about going after DataPoint?”

The Judge smiled. “I’ve sent McRyan and Wire to Milwaukee to do just that.”

T
heir plane touched down at 7:23 a.m. and taxied to the back corner and a small hanger where a campaign aide waited with a rental for them. Mac was on the phone with Riley as they exited the plane so Wire jumped behind the wheel of their rental car, a black Acadia. She programmed in the address for Peter Checketts while the pilot placed their bags in the back of the SUV.

Riley reported that all remained quiet at Lupo’s office. Nobody had called on their package as of yet. A trauma surgeon from nearby Fairview Southdale was on the scene monitoring the killer’s condition, which remained critical.

“Doc says he’s still not ready to be moved. He’s too weak and frail. It’s still very much touch and go at this point.”

“So all remains quiet?” Mac asked.

“Very,” Riley replied. “We’ve got a ton of people in place if they show, but Lupo said they should have checked with him at 6:00 a.m. He never got a call. They called at 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. so my sense is …”

“They know you’re there,” Mac answered.

“We came in heavy when we did, which we had to given all that had happened, but I’m starting to think …”

“They were probably watching the doc’s place from a distance, saw us roll in and evacuated the area.”

“That’s my sense of it dude, sorry,” Riles answered. “So where are you?”

“Milwaukee.”

“Milwaukee?” Riles replied with surprise. “As in Wisconsin?”

“Is there any other Milwaukee? We’re on our way to Whitefish Bay. It’s a ritzy suburb north of the city sitting on Lake Michigan.”

“What the hell are you doing there?” Riles asked dumfounded.

“Long story short, Dixon is pulling strings. He wants Wire and me to get after Checketts and see what he can tell us.”

“If you guys are right and this case is about voting machines, isn’t that federal?”

“That part is,” Mac agreed, although some of the jurisdiction issues between state and federal could get a little tricky.

“I would have thought he’d want the bureau on that,” Riles said.

“Me too,” Mac replied. “But if the bureau is on it, that means word might get back to Connolly and …”

“Ahhh, and he wants his ducks in a row before …”

“We, or the bureau, or he, or some combination of all of that, goes after Heath Connolly. This is one part a good investigational move and another part political. Besides, this is still a murder investigation. Someone hired that guy. I want to know who and that remains my jurisdiction. Checketts is part of that and Wire and I want a shot at him before we try to go after Connolly.”

“We’re getting close,” Wire said as she turned right onto a residential street, the dark blue waters of Lake Michigan visible in the distance as they descended down a slight incline towards the lake.

“Riles, I gotta go. Keep in touch.” Mac hung up.

The background on Checketts was that he was divorced for three years. His ex-wife now lived at their former vacation home in Naples, Florida. Checketts kept their Whitefish Bay home overlooking Lake Michigan. Other than running his company, a little research revealed that Checketts also owned a condo in Sin City and there was some allusion in a few background articles that he liked to frequent the casinos in Vegas.

Mac was fine continuing to pursue the case to Milwaukee and even accepting the campaign jet plane ride, but if he was going into another cop’s town, you called the cops in that town. Chief Flanagan had already called ahead to his opposite number in Milwaukee who then phoned up to Whitefish Bay. The Milwaukee chief offered to have his guys shadow St. Paul and Whitefish Bay agreed. That’s why, waiting in a playground parking lot in a black Crown Victoria, were two Milwaukee homicide detectives. Wire pulled up next to them and she and Mac hopped out of the Acadia.

Mac approached the detective on the passenger side and pulled out his shield. “Detective McRyan from St. Paul.”

“Detective Herdine from Milwaukee PD,” a tall thinning redhead answered, extending his hand. “That short guy over there is my partner Detective Kaufman.”

“Who ya calling short?” Kaufman replied while shaking his head, although he was a good three to four inches shorter than his partner. “Herdine just gets pissed because I take him for everything at the golf course.”

Mac laughed and introduced his partner, “This is Dara Wire. She is, shall we say, currently unaffiliated with a law enforcement agency but she is a former fed and has been consulting with us in our investigation back in St. Paul.” Everyone shook hands.

“So you two were involved in all the action in St. Paul last night, eh?” Kaufman asked. “We saw it on the news this morning at the station.”

“We were,” Wire answered and yawned. “We’ve been on the go ever since.”

“Well, what can this Mr. Checketts tell you about all that?” Herdine asked casually, taking out a stick of Wrigley’s chewing gum. He then offered gum to everyone else who obliged.

“Detective Herdine, that is exactly what we would like to find out,” Mac answered and then he and Wire tag teamed in giving the two detectives a little background on the investigation. “Ever since the meeting in Kentucky on Wednesday night, bodies have been dropping and we think Mr. Checketts can provide us a little insight into who is behind that,” Wire said, finishing up.

“You guys have any idea who that might be?” Kaufman asked.

“We have a theory,” Wire answered. “We don’t think it’s Checketts, per se.”

“But Checketts is either in on it or knows who’s calling the shots,” Mac added.

Herdine nodded and said, “Well then, let’s go see the man and see what he has to say for himself.”

Kaufman jumped behind the wheel and led them down the remainder of the block and pulled into the circular driveway for Checketts’s home, a sprawling two-story spread sitting grandly on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. The house itself had white siding, black shutters and looked for all intents and purposes like it could have been plucked from an oceanfront summer home on Cape Cod. To the right of the home was a detached three-stall garage. One stall door was open and a black BMW Alpina B7 was parked inside. “Nice car,” Wire noted.

“Means he should be home,” Mac added.

Kaufman parked under the large portico in front and Wire pulled in behind. Everyone filed out and Kaufman looked to Wire, “You may have the honor.”

Wire pressed the doorbell twice and waited. There was no answer. She hit it again and then knocked. “Mr. Checketts, it’s the police. Open up.” The group waited another minute and then shared a look. Nothing was stirring in the house. It was eerily quiet and still. The only noise was the waves crashing the shoreline around the back of the house.

Everyone’s gut told them something didn’t seem right.

Wire pulled out her Sig and let it hang at her side and Mac soon followed. Kaufman nodded to Herdine who walked over to the garage and the open stall. He touched the hood of the Beamer and then briefly disappeared inside the garage. After a few seconds, he reemerged and quickly walked back over. “Engine’s cold on the Beamer, as are the ones for the Tahoe and the
sweet
candy apple red Porsche in the third stall.”

“Let’s take a look around,” Mac suggested. “Dara, Detective Kaufman and I will head around the back. You and Detective Herdine watch the front.”

McRyan and Kaufman went around the left side of the house, peering in windows. Mac looked in the corner window, which was for a smaller eating area just off the kitchen that opened into a large area of couches, chairs and a fireplace with exposed beams thirty feet up to the ceiling and that’s when he saw it. “Ahhhhh, shit,” he groaned.

“What? What did you see?” Kaufman asked.

Mac took off running around the back of the house, up onto the patio to the wall of twenty-foot-high windows looking out to the lake and pointed inside. “That.” Mac holstered his Sig. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he muttered in disgust.

Framed in the large windows looking out to Lake Michigan was Peter Checketts. From an exposed beam twenty feet up, he was hanging by a rope around his neck.

K
ristoff buckled his seatbelt as the pilot told him they were ready to take off. He was leaving a team of two behind to monitor the situation at Checketts’s, to make sure what he left behind was interpreted properly by the authorities once they arrived and in time they would arrive. He hoped it would be a day or two; given it was a Saturday morning and Checketts lived alone, there was a decent chance that would be the case. He wanted it to go down as a suicide. Given the victim’s financial circumstances, it would be easy for the police to piece it all together if they were so inclined.

He took a sip of his wine. As he looked out the window while the plane taxied, he made a mock toast to Foche, his comrade in arms.

Kristoff met Foche when they were both with the General Directorate for External Security, the French equivalent of the CIA. Foche was five years his junior but he’d identified him as an exceptional candidate to be a field agent and Foche had not disappointed. They served their country ably for years around the world. However, a joint intelligence and military operation in Afghanistan in 2002 with the United States went awry. It was Kristoff’s operation but it failed, not due to his planning or execution, but because of an American security breach in Kabul that caused Kristoff and Foche to walk thirty men into a Taliban ambush in Kandahar. Kristoff, and by extension Foche as his right-hand man, were the scapegoats for the French. The two intelligence officers were moved out of the field, professionally humiliated and moved to a desk in the General Directorate where they would be quietly phased out. Their careers in the field were over. Field work was all the two men knew. It was all they wanted to do. It was what they were built to do.

Then the Bishop rescued them.

The Bishop knew what really happened in Afghanistan, knew of their exemplary records and of their capabilities. What the Bishop needed was two men who could speak multiple languages, operate in the shadows, hire the right people, be ghosts when need be and have little compunction about killing if and when it was necessary. In return for this risky work they would be paid handsomely.

They’d both gotten their hands dirty in Afghanistan and long before for menial pay and love of country. Now, they would be paid beyond their wildest dreams to do the kind of work they were built to do. Their boss of the last ten years had lived up to every commitment that had been made and then some. Their loyalty to him was absolute. If the Bishop needed something, it was done, no questions asked.

Kristoff and Foche always knew it could come to an end. Their work was dangerous but they were elite. Until last night, they’d never failed, rarely came close to harm and never were remotely close to being identified. That was all no more.

Foche was in custody and fighting for his life. He was shot three times in the chest. Kristoff was surprised to find him still alive. He thought the police would assume he was removed from the house to be dumped. With that thought in mind, that would have given Foche time to hopefully be made well enough to travel and leave the country to recover if he survived. But McRyan didn’t think that way. Instead, in a mere seven hours, he’d found Foche. On a professional level, it left Kristoff extremely impressed.

Foche had been leery of McRyan from the get go, much more than Kristoff himself. Kristoff was an operational man, a problem solver, whereas Foche was the stronger of the two in accounting for the human component of what they were doing. He had an uncanny ability to read people. Kristoff’s partner was proven right yet again. McRyan was an extremely capable adversary.