Electing To Murder (38 page)

“So you’ve seen the news, I take it,” Wire asked, dropping into one of the soft leather chairs.

“Cripes. My cell phone has been going crazy. Sally, the Judge, Riley, Rockford, Lich, Jupiter, heck, even my mother, it’s been unbelievable. I turned on the football game just to get away from it.”

“You call anyone back?”

“Sally,” he replied with a sheepish voice.

“Of course. You are so damn smitten.”

“I know. Anyway,” getting back to the political talk, “can you say October surprise?”

“This isn’t finding out about Bush’s DWI three days before the election,” Wire replied as she looked to her left towards the bathroom and caught a quick glimpse of McRyan’s reflection in the bathroom mirror, the separate bedroom door into the bathroom wide open. He was naked except for his boxers. She could make out his ripped physique and thought no wonder Sally Kennedy was in so deep. “So Connolly is coming in when?”

“He’ll be arriving sometime around 2:00 p.m. He’s on an FBI jet coming back from Ohio. His lawyer has already been in contact with the Justice Department and will be there.”

“He surely won’t be coming to town unnoticed.”

Mac laughed, “No, no he won’t. The Judge saw to that.”

“Are you in on the interview of Connolly?” Wire asked. She was, after all, an employee of the Thomson campaign.

“Not in the interview itself but I get to watch,” Mac answered. “Which is fine, by the way. If you think about it, Dara, I’m a homicide detective and our homicides are closed for the most part. We have this guy back in the Twin Cities and the two from last night in Milwaukee who either murdered or were certainly involved with the murders of Martin and Checketts, so to a certain degree, my job is done.”

“Don’t you want to know who is behind this, though?”

“Hell-to-the-yeah,” Mac answered enthusiastically as he emerged from the bedroom dressed in jeans and a black Henley and white undershirt. “But election fraud and manipulating voting machines is the FBI’s beat, not mine. If the bureau figures out who’s behind this voting machine business, we’ll know who the shot caller was on the murders and we’ll get closure.”

“We know who’s behind the voting machines. It’s Connolly.”

“Maybe,” Mac answered.

That drew a stern look from Wire. “What do you mean maybe?” she growled.

“Exactly that,” Mac answered. “Maybe. Look, Dara he’s involved up to his well-coiffed sideburns, I’m just not completely convinced he’s the one calling the shots is all.”

“Why not?” she asked hotly.

“Easy, Dara,” Mac replied calmly, “easy. I know how you guys feel about Connolly. But you and the Judge are so wrapped around the axle on this guy that you may be making him bigger than he is.”

“What do you mean bigger?”

“He’s Satan in your eyes, and he may be. But seven bodies have been dropped. Someone has been paid a lot of money and expended a lot of resources to make this all happen. Campaign managers don’t have that kind of scratch.”

“Where have you been?” Wire mocked. “Look at all the money in politics. These damn Super PACs and all the money they’re spending. He can have that money with a snap of his fingers.”

“Okay, but from whom? And let me tell you something, rich people don’t just give that kind of money away without knowing where it’s going, Dara, or having a say in how it’s to be used,” Mac replied. “You don’t end up being or staying rich that way. I know you think Connolly’s the great and powerful Oz, but I’m sorry, he doesn’t get this big pot of money without having to answer to someone on how it’s spent and on
what
it’s spent.”

Wire fumed and Mac understood it. She and the Judge had been on Connolly for months and were fully invested in the belief that he was responsible for everything, that he was responsible for Sebastian’s death. Mac was being objective, remaining open to all possibilities. They might be right, but he might be right too.

“Look, Dara,” Mac said, sitting down. “Connolly’s deeply involved and that son of a bitch is going down. But we need to have an open mind that there could be someone higher up the food chain.”

“Like who?”

Mac sat back on the couch and crossed his right leg over his left, “How about the person who never got out of the limousine?”

Wire looked at him skeptically.

“Tell me again about when the limousine arrived,” Mac asked.

Wire sighed with disgust but then stopped abruptly and sat back into her chair. She closed her eyes and thought back to when the limousine arrived. “I was on the north side of the cabin at that point.”

“So that limo was the last to arrive, right?”

She nodded. “Yes. A man came running out of the house and opened the door for him.”

“The man who came to the car, tell me about him.”

“He was part of the security detail.”

“Was he just one of the guy’s or was he in charge?”

Wire nodded, “I think he was in charge. I’d seen him giving orders earlier.”

“Okay, so the man in charge of security came out and opened the door for the limousine.”

“Yes.”

“But the man didn’t get out. His leg was out, on the ground, as if he was going to get out, but he didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Wire stood up and walked to the hallway entry way into the hotel room. She stood at the end of the hallway, against the wall and looked back into the room at Mac, just as if she was looking around the northwest corner of the cabin on Wednesday night. She got down on one knee and held her hands up as if she were holding a camera. “The door was open. Then I saw a leg and I was snapping a photo and then I heard someone yell ‘there’s someone up there.’”

“In the direction of where Stroudt and Montgomery were up in those trees, right?” Mac asked.

“Yes.”

“Then what happened?”

“Shots were fired.”

“Right away?”

Wire closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. She was replaying Wednesday night in her head and the sequence of events. She opened her eyes and smiled at Mac, “No, the shots weren’t right away, there was a delay. Not a long one but there was a delay.”

“The delay was perhaps because someone had to give that order, right?” Mac asked, leading her.

Wire hesitated and then a look of understanding appeared on her face, “Right. The security man looked down into the car,” she closed her eyes again. “He said something to the man and then he …”

“… Gave the order,” Mac finished.

“Yes. The order came from the limo and then the man yelled: ‘Don’t let them get away.’” Wire nodded and looked at Mac, a creased smile on her face. “That could be the case. You could be right.” She stood up and walked back to the couch and sat down. “Of course, it’s too bad you won’t be in the interview to ask Connolly about it.”

Mac shrugged. “I’m not worried about it,” he answered as he opened a Diet Coke. “There is a good reason not to be in
this
interview.”

“What’s that?”

“Connolly’s not going to talk—not yet.”

“I
owa, I need you to help me bring about the kinds of changes our country needs, good schools, a fair wage and a clean environment. Only with your help and your votes can we make that happen. You’ve seen what’s happening in our country, you’ve seen what these Super PACs are doing with this negative advertising, telling these lies. You’ve seen that someone out there is conspiring to steal your vote, manipulating voting machines.” Thomson pounded the podium, “Are you going to let them?”

“Noooo!” the crowd of 17,000 in Des Moines Wells Fargo Arena roared.

“Are you going to let them!” Thomson implored again.

“Nooooooooo!” the crowd screamed louder.

“I can’t hear you,” the governor encouraged, holding his hand to his ear.

“Nooooooooooooooooo!”

“I didn’t think so,” Thomson growled back, exhorting the crowd with his right fist, the combative wrestler showing through. “If the day’s events have taught us anything, anything at all, it is we can’t take this for granted, folks. We can’t. We can’t afford it. There is simply too much riding on this, our economy, health care, education and our environment. My friends, get out and vote on Tuesday. Get your friends and family out to vote. Protect your rights and let’s take back the White House, Iowa! Thank you!”

The crowd screamed its approval as Bruce Springsteen’s
Born to Run
roared over the arena sound system. Flags and placards waved and balloons dropped as Governor Thomson and his wife waved and smiled to the crowd.

The governor made his way back off the stage, shaking hands and giving hugs to the various local politicians and officials, people who’d been working for him the last eighteen months of the election, the people who delivered the caucuses back in January that got him rolling towards the nomination. A state that he had to have on Tuesday, and with what he and the Judge had learned in the last twenty-four hours, one they could have easily lost if it weren’t for the discovery by McRyan and Wire over in Wisconsin.

Judge Dixon and Sally Kennedy were waiting for Thomson at the end of the stage. When the governor reached them, the Judge said, “They loved you.”

“Great crowd,” Thomson replied happily. “They were really responding.”

“The people are fired up over this election fraud story, sir,” Sally Kennedy stated. “They want blood over this. They’re pissed off.”

“Sally’s right, Governor,” the Judge added. “Speaking of which, I think we should take a few questions here backstage, kind of impromptu. The media is waiting and we have a few questions planted for you.” Dixon explained who the governor should respond to.

“Let’s do it,” the governor replied and his campaign manager and friend led him underneath the arena and then turned him left down a cordoned off walkway which led towards his limousine. The reporters were penned in an area off to the left. Thomson abruptly veered that direction to the surprise of many of the media horde. The mass of the media quickly recovered and started shouting questions. The governor found his first questioner and gestured, “Heather.”

“Governor Thomson,” Heather Foxx with NBC asked. “What is your reaction to the press conference held by Attorney General Gates and FBI Director Mitchell?”

“Heather, I have several. I’m outraged at the attack on our electoral system and the deaths that have occurred because of this. We are free to disagree in this country and use every legal method to have our voices heard. However, to manipulate the votes, to tamper with voting machines to overturn the will of the people and then to murder to cover it up is beyond the pale. Whoever is behind this is not only guilty of election fraud but they are a murderer. That person or the persons behind this face a very dark future for they will face the full wrath of the American people.”

“Governor, have you had a chance to speak with Attorney General Gates or FBI Director Mitchell?” Sandy Bay of CNN asked.

“Sandy, I have not but I hope to sometime soon. As you know, I did get a quick call from President Barnes, which I greatly appreciated. He, as I, was shocked and dismayed by the audacity of what has taken place here. He has acted quickly and decisively to get to the bottom of this and because of the quick actions of his administration, it looks as though we can avoid issues with voting on Tuesday. The FBI, which has jurisdiction over election fraud, is using all of its vast resources to investigate this case and bring those responsible to justice. But having said that, let me just say that what I am truly gratified by and thoroughly impressed with is the work of the St. Paul and Milwaukee homicide detectives in this investigation. I think in the days to come we’re going to learn a lot about the bravery and brilliance of these people in discovering this conspiracy and saving the integrity of our electoral process. We are going to owe them a huge debt of gratitude. We’re also going to learn about the bravery of some others who were murdered as part of this conspiracy, people who, whether wittingly or unwittingly, made the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good. As this story unfolds, I hope those people are not forgotten in the wash of all of the politics.”

“Governor,” Dan McLean of the
Washington Post
asked, “have you learned at all who is behind this?”

“Dan, I have not,” the governor answered. “It is my hope that now that the investigators involved in this case have discovered what this conspiracy is all about, they will now be able to turn their complete attention to determining who is behind all of this, both the manipulation of the voting machines, but more importantly, the murders.”

“Governor, a follow-up question,” McLean pressed. “We’re hearing reports that Heath Connolly is a person of interest in this investigation, do you have any comment?”

“God help him if he is.” Governor Thomson waved to the reporters and fell in with his Secret Service detail and Judge Dixon as they marched towards the motorcade.

“Just right,” Dixon said quietly as they made their way to their limousine.

* * *

At 1:53 p.m., Heath Connolly arrived at the Hoover Building in the backseat of a Suburban. The political operative held up a manila folder to shield his face from the photographers and to avoid the cameras of the news media as they pulled in under the Hoover Building.

Ever since Kentucky he’d been walking on egg shells, worried that this time would come. This was particularly so when he learned that the Bishop’s men failed to retrieve the last of the evidence at McCormick’s house. When that all fell into the hands of the authorities, he knew this moment was coming.

The vice president was incensed.

The arrangement between Vice President Donald Wellesley and Heath Connolly was never one of mutual admiration or desire. Vice President Wellesley was the next in line for the Republican nomination and there were no real serious challengers for the job. Heath Connolly was the best political operator in the Republican Party, had never lost an election, was good friends with Donald Wellesley Jr. and there were no real serious challengers for the job.

Yet, while the pairing seemed like a natural combination on paper, the two men were very different.