The St. Paul Conspiracy (14 page)

Once he found his spot, he made the call. The boss wanted the heat turned up and fast. The first call was to Channel 12 and then to Daniels’ Channel 6. Once the call was placed, it took the Channel 12 news truck forty-five minutes to get out to Stillwater. Just as he saw the truck coming out of downtown Stillwater, he’d seen the detectives walk out the front door. He was briefly concerned, would the media miss them? No. They weren’t leaving. Rather they were loitering around in front. The one Viper had learned was named Peters was standing on the front steps, facing him while McRyan’s and Lich’s backs were turned. Peters had a smile on his face, and it looked like the group was enjoying a laugh. Things must have gone well inside. Viper moved his head to the right and down slightly, picking up the van as it pulled up. He looked back up to Peters, and saw his smile vanish when the news van pulled up. He could read Peters’s lips, and while his smile may have vanished, a small one creased Viper’s face.

The front door opened, and Viper saw Hisle look out. Hisle saw the news van as well, and a grim look overtook his face. The detectives and Hisle went back in the house. The Channel 6 van pulled up just then. A reporter and cameraman got out. All four of them stood around talking, waiting for something to happen. They didn’t have to wait long.

* * * * *

Hisle carefully closed the front door before he turned to the three men. “When did they get here?”

“They just pulled up,” Peters replied.

“I guess it was inevitable,” said Hisle, and then a little suspiciously, “How do you suppose they found out?”

Peters gave Lich a little look. Did you talk? Lich gave a little shake of his head. No. “I don’t know, Lyman. They didn’t follow us, we made sure. I don’t know how they found out.”

Lyman shrugged. It was all going to come out anyway. “What will you say on the way out?”

“I assume that means we’re done?” asked Mac.

“Yes, it does. You’ll do what you have to do. Again, what will you say to the media?”

“For now, nothing,” replied Peters. “But we’ll be charging the senator, and that’ll be news. I’m sure the department and district attorney’ll have something to say.”

“I imagine so,” said Hisle with a wry smile. “I can’t imagine Helen Anderson missing time in front of the camera.”

Everyone shared a knowing smile. With that, the three of them left. Mac took the circular drive back out towards the main road. The media were standing in the middle of the road. As he pulled up, Peters let his window down from the back seat. The blond reporter was from Channel 12. Mac had seen her many times but couldn’t remember her name, Polly something or other. She stuck her microphone inside. “So what are you doing out here, is Senator Mason Johnson a suspect?” she asked.

No we’re out here enjoying the fall colors,
Mac thought.

“We have no comment right now,” replied Peters.

Channel 6, a brunette, yelled, “Will you be arresting Senator Johnson?”

A better question
, thought Mac.

“Again, we have no comment right now. You can contact Sylvia Miller later today. She’ll have something to say.” With that Peters put his window back up, and they pulled away, heading back towards St. Paul. The media futilely yelled questions at the Explorer as they drove off.

Chapter Eleven

“The Cross files, right?”

The media was waiting for them when they got back to St. Paul at 5:00 p.m. Mac understood the attention that was coming. This was a big story: a United States senator implicated in the murder of a news reporter. It was going national as a story and would turn into a circus before all was said and done. Mac had called Sally on the way in to let her know what had happened. They would be working late he thought.

Once back they headed up to Chief Flanagan’s office. Sylvia Miller met them in the hallway. They knocked and headed in.

The chief saw them come in and didn’t wait for them to sit down, “Tell me.”

“He did it,” said Peters.

“He admitted that, of course,” the chief replied wryly as he came from behind the desk and waved everyone towards the couch.

“Oh, yeah, all the way down to crushing her windpipe,” Lich chimed in as he found a spot on the couch to sit.

“Good, just in time for the media cabal out front.”

Everyone laughed a little. Sally Kennedy and Helen Anderson walked in just then and joined them over by the couch. The chief, down to business, asked more seriously, “So, what really happened?” Peters nodded to Mac.

He gave Flanagan the run down for the next several minutes. He stuck strictly to the facts. Peters, pimping his detectives, jumped in a couple of times to talk about the good cop, bad cop routine Lich and Mac had put the senator through. At the end, the chief was smiling. Mac liked Flanagan and so it was good to see a smile crack his face. It had been a long week for him.

“So,” the chief asked Mac, “we have our killer, do we?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess?”

Mac hesitated, “No. Probably our guy.”

The chief pressed, “You don’t seem so certain, boyo. What gives?”

Mac thought for a moment and decided, what the hell, he’d play devil’s advocate. “It’s too easy.”

“Hah,” Lich bellowed. “What’s wrong with easy? I love easy.”

“That explains Dot,” replied Mac with an evil grin. Lich scratched his nose with his middle finger. Kennedy saw the juvenile display between the two of them and giggled.

“Who’s Dot?” Peters asked, clueless.

“Nobody,” replied Mac. “I still can’t get over the fact that a guy this smart did this. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“When does murder ever make sense?” replied Lich. “I’ve spent twenty years dealing with it, and very few have ever made any fuckin’ sense.”

Mac nodded, “I know, I know. But something’s bothering me about this, and I can’t for the life of me put my finger on it.”

“Shit,” replied Lich dismissively. “The senator looked guilty as the day is long.”

“Agreed,” said Peters.

“I agree with you both for the most part,” Mac replied, scratching his head. “But there was a couple of times during the interview where I almost felt like he was...” he was grasping, “... I can’t explain it.”

Sally gave it a shot. “You felt like he was telling the truth?”

Mac pointed at her. “Yeah. Something like that. It was just a feeling I had a couple of times. That he had genuine emotion, not of guilt, but of loss. I can’t even tell you what triggered it.”

“Son,” the chief interjected, “I’ve seen guys who murdered their wives, girlfriends, best friends. After they did it, they felt a sense of loss, but you know what? They were still murderers.”

“And, Mac, if he didn’t do it,” Sally said quietly, thoughtfully, “who did?”

“Well, that’s the issue now, isn’t it?” Mac said. “Like I said, it was a feeling I had. I have no evidence, zero, zip, nada, to point at anyone else. It’s probably silly to have even have brought it up.” Mac sat back on the couch, exhaling, wishing he hadn’t said a thing about it. Lich was probably right. What’s wrong with easy?

The chief picked up on his disappointment, “Don’t feel bad about it, boyo. Senator’s been a convincing guy for a long time. You’re just reading a little too much into things, which happens.” The chief then smiled. “Bottom line is you and Lich have done a hell of a job here.”

Helen Anderson jumped in, “So, we charge him?”

“Mac?” Flanagan asked, prodding.

“We’d be idiots not to.”

“Agreed,” replied the chief, shooting Mac another big smile. “Helen, I think Ms. Kennedy, Mac, Lich, and Marion here need to get together and write it up.”

“I’ve already started, but I need the detectives to fill in some blanks,” Sally replied. “Who’s going to arrange for the senator to come in?”

“I’ll make the call,” said the chief. “We’ll work it out so that he can turn himself in voluntarily. Shall we make it tomorrow?” he asked in a hopeful voice.

“Yes, later in the morning,” replied Sally.

“Good,” and to Mac, Lich and Peters, “You boys off with Ms. Kennedy. I’ll call you with the particulars on when Johnson’ll be coming in.”

“Any chance you’ll have to go and arrest him?” Anderson asked.

“Nah,” replied Peters. “That’d only add to the media attention. Johnson’ll want to start working the jury now.”

“Which means that he’ll be ever so cooperative,” added Sally. “Let’s get this thing written up.”

The chief said, pointing to Mac, Lich, and Peters, “You heard her, go to work.”

“What about a statement for the media?” asked an excited Sylvia Miller. “We could make the 6:00 p.m. news.”

Mac couldn’t blame her for being excited. It had been a rough week for her as well.

“We can talk about that. Helen. Why don’t you stick around as well,” the chief replied. “Boys, good work.”

* * * * *

Viper and the boss had been watching from his office, sitting on the couch, having a drink. The boss had a bank of seven televisions mounted into a built-in cabinet—a large screen in the middle and three smaller screens on each side. They had on all of the local stations, plus CNN and FOX News. Senator Johnson’s impending arrest for Daniels’ murder was on every television. The media circus had begun in earnest with Viper’s little tip to news stations earlier in the day. The media had footage of the detectives leaving Hisle’s place in the Explorer, as well as pulling into the Department of Public Safety. “A wonder why they didn’t just follow them with a van or chopper,” said the boss.

The highlight, at least for Viper and the boss was the joint statement of Sylvia Miller and Helen Anderson that they would be arresting the senator for the murder of Claire Daniels. Anderson was particularly giddy, loving the attention. She apparently was prepared for the press conference as she was immaculately dressed in a blue power suit, her hair perfectly placed with just the right amount of makeup. She was good on camera, not a parsed word in her statement. Sylvia Miller, on the other hand, just looked relieved, which probably was the view of the entire department. Between the Daniels case and the serial killer, it had been a rough week for them, Viper thought.

“It’ll be crazy tomorrow,” mused the boss.

“Yes, sir, it will.”

“Will we rest easier now that the senator has been charged?”

Viper thought for a moment and replied, “Not just yet.”

The boss nodded, “The Cross files, right?”

“Yes.”

“Where are we at on that?”

“We’ve been searching. We can’t find them, assuming the original files are still out there somewhere.”

“We need to assume they are.”

“Yes, sir.” The Cross files could hang them all. They had mistakenly fallen into the hands of the company’s CFO, who had been dealt with as well. They had a copy of the Cross files, but the originals had proven elusive. The concern was that the originals had been shared with or were in Daniels’ possession.

“The files were not at Daniels’ place. I looked everywhere.”

“And what about our dearly departed CFO?”

“Nothing. I went through her place twice, both before and after and found nothing. We have checked through our contact at her bank—no safe deposit box. There was nothing on the laptop or work computer. We searched her mother’s place in Arizona and her sister’s place in Florida; nothing. We searched her house and have been tracking her mail; nothing.”

“So, where are they?”

“I don’t know, sir. We’ll keep looking.”

“What about Channel 6?”

“We had someone there the night we took out Daniels, two nights before and every night since. He’s on the cleaning crew,” Viper answered. “If we assume there is a file or box with 437 pieces of paper in Daniels’ work area or somewhere around the station, he would have found it by now,” he added, shaking his head, skeptical. “He’s going to try again tonight, but I think it’s a dead end. If they had the files, they’d have used them. If someone had found them and was trying to make sense of it all, we’d have heard about it.”

“You think they don’t exist?” the boss asked with a raised eyebrow.

“All I know is we are looking everywhere and haven’t found anything.”

“Well, all I know,” replied the boss irritably, “is that we better find those damn documents before someone else does or we’re dead. Until they are found, we keep searching everywhere.”

Viper shared his boss’s irritation. If the files existed and were found by the wrong people, he’d be on the run for the rest of his life. He’d prepared for the eventuality of that. He had plans in place to be on the run for years, both while in government service and out. These were options he didn’t want to exercise. Living somewhere in South America would be tolerable. Some place warm and sunny would be fine. But, he liked his home in Minnesota, the winter retreat in the Caymans, the Vette and his hefty salary. He hated to have to give all that up.

“We’ll keep looking.”

* * * * *

It had been another long night spent with Sally. They finally got started putting together the complaint around 7:00 p.m. Mac reflected on the fact, that despite his reservations, they had an awfully solid case. They had charged, and had obtained convictions, with far less. Of course, Lyman Hisle usually wasn’t on the other side. Nonetheless, seeing it all laid out on paper made him feel more comfortable. The chief was probably right; he was over analyzing the situation. It’s like Lich had said, “What’s wrong with easy?”

Speaking of easy, Lich was the first to leave. Dot had paged him, and he was raring to go again. He left around 9:00 p.m., quietly promising Mac that he owed him big time. Captain Peters hung around. He’d been through this a thousand times and had made several useful suggestions about putting the complaint together. Sally had done this many times as well. Mac was, by comparison, a little green with the process and humbly realized he still had plenty to learn.

Around 10:30 p.m., with the complaint pretty much done, Captain Peters left. “You two get going soon. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.” Sally said she wanted to go through it one more time, and Mac, being the most familiar with the case, stuck around to answer any questions. Convenient how that had worked out, he thought.