The St. Paul Conspiracy (26 page)

Mac jumped into the passenger seat and grabbed the radio, “Riles, do you copy?”

“Here, Mac.”

“We’ve got the van. It’s outside, and we confirmed the plate number.”

“Copy that. We’re moving out now. You follow Knapp.”

“Copy that.”

“Bout fuckin’ time,” Lich yelled gleefully, as he fired up the van, did a quick U-turn. He turned left onto County 35, half a mile behind Knapp.

Any exhaustion they had experienced was history. The game was on— finally. The adrenaline was flowing. They’d been waiting a week for this. “Tonight’s the night,” Mac said quietly.

Riley, Rockford, and the rest made a speed run to St. Paul and the bar to get ahead of Knapp. The highway patrol was clued in, so there wouldn’t be a problem.

At their meeting with the chief in the morning they went over where everyone would be when Knapp moved. For three days prior, they had pored over maps of the area and spoke with the owners of the businesses surrounding Dick’s Bar.

Riley would be in the bar. There was a small storeroom in the back across from the bathroom. He’d hang there. When Linda left the bar for the night, he would be right on the back door, which she would only pretend to lock. He could pounce as soon as Knapp made a move.

Rockford’d be in the back of the paint store, less than a hundred feet away. Mac had lobbied for the spot. Rockford was not that fleet a foot, Mac was.

Mac and Lich would be across the street to the west in the back garage of Ray’s Auto Repair, at least one hundred fifty feet away. They had spent a few nights watching from there already. Ray had a son-in-law with the force. He couldn’t have been more helpful.

Mac would be able to run across the street—less likely Lich, given his body type, girth, and age. Lich said he’d keep the van pointed in the right direction in case they needed a set of wheels. Mac’s concern was if Knapp ran— would they be able to catch him? They had to keep the rest of the vehicles a number of blocks back. Who knows what would happen if Knapp ran? He could slip away, get into someone’s house, take a hostage. There were risks if he ran and got outside their perimeter. It’s why Mac had wanted the paint store.

There were already two cops on the second floor of the office building to the north, looking directly down on the back of the bar. They could see the gap, the back door and would have the infrared video camera on the back. Neither man would be of any help if there was a chase.

In addition to Riley, they had detective Doug Long on the second floor in the bar. He would be able to look down on Knapp as he hid in the gap between the bar and paint store.

Finally, they had Falcon, the St. Paul Police chopper circling at a distance overhead that could swoop in at a moment’s notice.

In the van, Mac and Lich were two hundred yards behind Knapp, with another unit another two hundred yards further back. The temperature was dropping quickly. The rain was changing to snow. The wipers were going high speed, cleaning the windshield while they sped into St. Paul.

“I hope Ray left the heat on in the garage,” Lich pleaded.

“Suppose you want some coffee too?”

“A man can dream,” Lich quipped.

Mac, getting back to business, “With this snow, visibility’ll be an issue.”

“You’re right, boyo. That area behind the bar ain’t well lit.”

* * * * *

Viper and Bouchard were parked, watching Riley and his crew a block south of the Italian restaurant. Suddenly the two vans and a Crown Victoria pulled out and sped by, disregarding the local speed limit. Two minutes later, a Ford Econoline van came by.

“There’s our boy, I bet,” Bouchard uttered.

“See if McRyan comes by.” He did, thirty seconds later, keeping his distance.

Viper and Bouchard waited and pulled in well behind Lich and McRyan, trailing Knapp back to St. Paul.

“You’re comfortable with everything?” Bouchard asked.

“Yes.”

“How about Hagen?”

“He said it would be easy. He even showed me how he does it.”

“And the get away?”

“Got it covered. It’ll take thirty seconds to a minute at best for them to figure out what happened. By the time they do, I’m gone.”

* * * * *

Doug Long was up on the second floor at the bar. His car was parked next to Linda Bradley’s Trailblazer. When Knapp was two minutes out, Young, another cop sitting down in the bar, jumped in Long’s car and pulled away three blocks north on Arundel.

Unfortunately, as Knapp pulled into the lot, a spot opened right along the back of the bar, three spaces from Bradley. It was not Long’s spot. He backed the van in, killed the motor and went inside.

Mac and Lich heard all of this on the radio and skipped the Dale Street exit, going further west on Interstate 94 to the Lexington Parkway exit and doubling back to Ray’s. Lich dropped the van in the parking lot on the west side of the garage, hidden from view of the bar parking lot. They entered the security code to the building and slowly worked their way to the back and to the door looking directly across Arundel into the parking lot behind Dick’s. There were no lights on in the back of the garage, and Mac and Lich slowly made their way to the window.

Mac moved to the right side of the garage door, and as if he was peering around a corner, looked out the window. There were a couple of problems. The snow, coming down in large, heavy snowflakes made visibility across the street and into the parking lot a problem. It was melting as it hit the pavement, but was gathering in the grass between the street and sidewalk. More important, Knapp’s van blocked his view of the back door. It wasn’t on the other side of Bradley’s Trailblazer, as they had planned. They wouldn’t be able to see Knapp move. They called it in. Riley told them to stay put and move when the call came.

Knapp came out of the bar at 1:15 a.m. and got back into the van. A half-hour later he slowly got out of the driver’s side of the van. Mac watched as Knapp slowly walked to the rear of the van and peered around to his left. Seeing nobody, Knapp moved left and disappeared from Mac’s view. His earpiece told him that Knapp was to the side of the back door, sneaking a peak in the back to see if anyone was coming down the back hall. He then scooted over to the gap between the bar and paint store.

Knapp was dressed all in black, with a stocking cap. Long, looking down at him from the dark second floor, reported that Knapp was set back about fifteen feet, having leaned against the bar wall, into an indentation where a door used to be. The boys across the street could make him out through the infrared vision on the video camera.

Everyone was in position.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Have a nice day.”

Patience. A difficult thing to have when waiting for something to happen, when you know it is going to happen and even when it will happen. Mac must have looked at his watch every thirty seconds since Knapp left the van. Radio chatter quieted. Mac had noticed a light go on upstairs. Bradley was now up working the books, putting the money in the safe for tomorrow’s deposit.

At 2:15 a.m., per normal routine, Sheila Bradley left. She was well aware of what was going on with her little sister. She had been told to drive way away and not hang around. Everything needed to look normal. It seemed like an hour since she’d left. It had been five minutes. Upstairs Linda Bradley, Mac knew, would be sliding on a neck brace with Long’s assistance.

At 2:42 a.m. Mac’s earpiece cracked with Long’s voice. “She’s heading down now.”

Mac and Lich had moved to the left side of the garage door window, close to the back door. They were glued to the window, not that it did much good. They couldn’t see a thing.

Office building: “Knapp has moved to the edge of the gap.”

Mac whispered to Lich, “Alarm won’t go off when we open the back door?”

Lich, for the fifth time. “Nope, disarmed.” He was twirling the keys to the van in his hands. He’d be in the van if Knapp ran.

Long: “She’s at the back door.”

Mac left the window and went to the back door, hand on the knob, staring at the floor, waiting for the word.

Office building: “She’s opening the door... she’s turned her back, putting the key in the lock.”

As Mac heard it told later, as she put the key into the knob, Knapp sprung from the gap. He was on her in an instant. The key was still in the lock, and the force of his attack on her had snapped it off. Riley and Long were trapped inside.

Office building: “Go! Go! Go! He’s on her!... He’s on her!...”

Mac bolted out the back door, sprinting across Arundel, leaving Lich behind. He heard Riley in his right earpiece. “The door’s jammed. We can’t get out! We can’t get out! Go, go, go...”

Chaos.

As he was sprinting across Arundel, Mac heard a voice yell out, “Freeze, police.” As he hit the grass between the street and sidewalk he saw a black blur to his left sprinting out of the parking lot north on Arundel. Knapp. Mac instinctively planted his left foot to turn, but it gave out underneath him as he slipped on the snow. He fell hard onto the cement sidewalk, jarring his left shoulder. He pushed himself right up and gave chase.

He heard his earpiece blurt. “He’s north on Arundel. All units converge.”

Falcon had dropped from nowhere out of the sky, the spotlight searching for Knapp.

Mac was running north and gaining speed. He saw Knapp sprinting north on Arundel, just about to pass the alley on the block between Sherburne and Charles streets, when the lights appeared and the sirens sounded, closing rapidly from the north on Arundel. Knapp stopped abruptly and turned left, ninety degrees into the alley, slipping on the wet street, but catching himself with his left hand. He’d lost some momentum. Knapp turned down the alley, throwing a couple of garbage cans into the way.

Mac, at full speed now, half a block behind Knapp, turned left to the sidewalk on the north side of Sherburne, sprinting hard, parallel to the alley, looking to his right through the houses, not able to see Knapp but getting a general fix from Falcon’s spotlight. He wanted to cut to his right, get to the alley, but there were too many fences, bushes. He kept running, looking right. Another house. Then a break, a clean shot through to the alley. Mac veered right. As he crossed the back of the house he saw Knapp running peripherally to his right, with Falcon’s light painting him. Knapp, sensing things closing, abruptly veered right between two houses on the other side of the alley, losing some speed but also losing the spotlight from Falcon.

Mac, flying, stayed dead straight, on a beeline to the other side of the house, rapidly closing the gap. He lost Knapp briefly behind the house but picked him up around the front, to his right. Mac had the angle on Knapp, as if he was running along the sideline of a football field. Knapp looked back over his right shoulder for pursuers. He didn’t see Mac coming from his left.

Mac didn’t break stride down the incline to the sidewalk. Knapp, coming from his right, ran behind a parked car. Mac burst in front of the car and at full speed, drilled the serial killer, ran through him, with his right shoulder, a textbook tackle. The tackle took Knapp off his feet and drove him into the pavement, with Mac rolling over him and landing with his back against a parked car, his head slamming into a tire. Dazed, his head pounding, Mac could see Knapp five feet away, starting to push himself up. Mac told his body to move, but he was reacting slowly, not moving fast enough, foggy from crashing into the car.

Knapp was up on a knee, pushing up with his hands, ready to take a step.

Mac rolled to his right, setting his hand on the pavement, trying to push himself up, wanting to give chase.

Knapp, up now, took a step, but only one. A blur from the left wiped him out. Rockford, all two hundred fifty pounds of him, finished the job for Mac, steamrolling Knapp. Subdued by the force of the tackle, Knapp was easily cuffed by Rock, who just might’ve taken an extra shot or two in the process. Falcon, having caught up, provided a guide for all of the other vehicles and cops, who circled the area now like moths to a flame.

Mac sat back against the tire, breathing hard, his head pounding, seeing some stars. Perhaps not stars, but little flickering bright lights, like used to happen when he got checked hard into the boards when he played hockey.

Riles approached. He squatted down in front of Mac. “You all right?”

“Yeah, just got my bell rung, I think,” Mac replied, trying to focus his eyes. “Help me up.”

Riles reached his right arm around Mac’s left side and helped him up. Mac set his feet underneath him, and while he was a little lightheaded, he felt okay. “How’s Linda?”

“She’s fine. Brace did the trick,” Riles responded, smiling, relieved.

Having steadied Mac, Riles walked over to a face-down and handcuffed Knapp. Squatting down again, Riles pushed Knapp onto his right side and looked him in the eye.

“Have a nice day.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“There’s a piece missing here.”

The press conference ended at 10:30 a.m. Mac, Riley, Rockford, and Lich retreated to an empty interview room, found some coffee and relaxed, a few hours of sleep having temporarily refreshed them all. Riles was particularly chipper, the long investigation over, his efforts vindicated.

“What time you taking him to court?” Lich asked Riley.

“Noon. Rock and I get to walk him in the front door.”

“Better you than me,” Mac replied.

“You should be there as well. Lich too. You guys broke this thing open.”

“Thanks just the same. I’d as soon avoid the media. I had enough of it on the Daniels case,” Mac replied.

“Agreed. Besides, I’m not the most photogenic guy,” Lich replied, in a huge understatement.

Just then Dan Patrick stuck his head in the room. “Thought I might find you guys here. We’re heading out to Knapp’s place in Hudson. Guess there’s some interesting stuff out there. Anyone care to join?”

“I’d love to,” Riles replied, “but I have orders to hang around for the walk over to the courthouse.”

“Me too,” Rock added.

“I’ll go,” Mac said. “Dick?”

“Yeah, why not.”