Blood Silence

by Roger Stelljes

  “No,” Mac answered, looking his ex-wife in the eye, trying to get a read on her and whether she was playing an angle, while adding, “It’s a little tough with her job, you know.”

  “Ah, yes, working at the White House,” she said with raised eyebrows and a smile. “Pretty cool stuff.”

  “Sally seems to think so.”

  “You don’t?”

  Mac thought back to his tour of Air Force One earlier in the day. “It has its perks on occasion.”

  “You must be really proud of her.”

  “I am,” Mac answered with a smile, but he couldn’t figure out whether he was being played or she was being sincere. He wanted her to stop. There were years of anger built up that she was effectively chipping away at.

  “You’ve done some pretty impressive things as of late yourself,” she added, and now Mac was dumbfounded. Was this his ex-wife he was talking to who was complimenting him on his investigative work—the work she’d always degraded and felt was beneath him and certainly her?

  He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he simply said, “Thanks.”

  She started moving closer. “You know, Mac, I owe—”

  Just then, Sally approached, wrapping her arms around him. She must have been observing the conversation and decided it was time to intervene. As usual, her timing was impeccable.

  “Sally, you remember Meredith, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Sally answered, reaching out and shaking her hand.

  “Congratulations on your engagement. You both look very happy,” Meredith answered with a shy smile.

  “We are, Meredith, we really are,” Sally answered with a big smile, beaming, and then looked up to Mac. “I want to dance,” she said and grabbed his hand, leading him away.

  “You two go,” Meredith said. “Good to see you, Mac.”

  Sally led him to the dance floor, and they slow danced. While they did, Mac glanced toward Meredith, who had made her way back to her table. She was in an animated discussion with her husband.

  “Looks like there’s a little trouble in paradise,” Sally observed with amusement, gazing in the same direction.

  “You might be right,” Mac answered, observing his ex-wife and the look on her face. Meredith wasn’t happy as J. Frederick Sterling walked away. It was clear he was leaving for the night. “Looks like you’re exactly right. I’ve been on the other end of that look. She is not happy.”

  “No, no she’s not. No soft words, no hug, no kiss goodbye, no saying good night to anyone at his wife’s table, which includes her parents. No, I’d say she’s royally pissed,” Sally answered, looking up at him with a smile. “See how much better off you are with me?”

  “There’s no question about that.”

  “So how was your conversation with Meredith, anyway?” she asked, back to focusing on him as they danced slowly.

  “A little awkward,” Mac answered, chuckling. “She had me completely flummoxed.”

  “Flummoxed?”

  Mac nodded. “Flummoxed.”

  “How so?”

  “She was very cordial and nice.”

  “And you were surprised by that?”

  “You know how our divorce went down,” Mac answered. “I never expected a pleasant word with her again, nor did I really care if I ever had one.”

  “Sometimes people can surprise you,” Sally replied, sliding in closer to him, their faces inches apart. “You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think she took one look at you in this tux and suddenly said to herself, ‘What in the hell was I thinking? How could I have walked away from all of that? I must have been out of my mind.’ That’s what she was thinking.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” Mac demurred.

  “I don’t,” Sally answered, tenderly cupping his face with her right hand. “I don’t.”

  They danced in silence for a few minutes, Sally resting her head on his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his neck, her lips brushing against his skin.

  “You know what I think?” Sally murmured, kissing his neck.

  “What?”

  She looked up into his blue eyes. “I think it’s getting late. I think my fiancé went above and beyond the call of duty tonight and might have even had a little bit of a good time in the process. I think, as a reward, I should get him upstairs so he and I can continue this dance in private.”

  “I love it when you lead.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What did she do, admit it?”

  Lake Minnetonka was located twenty minutes west of Minneapolis and served as one of the pleasure grounds of the Twin Cities’ wealthy elite. The lake itself was large and irregularly shaped by numerous bays, peninsulas, and islands that made it seem like a collection of many lakes. The winding and weaving shoreline created over one hundred miles of extremely expensive real estate dotted with large mansions, homes, and cottages owned by the well-to-do of the Twin Cities. Even the smallest houses that would come on the market would go for millions, as long as they were on the lake.

  And of course, a fair share of debauchery, lasciviousness, and even criminality had taken place around the lake over the years, perhaps the most notorious of which was the Minnesota Vikings Love Boat adventure, which appeared to include all three types of those behaviors.

  However, the lake was not often the site of a murder, let alone a double murder.

  Orono Police Chief Annie Nelson pulled to a stop in front of the yellow crime scene tape, finding a place between the three police patrol units already on location. She checked her watch. It was 3:32 A.M., and the sun was still at least two hours away from peeking over the eastern horizon. Nelson took one last hit of her coffee before she slid out of her Explorer.

  Her destination was the house right ahead, resting on the south side of Crystal Bay, which technically put the house within the city limits of Minnetonka Beach. Yet the apparent double murder awaiting her inside the house was within the jurisdiction of the police department for the city of Orono, the larger yet still lightly populated suburb that sat directly north across the large bay and provided the police services for Minnetonka Beach and a few other small, nearby Lake Minnetonka communities.

  Nelson glanced to her left to see a Channel Six News truck pulling up. A double murder out on the lake would draw attention, even at this extremely early hour, and she was sure this would not be the last media vehicle to arrive. She walked along the front sidewalk to the front steps to find one of her officers waiting. “What do we have?”

  “You better see for yourself, Chief,” the officer replied grimly and waved for Nelson to follow.

  The patrol officer led Nelson into the house, turned left down a hallway, and then stopped. “Chief, I’m just warning you, it’s a pretty horrific scene.”

  “Okay,” Nelson replied and then stepped into the bedroom. “Oh … my.”

  The officer’s warning was on the mark.

  The room reeked of the heavy smell of death.

  There were two bodies: a man with black, albeit graying, hair was lying on top of a woman, a brunette. The bodies were riddled with bullet holes. There was heavy blood splatter to the right side of the bed, with the sheets, blankets, pillows, lampshades, and window curtains soaked in it, along with splatter high up the wall and over the bed. It had been a frenzy of shooting. The bodies gruesomely lay in an expansive pool of blood.

  “Okay, has anyone called the Hennepin County sheriff?” Chief Nelson asked. Her small department did not have the resources or expertise to investigate this one on their own. In such cases, they called in investigators from the county.

  The patrol officer nodded. “The call has been made. Detectives are on the way.”

  “Okay, good.” Nelson then looked at the bodies. “Who are they?” she asked as she approached the right side of the bed, being careful to stay clear of the blood pool.

  “I found this wallet in some trousers out in the living room,” the patrol officer replied, handin
g a wallet to Nelson. “The man’s name is J. Frederick Sterling. Lives in Minneapolis, according to his license. He’s an attorney, it appears. His Minnesota law license is in one of the slots in the wallet. We checked, and Sterling is the owner of the premises.”

  “And the woman?” Nelson asked.

  • • •

  St. Paul.

  President Thomson was taking the day off, but the political operation was not. Sally was still back at the Hilton in Minneapolis with the Judge and the rest of the staff, working, while President Thomson retreated to his home in Afton, an affluent bedroom community fifteen miles east of St. Paul.

  Mac had no interest in hanging around the hotel all day, especially when he and Sally were staying in the Twin Cities for the weekend. He contacted a car service, took a comfortable ride in a new Town Car, and arrived home twenty minutes later.

  They might have been living in Washington, but Mac and Sally kept their St. Paul house. It was Sally’s house to begin with. Mac moved in six months after they started dating. It was nice enough when he moved in, but then he went to work on updating and modernizing it. When he got millions for his ownership interest in the Grand Brew coffee chain, one of the first things he did was pay off the remaining mortgage as a birthday gift to Sally. They owned the house free and clear in a desirable neighborhood of mature homes that were not just retaining but increasing their value. With all of his work, it now had four bedrooms, including a spacious-enough master, a remodeled modern kitchen, a newly finished man-cave basement, and a large paver patio with a Jacuzzi tub and bonfire pit. When they came back to Minnesota, he would be completely content living in the house. Would Sally? Well, that might be another story. She’d made noises about wanting to be on water. Well, there were thousands of lakes two hours north of the Cities, and he wouldn’t mind a cabin on one of those someday.

  The streets of the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood were quiet late on a Friday morning, a light November wind blowing loose orange, red, and brown leaves across the sun-drenched driveway as he strolled up to the house’s small side portico. He pressed his way inside, turned off the alarm, and turned up the thermostat. His cousins, Shawn and Paddy, checked on the house a few times a week, though Mac tried to get home every couple of months, usually coinciding with when the president went on overseas trips, taking his staff, including Sally, with him. If she wasn’t in Washington, he saw no reason to be there. He would come home, see his family, hang out with the boys, and sometimes get himself involved with the odd investigation.

  Sally wouldn’t be home until sometime after 6:00 P.M., and there were dinner plans in place over in downtown Minneapolis with three other couples, all good friends of Sally’s, although Mac liked them all. That left him free for the afternoon. He pulled out his phone, tapped into the directory, and hit the icon he wanted.

  The fat man answered on the second ring. “Cop Hollywood, how ya doing?”

  “Living the dream, Dicky Boy, living the dream. Are you free for lunch, or you hot on a case?”

  “I’m not hot on anything. I’m on vacation. Meet me at the pub in a half hour.”

  The pub was McRyan’s Pub, the other McRyan family business. For four generations, the McRyan family had served as cops, and then when they retired from policing, they served at McRyan’s Pub. A full cop pension and a steady paycheck at the pub set family members up for a comfortable and stable retirement.

  Located on West Seventh Street, two blocks south of the Xcel Energy Center arena, the pub was the favored watering hole of the St. Paul police and Minnesota Wild hockey fans. Mac burst through the front door and was immediately greeted with warm and loving derision by all of the retired officers now riding a barstool and bemoaning their pensions. Mac greeted everyone with handshakes, pats on the back, and in a couple of cases, bear hugs and a few fist bumps. The final greeting was a big hug from his Uncle Shamus, the McRyan man in charge of the establishment. After ten minutes, Shamus was called away to tend to a matter, and the ever-rotund Richard Lich, otherwise known as Dick Lick, ambled on in, also to a raucous welcome. Everyone loved Lich. Mac shook his head at his old partner’s attire, a well-worn black and gray nylon sweat suit wrapped around his belly with Velcro-strapped sneakers on his feet.

  “Tony Soprano called. He wants his sweat suit back,” Mac joked.

  “Fuhuhk you, and tell Tony to fuhgeddaboutit,” Dick answered as they warmly shook hands.

  “Well, a guy dressed like that could probably use a beer.” Mac bought beers, grabbed menus and two trays of popcorn, and they retired to a back booth.

  “So how are things, Engagement Boy?” Dick asked, sipping from his Summit Pale Ale. “I take it she still hasn’t come to her senses.”

  “Not yet, but I live on edge every day. How’s Dot?”

  “She’s great and said to say hello. Now that she owns the diner, she’s working her ass off, so I don’t see quite as much of her as I’d like.”

  “I know you—that’s to your benefit. People can only take so much,” Mac needled. “I mean, I had to go to Washington to get a break.”

  “I can’t begin to tell you how much I miss you,” Dick replied, rolling his eyes.

  “So, vacation? Seriously?” Mac asked, surprised. He could never remember Dick taking paid time off, even in his days when he was mailing it in after his second divorce. “Since when do you take vacation?”

  “Since I was ordered to,” Dick answered, sipping from his beer. “I had to. I have so much time built up, I needed to start using some of it, or it would go bye-bye. Now, I have a great many weaknesses, my boy, but throwing money away ain’t one of them.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Easy to say when you have plenty of it,” Dick scolded.

  “Fair point,” Mac answered, suitably admonished. “Lunch is on me. So, how long are you off for?”

  “Through next Tuesday,” Lich answered, tossing some popcorn into his mouth. “So really, what’s new?”

  Mac shrugged and then smiled. “Well, Sally and I did see Meredith last night.”

  “Oh, do tell.”

  Three hours later, Mac was done talking about his former wife and was now waiting on his future one. “Sally, are you almost ready?” Mac bellowed up the steps, checking his watch. They were supposed to be on their way to a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis.

  “Just about, just about,” she yelled down.

  In his experience, he knew that a double “just about” meant at least ten minutes. They were going to be late.

  He hated being late.

  Sally, on the other hand, seldom seemed bothered by the concept.

  Mac took the last sip from his glass of wine as the television played in the background. He grabbed the remote, plopped himself down on the couch, and flipped around the various channels, eventually stopping on the Wild game, which was just starting. When he and Dick left the pub a few hours ago, it was just starting to fill up with fans looking to pre-game.

  One minute into the game, the Wild lit the lamp. “Nice play, Mikael Granlund,” Mac cheered loudly as the Wild’s crafty center slid a pass to a wide-open Zach Parise, who went bar down on the shot past the goaltender, 1-0 Wild. “That goal was sick.”

  “Wild score?” Sally asked as she hustled down the steps, casually dressed in a tight V-neck black top, red leather jacket, skin-tight blue jeans, and black stiletto-heel boots. She could be late all she wanted, looking like that.

  “Yes, a beauty for Parise.” Mac answered, turning down the sound and flipping away from the game to channel six, which was promoting the ten o’clock news for later with footage from a double murder out on Lake Minnetonka. Something about the house looked familiar to him.

  “Are you ready?” Sally asked.

  “Yes. We’re going to Brock’s Steak over in Minneapolis, right?” Mac asked for final confirmation as he grabbed the keys for his Yukon off the counter.

  “Yes. I hear the food is to die for. They do it family style—pick your steak
, then your sides. It’s so your kind of place.”

  “It sure looked good online,” Mac answered, leading them out the door. “And they have these bourbon flights. I’m looking to get into those.”

  “Well, then, I better make sure I have my license,” Sally said, checking her purse. “Sounds like I could be driving us home.”

  • • •

  Brock’s Steak was as advertised. Everyone sat around the table, stuffed full of steak, buttery mashed potatoes, seasoned asparagus, rich spinach, red wine, and many flights of bourbon. There was no dessert, simply some coffee and light talk about a possible nightcap at a bar across Hennepin Avenue from the restaurant. While these were Sally’s friends, Mac liked them all. The husbands were all good guys he had plenty in common with and bonded with. One of the husbands, a big Wild fan, was checking his phone.

  “Jeff Peterson, put your phone away,” his wife, Stacy, admonished teasingly, lightly punching him on the arm. “I swear to God, you can’t go ten minutes without checking that thing.”

  “So did the Wild win?” Mac asked. He knew Jeff the best of the guys at the table.

  “Four to two. They’re on fire,” Jeff answered. “But I was also checking out this story about this double murder out on Lake Minnetonka. Some bigwig, downtown lawyer named Sterling was killed.”

  Mac and Sally immediately shared a look.

  “Did you say Sterling?” Mac asked.

  “Yeah, the lawyer’s name was Judd Frederick Sterling, age forty-nine, of Minneapolis. Why? Do you know him?”

  “And you said double murder?” Sally asked.

  “Yes,” Jeff answered. “Why?”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Mac answered as he stood up, reached in his pocket, and walked quickly away from the table and into the restaurant’s small side bar, where he found a quiet corner. Sally followed him.

  He began working his phone.

  “Meredith? Are you thinking Meredith?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking, but her name doesn’t appear anywhere in the story,” Mac answered as he scrolled down with his thumb. “If they were releasing Sterling’s name, you’d assume her name would be in the story. But all it says is Sterling and another woman.” He read down further. “The Hennepin County sheriff and Orono police are investigating the case.” Mac clicked out of the story and went into his phone directory, thumbed down, clicked a name, and put the phone to his ear.