Blood Silence

by Roger Stelljes

  “First, what’s the latest on the sheriff?” Royce asked as he grabbed the coffee pot and three cups off the counter and poured everyone a cup.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Wheeler answered, sipping the coffee. “Last I heard, he was still in surgery.”

  “He jumped at the last second,” Clint offered, shaking his head in disgust. “But man, even still, I hit him but good. It should have been enough.”

  “And McRyan?” Wheeler inquired.

  “I just plain missed,” Royce answered flatly. “Based on what we saw yesterday and then heard on our wire over his table at the County Line, we needed to make the move last night. No choice and we had to improvise on the fly.”

  “Someone laid on a car horn,” Clint noted. “That gave them both just enough warning.”

  “Still,” Royce moaned. “I had McRyan in my sights but, at the last second, he saw us coming and dove, and I just … missed him. Is there any word on his whereabouts?”

  “He’s at his hotel. I’ve got someone at a very comfortable distance, watching his Yukon, and it hasn’t moved,” Wheeler answered.

  “And the police haven’t come to see you?” Royce asked Speedy.

  “No. I’m kind of surprised.”

  “Me too,” Royce answered. “Why do you think that is?”

  Wheeler shook his head in confusion, and then his eyes flashed. “Perhaps McRyan hasn’t said anything about what he and Rawlings were up to. I mean, think about it—with Rawlings out of play, who would he trust around here?”

  “Certainly not Borland,” Royce answered. “That guy is not up to the task, and I’m sure McRyan concluded that as well.”

  “So that maybe bodes well for us,” Speedy Wheeler speculated. “It gives us some time. Are we ready for O’Herlihy?”

  Clint and Royce nodded. Wheeler hit the pre-set number on the burner phone.

  O’Herlihy answered on the first ring. After the update from everyone around the kitchen table, their boss took over. “Listen, everybody sit tight for now. Clint and Royce, you two stay at that farm while there’s daylight. You two can’t be out and about in the light—it’s too dangerous.”

  “Agreed,” Royce answered.

  “Dan, you go to work and conduct business as normal,” O’Herlihy ordered and then asked, “You have a solid alibi for last night, right?”

  “I was at the bar until late and then went home with company, and she stayed the night,” Wheeler replied, “so my alibi is tight. I was nowhere near the County Line. If they want to check my cell phone records, they’re clean, and I already dumped the burner I’ve been using to contact Clint and Royce. I have a new clean one. So if they come and question me, I’m solid.”

  “As far as we know, nobody has anything on Clint or Royce, not even what they look like,” O’Herlihy declared. “Once it’s dark out, you boys get rid of that Tahoe—burn it, bury it, drown it, destroy it, whatever you have to do, but get rid of that damn thing.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then you hunt McRyan down and kill him,” another voice replied, the one they’d heard one other time. “Another million will be wired to each of your accounts. He has to go down—whether up there or down here in the Cities, you have to take care of him and do it soon.”

  “We can handle Rawlings if he survives,” O’Herlihy added. “He’ll be gun-shy after this. He’s got his son to think about.”

  “And if he isn’t?” Royce asked.

  “And if he isn’t,” O’Herlihy continued, “we’ll take care of him with our political friends, and if that doesn’t work … well, there’s other ways.”

  “But McRyan will not stop,” the other voice continued. “He’s onto us now. He’s focused on Deep Core. You heard it on the wire, and you’ve seen it in his actions. I’m telling you, he won’t stop until he’s buried us or we’ve buried him. It’s as simple as that.”

  • • •

  Big Sky, Montana.

  Mac’s cell phone alarm awoke him shortly after 10:00 A.M., after nearly three hours of deep, hard, and restful sleep. He’d always been someone who could function on three or four hours of sleep. In college, law school, and even in his job, he could go for days, full throttle, and get by on just a few hours of sleep here and there. He never understood why that was—it just was.

  He rolled out of bed and pulled his black hoodie back on over his T-shirt then pulled on his hiking boots and laced them up. He slowly and sleepily shuffled out of the bedroom and found Phelps and Rahn back in the library, relaxing by the fireplace. Mac was mildly surprised. He’d half expected for the two of them to have flown the coop while he slept.

  “Feel better?” Rahn asked, pouring a cup of coffee for Mac.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “I’ve been thinking, Mac,” Rahn mused. “Is the memorandum enough to go after Deep Core?”

  “I’m not going to have just that,” Mac answered. “I have a few other things percolating to which I should have answers soon.”

  “Lining things up,” Rahn suggested and then smiled knowingly. “The Art of War.”

  “But with a twist. I want to win the battle before there’s a fight—or at least another fight,” Mac replied with a smile. “There’s been enough bloodshed.”

  “So what’s next?” Rahn asked.

  “Back to Williston.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Self-preservation.”

  If it were possible to be totally amazed yet completely unsurprised, that was how Mac felt. The lengths people, often wealthy people, would go to for money and power always amazed him yet no longer really surprised him.

  Mac thought of himself as wealthy—not remotely Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Antonin Rahn wealthy, certainly, but he would never have to worry about money. And that always made him wonder about wealthy people who would go to any lengths for more money, for greater wealth, for more power. Why? When would there be enough? He didn’t yet know exactly who was calling the shots, but he knew, at the end of the line of authority, would be someone very wealthy for whom their fortune simply wasn’t enough, or for whom their fortune was worth more than nine lives.

  It left him in a somber, dark, and angry mood.

  It left him in a mood that matched the world around him.

  November was always a gloomy month in the Midwest—cloudy, windy, and progressively colder, the month the Midwest transitioned from fall toward winter. It was a month in which, in this part of the world, nature reminded you daily of the bitter cold and snow soon to come. This was when the wind started coming with increasing velocity and ferocity from the north-northwest, with that chill from Alberta and environs farther north. Day after day, the clouds in multiple shades of gray enveloped the sky as far as the eye could see.

  And today was such a day.

  As the jet now dropped below the cloud deck, he peered out the window, sipping his coffee, taking in the vast expanse of gently rolling topography of western North Dakota. The fields long since harvested of their summer crops were now simply dotted with oil and gas wells. As the pilot announced the approach into Williston, Mac made a quick count of twenty wells in his view out of one side of the plane looking to the north, easy to see because of the gas flames burning off at the top of the oil derricks. Billions in oil and natural gas were being harvested. In North Dakota alone, there were over a million barrels of oil being produced a day—a day. And if his view of Highway 2 was any indication, the convoys of tanker trucks would make sure today was another million-barrel day.

  Mac was a capitalist— he believed in making money and making it from energy. His investment portfolio was full of such investments. This was the crux of his conversation with Sally while he was on the phone. “It’s just like always, Sal—it’s about money. The way this company is drilling, the chemical composition they’re using, and the bodies they’re dropping—it’s all about money.”

  “What should I tell the Judge?”

  “Tell him that in about a day I’m goin
g to give him information that he can pursue with the EPA, North Dakota’s Congressional delegation, not to mention the FBI, and who knows, maybe even the SEC if he wants to. I guess that will be up to him.”

  Sally was worried. “I’m really wishing I’d never said you should do this.”

  “There’s been a time or two the last few days I wish you hadn’t as well.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Mac replied with a small laugh and then quickly became more serious. “Someone needed to do something about this.”

  “Just make sure they don’t stop you first,” Sally cautioned. “You’re still on your own up there.”

  “I know the nature of the game, Sal, but this thing? I have a feeling this thing is going to be over today.” He hoped that was the case.

  The plane landed at the airport in Williston just after noon. As it taxied toward the terminal, Mac’s phone buzzed. It was Detective Lincoln Coolidge.

  “Linc, what do you have?”

  “Son, you can’t walk anywhere in and around Reagan National and not show up on camera, especially if you’re an asshole wearing a cowboy hat. I got your boys Wilton and Hutchinson coming into DC on the same flight from Minneapolis as Shane Weatherly. The two came off the jetway maybe five seconds after Weatherly, and they split. I’ve got the one named Wilton, if that’s really this boy’s name, following Weatherly through the airport first to baggage claim and then out of Terminal B to the cabstand. He watches Weatherly get into a cab, and then a Black Tahoe sweeps in to pick up Wilton. I presume it was this Hutchinson who was driving the Tahoe. It was a rental, and guess what.”

  “Hutchinson rented it?”

  “Yup,” Coolidge answered. “We also have the odd traffic camera operating in and around the East Union Tavern, particularly as a vehicle would come over the Eleventh Street bridge, and lo and behold, what do we see?”

  “The Tahoe?”

  “Better than that. I have the taxi and then the Tahoe.”

  “And I would say it was this Wilton who was in the East Union Tavern,” Mac stated, looking through the photos again.

  “Mac, I’ve re-watched the video several times, took some more screen captures, and I sure think it’s him. Perhaps we could have some people do some enhancement on this footage, and we could even get a better look, but I’d bet my pension it’s him.”

  “Did they stay in DC that night?”

  “Yes,” Coolidge answered. “They stayed at the Hampton Inn and flew out first thing in the morning, first to Minneapolis, and then up to Bismarck.”

  “Which fits,” Mac concurred, “because the next night, I’ve got a photo of the two of them in a bar in Bismarck.” Thank you, Johnny Biggs, he thought. “That’s a lot of circumstantial evidence.”

  “I’ve worked with a lot less, but even so, Mac, I have guys out right now checking with businesses in the area of the tavern again. Now that we know exactly what to look for, I want to see if we can tie this up further.”

  “Great work, Linc. Keep me posted,” Mac clicked off from the call as he descended the steps of the jet and walked across the tarmac to a waiting black Ford Explorer driven by Leah Brock. “What did you find?”

  Brock handed him a manila folder. “A week before they died, the Buller kids were seen by their family doctor here in Williston. In fact, the whole family reported headaches and difficulty breathing. The two kids were vomiting, and Melody reported constant diarrhea.”

  Mac read through the folder. “It’s like they were being poisoned. Why didn’t this show up on the autopsy report?”

  Brock shook her head. “Because the cause of death was obvious—lead poisoning via execution. Why look for anything else?”

  “Right, because if there was evidence of poisoning—”

  “People might start wondering why,” Brock finished as she drove east on Highway 2, toward the Buller residence.

  “You guys have people on the lookout for our two cowboys?” Mac asked as he closed the folder.

  “Yes. It’s going out as we speak in conjunction with the sheriff’s office, and it will be statewide within hours. Of course, the chief asked how I happened across this information.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him I got it from you, that it came from your contacts in Minneapolis, and that in general he needed to pull his head out of his ass and start helping and not hindering you.”

  Mac laughed. “How’d he take that?”

  Brock shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really care.”

  “Thatta girl. Did it feel good to do the job?”

  “It might cost me my job.”

  “Nah,” Mac answered. “And if it does, you just let me know. I’ll get you a job.” And then he added with a mischievous smile, “Or maybe I’ll find a way to get rid of your chief. I know people.”

  She gave him a horrified look.

  “I mean political people.”

  “Speaking of people, do you think these two killers are really still hanging around?”

  Mac looked up and stroked his chin and then slowly shook his head. “I kind of doubt it. Did you ever watch the HBO show The Wire?”

  “Shiiitt.” Brock smiled, doing her best Clay Davis. “Best show ever.”

  “I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Mac answered, smiling broadly. “These two guys went after the sheriff. Remember what Omar yelled to Wee-Bey after he shot Stink?”

  Brock grinned broadly. She knew the quote and repeated it in Omar’s voice, “Yo, listen here, Bey. Come at the king—”

  “You best not miss,” Mac finished enthusiastically and then raised his eyebrows. “They missed, and now the heat is going to be too much.”

  Brock turned left off of Highway 2 and drove along the dirt road then turned left onto the driveway, bringing them to the back of the house. A sheriff’s deputy awaited their arrival and then cut the seal on the door. Brock and Mac pushed inside the house.

  When Mac was in here twenty-four hours earlier, he was under the belief that the crime scene had been staged to make it look as though meth heads had robbed and killed the family. He went to the room the family had used as an office. This was the one room that had been left largely undisturbed, in part because there would be no reason there would be anything in this room of interest to a meth head. But there would if the crime scene was staged and the killers were after more than simply killing the family.

  He opened the first file cabinet, and it was clear it was the farming cabinet, with folders containing the records for the farm. Mac turned to the second filing cabinet. While the upper drawer contained more farm records, it was the lower drawer that proved more illuminating. “I love organized people—they make it so much easier to investigate,” he exclaimed. The lower drawer contained several empty slots where green hanging folders once hung. Documents had been removed.

  “Did you run their credit cards and bank statements?”

  “I did, and we also got copies of the store receipts from Walmart and Albertsons,” Brock answered and pulled out another folder. “It was as you suspected.”

  The Bullers’ credit cards charges and receipts going back two months showed increased purchases for bottled water. Even more importantly, there was the purchase of a water cooler from Blue Water starting in February. Mac walked the whole of the house, and there was no water cooler anywhere. “Why remove the water cooler?” Mac asked, looking at Brock.

  “Let’s call Blue Water and see what happened.” Ten minutes later, Brock had the answer. “The water cooler was never returned. The company stopped the deliveries after they found the police tape up.”

  “It was taken because they didn’t want to leave any evidence behind that there was a problem with the water. The credit card charges show four cases of bottled water were purchased two days before they were killed. They’re all gone. No family of four drinks four cases of water, ninety-six bottles, in four days,” Mac stated as he took one last look in the small kitchen pantry. Ther
e were still dry and canned goods in the closet as well as some soda, but no water.

  “It’s circumstantial,” Brock suggested as she followed.

  “Yes, but add piece after circumstantial piece and you get a pattern, you get a picture, and you end up with an incontrovertible answer,” Mac replied. He looked off in the distance, out the kitchen window toward the oil well a half mile up the road, and thought of one of the things he’d discussed with Rahn. “I wonder,” he muttered as he pushed out the back door.

  “You wonder what?” Leah asked, following him out the door.

  “Let’s go ask.”

  “Go ask what?” She didn’t understand.

  “You’ll see,” Mac answered. “Let’s drive down to that well.”

  “Okay.”

  Brock drove farther north, back to the Deep Core 4 oil well. She put the Explorer in park, and Mac jumped out of the passenger seat and made a beeline for the foreman, the man he spoke with yesterday.

  “Mr. Westrum, do you remember me from yesterday? I was out here with Sheriff Rawlings.”

  “I sure do. I heard what happened to the sheriff. Is he okay?”

  “We’re still awaiting word,” Mac answered. “I asked you about Adam Murphy yesterday.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Okay, Mr. Westrum, I want you to think back to last spring. Do you ever remember him being out here last spring, maybe in April sometime?”

  Westrum turned his head slightly in thought, and Mac could tell something was registering with him. “Now that you mention it, I … I think he was.”

  “Doing what?”

  “He was running some tests of some kind, or at least that’s what it looked like.”

  Mac and Brock shared a quick look. “What kind of tests?” Mac asked.

  The man shrugged. “I don’t really know. I never asked.”

  “How do you know he was running tests?” Leah asked.

  “Well, that’s what it looked like to me, ma’am. I saw him doing things, using equipment and computers out in the pasture there where the horses used to graze, but I didn’t really watch him, if you know what I mean. I have enough right here to keep me busy. But he was out there, and I noticed him.”