“To discuss …?”
“They want to discuss with us some problems they have with the death of Jamie Jones and how PTA might be able to help clear them up.”
“What do they know?”
“At this point, they know that some documents about Cross exist, based on our conversations with Landy Stephens. I want to know more by tomorrow, however.”
“I better go back downtown.”
“Yes. I want to know if McRyan and Kennedy talk about this. So, let’s see if those bugs’ll pay off, shall we?”
“Yes, sir. One question. Why take the meeting tomorrow?”
“Because, according to the mayor, if we meet with them and have answers to their questions, the chief has given his assurance that the investigation will end.”
“You believe that?”
“I do,” Lindsay replied confidently. “Charlie Flanagan is a man of his word. He’s backed his boys, which is why that force would run through a brick wall for him. But if they crap out tomorrow, he’s smart enough to know that he can’t let them keep going. Even if he suspects something, he knows that if we shut them down on this Cross business, they have nowhere to go, no way to get a conviction, and he can’t risk exposure of the department on the Daniels case or letting word slip that this Knapp didn’t kill one of the victims. So, if we shut him down tomorrow, we should be rid of the police.”
“Plus, we hammer the city with the threat we’ll leave if they don’t back down.”
“Yes,” Lindsay smiled. “The mayor’s concerned about the loss of all those jobs and the impact on his city. He likes being mayor. So, yes, he’d like to see this all go away. In other words, my friend, let’s see that we make the mayor happy, shall we?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Is that what this is really all about, Detective?”
Mac looked out the window of the minivan as they drove through five blocks of rush-hour traffic to the PTA Tower. The Christmas decorations were lighting up the dark 4:45 p.m. sky of downtown. Green wreaths with bright red bows adorned the street lights. Department store and restaurant windows were outlined with red, green, and white lights. Santas were working the corners, wringing their Christmas bells, looking for donations to the Salvation Army. It all made for a festive atmosphere.
The scene allowed Mac’s mind to drift, if only momentarily, away from the task at hand: PTA. It was only for an instant, and then it returned, as it had again and again for the past twenty-four hours. The chief, mayor, Captain Peters, Riley, and he were going to meet with Ted Lindsay, the president of PTA, although the mayor would wait outside. Mac had seen pictures and video footage of him for years. He was a prominent man of the town. Now Mac was essentially going to accuse Lindsay and people who worked for him of murder.
And he was going in with less than a full arsenal. He met with Riles, Rock, and Lich all day, discussing scenarios of how to go after PTA and at the same time protect the department. They went back and forth on a variety of approaches, but finally settled on one that tied one hand behind their back. They couldn’t use Claire Daniels. Mac reached the same conclusion with Sally the night before.
Daniels’s name might come up, but not in the context that they thought PTA killed her, even though Mac suspected they did. Her name would come up as a reporter that Jamie Jones knew and talked to, probably about Cross, whatever Cross was. But for now, at least, they planned to leave the death of Claire Daniels with the senator. If this whole stunt backfired, they reasoned, they wouldn’t have to deal with the mess of putting into play the fact that the investigators of the Daniels’s murder thought they got the wrong man.
Despite the fact they were leaving Daniels out, it was, nonetheless, decided they would be aggressive. As Riles said repeatedly, “We probably got one shot at this, so let’s not leave anything in the bag. Grip it and rip it.”
“Damn straight,” Rock said, a bull in the China shop if there ever was one. “Let’s take our best shot at the bastards. If we crap out, fine, no regrets.”
“Mac,” Lich said. “Go at him like you went at the senator. Smart-ass young prick detective thinks he knows everything. See if you can get under his skin.”
That would be their approach. What made Mac nervous was that when he went after the senator, they had evidence up the wazoo. To say they had less than that on PTA would be an understatement. There were suspicions, but no direct evidence. Somehow they had to prove to the chief and the mayor that PTA was worth investigating further. Lindsay needed to fess up to something or lose his cool. Accomplish either of those things, and the chief might let them keep looking. That was the goal, to keep the investigation alive.
“Go at him with Cross?” Mac said to the group.
“It’s all we got,” Lich replied. “See what the man has to say.”
Mac smiled inwardly. He had a feeling this would be one of those life events he would never forget.
Downtown St. Paul was mostly a maze of one-way streets. The group actually had to drive all the way around the PTA Tower to get to the building’s parking garage. A security guard waved to them as they pulled in. He directed them towards another guard standing by a chain-link gate that led to a private parking area. As they approached the gate, the guard rolled it open, and Captain Peters pulled the van through and drove to a spot marked with a VIP parking sign.
As Peters put the van into park, Riley, who was sitting next to Mac patted him on the thigh and smiled. “You know this is probably nothing, a waste of our time.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty thin.”
They both felt otherwise as they got out of the van and a blond guy with a medium build approached. “Hello, Chief Flanagan. My name’s Webb Alt,” the blond-haired man said as he extended his hand. “I’m the vice president of Security. Mr. Lindsay asked that I meet you all down here and take you on up.”
“Alt,” the chief replied, taking his hand and then introduced everyone else. Mac shook Alt’s hand and gave him a look. Was this guy one of those assassins Lyman was talking about?
“We’ll go through this door over here and take the private elevator up to the top and to Mr. Lindsay’s private conference room,” Alt said, and waved them towards the door.
“Hmpf. Private elevator,” Riley said quietly in a sarcastic voice.
“Ain’t like going over to Dick’s Bar, now is it?” Mac replied with a wry smile.
The group followed Alt and filed into the waiting elevator. Mac watched the digital display over the door, which remained blank all the way until it stopped on twenty. It was a private express elevator; it didn’t stop on any other floors. As they walked off the elevator, they were in the lobby where the general public elevators came to a stop as well, two on each side of the hall. Straight ahead was a cherry wood reception desk, vacated for the evening.
Alt, sensing they noticed the vacant receptionist desk, offered, “We appreciate your willingness to come at this later hour. We preferred our employees not see someone as recognizable as Chief Flanagan and Detective McRyan walking through the building to see the president.”
Riley snorted, elbowing Mac in the ribs. “So, you’re recognizable?”
“Guess I’ll need a publicist.”
Alt led them past the reception desk, towards a set of double doors that led into a plush conference room. There was a cherry wood conference table with ten high-backed leather chairs on either side. Fine crystal glassware sat on a silver tray in the middle of the table. A large credenza on one end of the conference room held coffee and soft drinks. Built-in cabinets on the other end probably concealed a television and projection screen of some sort, Mac thought, based on the configuration of the cabinet doors.
As impressive as the conference room was, the view was even better. From the twentieth floor, the windows looked west out of downtown. Mac walked over to the window, which ran from floor to ceiling. He could see the Xcel Energy Center’s large red letters and message board flashing coming events. The height of the building also allowe
d Mac to look levelly at the St. Paul Cathedral, up on the bluff overlooking the city to the west. It was beautiful, the white stone of the magnificent church illuminated by ground lights, contrasting against the dark-blue, cold, winter sky.
As Mac took in the view, he heard the doors open. He turned to see Alt walking back in with Ted Lindsay and another man, whom he assumed was the attorney. Introductions were made all around. Lindsay skipped Alt, and introduced his lawyer, Larry Zimmer. Mac had heard of him, although he didn’t know him. A prominent lawyer with a big firm, the name of which Mac couldn’t remember.
The chief introduced his troops. When Flanagan introduced Mac, Lindsay walked over. “Detective McRyan, you have been busy lately, haven’t you?” he said, shaking Mac’s hand, looking him closely in the eye.
“As have you,” Mac replied stoically, not backing down.
“Well, I’m not so sure about that,” Lindsay replied evenly. “But why don’t we sit down, and you can tell us why Landy Stephens called me so upset last night.”
Mac took a seat at the conference table, opposite Lindsay. The lawyer sat to Lindsay’s right. Alt, the security guy, stood behind Lindsay, leaning against the wall with his arms folded.
Mac began, “It’s funny you should say that Ms. Stephens was so upset.”
“Oh, why would that be?”
“Well, Pat,” Mac said glancing over at Riley, “she didn’t seem too upset when we were invited into her home, did she?”
“No, she didn’t,” Riley replied.
“No. In fact, she served coffee and invited us into the living room of her home.”
Lindsay smiled. “Landy is a very nice lady. But when four officers show up on her doorstep, I’m sure she was taken aback. I’m sure she felt that if she was pleasant and nice, you’d leave much sooner.”
“Perhaps,” Mac replied. “Of course, we didn’t just show up at her place. We did call and ask if we could stop by. Did she mention that?”
Lindsay didn’t reply.
Mac forged on. “Because she couldn’t have been more pleasant. So you can imagine our surprise to find out that she was so upset that we’d been to her home and that we were harassing her.”
“Detective, I can only convey to you the phone call I received from Landy,” Lindsay replied calmly. “Her late husband was a dear friend. I feel a responsibility to look after her. When she called upset, well … I felt it necessary to investigate.” Lindsay leaned forward, elbows on the table, “Especially, when she mentioned all of the questions you were asking about Jamie Jones.”
“Mr. Lindsay, I can say that we did not harass Ms. Stephens,” Mac replied. “You know, it’s funny though. It didn’t take long for us to get called on the carpet about going to her house.”
“Detective, I’m a man accustomed to getting quick results.”
“I’m sure you’ve gotten to where you are because of that,” Mac replied, “but it was so quick, I mean almost as if someone saw us leaving her place.” Mac didn’t know if that was the case, but Lyman said he wouldn’t be surprised if PTA had been watching them. He threw it out there to see if Lindsay would react. He didn’t. The lawyer jumped in.
“Detective, why don’t you get to the reason you were visiting Mrs. Stephens.”
“Good idea, Counselor,” Mac replied flippantly, opening his notebook. “Mr. Lindsay, I’m going to tell you a little story, and then I’ll have some questions. Sound fair?”
Lindsay nodded.
“As you know, we recently arrested a serial killer named Dirk Knapp. He’s alleged to have killed seven women in the area around University Avenue. We captured him last week, as I’m sure you recall.”
“Yes, I do, Detective.” Lindsay replied. “As I recall, you were the officer who apprehended him. To that we owe you many thanks, since the bastard killed our Jamie.”
“Yeah, we thought he killed her, too.”
“But … you don’t think so?” Lindsay asked, his brow furrowed.
Mac shrugged his shoulders, “Maybe not. As we all know, Knapp was assassinated the next day. Looked like a pro job. So, we never got the chance to ask him about the killings.”
“Unfortunate for you guys,” Zimmer replied, “but I don’t see how this has anything to do with my client.”
“Patience, Counselor,” Mac replied dismissively, waving Zimmer off while keeping his gaze on Lindsay. “So, anyway, the morning after we caught Knapp, I went out to his place in Hudson. In the basement he had been keeping his clippings in great detail about all his handiwork. He had a display for all of his victims, except one. Who do you suppose that was?”
Lindsay sat back in his chair, folded his arms, but didn’t reply.
Mac kept going. “Jamie Jones. Now we thought it odd that she’d be missing. We would’ve asked Knapp about that, but low and behold …”
“He’s dead,” Riley finished.
“Guess you should have done a better job protecting him,” Lindsay replied, pushing back just a little, but his face remaining neutral.
“No doubt about that,” Mac replied. “But I’m still curious about Jones missing from Knapp’s collection. I mean, he took all the time to cut all the clippings about the other victims and to tape the news shows, but he completely ignored Jones. Well, we thought it was odd. So, I took a look at our file on Jones and noticed some differences between her and the other victims.”
“Such as?”
“Knapp’s victims were blue-collar, working women. Jones was not.”
“So what?” Lindsay replied.
“Serial killers pick out one kind of victim and stick with that,” Mac answered. “They don’t stray.”
Riles picked up the thread. “So, we took another look at Jones and found some things that caused us to look in the direction of PTA.”
“What would that be, Detective?” Lindsay asked evenly, unrattled.
“While we were looking through her apartment, and we noticed Ms. Stephens’s name on a calendar on the refrigerator. She met with Ms. Jones six days before she died on Halloween.”
“That’s hardly unusual, Detective. It’s no secret that James and Landy were good friends with Jamie.”
“As Ms. Stephens told us. They got together for coffee, apparently something they did every once in a while. Of course, on this occasion, Ms. Stephens gave Jones something.”
“Which was?” Lindsay asked.
“A banker’s box full of PTA documents for something called …” Mac looked at Riles.
“Cross,” Riles finished.
“Is that what this is about, Detective McRyan?” Lindsay asked, “I can assure you—”
Mac cut him off, “There’s more than that, I assure you,” an intentional taunt in his voice, pushing at Lindsay. “We also know that after she met with Ms. Stephens, Jones met with Claire Daniels.” They hadn’t been able to confirm exactly when that meeting took place, but they were pretty sure it had.
“I didn’t know that,” Lindsay replied, a surprised look on his face. Mac didn’t believe him or the surprised look, but they already decided they couldn’t use Daniels much more than that at this point.
“Really?” Mac replied skeptically. “Somehow I doubt that.” Then he continued. “Anyway, between Stephens giving Jones the banker’s box and then meeting with a noted investigative reporter, well, that all seemed fairly suspicious to us. Especially since Jones didn’t fit the pattern of Knapp’s victims. Certainly you can see why this would be of concern to us.”
“Knapp must have taken a shine to Jamie somehow,” Lindsay replied.
“I’m not sure how that would be,” Riley jumped in. “I led the detail on Knapp. He ran into all of his victims through work and driving around the University Avenue area.” Riley shook his head, “In the time we followed him, he never went downtown once.”
Mac jumped back in. “And, as far as we can tell, Jones never had any reason to spend much time along the University Avenue corridor. PTA doesn’t have any facilities over there.”
“Could be a copycat,” Zimmer added, wanting everyone to know he was still in the room.
“We think that’s entirely possible,” Riley replied. “But if the Jones murder was a copycat, it wasn’t pulled off by some ham-and-egger. It was the work of a professional.”
Mac nodded, adding, “Every detail matched to what Knapp was doing. Except, of course, for the profile of the victim. Jones doesn’t fit.”
“So that got us to thinking: who else would want to take her out?” Riles said. “And it seems that the only other thing Ms. Jones had going in her life that would cause someone to pick her out, was the fact that she was the CFO for a prominent company.”
Mac finished the thought. “Maybe PTA had something to hide.”
“Our financial records are impeccable, Detective,” Lindsay replied angrily. “There is no financial malfeasance here.”
“We’ll see,” Mac replied, continuing, cocky. “But I’m not done. In PTA here, we’re not talking about just any company. We’re talking a wealthy company with tremendous assets. A company with a large security force.” Mac looked over to Alt. “People tell me that there’s more than one professional working for your firm.”
“A professional could do a copycat killing and make it look like the work of someone else, it’s one of the things they’re trained to do,” Riley added.
“Heck, a professional could have picked off Knapp from the third level of the Vincent Ramp. Isn’t that right, Mr. Alt?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Alt replied.
“Riiiight,” Mac slowly replied, then continued. “So this all leads us back to Ms. Jones and PTA. In particular, we were wondering what this banker’s box full of documents Ms. Stephens gave Ms. Jones might have to do with all of this?”
Lindsay, a confident smile appearing over his face, answered, “Is that what this is really all about, Detective?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“They sure were smooth.”
Alt, with his back to the wall, had listened to McRyan thunder away at Lindsay. He was cocky, intentionally so, which was expected. They knew that he would want to piss the boss off, get him to bite. Lindsay wouldn’t, Alt thought. Too smooth, been through something like this too many times. If the Senate Intelligence Committee never got him to buckle, why would some young Irish detective from St. Paul have any luck? Nevertheless, Alt admired the kid. He was on the right track, more than he even really knew. They had suspicions, good ones for sure, but they had no hard facts, other than the Cross file, and they didn’t have the file. McRyan would ask about the banker’s box full of documents on Cross. They knew he would. They knew his whole strategy. They were ready. This is where Lindsay would end it.
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