Deadly Stillwater

by Roger Stelljes

  “Riles?”

  “Yeah”

  “You remember Bobby Jacobs?”

  “Hell yes,” Riles said with a smile. “One of the best damn crews I ever saw. Best the chief ever saw. They were damn good.”

  “He had fourteen years in the can; he’d be out by now wouldn’t he?”

  “Yeah he would, except…”

  “Except what?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah, he died of cancer a few years ago while still serving the tail end of his sentence out at Stillwater.”

  “How about the rest of that crew?”

  Riles looked skeptical.

  “Jacobs was the brains of that operation. The other guys made for a good crew, had good skills and all, but Bobby ran the show. But you know what?” Pat added, “Bobby Jacobs and people like him are what we should be looking at.”

  Mac kept at it. He was looking through a file covering a builder who defrauded a loan company when Peters burst into the room, white as a ghost, shock on his face.

  “What is it?” Riles asked, seeing the fear in Peter’s face. “Is it Shannon?”

  Peters shook his head. “No. It’s worse than that. There’s been another abduction.”

  “Who?” Mac asked, getting out of his chair and grabbing his suit coat.

  “Carrie,” Peters responded. “Carrie Flanagan.”

  That stopped everyone in their tracks, the room falling deathly silent.

  “Flanagan? Any relation to the chief?” Burton cautiously asked Peters, who nodded slowly, responding in almost a croak.

  “It’s his daughter.”

  7

  “ People see parts but not the whole thing.”

  The crime scene was Fairview Avenue between Summit and Grand avenues on St. Paul’s far west side. Half a dozen squads were already on the scene, concentrated around the entrance to a parking lot of a natural foods store at the northeast corner of Fairview and Grand avenues. Another cluster of cops worked the entrance to an alley on the opposite side of the street. The abduction had taken place in the midst of a commercial area bounded by the natural foods store, a small bank across Fairview, and a couple of restaurants across Grand.

  Patrol was holding everyone, asking questions, taking notes, talking on radios. Sirens signaled more units were on the way, flooding the area around the crime scene. The whole of Fairview Avenue between Summit and Grand was already taped off. Any van within the area was being pulled over. A helicopter hovered overhead. The media, on alert since yesterday for any breaking news, was already on the scene, filming the action. With the noon hour just minutes away, they’d be reporting live on the news shows. Dozens of onlookers were gathering around despite the weather, already ninety-two degrees with matching humidity.

  Mac and the others climbed out of the Explorer, walked under the crime scene tape and took in the scene. Outside his truck only thirty seconds, Mac could feel the sweat beading on his brow, his sunglasses fighting to keep the glare of the day out. He checked his watch, 11:57 AM, the sun directly overhead now, the heat of the day rising.

  A uniform cop named D.B. Skrypek ran up with a notepad.

  “Whatcha ya got, Pecker?” Mac asked, using the patrolman’s well-worn nickname.

  Skrypek pointed to the entrance to the natural foods store. “A black van, panel type, came out of the grocery store parking lot and turned left. A guy — big guy — came out of the alley on the other side of the street behind the bank, scooped up Flanagan, and threw her into the van while it was on the move. The van then peeled off and turned right, headed west on Grand. Sounds like the same thing as yesterday.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “Do we have a broadcast out on that? Black van, et cetera?” Mac asked, looking around the scene, using his hand to shade his eyes.

  “Yes,” Skrypek replied.

  “How long between their taking her and us getting it out on the air? How long before we were pulling over vans?”

  The young patrolman’s shoulders slumped.

  “The witnesses,” he pointed toward a group of four people by his squad car, “seem to think it took us two or three minutes to get here. I asked a few questions and put it out. At best, it’s five, more likely six or seven minutes before we got it out.”

  How do we know it was Carrie? Are we sure?” Riles asked.

  “A guy that Carrie works with at Lamonica’s Pizza over there was standing out front and sweeping the sidewalk,” Skrypek answered. “He heard a squealing of tires and looked up in time to see a brunette woman who looked like Flanagan get scooped up and thrown into the van. Her shift starts at 11:45 AM, after her class ends over at St. Thomas, just in time for the lunch rush.”

  Carrie Flanagan was a summer student at the University of St. Thomas, which sat six blocks to the west. The campus was a classic, with old stone buildings and ivy-covered walls set on the north side of Summit Avenue.

  “The Lamonica’s guy told me Flanagan has an apartment a block further east on Grand,” Skrypek continued. She usually walks the five or six blocks over to the school and then walks back this way along Summit, then takes a right on Fairview and comes to the pizza joint. She hasn’t showed for her shift, so we’re pretty sure it was her.”

  Before they could discuss matters further, Burton pulled up with his entourage. Riles gave him the rundown.

  “What’s the connection between Hisle and Flanagan?” Burton asked.

  “We don’t know,” Pat replied. “The chief and Lyman have been involved in a lot of cases over the years. Hell, we’ve all… crossed… paths with… Lyman… over the years. Shit. Are we all the targets?”

  “Shit,” Rock said, suddenly panicked. “My wife…”

  “I gotta call Dot,” Lich said, reaching for his cell phone.

  “Let’s get uniforms with spouses and kids,” Burton ordered.

  “Hold it! Hold it! HOLD IT!” Mac said, putting his hands up. “Calm the heck down and keep your heads, for cripes’ sake. They’re not taking everyone right this minute. We’ll get uniforms on our people and move them. But right now, we need to stay on Carrie. Let’s concentrate on these mother fuckers in the here and now.”

  Everyone gave Mac a peeved look at first, but then quickly calmed, realizing he was right.

  “McRyan has a point,” Burton said. “Though just to be safe, I’ll put a man on arranging protection for your families.”

  Everyone nodded appreciation. Riley quickly got back to the case.

  “Okay, so what do we know now?”

  “We’ve got to work this,” Mac said.

  “Lyman’s a criminal lawyer, and we got the chief,” Lich said. “That’s the connection, someone the chief busted and Lyman represented. The answer has to be in the criminal files.”

  That’s the most logical connection, and we’re already fishing in that pond,” Burton agreed. “That should narrow things down considerably, especially once we start matching up against cases Flanagan’s worked. That’s where all our resources will go now. We were going to start into civil cases as well but now we need to focus on those criminal files.”

  “We got to get the chief and Lyman together,” Riles added. “Get them talking. If this is connected, which you’d think it has to be, then maybe there’s a name that will ring a bell to them.”

  “We’re going to see Flanagan,” Burton said, turning back to his black Suburban. “You guys run the scene here. If these were our guys, the chief’s apt to be getting a phone call and I want to be there.”

  “Burton,” Riles said, grabbing his arm, walking along with him. “You better have Rockford and I go with you. The chief’s going to need friendly faces.”

  “The other thing is, we need Hisle as well,” Burton said.

  “Agreed,” Riles answered, reaching for his pocket. “I’ll call Peters and ask him to bring Hisle in.”

  “Mac, you and Lich work this,” Riles said, the urgency in his voice clear. “Yo
u work this fuckin’ scene.”

  For the next hour, Mac and Lich worked the witnesses, standing where they stood, going over what they saw in detail, walking through it again and again. Mac went so far as to put the witnesses back in their spots, trying to get a picture for the abduction. He had them close their eyes and describe it, wringing every last detail out of their memories. It was frustrating work — the witnesses all saw parts of things, but nobody saw the whole thing.

  Carrie’s coworker saw a brunette, who he thought was Carrie, get picked up and thrown into the van. He took down the plate. The plate was reported stolen, but didn’t match up with a van.

  A female pedestrian, who had just crossed Summit seventy-five yards or so back from Flanagan, noted that the guy who threw the girl into the van was large and muscular. He wore a baseball cap, a black long sleeve shirt, and blue jeans. That was the extent of her description.

  An elderly woman had been putting groceries in her car. She noted the squealing of tires and saw the van pull out, slow down in front of the alley, and then pull away and turn right on Grand Avenue. She knew the van was a Chevy Express Cargo, just like her son drove.

  A St. Thomas student in a football jersey said that the driver was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses and had black gloves on his hands.

  By the time Mac and Lich interviewed everyone, they thought they had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Carrie had been walking down the sidewalk on the west side of Fairview, going south, having left the St. Thomas campus on her way to work. The black van had been parked in the grocery store parking lot on the east side of Fairview, the perfect position to see her coming. The van probably signaled the man in the alley so that he could time it perfectly, coming to the alley opening just as Carrie reached it. When the man in the alley moved, the van pulled out of the grocery store parking lot, turned left, slowed long enough for the man from the alley to throw Flanagan inside, and then took a right on Grand Avenue.

  From there it got a little sketchy. Mac looked at his notes. The van drove six blocks west to Cretin Avenue. One witness said he thought that the van turned right on Cretin Avenue, heading toward Interstate 94, a mile or so north. Another thought the van had turned left on Cretin, which takes you south toward Ford Parkway through a much more residential area. When Mac thought about it, he bet it was a right turn to the interstate, the quickest way out of the area.

  “Man, it’s like yesterday,” Lich said. “People see parts but not the whole thing.”

  “I hear ya,” Mac said, shaking his head. “The whole thing happens fast. Before anyone really realizes what happened, these guys are gone like that — ” He snapped his fingers.

  “In broad daylight no less,” Lich said, shaking his head, chewing harder on his unlit cigar.

  “In the chief’s city, Dick. Not in Minneapolis. Not in some suburb. But in his own fuckin’ backyard.”

  “These guys are good,” Lich said. “They’re really good.”

  “They scouted this, Dick.” Mac agreed. “They knew she worked today. They knew when she would be coming and where she’d be coming from. They timed it perfectly. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t have someone watching her on campus and following her over here, over what, the six or seven blocks from campus.”

  Lich looked at Mac closely.

  “Is anyone pulling surveillance footage on campus?”

  Dick was right. Mac whistled to Odegard and Goth, two uniform cops who quickly came over.

  “Go over to St. Thomas. Find out what class Flanagan was in. Get campus security and get their surveillance footage. We think someone might have been giving these guys the eyeball.”

  The two officers nodded and jogged away.

  The two detectives stood with hands on hips for a few minutes, peering around, contemplating what happened and their next move. Mac took a white hanky out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. He could feel the sweat forming on his body. Lich broke the silence.

  “You don’t suppose,” he asked, “there’s something the chief and Lyman don’t want us to know, do you?”

  “What the fuck?” Mac growled, turning on Lich, getting in his face.

  “Easy partner, easy.” Lich replied, putting his hands up. “I know how close you are to the chief. But we got two girls missin’ here. So somebody ought to ask the hard question. Were the chief and Hisle up to something?”

  “No way,” Mac replied, shaking his head.

  “Well they sure as hell pissed someone off,” Lich replied.

  “They did, but no way. Not in a million years,” Mac answered coolly. He pulled his sunglasses off to look Lich in the eye.

  After a minute, Dick backed down and shook his head.

  “I don’t think so either.”

  “Then why the fuckin’ question?” Mac asked.

  “Because your ability to detect bullshit is better than anyone’s I’ve ever seen,” Lich replied. “If you’re not thinking that, then I feel better, that’s all. But Mac,” Dick continued, “the question had to be asked and you know it. And I’ll tell you another thing: I’m not going to be the last one to ask it. You know King Burton and his pinstriped FBI court will be thinking it. And take a look at the frickin’ media. They’ll be taking connections, conspiracy theories, and scandals before 5:00 and they’ll be doing their own investigating on this, prying into the lives of the chief and Hisle.”

  Mac nodded quietly, knowing his partner was probably right. He’d have probably asked the question himself but for the fact the chief was involved. But then something else occurred to him.

  “You know how I said last night this could be personal? That maybe it wasn’t just about money?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well I’m right. If you just want money, you don’t kidnap the chief of police’s daughter in his city.”

  “The chief has money, Mac,” Lich answered. “His wife’s family. The money from the logging up north. They’ve got millions.”

  “Sure, we’ll get a ransom demand,” Mac said, shaking his head, waving Lich off. “But there’s more in play here — a lot more.”

  A uniform came running up.

  “Mac. They got an explosion over near Lake Street behind an old abandoned building. Black Chevy Express Cargo van.”

  8

  “ It’s like Groundhog Day.”

  Smith backed the van into the garage and punched the button that closed the garage door. Carrie Flanagan lay still, finally done with her frantic squirming. A pillowcase covered her head and duct tape covered her mouth. Smith opened the sliding door to find Dean, David, and Monica pulling their ski masks back on. He pulled his own back on, then knelt down to Carrie and slid the cover off her head. He spoke softly.

  “Carrie, we don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his hand placed lightly on her stomach. “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re not going to rape you. That was not why we’ve gone to all this trouble, okay? I want you to nod your head that you understand.”

  Flanagan nodded. Smith continued.

  “I know you’re afraid, but I want you to understand that we’re after money. You’re simply a means to an end. Once we get what we want, we’ll let you go. Okay?”

  Flanagan nodded.

  “Good, Carrie. If you play ball, things will go better.”

  She nodded her head one more time. Smith smiled through his black mask.

  “We’re going to move you inside the house now. You can’t break free, so it will be better for you to just be still and let us carry you, all right?”

  She nodded again.

  The brothers lifted her out of the van, Dean carrying her under the arms and David by the feet. Flanagan was relatively light in their arms, although a little heavier than the petite Hisle. Smith opened the door to the basement bedroom and Shannon Hisle turned her head to see them coming in.

  “Carrie, like I said, we have no desire to hurt you,” Smith repeated. “Over on the other bed is Shannon Hisle. Do you know who she is?”


  Flanagan nodded.

  “She has her arms and legs cuffed to the bed, but she hasn’t been harmed in any way.” Smith looked over to Hisle. “Shannon, you haven’t been harmed, have you?”

  Hisle shook her head.

  Flanagan nodded, but she still had a frantic look in her eyes. Smith wanted her calm.

  “We’re going to do the same with you. It will be easier if you just let us do it, okay? We’re not going to harm you, all right?”

  Carrie nodded again, but the eyes were still wide.

  The two brothers laid her on the bed. David got on top, sitting on her waist and holding her down while Dean cut away her restraints. He cuffed her arms and then her legs to the bed. Once she was secure, David eased off and moved back while Smith sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Carrie, I’m going to remove the tape, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t scream.”

  She nodded again.

  “Because if you do scream, I will have to hurt you.”

  Carrie looked over toward Shannon, who nodded back. Carrie looked up at the masked man and nodded her head.

  “Okay, this will hurt a little,” Smith said as he yanked the tape from her mouth. Flanagan gasped for air, breathing deeply, trying to speak.

  “Why…” She gasped. “Why… why are you doing…”

  Smith laid his fingers lightly over her mouth.

  “Why? Like I said upstairs, we’re after money. Your fathers have a lot of money and we want it. That’s all,” he said, his voice almost monotone and totally conversational. “This isn’t about you; this isn’t about harming you. That’s not what I want to do. It’s not what I intend to do.”

  “Okay,” Flanagan answered weakly.

  “Alright then,” Smith said and then looked over to Hisle, who was gagged. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

  Hisle nodded.