Electing To Murder

by Roger Stelljes

Wire walked back into the front of the room, “Mac, we have a plane waiting.”

  * * *

  Moriarity and Holmes sat in the front seats of their latest vehicle, now a black Dodge minivan. Their position up on a small hill two blocks west of Lupo’s office allowed them to look down on the office and take in the front and the back of the business. They saw the three unmarked cars roll around the back and Moriarity said: “That doesn’t look promising.

  “No, it doesn’t, they came in fast,” Holmes answered. “And that looks even worse,” he added after seeing the three unmarked cars roll up to the front of the office thirty seconds later. He put the night vision binoculars to his eyes and focused on the front door. “The one doing the knocking has a document in his right hand.”

  “Search warrant?”

  “I don’t know American law very well,” Holmes answered. “However, it does seem fast to have gotten one if that’s what it is.”

  The two men saw the knocking on the front and then looked to the back and saw Lupo try to sneak out the back, only to be immediately taken and cuffed by two large police officers with the other four rushing inside. Holmes reached for his cell phone. “Kristoff, we have a problem on Foche. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to walk away.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “I want justice.”

  As Mac looked out the plane’s window, he thought about the fact he’d never worked a case like this with the ramifications that it potentially had. The investigation had a tremendous momentum all its own and it wasn’t ready to stop any time soon. It was like pulling at a loose thread. If you pulled one out, three more appeared ready to be pulled until the whole shirt fell apart. The case had so many potential permutations; it was hard to know which one to follow.

  The McCormick and Montgomery murders were largely closed. A double murder solved in less than twelve hours plus possibly another one from two days ago. He had the killer at Lupo’s office. There were two impeccable witnesses to identify him. If the man survived his wounds, he was going away for life. That they didn’t know who the man was wasn’t an issue, they’d get his identity eventually. If someone showed to pick him up, so much the better and easier.

  The question nagging him, and Wire, not to mention the chief and the Judge, who had now made common cause, was who hired the killer? Someone let the dog out to hunt. Who?

  Judge Dixon was emphatic it wasn’t the vice president. Mac thought back to something he learned long ago from his father and that was that politicians always leave themselves a way out. If the night’s events were being orchestrated by Vice President Wellesley, he wasn’t leaving himself a way out. Mac wasn’t going to vote for Wellesley, but from what he’d seen and read on the vice president through the years, he thought him to be a pretty decent and smart man.

  In Mac’s mind, Dixon was right. This wasn’t the vice president’s play. It may have been the play of a smart man, but not a decent one.

  At this point, that left Connolly, and perhaps Checketts and the other two men at the Kentucky meeting.

  Were they the ones behind all this?

  Mac and Wire’s operating theory said they were. They were at the Kentucky meeting and everything seemed to start there. That’s when the bodies started dropping. The two men had some hard questions that needed answering. Sometime, and sometime very soon, Connolly was going to be confronted. In Mac’s mind, that’s what should be happening right now, Connolly was the bigger fish. But Judge Dixon put on his old prosecutor hat. “Mac, it’s time to start building a case. When you’re building a case, you start with the smaller fish and get them in line for when you go after the big one. Connolly is the big fish. Checketts is a smaller fish and I’m betting the more frail fish. We go after him first.”

  We? How did Dixon become part of we? How did Mac become part of we?

  Mac was starting to wonder who he was working for, the city of St. Paul or had he unwittingly been loaned by his boss to Dixon. His gut told him the latter and that gave him some pause, simply because in whatever he did as a cop, he was not partisan, he was not political. His political views he kept close. Mac never told anyone who he voted for, other than Sally.

  His name was well enough known and he had done enough as a cop in St. Paul, closed enough important cases in a short period of time, that if he’d wanted, he could have built himself a political platform. The chief before Flanagan was still in the Minnesota Legislature as a State Senator. Mac had been approached twice by the DFL to get involved in politics. Given his success, background, education and brain power, there was more out there for him and politics could be one avenue, but he steadfastly refused. First, Mac couldn’t be pigeonholed politically as strictly a Democrat or Republican, he’d voted for both over his life. His views did not toe either party line. Generally speaking, he was fiscally conservative and socially liberal but even within those broad political philosophies there were many exceptions. Second, and more importantly, Mac couldn’t stand most of today’s politicians, hated their handlers even more and found the whole process distasteful simply because nothing ever got done. All people did was run for office so they could run for office again. It was about saving their job rather than doing the work that needed doing. What was the point of participating in that? As a cop, as a detective, he could solve a problem and see a tangible end result. He explained that to the mayor five months ago when politics came up again and he declined to even take a meeting on running for office. Mac had no interest in pursuing a new job, particularly one in politics.

  The mayor asked: “Politics aside, Mac, let’s talk about your future given your education, background and brain power; is being a cop enough for you?”

  “It’s enough for now.”

  What Mac did was not political but he suddenly found himself embroiled in politics and doing the political bidding for one side. And the stakes of this political game couldn’t be higher.

  Of course, the stakes are what piqued his interest. Where did this whole thing lead? What was really going on? Was Heath Connolly really behind all of this?

  It was like the chief said: “Mac, you’ve been offered a chance to play quarterback in the Super Bowl. Are you going to walk off the field or are you going to get under center and call a play?”

  * * *

  Wire felt the plane start to gently descend and knew that they were on the approach to Milwaukee. She sat back and a wave of sadness washed over her and her eyes again teared. Since the shooting, she had been on the go, saving Shelby and the Judge, dealing with the crisis, investigating with McRyan and finding Sebastian’s killer. The adrenaline of that had kept her going and suppressed her emotions.

  But now, for the first time since seeing Sebastian lying dead on the floor, there was time to think about his death, about the loss, of what life would be like without one of her best friends. While there was a certain feeling of satisfaction in finding the killer, in identifying him, in knowing that he was caught and would go away for life, it did little to alleviate the sadness or the emotion of the loss.

  At first, she kept thinking that if she’d only gotten there sooner. If she’d driven faster, ran to the house instead of being so cautious in her approach, Sebastian wouldn’t be dead. It was only a few seconds between him being dead or alive.

  “Dara, honey, how could you have known?” the Judge had said to her as they walked from McRyan’s Yukon to the plane. “You handled it like a pro and you’re not dead because of it. This is not your fault. You saved one life and maybe more. It was just Sebastian’s time and when it’s your time, it’s your time.”

  She was amazed by the Judge. The man was broken up inside, she could tell, but he had such a capacity to shut that emotional drawer for now and focus on the immediate problem, the election and making sure it wasn’t stolen from them.

  Wire did not have that capacity, at least not right now. Everything was mixing together in her mind and she couldn’t stop thinking of Sebastian.

  They’d briefly dated but
it wouldn’t have worked long-term. They were too much alike. Hard chargers, alphas, Type As. There was no yin to the yang. A long-term relationship would have been one battle after another in a long and drawn-out war. The short attempt at a relationship was just that, a daily battle and then intense make-up sex at the end of the night. It was intense, it was hot, but it wasn’t a recipe for long-term success.

  Oddly enough, out of that experience they formed a close friendship.

  Sebastian was there for her when she’d been forced out of the bureau. His phone calls, texts and e-mails of support were part of what helped her get through those trying times. Sebastian, and the Judge, helped her start her consulting business, feeding her potential clients that allowed her to move on and flourish personally and financially. When Sebastian and Dixon called six months ago, the chance to work for and with her friend again, the chance to help him achieve this ultimate goal of the White House, had been a gift.

  Now he was gone.

  She thought of what he might say to her if he could see her right now. Sebastian was one for tough love. He was not one to provide a soft shoulder to cry on. Rather there was encouragement and there was motivation, a constant reminder to get up off the mat and get going. If he were here right now he’d tell her to suck it up and get back to it. Don’t just sit there. Do something.

  She exhaled, sat up in her chair, dabbed at her eyes, sniffled and caught McRyan looking right at her.

  “What?”

  “There’s someone out there who called the shot on McCormick. What do you want to do about that?”

  “I want justice.”

  “Then let’s go get it.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia and Colorado.”

  The Judge looked out the window of the conference room at the sun breaking above the horizon against the piercing blue sky. Not a cloud to be seen, yet he couldn’t help but feel the storm clouds building all around him. He took a sip of his coffee with his left hand while he rolled a cigar with his right, deep in thought, evaluating his next move or what the opposition’s next move would be.

  Of course, the question had now become: Who was the opposition?

  For the past two years it had been the vice president. Even when they were in the primaries, it was always about the vice president. But now, Wellesley didn’t seem to be their only opposition. The Judge felt like he was suddenly fighting a two-front war, one against the vice president and the other against Connolly and whoever the political sociopath recruited to do his dirty work.

  Governor Thomson stood to his immediate right, awake after a quick two hours of sleep. Thomson, now in a fresh white dress shirt, navy blue tie and dark blue pinstripe suit pants, took in the view with his campaign manager. The governor’s flight for Detroit was leaving within the hour. Until then, his suit coat would remain draped over a conference room chair.

  “Have you spoken with McCormick’s mother yet?”

  “Briefly,” Dixon replied quietly. “Thankfully she made it easy.”

  Thomson looked over, “How so?”

  “She said we better win or his death would be for naught.”

  “She saw your press conference, didn’t she?”

  The Judge nodded. Dixon left no doubt that the murder was politically motivated. That statement, in and of itself, was a bomb to drop and one that would be Talker in the media all day. It would come up at every campaign stop, would be a constant topic of conversation on the plane and the governor would be dealing with it all day. They discussed the strategy for handling it which was, the murder was political but they would let the investigation play out. Nevertheless, the Judge knew what the governor would desire and smiled inwardly when it finally came out.

  “You need to keep me updated on what you find today,” the governor said quietly. “I want hourly updates. I have to know what’s going on.”

  Dixon took in the request and considered it for a moment. He knew it was coming but he couldn’t let the governor be distracted by the investigation and what they’d found. Given the events of the past twenty-four hours, the media was paying particular attention to how Thomson was handling the death of a key campaign staffer. Sadly, how he handled this situation would be a test of his leadership in the eyes of the media, political pundits and potentially undecided voters. He needed to be focused on the campaign and the job at hand and could not be distracted by the investigation.

  “Governor, I’ll let you know when there is something you need to know. You will learn quickly come mid-January of next year that you can’t monitor and manage every situation. In fact, you closely monitor and manage very few of them. You will have to trust in your people to do their jobs. They’ll come to you when a decision needs to be made and let you know what your options are and then you can exercise your best judgment and make a decision. The same thing is true here. Right now, there is nothing you can do so let me and my people worry about it. We have a campaign plan through Monday. You follow that to the letter and let me worry about the rest. If we find something that you need to know, I will tell you and we can decide what to do. But for now, let me worry about this DataPoint business and you worry about campaigning your ass off.”

  The Judge looked Thomson in the eye. The governor nodded and said, “Okay.”

  Dixon took in a longer look at his candidate. A grueling two-year campaign had taken its toll. The governor’s once jet black hair was now salt and pepper and a little bit thinner along the top. There were a few more crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes and an added wrinkle or two in his forehead. The Judge thought of how two years ago when they started this, how his man was just trying to keep his head above water in those first few months, overwhelmed by the process. He was speaking to small crowds, struggling to be heard, light on cash, just one of many voices seeking to be the voice of the party. It was tough in those early months, but the governor did what the Judge knew he would and could do. He just kept grinding at it day after day, picking up one vote at a time, one endorsement at a time, one debate victory at a time and by the time the primaries started last January, he had the buzz and the momentum. The governor swept through the Iowa caucuses, took New Hampshire by two points and from there rolled through the primaries locking up the nomination by Super Tuesday. James Thomson went from a relative unknown governor of a mid-sized state to the precipice of the White House.

  There was a knock on the door and the two men turned to see Sally Kennedy. With her were two campaign aides named Bagnoli and McGrann. Upon their return to campaign headquarters, the Judge assigned Sally the task of figuring out where DataPoint had voting machines. The Judge pointed to her: “So what have you found?”

  “DataPoint has voting machines in twenty-two states,” Sally replied. McGrann and Bagnoli laid out a map of the United States, with DataPoint states marked.

  “Twenty-two?” the governor replied, stunned.

  Sally held up her hands, “Before anyone panics, they have a number of machines in states that are either clearly ours or the vice president’s. We haven’t spent two minutes thinking about Kentucky, Oklahoma, Alabama or Texas because they’re not coming our way, but DataPoint has machines in big chunks of those states. They also have them in much of the Northeast where we lead just about every state by twenty points or more. The vice president hasn’t been up in that neck of the woods since the primaries. Those states don’t worry us.”

  “Which states do?” Dixon asked.

  Sally exhaled. “Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia and Colorado. DataPoint has a big market share in those states.”

  Dixon, rarely one to show any emotion, cringed. Those were four of the most hotly contested states.

  “What about Ohio?” Thomson asked.

  “Not that we see,” Sally answered, pointing to Ohio on the map. “DataPoint is not the supplier to any part of that state that we’ve seen.”

  “But we have four of the states that are very much in play,” the Judge stated. “And DataPoint has their mac
hines in those states.”

  “Looks like it,” Sally answered. “The spread in Colorado is about six points right now, correct?”

  “Yes,” replied the Judge.

  “Then if we were to assume the worst, isn’t that going to be a hard one to explain if the vote shifts six points?”

  “Maybe,” the Judge answered. “Depends on what happens between now and Tuesday.”

  “Wait a minute,” the governor ordered and then remarked. “DataPoint has machines in those states, but isn’t the relevant question how recently the machines were put into those states?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s one key question of many. We don’t know the answer—yet,” Sally answered. “We need to find out. With the day getting started, we can start calling around to the states and get some answers. If it was a long time ago, then it would probably be more difficult to manipulate the machines. However, maybe repairs were needed? Maybe upgrades were installed? We need to find answers to all of these questions.”

  “Of course, if machines were put in recently, that would be of serious concern as well,” the Judge added.

  “How about going to the source on this?” Governor Thomson asked. “How about going after DataPoint?”

  The Judge smiled. “I’ve sent McRyan and Wire to Milwaukee to do just that.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Milwaukee.”

  Saturday, November 2nd

  Their plane touched down at 7:23 a.m. and taxied to the back corner and a small hanger where a campaign aide waited with a rental for them. Mac was on the phone with Riley as they exited the plane so Wire jumped behind the wheel of their rental car, a black Acadia. She programmed in the address for Peter Checketts while the pilot placed their bags in the back of the SUV.

  Riley reported that all remained quiet at Lupo’s office. Nobody had called on their package as of yet. A trauma surgeon from nearby Fairview Southdale was on the scene monitoring the killer’s condition, which remained critical.