Electing To Murder: A compelling crime thriller (McRyan Mystery Thriller Series Book) (McRyan Mystery Series Book 4)

by Roger Stelljes

  Then Mac moved his finger to Checketts. “Peter Checketts was murdered yesterday in Milwaukee. Now your friend the Bishop had his men stage it to look like a suicide, but he was murdered, no question.”

  Mac reached into a folder and took out four more pictures. He went through them one by one, his voice biting, angry.

  “Jason Stroudt—dead.”

  He took out another picture, “Adam Montgomery—dead.”

  Then a third, “Sebastian McCormick—dead.”

  Then a fourth, “Gabriel Martin—dead!”

  “They were all murdered. Murdered in cold blood and you know what, Mr. Connolly?”

  “What?”

  Mac smiled, a cold-hearted almost evil smile, as he leaned down to the table. He took one last picture out, it was of Connolly. Mac put his finger on the picture: “You’re next,” he said in almost a whisper.

  “Is that a threat, Detective?” Chase demanded.

  “Not a threat, at least not from me. I’m just pointing out the hard reality for your client, Counselor,” Mac answered, his eyes never leaving Connolly’s. “The threat is being sent by the man Connolly has been working with or maybe even for. That man has clearly determined that there will be no loose ends. And there’s only one loose end left,” Mac pointed at Connolly, “and that’s you, Heath.”

  Mac peered into Connolly’s eyes and took the measure of the man. The message was sent but it would need time to be truly received by the political operative. He was afraid, Mac could see it in his eyes, but he wouldn’t break—not yet. Heath Connolly was a political animal. He would need some time to process all the angles, figure out the only way to stay alive and once he did, he’d be back.

  It was time for Mac to go, so he pushed away from the table, put the pictures back into the manila folder and walked over to the door, but he didn’t leave without a cold warning.

  “Mr. Connolly, whoever hired all these men involved in these murders, whoever that man is that you think you’re protecting, he’s going to come for you next and right soon. You might want to think about that tonight while you retire to your comfortable Watergate Apartment.” Mac opened the door to leave, but looked back at Connolly one last time, an evil grin on his face. “Think about the fact that you’re next.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Ahh, the Dude abides.”

  McRyan stepped back into the control room to find Director Mitchell and Attorney General Gates waiting with bemused expressions on their faces.

  “Jesus, Detective,” Mitchell blurted with a wry smile on his face.

  “I like the theatrics,” Gates added. “Your prosecutor girlfriend must have rubbed off on you a little. That was like the end of a really good cross examination.”

  Mac shrugged his shoulders. “Sirs, you saw what I saw. This might not be how the bureau would have done it, but he was sitting in there all smug and comfortable. It was time to rattle his cage.”

  “Consider it rattled,” Gates replied with a smile and then asked, “So who is this Bishop?”

  “I don’t know,” Mac answered.

  Mitchell and Gates gave Mac a quizzical look, “What do you mean you don’t know?” Mitchell asked, confused.

  “I don’t know,” Mac replied, shrugging his shoulders. “We need to figure it out. Bishop is code for something.”

  “Where did you get this ‘Bishop’ from then?” Gates inquired.

  Mac calculated his response in his brain. Riley gave him the name but it came from a place he wasn’t ready to reveal. He trusted Mitchell but he wasn’t sure about Gates yet. So for now, he needed to use some other pieces to keep them at bay. He grabbed his iPad out of his backpack and pulled up Wire’s pictures from Kentucky.

  “I’ve been thinking since last night that this thing doesn’t stop with Connolly, that there is someone else higher pulling the strings.” Mac opened a picture up on his iPad. “This picture is from the Kentucky meeting, I showed this to you both earlier. I talked about it with Dara Wire before I came over here.”

  Mac recounted his discussion with Wire and her taking of the pictures when the last limousine arrived in Kentucky, the foot briefly coming out the door, the order to shoot at Stroudt and Montgomery being given.

  “This man never gets out of the limousine. He starts to but he doesn’t get out because Stroudt and Montgomery are discovered. There is a few seconds delay before Stroudt and Montgomery were fired upon and chased. That delay tells me that an order was given. Wire is certain that the man who was holding that door open was in charge of security at that scene. Wire said that Montgomery and Stroudt were discovered. When that happened, the security man spoke down into the limousine and then a few seconds later shots were fired. I think that order was given by the man in the limousine.”

  “Okay, fine,” Mitchell said, but then asked, “how does that get the name or moniker of Bishop?”

  Now it was time to tap dance. “While we were sitting here watching Connolly be interrogated, one of my detectives in St. Paul called. He was looking over the notebooks that Montgomery had in his backpack that Ms. Wire was able to get away with from McCormick’s house in St. Paul. He found a couple of notations in quotes regarding ‘the Bishop.’ I remember seeing them as well but they meant nothing at the time. I had no context for them. However, between what Wire and I talked about and my detective mentioning the reference to ‘the Bishop,’ I took a chance.”

  “A pretty damn big one,” Mitchell declared the disbelief evident on his face. “I mean, that’s pretty thin.”

  “That’s not thin, Mitch, it’s emaciated,” Gates growled. “You took a big chance, son. What if you were wrong, Detective?”

  “I wasn’t,” Mac answered. “You saw the look on his face, Connolly nearly shit his pants. We need to start looking at who ‘the Bishop’ is.” Mac hoped that would be enough to mollify the two men for now.

  Gates and Mitchell shared a look and then both shrugged their shoulders. What could they say; McRyan’s gambit worked. “I’ll get a team on this Bishop,” Mitchell said. “See what we can come up with. In the absence of more information, my guess is a search with only ‘Bishop’ or ‘the Bishop’ will turn up a ton of information. It’ll take some sifting.”

  “Or another piece to tie it all together,” Mac added and then got back to Connolly. “In the meantime, can we offer protection to Connolly?”

  “He’s not in our custody, Detective,” Gates answered. “He hasn’t given us anything in return for protection, so that is not something I’m inclined to give.”

  “How about providing some unofficial monitoring then?”

  Gates turned his gaze towards the FBI director. “What do you think?”

  “I think we put some people in his building and keep an eye on him,” Mitchell decided. “And Detective McRyan, for the record, I think we could probably stand to rattle a few more cages around here.”

  • • • •

  At a little past 7:00 p.m., Kristoff pulled into the parking garage underneath the Watergate South condos and parked. He made his way to the lobby, checked in at the security desk and then took the elevator up to the eighth floor and to the condo unit at the end of the hallway. He knocked on the door and was admitted by the Bishop himself.

  “Good evening, Nicholas, welcome.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kristoff replied.

  The condo unit was, like any other place he’d met the Bishop over the years, impressive, stunning, ornate; in other words, perfect. Two stories, large open windows, immaculate furnishings, the best money could buy. There was a fire blazing in the fireplace and a bottle of red wine open on the table. The boss was having a glass and poured one for Kristoff who inhaled the smell of a delightful Cabernet. He took a long sip and savored the taste before he swallowed. “Lovely.”

  “Come with me over here,” the Bishop waved to the large bank of windows looking to the east, the top of the lit Washington Monument visible in the distance over the other Watergate condo building, Waterg
ate East. “We are on the eighth floor here, my friend. As you look directly across the courtyard here to the east building, on the eighth floor and wait for it.”

  Kristoff watched as a light was turned on across the courtyard at his same level in the east building.

  The boss handed over a set of binoculars. “Who do you see?”

  The killer put the binoculars to his eyes. “Heath Connolly.”

  “Yes. That is the only home he owns. I am aware of no others. He’s lived there ten years and I’ve never known him to live anywhere else.”

  Kristoff put the binoculars back to his eyes and took in the layout of the apartment from across the expanse of the large courtyard. There was only one way of entry. It was the second unit from the end of the building and Kristoff expected that there was a stairway at the end of the hall. “I’ll just have to find a way into the building,” he said quietly.

  “No, you won’t,” the Bishop answered. “You’ll only need to get out.” The Bishop handed Kristoff a key card and a set of keys. “Two floors above Connolly’s place is an empty apartment. The key card gets you in the building and the keys get you into the apartment. From there, I will leave it to you as to how you wish to handle this.”

  Kristoff looked at the apartment two stories above. “What do you know about the apartment immediately below?” The lights were on inside and it looked like a man and woman were inside.

  “That unit is owned by two K Street lobbyists who also regularly attend events at the Kennedy Center, including the opera tomorrow evening.”

  • • • •

  Connolly let himself into his condominium and locked the dead bolt. The first thing he did was go to his bedroom and to the top dresser drawer. He took out his Browning 9mm, checked the clip and carried the gun back to his wet bar in the living room. He poured himself a glass of bourbon and sat down in his easy chair, set the gun on the coffee table in front of him and turned on the television.

  Sunday night was usually as dead a time as there was for politics. However, with less than two days to the election and a scandal breaking by the minute, all the A-level cable and network talent were on the airwaves. The first polls would be out in the morning. Going into the day, Thomson was leading the vice president by three points nationally and anywhere from three to four points in the key states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio and Virginia.

  That would not be the case Monday morning.

  The leads would be bigger and insurmountable.

  The media had been merciless on the vice president, the Republican Party and now the speculation was running rampant about him. Tuesday would be ugly. Connolly harrumphed and shook his head. The damn Florida Keys, that meeting ruined everything. It brought the Bishop into play, into power to really make a play and Connolly couldn’t get away from him. Connolly knew the electoral map, knew what the polling data showed and knew something different would be required to win. The Bishop was only too willing to provide the something different. He had too much to lose with a Thomson presidency. He was as motivated, if not more so, to get the vice president to the White House. Of course, now, Connolly was the one paying the price for the Bishop’s actions.

  Connolly sat in the dark, sipped his bourbon and contemplated what his future would hold. Politically, he would be a dead man, at least for a while, probably for a good long while, but if there was ever a second act in anything, it was in politics.

  It reminded him of Nixon.

  Richard Nixon became relevant in his later years, a man people sought counsel from and who became a wise sage despite his disgraceful exit, the only man ever to resign the presidency. He was disgraced when he left office. Yet the man found a way back to prominence, largely because he knew China and the Soviet Union so well. He wrote books, gave lectures and even occasionally sat for interviews. But he came back. When he died he’d regained a certain level of respect.

  Richard Nixon became his immediate political model.

  Connolly had political wisdom to share. Nobody understood the electorate, down to state, county or city, nobody knew it all better than him. He would have to get through this patch of trouble and lay low and out of sight. He had plenty of money and didn’t really need to work except for the fact that politics was all he really had. No wife, no children, no real hobbies. He lived and breathed politics and winning races.

  He was watching Chris Mathews rail on MSNBC. The last thing anyone in Connolly’s position would seemingly want to do is watch politics. Yet he couldn’t turn the television off. He would have to find his way back in and in time he would. He’d never get to run a campaign again, but he could perform consulting work, sit in the background and for a price offer advice. Nobody knew the electoral map like he did. In time, he could even put together a Super PAC like Rove did. No matter your sins in politics, if you were good, people would seek you out, and despite his mistakes, Connolly was good.

  As for the Bishop, he needed to reach out to the man. Connolly held his mud tonight. His only slight slip was when McRyan came in. He’d looked up the St. Paul detective the other day and he had a colorful and interesting background. When he came into the room he didn’t find McRyan as physically imposing as he imagined he would. The man was fairly tall, six foot one, but he was more wiry than bulky. It was his eyes that were intimidating. Those cold icy blue eyes told Connolly that McRyan was a threat. They showed determination, will and they were piercing, as if he looked right into his soul. There was no doubt he would keep investigating this case. He had the scent of the Bishop now and if his history was any indication, he would not stop until he found out who the Bishop was.

  Connolly took a sip of the bourbon and closed his eyes.

  Should he try to play the Bishop or McRyan?

  If he went to McRyan, he could try to leverage the information to avoid a jail term. Problem was, that would not prevent the Bishop from calling off his men. If anything, that could make the Bishop all the more determined to fulfill McRyan’s prediction.

  If he went to the Bishop and convinced him that he wouldn’t crack, that he wouldn’t break and that he would never give him up, he could ride out the storm.

  He took another sip of his drink and contemplated his options, running the scenarios through his mind.

  Ultimately, in his mind, going to the Bishop seemed like the better play. There was still some time. He wasn’t dead yet and he had a few cards left to play. There was still time, he told himself, still some time to survive this.

  • • • •

  “You said what to Connolly?” Wire asked in disbelief, laughing.

  “I said: You’re next,” Mac answered, taking a sip from his Seagram and Seven.

  “Oh my God,” Wire replied, smiling ear to ear. “I wish I could have seen that prick squirm.”

  They were sitting in the bar at the Marriott having a post dinner drink, or at this point a fourth post dinner drink. Wire’s two brothers and their wives joined them for a late dinner and Mac and Wire cryptically filled them in on the investigation. Not until her family left and they decided to have a nightcap in the bar, could they really talk about Connolly’s interrogation.

  Mac took a look at Wire’s drink, “A White Russian now?”

  “No, a Caucasian.”

  “Ahh, the Dude abides.”

  “The Big Lebowksi, top ten all-time movie,” Wire smiled. “Of course, I suppose you Minnesotans think Fargo is the Coen Brothers best.”

  “Ya you betcha,” Mac answered in his best Margie voice. “I do like Fargo a lot but I’m a little more partial to No Country for Old Men. Javier Bardem is absolutely scary in that.”

  Wire transitioned topics back to the election. “So like my brothers asked me, let me ask you, Mac McRyan, what’s it feel like to know you saved the election for Governor Thomson?”

  “I liked your answer at dinner. It’s great to have figured that out but really this is about the murder victims. It’s about people like Sebastian or Gabriel Martin. We still don’t know who was reall
y behind it; we don’t know who this Bishop is. Until we do, I won’t feel like I have complete closure on the murders. We won’t have justice.” The victims were always the priority for Mac. It was something Mac’s father used to say: we are the voice of the dead. Michael Mackenzie McRyan had taken that lesson to heart. That’s what being a homicide detective was all about—the victims.

  “For the victims,” Mac toasted.

  “For the victims,” Wire replied, returning the toast.

  “Speaking of closure, did you mention this Bishop name to the Judge?” Mac asked.

  “I didn’t,” Wire answered and then looked at her watch, which told her it was approaching 1:00 a.m. “But it’s too late now. I’ll give him a call in the morning and see.”

  It was late.

  “Dara, are you driving home?” Mac asked. She’d put away at least four more after her brothers left.

  “Driving? No. I’ll take a cab home. Could you drive my Land Rover out to me tomorrow and I can drive you back in?”

  “Sure,” Mac answered and took the keys from her.

  Wire reached back in her purse and pulled out her wallet but Mac stopped her, “I’ve got this.”

  “Mac, you bought dinner,” she protested. “And not just for me but my family, I can’t let you do that and buy the drinks. You’re going to be out like $800 tonight.”

  Mac grinned sheepishly. “You know the chain of Grand Brew Coffee Shops in the Twin Cities?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen them around,” Wire answered, a questioning look on her face. “What about them?”

  “Well, there are nearly two hundred of them in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. I own, or did own, fifteen percent of the entire business until this week. We sold it.”

  “Oh my God,” Wire smiled. “You’re rich, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t have to live check-to-check anymore, that’s for sure.”

  “You’ve had a heck of a week.”

  Mac smiled, “Indeed. So I think I can handle a night of dinner and drinks,” he said as he gave the bartender his American Express card. A minute later, the bar tab taken care of, he walked Wire out the front of the hotel and deposited her in a cab.