“No. No, I don’t, Mac,” Coolidge said after a moment. “Now, tell me why I don’t.”
“Because this is an ad hoc attempt at making it look like a robbery, like it was improvised on the spot. But it wasn’t a robbery.”
“What was it?”
“It was an execution.”
Coolidge raised his eyebrows. “That’s a pretty quick conclusion. Why do you say that?”
“At least three reasons I can think of. First, if this were a robbery, the whole thing is overkill. I mean, your typical stickup guy would just wave the gun at them, ask for their wallets, watches and phones, and these two would just hand them over and pray that was the end of it. Unless you have some sort of bloodthirsty stickup guys around here, I just don’t think this is how a simple robbery goes down. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, a stickup guy takes the money and the goods, and runs.”
“I’ll buy that.”
“Second, there were nine shots, Linc. Nine.” Mac waved his arms to the area behind him, a residential neighborhood of houses, duplexes, and apartment buildings. “The only way you don’t hear nine shots is your shooter used a suppressor, and a really quiet one. I mean, in real life, a suppressor takes some sound away, but it’s not like the movies, there’s still a pretty good pop. You mentioned a Ruger earlier because the slugs and caliber would be good for one, a .22 perhaps. I’ve been told those can be pretty quiet. If this guy used something like that, that suggests planning, sophistication, and experience. Now, if this were your simple robbery, would the asshole you’re looking for be engaging in that kind of advance planning?”
“Well, we’re asking around,” Coolidge answered halfheartedly but then shook his head. “But I wouldn’t disagree with you.”
“And you won’t find anyone, because of my third reason.”
“Which is?”
Mac walked to Coolidge, holding up the last photo. “Look at the pattern of shots in the photos. Kane was shot four times, three sprayed randomly in his chest and one right in the center of his forehead. Weatherly has four random to his chest—two in his left shoulder, one just left of center mass, another in his right arm—and then one perfectly in the middle of his forehead, almost identical placement to Kane.”
“What are you saying?”
“The first two shots taken were the one to Kane’s head and then the one to Weatherly’s. The other seven are window dressing, Linc, for show, hoping an overworked police department low on investigative resources with more homicides than it knows what to do with will treat it for what it was intended to look like—a crazy, senseless robbery.” Mac looked over to Coolidge, who was nodding slightly. “But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I, Linc?”
“Not entirely true, Mac,” Coolidge answered, walking over and taking another look at the last photo. “I didn’t pick up on the shot pattern, but I think you’re right. Both of them were shot execution style in the forehead, dead center. The rest of the shots are for show—I think you’re right about that. Good catch.”
“So why did you think execution?” Mac asked.
“Your boy comes into town yesterday and immediately meets up with a guy from the EPA. They sit in the bar and open up a laptop, look at papers, and discuss this stuff for a couple hours. Then they end up dead just minutes later. When I show up, all that shit is missing. Why?”
“The killer wanted it.”
“Or whoever hired them did. If your analysis of the wounds is correct, then a professional took these guys out. It takes a pro to get those two shots in the forehead.”
“I don’t think it was just one killer, either,” Mac suggested.
“Ballistics says all the slugs are from the same gun. Why do you think there are killers, plural?”
“It’s a guess,” Mac answered as he walked to the area that would have been the rear of the car. “Wallets, phones, watches, pulling out pockets, taking luggage, laptops, cleaning out the glove box and center console—that takes time, too much time for one man. That’s too much exposure. One man may have been the shooter, but I’m thinking he had help. Maybe a driver who pulled up once the deed was done and helped grab everything. I could be wrong, but I’d bet the killer had help.”
“You could be right,” Coolidge stated after a moment of thought, looking at one of the photos. “Brutal. Just brutal.”
“They were killed in cold blood, Linc.”
“Yes, they were, Mac. So let me ask you a question. Why?”
Mac shrugged. “I don’t know. I have no clue.”
“Are you sure about that?” Coolidge asked. “I’ve got this double murder, and all of a sudden Washington’s biggest political powerbroker has his police emissary looking into the case. So I gotta ask—what do you know?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. What do you know, Mac?”
“I swear, nothing, Linc. I’ve never met either of these guys. The Judge came to me a few hours ago, and I made the call to you. Before that, I’d never heard of Shane Weatherly or Isador Kane,” Mac replied and then looked over to Coolidge and smirked. “You showed me the crime scene because you thought I might know something, didn’t you?”
Coolidge nodded.
“If I knew something, I’d tell you.”
“Would you, now?” Coolidge asked, skepticism oozing from his voice.
“I’m no shill,” Mac answered, his guard up just a little. “And Dixon is not playing me here. I don’t think he knows anything, unless he’s one hell of an actor, and I have a pretty good read on the Judge. He’s a straight shooter.”
“He’s in politics. He’s the epitome of politics. Politicians don’t shoot straight.”
“True that, but on something like this?” Mac shook his head. “He wouldn’t bullshit me—he didn’t bullshit me. If he did, he’d know we were done. His emotion was real. However, I take it from our discussion here that the trail to your shooter is pretty cold.”
“Frigid,” Coolidge replied. “We’re nearly forty-eight hours out, and I’ve got nothing on my killer or killers. No witnesses, nothing. The shooter did the deed, got what he wanted, and escaped sight unseen. The bodies weren’t found for another six to seven hours, so he—or if you’re right, they—may well be long gone by now.”
“I’d say that was likely,” Mac answered.
“This means, if I’m ever to find out who the killer is or who hired the killer, I’ve got to work the investigation through the victims.” Coolidge changed gears. “You’re not going to be looking over my shoulder on this one, are you?”
Mac shook his head. “Nah, this job is hard enough without someone riding shotgun on your ass. Besides, I’m out of here tomorrow for a long weekend back home. But it’s kind of an interesting case, so if you don’t mind, I might check in with you from time to time for an update.”
“I figured you might.”
“And with your blessing, Linc, I’d like to tell Dixon what I’ve learned here tonight. He’ll get it out of me anyway, and he could probably quietly arrange for access to some federal resources if you needed them for any reason.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. And if, upon learning what happened, the good Judge were to learn something and confide in you …”
“You’ll be the first person I call.”
“Right,” Coolidge replied and then, with a tinge of sarcasm, added, “Because you’re not a shill.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Meredith.”
St. Paul.
Meredith Hilary motored east along Ford Parkway through the intersection with Cleveland Avenue and turned her Mercedes right into the parking lot of the two-story office complex and searched for a parking place during the busy noon hour. She finally found a spot and slipped into the tight parking slot, shut off the engine, exhaled, and steeled herself for what she was about to hear. Five minutes later, she was admitted to the office of Private Investigator John Biggs.
It was not Meredith’s first brush with Biggs. Four years
ago, Meredith’s first husband hired Biggs to follow her. Biggs caught her having an affair with her then boss and current husband. Now, four years later, she had the same suspicions about her husband once again having a wandering eye. Biggs was quite familiar with J. Frederick Sterling. He was the natural choice to see if he was once again straying.
As she sat herself down in the guest chair in front of Biggs’s desk, she saw the brown expandable folder with Sterling written on the white label. Her answers were inside, and she pretty much knew what the answers were.
“So, Mr. Biggs, what have you found?”
Biggs sat forward in his chair, his elbows on the desk, has hands clasped in front of him. “That your suspicions were well founded.”
“And is the affair with his client, Ms. Gentry?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure?”
“Quite sure,” Biggs replied. “I have photographs, and I have video. In fact, I have video from two nights ago in a hotel room in Bismarck.”
“Can I see the evidence?”
“You sure you want to?”
Meredith nodded.
Biggs turned his computer monitor towards her chair, pulled up a series of files, and clicked on the first one. Fifteen minutes later, Meredith had seen her husband kissing Gentry in his rental car and then the two of them having sex in his hotel room. How Biggs managed to essentially get inside the hotel room and get the footage, she did not know, or maybe even care to know, but he had the goods on her husband. Meredith watched as the woman writhed on top of her husband, and she watched as he then rolled Callie Gentry over and made love to that woman just the way he used to make love to her. It was shocking to see and hard to watch, and the anger slowly boiled inside her. Even worse, there were pictures of Frederick taking her to their house out on Lake Minnetonka. He was using their lake house for the affair. Meredith bitterly shook her head. Her husband was doing the same things now that he did with her four years ago.
Frederick was as caught as any man could be. She’d just witnessed the naked truth and, when being completely honest with herself, she wasn’t surprised. The signs had been there for awhile now, both that he may have been straying on a wife once again and that their marriage was not what she thought it would be. She scolded herself for thinking she could be the one to tame him. J. Frederick Sterling wasn’t a man who could be tamed.
“So what are you going to do?” Biggs asked.
“I’d like to kill him” was her initial response. After a moment of thought, she realized, “I have to think long and hard about that. It’s complicated.”
She had ideas of what she was going to do, but she needed to think things through, because if she divorced him, there were ramifications not only on her marriage but also on her professional life. They were both lawyers in the same prominent law firm, and Frederick was the firm’s biggest rainmaker. The firm would have his back, not hers. So how she handled the divorce would impact the future of her legal career. It could also impact her husband’s legal future. There were ethical rules in play—lawyers aren’t supposed to be sleeping with their clients. As for her financial future, that was a question tied into how she handled the affair. There were certain contractual rights, and then the pictures and video provided leverage to extract more.
“Do you and your husband have a pre-nup?”
Meredith nodded. “Yes.”
“And?”
“I get two million if we divorce within five years. If the marriage makes it beyond five years, there is another two million.”
Biggs nodded. “Well, as I recall, that’s more than his last wife got.”
“That’s true, but it’s still significantly less than half.”
“I don’t suppose you negotiated an infidelity clause?”
Meredith closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. She didn’t think she would need it, would need any of this. She was Meredith Hilary—smart, beautiful, his partner in law and life. Why would she need an infidelity clause?
How foolish.
• • •
Washington, DC.
Mac buckled himself into his plush-leather window seat in the staff seating section of Air Force One. Sally casually took her seat next to him, buckled in, and smiled as she watched Mac gaze around the spacious plane with the wide-eyed wonder of a little boy. She’d taken dozens of trips on the plane in her ten months working in the White House. It was old hat for her, so it was fun to see the excitement on his face and the shaking of his head as he looked around, not quite believing he was experiencing what he was experiencing. It reminded her of the first time Mac came to the West Wing and saw the Oval Office and, even better, the first time they went over to the president’s residence, and President Thomson served Mac drinks. Sally’s man couldn’t stand politics and all the “dicking around” politicians engaged in to accomplish absolutely nothing, but he understood and appreciated history enough to soak in the experiences, such as taking his first ride on Air Force One.
As Washington disappeared from view and the plane reached cruising altitude, Mac snorted a laugh.
“What?” Sally asked, leaning over to look out the window with him, slipping her right arm up around his broad, muscular shoulders.
“Cool … just … really cool,” Mac said, turning to face her, a big grin on his face. “This is another one off the bucket list. Heck, this one was never on it. Never could have imagined it.”
“Stick with me—I’ll take you more places you never thought possible,” Sally teased and then leaned in. “I know people now.”
“Do you ever,” Mac answered, squeezing her hand. “What are you going to do for an encore?”
Sally shrugged and sat back, laughing. “I don’t know. What do you want?”
Mac thought for a moment. “I don’t suppose you know anyone who could get me on Augusta National?”
“She doesn’t, but I do,” the Judge stated as he strode over to their seating area, twirling his trademark cigar in his fingers. “Sally, do you mind if I steal Mac for a while?”
“No problem, Judge,” she answered, reaching down into her shoulder bag and pulling out her cell phone. “I’m sure there is some work for you I could be doing.”
“Good. While you’re doing that, I’ll give him the real tour,” the Judge said with a wink and a sly smile, waving for Mac to follow, and then murmured just loud enough for her to hear, “I can access some places she can’t.”
“No fair.”
The Judge indeed took him on a full tour of the entire plane, finishing with a walk up to the president’s suite in the nose of the plane, where he was warmly greeted by the president and the First Lady. Then he took Mac up to the cockpit, where he met the pilots and checked out the view. Mac realized he was getting the tour usually reserved for National Geographic or 60 Minutes if they were interviewing the president or reporting about Air Force One. The tour ended in the president’s office, which sat just behind the cockpit. The office contained a small desk with a flat screen on one wall, with the Presidential Seal embellished on the wall behind the desk. Two leather chairs sat in front of the desk.
“Is it okay for us to be in here, Judge?” Mac asked, uncertain.
The Judge nodded. “I have certain privileges around here.” He waved to the leather chairs in front of the desk. He was using the president’s office, but even Judge Dixon wasn’t brazen enough to actually sit behind the desk. “Tell me.”
Mac spent a half hour laying out what he’d learned.
“Executed?” the Judge exclaimed, shocked, his mouth agape. “You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?”
“Am I absolutely, one hundred percent, no chance it’s anything else sure?” Mac shook his head, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looking the Judge in the eye, “No, Judge, but if you want my professional opinion, it sure looks like it to me. Coolidge thinks so as well and is investigating on that basis. The question, Judge, is why?”
The Judge sat back in his chair, st
unned. “He’s a scientist. He’s probably never even harmed a fly because of its trickle-down effect on the ecosystem. Why would anyone want to kill him?”
“If he was executed, there was a reason beyond a couple credit cards, a watch, and a cell phone. He had a laptop and some papers he showed Kane. Those papers and the laptop were gone.”
“Any idea what the papers were about?”
Mac shook his head. “Does Shane’s dad know who he was working for?”
“I asked, but he didn’t know.”
“How hard did you ask?”
“Pretty hard. I pushed him again the other night, knowing you were going to look into this. He spoke to Shane a few times a week, staying in touch, but Thomas didn’t really know what he was working on. Has Coolidge found anything?”
“Two things, but who knows if they’re related. He’s determined that Shane flew into town from Minneapolis, but he actually started with a flight from Bismarck that day, so I presume he was working up in North Dakota—but again, we don’t know that for sure. Second, he recently deposited twenty thousand dollars into his bank account from a company or entity called Soutex Solutions.”
“And who is Soutex … Solutions?”
“I don’t know,” Mac answered, shaking his head. “Coolidge is looking into it, but for now the trail stops at a post office box in New Orleans.”
The Judge steepled his fingers under his chin, deep in thought. After a moment, he said, “I assume he is still looking into that?”
“I presume so,” Mac replied. “If Weatherly and Kane were executed, they were killed by a pro. The pro is probably long gone by now.”
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