Blood Silence

by Roger Stelljes

  Mac shook his head. “You’re both so certain of your case, so certain that you have this ironclad read on Meredith, that you won’t even ask the obvious question. Why would someone want Meredith dead? You won’t even entertain the question, and that is just reckless,” he asserted. He and Lyman pushed themselves up to leave. Mac stopped at the door. “Eventually, you won’t be able to duck that obvious question. And in the meantime, her life remains at risk. I know what I was dealing with last night, even if you don’t. That was a killer who was in her house that I was chasing. They’re not going to stop until the job is done. If something does happen to her, you better think about how you’re going to explain that away. Because I guarantee you, should that happen, I will have plenty to say, and I’m pretty confident I’ll draw a big crowd when I talk.”

  “We have our view of the case, and you have yours,” Johnson replied.

  “Good luck with that,” Mac retorted. “I’m betting our explanation will play a lot better than yours.”

  Mac and Lyman departed Johnson’s office. “It was worth a shot,” Lyman mused as they waited for the elevator.

  “Please tell me you’re going to eat those two for lunch if and when this thing goes to trial,” Mac stated.

  “Maybe,” Lyman replied with some modesty. “I didn’t play all my cards. I didn’t talk about what we found at the lake house, because I didn’t think they’d go for dropping the charges. Not this soon.”

  “So this was an opening gambit?”

  Lyman nodded. “This will not be the last dance on this topic. Let’s see what you find in that safe. Let’s see what the investigation of the break-in leads to. We’re barely a week into this thing, and we’ve made some progress. Today was about planting a seed of doubt.”

  “I don’t think much of Johnson or Goodman, I can tell you that much.”

  Lyman shrugged but then cautioned, “You’re not impressed with them, but let me tell you something. Candace Johnson is not just a politician; she’s also a damn good lawyer, and Goodman has won his fair share of cases. They are not real dynamic and tend to paint by the numbers, but they’ll do a very credible job with the case they have. And you know what, they’re not wrong. We haven’t yet credibly attacked motive, means, or opportunity. We put on an interesting show this morning, but that was all. There’s knowing, and then there’s proving. We’re really long on the former and really short on the latter. I need proof, Mac, and we don’t have much, at least yet.”

  “Then I better get you some,” Mac answered. “And that starts with getting that safe open. But one other thing, Lyman.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Watch your back,” Mac quietly warned. “The man I chased last night was a pro, no doubt about it. I’m lucky, and Meredith sure as heck is lucky.”

  “How so?”

  “Lyman, they went for Meredith the minute she was out of her parents’ house and exposed. The only way they knew she was there is they were watching and following her. If I hadn’t called her last night when I did, she’d be dead. I woke her up with that call. Whoever is behind this is watching. So grow a pair of eyes in the back of your head. Set the security on your house, have security escort you to your car, and if you see something you don’t like in your rearview mirror, you call me.”

  “You don’t think last night scared them away?”

  “They’ll take a step back,” Mac replied but then warned, “but not for long. Whoever this is and whatever it is about, they’re all in. They’ll be back.”

  “Then you need to watch your own back, son,” Lyman suggested. “Because if you weren’t on their radar before last night …”

  “I am now.”

  • • •

  Clint breathed a small sigh of relief as he crossed the border into North Dakota on I-94. They were only crossing the Red River and a dotted line on the map, but it still felt as if they were leaving danger behind and heading for the freedom and safety of the plains.

  He looked to his right at Royce, who was snoozing in the passenger seat, his cowboy hat askew as he leaned his head against his jacket, which was rolled and wedged between him and the passenger door window. All was calm now, but seven hours ago it was very hairy as they escaped Meredith Hilary’s house and the man who gave chase.

  For the last two hours as he drove, he kept running the events at Hilary’s house through his mind, mystified as to how the mission went awry. They thought they’d caught a big break when she went home, totally exposed without any protection. At her parents’ house, there were too many people around, neighbors were too close, and there was a consistent hum of traffic, not to mention an Edina police cruiser that made its presence known. But when she went home and was all alone in a large house surrounded by mature trees and other large homes, three of which were not occupied that night, they had their chance. The house had been reconnoitered a few weeks earlier when their bosses became concerned about Sterling and Gentry, so they already had a good preconceived plan in place if they had to go in.

  It should have worked.

  He cut the power two hours after she turned the lights off in her upstairs bedroom. The entry into the house was pure stealth, with just a little creak as the door into the house from the garage opened. There was no way that in and of itself woke her. As he worked his way through the house and up to the second floor, he was cat quiet, light on his feet, and stealthy as he’d always been. But some way, somehow, she heard him coming, and with enough time to stuff the pillows in the bed and then call 9-1-1. When he yanked the comforter off the bed, he knew she was close, likely in the closet, but with the police rolling up on the scene, he couldn’t take the time to finish the job. Which was another thing gnawing at him—how did the police make it to the house so fast? The police were on the scene quickly—too quickly, he thought, and the man who chased him down the alley was no amateur. He was a cop, plainclothes of some kind, and he clearly had no compunction about throwing down.

  It was a close call, maybe their closest ever. Even during all the years they were working for the drug cartel, nobody ever got that close to them. When they did a job, they were long gone by the time their work was discovered.

  Not this time.

  They were fortunate to have escaped.

  After slipping out of the immediate area of Meredith Hilary’s mansion, they quickly dumped the Suburban just north of downtown Minneapolis, split up, and each hailed separate cabs back to the Embassy Suites hotel in Bloomington. They grabbed their bags and took the light-rail train over to the Mall of America, where Clint’s silver Chevy Silverado pickup with Texas plates was parked in the east ramp.

  Now, hours later, as he motored west on I-94, the last vestiges of Fargo barely visible in his rearview mirror and the sun beginning to rise in the east, his partner started stirring in the passenger seat. “Where are we?” Royce asked through a yawn, scanning the flat and barren countryside.

  “We’re west of Fargo a fair piece.”

  Royce pushed himself upright in the seat and rubbed his face, trying to bring himself awake. “We should think about stopping for some breakfast.”

  “We’ll be in Valley City in a bit. We could stop there.”

  “That works,” Royce answered, running his hand through his thick hair and then putting his cowboy hat back on. “Has there been any word from the boss?”

  “Not since last night, when he told us to get out of the Twin Cities. I don’t think we can go back there, not for a while at least.”

  “No,” Royce shook his head, more the brains of their two-man operation. “We can’t. I felt like we were pushing it as it was, and now, we’re too hot,” he added as he started working his phone. “I don’t need another close call like that for awhile.”

  “Amen, brother,” Clint responded and adjusted in his seat, his back barking at him a bit. He noticed Royce on his phone. “What are you looking for?”

  “I wanted to read the news reports of last night’s events in the Twin Cities.”
<
br />   It took Royce a half hour of scrolling through the websites for the Twin Cities’ papers and local television stations until he found something. “Channel six has it. They have someone inside the Minneapolis Police Department. They’re reporting it was that Mac McRyan dude who was chasing after us.” Royce twirled the edge of his mustache. “Too bad I missed.”

  “Indeed, it could have eliminated a big problem.”

  “Instead, he may continue to be one,” Royce said.

  “Nah,” Clint replied casually. “We’re not going back down there, and he sure as hell won’t be coming out here.”

  Royce pursed his lips, working it through his mind. “The thing that I don’t get is, how was it McRyan first on the scene. He beat the police. What’s he doing, out driving on Sunday within blocks of his ex-wife’s house?”

  Clint shook his head. “I thought he’d left town. We followed him to the airport Saturday morning.”

  “Yet he was back, and then he’s at the house. Why?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  Royce was always the smarter of the two, and he didn’t believe in luck. He believed in precision, planning, and getting well paid for exercising his and his partner’s particular skill set. “It wasn’t luck or fortune that he was there. He was in that area for a reason. Something else is going on.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll have to discuss it with Speedy. As for McRyan, I think you’re wrong, partner.”

  “How so?”

  “We’ll be seeing that hombre again.”

  • • •

  Lou Hacker the Safe Cracker showed up at 9:30 A.M.

  “Meredith, everyone, this is my safe cracker,” Mac said, introducing Hacker.

  “Mr. McRyan, I prefer to call myself a highly skilled vault technician,” Hacker counseled with a wry smile. “Hacking is such a crude term.”

  “Yet your business name is what it is,” Mac retorted.

  “It provides for good alliteration.”

  “Are you one of those guys who tests vaults?” Meredith asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hacker answered as he began evaluating the safe in the floor. “Since I’m not doing this for speed, it should take about fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “Have at it,” Mac suggested. Meredith led him back down to the kitchen. Ann, Edmund, and Uncle Teddy were there as well, watching over Meredith. She better get used to being smothered, Mac thought. Because after the safe business was complete, Meredith was going back to her parents’ place. “I hired security,” Ann reported. “We’ll have around-the-clock guards for the time being.”

  “She isn’t going anywhere without them,” Edmund added and looked at his daughter. “And that’s nonnegotiable.”

  “Damn straight,” Archer added. “Your ass is on lockdown, girl.”

  “Greeeeaaaat,” Meredith answered, looking at Mac, shaking her head.

  Mac hid a smile as he surfed his phone and then chuckled.

  “What?” Meredith asked.

  “Lich,” Mac responded. “He just read the news accounts and has a few colorful texts. As do Riles and Rock. You can always count on those smart alecks.”

  “How about Sally?” Meredith asked.

  “I haven’t talked about this with her yet.”

  “I suggest you do,” Meredith cautioned.

  “Wait a second. Are you really giving me relationship advice?” Mac replied, bemused.

  “I know, consider the source,” she replied. “But still, don’t let her hear about it from somewhere else first. She’ll be pissed.”

  Mac shook his head, a bewildered smile on his face. “I feel like I’m in The Twilight Zone, my ex-wife giving me advice about my fiancée. I must need sleep.”

  “She’s right, Mac,” Ann cautioned. “Call Sally.”

  Mac turned to Ann. “You too, huh?”

  Ann nodded.

  “Okay, okay.”

  Mac did as ordered. He could hear the nervousness on the other end of the phone, but he’d managed to stifle any huge blowup, plus he had a trump card. “After all, Sally, this was your idea. I was perfectly willing to say no.”

  “Don’t remind me,” she answered with a sigh. “But you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just thought I should call you before you heard about this.”

  “You didn’t think that.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “No,” Sally answered knowingly. “You’d never do that. You always hope I don’t find out, which is dumb, because I always do. No, Mac, this is something a woman would tell you to do. Since Wire isn’t there to counsel you, I’m betting on either Meredith or Ann Hilary. So which one was it?”

  “Both.”

  “See,” Sally answered with a laugh then settled into her business tone again. “This is becoming much more than it seemed, isn’t it?”

  Mac nodded. “Yes, there is a lot more than Meredith to this. Somebody’s very worried about something, and whatever it is, it’s important enough to kill for.”

  “Maybe you’ll get answers from the safe once it’s open.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Listen, Mac. Watch your tail, and take precautions,” Sally warned.

  “Precaution number one is in my back waistline. Precaution number two is on the inside of my left ankle, and number three is in the truck. I have extra magazines for all in my jacket and the truck. I’m taking no chances. I’m well armed.”

  “Okay, good. Do you want some good news?”

  “I could use some.”

  “Last night, after you left, a friend of mine here at the White House e-mailed me a link to the website for the Davidson Estate.”

  He smiled. “This is a wedding venue, I take it?”

  “Yes,” Sally replied excitedly. “It’s on the Chesapeake Bay, just south of Annapolis. It looks absolutely gorgeous. My friend, she has super good taste, and she went there for a wedding a month ago, and she says it’s amazing. She said there were about two hundred people, and the place was perfect.”

  “So an East Coast wedding?” Mac asked.

  “I was thinking … I like the smaller venue, smaller gathering, and there is one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Out here is a fresh—”

  “Start,” Mac finished.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”

  “So tell me about it.”

  “I’ve only seen pictures so far, but it overlooks the bay. There is this wonderfully quaint old reception hall with large windows and French doors that open out onto a flagstone patio surrounded by these amazing-looking gardens, and there is a perfect area for the wedding stage and the Chesapeake is in the background. I can just imagine the wedding pictures.”

  “I bet you can,” Mac joked, which drew a laugh on the other end of the line.

  “And there is something I know you’ll love.”

  “Which is?”

  “There are these cozy cabins on the far end of the property that overlook the water, that the wedding party and families could stay in.”

  “It sounds interesting.”

  “It looks just spectacular.”

  They’d spent time looking at a few venues, and while there had been some nice ones, none seemed to really move them, to say this was the place. Now, Sally was clearly moved. “Sounds like you like it.”

  “I have to see it, but I think—”

  “C’mon, you’re going to love it. You know, it might be just right for a spring wedding.”

  “It’s funny you should say that,” Sally replied, and Mac thought, Here it comes. “They just so happen to have two weekends open, one in late April, and another couple just cancelled in mid-May.”

  “Then I think you should go look at it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you’re not here.”

  “Like that matters,” Mac replied. This was always going to be her call.

  “Come on, you kno
w that’s not true.”

  It was true, but he wasn’t going to argue. Mac knew that if this was what she really wanted, this would be the place, and as a smart, evolved male, he would agree to it. “Look, trust me, I wish I were there, but don’t worry about that. I trust you, and when it comes to stuff like this, we’re usually of like mind.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So if you really like the place and you like those dates, then don’t hesitate—grab it.”

  He could hear her excitement. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, because I already tentatively reserved the weekend of May 15.”

  “Wow!” Mac laughed. Sally could be wonderfully impulsive. When she liked something, she did not hesitate—she pulled the trigger. “So we’re going to do this?”

  “Yes. May 15. I’m going to want this place, and you know what—I think you’re going to love it, too.”

  Of course he would. Only an idiot would disagree with his fiancée on this decision. “That’s good enough for me.”

  They talked for another minute, and she promised to call back later in the day after she’d had a chance to go check the place out. He walked back into the kitchen, and his mood was lightened. It must have been noticeable.

  “That call must have gone well,” Ann Hilary said.

  “Yeah, it did.” He wanted to tell someone the date, but he didn’t think his ex-wife or his former in-laws should be the first to hear.

  Hacker stepped into the kitchen. “The safe is open.”

  They all rushed up to the office. Mac opened his backpack and took out his camera and slipped on rubber gloves.

  “Is that necessary?” Meredith asked.

  “Old habits die hard,” Mac answered as he opened the safe door. Inside were four red-rope files, which he pulled out. One thin file was labeled Life Insurance/Will, and he handed that file to Meredith. Another file was labeled Yellow Fields and Borman Industries. Meredith explained that those were cases from years ago that were sensitive for one reason or another. The fourth red-rope simply had Gentry written on the label. “Let’s see what’s in here,” Mac muttered as he placed it on the desk.