First Deadly Conspiracy Box Set

by Roger Stelljes

  “Wait a second,” the deputy said, his hand on Shannon’s wrist and his eyes on his watch, “I think we’re getting a little better here.”

  Hisle’s eyes fluttered and her breathing regulated. Mac kneeled down and put his right hand to her face. “That’s it, Shannon, come back to us.”

  “W… w… water,” she said weakly. A deputy quickly handed down a bottle, and Mac put it to her lips, letting her take some small sips.

  Mac looked up. Lich smiled broadly as the sound of a chopper rose in the distance. The sheriff moved away and shot up a flare. Within a minute, the helicopter was touching down, the whoosh of the blades matting down the tall grass. The ER doc, in his hospital blues, was out of the chopper and on Shannon in an instant, checking her eyes and pulse. McRyan gave him the status report.

  “You gave her insulin?” the doc asked.

  “Her glucose was high,” Mac answered. “So she needed insulin. We gave her ten units.”

  “Good,” the doctor answered as he checked Shannon’s glucose again. “The ten units looks like it was a good start.” He reached into his own box of supplies and pulled out another bottle of insulin and administered another ten units. He then set up an IV. The paramedics put her on a stretcher and transported her over to the chopper. The doctor stood up and came to Carrie, “How are you doing, young lady?”

  “I think better,” Mac answered when the young woman said nothing. “She seems okay, physically at least.” They all knew that her injuries would be psychological.

  The doctor looked Carrie in the eye and said, “How about you come with us, okay?”

  Carrie looked at Mac, who smiled and nodded. “You go. I’ll see you at the hospital later.”

  • • • • •

  Gail Carlson sat on the county road, a quarter mile away from the farmhouse. It had been nearly a half hour since the police went up to the house. She’d driven down the road a little further, inching closer, but neither the Suburbans nor McRyan’s Explorer were around the farmhouse now. She heard it first, and then saw a North Memorial helicopter, flying low and fast from the south and passing right over the farmhouse. It passed out of her sight, but almost immediately the sound of its rotors changed to one she knew from experience meant that it was landing. Carlson figured it meant one thing. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Heather Foxx.

  “I think McRyan might have found the girls.”

  “Where?”

  Carlson related her current position in Marine on St. Croix. “So where are you at right now?”

  “Following two other cops. We just pulled up to the Taste of Minnesota. The cops are all over a bus that Flanagan and Hisle jumped onto.”

  “So do you want to go with the story? That they found the girls?”

  Foxx heard the question, but was looking at Pat Riley and Bobby Rockford racing back to the pickup and blowing out of the parking lot, siren blaring. Something was amiss. “Not yet Gail. Something’s not right here.”

  • • • • •

  Lich smiled around a fresh cigar in his mouth as he handed one to Mac. “Goddamn it Mac, we found them. Man did you pull a rabbit out of the hat with this one!”

  Mac smiled, reaching out to take the cigar, but he paused when he saw the time on his watch. “We’re not quite done yet, my friend,” he said. “Six twenty-one: they should be at the Taste of Minnesota any minute.”

  Mac’s cell phone chirped. It was Riley. “Do you have the chief? What? Wait. Slow down. Say that again. How in the hell can that happen?”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Lich asked, his smile gone.

  Mac looked at him with a stunned expression. “The chief and Lyman weren’t on the bus.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “So we play dumb for now?”

  Smith followed well back of the minivan driven by Flanagan and Hisle on Shepard Road. The street ducked under the Robert Street Bridge and became Warner Road, with the Mississippi River running parallel on the immediate right. Smith, as well as Flanagan and Hisle, were free and clear of the FBI and police.

  As Hisle and Flanagan had waited with the crowd at the bus stop, there was virtually no way for anyone following them to see them as the bus pulled up. Smith and Monica had scouted the location for a month, watching from various positions and angles, anticipating what the police would do. They had discussed contingencies with Burton and ways that he could control the situation from his end.

  The Fourth of July holiday was the key. The arena, convention center, and the skyway that connected the arena to the parking garage would have provided surveillance stations on a normal day. But the skyway and the convention center were closed for the holiday. The only unobstructed view of the bus stop was at the Holiday Inn, where Monica had in fact been watching a white pickup truck parked in the left hand turn lane on West Seventh. The pickup had to be the cops, sitting pat in the turn lane with the hazard lights on through several green lights. Of course, the passenger using binoculars was a dead giveaway as well. Had the truck turned left at just the right time, maybe, just maybe, the police would have seen Flanagan and Hisle slip back ten feet and down into the RiverCentre ramp while everyone else climbed onto the bus.

  Once Flanagan and Hisle were inside the parking ramp, they went down one level to a waiting blue minivan. One minute later, while the police were tailing the bus, the police chief and the lawyer were exiting onto Eagle Street, far below Kellogg Avenue and the bus stop.

  When they exited the ramp, Smith, and only Smith, was waiting on the side of southbound Eagle. He watched Hisle and Flanagan approach in his rearview mirror. A dashboard camera in the minivan provided David, who was waiting on the boat, with a live video feed of Hisle and Flanagan as they drove the van. David in turn provided updates to Smith as he followed. The police scanner sat in his passenger seat. It had been quiet, with no sign that the police had yet realized they’d lost them. That wouldn’t last long.

  Smith picked up the handheld radio and spoke to the van. “You’re doing well, Chief,” Smith said. “Stay on Warner until we get to 10.”

  “Who are you?” Flanagan asked a few minutes later, as the van approached the intersection with County 10. “Tell me who the hell you are!”

  “I can’t do that yet, Chief,” Smith answered calmly, two hundred yards behind the van. “When I’m satisfied, then we’ll talk about the girls.”

  “We’ll talk?” Flanagan growled with angst in his voice. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Patience, Chief. I want to see you as much as you want to see me,” Smith answered. He savored the thought of finally confronting Flanagan, of finally feeling the satisfaction for which he’d waited for years. But there was business to attend to first. “Turn left on 10. We’re going to Burns Park. There’s a red van waiting for you in the parking lot, and the key for it is in the glove box.”

  The two men did as instructed. Smith pulled past them, driving another five hundred yards before making a U-turn.

  He wanted this last change of vehicles. The police would go back to the parking ramp soon enough, and surveillance footage would give them the blue minivan and the plate number. Changing into the red van would put them in the wind.

  • • • • •

  “Mother fucker,” Flanagan said bitterly as he tossed the handheld radio onto the dashboard.

  “We know who they are, or at least who this Brown is. You arrested him all those years ago,” Lyman said from the passenger seat. “Why not just tell them? Why not just talk to them like that?”

  “Because then they’ll know we’re onto them, that we know who they are,” the chief replied. “If we do that, they might assume we know where they are, that we’re closing in. If we do that, they could kill the girls.”

  “So we play dumb for now?”

  “We give my boys as much time as possible.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “I know you found the girls.”

  “What the hell happened?” Mac asked, still sitting in
his Explorer outside the woods.

  “Sleight of hand,” Riles explained. “They picked a good spot. We didn’t, hell, couldn’t have an eyeball on them, believe me.” Pat sighed, and Mac could hear the frustration in his voice. “They just picked a good spot. We thought they were on the bus. It’s ten minutes, and the bus gets over to the Taste of Minnesota. It had one stop just before it went over the river on the Robert Street Bridge and nobody got off, only on. Then when it got to the Taste of Minnesota and emptied, the chief and Hisle weren’t there. They never got on that damn bus in the first place.”

  Mac closed his eyes. Such a simple thing—never having them get on the bus. It was brilliant, really.

  “Where are you now?”

  “We’re driving hack to HQ. We have a surveillance video from the garage attendant that we’ll have the techs take a closer look at.”

  “What do you see on it?”

  “The chief and Lyman leaving in a blue Dodge Sport minivan about a minute after the bus pulled away from the bus stop. We’ve got a plate and a broadcast out. We’re pulling over any and all blue Dodge Sport minivans. Nothing as of yet, but we’re pulling everything over.”

  Mac pinched the bridge of his nose. They had made a trade. They had the girls, but the chief and Lyman were out of reach. While they had a plate for the van, the window of time to find the chief and Hisle before they changed vehicles would be small, if not already closed. “Pat, Brown and the Muellers had to know you’d be tailing the bus, and that when the chief and Lyman weren’t on it, that you would double back to the bus stop. They have to know the surveillance footage from the parking ramp will give you the plate for the van.”

  “They’ll be ready, won’t they,” Riles said. It was an answer, not a question.

  “They’ve been ready for everything else,” Mac answered. “There’ll be a switch at some out-of-the-way place. I’ll bet a month’s pay you’ll find it abandoned somewhere.”

  Riles sighed and then said, “No bet.”

  Then there was the mole. Mac hadn’t spent much time thinking about that for the past couple of hours. But now they needed to pursue that angle full-bore, and they had little to go on.

  “Who’s the mole?” Mac asked.

  “Hell if I know. You have any theories on who it might be?” Riles fired back. “I mean, beyond someone in the department with a connection to Brown or the Muellers?”

  “How about the FBI? How about Duffy?” Mac asked, already grasping at straws.

  “Or the mayor,” Lich added. “I wouldn’t put anything past him. Not the way he’s operated the last couple of days.”

  “No way,” Riles answered. “I know Duffy and the chief don’t exchange Christmas cards, but I find it hard to believe he would do this. What’s the upside in that? And the mayor isn’t smart enough to pull this off. And besides, what evidence do we have?”

  “Nothing, other than they were both around yesterday when the call from Stewart Avenue came in,” Mac answered.

  “As were thirty or forty other people. What? Are we going to haul them all in?” Riles said skeptically.

  “You have any better ideas?”

  Riles got quiet on the other end. “I don’t. I gotta talk to Peters about it. What are you doing?”

  “We’re lying in wait out here for now,” Mac answered. “Who knows, Brown and the Muellers could show. Where’s Peters?”

  “He’s already back at HQ with Burton and his crew, working the broadcast on the van. It’s the only lead we got.”

  “Get back there and talk to Peters, see what he thinks. The clock is ticking, and we need to make a move.” Mac hung up, but his phone beeped at him. Sally.

  • • • • •

  Heather Foxx trailed Rockford and Riley for two hours. She had watched as Riley, Rockford, Peters, and the FBI taped up the parking garage as a crime scene, everyone tight-lipped and grim. Now they seemed to be heading back to police headquarters. It certainly looked like they’d lost Hisle and Flanagan. She thought about the call from Carlson. The medical chopper was in and out fast, but she still had no confirmation that the girls had been found. The police weren’t talking about it at all. Gail Carlson was the only media on the scene at North Memorial, which was in lockdown mode. None of the stations had that story yet.

  If the girls had been found, it didn’t seem to make anyone happy. It was as if McRyan wasn’t letting everyone, or anyone for that matter, in on the rescue. She doubted he’d be keeping that from Riley and Rockford. Those two were McRyan’s guys, along with Lich. But then why was McRyan driving from St. Paul, to Osseo, to Wyoming and now Marine on St. Croix? Perhaps the kidnappers called in the location of the girls. But if that were the case, she probably would have heard something. It was time to find out what the hell was going on.

  “I’ll be back,” she told the cameraman as they parked two rows behind Rockford’s truck in the police parking lot.

  “You don’t want me to come with?”

  “No, and don’t shoot anything either. This will be off the record.”

  Heather hopped out of the car and walked toward Riley and Rockford. She’d never really spoken to the veteran detectives, other than to say hello. As she approached, Riley was pacing back and forth, talking on a cell phone and Rockford was leaning against the truck. Rock saw Heather first, said something to Riley who turned around. She caught his eye as he hung up the phone. It was time to take a chance.

  “I know you found the girls,” she blurted.

  Riley and Rock tried to remain neutral, but Rock twitched, just enough to tell Heather she was right. “I know you found them, detectives,” she said. No notepad, no camera, just her making a statement. “I had someone monitoring the police bands up around Forest Lake and heard about the call at Hanburg’s Hardware. I’ve had a reporter following McRyan since. She saw a medical chopper come in over some farm up by Marine on St. Croix. It wasn’t there long, and McRyan was running around with Washington County sheriff’s deputies.”

  “Heather, you’re right, but you can’t report that right now,” Riles pleaded. “Hell, only a few of us know about it. Not even the FBI knows yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Riley ignored the question. “How long you been watching us?”

  “Last couple of hours, followed you down to the Taste of Minnesota and then back up here.”

  “So what do you think happened?” Rock asked with an edge.

  “I assume something went awry with the ransom.”

  “Worse,” Riles replied, pausing and then running his hand through his thick back hair. The big detective exhaled. “It’s much worse. The chief and Hisle are missing. They’re out of pocket, and we don’t have a clue as to where they are. If you go with the girls being found, the chief and Lyman are as good as dead.”

  It was Heather’s turn to go silent. There was more than just a story at stake here. She could scoop everyone else. Nobody knew the girls were alive. The story would be huge for her and her career. But if she went with the story, Riley was probably right. Flanagan and Hisle would be dead. She quickly decided to do the right thing, but worked it to her advantage, “I’ll hold it, but…”

  “You want something back in return?”

  “An exclusive with McRyan about how the girls were found.”

  “Done,” Riley answered. He and Rock turned to walk inside.

  That wasn’t a bad deal, the inside story. The networks weren’t going to be getting that. “I had the report of McRyan driving up and around Forest Lake today, so I figured something was up,” Heather said to them as they walked away. “You said the FBI doesn’t know. I figured they did since that Burton guy was up there last night.”

  Riley and Rock both turned around, surprised looks on their faces. “Burton was up in Forest Lake?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah. Last night, after midnight, up at a place called the Ranger. Do you know it?”

  “It’s the local hangout in Forest Lake,” Riley answered, striding back to her. �
��What was Burton doing up there?”

  Heather could tell that something about Burton’s little jaunt was important. “He met up with a man. They talked in a booth for a while and then they both left. I’m not much for surveillance work, as I missed both of them leaving the place.”

  “What did the man Burton met look like?” Riley asked. “Height, weight, age, appearance? What did this fuckin’ man look like?”

  “Forty-five to fifty, I’d guess. Black hair, graying at the temples, big nose, and he wore glasses. I’d say he was maybe five-ten to six feet tall. That’s a guess based on Burton’s height. They sat eye to eye in the booth, so I assume similar height and weight.”

  Riley was suddenly agitated. “Heather, you’re sure?”

  Foxx nodded.

  “Rock, grab the folder out of the truck.”

  • • • • •

  “I have everyone here, running the names of the local FBI agents and Burton’s people through Lyman’s files and the department records,” Sally reported to Mac. She flipped through binder-clipped sheets of paper. “Scheifelbein has been running Brown and Mueller against the personnel records for the department for the last hour or so. We haven’t found anything on anyone except…”

  “Except who? Duffy? The mayor?” Mac asked, his cell phone on speaker so Lich could hear.

  “John Burton.”

  “What?” Mac asked in total disbelief. Lich was on alert as well. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Yes. Burton was stationed out of the local FBI office here in the early nineties,” Sally said, reading from Hagen’s computer screen.

  “What else?”

  “He left in August 1992, went to Washington, and moved to missing persons.”

  “Moved from what?”

  “While he was here, he worked the usual assortment of cases, some missing persons, bank robbery, and drug enforcement.”

  “Drug enforcement?”

  “Yeah, he worked with the DEA, and that’s where the connection comes in. It’s cryptic, but on a couple of occasions Brown’s name shows up with Burton’s on some drug cases. But then Burton transferred back out to DC in August 1992.”