Blood Silence - Thriller (McRyan Mystery Series)

by Roger Stelljes

  “Nothing you could do, Biggsy.”

  “I know, but still.”

  They talked for a few more minutes. Biggs promised to call if he recalled anything that might help.

  It was a little after 7:00 P.M. Mac went back to the refrigerator and took out a Grain Belt Nordeast and plopped himself down on the part of the leather sectional couch that faced his murder wall and stared at it, the lines drawn among the connections, the people, and the elements, and shook his head. There was a lot going on, and Meredith’s role and her case were but a small part of a much larger picture.

  “What the hell is going on here?” he muttered, repeatedly running his eyes over the wall.

  Then he heard the door to the house open and a clatter of heavy footsteps above him, which knowingly made their way to the steps to the basement. Thundering down were Lich, along with two of his best buddies, the mass of humanity that was Detectives Pat Riley and Bobby Rockford. Riles, the far more senior of the two, was Mac’s father’s last partner, and Rockford, as menacing a detective as you could ever find, was more Mac’s contemporary in age. All were great cops and even better friends, not to mention world-class needlers.

  “Did you solve it yet, Hot Shot, or do you need me to do everything for you?” Lich bellowed, punching Mac lightly in the arm.

  Greetings were exchanged while the boys made their way to the bar and fetched whatever they wanted.

  As a group, they stared down the wall.

  “A lot of bodies,” Rock remarked. “A lot of bodies.”

  “All shot in the head,” Riles added.

  “The question is, why?” Lich finished.

  “What the heck have you gotten yourself mixed up in here?” Rock asked Mac and then looked back at the wall. “Because whatever it is, my brotha, it looks bad, and it’s about way more than Meredith.”

  Mac spent an hour walking them all through where he was at in the case, all while they continued to repeatedly raid his bar and beer fridge.

  “Thoughts?” Mac asked.

  “So the Bullers are killed on April 19, correct?” Rock started, following the timeline.

  “Yes,” Mac replied, standing to the side of the murder wall.

  “So that’s what, seven months ago, if my math is right,” Rock said, groaning as he slowly lowered his massive frame down onto the couch. “If these are all connected, and I tend to think they are, then they’re the trigger to this damn thing. What did that family do?”

  Mac shrugged. “Best answer I have right now is something. They did something.”

  “And somehow what they did, or maybe their death, or maybe both, caught the attention of Callie Gentry, because it’s about that time or not long after that she starts poking around up there and hires Sterling, right?”

  “Yes,” Mac answered.

  “So the Bullers get Gentry’s attention, then Sterling’s, and they bring everyone else to the party,” Riles suggested, sitting down next to his partner.

  “I’m not sure that couch can withstand that much weight,” Mac tweaked. “I can already see it buckling under the pressure.”

  “Whatever,” Riles replied with a middle-finger salute. “A more important discussion point other than our increasing weight is that Sterling and Gentry were looking into the same thing you’re now looking into, Mac. They were on to something up there. They got this Weatherly, Murphy, and maybe this Kane involved in it, and they are all dead.”

  “Which tells me,” Rock suggested, “that whoever killed them didn’t just show up. They were following, watching, observing these folks, and when they got too close, took them out.”

  “I talked to Biggs. He didn’t notice anyone following, although he admitted he was focusing on J. Frederick Sterling and Callie Gentry. He had no idea there was a bigger game going on.”

  “That’s probably why he isn’t dead,” Rock answered.

  Lyman descended down the steps.

  “Now it’s a party!” Rock roared. “Maybe now Mac’ll let us drink from the top shelf.”

  “You know where it is,” Mac retorted. “Like I’d deny you, big man. If I did, you’d sit your big, black ass down on me.”

  “Gentlemen, are you all on my payroll now?” Lyman wisecracked.

  “Just helping out our former junior detective,” Riles retorted. “I don’t have to tell you that he still needs seasoning.”

  “What do you have, Mac?” Lyman asked.

  “Connections,” Mac answered as he waved to the wall and quickly explained. “Lots and lots of connections.”

  “To what?”

  “I don’t know. I guess nothing, yet.”

  “Fascinating,” Lyman remarked in his best Spock voice and held up an envelope that he handed to Mac.

  “What’s that?” Mac asked.

  “Our forensics report from the lake house,” Lyman answered as he made his way to the bar and found the Johnnie Walker and poured himself a glass and one for Rock and Riley, who joined him while Mac opened the report and started reading. He was particularly interested in the foot tread on the bumper. It was for a size twelve and for a work boot. The tread wasn’t a match to the one in DC, but there were two men involved, so it could have been the other. The mud in the boat and on the footprint on the trailer was a match to the backyard of the lake house but also contained a small amount of sand containing high-purity quartz typically found in southeastern Minnesota.

  “That’s another link,” Mac muttered, shaking his head.

  “What’s that?” Lyman asked.

  “The sand,” Mac answered as he wrote “sand” on the Connections page and went to his laptop and ran a Google search. He quickly had his answer.

  “Sand? What sand?” Lich asked, walking over.

  “We had that mud from the trailer in Sterling’s garage analyzed,” Mac answered. “It contained sand—high-purity quartz sand. Same thing in Washington, DC—there was sand in the car that Weatherly was killed in. That sand was high-purity quartz sand.” Mac made a few more mouse clicks. “You know what that kind of sand is used for?”

  “What?” Riles asked.

  “Hydraulic fracturing,” Mac answered. “Which is what they’re doing up in North Dakota to get the oil and gas out of the shale. You use this type of sand, mix it with chemicals and water, and inject it into a wellbore down thousands of feet to create cracks in the rock. To do it, you have to have the right kind of sand—this kind of sand.”

  “So you have fracking sand. That narrows it down to every well worker in North Dakota,” Rock stated. “Your suspect list is still in the hundreds of thousands. I mean, you have no idea where to start.”

  “Sure I do,” Mac answered and walked to the North Dakota map on the wall. “Williston. This all started up there. The Bullers were murdered up there. Adam Murphy was murdered up there. Gentry and Sterling spent a lot of time up there. Shane Weatherly was up there. That’s ground zero.”

  “Yeah, but you still don’t know who you’re looking for,” Riles stated. “Well workers with sand residue on their boots—good luck. You could spend weeks trolling the man camps, hotels, and oil and gas fields and not find squat.”

  “You’re looking at this wrong,” Mac answered. “I’m thinking that if I ask the right questions and talk to the right people, they’ll find me.”

  Mac’s answer hung in the air for a minute.

  “Are you nuts?” Rock asked, a look of concern on his face.

  “Certifiable is what he is,” Riles added, shaking his head.

  “Cripes, Mac. In case you haven’t noticed, these guys play for keeps. They get a whiff of you up there, they’re going to …” Lich waved at the murder board. “Shit, we’ll be adding your name up here.”

  “And if I get the scent of them, I can nail their asses.”

  “You hope.” Riles sighed and shook his head. He knew Mac and what he was thinking. “This is very risky, buddy.”

  Mac looked at Lyman. “I want an honest answer. Do we have enough up on this wall
to win at trial?”

  Lyman considered his answer. “I can’t say that for certain. Like I said, knowing is one thing—”

  “Proving is another,” Mac finished the thought. “The prosecution has motive, means, and opportunity. Like you said this morning, we haven’t really countered that yet.”

  The lawyer shook his head. “No. We need something. We need to find a motive for someone else to want to kill Sterling and Gentry. Find the motive to kill all these people, and we go a long way toward showing Meredith was set up. I can make a fancy case about how this is all about something far bigger than Meredith that a jury might buy.”

  “But no guarantee,” Mac answered.

  “No. In fact, I can anticipate the prosecution saying this is all very interesting and fanciful, but in the end, the facts still are that Meredith was seen leaving the scene, her prints are on the murder weapon, and she had motive. All our links and ties and fancy storytelling don’t change those facts.”

  “So I have to go,” Mac answered. “That’s where the evidence leads.”

  “Okay, now hold on,” Lich protested. “You’re sure you want to go out to the Wild Wild West out there without any backup?”

  “That’s the job, partner. I’m not going to find the answers here,” Mac replied and then pointed to the Sig and Glock on the table. “The difference between me and everyone else on this board is that these people were not aware of the danger or capable of defending themselves. I am.” He walked over and grabbed a folder off the table. “Besides, I think I might know of one friend I could have out there.”

  “Who?”

  Mac explained the Williams County sheriff’s written report. “He has his doubts—it’s written in black and white, or at least in the space between the black and white.”

  Riley gave the report a quick read and nodded in agreement but with caution. “You’re betting on the come with that.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Mac replied. “Look. I’m going up there, boys. I’m going well armed and paranoid, and you all know my motto when it comes to paranoia.”

  “Yeah, only the paranoid survive,” Lich answered. “But—”

  “I’m on guard and will be checking my six at all times. I already am.”

  “But, Mac—” Dick started.

  “Listen, this isn’t just about Meredith anymore. This killer or killers now have nine bodies on them. Nine, including two children aged six and ten, murdered in cold blood in their beds—executed. They executed two little kids. Walked in their house and shot them in the head. I’m not letting that go. Be honest, would you?”

  Their silence spoke volumes. He had them on this point. Someone needed to take on whoever was behind this. They didn’t have the freedom to do it. Mac, the idle millionaire, did.

  “I’m going to poke around a little bit and see what comes of it,” Mac stated, standing his ground. “End of story.”

  “Where’s Wire?” Dick asked, for once not a lecherous tone to his voice. “Can she come and back you up?”

  “She’s in Europe. She’ll be back in a couple weeks.”

  “Wait ‘til she gets back,” Dick pleaded. “Have her go up there with you.”

  “The trail will go cold,” Mac answered. “I have to do this now.”

  “But …”

  “I’m going,” Mac replied, arms folded. The discussion was over.

  “Okay,” Rock stated, looking Mac dead in the eye. “You’re going. You’re a big boy, and we can’t stop you. But we don’t have your back on this one. Nobody does. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re texting us every two hours, calling us every eight, and that, my boy, is not negotiable.”

  “And listen,” Riles offered, “I know a couple guys out in Dickinson two hours south. They’re guys I hunt with, and one is a cop and one is a sheriff’s deputy. I’m calling them tonight, right now in fact. If you get in a jam, you can bail down there and have some cover. And if you get any heat, sense any danger, you’re hauling ass down Highway 85 to Dickinson—do you read me?”

  “I read you,” Mac answered seriously. His buddies were concerned, and as he started thinking about the trip, he wasn’t without apprehension. He was on his own.

  “You text every two hours, you understand,” Dick ordered, poking Mac in the chest. “And you call every eight. Don’t fuck with us on that, or we might do something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Call Sally,” Riley stated. He wasn’t smiling.

  “Every two hours it is, then,” Mac replied and then looked at Lyman, who shook his head.

  “I’m worried, my boy.”

  “So am I.”

  “But you’re going.”

  “I’m going to North Dakota.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Meredith, do you have some unresolved feelings for your ex-husband?”

  Williston, North Dakota.

  Nine years ago, Mac made the trek to Williston. Back then, he’d just finished the bar exam. With three other law school friends, he traveled the nine hours to play a golf course that was then known as Red Mike. All enthusiastic golfers, they’d read about the remote course while in law school and resolved they’d go play it after taking the bar. This was all before Mac’s life changed so dramatically, back when he was happily married to Meredith and his future seemed so set. The Red Mike course was spectacular and the trip a blast, so much so that it was now a recurring trip the four of them took every year to a golf destination. Now they took the trip in the dead of winter to a warm destination to get away from the cold and the snow for a few days. This year they were going to San Diego, with Torrey Pines being the main attraction.

  Back at the time of the golf trip, the only place that had any nightlife of any kind was Williston, some twenty-eight miles away from the course. Nine years ago, Williston was a relatively small, quiet cow town filled with farmers and ranchers enjoying a simple life in the desolate reaches of northwest North Dakota. The farmers grew wheat, barley, oats, and corn, and the ranches were huge and expansive, and the pace of life was slow and leisurely. There were brief oil booms in the past, in the 1950s and 1980s, but they were short lived, and the booms quickly went bust.

  It was clear that this boom was not a bust.

  In the nine years since Mac’s last trek to this part of the world, the changes were dramatic. There were still the desolate rolling fields and valleys of ranches and farms, but now they also included oil and gas wells. You could see for miles in this part of the world, and the hills and valleys were now dotted with oil wells and their natural gas flares lighting up the sky. That wasn’t the only noticeable change either as he trekked the last hour up to Williston. Nine years ago, driving to this part of the world on Highway 85, you could drive for miles without seeing another vehicle, or human being for that matter. Now, ten miles south of the town, he was in the midst of yet another convoy of massive vehicles containing a mix of oil tankers, water trucks, and welders. Soon enough, a number of them turned left onto a red clay road leading off into the fields and an oil well visible perhaps a mile in the distance.

  Mac yawned. He’d left St. Paul a little after 5:00 A.M. with a thermos full of coffee, two pieces of peanut butter toast, and a handful of energy bars. Other than a quick stop for fuel and a drive-thru breakfast in Valley City, he’d driven straight through, and he approached the southern outskirts of Williston at 3:00 P.M. It was a quiet ride, broken up only by one phone call, from Meredith.

  “Michael Mackenzie McRyan, what are you doing?” There was no “Hi, how are you doing”—she went right to the confrontation. He was having flashbacks.

  “What do you mean?” Mac asked.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “Uh, no, definitely not.”

  “Then why are you going to North Dakota by yourself?”

  “Do I detect actual concern for my physical well-being?” Mac asked mockingly, trying to deflect.

  “Don’t be flippant, Mac,” she said.
“You shouldn’t be going up there alone. You’re just asking for it.”

  “I’m not going to solve this thing from the Cities.”

  “But Mac—”

  “Meredith, it’s not North Korea—it’s North Dakota. They have laws, they have police, and I’m heavily armed. I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I’ll be fine,” he said and then hung up. She tried calling back, but he ignored his phone for the rest of the drive.

  On the edge of Williston, he pulled into a Shell station. “Man, $1.89 per gallon. I never thought I’d see the day gas prices were this low again,” he muttered to himself as he swiped his credit card and latched the gas pump on automatic. He turned and leaned against his Yukon, folded his arms, and scanned the area. Mindful of the warnings from Lich, Rock, and Riles to watch his back, he’d made a point of constantly checking his surroundings, and in particular seeing if anyone was following. The only things he’d seen for the last three to four hours were oil and water tanker trucks, which even now provided a constant rumble of noise as they rolled along Highway 85 leading into Williston.

  Across the road was a truck stop with an expansive parking lot set to the north side. Between the parked vehicles operated a bevy of activity, very little of it legal. Two men standing between two large semi tractor-trailers were clearly engaging in a drug deal, while a hundred feet away a lovely lady dressed in a tight skirt and top and four-inch heels was jumping up into a semi, undoubtedly for a tour of the finely appointed interior of the cab. All of it taking place in broad daylight.

  This was not the Williston he remembered.

  “Hi.”

  Mac turned to his left to find a woman in a long trench coat, heels, and a leather purse over her shoulder. She had long, blond, slightly frizzy hair, and more makeup applied than was really necessary. With some proper assistance, she could probably look pretty good instead of looking somewhat hardened. However, he imagined that in these parts, her current appearance was more than adequate. There was no reason to be unfriendly. “Hello.”