Blood Silence - Thriller (McRyan Mystery Series)

by Roger Stelljes

  “Okay, but I’m still waiting for the surprise,” Mac responded while yawning. “I mean, Wheeler was their main guy up in North Dakota—of course he was talking to O’Herlihy.”

  “How about this, though?” Brock answered. “I had Houston PD track down O’Herlihy. He was out at his ranch outside of Houston. He was found dead, shot in the head.”

  Mac bolted upright, now surprised. “Someone was unhappy.”

  • • •

  The meeting with the Hennepin County attorney took an hour, which was fifty-five minutes more than it should have. Mac walked them through his investigation, bringing Coolidge, Subject, and then later Brock, on the line to help add to what he’d laid out.

  “So this whole thing is about how an oil company is drilling in North Dakota?” Johnson asked, reviewing the evidence before her. “It’s a bit much to believe.” The prosecutor shook her head. “It is certainly less believable than a scorned wife killing her cheating husband, whom she caught in bed with her lover.”

  “It’s all about oil,” Mac retorted. “According to the people I’ve talked to”—which was Rahn but referencing the Murphy memo—“the use of diesel fuel and other chemicals at heightened levels increases the separation on the shale to allow for greater releases of oil and gas. Problem is, the chemicals, in those amounts, cause greater environmental damage, particularly to ground and drinking water. The Bullers were a single family, and they were suffering. It took about a year after Deep Core started drilling that well for the Bullers to start feeling the effects of the drilling on their water and ultimately their bodies. I’ve got the medical records that show it. Murphy’s memo proves it, and I think at this point, it’s safe to say the company knew all about it. The memo is an internal company memo. If this damage to the groundwater were to come to light, there is no way their operation just north of Williston gets off the ground. It would have buried the company.”

  “Can you authenticate the memo?” Johnson asked.

  “No,” Mac replied, getting irritated. “You really think I need to?”

  “You have this Murphy’s findings?”

  “No, I don’t,” Mac answered.

  “Might be more believable if you had them,” Johnson responded tartly.

  “Funny,” Mac replied with derision, “all the people who had the findings ended up dead.”

  “Why not change the way they were drilling?” Goodman asked Mac.

  “Deep Core was in a financial hole. They needed the wells to pay and pay big and pay big soon. Drilling safer wasn’t as rapidly profitable.”

  “I mean, we don’t really know that, do we? You’ve painted a very good picture here, a heck of a story, but you can’t really prove it.”

  “One hundred percent?” Mac replied. “At this point, no, but—”

  “We don’t have to,” Lyman interjected. “That’s not our burden, to completely prove that. That is for others. Candace and Dan, you’re getting lost in the weeds here. The overall story is a little hard to fathom, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Furthermore, I think what Mac has shown conclusively, particularly with the Mercedes rental, the shot-up SUV pulled from the river, and the travel pattern of Hutchinson and Wilton, is that they killed Gentry and Sterling, not my client. And while we can’t corroborate her alibi, you’re no longer able to disprove it either, because we’ve explained how the neighbors saw her car at the scene. These two attempted to kill Meredith, not to mention Mac, last Sunday, and then last night. Wilton rented a Mercedes exactly like my client’s. The GPS puts that car outside the lake house at the time of the murder. Their travel pattern puts them in the Cities at that time.”

  “What more could you possibly fucking need?” Mac barked, the exhaustion having depleted any patience he might have had left. “I mean, seriously?”

  Lyman reached for his arm to calm him. “Mac could be more diplomatic, but he’s right. To a certain degree, I can understand your skepticism as to the shenanigans in North Dakota. But Mac has conclusively proven that the murders of Gentry and Sterling were not about a scorned wife but about money, big money—the kind of money that explains the motive to kill nine people. With your ongoing questions, I’m starting to sense that you’re not grasping reality. So let me put it to you this way—if you want to try this case, be my guest. Do it, and you will lose, and you will lose huge. I will wipe the courtroom floor with you—with both of you. And that kind of an embarrassing defeat—and rest assured, I will embarrass you with this—will not play well politically, Candace.”

  Mac wasn’t content to let it rest. “Pull your heads out of your asses, Candace and Dan. You have the wrong the person. She didn’t do it. She was set up, and I’ve given you who did it. Now pull the fucking plug.”

  Candace Johnson sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Lyman, will you and Mr. McRyan give us a moment?” she asked quietly.

  Out in the hall, Mac sat down on a bench and fell back against the wall and sighed. “They’re not seriously thinking about going forward with this, are they?”

  Lyman shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Candace is a politician, and she wants to spin this the best way possible. She didn’t dismiss this thing on Monday. They haven’t lifted a finger on this thing, even though from that point forward, they should have known their case had some problems. Instead, she let it go for another four days. As a result, a lot of shit went down in North Dakota that maybe didn’t have to. She wants to explain that before someone starts asking why.”

  Ten minutes later, Goodman stuck his head out in the hall and invited them back in.

  “Lyman, we’re dismissing the charges,” Candance Johnson stated. “In doing so, may I ask for a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can we do the press conference together?”

  “Candace, it would be my pleasure.”

  “I appreciate that,” Johnson responded appreciatively. Then she looked at Mac. “I’m still curious. This case is quite … unique for me. Maybe not for you, given the cases you’ve come across, but for me …”

  “It was a crazy one for me as well,” Mac replied, calmer now, knowing that the charges were finally being dropped.

  “One question—well, more than one question bugs me, but the one I’m wondering about right now is, what do you make of the murder of this O’Herlihy down in Texas?”

  “Not sure. Maybe the authorities down there will figure out what happened. Wheeler is dead, Hutchinson and this Wilton are dead, and now O’Herlihy is dead. I’m not sure we’ll ever know.”

  “The loose ends are all tied up,” Goodman suggested. “All nice and neat.”

  “We can let someone else worry about that,” Candace Johnson replied. “I’m very sorry to have put Ms. Hilary through this. I thought we had a pretty open-and-shut case.”

  “That’s what the killers wanted,” Mac stated.

  Johnson looked at Lyman. “Can you do this in an hour?”

  “Works for me,” Lyman replied. “I need to call my client with the news and get her down here.”

  While they were talking logistics, Mac was working his cell phone. He found what he was looking for. He looked at Lyman and extended his hand. “I have to go.”

  “You’re leaving?” Lyman asked, incredulous.

  “You don’t need me anymore.”

  “You don’t want to celebrate? You don’t want to go on camera? You deserve to celebrate. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful the Hilarys will be, how grateful Meredith will be—heck, how grateful I am. You’re the one responsible for all of this.”

  Mac shook his head wearily. “I never thought I’d say this, but I want to get to Washington as soon as possible. There is a flight in two hours—I’m on it. Please speak highly of Subject, Gerdtz, Lich, Lincoln Coolidge in Washington, and the folks up in Williston. They all deserve a lot of credit.”

  “And what about Meredith?”

  “Wish her well for me.”

  • • •

>   Mac watched the press conference from the airport lounge.

  Lyman, always one to collect favors, was magnanimous at the press conference, singing from Johnson’s hymnal and simply happy to have his client exonerated. As Mac asked, Lyman thanked everyone involved in the investigation, including Mac.

  Meredith looked both relieved and gorgeous, dressed in a black power suit, her hair perfectly done, with not a single verbal slip in answering the reporters’ questions.

  Much was made of the broader conspiracy involving the case.

  Lyman said it best: “The broader case is for others to deal with. I’m just happy my client is free of all charges, is completely exonerated, and can go about getting her life back.”

  • • •

  “We must celebrate. I will get us a table at The St. Paul Grill,” Lyman proclaimed to Meredith, her parents, and Uncle Teddy after the press conference ended.

  “Where’s Mac?” they all asked.

  Lyman looked at his watch. “About to get on a flight. He went home.”

  “He didn’t stay behind to bask in the glory?” Edmund Hilary asked, shocked. “This was a big moment for him.”

  Meredith reached for her phone. “That son of a bitch,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Why won’t he talk to me? I tried to call him like three times last night, and he wouldn’t pick up.”

  “Because of what you did to him,” her mother counseled. “For someone like Mac, for someone that prideful”—she slowly shook her head—“I don’t know that he’ll ever forgive that.”

  Meredith nodded slowly, her eyes watering lightly, knowing the truth. “I know, Mom. I know. I just wanted to …” Her words trailed off. “I just wanted to thank him and say I was sorry.”

  “I think he knows that,” Ann Hilary answered, reaching for her daughter’s hand. “And part of me thinks he doesn’t want to hear that from you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Ann replied quietly, “I just don’t think he wants to. I think he still carries a lot of anger about what happened, and he’s … he’s just not ready to let that go, Meredith.”

  “He needs to. For his own good, he needs to.”

  “Then there is one person you could call,” her mother replied. “There is one person he might listen to.”

  • • •

  Mac did celebrate a little on the flight. Sitting in first class, he had two very stiff Bloody Marys before the flight was out of Minnesota airspace. Then he drifted off, having to be awoken by a flight attendant when they landed. The cab ride home took fifteen minutes, and he went right up and started a shower.

  Mac let the warm water just run over his tired body for twenty minutes. He toweled off and jumped into bed.

  He’d been going flat out for two weeks.

  His body shut down, and he slept.

  He slept and slept until something woke him—a smell. A smell that made him smile, and he knew exactly where it was from. He eased his legs over the side of the bed and pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a gray, V-neck sweater and slowly made his way down to the kitchen, where he found Sally opening a bottle of wine. There were no words—he just went to her and hugged her and then kissed her softly. “Man, is it good to see you.”

  “Right back at you,” she answered, cupping his face gently with her right hand and looking into his still-tired and weary eyes. “You’ve been one busy boy.”

  He nodded and looked to his left, at the table, with a single lit candle and boxes of Italian food, with music playing lightly. It was what they often did after they’d been apart. It was their little reunion ritual. She led him by the hand over to the table and sat him down, and together they quietly dug into the boxes, loading spaghetti, fettuccini, and mostaccioli onto their plates.

  They ate, talking, mostly about her week and the wedding venue she’d picked. He was eager to go see the Davidson House and knew that there was much planning in store, which they both enthusiastically talked about. It was a welcome break from the last two weeks. Mac didn’t want to talk about the investigation, Meredith, North Dakota—any of it.

  It was enough to have lived through it.

  He just relaxed. The sound of her voice had that effect on him—that and great Italian food and a smooth red wine.

  Once they were down to only the wine, Sally switched gears. “Meredith must have been happy and grateful,” she offered as she poured them each another glass of wine.

  “I suppose” was the only response Mac could muster. No, that wasn’t entirely fair, he thought. “I imagine she is grateful.”

  “But you don’t know because you didn’t stay to find out, right?” There was a tone, not a disapproving one necessarily, but a knowing one—a tone born of over three years together and her ability to always know what he was thinking. It amazed him at times how well she knew him.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to get home to you,” Mac replied, which was very much the case, but not the whole truth, and Sally knew it. She saw right through the answer.

  She quickly reached for his hands. “I love you, and I know you wanted to get back here. I mean, how could you not? Look at all this,” she added, quickly striking a sexy pose with a seductive smile.

  Mac smiled. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

  “But be honest with me,” Sally pushed. “Getting back to me wasn’t the only reason, was it?”

  Mac shrugged, not answering.

  “Come on, you ran because you are still very, very angry at her, aren’t you?” she asked. “Even after all these years.”

  He sipped from his wine, not wanting to respond.

  “Aren’t you?”

  He nodded, looking down into his wine glass.

  “I thought so,” Sally replied, taking a small sip of wine.

  “Can I ask a question?” Mac asked, gesturing toward her with his wine glass. “Why do you care?”

  “Why do I care?”

  “Yes, why do you care about this?”

  “Selfishly, I’ll admit a part of me likes that you’re still angry with her. She’s a smart, intelligent, and beautiful woman who has a history of getting exactly what she wants when she wants it. Most women in my position, even if she was your ex-wife, would be very leery of her.”

  “That,” Mac replied, looking Sally dead in the eye, “is not something you have to worry about.”

  “I know. What I worry about is you.”

  “Me?”

  “I know what that divorce did to you,” she answered, slowly twirling her wine glass. “Yet what you did here was one of the more selfless acts I’ve ever seen someone do, even if you had to be talked into it at first. For someone who makes you so angry, who hurt you so badly, you still risked your life for her to stay out of jail and to have a life.”

  “Let’s not get crazy here.”

  “Oh, really?” Sally replied. “Care to review the last couple of nights? Or perhaps last Sunday night in Minneapolis, chasing those guys through Meredith’s neighborhood? You laid it on the line there, pal.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Meredith called me.”

  “Again?” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Sal.”

  “It’s okay. She called me to thank me.”

  “To thank you?” he asked quizzically.

  “Yes. To thank me for asking you to do this, and she asked me to thank you because she knows you’ll never let her do it. In fact, she thinks that’s part of her punishment. That she’ll never get to express her gratitude. That you want to hang it over her head for the rest of her life.”

  “She’s right about that.”

  “And that’s the other reason she called,” Sally replied. “She knows you better than you think. She knows you’ll never get over being angry with her. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have regrets, because I think she does.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Really?” Sally asked. “You don’t believe that.”

  �
��I know I don’t regret a thing I did.”

  “And you shouldn’t.”

  “So why the inquisition on this, then?” he asked wearily.

  “We’re getting married, and I can’t wait. I wish tomorrow were the day. I can’t wait to be married to you. But this anger you have for her, you don’t have to carry it for me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “But you are carrying it, and … it’s not good for you to carry and to keep.”

  “You don’t understand …”

  “Oh, I understand,” Sally persisted. “I was just like you, Mac. I was a cheated-on spouse, eventually left for another woman. I know the feeling—the anger, the betrayal—I know it all. That’s why I’m telling you that you have to let that all go.”

  “Have you let it go? Have you stopped being angry at your ex-husband?”

  “I’d be lying if I said every once in a while it doesn’t pop into my head and I get a little sad. But the reality is he wasn’t happy, I was starting to get unhappy, so it was probably going to end one way or another.” She took a sip of her wine. “I just decided I didn’t like carrying around the anger anymore. It wasn’t healthy for me, and it’s not healthy for you. I just wanted to stop being angry about it.”

  “How’d you let it go?” They’d never talked about this. He’d assumed she felt about her first marriage much the way he felt about his to Meredith.

  “I never told you this, but six months ago when his new wife had their child, I sent a baby gift—a really nice gift, and I felt good when I sent it. A week later, David called to thank me. It had been a long time since we’d spoken to one another. We talked, and I wished him well, he wished me well—we were both really sincere, and it was a really good talk. It was cathartic. I felt freer for it, and I’ve hardly looked back on my marriage or any of it since.”

  Mac nodded, looking down.

  “Look, one of the reasons I suggested you take her case was to give you the chance at this closure. I figured if you did this, you would have a chance to maybe find that peace. I think you need it, to do it, to just let it go.”

  Mac sat back in his chair and exhaled, slowly shaking his head.