Electing To Murder (36 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“I see.”

Mac had Mitchell’s full attention.

“Proceed, Detective.”

“These people were not alone at this meeting in Kentucky,” Mac flipped to a new picture. “The man on the left is Jason Stroudt and on the right is Adam Montgomery. These men are DC-based reporters who operate the political blog ‘The Congressional Page.’”

“I’ve heard of it,” Mitchell answered.

Mac flipped to an aerial photo of Hitch’s cabin. “Stroudt and Montgomery were also at this meeting, outside, perched in this grove of trees to the south of the cabin.”

“How do you know this?” Gates asked.

“Because of another person who was on scene outside the cabin,” Mac added a photo, “former FBI Special Agent Dara Wire.” Mac looked at Mitchell, whose eyebrows flared.

“How was it former Agent Wire was there?”

“For the past six months she’s been working for the Thomson campaign, largely watching and monitoring certain higher ups in the vice president’s campaign, with a specific focus on Heath Connolly,” Mac answered. “She tracked Connolly to this meeting. Ms. Wire had hoped to take in the meeting from the perch occupied by Stroudt and Montgomery. Instead she was forced to move to the north side of the cabin.”

“I assume it was Wire who identified Stroudt and Montgomery as being at the meeting,” the director asked.

“Yes sir. She found their vehicle parked down the road, took down the license number and later verified that they had rented it.”

“Do we know what was discussed at this meeting?” Mitchell asked.

“I think it may be more along the lines of what was intended to be discussed. It doesn’t appear that the meeting got too far along before it broke up.”

“Why is that?”

“Stroudt and Montgomery were discovered and chased from the area. The chase included gun shots.”

“Gun shots?” Mitchell asked again with upraised eyebrows.

“Yes, sir. Ms. Wire reported shots being fired and given the events that have unfolded since this meeting, I think we can safely assume that was the case.”

“Was she in any danger during this time?” Mitchell asked with concern.

“No sir, as I mentioned, she was on the north side of the cabin, away from the action and she told me they never knew she was there.”

“Good,” Mitchell answered. “What’s next?”

“Following the discovery of Stroudt and Montgomery, the meeting was hastily ended and all the players made a mad dash from the scene into SUVs and limousines as you can see in this series of photos taken by Wire,” Mac explained. “Here you see Connolly and Checketts in particular being ushered into vehicles that Dara reports immediately sped away from the scene.”

“What’s next?”

“The next significant event happens the following day,” Mac displayed a picture of The Snelling and of Stroudt dead on the motel room floor. “I caught the case at this point when Mr. Stroudt’s dead body was found at The Snelling, a rather seedy motel in St. Paul.” Mac displayed a picture of Stroudt’s body at The Snelling. “As you can see, Mr. Stroudt’s throat was cut from ear to ear. His time of death was around 3:00 p.m.” Mac related the discovery by a pizza delivery man and the motel manager.

“So Stroudt was in Kentucky on Wednesday night and was killed in St. Paul by 3:00 p.m. on Thursday?” Mitchell asked. “How did he get there?”

“Flew. Both Stroudt and Montgomery had return flights booked to DC from Nashville for Thursday morning. Neither of them ever showed for that flight. Instead, they drove the opposite direction, to St. Louis, where Stroudt took a Delta flight to the Twin Cities and arrived a little after 10:00 a.m. He rented a car at the airport. From there he went to a Grand Brew Coffee Shop in St. Paul for a few hours and then checked into The Snelling around 2:00 p.m. and was murdered an hour later.”

“Do you know by whom?”

“We think we do. I will get to the killer in a minute because Stroudt is not the only body he’s dropped, sir,” Mac answered. “Now, we were able to identify Stroudt from a Delta boarding pass we found in the motel room. However, none of Mr. Stroudt’s other belongings were in the room when we arrived.”

“What about his car?”

“It was dumped at a shopping mall a few miles from the motel, again with none of his personal effects inside.” Mac continued: “Upon identifying Stroudt, we tried to track down his business partner, Adam Montgomery. Apparently sensing danger from what he and his partner had seen on Wednesday night, unlike Stroudt, he wisely dropped from the grid sooner and tried to fly below the radar. He did not answer his cell phone and as we later learned, he ditched it for a burner phone. In St. Louis he borrowed a car from a distant relative and eventually drove to the Twin Cities, arriving sometime on Friday. Once in the Twin Cities, he called Sebastian McCormick, the deputy campaign director for Governor Thomson’s campaign, to arrange a meeting which took place at McCormick’s St. Paul home.” He flipped to a slide with pictures of Sebastian McCormick, Kate Shelby and McCormick’s house.

“Was there some relationship between McCormick and Montgomery?” Mitchell asked.

“No, but there was between Stroudt and McCormick, they went to law school together at the University of Virginia,” Mac answered. An aide walked into the office with two pots of coffee.

“Coffee?” Mitchell asked.

“Please.”

The director poured Mac a cup. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Right now, black,” Mac answered.

“That tired, huh?”

“You could say that, Director,” Mac answered with an exhausted smile. He took two quick sips of coffee and then pressed on. “When Montgomery arrived at McCormick’s house, he explained to McCormick and Kate Shelby, a deputy campaign manager for the Thomson campaign who was also there, that Stroudt traveled to the Twin Cities to get in contact with McCormick. However, before he could he was killed. Montgomery began to explain why he wanted to meet with McCormick when this man,” Mac put up a photo of McCormick’s killer, “came in the back of the house and shot Montgomery in the head and McCormick twice in the chest.”

“Who is that man?” Mitchell asked, standing and walking to the screen.

“Sir, we don’t have a name yet,” Mac answered. “Agent Duffy has been efforting that for us but has not yet been able to identify him.”

“That man killed McCormick and Montgomery but not Shelby?” Mitchell asked, confused. “How does she not end up dead?”

“Dara Wire,” Mac answered. “During the day on Friday, she was here in DC trying to find Stroudt and Montgomery and had been working with the Alexandria, Virginia, police in that regard. Stroudt’s home as well as the offices of The Congressional Page were broken into and ransacked, while Montgomery’s was not. So she decided to sit on Montgomery’s building and see what turned up. While watching, she noted what she thought were two different two-man teams watching the apartment building that abruptly left their surveillance detail, speeding away. She suspected that Montgomery had been located. She also knew, at this point, that Stroudt had been murdered and began to surmise that a cover-up of the Kentucky meeting was in motion. A little later on Friday, Wire and Judge Dixon flew back to the Twin Cities. When they landed, they each had voice mail messages from McCormick alerting them to the fact that Montgomery was coming to McCormick’s house. Wire intuitively knew the danger McCormick was in. She and Dixon sped to McCormick’s house. In fact, Judge Dixon called me while they were on their way asking me to get over there as well. I was en-route but Wire beat me there, realized what was going down and managed to get inside in time to save Ms. Shelby.”

“Where is Ms. Shelby now?”

“She’s in joint protective custody of the Secret Service and the St. Paul Police Department.”

Mac flipped back to the picture of the killer. “Wire shot this man in the chest three times and helped Ms. Shelby escape the home out the back before the killer’s backup got to the house.” Mac described the back alley shootout and Wire’s escape with Dixon and Shelby from the scene.

“Detective, this killer, is the man the media has reported is dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now you found him, correct? How?”

Mac explained how he tracked down the killer to the off-the-books doctor. He didn’t mention Fat Charlie’s name but he didn’t need to, the director understood. “That’s pretty quick work, Detective.”

“It helps to know people who know people.”

“Sources are everything and good cops have them,” Mitchell replied, impressed. “Continue.”

Mac shifted gears.

“Wire and Shelby escaped McCormick’s house with Montgomery’s backpack, which included his laptop, camera and notebooks. An hour later, while I was working the crime scene at McCormick’s house, I was again contacted by Judge Dixon, who was with Wire and Shelby. He asked to meet and we agreed to do so at my family’s bar near downtown St. Paul.”

“Why at your family’s bar?” Mitchell asked quizzically. “Why not police headquarters?”

“That would have been my first choice as well, sir,” Mac answered, taking a sip of coffee. “However, Ms. Wire wasn’t in the trusting mood at that point. Dixon and Shelby told her that they could trust me. Wire insisted on a meeting place, other than headquarters, where I could trust everyone.”

“And that’s your family bar?”

“Our bar is many things, including a cop bar. On a Friday night, sir, it’s full of police, all of whom I trust, so yeah, other than HQ it was the place to go,” Mac answered. “As we were meeting up on the street outside the pub, we were attacked drive-by shooting style by men riding in a panel van and Chevy Suburban, two of whom Ms. Wire and I managed to mortally wound while returning fire.” McRyan described the shootout and chase that lead to the Suburban, which exploded, leaving another two men dead.

“I saw something about this on the news, didn’t I?” Mitchell asked.

“You probably did, Director,” Mac replied. “Although I’ve been so consumed with this case, I haven’t seen any of the news reports on that.”

“Can I step back for a moment, Detective McRyan?” Mitchell asked. “How was it the shooters knew to find Wire and Dixon at … what’s it called?”

“McRyan’s Pub.”

“Right, how did they find you there?”

“We think it was through a LoJack tracking system in Montgomery’s laptop.” Mac described how Jupiter found the LoJack tracking system on the computer.

“So whoever these men are working for, they were able to get into LoJack’s system and track the computer? That’s not something the average person can do. That requires certain … resources … and … skills,” Mitchell commented, his arms folded, giving it some thought.

“That was our thought as well, Director,” Mac added.

“Detective, you mentioned the laptop, camera and notebooks, what did you find there?”

“We were able to get into Montgomery’s laptop and found that he conducted extensive web searches on DataPoint and their voting machines. It was actually through the DataPoint website that we identified Checketts as one of the men at the meeting in Kentucky. At this point, our investigation shifted to Milwaukee.”

Mac poured himself another cup of coffee and this time put in a little cream and sugar. He took a sip and then changed to a picture of Checketts’s house. “After we found our killer in Eden Prairie, I, along with former Agent Wire, traveled to Milwaukee to investigate further, looking to speak with Mr. Checketts.”

“How did you get to Milwaukee so quickly?”

“Judge Dixon arranged a flight.”

“Did he now?” Mitchell replied, a whimsical smile on his face.

Mac shrugged his shoulders. “If it makes you feel any better, he cleared it with Chief Flanagan before I accompanied Ms. Wire to Milwaukee.”

“And how is it that former Agent Wire suddenly became part of your investigation?”

“My partner was wounded in the shootout outside my family’s bar,” McRyan replied. “Our other detectives remained back in St. Paul to watch over our killer in the hopes that his friends tried to retrieve him before his death. Ms. Wire offered her assistance. She is quite capable.”

“Yes she is,” Mitchell answered knowingly.

“The next morning, along with two Milwaukee detectives, Wire and I went to the home of Peter Checketts where we found him dead, hanging from an exposed beam over his family room.” Mac put up a photo of Checketts hanging. “At first blush it appeared to be a suicide. Mr. Checketts is apparently in considerable personal financial distress. He was significantly indebted to a couple of casinos in Las Vegas. So at first, it looked like a suicide.”

“But it wasn’t, was it?”

“No. It looks like his death was staged as a suicide and he was murdered.” Mac added details about Checketts’s personal finances as well as the footprints leading to the house. “Add to that the fact that Checketts is dead and this Domitrovich and Khrutov are dead.”

“Domitrovich and Khrutov are dead?” Mitchell asked, surprised, sitting up in his chair now.

“Yes, sir. Domitrovich was found in his Kiev apartment with a bullet in his head on Friday and just a few minutes ago, just as I arrived here at the Hoover Building I received a text from Agent Duffy that Khrutov was found dead at his dacha northwest of Moscow, also a bullet in the head, killed execution style. You add that with Checketts, not to mention the deaths of Montgomery and Stroudt and McCormick, and someone is covering up.”

“You’re right,” Mitchell answered, looking again at the photos of Khrutov and Domitrovich, shaking his head. “Care to tell me what is being covered up?”

“Election fraud that could have massive consequences on Tuesday’s election,” Mac gestured towards the voting machine that was sitting on the end of the conference table. “Let me show you how,” Mac put up a new picture. “This is Gabriel Martin. He was the chief information officer for DataPoint. At about the same time as the meeting was taking place in Kentucky at the Hitch cabin Wednesday night, Martin was killed in Milwaukee. I have some video,” Mac pulled up the video supplied by Detective Ring and played it for the director. Mac pointed to the screen to a man standing in the median of the street, “This is Wednesday night. This man is Gabe Martin and I’ll just let this roll.”