Electing To Murder (9 page)

As she reflected on where her latest investigation stood, she took stock of what she did have. She had good video and photos of Connolly and she had the cabin owner’s name and would look into him further. However, what gnawed at her was that there were three and maybe four other key people at the meeting they had yet to identify. She had clear pictures of two of the men who were in the cabin. However, one of them had proven particularly elusive and she only had a couple partials of his face. Then there was the limousine that had arrived but the man, other than his leg, never got out. Who was he? The pictures she did have were being showed discretely around the campaign to see if any of the faces rang a bell, but there was nothing so far.

This made connecting with either Stroudt or Montgomery all the more necessary. Wire knew that Stroudt and Montgomery had cameras and were taking pictures, so she was hoping that she would be able to perhaps exchange information with the two of them.

Wire turned onto the street for Stroudt’s condominium and stopped. Three patrol units were parked in front of the condominium development along with an unmarked squad car and a Chevy Suburban with Fairfax County Crime Scene stenciled on it. Wire pulled over to the curb, turned off the engine and took in the scene. There was no ambulance or coroner’s wagon, so perhaps there wasn’t a dead body inside. Maybe it wasn’t even related to Stroudt’s place, although she didn’t believe in coincidences. She pulled out her regular cell phone and hit the directory for E and scrolled down to Alex Esposito. Esposito, the Alexandria police chief, was an old acquaintance from her FBI days. She placed a call.

“Espo, it’s Wire.”

“Blast from the past. Dara, how are you?”

“I am well, Alex. How are Jan and the kids?”

“They are doing great, thanks for asking. Is this a social call?”

“Sadly it is not. I’m sitting outside of the Sumner Lofts, looking to go inside and speak to someone and there are three Alexandria patrol cars and an unmarked out front. Do you know what’s going on?”

“In fact I do. I got a call from St. Paul, Minnesota, homicide about an hour ago that they found one of the occupants of that development dead in a hotel in their fair city and wanted us to check the decedent’s home out.”

“Who is the decedent?” Wire asked, fearing the answer.

“A man named Jason Stroudt.”

Wire slumped in her seat and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“D, do you know the guy?” Esposito asked, the light-hearted tone gone.

“Not personally, Alex. I was hoping to run him down on something I’ve been working on for a client of mine. Do you know what happened?”

“I had a chat with a Detective McRyan from St. Paul. He said Stroudt was found dead in a motel room. His throat was slashed and he bled out.”

“When?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

Wire wanted to get inside Stroudt’s place for a look. “Listen, Alex, I know this is unusual, but could you arrange for me to get into Stroudt’s place and have a look around?”

“What are you looking for, Dara?” Esposito asked seriously.

“I don’t really know,” was her honest reply. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Who’s your client?” Esposito pushed.

“I can’t tell you that, at least not right now, Alex. I can tell you that it is someone who would really appreciate the assist and could prove helpful somewhere down the road for you if you ever needed a political favor.” That is, if you considered the possible next president of the United States or his most important political advisor good people to be indebted to you, Wire thought. “You know me, Alex, I don’t bullshit and I only work for legitimate people.”

There was a few moments of silence and then Esposito exhaled. “Okay, Dara. Let me call my detective on scene. Give me ten minutes.” Esposito hung up.

“What in the hell did those two see?” Wire muttered to herself. Connolly was no holds barred politically, but she had never envisioned him as a murderer, but it sure was starting to look like he’d graduated to it. She placed a call to the Judge. It took several rings for him to answer.

“Sorry it took me a while, I needed to get away from the dais where the governor is speaking. What’s up?”

“Stroudt is dead. He was killed in a St. Paul hotel yesterday.” Wire relayed her conversation with Esposito. “I’m awaiting the green light to get into Stroudt’s place and look around.”

“Did this Esposito have any information on how Stroudt was killed?”

“Alex said all he knew was that Stroudt’s throat was slashed. Beyond that I didn’t get much.” Wire had another thought. “Judge, your gut on this, do you think Connolly is capable of murder?”

The Judge paused on the other end of the line and then exhaled. “Pulling the trigger? No, I don’t think he could do that,” the Judge answered. “However, could he sanction it? Go along with it? Turn a blind eye to it? Tell somebody, do what you have to do but I don’t want to know about it? I think he’s enough of a sociopath to do that, I really do. As long as he didn’t have to get his own hands dirty, I put nothing by him.”

“Well, if he had Stroudt killed, then Montgomery, if he isn’t already dead, is sure to be next. And Judge, I have one other thought.”

“Which is?”

“If St. Paul does their work on this, they’re likely going to want to talk to the campaign at some point. A Washington DC political blogger ends up dead in St. Paul days before the election. I would think the police would make their way to the political campaigns to see if anyone knows why he was in St. Paul. Your campaign is the biggest game in town and you are the biggest political operator. The police will want to talk to you and Sebastian.”

“Let me guess, the St. Paul Cop who called your friend was named McRyan.”

“How did you know that, Judge?” The man always was one step ahead.

“You know Sally Kennedy, right?”

“Isn’t she the one helping Kate Shelby out?”

“Yes. She also happens to be the girlfriend of one Mac McRyan. Sebastian just called to let me know that Mac McRyan wants to meet with him. Sally is serving as an intermediary so that Mac didn’t come in all cop like and cause people to start asking questions. I am going to be on a call with Sebastian and McRyan within the hour.”

“Do you know McRyan at all?”

“I do. Charlie Flanagan, the chief in St. Paul, has his best on the case,” the Judge replied with a tone of respect she didn’t often hear. “I knew his late father well and I know his uncle Seamus McRyan real well. Both detectives, both good and in Simon McRyan’s case, exceptional. As for Mac, the apple has not fallen far from the tree. In time, he will be better than both of them.”

“How good, Judge?”

“Google McRyan and you’ll see. In my book, he’s right there with you. Hang on a second.” There were muffled sounds on the other end of the line and then the Judge came back on: “The governor just finished and we’re making our way out to the motorcade. I have to run for now. I will call Sebastian and update him. I will call you after we talk to McRyan.” The Judge hung up.

Wire put the cell phone for the Judge back in her pocket and her regular cell started buzzing; it was Esposito. “Dara, you’re good to go. The detective in charge on scene is Carl Court, in his early fifties, shaved head, probably in a blue sport jacket, tan slacks and light blue dress shirt. That’s kind of his uniform. He’ll be coming down to meet you.”

“Thanks, Alex.”

Wire jumped out of her Land Rover and walked up to the crime scene tape and waited. She assessed the scene and wondered why, with no dead body inside, were county crime scene people present. Something was going on inside and she was glad she would be able to get a look. Just then the glass front door of the condo opened and Detective Court, dressed as described, walked out the front door, stopped, looked around and then walked right up to Wire.

“The chief said look for a pretty brunette with her hair in a ponytail wearing blue jeans and sunglasses. Ms. Wire, I presume.”

Wire smiled at Alex’s perfect description of her. “Yes.” The two shook hands. “Thank you for letting me in to have a look, Detective Court.”

“Call me Carl. Perhaps you can make sense of all this,” Court said as he opened the door for Wire.

“Not sure I can, Detective. But let me ask, if there is no dead body, why are the crime scene techs here?”

“Good question.” Court led Wire into the elevator and pressed three and then answered. “Mr. Stroudt is of interest to someone, because his condo has been completely ransacked.”

The two stepped off the elevator onto the third floor, turned left and walked thirty feet to the front door of Stroudt’s condo. Once inside, Wire understood what Detective Court was talking about. There was debris lying everywhere. To her left was the main living area which opened into a kitchen with a center island. To her right was a hallway that led to a bedroom, an office and the bathroom. A cursory look down the hall showed each room ripped apart.

She started with the main living area which had a matched burgundy sofa, love seat and chair combination, with an antique trunk coffee table all facing a wall of built-in shelves formed around an opening for a flat-screen television. The shelves, once full of books, knickknacks and photos, were now thrown about the room. It looked as if whoever ransacked the room went through every CD case and video box. Magazines were scattered over the entire room and everything had been emptied from the cabinets from the lower part of the built-in entertainment unit. Wire gave it all a cursory glance and moved through the eating area and into the kitchen where all the plates, glasses, silverware and the like had been emptied from the cupboards.

Wire moved back down the hall to the bedroom. All of the clothes were pulled out of the dresser and closet. The shoes were tossed about, as were the sheets and blankets from the bed. The master bathroom was equally disheveled, all drawers emptied and the toiletries lying in the bathtub.

She next moved to her primary target, the office. Most people figured if you hide things in places like the kitchen or bathroom, nobody will find them when in fact, for someone who is looking for something that is hidden, they would go there first. Wire always did in her prior life and most cops would as well. However, what happened in Kentucky had not left Stroudt the opportunity to hide anything nor was it likely he felt a need to prior to his departure. So in that case, the place to look
was
the office.

The office was approximately twelve by twelve. There was a large U-shaped desk that ate up the left half of the room. There were normally two guest chairs in front of the desk, now lying sideways on the floor. In Wire’s judgment, the rest of the apartment had been wildly ransacked, almost for show. The office, on the other hand, felt as if it had been more surgically searched. The front part of the desk was open with only a small middle drawer for pens, paperclips and the like. On the backside were two long file drawers.

The papers were all pulled from the file cabinet but instead of being wildly thrown about the office, they were in piles, as if whoever went through the file drawer read each sheet and then dropped them into a pile on the floor. Upon further inspection, it struck her that there should have been more paper and hanging folders for the drawers.

Court had been following Wire from room to room saying nothing until they reached the office. “I would have thought there would be more papers scattered about given the size of the two file drawers.”

“Whoever was here took most of the files with them,” Wire replied, giving some information. Court was seeing what she was seeing. He was fishing for more. “Those are two three-foot-wide file drawers, yet there are only what, twenty hanging folders around the room. Whoever was here, they took files with them, along with the computer hard drive.” It was obvious so she shared the observation.

“Do you have any idea who that someone would be?”

Wire lied: “I don’t … at least not yet.”

“I take it then you’ll be doing some more investigating on your own on this?” Court queried.

Wire nodded and decided she needed all the immediate help she could get. “I will be and if you’re open to it, I have a couple of places I think would be worth checking.”

* * *

Kostelecky sat slumped down in the front seat of the silver Ford 500 a block to the north of Stroudt’s apartment, resting on an incline that let him look down the hill at the scene in the rearview mirror. Spevacek, his partner, was in the backseat with the Nikon DP camera and telephoto lens, snapping pictures of people around the scene of Stroudt’s apartment building. They had been on the scene for over an hour, after having worked their way through the apartment overnight.

“You missed that woman when she went in with the detective,” Kostelecky said. “You didn’t get a good shot of her on the way in.”

“The one with the ponytail?”

“Yes. Snap pictures of her.”

“You know, she’s kind of attractive. She has nice eyes,” Spevacek said as he snapped several pictures. He watched as she shook hands with the detective and walked back under the crime scene tape and slipped on her sunglasses. Spevacek dropped the camera down and let it hang around his neck. “I could snap some more pictures of her.”

M
ac considered it a miracle that he ever convinced Lich to try sushi, a man who hadn’t changed his suit color from brown in twenty years and rarely ventured beyond burgers, steaks, pork chops and cold beer for his diet. For two years Mac worked him over every time they passed Sakamura’s, Mac’s favorite Japanese restaurant, located on St. Peter Street in downtown St. Paul. “Trust me, Dicky Boy, you’ll love it, you just have to try it.”

“Not a chance.”

“I’ll buy.”

“Don’t care.”

One day several months ago, Mac upped the stakes. “I’ll
always
buy.”

That caused Lich, a man who watched every penny after two divorces cleaned him out, to raise his eyebrows. A free meal was a free meal so he contemplated the offer for a few minutes. Then a dirty smile crept across his face. Mac instinctively knew what was coming.