The St. Paul Conspiracy (12 page)

A frown came down the senator’s face, “If I read between the lines here, they have me in their crosshairs.”

“Perhaps,” mused Lyman. “But they haven’t charged you. They haven’t put your name out there. Heck, my contacts in the department don’t even know who they have for a suspect.”

The senator was skeptical. “These contacts, would they even tell you if they knew?”

“The people I’ve called, yes. They owe me for previous services rendered.”

The senator took a sip of his brandy. “So, if we find out what they have, what do I say?”

“We’ll see. I may not have you answer questions at all.”

“Lyman,” he growled, “I can’t do that. I do that and I’m done. I’m Gary Condit. The media’ll have a field day.”

Lyman knew his friend. He was concerned about his career. He didn’t necessarily see beyond that, and that had to change if Lyman was going to help him. “Mason, I’ll do what I can to protect your career. But we have to see what they have.”

The senator had a panicked look. “What? What the fuck are you saying, Lyman? What, you... you think I did this?”

“NO!” snapped Lyman. The next part would be difficult, he knew, so he took a long drink, a slow drag on his cigar and walked towards his friend and put a hand on his shoulder. He exhaled slowly and spoke. “Mason, I’m with you, but we have to see what the police have. You didn’t do it. I believe you,” Lyman said, looking him right in the eye. “But look at the evidence they likely have. You
were
there that night. We have to assume they have the guy who saw you. Otherwise, how do they link you?”

“Yes, I was there. What does that prove, Lyman?” the Senator growled, taking a chair.

Lyman sat down next to his friend and continued. “In and of itself, nothing, but they’ll have your semen. It wouldn’t even be worth a fight on the DNA. They’ll get it.” Lyman took a drink. “Now, like I said—in and of itself that means nothing, but...”

“But what
would
mean something?”

“Time of death, forced entry, and if there was a robbery. If there’s a robbery or forced entry, and time of death is 4:00 a.m., you’re in the clear. You merely help them with their timeline. If this is the case, then the police say thanks, and nobody ever knows you were involved.”

Mason Johnson looked hopeful for the first time. Lyman reassured him, “Your name came up. They have to talk to you. Simple as that. But if the evidence doesn’t point to you, you’ll be fine.”

The senator sighed and nodded. “Look. I didn’t do it. I need to say that.”

“And I may let you. But first, we need to see what they have.”

* * * * *

Mac and Sally finished up with how to deal with Hisle and the senator around ten. Mac offered one more beer, and Sally accepted. She was easy to talk to. They talked about sports, politics, and lawyers. They had similar interests. They were both career focused. She wasn’t stopping at assistant district attorney. She had higher aspirations.

Mac could feel his attraction to her growing. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time, and it was a nice change. He had ignored women since the divorce. It wasn’t that there couldn’t have been some. There had been plenty he could have taken home from the Pub. More than one had sauntered on up to make a pass at him, and he almost took a couple up on it. Sooner or later, he figured he’d finally break down and do it. But it never seemed right.

Sally was interested. She was attractive as hell, with pretty dark-brown eyes and a bright smile. She was intelligent and liked to laugh, yet she had a little edge, some street to her—which he liked.

She’d been checking out the Springsteen print all night. “So how’d you get Bruce to sign it?”

“You like the Boss?”

“Is there anyone better?”

“No. I’ve never seen a better live performer.”

She got up to look at it more closely. “So, how did you do it?”

“A buddy of mine, Wren Frane, runs the non-hockey events at the Xcel Energy Center. He got me back stage for the second half of a concert. It was pretty unreal. I saw Bruce, Clarence, Little Steven come off the stage, and it was cool just to see them. Anyway, the arena had emptied, and Wren and I were the only ones left back stage. We’re just talking, concert’s been over for an hour, and here comes Springsteen out of the dressing room, looking to see if they can get a few more beers. Most everyone’s gone, but Wren scares up some brews, and the Boss says thanks. He sees the poster and asks if I wanted it signed.

“No way!” Sally replied in disbelief.

“Oh, yeah. Pure luck, but I met the man.”

They transitioned to Helen Anderson. “She can’t be easy to work for,” Mac said.

“That’s somewhat true. She’s demanding of everyone’s time and efforts. But at the same time, she generally let’s you do your job.”

“Probably because she never did it herself,” Mac intoned.

“Well there might be some truth to that,” Sally replied, smiling. “She’s more a politician than a lawyer.”

Then they got to Lich. “By the way, where’s your partner?”

Mac chuckled, “Dickey boy is on a date with Dot.”

“Who’s Dot? Should I know her?”

Mac shook his head. “No. I just met her this morning. She’s a rather, shall we say, buxom waitress at the Cleveland Grille.”

“Ahhh. So, your partner’s on the dating seen, huh?”

“That he is. I have to give him credit. His last wife absolutely cleaned him out.” Mac just shook his head.

Sally looked around the apartment. “It would appear you didn’t get cleaned out?”

“We parted amicably.” Mac didn’t want to talk about his divorce. He’d caught his ex-wife having an affair with a married partner in her law firm. Mac threatened to expose the affair unless he got the better of the marital assets, which he had. To change the topic, he got up, picked up their empties and asked, “One more?”

Sally looked at her watch, 11:30 p.m. “I’d like to, but it’s late.”

Mac looked at his watch. He’d lost track of time, “Geez. You’re right.”

They walked to the door, and Mac grabbed her coat, helping her put it on. She said, “Thanks.”

“I’ll walk you down.”

As they were walking down the stairs, Sally said, “So, you ready for tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Mac replied enthusiastically.

Sally picked up on it. “You’re looking forward to it, aren’t you?”

Mac looked at her. “You surprised by that?”

“It’s a murder case. Yeah, a little.”

“Tomorrow’s why you do this job. Cases like this don’t come along too often. I probably won’t sleep much tonight. But, yeah, as morbid as it sounds, I can’t wait. I can just feel the adrenaline flowing.”

They were at her car. Mac stayed back a few feet. She reached in her purse for her keys and opened her car door before looking back. They stood awkwardly, staring at each other for a moment.

Mac finally spoke. “So, I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will.”

He held back. It didn’t feel right yet. Sally smiled at him and got in the car and started the engine. Before she closed her door, she said, “Good luck tomorrow, I’ll be thinking of you.” She closed the door and backed away from him, turned, gave him a wave and drove off.

Chapter Ten

“Good cop. Bad cop.”

Mac, along with Lich and Captain Peters climbed into Mac’s Explorer, headed out of the Department of Public Safety ramp and worked their way quickly to Interstate 35E, driving north out of downtown St. Paul on their way out to Hisle’s place in Stillwater.

The morning had been a blur, spent in a number of meetings. It started with a meeting with Captain Peters, which then moved to the chief’s office for his daily briefing. Sylvia Miller sat in on that one to discuss what to do if the media showed.

Before they left for Stillwater, Mac finally had time to meet with Lich about last night’s meeting with Sally. They discussed her theories about how Hisle might handle their interview with the senator. Lich snorted, “In other words, she acted like a typical lawyer and didn’t really answer your question.”

Mac had to chuckle. Given his divorce terms, Lich had caskets of animosity stored up for attorneys. “She was a little evasive. Yes, but that’s because we don’t know what Hisle’s going to do anymore than he knows what we’ll do.”

“So,” Lich said, grinning, “how evasive was she?”

“Evasive?”

“Listen, son, you put the wood to her or what?”

“Jesus,” said Mac, giving Lich a disbelieving look.

“Sheesh, you really are out of practice.”

“Well, how’d you do with Dot?”

“A hell of a lot better than you did,” Lich said with a big shit-eating grin.

Mac winced, suddenly developing a bad mental picture of bald old Lich and big-breasted Dot flopping around. “Spare me the details.”

Mac exited 35E, onto Highway 36 for the drive east to Stillwater. The drive would have been a lot prettier three weeks earlier when the leaves were orange, red and yellow at the peak of the fall colors. Now, the ride out towards Stillwater was strewn with leaves blowing across the highway, the trees barren, waiting for the coming cold and snow of a Minnesota winter.

Stillwater, a burgeoning suburb twenty miles east of St. Paul, was located on the St. Croix River, which also served as the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Up on top of the bluff overlooking the St. Croix was “new” Stillwater, with big-box retailers and various other suburban amenities. The amenities were surrounded by suburban homes with large yards and three-car garages. The part of Stillwater sitting two hundred feet below the bluff and right on the St. Croix was the quaint old downtown. A lumber town, Stillwater had morphed into an elegant tourist trap of old red-brick and stone buildings full of little antique stores, restaurants and marinas for river boats.

Lyman lived just north of Stillwater, with a place on a little cliff overlooking the river. Once off the road, Mac took a long driveway that might have been a hundred yards long that circled in front of the house. The house itself was a sprawling prairie-style rambler, the back of which overlooked the river. Lyman undoubtedly had a groundskeeper of some sort in the summer, as there were flower beds and trimmed bushes appropriately scattered over the grounds. The flowers were now in hibernation, but the bushes were all in well-trimmed condition, rounded and squared appropriately. It was impressive.

“Representing criminals pays, don’t it, Mac?” Lich commented.

“Yeah, but Lyman’s a good guy.”

“Maybe I should have hired him for my divorce.”

They dropped the Explorer just past the front door. As they approached the house, Lich asked Mac, “Just thought I’d ask, you know so we’re prepared and all, how are you going to handle this?”

“My guess is the senator isn’t going to be so impressed with a young buck detective running things. If so, you look at me when we start, my look will let you know. Let’s play on that and see if we can’t get him riled up.”

“Good cop. Bad cop?” Lich said.

“Exactly.”

Lich smiled and moved to push the doorbell. Before he could, Hisle opened the door. “Good afternoon, detectives. Please come in.”

They entered into a large open foyer. “I thought we’d head into the library,” Lyman said, pointing down a hallway to their right.

The library was exactly that. There were windows that looked out over the river. The rest of the walls were built-in bookshelves, with an impressive collection of works. Mac saw an old collection of Charles Dickens tales. There were a few shelves with old legal treatises. Lyman also liked more modern fare, with many bestsellers.

In the middle of the library was a long conference table with four highbacked leather chairs on either side and one on each end. The floor was wood, but a large Persian rug sat in the center under the conference table. As they entered the library, Mason Johnson stood looking out the window. Casually dressed in tan slacks, he also wore a navy blue sweater and white button down collar shirt. Handshakes were exchanged, coffee poured, and they moved to the conference table. Johnson shook Mac’s hand, held it briefly, gave him a long look and smirked just slightly as they sat down. Inside, Mac smiled.
So, the senator isn’t exactly impressed with me
. Mac sat down next to Lich, smiled slightly and nodded.
Let’s go with the game plan
.

Lyman opened. “Marion, how should we proceed?”

“It’s McRyan’s case.” Peters said, nodding towards Mac.

Lyman looked at Mac and asked, “Well?”

Mac, pleasant to start, said, “I appreciate your and the senator’s willingness to meet with us. We were hoping the senator might be able to clear up a few things for us.”

“Like what, Michael?” Lyman asked.

“For example, was he at Ms. Daniels’ place the night she was killed?”

The senator looked at Lyman, who nodded. “You know I was.”

“What time did you leave?” Mac asked.

“Around 1:30 a.m.”

“Why were you there?”

“I was seeing Claire.”

“Describe ‘seeing,’ senator,” Lich asked.

“Claire and I were... involved.” Senator Johnson responded evasively.

“In other words, you were having sex with her,” Mac said bluntly. It was a statement, not a question, intended to push.

“Yes,” Johnson replied tersely.

“Did you use a condom?”

“No.” That made DNA less of an issue.

“How long had you and Ms. Daniels been sleeping together?” Mac asked.

“A couple of months.”

“How did you meet?” Lich inquired pleasantly. The senator spent fifteen minutes detailing his relationship with Daniels, where they had met and how the relationship had grown over time.

Mac thought about asking whether the senator’s wife knew about Daniels, but because Sally had said Hisle would likely shut that down, he decided to wait. Instead he asked, “Were you there two nights before Claire was killed?”

“Yes, I was.”

Mac, gratuitously, trying to push just a little, “Getting a little action that night as well?”

“I’m not sure it’s any of your business.” The senator replied sharply. Lyman grabbed his arm. Mac smiled. The senator didn’t like him.