The St. Paul Conspiracy (36 page)

“I thought we were on the same team?” Mac replied, disbelief on his face. “We haven’t asked to go to court yet. Who knows what we might find if we keep looking. If we develop a good case, then you can decide.”

“I won’t take this into court against PTA.”

Mac, pissed, raised his voice. “We wouldn’t ask you. We’d ask someone who’s actually seen the inside of a courtroom, not a chicken-shit politician more interested in protecting her bony little ass and her senate run.”

“That’s enough, detective!” the mayor replied angrily.

Mac ignored the mayor and glared at Anderson, not backing down.

“Calm down, everyone,” the chief stated, a wry smile on his face. “Let’s have a drink and cool down.” He got up and went to his desk and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and several glasses. While filling them, he asked, “Mac, what would you and the boys here suggest is your next move?”

“We were discussing that when you called, sir. I don’t know that we had decided as of yet.”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” the mayor replied. “You go poking around PTA without more than you have, we’ll lose them.”

“Sir?” Riley asked.

“I got the call from Ted Lindsay over at PTA. We’re currently in discussions with PTA to keep them here in St. Paul. Their lease is up next summer, and they bring over four thousand employees downtown alone. My office is working with the building owner, trying to keep PTA and all those jobs here in St. Paul. If we’re investigating them on something as thin as what you’ve put forward here, we’ll lose them, especially if the media gets wind of it. I don’t need to tell all of you what the loss of those jobs would do to this city.”

Rock, stunned. “Jobs? What about murder? Does that count for anything, Mayor?”

“Yes, detective, it does,” the mayor replied. “I’m no lawyer, but from what you’ve laid out here, you don’t have a case, do you?”

“Not yet,” Mac replied.

“Not ever,” Anderson interjected. “Ever heard of reasonable doubt, detective McRyan?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mac replied with a wicked grin. “Graduated summa cum laude from law school.” He knew Anderson didn’t have any Latin on her diploma.

She only blinked once. “Then you know that PTA’s lawyers would have no problem creating reasonable doubt.”

“For once tonight, Ms. Anderson, you’re right,” Mac replied, restraining himself as best he could, “Neither I, nor Pat, nor any of us, though, have asked you to go to court yet. We just want to look into this more.”

“The more you look into it, the more likely it is that PTA leaves the city,” the mayor jumped back in. “Ted Lindsay said as much today.”

Rock, exasperated, said, “Fuck ’em. Just because someone employs a bunch of people in this city means they get a free pass?”

“Not on my watch,” Riley added.

“Chief,” the mayor replied, “put a leash on your boys here, or I will.”

“Mac,” the chief brushed off the mayor, “What if we could talk to PTA tomorrow?”

“Sir?”

“If I could put you in a room with Ted Lindsay tomorrow—what would you say to that?”

“Might that be the only option you’ll give us for going forward?”

The chief nodded.

“I’m game.”

“Charlie, No!” the mayor replied. “We’re not going to do that. We’re meeting with Lindsay tomorrow to smooth this over. This won’t help.”

“Tell you what, Mayor. I’m a cop, not a politician. These boys are cops, not politicians. They investigate homicides. Now I’m not sure they have anything yet. But coincidences like these?” the chief shook his head. “I’ve been a cop for thirty-three years. If I ran across something like this, I’d like to think I’d do exactly what these boys did.” Flanagan took a sip of his drink and sat back in the high-backed leather chair. “Now, if Ted Lindsay has nothing to hide, he’ll talk to me and the boys here. If he talks tomorrow and answers their questions, and he provides satisfactory answers, then that’ll be the end of it. And my word matters on that, does it not, boys?” the chief asked, looking at Mac and Riles in particular. They both nodded. Flanagan continued, “If Mr. Lindsay doesn’t have answers for us, then my boys’ll continue to look into this.” He took a last sip of the dark whiskey, smiled and asked, “So what’s it gonna be, Mayor?”

Mac smiled inwardly. Chief Flanagan backed his boys’ play. That’s why they loved him. He was the chief of police, not a police chief, not a tinhorn politician.

The mayor, on the other hand, looked like he’d just choked down a serving of Nyquil. “I’ll talk to Lindsay and see what he says. He may not go for it.”

“Ask the man. If he has nothing to hide, he’ll do it.”

The mayor sighed, “I’ll see what I can do.” He turned and left the chief’s office to go make the call.

“Charlie, I’d be careful if I were you,” Anderson warned, ever the politician. “You’re playing with fire here and not just the department’s hide, but the city’s.”

“Helen, if I gave a shit about politics, you would be right.” The chief took another sip of his drink, smiling. “But I don’t. Never have. If the mayor and the City Council want to get rid of me, I got a big old cabin up north waiting for me.” The chief had some dough; his wife came from a wealthy family. “But I appreciate your concern.”

“Well, good luck to you all,” Anderson replied. “I may have been a little confrontational. Of course, should something turn up, our office, as always, would work with you,” she finished, extending an olive branch.

The chief accepted, “Thank you, Helen.”

Anderson left. The chief grabbed the bottle of Irish whiskey and gave everyone another touch. He took a long drink and a little smile creased his face.

“Well, boys. I was all ready to read you the riot act.”

“We figured that to be the case,” Riley replied.

“But I just can’t be mad at you. I still don’t know if you have anything here, but, damn, if I don’t want to let you have a shot at it.”

* * * * *

Alt sat on the fine leather couch, close to the fireplace, sipping water and admiring the shelves of books in Ted Lindsay’s study. Seemed like there were hundreds of them, different sizes and colors. They must have all been classics. The boss would have nothing but the best.

Lindsay was on the phone with the St. Paul mayor. This was their third conversation of the day. Alt listened as Lindsay agreed to a 5:00 p.m. meeting at his office. He hung up the phone and strolled over to Alt, grabbing a high-backed leather chair, close to the fire.

“So we have a 5:00 p.m. meeting tomorrow?” Alt asked.

“Yes. The mayor, Chief Flanagan, McRyan, and Riley.”

“To discuss...?”

“They want to discuss with us some problems they have with the death of Jamie Jones and how PTA might be able to help clear them up.”

“What do they know?”

“At this point, they know that some documents about Cross exist, based on our conversations with Landy Stephens. I want to know more by tomorrow, however.”

“I better go back downtown.”

“Yes. I want to know if McRyan and Kennedy talk about this. So, let’s see if those bugs’ll pay off, shall we?”

“Yes sir. One question. Why take the meeting tomorrow?”

“Because, according to the mayor, if we meet with them and have answers to their questions, the chief has given his assurance that the investigation will end.”

“You believe that?”

“I do,” Lindsay replied confidently. “Charlie Flanagan is a man of his word. He’s backed his boys, which is why that force would run through a brick wall for him. But if they crap out tomorrow, he’s smart enough to know that he can’t let them keep going. Even if he suspects something, he knows that if we shut them down on this Cross business, they have nowhere to go, no way to get a conviction, and he can’t risk exposure of the department on the Daniels case or letting word slip that this Knapp didn’t kill one of the victims. So, if we shut him down tomorrow, we should be rid of the police.”

“Plus, we hammer the city with the threat we’ll leave if they don’t back down.”

“Yes,” Lindsay smiled. “The mayor’s concerned about the loss of all those jobs and the impact on his city. He likes being mayor. So, yes, he’d like to see this all go away. In other words, my friend, let’s see that we make the mayor happy, shall we?”

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Is that what this is really all about, detective?”

Mac looked out the window of the minivan as they drove through five blocks of rush-hour traffic to the PTA Tower. The Christmas decorations were lighting up the dark 4:45 p.m. sky of downtown. Green wreaths with bright red bows adorned the street lights. Department store and restaurant windows were outlined with red, green and white lights. Santas were working the corners, wringing their Christmas bells, looking for donations to the Salvation Army. It all made for a festive atmosphere.

The scene allowed Mac’s mind to drift, if only momentarily, away from the task at hand: PTA. It was only for an instant, and then it returned, as it had again and again for the past twenty-four hours. The chief, mayor, Captain Peters, Riley, and he were going to meet with Ted Lindsay, the president of PTA, although the mayor would wait outside. Mac had seen pictures and video footage of him for years. He was a prominent man of the town. Now Mac was essentially going to accuse Lindsay and people who worked for him of murder.

And he was going in with less than a full arsenal. He met with Riles, Rock, and Lich all day, discussing scenarios of how to go after PTA and at the same time protect the department. They went back and forth on a variety of approaches, but finally settled on one that tied one hand behind their back. They couldn’t use Claire Daniels. Mac reached the same conclusion with Sally the night before.

Daniels’ name might come up, but not in the context that they thought PTA killed her, even though Mac suspected they did. Her name would come up as a reporter that Jamie Jones knew and talked to, probably about Cross, whatever Cross was. But for now, at least, they planned to leave the death of Claire Daniels with the senator. If this whole stunt backfired, they reasoned, they wouldn’t have to deal with the mess of putting into play the fact that the investigators of the Daniels’s murder thought they got the wrong man.

Despite the fact they were leaving Daniels out, it was, nonetheless, decided they would be aggressive. As Riles said repeatedly, “We probably got one shot at this, so let’s not leave anything in the bag. Grip it and rip it.”

“Damn straight,” Rock said, a bull in the China shop if there ever was one. “Let’s take our best shot at the bastards. If we crap out, fine, no regrets.”

“Mac,” Lich said. “Go at him like you went at the senator. Smart-ass young prick detective thinks he knows everything. See if you can get under his skin.”

That would be their approach. What made Mac nervous was that when he had gone after the senator, they had had evidence up the wazoo. To say they had less than that on PTA would be an understatement. They had suspicions, but no direct evidence. Somehow they had to prove to the chief and the mayor that PTA was worth investigating further. Lindsay needed to fess up to something or lose his cool. Accomplish either of those things, and the chief might let them keep looking. That was the goal, to keep the investigation alive.

“Go at him with Cross?” Mac said to the group.

“It’s all we got,” Lich replied. “See what the man has to say.”

Mac smiled inwardly. He had a feeling this would be one of those life events he would never forget.

Downtown St. Paul was mostly a maze of one-way streets. The group actually had to drive all the way around the PTA Tower to get to the building’s parking garage. A security guard waved to them as they pulled in. He directed them towards another guard standing by a chain-link gate that led to a private parking area. As they approached the gate, the guard rolled it open, and Captain Peters pulled the van through and drove to a spot marked with a VIP parking sign.

As Peters put the van into park, Riley, who was sitting next to Mac patted him on the thigh and smiled. “You know this is probably nothing, a waste of our time.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty thin.”

They both felt otherwise as they got out of the van and a blond guy with a medium build approached. “Hello, Chief Flanagan. My name’s Webb Alt,” the blond-haired man said as he extended his hand. “I’m the vice- president of Security. Mr. Lindsay asked that I meet you all down here and take you on up.”

“Alt,” the chief replied, taking his hand and then introduced everyone else. Mac shook Alt’s hand and gave him a look. Was this guy one of those assassins Lyman was talking about?

“We’ll go through this door over here and take the private elevator up to the top and to Mr. Lindsay’s private conference room,” Alt said, and waved them towards the door.

“Hmpf. Private elevator,” Riley said quietly in a sarcastic voice.

“Ain’t like going over to Dick’s Bar, now is it?” Mac replied with a wry smile.

The group followed Alt and filed into the waiting elevator. Mac watched the digital display over the door, which remained blank all the way until it stopped on twenty. It was a private express elevator; it didn’t stop on any other floors. As they walked off the elevator, they were in the lobby where the general public elevators came to a stop as well, two on each side of the hall. Straight ahead was a cherry wood reception desk, vacated for the evening.

Alt, sensing they noticed the vacant receptionist desk, offered, “We appreciate your willingness to come at this later hour. We preferred our employees not see someone as recognizable as Chief Flanagan and Detective McRyan walking through the building to see the president.”

Riley snorted, elbowing Mac in the ribs. “So, you’re recognizable?”

“Guess I’ll need a publicist.”

Alt led them past the reception desk, towards a set of double doors that led into a plush conference room. There was a cherry wood conference table with ten high-backed leather chairs on either side. Fine crystal glassware sat on a silver tray in the middle of the table. A large credenza on one end of the conference room held coffee and soft drinks. Built-in cabinets on the other end probably concealed a television and projection screen of some sort, Mac thought, based on the configuration of the cabinet doors.