Electing to Murder

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“It’s our best strategy.”

McRyan’s Pub was opened by Mac’s great-grandfather Patrick. The pub, the oldest in St. Paul, had an extremely colorful history, having remained open and subversively active during Prohibition. During Prohibition, the drinks were served in the infamous Patrick’s Room. Located in the basement, Patrick’s Room was found behind a hidden door disguised as a built-in wooden buffet that ran the length of a wall, not unlike what you might find in one of St. Paul’s Victorian homes. A latch inside the middle drawer of the buffet opened the door into a large party room. During Prohibition, the police, politicians, citizens and even the occasional notorious criminal partied together. John Dillinger, Machine-Gun Kelly and Creepy Karpis were all guests and the police would leave them alone as long as they behaved themselves in St. Paul. Harboring criminals wasn’t perhaps the McRyan family’s finest hour, but those were the times. Now a plaque outside the room described its notorious history and black and white pictures inside detailed the room’s colorful history.

While Patrick’s Room these days was mostly used for private parties, cop poker games and the odd corporate meeting, on occasion it also served as an off-the-books war room for one of Mac’s investigations. Tonight, it served a new function: temporary safe house. As Mac approached the stairway to the basement, on-duty and off-duty cops alike, many of them McRyan’s, stood at attention, guns visible, ready to throw down at a moment’s notice.

As he pushed into Patrick’s Room, the first person he saw was Sally, who jumped up from the table and rushed to hug him, burying her head in his shoulder. “I’m okay,” he replied quietly, holding her tight. She knew what his job was and the dangers that it occasionally entailed. But until tonight, the danger had always been known, even discussed, but never experienced so up close and personal.

The Judge pushed himself out of a chair and approached and Mac’s mood darkened.

“I better explain.”

“Ya think,” Mac replied tersely, his arms folded. “And this time, no more jackin’ around. I’d like the whole f*ckin’ story, if you don’t mind.”

Judge Dixon stepped back and tensed up, his eyes narrowing in on the detective. He was not someone accustomed to being spoken to in such a fashion but he took measure of the look on McRyan’s face and thought of the conditions now existing on the street above and nodded lightly. “You’re right, Detective.”

The Judge looked over to Kate Shelby. “Detective, let’s start with what’s in the backpack.”

Just then, the chief and Mac’s Uncle Shamus burst into Patrick’s Room, “Mac what in the hell is going on?” Then the chief saw the Judge. He stepped to him and extended his hand. “Judge. Good to see you in one piece, my friend.”

Dixon extended his as well. “Thank you, Charlie. We’re safe, thanks to your people.”

The chief looked to Mac, “You okay, son?”

“Fine, sir.”

“And Lich?”

“Took one in the left shoulder; a nasty through and through. He’s on the way to the hospital now.”

“I’ll run over to check on him here soon and we’ll break this all down later, for now I just want to know what in the hell is going on in my city? I have three bodies tied to this now, don’t I?”

“Actually five,” Mac answered.

“Five?” the chief wailed.

“Yes, Chief, we do,” Mac answered, mentioning the blown up Suburban. Then he turned his glare to the Judge. Dixon read the look—start talking.

“Charlie,” the Judge started. “Let’s start with this backpack and its back story.”

Kate unzipped the backpack and pulled out a laptop, spiral notebooks, a cell phone and a manila folder.

“Chief,” the Judge pointed over to Wire. “This is Dara Wire. She used to be FBI, she is a security consultant now and for the past several months she’s been working for me. Her job has been to follow Heath Connolly.”

“Connolly? The campaign manager for the vice president?” the chief asked.

“Right. I’ve known him for a while now and he’s a Rovian-type political operator, except with a serious dark side. The last few months have shown that my concerns about him have been well founded.” The Judge relayed the Florida Keys story to the group.

“I always wondered if you were behind that,” Mac quietly muttered.

“In any event,” Dixon continued, “I’ve had Dara following him around as best as possible.” The Judge pointed to Wire. “D, why don’t you take it from there.”

“I followed Connolly down to Kentucky on Wednesday night to a lake home. The home is owned by Raymond Hitch, a big contributor to the Wellesley campaign. When I arrived at the cabin, I tried to get into position and when I did I ran into …”

“Montgomery and Stroudt,” Mac finished. “They were there, right?”

Wire nodded.

“And they were discovered?” Mac asked.

“Yes,” Wire nodded with a little smile. “How did you know?”

“Logical guess. Being discovered explains their behavior from the middle of Wednesday night on.”

“What do you mean?” the Judge asked.

“We tracked Stroudt’s and Montgomery’s movements before and after that meeting,” Mac replied. “They flew into Nashville on Tuesday afternoon. Before the meeting, everything is a pretty normal business trip, hotel, dinner and drinks. They’re using credit cards, making cell phone calls. Then sometime in the middle of the night, everything changes. Instead of driving back to Nashville, they go northwest to St. Louis.”

“Because they were worried Connolly’s men had what I had,” Wire added, “the license plate to their rental car, which in turn gave them a name.”

“And once they had a name,” Mac continued, “they were able to track Stroudt because he was on a plane to here and then rented a car.”

“Why was he flying here?” the chief asked.

“To see us,” the Judge answered. “Stroudt and Sebastian McCormick were friends back in the day in law school at the University of Virginia.”

“Why did he want to see Sebastian?” Mac asked. “That’s what I want to know.”

“It has to be because of what they saw in Kentucky at Hitch’s cabin,” Dixon answered.

“Which was what exactly?” Mac pushed.

Wire took out the camera. “We are thinking it has something to do with what’s on the camera or laptop.”

Mac leaned close to Wire to check the photos on the camera. There were six people in the cabin, one very recognizable, Heath Connolly, and five others. As he looked at the pictures, Mac remarked, “We have two security guys, I’d say. Earbuds and cords on the two in the dark suits. Who are the other three?”

“I don’t know,” Dixon replied. “I’ve only had one quick look at these pictures myself.”

Mac started flipping through the pictures on the camera screen. He stopped on a picture of the younger blond man. The man was holding something in his right hand. Mac squinted at the picture and at what the man held in his hand. He then enlarged the photo on the display screen but couldn’t make it out. Mac pulled out his cell phone and started flipping through his applications until he found the right one, pressed it and held the phone up to the screen on the back of the camera.

“What are you doing?” Wire asked, looking quizzically at McRyan.

“Magnifying glass app,” Mac replied as he held his cell phone over the screen and took in the magnification. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make much out. He would need to get the pictures onto his laptop and then blow them up from there. Then maybe they could make out what was in the man’s hand. “Nothing. Maybe we can get some professional assistance and get that blown up. Maybe then we can tell what it might be.”

Mac changed course and looked to Wire, “Were any of the people in these pictures the man you shot earlier tonight?”

Wire shook her head, “No. He wasn’t in Kentucky.”

“Too bad,” Mac answered. “That might have given us another way to get at these guys.”

“But I did get a picture tonight.”

Mac looked at Wire quizzically.

“What? I’m not the only one who knows how to use a cell phone.”

She showed everyone the picture.

“We’ve got to move this show downtown,” Mac said. “We need to figure out who this guy is and if he’s still alive.”

* * *

CNN was the first cable network on the scene with breaking news, but MSNBC and Fox News were now zeroing in on the events as well. The coverage was alternating between reporters at the home of Thomson deputy campaign manager, Sebastian McCormick, and the scene of a drive-by shooting outside a bar in St. Paul, one in which it was alleged Judge Dixon, Thomson’s campaign manager, had possibly been a target.

Connolly just sat in his hotel suite in Cincinnati and pensively watched.

This was starting to get out of control.

Then when the coverage broke for a commercial and, of course, there was another attack ad on Governor Thomson, as there had been all night. Connolly knew the vice president would be coming to his room shortly.

The chattering class had been analyzing the final days of the campaign, the massive rallies, the big speeches, the final push and the advertising, all of the negative advertising. It was always a complaint every campaign season, the seemingly relentless barrage of negative ads at the end of the race. By the time it was all over, most people wouldn’t want their senator or representative to watch their kids, let alone hold office, given how bad the ads tried to make them sound. But this season and the last few days in particular, was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.

All of the GOP Super PACs were operating as Connolly had conceived, hitting Governor Thomson again and again and again, for two straight days now, in the four key states left to be contested. The negative ads just keep coming and coming, one after another, an unrelenting fusillade. The money being expended was almost unfathomable. That had been the lead story of the night, the tsunami of negative advertising, at least until the shootings in St. Paul.

Governor Thomson wasn’t just taking it lying down, nor was the Democratic Party. They were pushing back as much as they could, but while the Dems owned Internet fundraising, the amounts that could be raised in that medium for the standard voter simply paled in comparison to the largesse held by the GOP and its big money donors. In this environment, the Democrats couldn’t go toe-to-toe, round after round. They simply didn’t have the depth of wealth. Connolly knew this, he knew when they got to this point in the campaign the vice president would have the ability to buy spot after spot to savage Thomson.

Armageddon was promised in every negative ad if Thomson were to win. Your 401k would collapse, your job would disappear, gas prices would skyrocket, your taxes would go through the roof, your freedoms would be curtailed, Christmas would be no more, socialism would run rampant, America would become Europe, illegal aliens would flow across the border, there would be no end to the assault on traditional American values. It was the worst fears coming to reality of those who argued that the Roberts Court’s decision in Citizens United was an unmitigated disaster.

This had been his plan back when he met with the donors in the Florida Keys. To take advantage of the unlimited amounts that could be raised and spent by GOP Super PACs. Now that plan was simply being used as cover for their new plan, the one that was causing bodies to drop all over St. Paul.

There was a knock on his door and then the vice president and his son Donald Jr. entered the room.

“Heath, have you seen what’s been happening in St. Paul?” the vice president asked.

Connolly nodded.

“Sebastian McCormick is dead. Someone tried to kill Judge Dixon in a drive-by shooting. What the hell is going on?” the vice president asked as he sat down into an arm chair.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“I can’t fathom why someone would be going after McCormick and Dixon like this. Why? Why them? It’s irrational. It makes no sense.”

“It’s as if someone is trying to decapitate the Thomson campaign a few days before the end here,” Donald Jr. added with a mildly hopeful tone, knowing full well what Connolly was up to. The events of the evening had not fazed the vice president’s son. Donald Wellesley Jr., like Connolly, was always looking for political angles to play. “I’m wondering if there is a way to spin this to our advantage.”

“Spin this?” Connolly asked, thinking it as well, but not wanting to go there in front of the vice president. “We don’t want to touch this.”

“Why the hell not?” Junior asked, having no such reservations, as he poured himself a glass of bourbon. “We’re three points down nationally, and trailing by about that much in the key swing states. If there is a way to take some advantage of this, we can’t take a pass on it.” If Connolly was cutthroat, Wellesley Jr. was a political sociopath and his own father knew it.

“No, no, no,” the vice president said. “We have no idea what is blowing in the wind here and what direction it might be blowing. What if some lunatic sympathetic to our party is behind this for some crazy reason? Then what? We’ll be spinning our way out of a bigger hole than we are already in. So no, we will not be trying to get out front on this to take some advantage. If we get out front, I would do it only as a form of protection and only to express my sympathies to the Thomson campaign.”

“Father, I’m merely suggesting we need to play every angle here is all. You want to win, don’t you?”

“Damn right I do. But I’d like to win and have a shred of dignity left.” Then the vice president turned his gaze to Connolly. “Before all this happened in the last half hour, I was going to come in here about the advertising. Heath, what are the Super PACs doing? Jesus Christ, it’s a carpet bombing. I don’t tell you how to do your job but I don’t think this is working.”

“I disagree, sir,” Connolly replied. “I think it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing. It is sewing greater doubt in Thomson and we just need to keep hammering that message at this point. It’s our best strategy.” Not to mention good cover for his primary strategy. “Besides, sir, I can’t call the Super PACs off. I’ve learned the hard way about coordinating with the Super PACs, so I do not have much ability to control what they are doing. Besides, they, as do I, as do you, view Thomson as a big threat. The Super PACs will not go down without a fight. Right or wrong, they figure they’ll lose exponentially more than they’re spending if Thomson wins.”

The vice president stood up and walked around the suite, shaking his head. Vice President Donald Wellesley was a small government conservative who believed in low taxes, less government regulation and business friendly policies. He was also a man of honor and integrity who was occasionally willing to make common cause with politicians on the other side of the aisle for the good of the country. He often said, “You know the guy on the other side has a good idea from time to time.” This campaign, the negative advertising, the vitriol of it all would, even if he won, make it difficult to govern. The wounds would be deep.

Connolly didn’t care if it would be difficult to govern. If you won, at least you governed, you controlled the levers of power. To make this work he needed the vice president to finish strong and stay on message. “Sir, as I listen to the commentary tonight, I don’t see a lot of criticism of you in this. You are on the record as saying the Supreme’s screwed the pooch with Citizens United. So while the political commentariat is hammering the advertising, I don’t hear them hammering you.”

The vice president looked out the window for a moment and then turned to leave. “I hope you’re right, Heath, but I fear the damage has already been done.”

With that the vice president left Connolly’s suite. Wellesley Jr. stayed. “So, our friend was behind what happened in St. Paul tonight?”

“He called earlier to let me know they had a line on Montgomery. I’m betting he’s the other body at McCormick’s. It’s only a matter of time before that gets out.”

“I don’t see how that hurts us, actually,” Wellesley Jr. answered nonplussed. “I think it might even help us.”

“How so?”

“Two political bloggers and the deputy campaign manager for the Thomson campaign end up dead in St. Paul just miles from Thomson Campaign Headquarters. The media being the media are going to fall all over themselves trying to find a connection. What is the connection? Were they hiding something? If they were, what was it?”

“The connection is that those two saw the meeting in Kentucky and took pictures,” Connolly retorted. “If the media gets that information, then we will all be f*cked. The idea I’m sure tonight was to get possession of that information and finally plug that leak.”

“If you’re right, then why the shooting outside the bar?” Junior asked. “Why did Kristoff go after Dixon?”

“I don’t know.”