Electing to Murder

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“We have a plane waiting.”

Sometimes in an investigation you need a little luck and, even better, you need the other side to be unlucky, and when the two converge together, well, so much the better.

Mac called in Lupo’s name to the Edina Police Department who put an unmarked car on his house near Interlachen Country Club while Mac organized a party from St. Paul to come over and look things over. When the Edina detective arrived at Lupo’s a little after 5:00 a.m., the house was awake, lights on in several rooms. Ten minutes later the garage door opened and Lupo backed his Jaguar out of his garage and was on his way in a hurry. The detective carefully tailed him five miles west across Edina to Highway 169. Lupo traveled south on 169 to Valley View Road and then made his way west to the back end of a past-its-prime cinder block industrial park in Eden Prairie. Lupo went in the front door of an unmarked one-story building. The shades over the singular front window were drawn. The Edina detective found a good location a block back on the second level of a parking garage to keep an eye on Lupo’s car. That was at 5:25 a.m.

At 5:45 a.m., Mac and Wire met up with Rockford, Riley, Double Frank and Paddy McRyan in the parking lot of Braemar Ice Arena a mile to the east. A contingent from Eden Prairie and Edina arrived five minutes later. The lead officer, Detective Younkers from Eden Prairie, impressed Mac, arriving with a search warrant.

“How’d you get a search warrant on what we have?” Wire asked. She and Mac had discussed a search warrant on the way down and agreed that on what they had, the chances of getting the warrant would be, at best, one-in-five and more likely one-in-ten.

“Hennepin County Judge Kale is a former prosecutor,” Younkers replied, then with a devious smile added, “He’s our go-to guy and loves the late night stuff. He’d sign a search warrant on his mother. So how do you want to handle this?”

“We need to go in strong,” Mac said. “If our guy is in there, he could have some friends hanging around or even inside and they’ll be strapped. So a show of force, vested up, coming in heavy is the way to go.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Younkers replied and he pulled out a map and spread it across the trunk of his Crown Victoria. “Lupo’s space is in the middle of this building,” he said, pointing to a building sitting at the bottom of a U-shaped office park. There was a two-lane street, small grass and sidewalk median and then parking lot in the front of the building with a narrow service driveway that wrapped its way around the back of the building. Younkers then pulled out another sheet that had the building’s interior layout. Lupo was in the middle of the three spaces for the building. The doctor’s office space was thirty feet wide by sixty feet deep. There was a front door and one on the back side. The internal layout that Younkers had was for the space’s previous tenant, which was a small machine shop. The front thirty feet of space was occupied by a small reception area and two interior offices, one on each side of the hallway leading to the back which was an open space, presumably what had been the machining area. “My guess, Detective McRyan, is that if he’s doing surgery in there, it’s in the back, as the front offices look a little small for what he’d likely need.”

Mac nodded as he soaked in the interior map.

“We have twelve people here,” Younkers said. “I’d say we go in with six in the front and six in the back.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“You ready then?”

“Lead the way,” Mac answered.

Everyone geared up, pulling on their vests and making a quick check of their weapons. Mac let Younkers take the lead in an unmarked with another detective. Mac and Wire followed in his Yukon and the others fell in behind and the motorcade made its way over to Lupo’s office.

While Mac and Wire were driving down from Boone’s to the rendezvous point at the ice arena, the background on Lupo arrived on Mac’s phone. Wire read out the background as Mac drove. Lupo was a surgeon until he was fired for violating hospital policy in New York City to save a patient. That was six years ago. From that point forward, he maintained his medical license but was not part of a medical practice with a clinic or surgical facility.

“He didn’t even retain privileges anywhere?” Mac asked.

“Doesn’t look like it.”

It appeared from his history that it was after his firing that he discovered off-the-books doctoring and the concierge practice. Mac suspected that if they started digging into his financials they’d find the concierge work was reported for tax purposes and served as a cover for the off-the-books work, which may have well been more lucrative, especially if he was now charging six figures for surgical services. Presumably that kind of money would keep the gangbangers and dope dealers away and you’d only be dealing with discreet people with serious cash and no desire to be discovered.

Riley and Rockford were with the group going around the back and Younkers let them go on ahead into the industrial office park and work their way behind Lupo’s building. Once in position, Younkers did as planned and gunned it for the front door, pulling his Crown Vic right to the front door. Mac came in on Younkers’s left and Double Frank and Paddy to his right. The Eden Prairie detective walked right to the front door and started pounding. The door was tinted black. It was impossible to see inside and there was no interior light visible. After ten seconds there was no answer, then Younkers pounded on the door again and this time yelled, “Michael Lupo! This is the Eden Prairie Police Department, we have a search warrant!” Younkers knocked again and Mac shared a look with Wire. They’re inside getting ready for us. Mac pulled his Sig Sauer out of his holster.

Then the front door opened and Riley stuck his head out, “What’s new, guys?”

“What’s going on in there?” Younkers asked.

“The good doctor tried to evade you out the back where he fell into our loving arms,” Riles reported with a smile. “Rock has him in cuffs in back. So come on in.”

The interior was the same as the diagram. There was a small waiting area and a hallway led to the back between two offices. In the back was a sterile area behind vinyl curtains where there was a hospital bed/surgical table with a body laying on it. Wire opened the zipper of the vinyl curtains and went inside and took one look at the man. “That’s him.”

“No question?” McRyan asked.

“No question, Mac. No question at all.”

Mac walked over to Lupo who was standing against the back wall, his hands cuffed behind his back. “Unhook him,” he said to Rock who did so. Lupo rubbed his wrists. “Sit down.” The doctor did as instructed. Mac pulled up a chair in front of Lupo, turned it backwards and sat down and handed him the search warrant. “That covers everything in here and your home.”

Lupo read through it and then looked up and Mac flashed his shield. “I’m Detective McRyan with the St. Paul Police Department. Right now, you want to start thinking about how you can help yourself because, Doc, you are in a world of hurt. And I’m pretty sure we’ll call our good friends with the NYPD. I imagine they’d like to catch up with you as well. Of course, if you help us, then we can forget that New York is looking for you and we’ll deal with your issues here in the friendly confines of Minnesota.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Lupo cowered, putting his hands up. “I’ll help. I’ll help. What do you need?” Lupo asked.

“The man you’ve operated on killed two people tonight and we think perhaps a third two days ago. So for starters, I need to know this man’s name.”

The doctor rubbed his face and shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know his name, Detective,” Lupo replied. “I was contacted about my services around 10:40 p.m. and that the patient needed immediate surgery for gunshot wounds. I quoted my price and the money was in my account within five minutes. Two men dropped him off here at the back door around 11:30 p.m. and I went to work. Obviously I don’t operate like a normal clinic. I don’t have medical records for this kind of work.”

“Did he have a wallet?”

“Not that I found when I went through his clothes.”

Wire had slipped on rubber gloves and was going through the killer’s clothing, which consisted of blue jeans, a bloody black mock turtleneck, and a black leather coat. But as was the case when Wire shot him, he didn’t have a wallet or anything to identify him.

“What’s his medical status?” Mac asked.

Lupo looked over at his patient, “To state it simply, he’s in critical condition. He was shot three times in the chest. It’s touch and go right now as he’s been out of surgery for only a few hours.”

“What are you supposed to do with him?” Riley asked.

“I’m supposed to get a phone call soon to provide an update on his condition. All they wanted me to do was patch him up good enough so he could travel but he’s not close to ready for that yet. We have to get him out of the woods first and he’s nowhere near there.”

“Travel to where?” Wire asked.

Lupo shook his head, “Hell if I know. The two guys who dropped him off were scary as hell, kind of like you two,” he pointed to Rock and Riley. “So I didn’t ask where they were going to. I don’t know and I didn’t care. I minded my business and got my two hundred grand.”

“Well, you’re going to need every last dollar of it to get yourself out of this jam,” Mac said as he walked away and nodded towards Wire, Riley and Rock to follow him to the front reception area.

“So what do you guys think?”

Riles and Rock shrugged their shoulders. “We’ll go through this place to see if there is any record of who this guy is but I got the feeling he was telling the truth.”

“Yeah, the Hippocratic Oath doesn’t seem to matter much to him but I get the vibe that he’s telling the truth about the guy,” Wire said. “He doesn’t know who he is. Lupo got his money, patched him up as best he could and was going to be happy to send him on his way when he was good to be moved. That’s how these doctors roll.” Wire’s phone started vibrating. “It’s the Judge. I should take this,” she said as she moved into one of the offices to talk.

Mac nodded to Rockford, who was holding a camera. “Bobby, let’s get photos of this guy’s face, check his arm for tats or anything else that could be identifying and let’s get this guy’s picture over to Duffy and put it in his queue to see if he can tell us who he is.”

“On it, Mac.”

As Rockford walked to the back, Younkers joined them in the reception area. “What do you guys think?”

“I think two things. First, our guy is in critical condition and if I’m reading Lupo right, it’s maybe 50/50 at best, could go either way. We need to get a surgeon over here stat to confirm that and take over care. Call over to Fairview Southdale or North Memorial and see if we can get a surgeon out here on the QT. I don’t want this guy moved until he’s stable enough to be moved. Second, we leave eight guys inside here,” Mac answered. “We have double that hang around nearby and see if they call. If they do, Lupo tells them their guy is ready to be picked up. If they show, we pounce. If not, at worst, we have our killer. We can keep working on finding out who let him off the leash.”

Wire walked back into the front of the room, “Mac, we have a plane waiting.”

* * *

Moriarity and Holmes sat in the front seats of their latest vehicle, now a black Dodge minivan. Their position up on a small hill two blocks west of Lupo’s office allowed them to look down on the office and take in the front and the back of the business. They saw the three unmarked cars roll around the back and Moriarity said: “That doesn’t look promising.

“No, it doesn’t, they came in fast,” Holmes answered. “And that looks even worse,” he added after seeing the three unmarked cars roll up to the front of the office thirty seconds later. He put the night vision binoculars to his eyes and focused on the front door. “The one doing the knocking has a document in his right hand.”

“Search warrant?”

“I don’t know American law very well,” Holmes answered. “However, it does seem fast to have gotten one if that’s what it is.”

The two men saw the knocking on the front and then looked to the back and saw Lupo try to sneak out the back, only to be immediately taken and cuffed by two large police officers with the other four rushing inside. Holmes reached for his cell phone. “Kristoff, we have a problem on Foche. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to walk away.”