Electing to Murder

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“You ever see Bullitt?”

The Judge sat on a folding chair in the bowels of Crisler Arena on the campus of the University of Michigan and poured over the electoral map as he listened to Michigan’s governor rev up the crowd for Governor Thomson, who would speak in five minutes. Michigan was largely in the bag, the governor up by eight points, but they wanted to be sure and much of their campaigning, and the media coverage it would garner, would seep into the northern Ohio media markets, which was prime vote territory.

Yet despite the enthusiasm in the arena, the Judge was dour. Something was going on at DataPoint and it was going to have an impact on the election. “F*cking Connolly,” he grumbled, as he stood up and heard the roars of the crowd come through the halls of Crisler Arena on the campus of the University of Michigan.

“You were right, of course,” Sally Kennedy said, standing ten feet back. She’d walked unnoticed into the anteroom a minute earlier and was watching the Judge pore over the map.

“About?”

“Connolly.”

The Judge twirled his cigar in his right hand. “I’ve met many a political operator in my day, Ms. Kennedy. And most of them understood there was a certain honor that came with doing this. They loved their country.”

“But they played by the rules, right?”

The Judge smiled, a kind of wistful smile, an acknowledgment that his views were now very old school, but they were also from a good school. “To quote my good friend, the forty-second president of the United States,” the Judge deadpanned in his best Clinton, “that depends upon what your definition of ‘rules’ is.”

Sally chuckled as did the Judge.

“So rules are relative in politics. You hit your opponent hard where he is weak and you pound away day after day. You might twist your opponent’s words out of context to get political mileage out of it. And if I could, I always liked to keep a surprise or two in my back pocket if I could to use the week before the election. All of that’s fair game,” the Judge said enthusiastically. “Guys like Ol’ Ed Rollins, Steve Schmidt, Jimmy Baker, Mary Matalin, Charlie Black, they were good people to go up against. They were patriots. They were Republicans that I could battle against and they would piss me off, oh my God, would they piss me off. But it was because they were good. I worked on Mondale’s campaign back in 1984, back when you were probably in elementary school.”

“Pre-school, actually,” Kennedy needled.

“Man, I’m getting old,” the Judge answered ruefully. “Well, in 1984, Fritz got his ass kicked. Of course, it’s the height of the Cold War and the president ran that ‘Bear in the Woods’ television spot. Have you seen that?”

“Sure, I saw it on YouTube when someone mentioned it a while back.”

“YouTube,” the Judge snorted and shook his head, acknowledging again how things had indeed changed. “Anyway. I remember calling Ed Rollins who was running the Reagan campaign a week before the election.”

“Before the election?”

“Oh hell yeah. It was over at that point, the only question was whether the Gipper would sweep everything or if we could at least hold onto Minnesota. So I called Ed and we laughed about that ad because it was brilliant. It really was and I had to tell him that. And it was good politics. Ed and his boys kicked our ass, but he did it with honor and integrity. Heath Connolly?” The Judge shook his head. “Connolly has no honor or integrity. I hate Rove. What he did to a good man in John McCain back in 2000 in South Carolina and then Max Cleland down in Georgia in 2002, a Vietnam Vet, a man who lost limbs in that war, engineering a campaign that questioned his patriotism, his commitment to protect this country, was reprehensible. It degraded the politics of our country and simply creates an environment where people like Heath Connolly flourish. He’s Karl Rove on steroids, EPO and HGH all at once. Connolly could give a shit about country.”

“But he wins,” Kennedy answered.

“And in the end I suppose that’s all that matters to lots of people,” the Judge answered. “Just not me. I’ll have to meet my maker someday. When I’m lying on my death bed, I want to know I did right. I don’t want to be like Lee Atwater, begging for forgiveness on my death bed for my sins against my fellow man when I’m dying. I want to go with a clear conscience knowing I did it the right way.”

“Connolly doesn’t have a conscience from what I can see.”

“Or a soul,” the Judge shook his head disgustedly. “He doesn’t care how you win, just win.” Dixon exhaled. “I think how you win matters.”

Sally nodded and looked down at the map and saw the Judge’s chicken scratch math off to the side of the map, with Ohio in Governor Thomson’s column, but Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia flipped red. The election would end up 271 for the vice president and 267 for Governor Thomson. She’d done the math herself a few times already, running different scenarios on her notepad, assuming something was going on in the three key states.

“Judge?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find the answers. I’ve got faith.”

“In your boy?” Meaning Mac.

She nodded and then gave him a sly smile. “He likes to win too.”

* * *

Saturday afternoon on Water Street in Milwaukee meant it was time for Happy Hour drinks. As 4:00 p.m. disappeared in the rearview mirror, the bars along the avenue started to fill with partiers dressed in red looking to get tuned up for the football game. The Wisconsin Badgers would be playing the Minnesota Golden Gophers at 6:00 p.m. and the bar was starting to fill with Badger fans for the game; it looked like the Soviet Red Army was invading. In Wisconsin, with the successes of the Green Bay Packers and Wisconsin Badgers football teams, much of the talk in the bar revolved around the bruising Badgers rushing game or the aerial majesty of Aaron Rodgers. It was expected that the weekend would be one of winning. For Mac, sitting in a corner booth at Fitzgibbon’s, it all made his stomach turn.

“Why such a sour look on your face?” Wire asked, sipping at her Miller Lite. They were in Milwaukee so the beer would, of course, have to be a Miller product.

“The Packer and Badger fans,” McRyan answered, gesturing to the crowd. “My poor Golden Gophers, they never seem to be able to get over the hump. They play the Badgers tonight, and while the new coach has them going in the right direction, it could be really ugly here in a few hours. And the Packers? The team is great, fun to watch and I love Aaron Rodgers, he is a stud, and Lambeau Field? I’ve watched two games there and it is way cool. But the Packer fans?” He shook his head. “The worst. Absolutely insufferable.”

“They love their team.”

“Everyone loves their team,” Mac answered. “But only in Wisconsin, only in Wisconsin, do the fans actually delude themselves into thinking they’re part of the team. In Minnesota, we don’t say ‘we’ when talking about the Vikings. We say the Vikes will beat the Bears, the Purple will beat the Packers. In Wisconsin, they don’t say the Pack will beat the Vikes, they say ‘we’ will beat the Vikes. There is no ‘we.’ They are not on the field. The fans are not playing. They’re just fans, just like ones in every other city. It’s ridiculous.”

Wire laughed, the ever serious Mac McRyan whining about Packer fans. She pushed his buttons. “So they’re proud of their team. They’ve won five Super Bowls. I mean, how many have the Vikings won?”

Mac took a sip of his beer and glared at her. She half thought he might jump across the table and clock her.

They were just having one drink, nursing a small beer and then it would be back to water or coffee. The beer was part of a strategy that Mac and Wire concocted back at DataPoint. A Traverse was tailing them with two men. Once they spotted the tail, Ring put a car on them. For an hour, Mac and Wire drove around Milwaukee, eventually stopping and dropping their bags at a hotel before making the trek to the pub. Their tail stayed with them the whole way. The plate on the Traverse was for a rental. The name on the rental was for George Wilson. The rental was charged on a credit card with Black Rook Enterprises, another Cayman Islands Company with a PO Box.

Ring’s men did a background on George Wilson. Wilson listed a Florida address on his license. He had a clean criminal and driving record and a quiet credit history going back just two years. The license was a Florida license with an address that didn’t exist. It was another cover ID. George Wilson would be dealt with soon. First, they needed to meet with someone.

Mac and Wire parked on the street in front of the pub, easy for the two men to spot and see. In turn, the two followers were now sitting a block south on Water Street waiting. Ring’s men were in turn another block back and a block north on Water Street, watching them, and if they moved, Wire would know. She was wearing an earbud that tied her into communication with Ring and his units on the street. They had three units total watching. Since the two men were sitting in front, it would be easy for Ginger Bloom to slip into the back of the pub and find them in their corner booth.

Before he left DataPoint, Mac wrote instructions for Bloom on the back of his business card. She was instructed to go to her apartment, grab whatever it was that Gabe Martin gave her and then come to Fitzgibbon’s. She was to text Mac when she left the apartment, which occurred ten minutes ago. Mac instructed her to come in the back of the pub since their tail was sitting on Water Street. For her safety, two of Ring’s men followed her from DataPoint to her apartment and then the pub.

Mac got a text from one of the plain clothes cops: “She’s clean. Coming in the back door.”

“She should be in here in a second,” he reported to Wire as he took another sip of his beer.

Bloom knew the bar. She walked right in the rear entrance, took a left and found Wire and McRyan in the back booth, a beer awaiting her arrival. She sat down and immediately started peering around the bar, anxious.

“It’s okay, Ginger,” Wire said, reaching for her hand. “You weren’t followed here.”

Mac slid the beer over to her, “I thought after the day’s events, you could maybe use a drink.”

Bloom nodded and took a long, several-second pull from her beer, put it down, wiped her mouth with the back of her right hand and exhaled. “I needed that.”

“I figured as much,” Mac said sympathetically. “Now, what have you brought us?”

Ginger reached into her handbag and pulled out a letter envelope and handed it to Wire. “I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

Wire nodded and reached for Bloom’s hand, “You are. We’re trying to find Gabriel’s killer and we think whoever killed him is tied into whoever ordered Adam Montgomery and others killed.” Wire took out her pocket knife and opened the envelope. Inside was the business card for Kenosha Self-Storage, a slip of paper with No. 137 written on it and a key to a padlock. She showed the contents to McRyan who nodded.

“So what is the story on this envelope?” Mac asked.

“Gabe gave it to me the night before he was killed. He said if anything happened to him, I should give this to Adam Montgomery. Gabe gave me Montgomery’s phone number to call. The next day, Thursday, I tried to call Montgomery but he never answered his cell phone.”

“Did you leave a message?”

“No, Gabe told me to only talk directly to him, not to leave a message.”

“Was Martin scared?” Wire asked.

Bloom took a sip of her beer. “He didn’t look it outwardly, but it was a scary talk when we had it. He said he was probably being way too paranoid but I could tell he was worried, again not in his expression, but in the way he talked. Something was up but he wouldn’t really tell me what it was all about.”

“He was protecting you,” Mac answered. “He was in danger, from what we don’t yet know, maybe this locker tells us. That last day at work, how did that go?”

“It was kind of tense that morning and I know he was in Mr. Checketts’s office for a long time and I know it was a little heated, but that happened from time to time as Mr. Checketts could be pretty harsh on people if he wanted.”

“Business owner,” Mac commented.

“Exactly,” Ginger replied. “Anyways, he’d yelled at Gabe before so I didn’t really give it that much thought, especially when Gabe and I met for lunch. He said everything was cool, I didn’t need to worry and then we talked about normal things, so I assumed whatever he was worried about went away. Obviously it didn’t.”

The three of them went over Bloom’s story again, picking at certain elements but there was nothing more new to be gleaned. “Okay, Ginger, why don’t you finish your beer quick,” Wire suggested, “and then walk straight out the back door and go right home. Two police officers will follow you and then will watch your place for a while just to make sure everything is okay and hopefully the next time we chat, we’ll have answers for you.”

Bloom nodded, finished her beer in two more sips, slipped out of the booth and out the back door. Mac texted the officers waiting outside that Bloom was on her way out.

“So what do you suppose we’ll find in this locker?” Wire asked.

“I don’t know, but before we go down to Kenosha and find out, we need to do something about that tail.” Mac began working his cell phone.

“What are you looking up?”

“Street map for Milwaukee,” Mac answered. “I want to pull a Steve McQueen on our tail.”

Wire looked at him quizzically, “I don’t follow.”

“You ever see the movie Bullitt?”

Wire nodded and smiled. “Now I know what you’re talking about.”

* * *

Foucault yawned and shook his head. It was late afternoon and it would be dark in minutes, the sun starting to make its final rapid descent to the west. As he leaned back in the passenger seat, he alternately watched the front of Fitzgibbon’s Pub across the median of Water Street to his left, McRyan’s Acadia ahead one block parked on the north bound side and his rearview mirror for the Starbucks two buildings back to his right. Inside the Starbucks, Vigneault was buying coffee and sandwiches, taking advantage of the first chance all day they’d had to get something to eat and drink.

Foucault occasionally checked his phone, awaiting any update or further instructions from Kristoff. For now, they were still in the watch and follow mode. Thus far there was little more to report. From their time at DataPoint, McRyan and the woman, other than a quick stop at their hotel, drove aimlessly around town it seemed for an hour before coming to this point and heading into the pub. He and his partner had given some thought to one of them sliding into the pub to see what they were up to but decided against it. If they had another two men or two vehicles, it would have been done. However, with just the two of them, they thought it better to hold their position and see where McRyan and his lady friend were off to next.

Foucault looked in the review mirror and caught Vigneault pushing out the front door of the Starbucks with a cardboard drink carrier holding four coffees and a paper bag containing sandwiches.

“What do you have?”

Vigneault shook his head, ever the Frenchman. “American coffee is passable at best. They may call this espresso, but please, a weak imitation. And the sandwiches?” He wrinkled his nose, “I will eat them because I have to.” He bought an assortment of ham and turkey wraps.

Foucault was not as picky, having spent more time in the States and was well accustomed to American fast food. He took a sip of his coffee and it was agreeable and the turkey wrap wasn’t bad either. Was it like home? No, but it would get the job done. On his third bite, McRyan and Wire emerged from the front of the pub. “There they are.” He set his coffee in the cup holder in the center console and reached for the keys and started the Traverse.

McRyan and Wire crossed the first half of the street, waited at the center median for traffic to pass and then jogged across the northbound side of Water Street to their Acadia. After a moment, the lights for the Acadia came on but the vehicle didn’t move. After a couple of minutes, McRyan pulled out and proceeded north on Water Street.

“That traffic will keep them well back, I should think,” Wire said, looking back behind them.

“Good,” Mac answered. “I need about a two-block lead on them for this to work.”

* * *

Foucault looked in his rearview mirror and had traffic right on top of him that he needed to let pass.

“I’ll watch for a break,” Vigneault said, his view north blocked by the vehicles parked in front of them. “You keep your eye on them.”

The traffic passed.

“Go.”

Foucault quickly pulled out, McRyan still visible two blocks ahead. He wanted to push his way closer but the traffic that passed them was now between them and McRyan, clogging the path forward.

“He’s turning left,” Vigneault exclaimed and then took a look at the GPS. “Left on … Knapp.”

Foucault reached Knapp about ten seconds after McRyan and turned left. Now away from the traffic, he could accelerate some and he needed to as the Acadia was already at least three blocks ahead across the Milwaukee River where Knapp became McKinley Street.

“We need to get a little closer,” Vigneault ordered.

“Working on it,” was the reply as the Traverse reached the west side of the Milwaukee River, still two blocks back but closing quickly. “It looks like he’s turning right. What’s that on?”

* * *

Mac caught a glimpse of the quickly closing Traverse in his rearview mirror. He took a right turn off McKinley onto North Sixth Street, accelerated a half block and took a hard right onto a narrow alleyway halfway up the block. He powered down the alley and took another quick right behind a building into an alleyway running south back towards McKinley.

“If this works, we should circle around and come in behind them,” Mac said as he drove south down the alley and turned right back onto McKinley Street. Once on McKinley, he took an immediate right on North Sixth Street and a block and a half ahead was the Traverse, which was followed by a black Ford Edge. “Bingo, and Ring’s man fell in right behind them.”

* * *

“Where did they go?” Vigneault asked. “There wasn’t another street to turn right on, at least not that quickly.”

“I don’t know,” Foucault answered and then looked in his rearview mirror. “I think I see a black Acadia one block behind us.”

Vigneault turned left to look and McRyan was two cars back, a Ford Edge between them. He looked to his partner, worried. “We’re made.”

“What do you think we should do?” Foucault replied anxiously, the adrenaline causing his foot to slowly but surely depress the accelerator and pick up speed. The Traverse had a powerful enough engine.

The two men shared a look.

Foucault looked down to his feet, “I’m wearing the same shoes I wore when we killed Checketts.”

“Who knows what they have from when we took out Martin,” Vigneault added.

* * *

“Now, here’s the interesting part,” Mac said, looking in his rearview mirror as Ring pulled up behind in his Crown Victoria with a patrol car right behind him. Ring passed McRyan and raised an eyebrow and Mac nodded. Ring pulled ahead and then in front of Mac and the patrol unit passed them both as well as the Ford Edge and pulled in behind the Traverse, which had been slowly increasing its speed and was now at least fifteen miles over the limit for this two-lane city street.

“This is where we learn if they were the ones that did Checketts and Martin or were at least involved.”

The patrol unit turned on its lights.

“Oh, I think they were!” Wire exclaimed.

* * *

Foucault blew through a red light and accelerated hard north, the patrol unit now at least two blocks back.

“It’s pretty dark out now,” Vigneault exclaimed. “Maybe we can lose the patrol unit and dump the car.”

“We’ll have to lose more than one unit,” Foucault answered as he buried the accelerator. “I have at least three sets of rollers behind us all of the sudden.”

He flew down the entrance ramp for northbound State Highway 43.

* * *

“Why are you slowing down?” Wire barked as Mac eased back while going down the entrance ramp, letting the chase unfold in front him.

“This is Milwaukee’s show,” McRyan replied calmly. “I don’t have a flashing light so we’ll just hang behind and follow.”

The chase charged north on 43, the Traverse expertly weaving in and out of traffic.

“This guy’s had training,” Wire observed. “He’s no novice driver.”

“We’re good as long as he’s on the highway.”

The Traverse was in the left lane and suddenly cut sharply across in front of a car in the right lane. The car was forced to brake, which caused the following car to hit it from behind, creating a pile up that sucked in the three patrol units blocking all of the lanes.

Ring swerved hard right onto the right shoulder just slipping past the pile up. He fishtailed his Crown Victoria but regained control before ending up down in the ditch. With control regained, Ring followed the Traverse up the exit ramp. Mac veered right to the highway shoulder, scooted around the pile-up and accelerated up the exit ramp.

“He turned right, Mac! He turned right!” Dara exclaimed, now with her Sig Sauer out.

“I got it. I’m going to get in right behind Ring. Let him know.”

“Copy that,” Wire replied to Mac and then to Ring, “Darwin, we’re right on your six.” Then back to McRyan, “He’s got you, Mac. He’s called all cars.”

The Traverse was now screaming down East Keefe Avenue.

“This is dangerous,” Mac warned. “We’ve got residential on the right and if they turn in there, we’ve got to back off. What we really need is a chopper.”

“I know he has a call in for one, should be here any second.”

Just then a chopper dropped out of the sky and painted the Traverse two blocks ahead. “Now we’re talking.” Mac quickly looked right and saw flashing lights coming down a residential street. To his left was an industrial area and as he looked ahead it was industrial on the left for several blocks. “Atta boy, Ring!” Mac exclaimed. “Way to know your town.”

“What?” Wire asked.

“He’s bringing the patrol units in from the right. He’s going to drive these guys into this industrial area up on the left. Look at the chopper, it’s flying on the right, trying to drive them that way as well.”

* * *

Foucault thought he had a chance when the pile-up happened, but he still had one unit on his tail as he sped down Keefe. He should have turned right into the residential neighborhoods but now it was too late. Every time he looked right, there were flashing lights and now he saw flashing lights ahead, stationary.

“We have to turn left,” Vigneault yelped.

Foucault turned hard left onto North Holton Street and accelerated only to find another patrol unit closing from the north.

“I have to go left again!”

He turned too late.

* * *

The Traverse tried to turn left onto Elm Street to go west, but at its high speed it couldn’t make the turn. The left-side wheels were off the ground when its right wheels hit the curb. The Traverse flipped high in the air. It landed on its roof, violently rolling over twice and then crashing upside down into a red brick building. The brick wall collapsed upon the impact, bricks and debris crashing down on the Traverse.

Two patrol units closed in on the vehicle, followed by Ring and then Mac pulling in behind.

Ring popped out of his car with the radio in his hand, calling for an ambulance and fire truck.

Mac was out, Sig Sauer in his right hand and flashlight in his left. He ran over and stopped ten feet short and crouched down to look into the Traverse, its roof caved in. The two men were restrained inside by their seat belts, hanging upside down, their bodies limp. Wire came up behind him with another flashlight and shined it inside the vehicle.

“No movement,” Wire noted.

“And lots of blood,” Mac answered and then looked up into the sky. Not only did he see the State Patrol chopper that had swooped into the action, but now there was a television news chopper for the local FOX station hovering overhead as well.

“Keep your box on FOX,” Mac muttered.