Electing to Murder

CHAPTER FOUR

“Speculation is my middle name.”

Mac hung up the phone and walked over to Lich’s desk. The two of them had spent the better part of three hours on the phone tracking down the movements of Jason Stroudt and by necessity his business partner Adam Montgomery. They obviously knew Stroudt’s final destination. They were unable to get in contact with Montgomery as of yet. They had his cell phone number and Mac had placed three calls now. The phone was going unanswered and it appeared that it was turned off.

“Seem odd to you that we can’t get this Montgomery on the horn?” Mac asked.

“Perhaps, but do you always answer your phone if you don’t recognize the caller?” Lich asked back.

Mac shrugged his shoulders and had to agree, “No, you’re right but I’ve left two voice mails and nada.”

“Heard you boys picked up a body at The Snelling?”

Mac turned to see Detectives Pat Riley and Bobby Rockford approaching, dropping some paperwork off on their desks.

“You know what’s coming,” Mac said to Lich. “Just say no.”

Riles and Rock were partners and, along with Mac and Lich, they would work bigger cases together. As a group, they were unofficially known as The Chief’s Boys. Riley and Rock were a startling pair. Both were massive men, well over six feet tall, the only difference being that Riley was white and Rockford was blacker than the night. Riley, despite being Irish, looked like an Italian mobster, jowly face, heavy five o’clock shadow at all times of the day, jet black hair slicked back and a pin stripe suit, colorful tie and matching pocket square always hanging comfortably on his burly body. Rock, on the other hand, had been a Division II college defensive tackle. His shoulders, arms and hands were massive and when he smiled, the gap between his two front teeth made him look like Laurence Fishburne. The two together were as intimidating a pair as you could find. During an interrogation, Mac would often sit across the table and have Rock stand and lean on the table on one side and Riley on the other. Suspects generally cut to the chase. Riley had been something of a mentor to Mac, having been his father Simon’s partner at the time of his death. Mac had known Rock for years, having grown up playing city league football together. They were his good friends. The two of them also got more hall passes than any ten married men combined.

“We’re off to the pub, boys, care to refresh with us?” Riles asked.

“First rounds on me,” Rock added, probably as an inducement to tip Lich over to going; the man rarely turned down a free round, or a free anything for that matter.

“Can’t,” Lich answered before Mac, but only to get in a verbal dig. “Boy wonder here is all hot to trot on this one.”

“On a body at The Snelling? Seriously?” Rock inquired skeptically. “Case like that? That one can wait.”

“Normally you’d be right and I’d be following you out the door,” Mac answered. “But this one might be a little different.” McRyan gave Rock and Riles the two-minute rundown on their case. They read Mac. The boys picked up the scent, but while mildly intrigued by the case, they were not interested enough to break off their plans. There was beer to be drunk, stories to tell and perhaps a skirt or two to be chased.

“Well, if you boys change your mind, you know where to find us.” The two would be holding court at the far end of the bar at McRyan’s Pub. The Boys left with a wave and smile and strolled out, grabbing a couple extra people to join them along the way. Such was the case with Rock and Riles—always a party to be had. It was a miracle they both remained married.

After Riles and Rock’s departure, Mac and Lich got back to work and talked through their notes for a few minutes and realized that they needed to put together a timeline. Mac rolled a whiteboard into a vacant office, grabbed some dry erase markers and went to work laying out the timeline in black along the top of the board.

“Okay, so let’s see if we can put together the last two days for these guys,” Mac looked down at his notepad. “Stroudt and Montgomery flew out of Washington DC on Tuesday afternoon at 12:34 eastern time, direct to Nashville, arriving at 1:23 p.m. central time.” Mac jotted the times down on the board.

“Upon arrival in Music City,” Lich said, “Stroudt’s and Montgomery’s credit cards tell us that they checked into the airport DoubleTree Hotel.” Mac jotted that down on the whiteboard in green.

“Green for dollars?” Lich asked.

“Intuitive, isn’t it?” Mac quipped. “What did they do once they were in Nashville?”

“It looks like they go out to dinner at Cash’s Steakhouse on Tuesday night. They spend $249 on dinner, have themselves a couple of steaks, maybe a nice bottle of wine and then go back to the hotel.”

“How do you know they went back to the hotel?”

“Hotel bill shows two rounds of drinks later on Tuesday night at the hotel bar,” Lich responded, holding up a copy of the bill.

Mac jotted that on the board. “Okay, so they return to the hotel and presumably spend the night there.”

“They do,” Lich answered. “They get a late checkout of one o’clock from the hotel. Hotel bill shows they had breakfast at the hotel coffee shop. From there,” Lich flipped over the pages on his notebook, “they travel north into Kentucky and stop at an Erma Lou’s, which, based upon a little map search, is near Oak Grove, Kentucky. They spend $28.77, presumably on a meal. The credit card is closed out at 4:47 p.m.”

Mac jotted that on the timeline.

“Then an hour later Adam Montgomery uses his credit card at a gas station in Cadiz, Kentucky.”

“Where is Cadiz, Kentucky?” Mac asked.

“I haven’t found that yet,” Lich said.

Mac sat down at his computer and did a Google Map search for Cadiz. It was a town in southwest Kentucky, ninety miles northwest of Nashville. Mac printed off the map and taped it on the board.

“So these two fly into Nashville and drive up to Cadiz on Wednesday, which is here,” Mac pointed to Cadiz on the Kentucky map. “So after they stop in Cadiz, Kentucky, around 6:00 p.m., the next time we get a scent of these guys is this morning, fourteen hours later, in St. Louis when Stroudt jumps on a plane to get here.”

“No hotel anywhere?” Lich asked.

“No credit card record of one,” Mac answered, flipping through his notes. He shrugged, “They could have paid cash for one, like Stroudt did this afternoon at The Snelling.”

“Possible, I suppose,” Lich replied. “So the next hit we get is this morning in St. Louis.” “That’s right,” Mac answered jotting it down on the timeline. “Stroudt takes the flight out of St. Louis this morning and comes here.”

“And Montgomery probably drops off the rental car about the same time and there is no other credit card activity for him,” Lich noted and Mac added it to the timeline.

“Stroudt arrives here 10:00 a.m. from St. Louis and checks into The Snelling at 2:00 p.m.,” Mac used the black dry erase marker and extended the black line further right, with a few more hash marks, “2:45–3:00 p.m. Stroudt calls for a pizza and …”

“… he is killed sometime between then and 4:00 p.m.”

They stood and looked at the whiteboard in silence for a few minutes. Mac, arms folded, stared quizzically at the whiteboard, lightly shaking his head.

Lich knew the look; he’d seen it a thousand times before. “Spit it out.”

“So these guys fly into Nashville on Tuesday night. They have a casual steak dinner, go back to the hotel and have a couple of drinks. Then the next day they get up and start heading up into Kentucky, towards Cadiz. So far, it’s your standard business trip, right?”

Lich nodded.

“So what happens on Wednesday night that causes these guys to all of the sudden drive to St. Louis this morning?”

“Did they have return flights to Washington out of Nashville?”

“Yes,” Mac answered. “They were scheduled to fly out this morning at 10:22, both of them. They would have been back in DC in a little under two hours. We know where Stroudt ended up going. He purchases a plane ticket this morning to come up to the Twin Cities. Montgomery did not make that flight in Nashville and I haven’t tracked him down to any other flight. So again, what happens last night that causes them to change their plans?” Mac flipped through several pages of his notes. He stopped on a page. “Hmpf.”

“Hmpf what?”

“You know what these guys do?”

Lich shook his head.

“They’re political writers.”

“Reporters?”

“Kind of. I traced the corporate name on the credit card used for the flight to Nashville to their business which is TCP Enterprises. TCP stands for The Congressional Page. That’s a political blog that Stroudt and Montgomery operate. They write some articles, a few of which I found with an Internet search. It’s mostly on stuff happening on Capitol Hill and some campaign finance reform stuff.”

“Interesting,” Lich said. “Given we’re in the height of the silly season.”

“Exactly,” Mac answered, walking up to the board, looking at the timeline. “So these guys are into politics and a week before the election they are flying into Nashville and the next night they’re driving through the Kentucky countryside and this morning they split up, one comes up here and the other one makes like a submarine and runs silent and deep.”

“When did they purchase the tickets to Nashville to begin with?”

“That’s not a bad question, partner,” Mac responded and flipped through his notes. “The tickets to Nashville were purchased on …” McRyan’s eyes lit up, “Tuesday morning.”

“So in other words,” Lich speculated, “If I’m catching your drift, you’re thinking that these guys might have got onto something.”

“Might have,” Mac nodded. “It’s at least a theory that would explain the timeline and behavior. It’s a normal trip until last night and then something suddenly causes them to change their itinerary. The original plan was not to end up in St. Louis this morning. They had tickets back to DC. Another thing that’s odd, if you decide you need to fly up here to the Twin Cities, why not just go back to Nashville and see if you could change the ticket?”

“Maybe there wasn’t a flight here from Nashville as quickly as they wanted and there was from St. Louis.”

“That’s possible,” Mac answered. “We should check that out. Of course, another possibility might be they were trying to avoid someone.”

“That’s a bit of an intuitive leap, don’t you think?” Lich said skeptically.

“I have Stroudt’s dead body that says otherwise,” Mac retorted. “And why is Montgomery so hard to find now? His cell phone isn’t turned on or he certainly isn’t answering it. He wasn’t on the flight back from Nashville. No record of him being on a flight anywhere and he dumped the rental car in St. Louis. It’s as if he literally disappeared.”

“Or given how you’re suddenly thinking,” Lich replied, “he figuratively disappeared. Maybe he’s dead too?”

Mac raised his eyebrow. “Might explain why he’s not reachable. Why we can’t get a sniff of this guy. Or …”

“Or …”

“Montgomery is scared of what they saw last night and he’s hiding. If Stroudt gets to St. Louis to take the flight, chances are Montgomery is the one who got him there. Then Montgomery goes into …”

“… hiding.”

“Yeah. It’s an alternative explanation. He splits up from Stroudt, sending him up here to the cities. He goes into hiding and is not interested in coming out—at least not yet.”

Lich sighed and shook his head. “I know you like to see conspiracies everywhere and the good Lord knows you’ve been right a few times, but come on, Mac. I mean, if these guys are worried about someone tracking them, then why would Stroudt use a credit card to buy a flight to the Twin Cities? Why use a credit card to rent a car? You are not exactly hiding when you do that.”

Mac sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “Agreed. But then why pay cash for a trashy hotel?” Mac asked. “It’s like he wasn’t hiding and then all of a sudden decides to hide. Why else go to The Snelling?”

“Usual reasons. Drugs. Sex.”

“I look for conspiracies, you always look for sex.”

“I obviously have my priorities in order.”

“No,” Mac answered chuckling, “I just think with my upper unit and you with your lower unit.”

“Whatever,” Lich answered dismissively.

“But seriously, Dicky Boy,” Mac pressed, “it’s as if sometime between when he landed and then checking into The Snelling, he changed what he was doing. He landed around 10:00 a.m. and gets to The Snelling sometime after 2:00 p.m. That’s four hours. Where are Stroudt’s cell phone records?”

Lich grabbed them off his desk and handed them to Mac. Mac picked up the cell phone record he’d printed off for Montgomery. “There, those two spoke to each other for five minutes from 12:08 to 12:13 p.m.,” Mac said, jotting it down on the whiteboard as he said it. “So he speaks with Montgomery and he says we have to ‘go to ground’ but Stroudt acts too late. Whoever is tracking him is already on him, sees his opportunity at The Snelling and now we have a dead body.”

Lich shrugged. “Pure speculation.”

“Speculation is my middle name,” was Mac’s ready reply. “We need to find us some facts, but it’s not a bad theory.”

“If you do say so yourself.”

“I do.”

Lich’s phone rang. “Yes, this is Detective Lich. Okay, how do I get into the system?” Lich wrote feverishly into his notebook. “Right, thanks.” Dick finished writing.

“So what was that?”

“Stroudt rented a car when he got to town today.”

Mac picked up right away, “But it wasn’t at The Snelling.”

“Exactly. It was moved.”

“And you know this how?”

“GPS tracking in the car.”

“Where did the car end up?”

“Parking lot outside the Penalty Box in Roseville.” The Penalty Box was a sports bar that was just a few miles north of The Snelling, located across the street from Rosedale Mall.

“He rented it at the airport, right?”

“Yes.”

“And we have our four-hour gap between when he landed and he got to the hotel. Will the GPS tell us everywhere he went?”

“It will.”

* * *

Heath Connolly sat in his plane seat, sipped his martini and looked over the polling data spread across his lap. On paper, the situation was under control.

The vice president was feeling good about his chances. He said he could feel it in the crowds, the surge of momentum. He said it repeatedly, “I can feel the surge out there. The momentum is with us.”

And the vice president wasn’t necessarily wrong. He was closing really well in the light red states like Missouri, New Mexico and West Virginia, all states Vice President Wellesley would need to win. There was momentum there and further visits wouldn’t be necessary. Of course, those were states Connolly fully expected to win in the end.

There was also some small momentum in Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio and Virginia, the states where the election would ultimately be won or lost. The Super PAC advertising was a non-stop barrage that the Thomson campaign simply couldn’t match. Yet despite the vice president’s feeling of momentum, they still trailed and Connolly’s own internal polls showed that.

But they were close enough. The plan was coming together.

The Plan.

It made him think of one of his political heroes—Joe Kennedy.

Joe Kennedy was an odd political hero for Heath Connolly. He hated the Kennedys, hated what they had stood for, hated their politics, hated their self-righteousness, hated their sense of entitlement, hated their status as political royalty, but he admired the hell out of the family’s patriarch Joe Kennedy.

When it came to politics, when it came to winning, Joe Kennedy would leave nothing to chance. He would spend whatever it took to win an election. He would look for every advantage possible to win an election and he wouldn’t just exploit it, he’d drive a semi-truck through it and then put the truck in reverse and back over it. Joe Kennedy once got another Joe Russo on the ballot in John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s first congressional race in 1946. Why? To split the vote with the Joe Russo his son was already running against. The voters were confused about which Russo to vote for and the vote split allowed JFK to sneak through and win his first election. It was low, it was dirty, it was brilliant, it was Joe Kennedy at his conniving best and Connolly loved it.

That set the stage for 1960. Kennedy v. Nixon was dead even going into the last week, akin to the current Thomson v. Wellesley. Much has been made of the televised 1960 presidential debate and how Kennedy looked so youthful and good on television and that Nixon looked and sounded so bad on television and that this played the pivotal role in the election. It may have played a role, but what Connolly admired and what he believed in is what Joe Kennedy did.

The story was that Joe Kennedy made a deal with the Chicago mob and Sam Giancana in particular, to turn the vote in Chicago in Senator Kennedy’s favor. Frank Sinatra served as a go between, brokering the deal. Joe Kennedy denied it and historians have never been sure if a deal was struck. Joe Kennedy admitted he met with Giancana, but that was it and he claimed he never asked Sinatra to do it, but Connolly didn’t buy it.

Joe Kennedy made that deal.

That deal won the election.

John F. Kennedy became president.

What Connolly admired and learned from that little piece of history was that in a close election, you had to do whatever you could to win.

He was doing the same.

Kristoff and Foche just needed to finish their job and the rest would take care of itself.