Roger Stelljes - First Case

Mac’s strategy and terms for divorce suddenly became crystal clear.

“So what is this then?”

Mac got home at 1:15 a.m. Meredith was already asleep and given what he’d just learned from Biggs, couldn’t bring himself to join her in bed so he simply racked out on the couch. Never one who needed more than a few hours of sleep, he was up by 5:30 and went for a long run.

When Mac decided to become a cop, one thing he agreed to was buying a house. The house, of course, needed to meet Meredith’s expectations. Consequently, the house was most definitely at the upper end, and in reality, beyond what they probably could afford at the time, a 4,500 square foot Victorian in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood, four blocks east of the University of St. Thomas. While he never had any formal training, Mac was handy with tools and interior design. He’d spent the better part of the last four years on various restoration projects in the home, including the furniture layout and color scheme. It was plenty livable when he started but it was now a beautiful home and would, if he put it on the market, easily net him double the original purchase price, even in the flat-lined real estate market. That day was soon coming, but until then Mac would enjoy another of the house’s perks, its close location to Summit Avenue.

Summit Avenue ran east from the Mississippi River a little over four miles to downtown St. Paul. It was a boulevard filled with stately mansions, synagogues and churches, majestic one-hundred-year-old trees, the Minnesota Governor’s mansion, his law school William Mitchell College of Law, the University of St. Thomas and Macalester College. It was a wonderful stretch of city for a morning run.

He put his earphones in, set the music to random and began his run in the cool March air. The morning jogs were always important to him. He worked problems out in his mind in the solitude of the early morning. For the last several months, he’d thought through his marital issues. Now he had a plan for dealing with that. This morning he wanted to think about something else, the Gordon Oliver murder. His first case and after one day, he felt stymied.

The first thing he did was mentally run through everything he knew. For the next twenty minutes he ran through the crime scene. Oliver had been hit from behind on the back of his head, but there was no weapon at the scene that they could find. While he hadn’t seen the final autopsy report, Coonan was sure the weapon used was not something like a tire iron or something else heavy. It was enough with the force of the blow to knock him down, but not enough to kill him. The blow to the front of his head on the bumper had taken care of that. The weapon was not found at the scene so the killer dumped it elsewhere or, while unlikely, still had it. Mac had noted the small brass plate with blood on it. It might have come from the murder weapon although it could have just as likely been lying on the ground and Oliver fell on it and that’s how his blood ended up on it.

Forensics might be able to shed some light on what the killer hit Oliver with. The forensics report would probably be in his e-mail inbox when he got to the Department of Public Safety. Oliver’s truck had been dusted for prints on the outside. The only prints found belonged to Oliver. March nights were still cold in Minnesota and the killer probably wore winter gloves so prints were unlikely.

He crossed Dale Street, three miles into his run. Mac ran the Twin Cities Marathon the previous fall. The last stretch of the marathon was along Summit Avenue. Since training for the marathon, he’d kept running five days a week. He checked his sport watch and he was running at a steady seven minute pace.

The murder just didn’t feel random. It wasn’t a robbery. His money and credit cards weren’t missing. Oliver’s Omega watch and cell phone were still with him. How about a briefcase? Mac hadn’t thought of that and made a mental note to see if perhaps some legal papers were missing. Perhaps that would give them a lead.

It likely wasn’t a robbery because the body was placed in the back of the truck. Were it a robbery, the money, watch, cell phone and anything else of value would have been taken and the killer would have left the body. They wouldn’t have taken the time to hide the body. But why did the killer feel the need to hide the body? They wanted a delay in it being found perhaps? They needed the time to set up their alibi? Mac could almost sense in his mind that the murder was a split second decision made by the killer and then an ‘Oh shit’ moment and the killer puts the body in the truck and ditches the scene as quickly as possible.

That strongly suggested it was someone who knew him.

Mac reached the St. Paul Cathedral, the halfway mark of his run and pulled out his cell phone. He had some good thoughts and quickly sent an e-mail to his work computer before he forgot them. He played random music on the first stretch of his run but Mac wanted some Springsteen for the return run and selected Darkness on the Edge of Town. Mac checked his watch and started the run back towards home.

It wasn’t random. Therefore, the case would be solved through the people involved in Gordon Oliver’s life. The law firm and The Mahogany thus far were the two consistent places in his life. He worked long hours at the law firm. He was at The Mahogany several nights a week. The profile Mac and Lich were developing of Gordon Oliver was a workaholic who blew off the stress of his job with sex, often with women from work or The Mahogany. Those were the ‘tools in his toolbox,’ Mac muttered to himself.

Martin Burrows, now that would have been nice and easy. Burrows had been perfect but he had an air tight alibi. Perhaps there was another aggrieved husband or boyfriend out there that they had yet to discover. He and Lich would need to re-canvas the bar and the law firm to dig further. Forensics was downloading his home computer and e-mail and Mac wanted to review it to see if anything jumped out at him. They were also working on getting access to his law firm e-mails. The County Attorney’s office was working through the issues on that. It wasn’t that the law firm was being difficult, just crossing their i’s and dotting their t’s on their obligation to protect their client’s information.

Mac crossed Snelling Avenue at 6:15 a.m. heading west, now in the last stretch of his run. The traffic was starting to pick up some now on Summit Avenue, the morning rush not far off. He made a last mental checklist of what he’d thought about as he kicked it down for his house, finishing the last mile of his eight-mile run at 6:27. He stopped a block short of his house and walked the rest of the way for a cool down, sending himself another e-mail of his thoughts on the case while he did so. They would be in his inbox when he got to work in an hour.

Mac walked up the driveway to the side portico entrance of the house and into the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator as Meredith walked into the kitchen in a dark olive dress suit and off white blouse and three-inch heels. She looked good. She always looked good.

Mac started a pot of coffee and said, “I was thinking we haven’t had a dinner together in a while.”

“No we haven’t,” Meredith replied looking at her watch and waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. “I can’t tonight, I’ll be working late. This Clanex merger is proving to be a killer.”

“I suspect I will be working late tonight as well,” Mac answered. “I picked up the Gordon Oliver murder.”

“I heard about that yesterday,” she answered. “Word is he was probably killed by some jealous husband. I hear he was quite the ladies’ man.”

“Yeah, women should be careful about men like that,” Mac replied, curious if Meredith caught the meaning. “Anyway, how about tomorrow night? I can try to be home by seven. I could pick up some Chinese,” which was her favorite. “I’ve got something I want to talk to you about. It’s kind of important.”