Roger Stelljes - The St. Paul Conspiracy

“So, what’s this all about?” Lich asked.

“I want you guys to hear me out on something.”

“Which is?” Rock asked suspiciously, noting Mac’s tone.

“You ever hear of Bristol, Ohio?”

Riley furrowed his brow, “No. Should I?”

“Hometown of Jamie Jones. She graduated from high school there, 1987.”

“I appreciate the local color. So what?”

“Let me ask another question. Who was killed the same night as Jones?”

“Claire Daniels,” Riles replied. “But Mac, what does that have to do with-”

“She graduated from Bristol, Ohio, high school in 1987.”

The room went quiet. Mac suddenly had everyone’s attention.

“How big a town is Bristol?” Lich asked after a minute.

“Oh, about 1,214 people. Pretty steady for the last twenty or so years,” Mac replied. “The graduating class for Daniels and Jones was forty-two students.”

“How’d you come up with this?” asked Rock.

Mac related how he came to the discovery, Jones missing on the wall at Knapp’s place, looking at Jones’s file, finding the yearbook at Daniels’s, making a couple of phone calls.

“So, you’re suggesting that the senator didn’t kill Daniels?” Lich asked. “Are you suggesting that we didn’t have that right? That we rung up an innocent man.” Lich was concerned.

“I’m suggesting it’s possible.”

“Counselor, you buying the stuff your boy’s selling?” Lich queried, still in disbelief.

“Yeah,” said Kennedy. “I wish he was wrong, and you guys are the detectives, but I think he’s onto something.”

“Come on, Mac, isn’t it possible that all we have here is a coincidence,” Riles pleaded. “I mean you’re talking about your signature case. You’re going to tear that down on nothing more than a couple of facts that might fit together sideways. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I’ll grant you that it’s a little out there,” said Mac, “but Knapp was keeping his headlines. He was taping the news programs. He builds this monument to his work. Everything’s there, except this one thing-”

“-Jones.” Riley finished, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Exactly. Nothing about Jones.” Mac pushed further. “Don’t you find that odd? Aren’t you the least bit curious about that?”

“So, he didn’t keep clippings of one murder. Maybe it was all part of his grand plan. Guy was crazier than a shit-house mouse, Mac,” Rock snarled. “You read the file. Wouldn’t you agree that the details of all the murders, including Jones, match up perfectly?”

“Yeah, with the exception of one thing.”

“Which is?”

“Jones! She doesn’t fit with the other victims,” Mac asserted. “Think about it, Rock. In all the time we were following Knapp, did he ever once, just once, go downtown?”

“Nope.”

“That’s right. He kept to the University Avenue area. How would he have run into Jones?”

“Who knows. Maybe she bumped into him at some bar or restaurant. We weren’t on him then. He stalks her, takes her down-a new experience or something,” Rock argued, his conviction waning.

“She doesn’t fit the profile, Rock,” Mac kept on. “If I’m right, if you wanted to cover the reason to kill Jones, what better way than to make her death look just like another serial killing. We look in the direction of the serial killer because that’s where the evidence points.” Mac crossed his arms. “If I’m right, whoever did this got exactly what they wanted.”

“But, Mac, few, if any, of the details about what Knapp was doing to the women leaked. We managed that. The only thing the media had solid was the balloon.” Riley added, a skeptical tone remaining in his voice. “So, how do they get all the details right?”

“Come on,” Mac growled. “It didn’t leak to the media, fine. But it could easily leak to someone else, intentionally or by accident. We aren’t the damned CIA around here. Shit leaks all the fuckin’ time. Point being, it’s entirely possible somebody could have copied the murders.” Mac sipped his beer, and tacked in another direction. “Of course, we could have tried to ask Knapp about this. We could have asked him about Jones and watched him go blank, deny it, but we can’t do that now, can we? That’s kind of convenient, don’t you think?”

Riley, catching Mac’s drift, said, “You think Knapp’s assassination yesterday had something to do with this?”

“Possibly,” Mac replied. “I checked in with the guys looking at that. The theory is the shooter was on the third level of the Vincent Ramp, right?”

“That’s right,” Rock replied.

“Surveillance cameras show nobody up there. In fact, nobody on any of the ramp levels.”

“Bad surveillance system?” Lich asked.

“I asked. It’s okay, nothing special,” Mac replied. “But there’s another thing.”

“Which is?”

“Ballistics. The bullet was for a Russian sniper rifle,” Mac let it hang in the air.

“They’re sure?” Lich asked quietly.

“They are,” Mac answered, then to Rock and Riley, “Anybody with any of the families from Russia, have Russian or Soviet military background, have access to a Russian sniper rifle, have a background indicating they would be good with a sniper rifle? Oh, and then have that rifle available when there’s two hours notice of when we’re walking Knapp into court and then be able to get away without a trace, not be picked by surveillance cameras?”

Both just shook their heads.

But Lich wasn’t buying it-at least not yet. “So, fine, Mac,” Lich asked, “You think something is amiss with Jones. But what about Daniels? I was with you when we interviewed the senator. He admitted everything we needed. Frankly, he came off as guilty to me, and to Peters too. So, now you’re saying the senator didn’t kill Daniels?”

“I’m saying it’s possible. Dick, I know this sounds like revisionist history, but I never completely believed the senator did Daniels. It didn’t make sense.” Mac shrugged, “On the evidence we had, we did what we had to do. But the case always bothered me.”

“Why?” Rock asked.

“Politicians, especially ones like Senator Johnson, leave themselves a way out of every situation. Escapability, deniability-it’s in their DNA. They don’t put themselves in a position like the senator did-if he did. Murder? There’s just no escape from that. Even the suggestion of it is a career killer, just ask Gary Condit. Even if Daniels threatened to expose their little affair to his wife or someone else, that’s a manageable situation, happens to politicians all the time. It’s not a situation to kill over, certainly not with all the evidence left behind pointing at him.”

“But if the senator didn’t do it, who did?” Riles asked. “On that case, you had no forced entry and a witness having Johnson leaving around the time of estimated death. I mean that’s pretty solid. What evidence do you have that someone else did this?”

“One thing that never came out was a witness I found about the time of the senator’s hearing. I got a call from a guy named Paul Blomberg.” Mac related the story of the alley pick up behind Daniels’ place the night of her murder.

“This is news to me. Why didn’t it ever came out?” Rock asked.

“We never had to disclose it because the prosecution never went any further. It would have been an issue at trial.”

“So, the senator doesn’t kill Daniels. We prosecuted the wrong man, and he commits suicide over it! Shit, shit, shit!” Lich said, shaking his head, disturbed over the thought. He kicked a chair. “Damn it.”

“If he did commit suicide, Dick,” Sally said. “Maybe he didn’t.”

Lich, skepticism in his voice, “What? Now you’re saying the senator didn’t commit suicide? I mean I was out there. I saw what you saw.”