Roger Stelljes - The St. Paul Conspiracy

“Dick, do you know what the senator’s blood alcohol was at the time of his death?” Mac asked.

“No, I don’t, but I suppose your going to tell me.”

“This afternoon, when I was working all of this out, I spoke with Rick Hansen, the Wright County Sheriff. Remember him?”

Lich nodded.

Mac continued. “Hansen told me the senator’s blood alcohol was.32 percent at the time of death.”

“Whoa,” Riley blurted.

“Exactly,” Mac replied, “At the senator’s weight.32 and you’re smoked, passed out, not getting up on any stool to hang yourself.”

“Not impossible either, Mac,” Rock added with a laugh, a little levity. “I mean, there were a couple of guys in here last night that might have pushed to that level, and they were still standing.”

“Could they have climbed a barstool?” Mac asked, not laughing.

“I doubt it.” Rock answered quietly.

“Exactly. I bet ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a person that loaded passes out long before doing anything, let alone hanging yourself. Besides, if you proclaim your innocence as strongly as the senator and Lyman Hisle did, do you commit suicide that same night? Before going to trial?”

“So, somebody killed the senator? Made it look like a suicide?” Lich asked.

“Possibly,” Mac replied. “Follow it all the way out, Dick. If you have the ability to take out Daniels and Jones in the same night, what’s taking out the senator a few nights later? It’s November, and there are few if any people at the lake. Not to mention the fact that his cabin was isolated and hidden, thick pine trees everywhere. Remember?”

Lich nodded, starting to buy it.

“It was the perfect place to stage a suicide.” Mac finished and slammed his beer. He’d shot his wad. But it was comforting to him that an uncomfortable silence overtook the room. The boys were thinking about it. What he’d just told them made some sense.

Riley spoke first, lightly shaking his head, pinching the top of his nose, “Christ, Mac.”

“What can I say?”

“You sold me,” Riley replied.

“Yeah?” Mac was a little surprised. “What about everyone else?”

Rock and Lich nodded as well.

“I don’t suppose you have a suspect in mind,” Rock inquired.

“I do, but it’s total speculation at this point.”

“As if this whole thing isn’t?” Rock replied with a rueful chuckle. “Hell, you’ve gone this far, boy. Don’t stop now.”

What the hell, Mac thought. “This is not one person acting alone here. Not possible. Whoever did this, if you assume I’m right, had to have money, resources, and people to do this.”

“Agreed,” Riles said. “If you’re right, this is some sort of coordinated effort, and there are some very skilled people-professionals-at work here.”

“So, cut to the chase, Mac. Who do you think it is?” Lich asked.

“I don’t have a person.”

“Mac?” Lich was getting impatient.

“PTA.”

Jaws went agape.

“Holy shit, Mac,” Riley finally replied, shaking his head. Rock let out a slow whistle.

“What makes you think that?” Lich asked.

“This is where it gets a little thin.”

“Ohhhhhh, this is where it gets thin,” Riley said, a huge smile on his face, causing them all to laugh.

Mac smiled and kept going. “Jones was the CFO at PTA. She took over for a guy who died last year. Stephens was his name. He’d been there a long time, died in a car accident on Shepard Road. Nothing hinky about that. I talked to one of the patrol guys on the scene. It was a one-car accident that happened in a snow storm around the time of the state hockey tournament.”

Everyone nodded at that, remembering the storm-over a foot of snow.

Mac moved on. “I don’t know. Maybe Jones stumbles across some financial issue that Stephens had managed to bury. PTA naturally wants her to keep it quiet, continue to cover it up. She balks.”

“Yeah,” Sally added. “She has nasty visions of Enron. She’s the next incarnation of Sharon Watkins.”

“And she knows Claire Daniels,” Riles said, finishing and picking up on the train of thought.

“That’s right,” Mac added nodding. “I’m guessing Jones talks to Daniels. PTA gets wind of it, realizing they won’t be able to control her.” Mac tossed his beer bottle into the garbage. “PTA has the money. Maybe they have the resources and the people as well.”

Everyone took it all in for a moment, the gravity of what Mac had just laid out for them.

“Anyone else know about this?” Riles asked quietly, leaning back.

“Nope, just everyone in this room and one other person, wholly unaffiliated with the department that we can trust,” Mac answered.

“So, where does that leave us?” Lich asked.

“On the trail of an assassin,” Mac replied.

“Should we be telling the chief?” Rock asked.

“With what we got? No way. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t touch this with a ten-foot poll, nor should he.” Riles shook his head. “No. We have to protect the department. We keep this to ourselves until we find something concrete. If we do, then we can think about going to the chief.”

“And, if we don’t,” Rock added, “Nobody’s the wiser.”

“So, what’s next?” Lich asked.

“We stay covert,” Mac replied calmly. “We don’t tell anyone what we know or think.”

“And?” Sally asked.

“The chief has given us all a few days off,” Mac replied. “And I have some ideas of what I’d like to do with the time.”

Viper tucked McRyan and Kennedy into bed at McRyan’s place at 11:15 p.m. The report from Kraft that Lyman Hisle had met with McRyan, followed by the rest of the little detail going downstairs, had him concerned. He became downright worried as he listened with his earpiece to the detective and assistant district attorney discussing PTA prior to moving onto nocturnal activities. Things were not yet over. McRyan and company had to be watched.

The crew dropped Viper back off at his home. He went in the front door, checking the mail on the way in. Mostly bills, one from the gas company, another for the telephone, and one of those annoying credit card offers, all addressed to Webb Alt, Viper’s name.

He went to the kitchen and dropped his keys in a little wicker basket on the counter. Having watched McRyan and friends hit the bar had left him thirsty for a beer, and he needed to relax and wind down. The fridge was his salvation, providing a bottle of Heineken. He fished an opener out of a drawer, popped the top and went to his den. Grabbing the remote, he clicked on the news and threw himself into his easy chair. Kicking off his shoes, he took a sip of his beer and thought about Cross.

It had been such a sweet little deal. It had made Alt, Ted Lindsay, Bouchard, James Stephens, and select others inside and out of PTA a nice little pile. And until very recently, nobody knew. They needed to keep it that way. McRyan was a concern and becoming a bigger one by the minute. He was connecting some of the dots. They had to keep him from connecting them all.

Ted Lindsay was Alt’s and PTA’s boss. Ten years before, PTA was a large manufacturing company that was, among other things, a supplier of small arms, weaponry, ammunition, explosives, and communications equipment to the United States Department of Defense. It was a profitable company, with 8,000 employees and operations in Minnesota, California, and West Virginia. It did extensive work for the Defense Department, but little or no work with the CIA or NSA. Ted Lindsay changed that.

In the ten years that Ted Lindsay had been president and CEO, PTA went from being one of many companies to being the company when it came to contracts with the Defense Department, as well as the CIA and NSA. Lindsay was even starting to make headway with the Department of Homeland Security. The company had grown to more than 62,000 employees with manufacturing operations in sixteen states. It had gone from being a nice little company in St. Paul to being mentioned in the same breath as Microsoft, GE, and Boeing. It was a name people knew. That was due in large part to the vision and work of Ted Lindsay.