Roger Stelljes - The St. Paul Conspiracy

So they spent the week looking, everywhere. They had made late-night raids on both the Jones and Daniels places yet again. It was worthless, Alt thought. This was the fifth time through. But the boss ordered it, so they did it. Different people at each location, and they found nothing. And these were people with experience finding items that were never intended to be found. Not a hint of the documents at either place.

They tapped into the systems at Fed Ex, UPS, Overnight Express, and any other package delivery service they could think of, to see if Jones had sent the documents to someone other than Daniels. They checked local delivery services to see what had been delivered to Daniels at her home address. Nothing.

They searched everywhere at the PTA building in St. Paul and at the various company manufacturing facilities in the area. Perhaps Jones thought they would never look under their own noses. Nothing. They tore her office apart. Nothing. Tore her assistant’s office apart. Nothing. They tore all of accounting apart. Nothing.

Through the use of her PDA and computer calendar, they tried retracing Jones’ steps during her last few weeks. Any restaurant she went to. Any place where she shopped. Any people she saw. They searched three of her friends’ homes. Nothing.

She was a member at the University Club, where she had a locker. Nothing.

They searched her mother’s place again and delivery records for her. They hacked into her mother’s bank records to see if she had been to Jones’s safe deposit box at any time in the last few months. Nothing.

They did the same thing with Daniels. They went through her place again, through every closet, every set of drawers, computer, files, office, basement, kitchen, built-in cabinets, car, everything. Nothing.

They searched Daniels’ mothers’ place again. They checked her mother’s bank records, no trips to a safe deposit box. No deliveries of any kind. Nothing.

In a new twist, they went through Senator Johnson’s St. Paul residence, office, car, and even the cabin. Nothing.

They were back searching at Channel 6. Alt was certain the documents weren’t there. But the boss wanted someone there every night until the documents were found.

One solution that had been implemented was that they had very carefully arranged through a sea of paperwork to purchase both Jones’s and Daniels’s places. They would take possession of both after the first of the year. If the documents were still there, they’d be found because every wall in either place was coming out. Maybe they should be x-raying the walls. That was a thought. Alt would evaluate that one tomorrow.

He reached into the fridge and grabbed a cold beer and thought of McRyan. He’d gone back to regular police work. Alt had stopped following him, especially after he’d made a less-than-subtle remark about being followed.

His group continued to monitor McRyan’s and Kennedy’s places. Nary a word about Cross. McRyan had scared them. But the investigation, if that’s what one would call it, had been shut down. Surveillance since then revealed McRyan and Kennedy were going to take a vacation together. Alt was about ready to shut that part of the operation down altogether.

Alt strolled to the den, dug around in the dark, found the remote and turned on the television. He dropped into his easy chair, flipped off his shoes and sipped his beer. He surfed through the channels until he found Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade . He wasn’t a big movie guy but always liked the Jones flicks. The movies reminded him of going to the movies as a kid, the good versus evil storylines, the heroes, a simpler time. He’d seen this Jones movie a hundred times, which was the case these days, all the cable channels running movies into the ground.

He turned to it just before one of his favorite parts, where Indy is in the old library in Venice, uses his dad’s Holy Grail diary, discovers the sequence of roman numerals in the library, and the entrance to the Knight’s Tomb, which is in the large Roman numeral X on the floor, and Indy says, with a sheepish smile, “X marks the spot.” This was of course after he previously said to his archeology class, “and X never marks the spot.”

“That’s it,” he thought. The original Cross documents are buried in a hole somewhere. They just had to find the treasure map and where X marked the spot.

Mac grabbed four turtlenecks out of his dresser drawer and threw them into his suitcase. He already packed fleece tops, long johns, socks, jeans, shoes, and his toiletries. His skis, boots, poles, coat, gloves and goggles were laid out in the living room. He had two ski coats, plus his leather coat he liked to drive in, laid out on the couch. He shook his head-too much stuff. He always overpacked when he traveled. Never a Boy Scout, he followed the motto anyway, “Be Prepared.” He had everything he needed for a long weekend, and he needed a long weekend away.

Since the showdown at PTA fizzled, Mac was a grump. He never took losing well. He always thought Lombardi had it right, “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” He lost. He didn’t like it.

The case gnawed at him, and he’d decided it wasn’t just because he lost, but because PTA got away with it. Because of jobs, money, reasonable doubt and politics, a deal had been struck. The chief and the rest of them were pissed about it, sure. They knew PTA got away with something, but they could all rationalize it, live with it, move on from it. They’d all seen it a hundred times before and would see it a hundred times again. “God damn it, Mac, look at O.J.,” Lich said one night at the Pub, “He was guiltier than my first wife, but now he’s hunting for Nicole’s killer on every golf course in America. It’s over, OVER, deal with it. Now pass the beer nuts.”

Mac understood the deal; he just couldn’t rationalize it like everyone else. Maybe he wasn’t cynical enough or, on the other hand, maybe too idealistic? In his view of the world there was right and wrong, and there was justice. In his mind, the pursuit of justice didn’t include calculating bank balances, economic impact, or political power. No, for the victims, the dead, justice must come for them, no matter the cost. The deal that was struck with PTA was the antithesis of that.

So the bitterness sat with him, percolated inside him, depressed him. Two women and a sitting U.S. senator were dead and the guilty parties were simply going to walk away just like that. And the worst part about it was that Mac still felt like he’d missed something. That there was still something out there to be found. Daniels, Jones, their homes, the senator-all of it kept rattling around in his attic, nonstop, pestering him, like a fly that would hover around his head and wouldn’t go away no matter how many times he swatted at it.

That he couldn’t put the case out of his mind was not lost on people. The sour mood, lack of concentration, sullen expression all told the story. So Sally and the chief intervened, and now he was packing for a ski vacation up in Lutsen, Minnesota’s, finest ski resort. At first Mac wasn’t sure he wanted to go, but then Sally told him about the place, which belonged to a friend of hers. Isolated and private. Ski in and ski out. Fireplace. Satellite television so they could watch the Vikes game Sunday night. A hot tub. A lofted bedroom with panoramic views of the ski resort on one side and Lake Superior on the other. It was all good. Mac’s mood started changing, and he was looking forward to getting away. A little trip away seemed like a good next step for them.

With everything loaded in the Explorer, he drove over to Sally’s place. Realizing he needed to get cash and gas, he stopped at the Super America. He jumped out and put the nozzle in and set it to pump itself and enjoyed the mild winter night. The temps up in Lutsen, five hours to the north, would be in the twenties for skiing. Great weather. Mac heard the nozzle pop, took it out and headed inside.