Roger Stelljes - The St. Paul Conspiracy

“I protect the confidentiality of my clients,” Flash replied.

“Well,” a menacing look overtaking Hennessey’s six-foot, three-inch frame, “We would appreciate your cooperation on a voluntary basis. But I assure you, cooperation we will get.”

Flash gave Hennessey a look, and then one over to Hansen, equally big, who could give an intimidating look with the best of them. Flash was going to give them what they were looking for, whether he liked it or not. “So, you say your friend was killed?” Flash replied, having sized up the situation.

“That’s right,” Hennessey replied.

“Well, in that case, I guess they can’t complain can they?”

“No, they can’t,” Hansen replied, relaxed now, a pleasant grin replacing the menacing look.

Flash started through his records.

Mac and Sally jumped into the Explorer to start towards Lutsen. He turned onto Grand Avenue and drove east towards Snelling, where he would take a left and get to Interstate 35 to head up north. It was 10:00 a.m. and they would get to Lutsen by 5:00 p.m., with a few pit stops and lunch figured in. Sally was talking on Mac’s cell phone, checking in with work. She flipped it closed and handed it back, “Thanks.”

“What was that all about?”

“Oh, they have a new copier at work that does scanning now.”

“Scanning?”

“Yeah, it’s like a copier, except it scans the document into the system and saves it as a Word document. All part of an attempt to become a paperless office, which will be virtually impossible. However, it’ll allow me to put some documents on CDs to bring home and work on-”

“Wait a minute! Scanning? Could you scan the documents onto a disc, you know, a CD?”

“Sure.”

“The discs, now you would copy onto say a CD right?”

“Most likely.”

“And the CD, those disks also look a lot like a DVD right?”

“Yeah. Mac why are you suddenly so interested in this?”

“I wonder,” Mac mused, intrigued.

“Wonder what?”

“It’s probably nothing,” he mumbled, thinking.

“What?”

“Something you said just triggered something in my mind.”

“Which was what?”

“Something I saw when we were at PTA last week?”

“Which is?”

“They had a scanner like you were talking about in this copy room Pat and I were in.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sally replied. “But what is this triggering thing?”

“You mentioned putting documents on CDs right?”

“Sure, so I could take work home.”

“Daniels had a bunch of CDs and DVDs we never really looked at.”

“Fine. But I don’t see where you’re-”

“Going with this?” Mac finished. “It’s probably nothing. But we never looked at these CDs and DVDs because the station gave us every report she ever made. But now I’m wondering if Jones could have scanned the documents Stephens gave her onto a CD and given that to Daniels. I never thought of it until now. Maybe there’s something on those CDs and DVDs Daniels has.”

“But I thought you reviewed those Cross documents that Lindsay gave you guys last week.”

“We did,” Mac said, shaking his head. “But those documents were bullshit. They said this Cross place was an explosives factory with some warehouse where they destroyed surplus arms and weapons. They shut the place down in October 01. But what I think really happened was they got to Landy Stephens, and she told them what she told us. Banker’s box full of documents, with a ledger book. So, they trot out this banker’s box and ledger book, and we go home with our tails between our legs. But we have no real way of knowing those documents were real.”

“But Mac, you guys never found the documents either, in all that searching you did.”

“That’s true,” Mac replied, “But maybe we were looking for the wrong thing. Perhaps the documents were put onto a CD or DVD or something.”

“Of course, to check this out, you would have to go ask the chief.”

They sat in silence for thirty seconds. Mac skipped the turn onto Snelling to get to the freeway and cocked an eyebrow, “Maybe I don’t.”

“Huh?”

“I still have a key.”

“To Daniels’ place?” Sally replied in disbelief.

“Yup,” Mac replied smiling.

“How?”

“Never turned it in,” Mac answered. “Sooo… the chief doesn’t need to know.”

“Then let’s go,” Sally quickly replied, smiling.

“Really?”

“Yeah. There’s probably nothing to this. But I know that if we don’t go look now, you’ll just be distracted all weekend.”

“Probably.”

“Well,” Sally said, smiling seductively, “I don’t want you distracted. I want your focus on me. Completely on me. I’ll have that once we don’t find anything.”

Mac turned left onto St. Albans and pulled up in front of the condo. He hopped out and fished his laptop out of the back compartment. The whole thing was a long shot, but for his own sanity, he wanted to check it out.

They made their way up to the second level. Mac set his laptop down on Daniels’ desk and picked the first CD out of the tower. Sally started walking in the DVDs from the cabinet in the sitting room across the hall.

Flash found the record. “I remember this one now.”

“How come?” Hansen asked, fearful of the answer.

“Big order, and I was dropping it off at Channel 6. It was a banker’s box, heavy. She wanted it boxed up, wrapped and delivered same day. Which we do all the time.”

So, Daniels had it. But where? Hansen stepped outside and placed a call to Alt.

“Is this the last one?” Mac asked disappointedly.

“Yup,” Sally replied.

Mac shook his head, the disappointment obvious. He hit file, open and tried to open the last disk as a document. Nothing. He moved it to the DVD drive, opened it up and it was a recent news report from in front of the Minnesota State Capitol. “Shit,” he said quietly under his breath, lightly shaking his head.

Mac sat with his hands in his face. The whole thing had been a wild goose chase. He looked up to find Sally so he could apologize. She was in the other room, flipping through the movie DVDs. She pulled one out and was looking at it. It wasn’t like the others, colored, with movie graphics. It was blank. “What you lookin’ at?” Mac asked.

“Just looking through the movie cases here and ran across this one inside the Basic Instinct box. It’s blank on the front, which is odd.”

“Let me take a look.” She handed it to him. Looked like all the other CD and DVD disks he’d been looking at. He handed it back to her.

“What? You’re not going to look?”

“Are you trying to add insult to injury here?”

“No, asshole, I’m trying to help. It seems odd this blank-fronted one is in this case. Check it out.”

Mac sighed, “Okay.” He opened the CD drive, popped it in. He hit file and tried to open it as a Word document. The operation failed. He clicked to video. He figured it was just another movie or news report. It wasn’t.

“What the heck?” Sally said, peering over Mac’s shoulder.

The video was of a man and woman having sex. The woman was on top and leaning into the male, who was obscured due to the high angle of the camera. The woman looked to be Claire Daniels. “What? Daniels liked videotaping herself having sex?” Sally said.

“I guess,” Mac replied. He looked at the date in the lower right hand corner: 10.29. He then looked up, and the video showed the woman leaning up and arching her back now. It definitely was Claire Daniels, and the male was now identifiable. Mason Johnson. They were on Daniels’ bed, and the camera was looking down on the right side.

“What was Daniels doing with this?” Sally asked.