at McCormick’s house, he explained to McCormick and Kate Shelby, a deputy campaign manager for the Thomson campaign who was also there, that Stroudt traveled to the Twin Cities to get in contact with McCormick. However, before he could he was killed. Montgomery began to explain why he wanted to meet with McCormick when this man,” Mac put up a photo of McCormick’s killer, “came in the back of the house and shot Montgomery in the head and McCormick twice in the chest.”
“Who is that man?” Mitchell asked, standing and walking to the screen.
“Sir, we don’t have a name yet,” Mac answered. “Agent Duffy has been efforting that for us but has not yet been able to identify him.”
“That man killed McCormick and Montgomery but not Shelby?” Mitchell asked, confused. “How does she not end up dead?”
“Dara Wire,” Mac answered. “During the day on Friday, she was here in DC trying to find Stroudt and Montgomery and had been working with the Alexandria, Virginia, police in that regard. Stroudt’s home as well as the offices of The Congressional Page were broken into and ransacked, while Montgomery’s was not. So she decided to sit on Montgomery’s building and see what turned up. While watching, she noted what she thought were two different two-man teams watching the apartment building that abruptly left their surveillance detail, speeding away. She suspected that Montgomery had been located. She also knew, at this point, that Stroudt had been murdered and began to surmise that a cover-up of the Kentucky meeting was in motion. A little later on Friday, Wire and Judge Dixon flew back to the Twin Cities. When they landed, they each had voice mail messages from McCormick alerting them to the fact that Montgomery was coming to McCormick’s house. Wire intuitively knew the danger McCormick was in. She and Dixon sped to McCormick’s house. In fact, Judge Dixon called me while they were on their way asking me to get over there as well. I was en-route but Wire beat me there, realized what was going down and managed to get inside in time to save Ms. Shelby.”
“Where is Ms. Shelby now?”
“She’s in joint protective custody of the Secret Service and the St. Paul Police Department.”
Mac flipped back to the picture of the killer. “Wire shot this man in the chest three times and helped Ms. Shelby escape the home out the back before the killer’s backup got to the house.” Mac described the back alley shootout and Wire’s escape with Dixon and Shelby from the scene.
“Detective, this killer, is the man the media has reported is dead?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now you found him, correct? How?”
Mac explained how he tracked down the killer to the off-the-books doctor. He didn’t mention Fat Charlie’s name but he didn’t need to, the director understood. “That’s pretty quick work, Detective.”
“It helps to know people who know people.”
“Sources are everything and good cops have them,” Mitchell replied, impressed. “Continue.”
Mac shifted gears.
“Wire and Shelby escaped McCormick’s house with Montgomery’s backpack, which included his laptop, camera and notebooks. An hour later, while I was working the crime scene at McCormick’s house, I was again contacted by Judge Dixon, who was with Wire and Shelby. He asked to meet and we agreed to do so at my family’s bar near downtown St. Paul.”
“Why at your family’s bar?” Mitchell asked quizzically. “Why not police headquarters?”
“That would have been my first choice as well, sir,” Mac answered, taking a sip of coffee. “However, Ms. Wire wasn’t in the trusting mood at that point. Dixon and Shelby told her that they could trust me. Wire insisted on a meeting place, other than headquarters, where I could trust everyone.”
“And that’s your family bar?”
“Our bar is many things, including a cop bar. On a Friday night, sir, it’s full of police, all of whom I trust, so yeah, other than HQ it was the place to go,” Mac answered. “As we were meeting up on the street outside the pub, we were attacked drive-by shooting style by men riding in a panel van and Chevy Suburban, two of whom Ms. Wire and I managed to mortally wound while returning fire.” McRyan described the shootout and chase that lead to the Suburban, which exploded, leaving another two men dead.
“I saw something about this on the news, didn’t I?” Mitchell asked.
“You probably did, Director,” Mac replied. “Although I’ve been so consumed with this case, I haven’t seen any of the news reports on that.”