hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. “I say this as a man utterly in love with his girlfriend and without any hint of lecherousness, but Dara Wire, you clean up really nice.”
“Thanks,” Wire replied with a bright smile, appreciating the compliment. “Here you go,” she handed him two bags that contained two pairs of jeans, a package of boxers, socks, T-shirts and two Henley shirts, one gray and one black.
“Thanks, partner,” Mac replied as he darted into the bedroom although he left the door open a crack so they could talk.
“So you’ve seen the news, I take it,” Wire asked, dropping into one of the soft leather chairs.
“Cripes. My cell phone has been going crazy. Sally, the Judge, Riley, Rockford, Lich, Jupiter, heck, even my mother, it’s been unbelievable. I turned on the football game just to get away from it.”
“You call anyone back?”
“Sally,” he replied with a sheepish voice.
“Of course. You are so damn smitten.”
“I know. Anyway,” getting back to the political talk, “can you say October surprise?”
“This isn’t finding out about Bush’s DWI three days before the election,” Wire replied as she looked to her left towards the bathroom and caught a quick glimpse of McRyan’s reflection in the bathroom mirror, the separate bedroom door into the bathroom wide open. He was naked except for his boxers. She could make out his ripped physique and thought no wonder Sally Kennedy was in so deep. “So Connolly is coming in when?”
“He’ll be arriving sometime around 2:00 p.m. He’s on an FBI jet coming back from Ohio. His lawyer has already been in contact with the Justice Department and will be there.”
“He surely won’t be coming to town unnoticed.”
Mac laughed, “No, no he won’t. The Judge saw to that.”
“Are you in on the interview of Connolly?” Wire asked. She was, after all, an employee of the Thomson campaign.
“Not in the interview itself but I get to watch,” Mac answered. “Which is fine, by the way. If you think about it, Dara, I’m a homicide detective and our homicides are closed for the most part. We have this guy back in the Twin Cities and the two from last night in Milwaukee who either murdered or were certainly involved with the murders of Martin and Checketts, so to a certain degree, my job is done.”
“Don’t you want to know who is behind this, though?”
“Hell-to-the-yeah,” Mac answered enthusiastically as he emerged from the bedroom dressed in jeans and a black Henley and white undershirt. “But election fraud and manipulating voting machines is the FBI’s beat, not mine. If the bureau figures out who’s behind this voting machine business, we’ll know who the shot caller was on the murders and we’ll get closure.”
“We know who’s behind the voting machines. It’s Connolly.”
“Maybe,” Mac answered.
That drew a stern look from Wire. “What do you mean maybe?” she growled.
“Exactly that,” Mac answered. “Maybe. Look, Dara he’s involved up to his well-coiffed sideburns, I’m just not completely convinced he’s the one calling the shots is all.”
“Why not?” she asked hotly.
“Easy, Dara,” Mac replied calmly, “easy. I know how you guys feel about Connolly. But you and the Judge are so wrapped around the axle on this guy that you may be making him bigger than he is.”
“What do you mean bigger?”
“He’s Satan in your eyes, and he may be. But seven bodies have been dropped. Someone has been paid a lot of money and expended a lot of resources to make this all happen. Campaign managers don’t have that kind of scratch.”
“Where have you been?” Wire mocked. “Look at all the money in politics. These damn Super PACs and all the money they’re spending. He can have that money with a snap of his fingers.”
“Okay, but from whom? And let me tell you something, rich people don’t just give that kind of money away without knowing where it’s going, Dara, or having a say in how it’s to be used,” Mac replied. “You don’t end up being or staying rich that way. I know you think Connolly’s the great and powerful Oz, but I’m sorry, he doesn’t get this big pot of money without having to answer to someone on how it’s spent and on what it’s spent.”
Wire fumed and Mac understood it. She and the Judge had been on Connolly for months and were fully invested in the belief that he was responsible for everything, that he was responsible for Sebastian’s death. Mac was being objective, remaining open to all possibilities. They might be right,