states that Sally had spent the last three months talking about. For the last month, Sally was working around the clock and he’d barely seen her. She had a passion for the politics that he hadn’t seen before and suspected this wouldn’t be her last foray into the political arena.
He’d been married once as had Sally. Meredith, his ex, never liked his sudden turn to policing; it didn’t fit with her life plan. Not long after Mac made detective, he found Meredith having an affair with a partner in her law firm. A year after he discovered the affair, the divorce was finalized. Shortly thereafter, he started dating Sally. They were acquaintances of a sort, having gone to law school together, but not really knowing each other. Both of them were married at the time and did not run in similar law school social circles. When they met up years after law school while working a case together, Mac was immediately attracted to her beauty, intelligence and feistiness.
Sally and Mac had been together going on two years now, living together, and spending their lives together. They loved each other. Yet despite their love for one another, marriage was something they rarely, if ever, discussed. If the word came up, things always got a little awkward as if neither of them really knew how to talk about it. Their divorces left them both scarred and fearful of marriage, but not of commitment. They loved each other and that was enough for now. They were still young, in their early thirties, with no children. Marriage could wait for the right time.
Sally’s last text indicated she would be getting home around 1:00. Mac decided to work the case for another hour or so and could be up when she got home. They could have a little time together before they both collapsed.
Mac leaned back in his chair and soaked in the whiteboard. This was how he often solved cases. He would mind map and put everything down on paper, his computer or when he really needed to spread out, on a whiteboard. Then he would sit back and absorb the case into his mind and let it percolate. The case wouldn’t be solved in one sitting, but look at the board enough, put enough evidence and information up, and eventually the answer emerged. In this case, it was not ready to jump out at him.
The rental car was a disappointment. Mac and Lich tracked it down to the Penalty Box. Forensics opened it up at the bar but there was nothing inside. No luggage, no backpack, no cell phone and no evidence that Stroudt had been in it. The car was clean, too clean. The crime scene tech on the scene said it looked as if the car had been wiped down. Forensics hauled the car back to the county lab and would process it overnight. If they got lucky, they might find a hair, a fiber or a print from the killer. Mac doubted they would get lucky in that regard, but it was worth the effort. The GPS was more likely to provide help.
Mac looked over Lich’s notes. With some keystrokes and a password, he worked his way into the GPS system for A-1 Rent-A-Car. Stroudt rented a silver Ford 500 at 10:40 at the airport.
Stroudt left the airport and drove east into St. Paul and spent nearly an hour driving around the city. He made one stop at a bookstore on Ford Parkway in the Highland Park area. The car was parked at the bookstore for twenty minutes before Stroudt left. From the bookstore, he drove two miles to a Grand Brew Coffee House, the actual original Grand Brew, on the corner of Grand and Snelling Avenues.
From 12:02 p.m. until 2:09 p.m., Stroudt remained at the Grand Brew. The coffee house would have been crowded at that time of day with college students as the coffee shop sat across the street from Macalester College. It made some sense if he wanted to be around people interested in politics. Macalaster was a politically active small liberal arts college with a decidedly Democratic bent. If you were a Governor Thomson supporter, you would be in good company.
“So you sit at the Grand Brew for two hours doing what?” Mac mused out loud to nobody in particular. “Doing what?”
Mac suspected he might have spent some time on a computer. The coffee shop offered free Wi-Fi. On the right side of the whiteboard he