and Montgomery ended up dead. He finished with: “We have a large blood pool against a wall in the dining room but no body to go with it.”
“So someone’s missing,” the chief answered, nodding his head. “You said Dixon called you and that brought you here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is the Judge now?”
Mac shook his head. “I don’t know, Chief,” he said quietly.
The chief exhaled and closed his eyes, wondering if the Judge ended up on the wrong end of this. “Is his the missing body?”
“I don’t know, Chief. We have calls into all the hospitals about gunshot wounds. I suppose he could have gotten himself to a hospital and we just don’t know about it yet but …”
“… but what?”
“I don’t think that’s how it went down.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“It’s not.”
Mac and the chief turned to see Sally. “I have the Judge on the phone.”
* * *
They tied it off at McCormick’s and then in an instant they were back to square one.
Kristoff rubbed his temples, the stress headache expanding by the minute. And now Foche was gone. This would be the first time in twenty years that he would not have him by his side while he was operating, and what he now knew was that he was not the only one operating here.
“You’re absolutely sure it was a woman who fired at you?” Kristoff asked the driver.
“I saw the ponytail swing as she turned and she moved and ran like a woman but also like a pro. She was law enforcement, military, something along those lines. She popped three at us, bing, bing, bing, like it was no big deal.” Not to mention the three she put into Foche.
Kristoff was running scenarios through his head as to whom she could be working for and his biggest worry was that it was someone with the Thomson campaign. If that were the case, the campaign now had in their possession the evidence to potentially burn his boss, to potentially burn them all.
Moriarity, who was riding shotgun up front, turned to Kristoff in back, “I have Ginger on the line. She says the laptop is still on the move.”
“To where?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Riddle me this, Dara Wire.”
Downtown St. Paul quickly appeared in the windshield once Wire jumped on Interstate 35E and started heading south towards downtown St. Paul. She didn’t want to go to the police, at least not officially yet. With the events of the last hour, she was leery of anyone at this point.
Things were spiraling out of control. What Wire wanted to do was go into hiding in a hotel somewhere far away to sit for a few hours and run everything through her head. Things were happening so fast, she wasn’t thinking, just reacting.
Who or what they were reacting to she had no idea. What she did know was that:
Sebastian was dead.
Stroudt and Montgomery were dead.
There were killers out there operating with impunity.
They were up against an opponent with serious resources and she at least was entertaining the notion that it included law enforcement at some level, regardless of what the Judge said. How else would they have tracked Montgomery to Sebastian’s? That took people, equipment, resources and the one entity that had those elements in large supply was the government.
It wasn’t inconceivable that the vice president, or Connolly as his proxy, or more likely Connolly on his own for that matter, could access federal resources or call in local favors, even in Governor Thomson’s backyard. The crime, whatever it was, was so large that the cover up had to succeed at all costs.
Given all of that, she simply couldn’t bring herself to believe in anyone right now.
The Judge understood where she was coming from, both emotionally and logically. Dixon was as devastated as anyone in the car. He had raised Sebastian in a political sense not to mention a personal one. He would grieve the loss. But one thing the Judge knew how to do was compartmentalize. The emotional drawer was closed for now and the crisis drawer was open. Logically, he knew he had to treat their situation like it was a political crisis and react accordingly.
Soon Sebastian’s death would become news. The national media full court press would be all over the story within hours. When tied with the deaths of Stroudt and Montgomery, the media storm would be immense. Consequently, Judge Dixon couldn’t simply disappear while Wire thought things through.
There was a presidential election at stake.
Whoever was behind these three murders was trying to cover up