been hired by the biggest firm in town with a six-figure salary waiting. Then lightning struck two weeks after he passed the bar exam. His two cousins and best friends were killed in the line of duty and suddenly he felt the pull and obligation of the family business. Mac made detective by age twenty-nine, was divorced by age thirty and now at age thirty-three was the best detective on the force.
He grabbed his worn brown leather folder, pen and cell phone and rolled his athletic six-foot-one frame out of the warmth of the truck. There was a definite chill in the air. The temperature was dropping quickly from a noontime high of forty-eight and was now dipping into the mid-thirties, with a stiff northwest breeze adding to the chill, cold even for Minnesota in late October. Winter was still a ways away, but days like today made you realize it wasn’t that far away. Mac threw his black wool overcoat on over his suit coat and pulled a navy blue scarf around his neck and walked under the crime scene tape.
His cousin Shawn, a uniform cop, greeted him with a smile and: “Hey cuz. I didn’t think the chief would send the A-squad to The Snelling.”
“Just my luck, I guess,” Mac answered. “Hold this,” Mac said as he handed his cousin his brown leather folder and reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves. He took the folder back, “Lich will be along any minute.”
“So you think the governor will pull it out next Tuesday?”
“I sure hope so,” Mac answered, “if for no other reason than just to see Sally happy. Given all the work she’s put in the last couple of months, she’ll be absolutely devastated if he doesn’t.”
Sally was Sally Kennedy, Mac’s girlfriend. She had taken leave from her assistant Ramsey County attorney job to work on Minnesota Governor James Thomson’s presidential campaign. An old law school friend who was a close aide of the national campaign manager, a famous local political operative named Judge Dixon, recruited her back in mid-summer. She’d poured herself into the work and made a very favorable impression on the man known as “The Judge.” It would be good for her career since she had aspirations beyond the county attorney’s office. Judge Dixon was an excellent man to have for a reference.
“So what do we have, Shawney?” Mac asked, getting back on task. A dead body awaited his attention.
“Body is upstairs. I snuck a quick peek. You’ve got a white male, probably in his mid-thirties. Bloody as hell. The guy’s throat was cut nearly ear to ear, pretty gruesome. Given the location, I’d say it’s probably a drug-robbery-sex cocktail.”
Mac raised an eyebrow, “So I can just go home then?”
Shawn smiled, “I suspect the powers that be probably would like a detective, particularly one of your caliber, to sign off on the theory of a lowly patrolman.”
“Pity,” Mac replied. “Who discovered the body?”
“A Valeninos Pizza delivery driver, with an assist from the motel manager.”
“Valeninos?”
“Yeah. Apparently our vic upstairs ordered a pie. The driver knocks on the door and there’s no answer. He looked in the window, there was a sliver of a gap between the curtains and the window and he saw a leg on the floor and the guy wouldn’t get up no matter how long he knocked. Driver was smart enough to …”
“… realize where he was and went and got the manager,” Mac finished.
“That’s right. Manager came up, opened the door, saw what you’re going to see and called 911.”
“Do we have a name?”
“Yeah, Bob Smith.”
Mac gave his cousin a skeptical look, “Bob Smith? Seriously?”
“That’s what the motel manager said. At least that’s what the room register has his name as.”
“Let me guess. Neither identification nor a credit card were required to rent a room?”
“The Snelling rarely asks for such niceties from its clientele these days,” Shawn answered. “Not good for their customer retention program, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t imagine it is,” Mac sighed as he strode over to the open-air concrete stairs and made his way up the steps to the second level and strolled along the balcony to room 211. He carefully stepped inside the doorway. Like all rooms at The Snelling, this one was cramped. To his immediate right was a cheap small square table with two extremely weathered navy blue fabric chairs. An unopened Valeninos’ pizza box sat on the table. Farther inside and to the right were