Double Frank had his hand casually draped over the wheel when the ambulance started to accelerate. “What the …”
The ambulance lights and siren came on.
“Uh-oh,” Paddy uttered, “that doesn’t look good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Whoa!”
Portsmouth, Virginia.
Kristoff sighed as he threw the strap for his suitcase over his shoulder and picked up his duffel bag and jumped into the cab he hailed. As he jumped into the backseat of his second taxi ride of the morning, he looked to his cell phone for a further update from Vigneault. He had not provided one since his last text ten minutes ago, merely indicating that they were following McRyan and his woman partner back into the city. Kristoff forwarded the pictures from Vigneault to the boss’s people to see if they could identify her. It might give them an idea of who else was investigating the case with McRyan.
This cab ride was the second of three switches in vehicles before he met with his boss. There were always multiple vehicles used when he went to see the boss. He expected this cab ride would take about twenty minutes for him to reach the Marriot in downtown Norfolk.
The Bishop.
The Bishop was what the boss told Kristoff he could call him the first time they met. It was actually a few years before he actually knew the boss’s real name, when he saw him in a television interview. The next time he saw the Bishop and he used the boss’s real name, the boss was not pleased. It was the last time Kristoff crossed that line. His real name would make him less anonymous and the boss liked his anonymity, especially when using Kristoff to do certain work on his behalf. And the boss used the Bishop moniker sparingly as well lest it become synonymous with his real name. Few used the name the Bishop and even fewer knew it referred to the boss. In fact, Kristoff’s men were not allowed to know who Kristoff worked for. The lone exception was Foche since they were recruited as a package by the Bishop. As far as the men knew, they worked for Kristoff, who worked for some shadowy figure. Since the men were always paid and paid well, they didn’t seem to care. Kristoff took care of them and they got paid, so they worked for Kristoff.
The one thing about the arrangement that was a concern to Kristoff was if something went wrong, all the boss had to do was eliminate Kristoff and Foche and there was no tie back to the Bishop. Kristoff often wondered whether he should have created some insurance for himself. It was a risk not to. However, the risk had been and was worth the reward. They could retire at any time in style now and never need to work another day. This adventure had Kristoff thinking it was finally time to walk away. First, he had to finish this problem off and second, figure out a way to get Foche free. If he could solve the first problem for the boss, he trusted the boss would help him with the second.
If Kristoff could finish this off.
The phone call from his men was disconcerting. It wasn’t that he didn’t expect McRyan to get to Milwaukee. It was inevitable. What he didn’t expect is that he would be there so quickly. Usually, the gears of getting a cop from one city to the next required miles and miles of bureaucratic red tape. In this case, McRyan was moving as fast and as freely as Kristoff himself. The St. Paul detective was all over this case.
The boss smelled Judge Dixon.
The Judge was pulling strings behind the scenes, the man’s specialty.
As the taxi made its way through the moderate mid-morning traffic of Norfolk, Kristoff took in the talk radio station the cab driver had on. The host was setting up his next segment with the talker of the morning, Judge Dixon’s early a.m. press conference and Governor Thomson’s follow-up presser. Dixon’s early morning press conference in front of Thomson Campaign Headquarters started the Thomson campaign on the offensive. They were presenting a determined, if not angry, front. The murder of McCormick was political. Adam Montgomery’s name was out now as the second victim and Jason Stroudt’s name came out as well as a possible third victim. Now all the questions were being asked. Why was Montgomery at McCormick’s house? What was he telling McCormick? Why was Stroudt in St. Paul two days earlier?