“So,” Mac said, “if there’s a connection to be found…”
“This program Hagen has running should find it.”
Peters knocked on the door and then entered. “Anything?”
“Not yet,” they replied in unison.
“Well, come with me. Burton’s about ready to start the show.”
They all started to file out, but Mac stopped them. “Scan the room,” he said quietly. “If we’re right, and somebody is working this from the inside, that person is likely in the room. I don’t know what to look for, but look.”
Everyone nodded and they walked down the hall and into the overflowing meeting room. Burton saw them walk in and immediately approached.
“Have you been back on the safe house?” he asked, looking at Mac and then to the others.
“Yup,” Mac answered neutrally. “They haven’t come back yet, obviously, but we think it’s still worth watching.”
Burton looked to the others, who nodded.
“All right then. Stay on it, at least for this afternoon. However, if they don’t come back to the house, we will need you guys when the ransom call comes in.”
The group agreed. Burton headed up to the front of the room. Mac and the others found space along a side wall and stood as Burton began to speak. Conspicuously seated at the front of the room, the chief and Lyman watched as Burton called the room to order. The chief in particular looked to Mac, giving a small nod that Mac returned.
Burton began with a recap of where the investigation stood, which was really nowhere, other than the safe house, which was looking deader by the minute.
“We have a crew sitting on the house right now. I’ve spoken with Detectives Riley and McRyan, and they are of the opinion that the house should remain under surveillance. I concur, and so we will continue to monitor that situation.”
“Has anything come of the video release?” a voice asked.
“No,” Burton replied. “I’m a little surprised frankly. It’s been played every half-hour since yesterday, and we’ve gotten nothing.”
“How about anything from the video itself? Anything to help us?”
“Again, we’ve found nothing,” Burton replied. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to pull anything off it that is useful.” Burton transitioned to the ransom. “As you know, the ransom demand is for five million.” Burton explained the details of the demand.
“Do we know when the ransom call is coming?” another cop asked.
“Six o’clock PM,” Burton replied. “We expect that we’ll receive drop instructions at that time. We’ll need to move quickly.”
“How’s the drop going to be completed?” Double Frank asked.
“We don’t know,” Burton answered honestly. “We’re getting a call at 6:00, and it’ll be the kidnappers’ show at that point.”
“So what are we doing?” Mac asked. He wanted to be free for the afternoon, but at the same time, wanted to assess the preparedness of Burton and the bureau.
“Good question,” Riles said in his ear.
“Let there be no doubt, we’ll be ready,” Burton said. “We don’t know what they’re going to do, that’s true, but we will have massive resources at our disposal when it comes time to pay the ransom. They’ve demanded five million in cash. That’s a lot of money, and it doesn’t come in a small package. It’s sizable. It will fill two large duffel bags. In other words, we should be able to track it. We have plenty of bodies. We’ll have birds in the air. We’ll put a tracker in the money bag. As you’ve noted a couple of times, Detective McRyan, the kidnappers are sharp, well prepared, and precise in their planning. That suggests to me that we’re looking at a money drop. They will have to expose themselves to get the money, and that’s when we’ll have our chance to pounce.”
“Just like that, huh?” Double Frank snorted skeptically.
“It’s never just like that,” Burton replied evenly. “All I’m saying is that if something doesn’t break between now and then, our best chance to get them is when they go for the money. That’s when they’ll come out of hiding. They have to.”
“We don’t know when or where the drop will be?” Mac asked. “And let’s be honest, we don’t know for sure there will be a drop, you’re just getting a phone call at six, right?” Burton nodded, and Mac noted the chief’s piercing gaze as he spoke. “They could throw you a curve.”
“I’m sure they’ll try to. All I can say is we’ll be as ready as we can be, Mac,” Burton replied, nonplussed by the hard questioning. “I understand the concerns of everyone in this room. I share them. I’d like to know more, a lot more, about whom and what we’re up against. But we are where we are.”
“What about the girls?” someone asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” Burton replied. “This is a kidnapping, and we have a ransom demand. We catch the kidnappers at the drop, and we’ll find out where the girls are.”
“You hope,” a voice from the group said.
“I think I’m right. These guys won’t want a murder rap. They’ll look to start cutting years and making deals. If we handle the drop right, if we get them there, then we stand a chance to get the girls.”
Mac wasn’t so confident, but didn’t want to say so with the chief present. In his mind, there was more than a payday in lay. Burton was planning as though it was just about the money, as if it was a simple exchange of dollars for the girls and that didn’t feel right. If it was just about money, the ransom demand would be for more. This was about more than money. It was about retribution, and the chief, Lyman, and everyone else was about to be led right into something a lot uglier than a payoff.
28
12:03 PM
Shamus McRyan knelt down to tie closed a white box labeled Hammond et al. v. Easy Flow Systems, a class-action case, and reached for the next box. Shamus was in a row of files that covered the early to mid-1990’s.
“This search lead to anything yet?” inquired Percy Wallace, a rotund, black retired detective who was one of Shamus’s golfing buddies. Percy was supposed to be working the first tee as a starter at Highland National Golf Club. Instead, Shamus recruited him down to the storage garage.
“Not yet,” Shamus answered.
“Man, how many boxes we been through?”
“I stopped counting after twenty, and that was a while ago,” Shamus replied.
“So, what do we have here?” Percy asked, pushing the sleeves up on his golf pullover.
“Looks like Erickson v. TOM Trucking, 1994.” Shamus grunted as he moved the box and opened it up. Wallace grabbed a red-rope folder marked “Pleadings Vol. 1” and started scanning for information. Shamus grabbed another red-rope that contained deposition transcripts along with the correspondence file, which he flipped open to read the summary of the case. He found that reading the small summaries helped him understand the information he was looking at. The one paragraph summary on a now-faded green piece of paper indicated that Erickson v. TOM Trucking was a sexual harassment case brought by Barb Erickson and three other women against the owner of the trucking company, Thomas Oliver Mueller, hence TOM Trucking. A notation at the bottom of the summary noted the file was closed in 1994 after Lyman obtained a verdict of $3.4 million. Shamus smirked. Just another cool million for Lyman Hisle.
Wallace noticed Shamus reading the summary and asked, “What’s that sheet say?”
“Sexual harassment,” Shamus answered. “Appears the owner of the company liked to fondle the hired help.”
Just then Henry Brown, the Brown in Hisle amp; Brown, walked up. Summer had called him in to help supervise. He noted the name on the case and said, “I remember that one. I couldn’t believe that verdict.”