“Everything go okay?” he asked as he dropped some ice into a hotel glass and poured himself a Diet Coke.
“No problem. It’s pretty empty in there.”
“You tested the camera?”
“Yes,” she answered, putting the shoulder bag onto the bed. “It worked fine. We’ll be able to monitor what they’re doing.”
“Excellent.”
“What’s next?’ she asked as she opened a bottle of water.
“We sit and wait for awhile, try to relax,” Smith answered, turning on the TV. “At five thirty I’ll drive the minivan over to Eagle Street and wait.”
“Dean and David get the easy duty, don’t they?”
“At least for now,” Smith replied. “David saved my life in prison. If things go awry, he and Dean can walk away, as can you.”
“Have you changed your mind about the girls?”
“No,” Smith replied.
“You know how Dean and David feel.”
“I do,” Smith replied looking out the window. “They don’t think the girls should pay.” He turned back toward Monica. “The thing is, if everything goes according to plan, nobody will ever know who we are. Or if they do eventually figure it out, it will be too late. We’ll be long gone. If we let them know where the girls are, that increases the risk that we’ll be found before we’re safely away. If we give them the girls, the police very likely will discover who we are, probably before we’ve made the necessary changes to our looks.”
“I know, I know,” Monica answered, looking down and picking at the carpet with her toes. “Thing is,” she started quietly, “the girls are guilty of nothing other than having the fathers they have.”
“And what about my daughter?” Smith asked, anger rising in his voice. “What was she guilty of besides having me as her father? She died because of Charlie Flanagan. I’m in prison, and my wife can’t get insurance. She can’t get treatment for my little girl. When the state finally comes through, my little girl’s on her deathbed and it’s too late. That’s all on Charlie Flanagan.” Smith turned back toward the window, away from her. “He needs to feel what I felt. He needs to feel what it’s like to lose a daughter. He’s going to feel that before he dies.”
Mac and the others burst into the conference room to find Hagen’s fingers dancing frantically over the keyboard and a printer spitting out reams of paper. “What do we know?” Mac asked, walking up to Sally.
“It doesn’t look like Brown is in Chicago,” Sally said. “I had CPD go to the last known address. It doesn’t exist.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t exist? The address doesn’t exist? It’s a fake?” Rock growled.
“Yeah. Brown served his full sentence and was a free man, free to go wherever he wanted,” Sally answered. “It would appear that in his six months out he has chosen to fall off the grid.”
“And this is the guy who was in prison with David Mueller?” Rock asked, looking at a picture of Smith taken six months before he was released. Six feet tall, Brown had black hair graying at his temples. He had brown eyes and a knot at the bridge of his already large nose.
“Yes,” Sally replied. “For twelve years. We looked at Brown’s records for Leavenworth. It appears he had trouble on his arrival.”
“He’s probably lucky to be alive,” Lich said. Cops have issues in prison.
“That’s where David Mueller comes in,” Sally added, flipping to a different page. “He saved Brown’s life. Apparently David was pretty good with his fists. He, and his brother Dean, who I’ll get to in a minute, were in the Golden Gloves back in the day. Anyway, David seems to have used those skills to save Brown, or at least that’s what we’re seeing as we read between the lines on some stuff from Leavenworth. Apparently, David, and later Dean, took it upon themselves to apply a couple of beatings, to send a message and that probably allowed Brown to make it out alive.”
“So he’s loyal to them,” Rock said. “And I suppose vice versa.”
“What about the Muellers?” Mac asked, looking at pictures taken prior to their release from Leavenworth. The brothers were definitely twins, thick necks, black hair, unibrows, but all-in-all decent-looking boys. The only noticeable differences were their eyes and noses. Dean’s eyes were spread a little farther apart from his nose. David had an unnaturally crooked nose, probably broken from boxing.
“This is where it gets interesting. The brothers have an Osseo address, an apartment complex a block off of the main street,” Sally gave him a sheet with directions and the address. “I spoke with the Osseo police chief. He says give him a holler at that number,” she handed a yellow sticky note to Mac. “He and another officer will meet you at a gas station a few blocks away.”
“Okay, but you said ‘interesting’ a minute ago, what else?” Mac pushed impatiently, reading from the sheet. “What’s so interesting?”
“The Mueller boys have an older sister named Monica Reynolds — her married name.”
“Tell me the older sister looks like our missing woman,” Riles said, hopeful.
“Here’s a picture we got from the DMV for her license,” Sally responded. “Tell me what you think.” Her tone said she thought it was a match.
The group gathered around the table to look at the artist sketch of the woman from Cel’s Care next to the blown-up DMV photo. They also had security camera stills from Milwaukee and St. Thomas University for comparison. The hair color was right, as were the lips and nose and the eyes. The hair of the woman at the cafe didn’t match, but again, the eyes, nose, and lips looked about right. Mac spoke for everyone. “It could be her, there’s certainly a similarity.”
“Where is Monica Reynolds at these days?” Rock asked.
“Again, interesting,” Sally said, as Summer Plantagenate handed her another set of papers, as smoothly as if the two were going through exhibits at a jury trial. “Up until two months ago, she owned a house over on the east side of St. Paul by Lake Phalen. She sold it for $225,000 and left a P.O. Box as a forwarding address. It doesn’t appear she has established another home.”
“At least not one I can find,” Hagen added, looking up from his computer. “I’m still searching.”
“The money from the sale ended up in a checking account at Wells Fargo,” Sally said, “an account that she closed shortly thereafter, we can’t find any evidence she’s opened another one somewhere.”
“So she’s floating out there with a nice chunk of walking-around-money to finance whatever it is these guys might be up to,” Mac said. “This is adding up.”
“It is,” Sally said.
“So we’ve got a solid connection between the chief and Lyman in Brown and the Muellers. We have physical descriptions that are consistent. They’ve got motive. Brown gives them the intellect to pull this off,” Riles summarized.
“And Brown and Monica at least seem to have pulled a disappearing act,” Mac said.
“So what’s next?” Sally asked. “What do you think?”
“We check out this last known address,” Mac answered. “Lich and I will do that.”
“What do you want Rock and I to do?” Riles asked.
“Stay here and work this for now,” Mac replied. “We need to look into family for the Muellers and Brown. Do they have family around and where? If they do, we need to be talking to them. We should have someone run Monica’s photo over to the cafe, see what people over there think. Also, run these four against the department personnel files. Maybe we find the mole that way. And one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone should be around when the ransom call comes in,” Mac said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about that. Brown and the Muellers have been ahead of us every step of the way. There’s no reason to think they aren’t now.”
“Especially if they have someone on the inside,” Sally said.