“Mind if we come in?” a detective asked.
He led them to his office and sat down. “Now,” he said, “what’s this all about?”
“Have you listened to the news this morning?”
“I’m afraid not. Is there something I should know about?”
“Do you have two employees named Jacob Herman and Daniel Swenson?”
“Yes, but they aren’t in yet. I usually get in before anyone else.”
“Do you know their whereabouts?”
Macher glanced at his watch. “I suppose they’re on their way to work. You’re welcome to wait for them. Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thanks, but while we’re waiting, let me serve you with this warrant to search the premises.” He handed Macher the document.
Macher dropped it, unread, on his desk and spread his hands. “Please help yourself,” he said. “You don’t need a warrant, I’m happy to help.”
“Where are your two employees’ offices?”
“Mr. Herman’s is to your left at the end of the hall. Mr. Swenson is to your right at the other end.”
He turned to his men. “Okay, two of you in each office, we’ll take this room.” He turned back to Macher. “Stand up.”
Macher stood up, backed away from his desk, and leaned against the wall. “Let me know if I can help.”
The two detectives went methodically through his desk and filing cabinets and asked him to open the safe. “I’m happy to do so. When do I get to know what this is all about?” He worked the combination.
One detective started on the safe. “You have permits for all these weapons?”
“In the box on the right-side shelf, along with my business license,” Macher replied.
“It’s like this,” the other detective said, “last night in New York City a patrol car came across your employee Swenson putting tape over his license plate.”
“Swenson isn’t supposed to be in New York,” Macher said. “He’s due here for work, like always.”
“Well, he’s in Bellevue Hospital, instead, with two bullets in him.”
“Why would they shoot him?”
“Because he shot them first. Luckily, they were wearing protective gear.”
“This is crazy!” Macher said, giving his best performance. “Swenson is a good man, a decorated veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“Well, now he’s charged with two counts of attempted murder.”
“This is insane. What does Swenson have to say?”
A uniform came back. “The offices are clean of anything that could be of use to us.”
“Listen,” Macher said, “it sounds like Swenson went off his rocker. He’s had problems with post-traumatic stress disorder, going back to his army days. I can’t think of any other reason he’d go to New York, shoot two policemen.”
“We don’t know. We were hoping to find some answers here. When did you last speak to Mr. Herman?”
“Yesterday when he left work. I called him on the way to work this morning but got his voice mail. He should have been at work an hour and a half ago.”
The detective gave him a card. “When you hear from Herman, give us a call, and tell him not to go anywhere until we’ve talked to him.”
Macher took the card. “I hope you’ll ask your colleagues in New York to treat Dan Swenson like a wounded veteran, instead of a criminal suspect.”
“We’ll pass along the information.” The detectives thanked him for his cooperation and left.
Another fifteen minutes passed before Jake Herman called.
“Where are you, Jake?”
“Down the street in a diner. You know the one.”
“The cops have already been here and torn the place apart, but they didn’t find anything.”
“I don’t want to talk on the phone,” Jake said. “We need to meet.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, someplace they’d never look for me.”
“I can think of a place,” Macher said. “It belongs to Ed Rawls, but he’s at his house in Maine. It’s an hour, hour and a half from here.” He gave him directions. “If you get there before I do, break in, but disable the alarm first. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
“Okay.”
Macher’s secretary walked in. “This place is a mess,” she said.
“I have to go out,” Macher said. “Please tidy up. Jake and Dan won’t be in today.”
“When will you be back?”
“Tomorrow, the next day, maybe. We’ve got a new client.”
Macher went into the alley, removed the explosives from the neighbor’s dumpster, and put them in the trunk of his car. He chose weapons from the safe, then got the car started and headed south.
54
Jake Herman got to the house first. He found the junction box for the alarm system and disconnected it, then he picked the lock on the back door, went in, unlocked the other doors, and made himself some coffee in the kitchen. The phone rang, but it soon stopped.
He liked the house, particularly the study, and he made himself at home in there with the Washington Post and the New York Times, which he had picked up at the diner.
Macher, using a burner phone, called Jake’s cell from the road.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
“At the house. Pretty nice.”
“I thought you’d been there before. We had the place under surveillance for a few days a while back.”
“Nope. I didn’t get that duty.”
“Did you disconnect the alarm?”
“I did.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Reading the papers and having some of our host’s coffee. There’s no food in the house, so if you’re planning to be here for a while, you’d better pick up some groceries.”
“Okay, I’ll do that. See you in an hour or so.” Macher hung up and turned into a shopping center, where there was a supermarket. Half an hour later he was back on the road with a trunk full of food and drink.
Stone was at his desk when Joan buzzed. “Ed Rawls for you on one.”
“Hello, Ed.”
“Morning, Stone. Anything unusual happening there?”
“Well, let’s see. In the middle of the night there was a gun battle in front of my house, and the perpetrator is in Bellevue with a couple of slugs in him. Turns out, he had planted a bomb outside before he was arrested, but we got that taken care of before it could go off.”
“Sounds like Macher.”
“Sounds exactly like Macher. The perp’s car was registered to his Virginia security company, and the Arlington police have searched his offices, looking for Jake Herman, his number one man, who was implicated by the shooter. Macher was in his office in Arlington, but he’s probably on the run by now.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Rawls said. “I got a call from the alarm system monitor for my Virginia house. Someone has disconnected the alarm.”
“I’ll call Dino and see that the local police are notified.”
“My house is in the country, and the local sheriff’s office is understaffed. They don’t think much of domestic alarm system calls, since nine out of ten are homeowners who have entered the wrong code or otherwise fucked it up.”
“What do you want to do, then?”
“I’m headed to Virginia this morning, anyway. It’s getting too cold for me in Maine. I was going to drive, but I think I’ll charter a light airplane from the Rockland airport. If I start now, I can be down there in, say, three hours.”
“You’d better go armed, if Jake Herman is in your house.”
“Where do you think Macher is?” Ed asked.
“No idea. I’ll see what Dino knows and get back to you.”
Stone dialed the number.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone. Can you get another fix on Macher’s cell phone?”