“No way!” Sally replied in disbelief.
“Oh, yeah. Pure luck, but I met the man.”
They transitioned to Helen Anderson. “She can’t be easy to work for,” Mac said.
“That’s somewhat true. She’s demanding of everyone’s time and efforts. But at the same time, she generally let’s you do your job.”
“Probably because she never did it herself,” Mac intoned.
“Well there might be some truth to that,” Sally replied, smiling. “She’s more a politician than a lawyer.”
Then they got to Lich. “By the way, where’s your partner?”
Mac chuckled, “Dickey boy is on a date with Dot.”
“Who’s Dot? Should I know her?”
Mac shook his head. “No. I just met her this morning. She’s a rather, shall we say, buxom waitress at the Cleveland Grille.”
“Ahhh. So, your partner’s on the dating seen, huh?”
“That he is. I have to give him credit. His last wife absolutely cleaned him out.” Mac just shook his head.
Sally looked around the apartment. “It would appear you didn’t get cleaned out?”
“We parted amicably.” Mac didn’t want to talk about his divorce. He’d caught his ex-wife having an affair with a married partner in her law firm. Mac threatened to expose the affair unless he got the better of the marital assets, which he had. To change the topic, he got up, picked up their empties and asked, “One more?”
Sally looked at her watch, 11:30 p.m. “I’d like to, but it’s late.”
Mac looked at his watch. He’d lost track of time, “Geez. You’re right.”
They walked to the door, and Mac grabbed her coat, helping her put it on. She said, “Thanks.”
“I’ll walk you down.”
As they were walking down the stairs, Sally said, “So, you ready for tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Mac replied enthusiastically.
Sally picked up on it. “You’re looking forward to it, aren’t you?”
Mac looked at her. “You surprised by that?”
“It’s a murder case. Yeah, a little.”
“Tomorrow’s why you do this job. Cases like this don’t come along too often. I probably won’t sleep much tonight. But, yeah, as morbid as it sounds, I can’t wait. I can just feel the adrenaline flowing.”
They were at her car. Mac stayed back a few feet. She reached in her purse for her keys and opened her car door before looking back. They stood awkwardly, staring at each other for a moment.
Mac finally spoke. “So, I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Let me know how it goes.”
“I will.”
He held back. It didn’t feel right yet. Sally smiled at him and got in the car and started the engine. Before she closed her door, she said, “Good luck tomorrow, I’ll be thinking of you.” She closed the door and backed away from him, turned, gave him a wave and drove off.
Chapter Ten
Mac, along with Lich and Captain Peters climbed into Mac’s Explorer, headed out of the Department of Public Safety ramp and worked their way quickly to Interstate 35E, driving north out of downtown St. Paul on their way out to Hisle’s place in Stillwater.
The morning had been a blur, spent in a number of meetings. It started with a meeting with Captain Peters, which then moved to the chief’s office for his daily briefing. Sylvia Miller sat in on that one to discuss what to do if the media showed.
Before they left for Stillwater, Mac finally had time to meet with Lich about last night’s meeting with Sally. They discussed her theories about how Hisle might handle their interview with the senator. Lich snorted, “In other words, she acted like a typical lawyer and didn’t really answer your question.”
Mac had to chuckle. Given his divorce terms, Lich had caskets of animosity stored up for attorneys. “She was a little evasive. Yes, but that’s because we don’t know what Hisle’s going to do anymore than he knows what we’ll do.”
“So,” Lich said, grinning, “how evasive was she?”
“Evasive?”
“Listen, son, you put the wood to her or what?”
“Jesus,” said Mac, giving Lich a disbelieving look.
“Sheesh, you really are out of practice.”
“Well, how’d you do with Dot?”
“A hell of a lot better than you did,” Lich said with a big shit-eating grin.
Mac winced, suddenly developing a bad mental picture of bald old Lich and big-breasted Dot flopping around. “Spare me the details.”
Mac exited 35E, onto Highway 36 for the drive east to Stillwater. The drive would have been a lot prettier three weeks earlier when the leaves were orange, red and yellow at the peak of the fall colors. Now, the ride out towards Stillwater was strewn with leaves blowing across the highway, the trees barren, waiting for the coming cold and snow of a Minnesota winter.
Stillwater, a burgeoning suburb twenty miles east of St. Paul, was located on the St. Croix River, which also served as the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Up on top of the bluff overlooking the St. Croix was “new” Stillwater, with big-box retailers and various other suburban amenities. The amenities were surrounded by suburban homes with large yards and three-car garages. The part of Stillwater sitting two hundred feet below the bluff and right on the St. Croix was the quaint old downtown. A lumber town, Stillwater had morphed into an elegant tourist trap of old red-brick and stone buildings full of little antique stores, restaurants and marinas for river boats.
Lyman lived just north of Stillwater, with a place on a little cliff overlooking the river. Once off the road, Mac took a long driveway that might have been a hundred yards long that circled in front of the house. The house itself was a sprawling prairie-style rambler, the back of which overlooked the river. Lyman undoubtedly had a groundskeeper of some sort in the summer, as there were flower beds and trimmed bushes appropriately scattered over the grounds. The flowers were now in hibernation, but the bushes were all in well-trimmed condition, rounded and squared appropriately. It was impressive.
“Representing criminals pays, don’t it, Mac?” Lich commented.
“Yeah, but Lyman’s a good guy.”
“Maybe I should have hired him for my divorce.”
They dropped the Explorer just past the front door. As they approached the house, Lich asked Mac, “Just thought I’d ask, you know so we’re prepared and all, how are you going to handle this?”
“My guess is the senator isn’t going to be so impressed with a young buck detective running things. If so, you look at me when we start, my look will let you know. Let’s play on that and see if we can’t get him riled up.”
“Good cop. Bad cop?” Lich said.
“Exactly.”
Lich smiled and moved to push the doorbell. Before he could, Hisle opened the door. “Good afternoon, detectives. Please come in.”
They entered into a large open foyer. “I thought we’d head into the library,” Lyman said, pointing down a hallway to their right.
The library was exactly that. There were windows that looked out over the river. The rest of the walls were built-in bookshelves, with an impressive collection of works. Mac saw an old collection of Charles Dickens tales. There were a few shelves with old legal treatises. Lyman also liked more modern fare, with many bestsellers.
In the middle of the library was a long conference table with four highbacked leather chairs on either side and one on each end. The floor was wood, but a large Persian rug sat in the center under the conference table. As they entered the library, Mason Johnson stood looking out the window. Casually dressed in tan slacks, he also wore a navy blue sweater and white button down collar shirt. Handshakes were exchanged, coffee poured, and they moved to the conference table. Johnson shook Mac’s hand, held it briefly, gave him a long look and smirked just slightly as they sat down. Inside, Mac smiled. So, the senator isn’t exactly impressed with me. Mac sat down next to Lich, smiled slightly and nodded. Let’s go with the game plan.