Helen Anderson jumped in, “So, we charge him?”
“Mac?” Flanagan asked, prodding.
“We’d be idiots not to.”
“Agreed,” replied the chief, shooting Mac another big smile. “Helen, I think Ms. Kennedy, Mac, Lich, and Marion here need to get together and write it up.”
“I’ve already started, but I need the detectives to fill in some blanks,” Sally replied. “Who’s going to arrange for the senator to come in?”
“I’ll make the call,” said the chief. “We’ll work it out so that he can turn himself in voluntarily. Shall we make it tomorrow?” he asked in a hopeful voice.
“Yes, later in the morning,” replied Sally.
“Good,” and to Mac, Lich and Peters, “You boys off with Ms. Kennedy. I’ll call you with the particulars on when Johnson’ll be coming in.”
“Any chance you’ll have to go and arrest him?” Anderson asked.
“Nah,” replied Peters. “That’d only add to the media attention. Johnson’ll want to start working the jury now.”
“Which means that he’ll be ever so cooperative,” added Sally. “Let’s get this thing written up.”
The chief said, pointing to Mac, Lich, and Peters, “You heard her, go to work.”
“What about a statement for the media?” asked an excited Sylvia Miller. “We could make the 6:00 p.m. news.”
Mac couldn’t blame her for being excited. It had been a rough week for her as well.
“We can talk about that. Helen. Why don’t you stick around as well,” the chief replied. “Boys, good work.”
Viper and the boss had been watching from his office, sitting on the couch, having a drink. The boss had a bank of seven televisions mounted into a built-in cabinet-a large screen in the middle and three smaller screens on each side. They had on all of the local stations, plus CNN and FOX News. Senator Johnson’s impending arrest for Daniels’ murder was on every television. The media circus had begun in earnest with Viper’s little tip to news stations earlier in the day. The media had footage of the detectives leaving Hisle’s place in the Explorer, as well as pulling into the Department of Public Safety. “A wonder why they didn’t just follow them with a van or chopper,” said the boss.
The highlight, at least for Viper and the boss was the joint statement of Sylvia Miller and Helen Anderson that they would be arresting the senator for the murder of Claire Daniels. Anderson was particularly giddy, loving the attention. She apparently was prepared for the press conference as she was immaculately dressed in a blue power suit, her hair perfectly placed with just the right amount of makeup. She was good on camera, not a parsed word in her statement. Sylvia Miller, on the other hand, just looked relieved, which probably was the view of the entire department. Between the Daniels case and the serial killer, it had been a rough week for them, Viper thought.
“It’ll be crazy tomorrow,” mused the boss.
“Yes, sir, it will.”
“Will we rest easier now that the senator has been charged?”
Viper thought for a moment and replied, “Not just yet.”
The boss nodded, “The Cross files, right?”
“Yes.”
“Where are we at on that?”
“We’ve been searching. We can’t find them, assuming the original files are still out there somewhere.”
“We need to assume they are.”
“Yes, sir.” The Cross files could hang them all. They had mistakenly fallen into the hands of the company’s CFO, who had been dealt with as well. They had a copy of the Cross files, but the originals had proven elusive. The concern was that the originals had been shared with or were in Daniels’ possession.
“The files were not at Daniels’ place. I looked everywhere.”
“And what about our dearly departed CFO?”
“Nothing. I went through her place twice, both before and after and found nothing. We have checked through our contact at her bank-no safe deposit box. There was nothing on the laptop or work computer. We searched her mother’s place in Arizona and her sister’s place in Florida; nothing. We searched her house and have been tracking her mail; nothing.”
“So, where are they?”
“I don’t know, sir. We’ll keep looking.”
“What about Channel 6?”
“We had someone there the night we took out Daniels, two nights before and every night since. He’s on the cleaning crew,” Viper answered. “If we assume there is a file or box with 437 pieces of paper in Daniels’ work area or somewhere around the station, he would have found it by now,” he added, shaking his head, skeptical. “He’s going to try again tonight, but I think it’s a dead end. If they had the files, they’d have used them. If someone had found them and was trying to make sense of it all, we’d have heard about it.”
“You think they don’t exist?” the boss asked with a raised eyebrow.
“All I know is we are looking everywhere and haven’t found anything.”
“Well, all I know,” replied the boss irritably, “is that we better find those damn documents before someone else does or we’re dead. Until they are found, we keep searching everywhere.”
Viper shared his boss’s irritation. If the files existed and were found by the wrong people, he’d be on the run for the rest of his life. He’d prepared for the eventuality of that. He had plans in place to be on the run for years, both while in government service and out. These were options he didn’t want to exercise. Living somewhere in South America would be tolerable. Some place warm and sunny would be fine. But, he liked his home in Minnesota, the winter retreat in the Caymans, the Vette and his hefty salary. He hated to have to give all that up.
“We’ll keep looking.”
It had been another long night spent with Sally. They finally got started putting together the complaint around 7:00 p.m. Mac reflected on the fact, that despite his reservations, they had an awfully solid case. They had charged, and had obtained convictions, with far less. Of course, Lyman Hisle usually wasn’t on the other side. Nonetheless, seeing it all laid out on paper made him feel more comfortable. The chief was probably right; he was over analyzing the situation. It’s like Lich had said, “What’s wrong with easy?”
Speaking of easy, Lich was the first to leave. Dot had paged him, and he was raring to go again. He left around 9:00 p.m., quietly promising Mac that he owed him big time. Captain Peters hung around. He’d been through this a thousand times and had made several useful suggestions about putting the complaint together. Sally had done this many times as well. Mac was, by comparison, a little green with the process and humbly realized he still had plenty to learn.
Around 10:30 p.m., with the complaint pretty much done, Captain Peters left. “You two get going soon. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.” Sally said she wanted to go through it one more time, and Mac, being the most familiar with the case, stuck around to answer any questions. Convenient how that had worked out, he thought.
“Tomorrow will be exciting,” Sally said, while typing away, making a few changes. It had been fifteen minutes since she had said anything. Mac remembered how a law professor once said that a legal document is never written until it’s been edited and polished five times. Sally was proving that axiom a couple of additional times over. Focused and intense, the flirtations of the night before were suppressed. She was all business, and well she should be. Much of Mac’s work was over, but hers was only beginning. Not to mention that she would be going up against Lyman Hisle and Senator Mason Johnson. She had best get her game face on now.
“Yes, hopefully I’ll avoid much of it,” replied Mac.
“Not gonna happen. This is your case. You’ll be front and center.” He sighed. “I imagine so.”
“Read through this one more time for me,” directed Sally as she left the office.
The State of Minnesota vs. Mason Johnson. The complaint laid out their evidence, and the case looked solid. Mac wondered what Lyman would do to create reasonable doubt.