Deadly Stillwater

Lucy’s was a sandwich joint located in the Payne and Arcade area on St. Paul’s working-class east side. A true hole-in-the-wall, the restaurant was a welcome change from the sterile chain sandwich places going in all over town. At Lucy’s, if you were smart, you ordered the Juicy Lucy, which was a hot hoagie sandwich piled high with a mountain of pastrami, completely smothered in melted American cheese, and served on a fresh-baked bun. The sandwich came with homemade pickles and kettle chips so greasy the sheikhs from OPEC were seeking drilling rights. The whole concoction was served on an oversized red-and-white checkered tray.

Lucy was short for Lucius, a robust black man who’d eaten a few too many of his own sandwiches. Big Lucius worked the register and made the occasional sandwich if his son working the back got too busy. Lucius bullshitted Mac, who twirled a toothpick from side to side in his mouth, awaiting his sandwich order.

Mac looked at his watch while Lucius chewed the fat. It was 4:15 PM. The day was ticking away far too fast.

“You and the boys in a hurry there, Mac?” Lucius asked. Lich, Riley, and Rock were in a booth in the back of the sandwich shop, out of public view.

“Not so much that, Lucius. It’s just this case, the time is tickin’ away.”

“Well, let me check on that food for you boys,” Lucius said and then turned to yell at his son in the back. “Where the hell are those Juicy Lucys, boy?”

As Mac waited for his order, he felt a light tap on his back. He turned to find Heather Foxx smiling at him.

“Heather Foxx, we meet again.”

“Thanks for the tip this morning,” she whispered. “I appreciate it.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Why did you give it to me?” Heather asked, curious. “Typically, you’re loath to help us out.”

“I helped you because you didn’t swarm us last night like the rest of your media friends,” Mac said.

“That’s good to know,” the reporter replied. “In any event, maybe I can return the favor at some point.” She pushed a strand of her brown hair back behind her left ear.

Mac snorted, his inherent distrust of reporters showing through. “It’s not too often you guys do us any favors.”

Paddy McRyan took his bottle of water out of the vending machine. Generally, he was morally opposed to paying money for water, but with the heat, a soda just didn’t sound or even feel like it would taste remotely refreshing. Besides, once he polished off the contents, he’d just refill it out of the water fountain. As he took a sip, he saw Bonnie Schmidt, a uniform cop working the tip line, sprinting toward him. “What’s up?” he asked.

“We’re getting tons of stuff on the tip line, most of which is garbage, but this sounded interesting,” Schmidt said, handing him a note. Paddy took a look at it and walked into the conference room to Burton.

“This might be worth a look.”

“What do we have?” Burton asked, as Duffy, Peters and the mayor approached. The rest of Burton’s team and cops in the room pulled in behind them.

“A guy in a neighborhood off of West Seventh, down by the old brewery, claims that for the last couple of days there have been vans, our kind of vans, coming and going from a house across the street.”

“So?” Burton asked, mixing a cup of coffee.

“Well, the house is a rental and nobody was at the house for months until a couple of days ago. Now vans are coming and going. Again, our kind of vans.”

“Let’s go take a look then,” Burton replied, looking at his watch: 4:25 PM. “Where’s McRyan and the rest of those guys?”

“They went to get a bite to eat at Juicy Lucy’s,” Paddy answered.

“That’s over on the east side, right? Payne and Arcade?”

Paddy nodded. Burton pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

“Mac? Burton. I need you to check something out.”

“ Get out! House blown! ” the text message read.

Smith flipped the cell phone closed, looked at his watch – 4:28 PM – and then to Dean. “We’ve gotta bail,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Dean said, seeing Smith’s ashen face.

“I don’t know for sure, but we’re blown,” Smith said, running for the back door. “The police have the safe house. They’re on their way.”

“H… h… how?” Dean Stammered. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Smith answered, in the garage now, at the far van. “I don’t even know what the police have. All I know is, I got the text message and the house is blown.” He jumped into a van. “Stay on your cell. I’m going left and you go right. I’m going to go south on 35E, you go north and take it from there.”

The garage door opened and Smith pulled out and turned hard left, tires squealing. Dean followed and turned right.

19 “ Gloves.”