Deadly Stillwater

“We don’t know when or where the drop will be?” Mac asked. “And let’s be honest, we don’t know for sure there will be a drop, you’re just getting a phone call at six, right?” Burton nodded, and Mac noted the chief’s piercing gaze as he spoke. “They could throw you a curve.”

“I’m sure they’ll try to. All I can say is we’ll be as ready as we can be, Mac,” Burton replied, nonplussed by the hard questioning. “I understand the concerns of everyone in this room. I share them. I’d like to know more, a lot more, about whom and what we’re up against. But we are where we are.”

“What about the girls?” someone asked.

“We don’t know for sure,” Burton replied. “This is a kidnapping, and we have a ransom demand. We catch the kidnappers at the drop, and we’ll find out where the girls are.”

“You hope,” a voice from the group said.

“I think I’m right. These guys won’t want a murder rap. They’ll look to start cutting years and making deals. If we handle the drop right, if we get them there, then we stand a chance to get the girls.”

Mac wasn’t so confident, but didn’t want to say so with the chief present. In his mind, there was more than a payday in lay. Burton was planning as though it was just about the money, as if it was a simple exchange of dollars for the girls and that didn’t feel right. If it was just about money, the ransom demand would be for more. This was about more than money. It was about retribution, and the chief, Lyman, and everyone else was about to be led right into something a lot uglier than a payoff.

28 “ What connects him with Hisle?”

12:03 PM

Shamus McRyan knelt down to tie closed a white box labeled Hammond et al. v. Easy Flow Systems, a class-action case, and reached for the next box. Shamus was in a row of files that covered the early to mid-1990’s.

“This search lead to anything yet?” inquired Percy Wallace, a rotund, black retired detective who was one of Shamus’s golfing buddies. Percy was supposed to be working the first tee as a starter at Highland National Golf Club. Instead, Shamus recruited him down to the storage garage.

“Not yet,” Shamus answered.

“Man, how many boxes we been through?”

“I stopped counting after twenty, and that was a while ago,” Shamus replied.

“So, what do we have here?” Percy asked, pushing the sleeves up on his golf pullover.

“Looks like Erickson v. TOM Trucking, 1994.” Shamus grunted as he moved the box and opened it up. Wallace grabbed a red-rope folder marked “Pleadings Vol. 1” and started scanning for information. Shamus grabbed another red-rope that contained deposition transcripts along with the correspondence file, which he flipped open to read the summary of the case. He found that reading the small summaries helped him understand the information he was looking at. The one paragraph summary on a now-faded green piece of paper indicated that Erickson v. TOM Trucking was a sexual harassment case brought by Barb Erickson and three other women against the owner of the trucking company, Thomas Oliver Mueller, hence TOM Trucking. A notation at the bottom of the summary noted the file was closed in 1994 after Lyman obtained a verdict of $3.4 million. Shamus smirked. Just another cool million for Lyman Hisle.

Wallace noticed Shamus reading the summary and asked, “What’s that sheet say?”

“Sexual harassment,” Shamus answered. “Appears the owner of the company liked to fondle the hired help.”

Just then Henry Brown, the Brown in Hisle amp; Brown, walked up. Summer had called him in to help supervise. He noted the name on the case and said, “I remember that one. I couldn’t believe that verdict.”

“Why’s that?” Wallace asked, looking up from the pleadings.

“Mediocre facts,” Brown answered. “Lyman offered to settle the case for a couple hundred thousand early on, but Mueller refused.”

“So they ended up at trial, then?” Shamus asked.

“Yeah, and Lyman did an absolute number on Mueller at trial. The jury came back and nailed him but good. I think the verdict eventually put Mueller out of business. His insurance didn’t cover harassment, and he had to pay the verdict out of his back pocket. For a little trucking company, $3.4 million is hard to swallow,” Brown said. He moved on to check on the next group.

Shamus grabbed the deposition transcript for Thomas Mueller and found the personal information for Mueller and his family. He looked to a young attorney from Hisle’s office named Ramler who’d come to help and was sitting at a laptop.

“Dougie, you ready?”

“Yes sir,” Ramler answered, his fingers at the ready.

“Good. I’ve got a Thomas Oliver Mueller…”

Peters ushered Mac and the boys into a small, windowless interview room. After a minute, the chief joined them. He was sleep-deprived and ill-looking, with large dark bags under his eyes. But his bright blue eyes were alert as ever, and he cut to the chase.

“What are you boys up to?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Mac replied.