Deadly Stillwater

He maneuvered the Impala onto Interstate 494 and made his way through the southern and then western suburbs of the Twin Cities. When he reached Maple Grove, on the northwest side of the metro area, he took Interstate 94 toward the college town of St. Cloud, sixty miles to the northwest.

Lyman Hisle lived just north of Stillwater, a burgeoning suburb fifteen miles northeast of St. Paul. Perched above the picturesque St. Croix River, Stillwater looked like a town right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Of course, in a Rockwell painting the shops would be used by the locals, but that was not always the case in Stillwater. On its main street, two-story storefronts of aged red brick and sandstone housed shops filled with antique furniture and trinkets. The narrow sidewalks teemed with antiques’ shoppers from all over the Midwest, who milled through the maze of shops and ate at the small bistros. Stillwater was also a popular place to begin a cruise on the St. Croix River. Mac had his boat docked in the marina on the north side of town.

It had been a quiet ride to Stillwater from River Falls as the four detectives silently contemplated the case. As they idled at a stoplight in the midst of the town, Mac broke the silence. “Whoever is pulling this off is smart and ballsy.”

“Is it someone Hisle pissed off or just a random grab for money?” Riles asked.

“Good question. It could be either, I suppose,” Mac answered. “Lyman’s apt to have some enemies we’ll need to get to know. At the same time, this could be about money and nothing more. A sharp set of kidnappers decides to take Shannon and see what they can get.”

“Could be a nut or a group of nuts,” Lich added. “Some sex pervert who took Shannon for reasons other than money.”

“That doesn’t feel right,” Mac disagreed. “This was too well-planned and thought out to be a nut. Shannon was picked out for some reason. The key will be whether, as I said, it was random in the sense that the kidnappers just picked her because Lyman was wealthy, or…”

“…they picked her because they want to hurt Lyman,” Riles added.

“Right, or maybe both. We’ll see.”

“So,” Lich asked Mac, “what’s your bet? Financial or personal?”

“Hell if I know,” Mac said, exhaling. “Lyman’s rich. He’s got lots of money, but it’s not like he’s the wealthiest guy in town. There are a lot of people with far more, so…”

“Personal,” Lich finished.

“If I had to lay a two-dollar bet, yeah. At least personal in the sense there was a reason, a specific reason, to pick Hisle’s daughter. It wasn’t just random. There must be some reason to pick her. We have to figure out the why and maybe that’ll give us the who.”

“That would mean we’re looking at his client list,” Rock said. “That’s apt to be a fuckin’ long list.”

“You practice law for thirty years and have his level of success…” Mac whistled. “It’ll be long indeed. We should probably look at his opponents as well.” Hisle had hundreds, maybe thousands of criminal clients over the years, not to mention clients in his civil practice, discrimination cases, and class-action suits. “We’ll have to get that list going in a hurry.”

“Wonder if we’ll run into any issues in looking at his files.”

“Possible. Attorney-client privilege will be something of an issue, I suspect,” Mac responded. He was a licensed lawyer, but he’d never practiced before deciding to be a cop instead. “He’ll undoubtedly have a client or two who doesn’t want us rifling through their files.”

“I imagine that’s the case,” Lich answered, as he looked to the marina on his right and changed the subject.

“Isn’t that where your boat is docked?”

“Yeah. Sally and I have to get you and Dot out sometime soon.”

“She’d love it. Besides, I’d get to see Sally in a two-piece and that would be quite a sight,” Lich replied with a dirty grim. Dick knew his comments about Sally’s shapely body got under Mac’s skin just a little. Rock and Riles laughed heartily in the back.

“I’ll make sure she wears a one-piece for you,” Mac snickered.

“Asshole,” Lich said.

“Pervert,” Mac retorted.

Hisle’s house lay a mile or so north of town on a high bluff over-looking the river. Normally you wouldn’t think there was a house on the bluff, as it was set back from the road behind a ten-foot-high wall of thick bushes and a line of mature trees. Beyond that natural barrier, well tended flower beds dotted an expansive and finely manicured three-acre lawn that gradually sloped down from the road toward the river. The house itself was a wide, prairie-style home that looked like Southfork from Dallas. However, tonight the house, or at least its location, was easy to spot, given the collection of police cars and media trucks with lights flashing, parked at the gated entrance to the winding driveway.

Mac pulled up and waited for the sheriff’s deputies to clear the cars blocking the driveway. Lich had his window down, and they could all hear Heather Foxx from Channel 12 starting her report fifteen feet to the right.