Deadly Stillwater

Mac pulled up to a patrol car in the parking lot of the gas station along the main drag. Two uniform cops, one much older than the other, casually leaned against the front bumper of their cruiser, which was parked under the shady canopy of a small group of maple trees. The older of the two, who Mac assumed was the chief, was smoking. Mac powered down his window and stuck his hand out to shake. “Detective McRyan from St. Paul.”

“I’m Police Chief Pete Mitchell,” the older cop replied as he took Mac’s hand. “This here is one of my patrol guys. His name’s Bennett.”

Mac thumbed toward the passenger side, “This is Detective Lich. How do you want to do this, Chief?”

“I called the landlord,” Mitchell said, taking a drag on his Marlboro and blowing smoke out the side of his mouth. “He says the guys you’re looking for haven’t been around for a week or two, at least as far as he can tell.”

“We still should take a look.”

“I figured you’d want to. The landlord will let us in,” Mitchell said, stamping out his cigarette and waving them to follow.

The apartment was two blocks away in a rundown 1950s-style apartment building with a water-stained dark beige stucco exterior with brown-trimmed windows. The landlord was sitting on the steps, having a smoke of his own, when they pulled up. The man, dressed in dark brown pants and a white, short-sleeved collar shirt, looked to be in his sixties. His last strands of hair stretched in a brutal comb-over from one ear over to the other. Without saying a word, he turned and led the group up the steps to the second floor and a rear apartment. The landlord knocked on the door, waited fifteen seconds, knocked again, waited, and then slid in the key.

“Like I told Ole’ Pistol Pete here,” he said in a gravely, smoke-damaged voice, “they haven’t been around for a week or two.”

Mac and Lich entered to find an apartment evidencing a Spartan existence. To their right was a tiny galley kitchen, straight ahead was a living room, and to the left was a hallway to two small bedrooms and a full bath. The living room had an avocado-colored couch and a harvest-gold-upholstered loveseat perched in front of an old twenty-seven-inch TV that sat on side-by-side milk crates. Down the hallway, there were mattresses on the floor of each bedroom, but no sheets or blankets remained. An old clock radio sat unplugged on the floor in one bedroom. The closets were empty. In the bathroom, there was a half roll of toilet paper but nothing more. In the kitchen, the refrigerator was empty except for a nearly empty carton of spoiled milk, three eggs, and a half stick of butter. Mac sifted through the cupboards and drawers, finding only a single pay stub for Zorn Lumber.

“This place is empty,” Lich said, standing in the living room with his hands on his hips.

“Abandoned, I’d say,” Mac added.

“When’s the rent paid up through?” Lich asked the landlord.

“Through June,” he answered. “They haven’t paid for July yet, and I was startin’ to wonder about it.”

“I doubt you’re going to get July’s rent,” Mac said. He showed the landlord pictures of the Mueller brothers. “Were these the guys renting the place?”

The landlord nodded, “That’s them, all right.”

Mac dug out pictures of Monica and Brown. “You ever see either of these folks hanging around?”

The landlord scratched the back of his head and peered at the pictures for a moment. “Her, yes,” he said. “You couldn’t miss her. She was a pretty thing. I’m not sure about the guy though. They didn’t have many visitors that I can recall, although people come and go all the time.” He held the picture in his hands for another minute, giving it a good look. “I just can’t say for sure if he was ever around.”

Mac turned to the chief, holding up the pay stub. “Is Zorn Lumber the lumberyard we passed out on County 81 as we drove into town?”

“It is. Ol’ Ray Zorn runs the place. You want to talk to him?”

“We need to.”

“I thought you might. I called Ray and told him we might be stopping by. He lives five blocks from here.”

Jupiter sat next to Hagen as the convict computer genius’s fingers set speed records flying over the keys. Sally was striking out with the pipe company, which was located in Des Moines. There just wasn’t a way to get hold of someone on the holiday. If the FBI and their resources could be trusted, they might have been able to throw some weight around. However, Mac and Riles both said they didn’t want to do that unless they were left with no choice.

Hagen said they had a choice.

He rolled his eyes when Sally asked him if he could crack into the company’s system. Hacking was a skill one never really lost, he said, “like riding a bike.” Peters had already promised protection if anyone caught him.

It took him about twenty minutes, but now he was into the company’s electronic shipping records for the kind of pipe shown in the video. “So where do they ship the pipe to?” Hagen asked, staring at the computer screen with a perplexed look on his face.