They took the elevator up to the tenth floor and the District Attorney’s office. Sally led them through and past the reception desk. The receptionist started to say something, but then just watched them go by.
Sally walked them right to Helen Anderson’s office. Anderson was at her desk, on the phone when they barged in. She looked up to see them. Held up her hand for them to wait while she finished her call, oblivious to what was happening. Mac walked over to her phone and cut the call off.
Anderson looked up at him, astonished, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Let me see your cell phone,” Mac replied coldly.
“What?”
Lich, Riley, and Peters moved to take position around Anderson. Mac asked again, tersely, “Let me see your cell phone.”
“Why?”
“LET ME SEE IT!”
Anderson cowered back into her chair, looked to her purse on the credenza behind her desk and pointed weakly.
Mac rifled through the purse, finding her phone. He hit menu and looked at the call record. There was Lindsay’s cell phone number, as well as his own from earlier in the day. He turned to her.
“Is your cell phone number,” he said, reading the number on her phone.
“Yes,” she replied quietly.
“Sally called you earlier when we were coming downtown today, letting you know what we’d found.”
“So?”
Mac produced Lindsay’s phone from his pocket and held it so she could see it. “This is Ted Lindsay’s cell phone. Let me show you who he called at 11:34 a.m. this morning.” He showed Anderson the number. The district attorney slumped back in her chair, knowing she’d just been nailed.
The chief took over. He probably hadn’t slapped the bracelets on anyone in years, but he remembered Miranda, “Helen Anderson, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney… and you’re going to need a good one.”
Mac plopped himself down on the couch in the den at Sally’s place. She was on the phone, still working.
It had been a long day that was supposed to have been the start of a little mini-vacation for them. That was out of the question now. There would be tons of follow-up work to do. Sally was going to be swamped with the prosecution of Lindsay and the remaining PTA people who’d been working in their little unit. Some were still at large. The FBI, Homeland Security, and the CIA were on the case as well. They seemed confident they would find all of them. Just in case, two squads were parked out in front of the house.
His cell phone had been going berserk. He finally shut it off after he’d had a chance to speak with his mom, sisters, Uncle Shamus, and various other family members. He didn’t want to be at home, knowing the media would be calling him.
He took his pain medication. His shoulder was sore, and the sling would be an annoyance in the days to come. Putting on a clean shirt had been a five-minute ordeal that he might not have accomplished without Sally’s help. What Mac really wanted was to have a beer, but it wouldn’t mix well with the meds. Sally had made him some apple cider, and that wasn’t too bad. He reached for the TV remote.
All of the local stations were doing special reports regarding the events of the day. A lot of issues had been resolved and the department came out looking pretty good. They had been up against professionals, with resources Mac could hardly imagine, yet those PTA professionals had been beat by a little bunch of locals. Mac’s name was coming up quite a bit, but he’d been unavailable for comment. That’s the way he would like it to stay, but the chief ordered all of them down to a press conference that would be held the next morning, no exceptions.
The two C.I.R.T. guys were out of surgery and remained in serious condition. Riley went back down to the hospital, and word was the doctors were optimistic they would make it. Damn Helen Anderson. She was getting hers on the news now, and she likely would be doing some time. Turns out she’d been dating Lindsay and feeding him information. She thought Lindsay would help her get to the Senate.
Mac flipped to the cable news networks. They were covering the story as well. PTA was a nationally known company, and Senator Johnson was a national figure. Those issues were being covered, debated and bloviated about on all the talk shows. Lyman Hisle had called Sally to thank her for the heads up. He was able to get with the board and Minnesota’s congressional delegation. PTA would take a hit, but the politicos thought they would be able to limit the damage and save most of the government contracts. There was nothing faulty about PTA’s products, just some of its leadership.
Mac had heard enough about the day and flipped over to Minnesota Sports Channel. The Wild were on, a good diversion.
He thought about his dad and wondered what he would have thought of the day’s events. Somehow, Mac knew the old man would be proud.
Sally finally came in, having changed into black cotton sweat pants and one of Mac’s Golden Gopher sweatshirts. She leaned in and kissed him lightly. Then carefully she sat to his right side so he could put his arm around her. She carefully cuddled up against his chest. They watched the game in silence.
“Sorry about our vacation,” Mac finally said, trying to lighten the mood a little. It didn’t work.
“I’m just glad you’re okay. I heard all that gunfire and…” her voice trailed off.
“It was pretty crazy.”
They sat for another few minutes, just watching the game.
“Were you scared?” she asked.
“At the time it was all happening, no. It happened so fast, the shots, the chase, everything. I wasn’t thinking. I was just reacting. I don’t think I was really scared until it was all over, when I realized what I’d just gone through. Then it hit me.”
“I was in the chief’s office, and there were radio reports that you were chasing Alt, and he was shooting at everyone. Then when you went into the parking ramp and were out of sight for so long, nobody knew where you were but people could hear all this gunfire. It must have been ten minutes before someone got on the radio and said you were wounded but that you were okay. I was just so scared.”
“Is it going to scare you away from me?”
She sat up and looked him in the eye. “No. But you have to know that if we’re going to be together, I will worry about you. I’ll tell you that I worry about you. You’ll have to understand that I’ll feel that, every time you walk out the door, it might be the last time I see you. You’ll have to understand that that is what I’ll have to live with. So, there’s one thing you’ll have to get used to.”
“What’s that?”
“That every time you walk out the door now, I’m going to tell you that I love you.”
Mac smiled. “I can live with that.”