would know to keep the whole thing quiet if nothing panned out.
“What do you think all this proves?” Sally asked while they waited.
“Nothing yet, but…?”
“But what?”
“We never found any equipment like this when we were searching the place the other times.”
“So?”
“It’s concealed somewhere we didn’t know about. What else is in there besides the equipment?”
Sally shrugged her shoulders. Five minutes later, Paddy showed with his partner, Mike Remington. Mac gave them a quick run-down.
“So, what you going to do, cuz?” Paddy asked.
“Let’s find out where this camera leads too.” Mac replied as he pulled the chair into the closet and underneath the hatch to the crawl space in the ceiling. “Paddy, you might have to give me a boost.” Putting his right foot into Paddy’s cupped hands, he was pushed up into the attic. Mac called down, “Hand me your flashlight. And your gloves, I don’t want to touch the insulation.”
Paddy handed both items up. Mac pointed the flashlight towards where he thought the smoke detector was. He carefully walked on the joists and saw the black cabling for the camera, probably six or seven feet away. The cable had been run along a joist to a support post ten feet away, up the support post to the roof and then away from Mac and over towards what he thought was the hallway and perhaps the bathroom. He maneuvered his way over to where the cable came back down and went back into the ceiling, buried under the insulation. Pulling the insulation back, he pointed the flashlight down at the hole where the cabling went through, but he couldn’t see anything. He looked back to the opening to the attic. It was at a forty-five degree angle away from him. Carefully, he walked back across the joists to the opening and jumped down.
“What did you find?” Sally asked.
“It leads back that way.” Mac pointed in a forty-five degree angle to the hallway, towards the bathroom. Inside the bathroom Mac stood scratching his head. The bathroom was long and narrow. The vanity and toilet were along the left side, but that was the wrong angle he thought. To the right were the bathtub and a small narrow towel cabinet, which contained nothing but towels. He walked back into the hallway where there was a narrow built in wood buffet, which had shelving on the top, a middle drawer and a cabinet on the bottom. The cabinet held some extra towels and nothing else. The shelves had books, a picture and a wood Roman numeral X. Hmpf. “Has to be right in this area.” Mac said.
Mac walked back into the bathroom and looked at the tub. Then he looked back to the hall. He paced the length of the bathroom off, which was five yards or fifteen feet. The bathtub was six feet. The towel cabinet was maybe another foot. That was seven feet, where were the other eight? He went to the hall and looked at the built- in cabinet, it was maybe a foot deep. Looking around the edges of the built in, he noticed a small gap between the molding and the cabinet. “I wonder,” he said out loud.
“Wonder what?” Sally asked.
A smile creased Mac’s face. “Paddy, where have you seen a built-in buffet like this?”
“I don’t know, cuz.”
“If there was a plaque here on the right side, then would you recognize it?”
Paddy studied the buffet for a minute then also smiled, “In the basement at the Pub.”
“Yeah and down there it’s-”
“-the door to Patrick’s Room.” Paddy finished.
Mac opened the middle drawer and reached under the lip. He felt with his hand, and he hit it, a small metal latch. He pulled on it and heard a click and felt the cabinet push in.
“What the hell, a secret room?” Sally asked.
Mac shook his head, smiling. “Kind of. People had these types of builtins put in during Prohibition-a good place to hide booze. You’ve seen the one down at the Pub. It leads into Patrick’s Room down there.”
Pushing the cabinet in, Mac saw two things, a small television with a DVD recorder and a banker’s box with Cross handwritten on the side, resting on the floor. “I guess X does mark the spot,” he said as he walked into the hidden room and pulled rubber gloves onto his hands. Mac flipped the top off the box and started looking through the documents. Having studied what Lindsay had given them a week earlier, he immediately recognized that these documents were different. There was a ledger book, which he flipped open. There were entries with names and dollar amounts handwritten in red and black ink. He started running down the names with his finger when Sally spoke up.
“Mac, take a look at this.”
Mac stood up and went to the shelf where the television and DVD recorder sat. There was also a rack of DVDs with just dates on them. He went to it and hit the open/close button. There was a DVD inside.
“Paddy and Mike, start writing all this down.”
Mac looked at the DVD and then at the rack, and the generic DVD cases all had sporadic dates on them going back what looked like a couple years. There was one unlabeled DVD case, which was empty. He looked back to the one in the machine. Seeing a remote, Mac picked it up and pushed play. He turned on the little television.
The video starts and the view is from the right side of the bed. Daniels and the senator come into view on the left-hand side of the screen, embracing one another, kissing and undressing. There must be some switch that she hit to start it. They fell onto the bed. The video and sound were clear.
“Look at the date?” Sally said.
“Holy shit, October 31st.” Mac grabbed the remote and did what most men in this situation wouldn’t do, he advanced the video forward. When it stopped they were to the point in time where the senator had his back to the camera, now clothed, working his tie. Daniels was lying on the bed, naked, smiling and talking. It lasted for a few minutes, some casual talk. Then, finally dressed, the senator leaned down, kissed her and walked out of the room. Daniels rolled over and had her back to the camera, the nightstand light still on. She lay still, looking as if she had fallen asleep.
Then he came from the left, a black streak. He was dressed in all black a ski mask over his head. He jumped on the bed and was on top of her in an instant, strangling her.
“Oh, my God,” Sally croaked, putting her hands to her own throat.
Daniels flailed away at the killer, hitting him in the face, the arms, kicking with her legs, but he was too strong, never releasing the grip. After a minute, the flailing slowed down, less strong, the life slowly leaking out of her body. Finally, the arms slowly fell down to the bed, and Daniels was gone. The man in black checked her pulse, nothing.
“Who are you?” Mac uttered in a hushed voice, putting his face close to the screen.
The man in black got off her and stood on the far side of the bed and rubbed his jaw through the mask. Then he took off his gloves and pulled the mask from over his head.
“I fuckin’ knew it!” Mac yelled.
“You know who that is?” Sally asked.
“Yeah. Webb Alt.”
“Who’s he?”
“Vice-president of Security at PT fuckin’ A. I knew it. I knew it!” Mac yelled, a wave of satisfaction rushing over him.
He pulled his cellphone out and started dialing, and looked over to Paddy, “You guys get all this down. You’re key witnesses now.” They both nodded, furiously scribbling into their notebooks. The chief’s secretary answered, “This is McRyan. I need to speak to the chief.”
“Mac, he’s in a meeting, I can take a message.”
“Charlene, put me through on this. When I tell him what I have, he won’t care.”
He waited and then a minute later Flanagan got on the line, agitated, “Mac, what the hell.”
“Chief, we got ’em.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
