The President's Henchman by Joseph Flynn Read Free Book Online Page A

off.”
    “Shit.”
    Sweetie asked, “You going to make the call, Jim?”
    He nodded and took out his cell phone. He had the number in the 202 area code committed to memory. Andy Grant had given it to him. Just in case.
    She answered on the third ring, and McGill said, “Congresswoman Grant? This is Chief of Police James J. McGill. I have some bad news …”
     
    The FBI called McGill just as he reached the Grant estate. Sweetie had radioed the company that maintained the property’s electronic security system and was given the code to open the gate. She was punching it into the keypad as McGill took the FBI call. The gate rolled open, but she waited at the entrance to the driveway while McGill talked to the feebs.
    The Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office, a guy named Braun, told McGill that Congresswoman Grant had informed them of what had happened. The Bureau was assuming control of the case.
    “Like hell,” McGill said. “You have no jurisdiction. You said so yourself.”
    He gave it a moment to see if they’d learned about the mailbox, but they still didn’t know. Andy had never told anyone but him. So McGill continued, “You set foot on my crime scene, I’ll arrest you for interfering with police officers in the performance of their duty.”
    Braun laughed bleakly. “You’ve got some balls, buddy. But you know what? Our lawyers can beat up your lawyers, and we’ve got more of them.”
    There was no arguing that, so McGill gave the fed something else to chew on.
    “You want something to do? Think about this. Maybe these assholes won’t be happy until they kill the congresswoman, too. Protecting her, now that’s a federal responsibility.”
    McGill left Sweetie at the gate with orders to allow no one in except the crime-scene team from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department.
    “Paramedics?” Sweetie asked.
    The nosy neighbor had reported that the explosion had been blinding, deafening, and strong enough to crack his windows next door, over a hundred feet away. How was anyone going to survive that? But McGill said, “Okay, them, too.”
    Sweetie closed the gate behind them and blocked the driveway with her patrol unit. McGill went to the house on foot.
    The only chance for Andy was if he’d been somewhere else in the house. McGill quickly checked every room, calling out Andy’s name. Loudly at first. Softly and with growing despair the closer he got to the blast area. The door to the Grants’ bedroom leaned out of its frame like a drunk falling off a curb, providing a view of the carnage within.
    Andy Grant had been sundered, and there had been a fire. Put out by a sprinkler system that had survived the blast and was still going. Watering down the stink of the explosion and the charred flesh. The largest piece of Andy that McGill could identify was a blackened lower left leg severed at the knee. McGill had seen dead bodies before, more than a few, but nothing like this. This was a scene from a battlefield.
    He raised his eyes and looked out at the lake, made all the easier with half the wall on that side of the room gone. Not a boat in sight. So much water in which to dump the murder weapon. He took out his cell phone and started calling his list of lakefront police departments. He had them on voice dial. Maybe the assholes who had killed Andy would do something stupid.
    A minute later, a cop he called in Kenosha said something smart.
    “You alert any grouper troopers on the other side of the lake? You know, in Michigan?”
    Landlubber that he was, the thought hadn’t occurred to McGill. Crossing forty miles or more of open water. He’d thought only of hugging the near shore. Worse, he didn’t know any coppers over in Michigan. But his friend in Kenosha did. Said he’d start making calls and get back to McGill if he came up with anything.
    McGill had just said thanks and clicked off when Sweetie called up to him from the front door. “Feebs are here. Got a judge’s order allowing them