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

onto the property. I told them I’d have to take it inside, read it in a good light. They gave me five minutes.”
    McGill descended the stairs. If Sweetie was in the right mood, he wouldn’t put it past her to shoot it out with the federal government, but he could see she thought this was neither the time nor the place.
    “I’ll let them in … but Margaret?”
    The use of her proper name between the two of them was reserved for only the most serious of occasions.
    “Yes?”
    “Don’t let Mrs. Grant see what’s happened to her husband. I doubt she’ll get here before they take him — his remains — away, but just in case, don’t let her see.”
    Sweetie nodded. Now she was in the right mood.
     
    McGill felt more certain than ever of one thing: Andy’s death wasn’t a lone-wolf killing. Somebody had put the threatening note in his Journal. Somebody had scouted his house from the lake. Probably saw Costello’s crew putting in the barrier. Maybe even saw Andy in his bedroom the way McGill had from his skiff. Then somebody had figured out a plan to overcome the barrier … and somebody had pulled the trigger on Andy.
    Could have been one industrious son of a bitch. But McGill’s gut told him it was a group … a group with money.
    The thought was an epiphany, one that made McGill shudder. Costello had told him there had been people watching his guys work, but they all looked like they belonged. North Shore. They could have come back at night and watched the house with binoculars, out far enough not to attract the attention of Andy’s security team.
    McGill groaned at the god-awful mistake he’d made. He’d kept thinking that the killers would look like cornpone crazies. Hicks. Stand out like Ma and Pa Kettle in his designer-label town. But the truth was — had to be — at least one of them blended perfectly because he was homegrown. Provided all the local color the group needed.
    Wrote his death threat in perfectly grammatical English.
    McGill got behind the wheel of Sweetie’s patrol unit, backed it away from the gate of the Grant estate, and called out the key code so the feds could open it.
    SAC Braun was the first inside. He double-timed over to McGill’s car.
    But whatever the fed had intended to say, McGill’s look made him think twice. The chief told him, “Mr. Grant is dead, dismembered by the blast. The crime scene is as I found it. Sergeant Sweeney of my department has been ordered not to let Congresswoman Grant see her husband’s remains. You and your men will be in peril should you try to countermand that order.”
    Braun’s head jerked as if McGill had given him the back of his hand, but he didn’t argue. Some things a judge’s order couldn’t overrule.
     
    Driving to police headquarters, McGill remembered reading stories of people in Dallas who had celebrated the assassination of JFK. Appalling but true. When he arrived, he had Klara alert all patrol units to be on the lookout for any home where a party might be going on. He wanted to know if anybody in the village knew of the death of Andy Grant and had reason to cheer about it.
    Then he got on the phone and woke up the dean of the Divinity School at Northwestern, the president of Lake Forest College, and the principal of New Trier High School. He informed each of them of what had happened and asked their help in identifying any of their students who had been active in the pro-life movement, especially those who’d been militant in their advocacy.
    Normally, the schools would have been reluctant to compromise their students’ privacy. But Andy Grant had been well loved locally, a generous contributor to endowment funds, and the spouse of a prominent member of Congress. Assured that McGill would be discreet, they all agreed to cooperate.
    Next, McGill started to call the rectories and parsonages of every church from Evanston to Waukegan. Somewhere in the haystack he was amassing, he was sure he would find his needle.
    He was between