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Miller, pleading, looking weary.
    The chief picked up on Miller’s tone, “I sympathize, but not yet. It shouldn’t be long, but we have to wait.” Flanagan, moving back to the topic at hand, asked Mac, “When will we have the autopsy results?”
    “Tomorrow morning.”
    Flanagan continued. “I assume we’re in agreement that, at this point our prime, frankly only, suspect is the Senator.
    Everyone nodded in agreement.
    “Okay. Helen or I suppose Ms. Kennedy,” the chief looked at Anderson, who nodded. “Tomorrow we’ll need to start looking into what kind of access we can get to Senator Johnson’s fingerprints.” Then he turned to Mac and Lich. “Mac, as soon as you get that autopsy report, you and Lich are back in my office. We need to move very carefully on this one. We’re dealing with a senator. He doesn’t get favorable treatment, but we don’t haul his ass in here without having our shit together. Understood? And not a word to the media about this.”

    * * * * *

    If you were in trouble with the law and you had money, Lyman Hisle was the man to call. His firm, Hisle & Brown had eighteen attorneys, all very busy. Busy attorneys were profitable attorneys. The firm’s offices were on the top floor of the World Trade Center in St. Paul. Hisle & Brown’s success had provided for plush office space, large offices, ornate furniture, and art. The offices proved a powerful aphrodisiac when recruiting lawyers and clients to come to the firm.
    Twenty years before, Lyman had started out doing largely criminal defense work. His success had led to a comfortable living for him, and his skills as a trial attorney had not gone unnoticed. Then he took on a sexual harassment case for a former client. Lyman had offered to settle the case for $150,000 prior to trial and was rebuffed by the employer. At trial, Lyman made the harasser look like a monkey in the witness box. The jury returned a verdict of $1.2 million. Following the verdict, Hisle & Associates, as the firm was known then, expanded its practice from criminal work to include personal injury and discrimination litigation, specializing in class-action lawsuits. The judgments and settlements were worth millions to the firm. As the firm’s founder and main litigator, Lyman had amassed an impressive fortune. Those lucrative judgments and settlements over a period of ten years allowed Lyman to do two things. One, enjoy an exceedingly high standard of living, and, two, return to the practice he truly loved, criminal law. He was the best in town and only took on interesting cases. The potential case of Senator Mason Johnson qualified.
    Lyman had known the senator for years and had been a frequent campaign contributor. The death of Claire Daniels had been on the news all day. That his friend might somehow end up caught in the middle of the case was a shock to the system. Lyman heard the senator’s recitation of the facts. He told them to sit tight for the time being; he would call them back.
    The quandary for Lyman was how to advise the senator. Maybe a drink would help. He went to the small wet bar in his spacious office. He dropped a couple ice cubes into his glass and poured himself a Scotch. Back at his desk, he sat in his leather chair, kicked his feet up and looked out his thirtieth-story office window south over the Mississippi River. He gave his options some thought. The key was whether the police had the senator’s name.
    As Lyman saw it, he could have the senator sit tight and see if the police connected him to Claire Daniels, the thought being that there was no sense admitting involvement prematurely if the police did not know he was involved. They might never connect Daniels with Mason. If he was to be believed, and Lyman did believe him at this point, he had nothing to do with her death. The downside was that, if the police did connect him, he looks guilty not coming forward. They would have to call him in. Additionally, it would get out to the media