Fatally Bound Read Free Page A

mostly concentrated in the moneyed areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul. At first, the robberies were not connected, but eventually the various law enforcement agencies of the Twin Cities got together and realized a highly skilled crew was operating around town and an investigative task force was formed. The chief put his best boys, Detectives Pat Riley, Bobby Rockford and Mac’s longtime partner, Richard Lich, better known as “Dick Lick,” on it.
    In conjunction with the Minneapolis PD and the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), the best investigative minds in town were working the case, but the robberies continued unabated.
    The crew was good and showed no signs of stopping. “A shark is not going to leave the waters if the feeding is good,” the chief counseled.
    There was a level of sophistication to the crew as security systems were easily defeated, forensic evidence was nonexistent and nobody ever seemed to notice them going in or coming out of the homes. No hairs, prints, saliva or any forensic evidence of any kind was ever left behind. It was like they were ghosts. In fact, the task force had taken to calling them “The Ghost Crew.” The jobs were well planned and the crew clearly engaged in a great deal of research and preparation, as there were usually anywhere from two weeks to a month between robberies. Money, jewels, electronics, precious metals, furniture and art were gone without a trace. The estimated take from all of the jobs was over $10 million, assuming the merchandise was being moved. However, if the merchandise was being fenced, it wasn’t being done so locally. The police hit all the known fences in town and applied all the pressure possible.
    There was either an extremely high level of fear of the crew or nobody around town knew a thing.
    “Town’s too small to fence this stuff here,” Riles suggested. The Twin Cities was an area of over three million people but still was small enough that if something high-end was moving, word would filter out somehow. “You fence the high-end stuff around here, we’d hear about it.”
    Three weeks ago, Sally left on a week-long trip to Asia with the president. The last time she’d left on a lengthy trip, Mac stayed back in Washington and ended up completely bored out of his mind. So with her gone for a week and no job to keep him tied down, Mac went home to see friends and family. While at the Flanagan’s for dinner, the call came regarding the latest robbery, a mere three blocks from the chief’s home in the Highland Park neighborhood on St. Paul’s affluent far western end. “Mac, we have nothing on these guys. We could use some fresh eyes; go with the boys and take a look.”
    At first, Mac didn’t see anything that struck him or led him to anything that the other detectives hadn’t noticed. Other than the missing pieces of art work from the walls, you’d have never known the house was robbed it was done so cleanly and professionally. A smash and grab job it was not. Two days after the robbery, while sitting around the detectives’ bullpen at the St. Paul Department of Public Safety, Mac was reading through the inventory of items stolen and something that had not been mentioned by the family when they were first interviewed caught Mac’s eye.
    “Riles, when we were interviewing the family, did they say anything about baseball cards?”
    “Baseball cards?”
    “Yeah, baseball cards. You know, like you bought at the drugstore as a kid. They have the tasteless piece of pink gum in them.”
    “Yeah, I know what they are asshole, but no, Mac, they didn’t. All they were concerned about that night was the jewels, cash and bearer bonds that were stolen from their safe. It wasn’t until the next day that the old man thought about his baseball card collection that he kept in a lockbox in his office over the garage. The box and cards were gone as well.”
    Mac read through the inventory of missing baseball cards and smiled. “This guy was