Chapter 56
McGowan’s cowardly attorney was on his own. He had no idea how to find someone who could get him into Stone’s garage. McGowan explained that this was a test of the attorney’s loyalty; getting in, and quickly, mattered little. Getting in and possibly getting caught, arrested, and losing his license was what this was about, in spite of the fact that McGowan’s connections could make an arrest go away. McGowan could fire him; instead he wanted him to be disgraced.
Why? Maybe he thinks I’m nothing more than a sponge soaking up his money.
The attorney decided to start by talking to McGowan’s head bodyguard, Mark Straight. If anyone had connections to an alarm expert, it would be him. A phone call would tell the attorney if McGowan had told Straight not to help him.
When he got the call, Straight recognized the name that showed on the screen.
“You’re the boss’s lawyer, right? What do you want with me?”
The attorney anticipated an unwillingness to help, not an attitude.
“I need your help getting information for the boss.”
“The boss is like an enormous computer with millions of wires plugged into him, giving him information every second. He doesn’t need your help getting information. Why are you bothering me?”
“Don’t know why he needs me to do it, but those were his orders.”
He decided to plunge ahead and see if what had to be done appealed to Straight, before Straight had a chance to speak again. He wasn’t aware of Straight’s and Stone’s history.
“I need you to get me past security alarms and into a building that belongs to Stone.”
“Stone?”
“Yeah. The garage in Centerville.”
“What’s in there?”
“Maybe something, maybe nothing.”
“Maybe I’ll help you. I’ll let you know.”
The attorney was about to disconnect when Straight spoke.
“Meet me there in an hour. Park half a mile away. Wear sunglasses and a hat. Bring gloves.”
An hour later, the attorney was waiting in his car. He saw no one. Straight was watching him from his car.
“Sit tight, this won’t take long,” Straight told his passenger, Chet Jeffries, who was tagging along for the day, learning what McGowan’s head bodyguard did.
A sudden banging on the rear of his car startled the attorney. The big guy walking towards the driver’s door looked like Straight.
“Put your stuff on and let’s go.”
No introductions, no pleasantries. All business.
Straight wore nothing to hide his features, unconcerned about the several cameras he saw mounted on trees as they walked, or on the garage when they got to it. Removing a device from a briefcase he carried he jammed the radio signals being sent by the security alarm system, rendering it incapable of sending an alarm. Then he removed bolt cutters from the briefcase and cut off the two exterior locks where the door met the frame; when he finished picking the three door locks, he turned the handle and the door opened.
He reached in, turned on the lights, and let the attorney go in.
“I’m looking for information on where Stone might have gone, or names of people he dealt with who might know. Will you help?”
“No.”
The attorney didn’t expect that response. Walking around, he found that the garage was what it appeared to be from the outside: a metal building that was once an airplane hangar. Inside were tool-making machines, metal fabrication tools, workbenches and chairs, air compressors, auto repair equipment, a storage area, and two windowed offices. The only sounds to be heard were his footsteps on the concrete floor and the hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. Then he heard, outside, the sound of a car starting. By the time he got to the door and went outside, Straight was gone.
What the hell? Why did he leave? Of course, part of the test. He should have stopped the jamming of the signals so the alarm was functioning again before he left. What am I supposed to do, turn the machine off? Yeah, okay, I guess so. Should I go back inside and try to find information on Stone, or leave before someone sees me here?
Who thinks of himself as a total loser? Total losers do. The attorney went back inside to look. A few minutes later he heard the slamming of car doors. A sinking feeling hit him, worsened by the fact that he’d found nothing useful.
“Put your hands up!”
He recognized the voice. It belonged to the Centerville Police Chief. The footsteps circled around him until the chief was face to face with him.
“Well, well, what have we got here? An attorney committing a crime, perhaps? What are you doing in here, Mr. Attorney?”
McGowan’s attorney had been sold out, and now he knew it. Disbarment was coming. Jail time was a distinct possibility. Fortunately, he had saved a goodly amount of his pay to live off of until his likely future loss of income was resolved. He could always run for political office—Connecticut forgave felons and voted them into office with regularity. They did the crime and the time, and people forgave them. He wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Like a jerk, I’m here on behalf of Evan McGowan.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking for anything that will tell him where Stone is.”
“One of the guys he kidnapped.”
“Yeah.”
“Why you? Why not someone who knows what he was doing? I’m sure he has some on his payroll.”
“I’m here to prove my worth to him. But I realize now that he knows I’ll get caught and will be disbarred and disgraced. My choices were to quit or do this and hope I didn’t get caught. I didn’t quit, and he made sure I got caught.”
The chief decided he wasn’t going to pursue these questions further, because he didn’t need to know more. In previous conversations with the governor, who was impressed by his arrest of McGowan, he was offered a job on his staff. The chief reasoned that if he was able to arrest McGowan on additional charges, then the staff position he’d wind up with would be a more important one.
“I see no damage to the garage. What’s that thing on the workbench?”
“A machine that blocks radio signals so that an alarm can’t be sent.”
“Take it with you, we’re leaving. We’ll lock up then turn it off.”
“I don’t understand. Are you arresting me?”
“ I have to.”
The police station was quiet, unlike the previous time the attorney was there. The chief led him into his office and pointed to a chair.
“If you tell reporters that McGowan forced you to get information on Stone’s whereabouts, and I say that I found you in his garage, then I’ll be asked why I didn’t arrest you.”
“How about film? Are there any cameras nearby?”
“What difference does it make? You were an accomplice to the guy who disabled the alarm.”
“Then why am I not in one of those jail cells?”
“Who were you with?”
“The head of McGowan’s security, Mark Straight.”
“Yes, there are cameras in the area. Their films will show Straight breaking in and you following him. I recognize Straight and so will most everyone. You’re being arrested because I have to. I had to talk this out with you so you understand—your story is going to give me the evidence I need to arrest McGowan. I’ll talk to the judge and see if you can be released on your own recognizance.”
The police chief called the judge and explained what happened, who was involved, and that he was arresting McGowan’s attorney for burglary. The judge agreed to release him without bail when he appeared in court the following morning.
The attorney was given one phone call. He called Jill Miller, telling her he had a follow-up story to the McGowan meltdown in Centerville.
“You should let me pick you up in the morning; you can film the arrest of a prominent person in McGowan’s world,” he told her. “Perhaps McGowan will be arrested as well.”
Straight let McGowan know that he followed the plan, leaving the attorney alone in Stone’s garage.
“Good. He won’t find anything. Someone will see him and he’ll be arrested. The worthless twerp.”
The two had already talked about the likelihood that Straight was going to get arrested, and that Straight had neutralized the alarm as a favor to the attorney, unbeknownst to McGowan, and as always, there were no worries—McGowan would get Straight off with the arrest record being expunged. Unbeknownst to Straight, it was the same thing McGowan told the attorney.