Endgame

Three Days Later, The Lieutenant’s Office, Anoka County PD

"You wanted to see me boss?"

"Yeah come on in. There have been some more developments in that string of robberies you have been working."

"Another one?”

"Yeah and this one has caused quite a stir."

"Really?”

"Highland Park, sister-in-law of the Governor’s Chief of Staff."

"Oh great, so now it’s political."

"You betcha, but this times its going to help us."

"Ya sure"

"I just got off the phone with Jessica and Lucas over at the BCA and"

"The Governor has told them to take care of it."

"Well yes, but both Jessie and Lucas were so impressed by what you have put together, that they both want you to carry the ball."

"What ?"

"As far as Minneapolis, St Paul, and everybody else, Lucas is running things"

"Well that will sure cut through all the jurisdictional crap."

"His computer gurus have got everything set up so that everything that is sent to the BCA task force will get sent straight to you, any problems with anybody you got straight to him, but please let me know too."

"Gotcha boss"

"Jessie and Lucas are good people, so when this is all settled, you will be right there at the podium with them during the press conference, in fact knowing Lucas you will be doing most of the talking. Both the Sheriff and the Chief Deputy were very impressed with your work so far."

"Thanks boss"

"You really deserve it, and it doesn’t hurt my status either."

"So when does this start ?"

"It should be up and running now, so get busy."

"Yup"

Two days later.

"Gotta minute boss."

"For you always."

"Having the BCA involved has really loosened things up. Got a ton of stuff from both Minneapolis and St Paul, and FPS is really coming through. Turns out their system can identify senders and receivers as soon as the package hits their system."

"That’s impressive."

"And they can project when it shoud be delivered to within thirty minutes."

"So, they could tell us when something from one of those shopping channels is sent and when it should be delivered."

"So we could have somebody waiting there"

"And you won’t be undercover waiting for them, unless its in Anoka County, got that."

"Well, I could hope couldn’t I?"

"Besides I don’t think even Lucas could smoth that over, Anoka County deputy sheriff running an undercover op in Minneapolis, they might work with Hennepin on something like that, but not us."

"Gotcha boss, I understand, really."

Five days later

"You got news boss?"

"Yup, as if you hadn’t heard, Dakota County just nabbed them in Rosemont."

"Rosemont, one of the McMansions?"

"Yeah, some inventor sold his idea to 3M for bundle and a vice presidency. They were waiting when the bad guys showed, as soon as they pulled their guns they were kissing the floor."

"Well its just a matter of wrapping up the paperwork?"

"One interesting thing that might not have made into the first reports."

"What’s that"

"They had a camera."

"The bad guys?"

"Yup, one of those fancy new ones that shoots video and pictures."

"That explains it."

"What?"

"One of the St Paul victims statements. They were doing crime scene photos while they were taking her statements, and she said ‘that’s the sound, that’s the sound I heard when I was bouncing down the stairs’"

"They were taking pictures of the victims while they had them tied up and making them do all the moving around stuff?"

"That’s what it sounds like."

"Better give Lucas a heads up, he’ll probably want to follow up on that."

Two Days Later

"Boss?"

"Whatcha got?"

"Just got off the phone with Lucas."

"And"

"They looked at what was on the camera, and when the Dakota County attorney saw them making her hop from the living room through the hall to the stairs, he said ‘that’s kidnapping’"

"Interesting"

"Scared the shit out the perps, guess they thought burglary at worse. Anyway they both cracked like a cheap vase hitting a tile floor."

"I’ll bet, especially if Lucas was the one telling them that."

"But they both swore up and down on their mothers’ graves that taking the pictures was part of the job and not for them."

"What, they’re claiming that were just following orders?"

"Could be true. The only trace of any pics were the e-mails that they attached them to."

"Any luck tracing those."

"No, free acounts mail was checked at public computers. Lucas’s gurus are talking to the Fed gurus, but so far nothing."

"Feds are in on it?"

"Yeah they are claiming interstate and all that and are checking all their databases for anything similar."

"Well that shouldn’t really affect anything here. You had better start thinking about what you are going to wear to the press conference !!!"

Two months later

"Hey boss, you want to hear something interesting?"

"Sure, always glad to get news from lead detective."

"Remember that robbery case a few months back where they were taking pictures of the victims."

"Oh, the one where they swore that they were only following orders and weren’t into taking pics of tied up women."

"Yeah that one. Well I just got a call from Lucas, seems like he got a call from a friend in the Minneapolis FBI office a couple of weeks ago. The friend is part of the task force working on kiddie porn internet sites. Seem that he was checking out sites and he stumbled across a bunch of bondage pics."

"Tied up kids?"

"No they were all adults, but as he was leaving the site one of the pics caught his eye."

"Really"

"Well that’s his story. Anyway, he blew it up and recognized somebody from his church."

"One of the victims?"

"Three victims and somebody else."

"Bad guy got caught on camera?"

"No it was another women, she was tied up too."

"What?"

"They dug through everything and sure enough there were only three victims, not four."

"But somebody posted a pic of three victims and somebody else?"

"Exactly. They checked the other pics and found the same women in each, and in each case it appeared that it was added later."

"Ok, this is just plain weird now."

"Oh you should have heard Lucas. But anyway, they did some computer magic and were able to come up with what she looked like without the gags and blindfolds. Want to guess?"

"No a clue fffing clue."

"A customer service supervisor at the shopping channel, wife of the brains behind the whole thing.

The US Attorney for Northern Virginia hit her with the kidnaping thing and she spilled the beans. They got everybody everywhere, three other metropolitan areas besides us."

"Did she say why the pics?"

"They both like her being tied up, he likes lots of ladies tied up at the same time, he’s a photoshop wiz, and that way they could lots of pics of her tied up with other women, without actually having to get involved with other women. Plus the millions they made probably had something to with too"

"Well, I guess without people like that, this job would get boring."

"That’s about what Lucas said."