Free Electing To Murder by Roger Stelljes

home. They could have a little time together before they both collapsed.
    Mac leaned back in his chair and soaked in the whiteboard. This was how he often solved cases. He would mind map and put everything down on paper, his computer or when he really needed to spread out, on a whiteboard. Then he would sit back and absorb the case into his mind and let it percolate. The case wouldn’t be solved in one sitting, but look at the board enough, put enough evidence and information up, and eventually the answer emerged. In this case, it was not ready to jump out at him.
    The rental car was a disappointment. Mac and Lich tracked it down to the Penalty Box. Forensics opened it up at the bar but there was nothing inside. No luggage, no backpack, no cell phone and no evidence that Stroudt had been in it. The car was clean, too clean. The crime scene tech on the scene said it looked as if the car had been wiped down. Forensics hauled the car back to the county lab and would process it overnight. If they got lucky, they might find a hair, a fiber or a print from the killer. Mac doubted they would get lucky in that regard, but it was worth the effort. The GPS was more likely to provide help.
    Mac looked over Lich’s notes. With some keystrokes and a password, he worked his way into the GPS system for A-1 Rent-A-Car. Stroudt rented a silver Ford 500 at 10:40 at the airport.
    Stroudt left the airport and drove east into St. Paul and spent nearly an hour driving around the city. He made one stop at a bookstore on Ford Parkway in the Highland Park area. The car was parked at the bookstore for twenty minutes before Stroudt left. From the bookstore, he drove two miles to a Grand Brew Coffee House, the actual original Grand Brew, on the corner of Grand and Snelling Avenues.
    From 12:02 p.m. until 2:09 p.m., Stroudt remained at the Grand Brew. The coffee house would have been crowded at that time of day with college students as the coffee shop sat across the street from Macalester College. It made some sense if he wanted to be around people interested in politics. Macalaster was a politically active small liberal arts college with a decidedly Democratic bent. If you were a Governor Thomson supporter, you would be in good company.
    “So you sit at the Grand Brew for two hours doing what?” Mac mused out loud to nobody in particular. “Doing what?”
    Mac suspected he might have spent some time on a computer. The coffee shop offered free Wi-Fi. On the right side of the whiteboard he had a heading titled Tasks. Under Tasks, he made a note to go to the coffee shop and look at the surveillance video to see if they could get anything from it.
    Stroudt left the Grand Brew at 2:09 and drove north on Snelling Avenue. He actually drove past The Snelling and continued north another two miles before he did a U-turn and then came back to The Snelling. “Looking for an out-of-the-way place perhaps?” Mac thought to himself. He wondered if Stroudt knew how truly disreputable The Snelling was.
    The car remained parked at The Snelling until 4:05 p.m. and then started moving again, driven away by the killers. “So that gives me time of death,” Mac muttered as he jotted that down in his notebook.
    After leaving The Snelling, the car was driven around for twenty minutes and was then left at the Penalty Box. Given the track the car followed around the Rosedale Mall before settling at the Penalty Box, perhaps some surveillance from parking lot cameras or businesses would catch the rental on film. He made a note to look into that.
    Mac scrolled the GPS tracking back to The Snelling and thought about the difference between how Stroudt acted before and after he left the Grand Brew. Before he got to the Grand Brew, he was using his credit card to pay for a flight and to rent a car. After he left the Grand Brew, he’s suddenly cruising Snelling Avenue, perhaps looking for a place to stay out of sight, and checks into The Snelling, paying cash for a room. The