Blood Silence by Roger Stelljes Page B

tell.”
    Three hours later, Mac was done talking about his former wife and was now waiting on his future one. “Sally, are you almost ready?” Mac bellowed up the steps, checking his watch. They were supposed to be on their way to a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis.
    “Just about, just about,” she yelled down.
    In his experience, he knew that a double “just about” meant at least ten minutes. They were going to be late.
    He hated being late.
    Sally, on the other hand, seldom seemed bothered by the concept.
    Mac took the last sip from his glass of wine as the television played in the background. He grabbed the remote, plopped himself down on the couch, and flipped around the various channels, eventually stopping on the Wild game, which was just starting. When he and Dick left the pub a few hours ago, it was just starting to fill up with fans looking to pre-game.
    One minute into the game, the Wild lit the lamp. “Nice play, Mikael Granlund,” Mac cheered loudly as the Wild’s crafty center slid a pass to a wide-open Zach Parise, who went bar down on the shot past the goaltender, 1-0 Wild. “That goal was sick.”
    “Wild score?” Sally asked as she hustled down the steps, casually dressed in a tight V-neck black top, red leather jacket, skin-tight blue jeans, and black stiletto-heel boots. She could be late all she wanted, looking like that.
    “Yes, a beauty for Parise.” Mac answered, turning down the sound and flipping away from the game to channel six, which was promoting the ten o’clock news for later with footage from a double murder out on Lake Minnetonka. Something about the house looked familiar to him.
    “Are you ready?” Sally asked.
    “Yes. We’re going to Brock’s Steak over in Minneapolis, right?” Mac asked for final confirmation as he grabbed the keys for his Yukon off the counter.
    “Yes. I hear the food is to die for. They do it family style—pick your steak, then your sides. It’s so your kind of place.”
    “It sure looked good online,” Mac answered, leading them out the door. “And they have these bourbon flights. I’m looking to get into those.”
    “Well, then, I better make sure I have my license,” Sally said, checking her purse. “Sounds like I could be driving us home.”
    • • •
     
    Brock’s Steak was as advertised. Everyone sat around the table, stuffed full of steak, buttery mashed potatoes, seasoned asparagus, rich spinach, red wine, and many flights of bourbon. There was no dessert, simply some coffee and light talk about a possible nightcap at a bar across Hennepin Avenue from the restaurant. While these were Sally’s friends, Mac liked them all. The husbands were all good guys he had plenty in common with and bonded with. One of the husbands, a big Wild fan, was checking his phone.
    “Jeff Peterson, put your phone away,” his wife, Stacy, admonished teasingly, lightly punching him on the arm. “I swear to God, you can’t go ten minutes without checking that thing.”
    “So did the Wild win?” Mac asked. He knew Jeff the best of the guys at the table.
    “Four to two. They’re on fire,” Jeff answered. “But I was also checking out this story about this double murder out on Lake Minnetonka. Some bigwig, downtown lawyer named Sterling was killed.”
    Mac and Sally immediately shared a look.
    “Did you say Sterling?” Mac asked.
    “Yeah, the lawyer’s name was Judd Frederick Sterling, age forty-nine, of Minneapolis. Why? Do you know him?”
    “And you said double murder?” Sally asked.
    “Yes,” Jeff answered. “Why?”
    “If you’ll excuse me,” Mac answered as he stood up, reached in his pocket, and walked quickly away from the table and into the restaurant’s small side bar, where he found a quiet corner. Sally followed him.
    He began working his phone.
    “Meredith? Are you thinking Meredith?”
    “That’s what I’m thinking, but her name doesn’t appear anywhere in the story,” Mac answered as he scrolled down with his