Code 61

by Donald Harstad

  “No.” He was already starting off toward the other cubicles.

  I left Huck and Sally, and worked my way into the yard wide area behind the cubicle where Dan Peale had pitched the forceps. I shone my flashlight on the ground, and sure enough, there they were. My relief was a palpable thing. I holstered my gun, and bent down to pick them up. As I did, my light moved, I became aware of a fine trickle of sand sparkling its way down onto the floor about six feet ahead of me, alongside the bare wall of the chamber. I picked up the forceps, bracing myself for a blow to my back. Nothing. I straightened up, and held the forceps up, over the cubicle wall.

  “Sally, here you go,” I said.

  A moment later, I felt her take the forceps from me. The primary mission was accomplished.

  I drew my gun, and took one more step away from the falling sand. Then I turned, abruptly, and shined my flashlight straight up into the darkness above the level of the fluorescent lights.

  There he was. About twenty feet up, in the clear area between the pillar and the drop-cloth ceiling support, clinging to God knows what with his hands and feet.

  “Hey, Dan!” I hollered.

  He looked down. Those damned fangs glistened, pressing into his lower lip. He was gripping tightly with both hands, with one foot parallel to the pillar's face and braced against a small bump in the surface. The other foot was nearly perpendicular, with the toes wedged into a crack. I could see a dark spot on his lower left side, toward his back. There was a trickle of blood running down from there into his shorts. It looked like I'd hit him.

  “You need any help gettin' down?” I yelled, unable to resist.

  Two things happened at once. Byng and Borman came flying around the far end of the cubicles, looked up, and Byng said, “Damn!”

  At the same time, Dan Peale just pushed himself away from the wall. For the life of me, I thought he hung up there, suspended in space, for an instant. I think in that moment, we were both wondering if he could really fly. Then he plummeted twenty feet to the sandy floor. I guess he was prepared to fly, because he did absolutely nothing to break his fall, or roll with it. He hit feet first, arms outstretched to his sides, with a jarring thump that seemed to send a visible ripple upward from his ankles to his neck. His legs went all weird between the ankle and hip, and he collapsed onto the floor of the mine.

  I sent Borman up the elevator to get help. Byng and I tended to Dan Peale. Along with a gunshot wound in his back, he had a compound fracture of his lower right leg, an obviously broken or very badly sprained left ankle, and I feared some internal injuries as well. He was silent, never uttering a word of pain or complaint. Meth combined with ecstasy, they tell me, will do that sometimes. I met his gaze a couple of times as we put toweling over his fracture. He never blinked. I really think he would have tried to escape by crawling, if we hadn't both been there.

  We kept clear of his teeth.

  Borman returned, with a paramedic, who was being followed by two more. He told me that Lamar and the others had finally gotten in the main mine entrance, and should be up our way very soon. They could easily drive an ambulance up to us, as soon as they figured out which chamber we were in.

  I left them, and went back to Huck. She was asleep, and Sally was just standing there, staring at her and adjusting a trauma blanket to try to keep the younger woman warm.

  “She's wiped out,” she said.

  “Yeah. Who wouldn't be? The last ten or fifteen years have been long ones for her.”

  “Peale alive?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but pretty well busted up.”

  “Did you hit him with that shot?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Attaboy,” she said.

  There was a commotion in the outer chamber, followed by Lamar and our reinforcements arriving. They'd brought an ambulance with them.

  “Sorry we're late,” said Lamar, after hearing my verbal report. He looked around the area where Huck was lying, and saw the tubing and the basin and the straps and everything.

  “Is this where Edie …?” He couldn't ffnish.

  “Yeah. I believe so.”

  “Aw, hell,” he said with his sore throat. “It's cold here. Damn. Edie hated the cold.” He turned away, and went back through the hanging carpet.

  “I've never seen him like that before,” said Sally.

  “Yeah.”

  She looked around. “This really is a lonely place.”

  Harry and Hester showed up just as we were taking Dan Peale out to the ambulance. Harry, in particular, was very disappointed to have missed the excitement. Hester told me that she and Harry thought Tatiana had snitched Huck off.

  “I believe,” she said, “that she wanted to make sure Dan did something terrible. So he'd get out of Jessica's life, permanently.”

  Considering that we thought Jessica had damned near invented Dan Peale, and would probably create another one, it had been a waste of time.

  After countless examinations and three separate hearings, Dan Peale was eventually declared insane, and placed in a secure mental health facility. God only knows what he'll do there. He is scheduled to stand trial in Wisconsin, for the murder of Randy Baumhagen, but is currently fighting extradition on the grounds that he's been already declared legally insane. What really bothers me is that, since he wasn't tried, we haven't been able to get a determination on exactly what happened with Edie. Hester and I talked about that at some length, and what we came up with was this:

  Dan and Toby had Edie in that “crypt” of his. Dan seems to have planned to bleed Edie for a while in advance, and while he intended to bring Edie very close to death, we couldn't prove he intended for her to die. That would have been enough for second-degree murder, though, and we were fairly certain he would have been convicted. That left us with the question as to just what happened after she died. We found that out at Toby's trial.

  Toby said that Dan didn't want people snooping around, doing a search for a missing woman. He was afraid they might stumble across the elevator, or just go looking for her in the mine. He decided to make it look like a suicide, to prevent a search. Dan was the one who made the cut in Edie's neck, to cover the needle entry point. Toby insisted it was post mortem.

  Then they had to carry her back to the Mansion, and put her in the tub. They'd used the elevator, and that explained the wood stain on the body bag. They carried her to the house, and had to set the body down while Toby was sent to get Kevin. Since they didn't want to be seen, Dan had unlocked the back stair door to the third floor, and they'd placed her in the stairwell. That fit nicely with that bloodstain.

  While Toby was up with Kevin, Huck had awakened, and was moving about. Toby thought she was taking a shower. He hustled down to Dan, and they took Edie right up the main staircase, so they didn't have to pass Huck's room. The stain on the carpet came from setting her down, just as we figured. Our only mistake on the direction was in thinking the stain at the bottom of the back stair meant that they'd brought her down from the third floor.

  The weird part was, Toby was the only one who actually did any prison time for the whole thing. He got five years for helping Dan kill Edie. When he'd told us that he hadn't been able to kill her in the so-called crypt, he'd told the truth. But he'd held on to her while Dan did it. But, I mean, is that ironic or what? Here he was, the only one nuts enough to really believe the officially insane Dan Peale was a vampire, and he was the one judged sane enough to stand trial. “The fool? or the fool who follows him?” I think it goes.

  Hanna and Melissa continued rooming together, around the general area. Huck, after a brief stay in the hospital, moved to Dubuque, and got a job dealing on the gaming boat down there. She came back to testify at Dan's hearing, but seemed distant to us.

  Kevin turned up in Freiberg. He'd split as soon as he became aware that Dan was back in the house. The county attorney said we didn't have much on him, and subpoenaed him as a hostile witness in one of Dan's hearings.

  Jessica and Tatiana b
oth testified that Dan had flagged them down, and taken them hostage at gunpoint, and forced them to take him back to Lake Geneva. They got away with it. Hester, Harry, and I approached the prosecutor's office, with a request to prosecute Jessica as the principal orchestrator of the entire business. They told us that they'd never be able to convince a jury of that, especially in the light of the defense team she could afford to retain.

  I'll never forget what the head prosecutor said. “You guys just have to learn to be realistic about these things.” Right. While working a vampire case?

  Jessica is still doing her thing, as far as we can tell. Hawkins keeps in touch.

  We found William Chester's pack in the woods well north of the elevator shaft. It contained a stake, garlic, a crucifix, and a mallet. We didn't have any idea where he'd gone for several weeks, and were beginning to wonder if Dan Peale had killed him and dragged him into a dark area of the mine. Then Harry got a call from the cops in Lake Geneva, wanting to know if he'd ever heard of the man. They'd popped him in a stalking case. Apparently, he was taking an interest in Jessica Hunley. When questioned, he'd actually used Harry as a reference. That was a hoot. Personally, I think he caught a glimpse of Dan Peale that rainy night on the bluff. I think the reality of Peale finally dawned on him, and he just couldn't handle it. I think he simply ran away.

  The Mansion is still there, although Jessica sold it soon after Dan was committed. I understand it's about to become a resort, since it's so close to the gaming boat and the Mississippi. I don't think Sue and I'll be staying there. I never did get inside the Hunley estate in Lake Geneva.

  Oh, yeah. Borman. He lost his action against me. He tried to say that I'd done the same thing that he had done—ffred a warning shot. One that just happened to hit Peale by accident. Right.

  Borman left the department after that, and signed on with a university security service on the West Coast. That was too bad, in my opinion. I still thought he had a lot of potential.

  GLOSSARY

  AG: Attorney general, either state or federal.

  COMM: Police radio call sign of the communications center in Nation County.

  DCI: Division of Criminal Investigation, a division of the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

  DEA: Drug Enforcement Administration, an agency of the U.S. Government.

  DNE: Division of Narcotics Enforcement, an agency of the State of Iowa and an offshoot of DCI.

  DNR: Department of Natural Resources, an agency of the State of Iowa.

  FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation, a bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice.

  ISP: Iowa State Patrol, the uniformed division of the Department of Public Safety.

  ME: Medical examiner.

  SA: Special agent, either of the Iowa DCI or the FBI.

  SAC: Special agent in charge, either of the DCI or the FBI.

  SO: Sheriff's office.

  SOME NOTES ON CODES IN GENERAL

  In law enforcement communications, codes are used both as a shorthand method of communication and as a way of concealing information from the prying ears who listen in on police radio transmissions. The Ten Codes, listed below, are our basic shorthand for radio use.

  Other codes are used to fill in the gaps or to cover unusual situations that arose after the Ten Codes were established. One example would be the use of “code blue” to indicate that the subject of concern in deceased. This has become so well known that it's really no longer very useful, and has often been replaced with other codes.

  Many departments developed a code system that would use a common number and give it another meaning known only to the officers and dispatchers. Code sixty-one is a good example. Briefly, it started with the old 10-61, which meant “Personnel in area.” Being a superfluous number, it slowly changed over the years to mean “Unauthorized personnel in area,” and eventually came to indicate “Be aware that this conversation is not secure because an unauthorized person is listening.” That particular definition proved to be pretty useful, and is used in that context today. It then developed, by replacing the “10” with “code,” into “Be very circumspect in all your transmissions, as we don't want any casual listeners to garner information from your radio traffic.” Strangely, code sixty-one came into general usage about the time the general public began obtaining police scanners.

  SOME USEFUL TEN CODES

  The so-called Ten Codes were developed in the very early days of police radio communications. Range was very short, and most of the vehicles that carried the expensive equipment for two-way communication were owned by states or large cities. The codes, as used in Iowa, were meant to cover the situations commonly encountered by the Iowa Highway Patrol. The IHP in those days was very likely the only outfit that operated in rural Iowa which could afford radios. Many times, the early equipment was so unreliable that the first part of a transmission would be lost due to equipment vagaries. Long transmissions merely meant that the chances of a message becoming garbled were just that much better. The Ten Codes enabled the reduction of the length of the transmissions, and their clarity was improved by assigning simple numbers to the most common messages. Therefore, the “10” was used to alert the listener that a message number was to follow. This system has remained in use, and seems likely to do so for the foreseeable future.

  10–2

  Good signal, now usually used to mean simply “good.”

  10–4

  Acknowledged, frequently used to indicate agreement.

  10–5

  Relay.

  10–6

  Busy (as in doing cop work), often used as a “do not disturb” sign on the radio.

  10–7

  Temporarily out of service (as in lunch).

  10–8

  Back in service (as in done with lunch).

  10–9

  Repeat.

  10–10

  Fight.

  10–13

  Weather and road conditions.

  10–16

  Domestic case.

  10–20

  Location.

  10–21

  Telephone, as in “Ten-twenty-one the office.”

  10–22

  Disregard.

  10–23

  Arrived at scene.

  10–24

  Assignment completed.

  10–25

  Report in person to meet, usually used simply as “meet.”

  10–27

  Operator's license information.

  10–28

  Vehicle registration information.

  10–29

  Check records for stolen; modern usage also means “warrant” or “wanted.”

  10–32

  Suspect with gun, also used in reference to knives and other devices.

  10–33

  Emergency.

  10–46

  Disabled vehicle.

  10–50

  Motor vehicle crash.

  10–51

  Wrecker.

  10–52

  Ambulance.

  10–55

  DWI.

  10–56

  Intoxicated pedestrian.

  10–61

  Personnel in area, frequently used to indicate that a civilian can hear the radio.

  10–70

  Fire.

  10–76

  En route.

  10–78

  Need assistance.

  10–79

  Notify medical examiner, also used to indicate a deceased subject.

  10–80

  High-speed pursuit.

  10–96

  Mentally disturbed subject.

  As an example, if you as an officer were to suddenly encounter an armed suspect, shots were ffred, you needed help, and thought somebody had been injured, you might transmit: “Ten-thirty-three, ten-thirty-two, need ten-seventy-eight, and get me a ten-fifty-two—this is ten-thirty-three!” (Note the use of 10-33 twice, which officers tend to do when emphasizing dire straits.) An excellent dispa
tcher will get the whole picture, and may merely try to discover your position by saying, “Tenfour, ten-twenty?” As with any system, the clarity and usefulness depend entirely on the quality of the personnel involved. An excited officer may be merely garbled, and the transmissions result in a “Ten-nine?” An inattentive dispatcher may “tune in” halfway through the message and receive incomplete data. This, too, can lead to additional risk and hazard.

  This is, by the way, one example of why the retention of your top-notch people is so important.

  Donald Harstad is the author of Eleven Days, Known Dead, and The Big Thaw. A former deputy sheriff and twenty-six-year veteran of the Clayton County Sheriff's Department, he lives in Elkader, Iowa.

  If you enjoyed Donald Harstad's Code 61, you won't want to miss any of his exciting police thrillers starring Carl Houseman.

  Look for the latest, The Heartland Experiment, coming soon in hardcover from Double-day.

  And turn the page for an exciting preview….

  THE

  HEARTLAND

  EXPERIMENT

  By

  Donald Harstad

  ONE

  NOW

  Slugs came ripping through the old boards of the barn, showering us with dust and debris. I got even lower than I had been before, pressing my face against the old, dusty limestone foundation. I could see George hunkering down against the thick support beam he'd found, and I heard Hester, who was off to my right in the gloom, say “Shit.” At first, I thought it was just a comment, but then she kept talking.