‘‘Well, no, not that. But, I mean, do you think he’s got a sinister motive for this little request, or do you think he’s just playing mind games, trying to show control?’’
‘‘I’d vote for control,’’ said Hester.
‘‘I don’t know,’’ said Al. ‘‘But he sure can’t intend harm to them. They’re his voice to the outside world.’’
‘‘So?’’ I asked. ‘‘We let ’em go in?’’
‘‘I say we do,’’ said Hester, and got a withering glance from Al.
I thought it over. We’d already decided to send two. We needed Herman in a cooperative mood. We needed to get the son of a bitch talking, is what we needed. First to them, then to us.
‘‘I’ll let the press decide,’’ I said. ‘‘If they want to, they go. Otherwise, we try something else.’’
Nancy and Phil came back to the group.
‘‘We’ll still do it,’’ said Nancy.
‘‘With just one of you?’’ I asked.
‘‘Yes.’’ Phil smiled weakly. ‘‘Me. We need pics, and she’s not much good with a camera.’’ He looked at me. ‘‘My idea, but I’m no hero.’’
‘‘You’ll do until we can find one,’’ I said. ‘‘You still sure about not wearing a vest?’’
‘‘No vest. If he wanted to shoot somebody, it sure wouldn’t be a member of the press.’’
That was true. The dumbest thing he could do was irritate the press. Especially after inviting them in. And killing a reporter would have to be just about as irritating as you could get. Phil would be safe. Uncomfortable, sure. But safe. I was sure of that, but I could see that he was still nervous. I grinned at him. ‘‘Want us to tie a rope on you, so we can haul you out if he wants to keep you?’’
‘‘No, that’s okay.’’ He was busily adjusting his camera bag, checking his equipment for the tenth time.
‘‘Okay. Look, nobody knows this, but we have a TAC team in the outbuildings.’’
Rumsford’s head jerked upright.
‘‘That’s just what I don’t want you to do when you walk in,’’ I said. ‘‘Remember, anybody you see in the barn, or the shed, or around there,’’ I said, gesturing in an arc around the side of the farm, ‘‘is a TAC team guy. Don’t even look at them.’’
‘‘Right,’’ he said.
‘‘And, look, if he doesn’t want you in the house, don’t suggest it, all right?’’ I was serious. ‘‘Let him do the asking.’’
‘‘Yep,’’ said Phil. He adjusted his fisherman’s hat. ‘‘Ready or not . . .’’
We started walking toward the perimeter fence and the lane. We immediately attracted the press people, who came hurrying up, especially when they saw who was with us. They were stopped some fifty feet short of the fence by two troopers. We continued.
‘‘What’s going on?’’ yelled one of the TV people.
‘‘He wants to talk to us,’’ Nancy yelled back, unable to keep a smug tone out of her voice.
‘‘Scoop city,’’ said Hester.
‘‘Yeah,’’ said Phil weakly. ‘‘Scoop city.’’
The prearranged protocol was for Phil to stand in the lane at the fence line at 1430, exactly, and Mrs. Herman Stritch was to open the door of the house, and if everything looked okay to her, she would motion Phil on toward the house. I escorted him to the right place, and then stepped back a couple of paces. I looked pointedly at my watch. 1429. In a second, Mrs. Stritch was in the doorway, dressed in blue jeans and a faded green blouse, with binoculars in her hand. She raised them to her eyes and scrutinized Phil for a long moment. Then she gave me the once-over. It was hard not to make a gesture, but I restrained myself. Using binoculars at that range let her check for possible weapons before she allowed Phil inside the perceived threat zone. Sound practice. I wondered where she’d learned that. Her graying hair looked matted down with sweat. It must have been pretty warm in the house. Good. The less comfortable, the better. Finally, she motioned him forward.
It was almost two hundred feet to the house, and it must have seemed like two thousand to Phil. I noticed he looked just a bit more apprehensive when he passed the shed where Herman had been concealed when he shot the officers. I guess I was, too.
Mrs. Stritch held up her hand. ‘‘Stop right there.’’ Loud, but calm.
Phil did.
Now what?
I heard her say something, and then Phil turned to me. ‘‘She wants you back at the lines,’’ he hollered.
‘‘Right,’’ I hollered back, and turned around and started to walk back up the lane. I heard Mrs. Stritch say ‘‘What?’’ in a loud voice. I looked back over my shoulder, and she had disappeared, I assumed into the house. Phil had stopped short of the porch by about thirty feet and was just standing there. Now what? I thought. I kept moving, but slowed a little, looking back over my shoulder.
I felt the shock wave of the first shot as much as I heard it. I hit the ground as fast as I could, at the same time trying to turn and see what was going on behind me. So I landed on my right shoulder, and just about knocked the breath from myself. My point of view wasn’t too good, but I could see Phil standing there, and I thought that they were playing with him. I sat up just as I saw him start to waver, like he was trying to turn around. Then his head got lower, and the second shot went off. This time, he dropped like a rock, disappearing from my view onto the ground just short of the porch. Just as he disappeared, a fusillade of shots came from the TAC people in the outbuildings, a few at first, then a rapid series, just like very loud popcorn. As I tried to make myself smaller, I saw, from my vantage point on the ground, pieces of the house near a window on the second floor, to the left of the doorway, begin to fly off and large gouges of raw wood appear all over the upper half of the house. The troops were trying to get somebody through the wall. The firing tapered off pretty quickly, as there was no return fire, and nobody in the house was about to show themselves as a target at that point. A weird silence settled over the farm. My ears were ringing again, but I clearly heard a dragonfly humming a few feet away. It was hot. I became aware of a woman yelling. Two of them, in fact. One was Hester.
‘‘Houseman!’’ she yelled. ‘‘You hit?’’
I sat up and shook my head. The other was Nancy. I looked back toward the lines, and saw her standing there, with Hester trying to get her to turn away. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, except for ‘‘Phil.’’
Well, shit.
I got up into a crouch, and felt faint. Very hard to get your breath back after you’ve knocked yourself just about silly. I couldn’t really move just yet, at least not in a crouch. I didn’t want to sit back down, naturally. I really wanted to get out of the sight of the people in the house more than anything. So I just stood up and half walked and half ran back to our lines. It only took a few seconds, but it seemed a little longer. I could see Al just staring at me from behind a squad car. He probably thought I was nuts.
As I got to the fence, I walked over to where they had Nancy pressed down between two cop cars.
‘‘Nancy,’’ I said, still breathless, ‘‘I never thought they’d do that . . .’’
About ten minutes later, while Nancy was being treated by the EMTs at the scene, Hester, Roger, George, Al, and I were having a conference under the awning attached to the rear of the camper I’d slept in. It was subdued.
‘‘I just can’t fucking figure it out,’’ said Al very quietly. ‘‘Nothing to gain at all. Nothing.’’
‘‘You’re right,’’ I said.
‘‘It was the stupidest thing he could have done,’’ said George.
‘‘Yeah, idiotic,’’ said Hester.
Silence. For what seemed like an hour.
‘‘So,’’ I said. ‘‘Now what do we do?’’
More silence.
‘‘Anybody think it might be time to go in and drag their asses out?’’ I was getting really frustrated. ‘‘Or do we wait for another casualty?’’
‘�
��We should at least contact them,’’ said Roger, ‘‘and see if we can get Phil’s body back.’’
‘‘What?’’ I almost yelled at him. ‘‘You want to call them up and ask permission to retrieve a body? Permission?’’
‘‘Hey,’’ he said. ‘‘Don’t take it out on me!’’
I took a deep breath. ‘‘Sorry.’’
Silence, again.
‘‘It’s time they came out,’’ I said. ‘‘That’s all there is to it.’’
‘‘I agree,’’ said George.
‘‘What, just go in and take ’em out?’’ asked Al. ‘‘What, do you think FBI means, Superman?’’
George stood up at that one. ‘‘Not called for,’’ he said evenly. ‘‘But if you make it happen, I’ll be glad to take jurisdiction, and get our own team in here.’’
Al really didn’t want that. If that happened, the state would completely lose any influence or control, and would be reduced to providing crowd control services for the Feds.
‘‘Al,’’ I said, ‘‘what’s happening here is this . . . if some politicians over your head are worried about losing some of their constituents over this, just say so. I’ll be glad to talk to them and get some things straight. I know it isn’t you, because I’ve worked with you enough to know that you want to go in as bad as I do.’’
‘‘Nothing personal, George,’’ I said, standing up and reaching for some pop, ‘‘but the fewer Feds we have in this, the better. Otherwise, these idiots are gonna go nuts on us, and we’ll have even more problems.’’
‘‘That’s true,’’ said George. ‘‘I know that.’’
‘‘But,’’ I said, ‘‘if we have to go that way, then we do. I’d prefer state, but if I have to, I’ll go fed.’’ Like, I’d have a choice in the matter.
‘‘Let me make one more call,’’ said Al.
‘‘Sure.’’
He had a real problem, and I had some idea what it was. In my thinking about it, it was obvious that he had two bosses . . . the Attorney General and the Director of Public Safety. The AG was elected, the DPS was appointed by the governor. One, or both, had told him to hold off the violence. Period. Why? Well, traditionally, the governor’s office had felt that cops had no business interfering with political activities. Hard to disagree with that. Where they ran into trouble was with extremists. Mostly extremists on the right. The majority of them, after all, were farmers. Many of them were experiencing financial difficulties. I knew that no human being could ever get elected governor in Iowa on a ‘‘get tough on poor farmers’’ platform, and probably not on a ‘‘get tough on rich farmers’’ either. Hence the problem. Similarly, nobody could be elected Attorney General with that platform either.
Well, just a second, I thought. Let me qualify that. No human without courage could get elected. A leader, in the traditional vein, could. If he’d made the right decision and if he could defend it. But if he liked his job, and wanted to get reelected, he’d usually steer away from highly visible decisions that could come back to haunt him. So what were the chances of any of them hanging it all out in a situation like this? Right.
I looked at George, after Al was out of earshot. ‘‘Thanks,’’ I said.
‘‘No problem,’’ said George, ‘‘unless he calls my bluff. That could get interesting.’’
It was Hester’s turn. ‘‘You two’ll look great in fatigues and black ski masks.’’
‘‘Mine,’’ said George, ‘‘will say FBI. His,’’ he said pointing at me, ‘‘will say IDIOT.’’
We were quiet for a few seconds.
‘‘Why in the hell did they shoot Rumsford?’’ asked Hester.
That was the question, all right. We were right back to that. Something had gone really wrong. Big time. What? Whatever could have possessed them to shoot the representative they’d requested, the man to whom they wished to present their side of the problem, the vehicle who was to get their story out? Of all people.
I’m not especially known for either introspection or self-doubt. But this whole thing was beginning to get to me. What was I doing wrong? Honest to God, I never thought they’d shoot Phil. Not in a million years. But they had, and he was dead. Great decision, Carl. Great. Now I thought we should go in and get the whole bunch. If I was right, that’d be 50 percent for the day. They said a good executive was right about 33 percent of the time. Not good odds for my being right. Well, maybe I was just tired. ‘‘Maybe I’m just not too good at this,’’ I said to myself. I was in no mood to argue.
‘‘What?’’ asked George.
‘‘Just talking to myself.’’
‘‘Don’t start that,’’ said Hester.
Al came back about then. His face was red, and he had a disgusted look about him.
‘‘So what’s the word?’’ I asked.
‘‘The AG wants to talk to the governor. They’re going to have to ‘make a far-reaching policy decision,’ or something like that.’’
‘‘Great.’’
‘‘And he said it could take some time.’’
‘‘Well,’’ I said. ‘‘Well.’’ I took a deep breath. ‘‘That’s that, then.’’
George was getting a very worried look on his face. ‘‘Do you want me to call my people?’’
‘‘Not just yet,’’ I said. ‘‘Give me a few minutes.’’ I started to walk toward the perimeter. ‘‘Let’s look the scene over,’’ I said. ‘‘I might have an idea.’’
I had an idea, all right. But it sure wouldn’t stand a vote. We walked in silence toward the perimeter fence. When we got there, I just kept going down the path to the house.
‘‘Where are you going?’’ asked George.
‘‘To get the job done,’’ I answered. ‘‘I believe it’s time for the ‘deceive and detain’ phase. It’ll just take a minute. Anybody want to come along?’’
‘‘The what?’’ George hadn’t spent much time in the Winnebago.
We all were sort of committed to do something. I kept thinking about what Roger had said about guilt building up in Herman Stritch, and how he was about to understand that it was all over. Maybe. But the killing of Rumsford had to have done something in that house.
‘‘The what?’’ asked George, again. A1 answered him this time.
‘‘I think we’re going to go get Herman,’’ he said. ‘‘Looks like we are.’’
So we all continued walking down the lane. Me, Hester, A1, and George. Right by the junk pile. Right past the shed. Right past the TAC people. Right toward Rumsford’s body. Nobody said a word, but the breathing was getting a bit harder as we got closer to the house.
Finally, as we were just about to Rumsford’s body, George said, in a perfectly conversational tone of voice, ‘‘I certainly hope you know what you’re doing . . .’’
A voice cried out from the house. ‘‘Halt! Stop right there!’’
We’d caught them napping.
We stopped. ‘‘You guys stay here,’’ I said. ‘‘Anything happens, take ’em out.’’
‘‘Oh, right,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Like, we huff and puff?’’
I grinned at her. ‘‘Sounds like a plan.’’ I turned back toward the house. ‘‘Herman!’’ I yelled. ‘‘I’m coming onto the porch!’’ I looked at Hester. ‘‘Come with me, and just play along. You’re an insurance agent.’’
‘‘What? Carl, what? What insurance agent are you talking about?’’
We walked past Rumsford’s body, and I glanced at it. He’d fallen on his right side, and there was a very large bloodstain on the ground. Heart must have kept beating for a little while, I thought. Lot of blood. Damn. ‘‘Surprised me, too,’’ I muttered, as I passed him.
The gray paint on the porch steps was chipped pretty badly. Just as my foot touched the bottom step, Herman’s voice said, ‘‘Stop there, Carl.’’ He sounded pretty calm, but there was an edge to him. Good.
‘‘Shit’s gonna stop right now, Herman,’’ I said, pleasantly surprised by the steadiness
of my voice. ‘‘I’ve had it.’’
Silence.
‘‘I’m coming up further, Herman. What I got to say, I don’t want to shout.’’
‘‘Put your gun down.’’
I’d forgotten about my damn gun. At least, it was pretty obvious to Herman, in its holster. That was good.
‘‘Sure, Herman. If you put yours down.’’ I took another step, and stopped. ‘‘You stay here,’’ I said softly to Hester. ‘‘Don’t forget you’re an insurance agent.’’
‘‘Watch what I’m doing,’’ I said to Herman. ‘‘You do the same.’’ I unsnapped my holster and pulled out my .40 caliber Smith & Wesson. I pointed it upward, and pressed the magazine release. The magazine slid out the bottom, and I took it in my left hand, and sat it carefully on the floor of the porch. Then, with the gun still in my right hand, I pulled the slide back with my left and caught the ejected cartridge with the same hand. Plucked it right out of the air. I love to do that. I then placed the gun on the porch floor, locked in the open position. I picked up the magazine, replaced the ejected cartridge, and put it back on the porch. I straightened up. ‘‘Shove your magazine through the door, Herman.’’
I could barely see movement through the screen. It was very bright outside, and the house was very dark. But a moment later a .30 caliber carbine magazine slipped through the screen door.
‘‘There’s more people with guns behind me,’’ said Herman.
‘‘Me too, Herman.’’ I couldn’t resist a white lie. ‘‘With a couple of armored vehicles due in about an hour.’’
It was awfully quiet.
‘‘You hear me okay in there?’’ I asked Herman, in a normal tone of voice.
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘Okay, Herman. Listen real good. I’ve had it. You understand me?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘So this is what’s gonna happen, Herman. You come out onto the porch now. Then your people in the house. One at a time. You got that?’’
‘‘I got it, but I ain’t gonna do it. I don’t want no more of your tricks.’’
‘‘Yeah, you are, Herman. You’re gonna do it, and there ain’t no tricks. I’m just tellin’ you to do this to clear us of all liability. I gotta clear the liability before our insurance will let us take the house with maximum force. The armored vehicles. You understand?’’
Known Dead Page 18
