Silence.
‘‘Our insurance carrier is Lloyds of London. They know all about dealing with the IRA and all that. They know we gotta do what we gotta do. They know that if you don’t come out now, we’re comin’ in. You understand what I’m saying, Herman?’’
Silence.
‘‘The lady standing back here is the Lloyds representative for Iowa. She’s listening to this pretty close. You see that, Herman?’’
There was some hesitation, then: ‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘Good. And I’m sure you understand what I just said. So, in fifteen seconds, the same amount of time the SAS gave the terrorists in London, you come out or we take out everybody in the house. Legal. No lawsuit. ’Cause I warned you.’’
I turned around toward Hester. ‘‘Is that enough, lady?’’
‘‘Uh, just a moment,’’ said Hester. She looked at her watch. ‘‘The time will start in twenty seconds,’’ she said.
‘‘Okay, ma’am,’’ I said. I turned back toward the door, and was startled to see it opening. Herman stuck his head out.
‘‘We’ll give up, but I can only answer for my family.’’ He spoke rapidly, nervously. That was good.
‘‘Is that all right with Lloyds?’’ I asked Hester, without turning.
‘‘Acceptable,’’ she said tersely.
‘‘Come on,’’ said Herman. ‘‘It’s over.’’
Herman, his wife, his two sons, and a daughter-in-law slowly emerged from the dark interior of the house, and came onto the porch. All lightly dressed in dark clothes, looking hot, sweaty, and very nervous. None of them appeared armed, and this was no time to get bogged down in details. ‘‘Okay, folks,’’ I said to the Stritches, as briskly as I could manage. ‘‘If you’ll go over to those two men, they’ll take you safely back to the lines. Do what they tell you, and you’ll be fine. And, please, don’t step on my gun, there . . .’’
Even though they weren’t quite sure what the hell was going on, Al and George were up to the occasion. They acted more like considerate tour guides than cops, as they ushered Herman Stritch and family back toward the line of officers. I did notice that only Mrs. Stritch looked down as they passed Rumsford’s body. I reached down and picked up my gun, and puffed up my cheeks, and blew out a whole lungful of air. Neither Hester nor I said a word. I inserted the single round back into the magazine, and quietly pushed it into the gun. I grinned at Hester, and she smiled back.
Our little moment of joy was interrupted by the sound of the back door slamming. Other forces were leaving the fort. Well, he’d said he was only responsible for his family. Hopefully, they’d be gathered up by the officers on the hill, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.
‘‘Three, Comm?’’ I said into my walkie-talkie.
‘‘Three?’’
‘‘Comm, we have possible suspects leaving the farmhouse, probably going west. Notify the officers on the back side of the property.’’ I said this as Hester and I headed around the corner of the house. By the time I got to the backyard, Hester was ahead of me, and ducking. As she hit the ground, I ducked too, more or less out of respect for her judgment. I just caught a glimpse of a camouflaged man disappearing into the corn, and a tall figure in a camouflage battle dress, complete with turkey netting over his face, swinging what looked for the world like an FN/FAL rifle toward us.
‘‘Ten-four, Three.’’
Ten-four, hell, I thought, as I hit the ground.
He didn’t fire. I mean, it wasn’t like he had to or anything. He’d just stopped us with a gesture.
He disappeared into the corn at the base of the hill. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought there was more than one. I wasn’t about to stand up and find out.
‘‘They’re armed,’’ I gasped into my radio. ‘‘Ten-thirty-two.’’
‘‘Ten-four, Three.’’ Calm, dispassionate. What we paid her for. If only it didn’t sound quite so much like she was bored . . .
Two deputies and two troopers came flying around the corner of the house.
‘‘Two suspects, armed!’’ hollered Hester. ‘‘Both into the cornfield.’’
Three members of the state TAC team rounded the corner a moment later, having come from their positions in the outbuildings. Two of them immediately went into the corn. The other, along with the four uniformed officers, took up overwatch positions back from the edge of the field.
A few seconds later, I stood up cautiously and backed up a bit, and sat on the porch steps. ‘‘Just too tired to chase ’em,’’ I said to Hester.
‘‘Me too,’’ she said, standing at the foot of the steps, looking into the house. ‘‘But I’m not going to sit until I know they’re all gone.’’
I sighed. ‘‘You’re right.’’ I stood and picked up my walkie-talkie again. ‘‘Comm, Three, get a team here to help us go through the house, will you?’’ I looked at Hester again. ‘‘ ‘Acceptable,’ for Christ’s sake. You are great, there’s no doubt.’’
‘‘You’re no slouch yourself. But next time, tell me what the fuck’s going on, all right?’’
‘‘I always tell you, just as soon as I know,’’ I said. With more truth there than I’d care to admit.
The remaining TAC officer came up. ‘‘What do you think?’’
‘‘I think,’’ I said, still a little breathless and drenched in sweat, ‘‘you’d better get your guys back out of the corn . . . or at least slow ’em up. The one I saw looks real hazardous.’’
‘‘They both do,’’ said Hester. ‘‘I’d get a K-9 team.’’
‘‘Any idea who they are?’’ he asked. We shook our heads.
After a few seconds, I just couldn’t help myself . . . ‘‘You gonna say it?’’
‘‘Say what?’’
I gestured toward the cornfield where the man had disappeared. ‘‘Him . . .’’
She got it. ‘‘Oh, no.’’ She groaned. ‘‘No, no fuckin’ way, man. No.’’
The TAC man was talking on his portable, but was catching our conversation, and looking at us strangely.
‘‘Come on . . .’’
‘‘Never.’’ She was giggling. ‘‘You’re gonna have to do it yourself.’’
I looked her right in the eye. ‘‘Who was that masked man?’’
‘‘God, Houseman. You have no pride.’’
Whoever the ‘‘masked man’’ was, he and his partner were in a cornfield of some eighty acres, about twice as long as it was wide, which was bounded on one end and one side by a large, heavily wooded hill, which bumped into a string of hills. One side was bordered by a curving gravel road. At the other end of the field was the Stritch house.
We put people on the road, and at the Stritch end. We had a couple of people going onto the hill at the far end, but there was no way that we could put people in the center in a hurry.
Whoever the two were, they had to be pretty damned uncomfortable. It was well over ninety degrees, brightly sunny, and as humid as I’ve ever felt it. In an eight-foot-tall green cornfield, there isn’t a breath of air. It’s even more humid, if possible, because of the wetly green plants. I don’t think it’s actually possible to suffocate in one, but you sure feel like you’re going to. Especially if you’re lying still after exerting yourself. You can’t hear anything further away than ten feet or see anything further than five. Not a pleasant place, especially with a TAC team and a K-9 team after you.
We couldn’t find them.
We had a helicopter from Cedar Rapids PD come up, equipped with FLIR. I talked to the officer who operated it, a man I’d known for years.
‘‘Right now, FLIR is out of the question. That field would just look like a hot pond, with waves. Tonight, it’s possible, but without a breeze to cool the plants . . .’’
We got a corn picker running, and put four TAC guys on it, with one of our people driving. Went through the field. Not harvesting, just making a lot of noise and beating the corn down. They were the only officers above ‘‘corn level
,’’ so to speak. They didn’t find anything either.
During the search of the cornfield, George came over. He was in a bit of a sweat. Seems that SAC Volont had come up. I hadn’t even seen him. He, as it turned out, had seen George walking with the rest of us toward the house. When it was over, Volont had been all over George like stink. Said it was stupid, foolish, and a bunch of other things.
‘‘Well, shit, George,’’ I said. ‘‘It worked.’’ I shook my head.
Turned out there was nobody else in the house. But Hester was right. You really gotta know that sort of thing.
Tired as we all were, we had to jump right in on Herman Stritch, and try to do an interview before we got him to the jail and whatever attorney he was going to have would be telling him to shut up. We did the interview in the Winnebago, just Hester, George, and me. Yeah, I know. It was a custodial interrogation, not an interview. But he was thoroughly advised of his Miranda rights, and he very deliberately waived them.
You have to understand that, after killing somebody, the guilty party has an almost uncontrollable urge to confess. Really. Not, as some attorneys would have you believe, that they ever had an uncontrollable urge to confess to something they didn’t do. But there is some mechanism at work there, if there’s guilt, that compels them to tell. All you have to do is be a listener.
‘‘Herman,’’ I said, ‘‘what the hell happened here?’’
He just shook his head.
‘‘Herman,’’ I said, ‘‘why did you shoot Bud and Lamar? They weren’t gonna hurt you.’’
He shrugged. ‘‘They were throwing me off the farm. I can’t have that.’’
‘‘No, they weren’t,’’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘‘They were just serving papers. You still had other avenues available.’’
‘‘No more.’’ It was said in a flat, final sort of tone. ‘‘Done with that.’’
‘‘With what?’’
‘‘With all the bullshit!’’
As it turned out, Herman had really lost the farm. Borrowed heavily over the years. The entire farm was in hock. The notes had come due five years before. All Herman had done was pay the interest on the notes. No principal. After all sorts of fuss, he got a five-year extension. Then he had decided, on the advice of a good friend whom he refused to identify, not to make any payments at all. There was something in the explanation about English common law, the unconstitutionality of the federal government, the right not to pay taxes or to be regulated in any way. The last part is what got him in trouble. He’d posted his property with a sign that said that no governmental agency could come on his property on pain of death. Fine and dandy, except the poor bastard actually believed it.
‘‘I’m sorry about Bud and Lamar, but I was within my rights as a free man to shoot. It was posted.’’ He gestured in the general direction of the roadway. ‘‘Right over there.’’
‘‘Doesn’t work that way, Herman,’’ said Hester. ‘‘That posting bit doesn’t mean a thing.’’
‘‘You women always think you’re so goddamned educated, so goddamned smart,’’ he said. ‘‘But you’re just women, the servants of men.’’
I thought Hester was going to kill him, but she just shook her head. I didn’t say anything, but merely looked at him over the tops of my reading glasses. Nearly a minute went by with just the sound of the breathing and the whisper of the air conditioner.
‘‘You don’t understand,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t know about the takeover. The stealing of our soil. The Jews, the bankers. They’re all in it, you know.’’
Right.
‘‘We saw the black helicopters,’’ he said. ‘‘We saw ’em.’’
‘‘Black helicopters?’’ said Hester.
Damn. I was sure he was referring to the National Guard Huey we used for marijuana surveillance. Not black, but olive green. But we’d flown this area less than a month ago, when we’d picked up on the big patch in the park.
‘‘How long ago was that?’’ I asked.
‘‘Month or two.’’
‘‘Uh, Herman, I think that was us.’’ I explained to him that just about any helicopter, but especially an Army one, would look black at anything over two hundred yards, against the background of the sky.
Ah, but he was positive it was black. No further discussion. Not even when Hester said, ‘‘But, Herman, if it was me, I wouldn’t paint it black to hide it. I’d paint it blue and white, and put lettering like News Copter on the side. Wouldn’t you?’’
He didn’t buy it. But it was apparent that his sighting of the chopper had started the anxiety escalation that led to the shooting. The things you never think of.
‘‘They’re takin’ over,’’ he said. ‘‘The Jews and the UN. They’re takin’ the whole country.’’
Turns out that Herman had been shown a map. A map of the United States, with the so-called Occupation Zones carefully designated.
‘‘Herman, you can’t believe that.’’ I was really stunned.
‘‘Oh, yes. And we’re in Zone Five, us and Minnesota and Illinois and Wisconsin. The Belgian Army is going to occupy Zone Five after the takeover.’’
‘‘The Belgian Army, Herman? All ten of ’em?’’
‘‘You’ll see. The Jews slinking around here have it all arranged. You’ll see.’’
‘‘Herman,’’ I said, ‘‘what Jews?’’
‘‘They’re around,’’ he said, almost slyly. ‘‘I see ’em all the time.’’
‘‘Herman,’’ I said, ‘‘you wouldn’t recognize a Jew or a Belgian if one bit you in the ass.’’
He looked at me very coldly. ‘‘We can get you too.’’
About an hour after the two men went into the corn, Art arrived. Our chief deputy. He’d been gone on vacation since the day before Herman decided to shoot people. Fishing in Wisconsin. But he was back now, and was wasting no time. I made a mental note to find out who’d decided call him back early.
His car pulled up, and I could hear his reedy voice before I saw him.
‘‘Where’s Houseman? Find Houseman!’’
‘‘Over here, Art,’’ I hollered. ‘‘By the fence.’’ I glanced at Hester. ‘‘This oughta be good.’’
‘‘Houseman,’’ said Art as he bustled over to us. ‘‘I’m in charge now. You’re relieved here. I’ll take over.’’
‘‘Okay, Art.’’
‘‘I’m serious. I’m taking over. There’s going to be no more killing now.’’
‘‘Okay, Art,’’ I said. ‘‘You do that. I’m going with DCI to the jail, to start interrogating the prisoners.’’
‘‘The prisoners?’’ He looked around him for the first time. ‘‘What about the two suspects in the cornfield?’’
‘‘Well, I guess that’s pretty much up to you now. Everything else is pretty much over.’’
‘‘Over?’’
‘‘Yeah. Look, you go ahead and wrap it up here. They apparently aren’t in the cornfield. As investigator, I have to go do the interrogations.’’
He didn’t say a thing.
‘‘And, Art, DCI lab’s comin’ up, to do the scene. We have to protect it until they get here. And . . .’’
‘‘What’d you do, fuck up?’’ he interrupted.
Art always was good with people. I just looked at him, suddenly tired. ‘‘Yeah, I suppose I did. Why don’t you look into that while you’re at it.’’
‘‘Believe me,’’ said Art, ‘‘I will.’’
I headed toward my car, with Hester alongside.
‘‘He’s still a real asshole,’’ she said. Just a flat statement.
‘‘Yep. But I’d really worry if he changed.’’ I grinned. ‘‘Just being himself. No real problem unless you start to take him too seriously.’’
Suddenly the press was coming at us. Just as soon as Herman and family had been hustled out, apparently somebody thought there was no reason to keep the press corralled anymore. They still couldn’t get past the fence, but all
our cars and facilities were now in press territory. Hester saw them first. A disorganized group, spreading out from the press corral. And four or five of ’em had seen us and were on the way.
‘‘Shit.’’ The last thing I wanted was the press.
‘‘I’ll handle them,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Just stay back.’’
That was easy.
‘‘He,’’ said Hester to the first two reporters, pointing toward Art, ‘‘is in charge of everything here. You’ll have to talk to him.’’
They were gone like magic, swarming poor Art. And I heard one of them say, ‘‘That’s two known dead now, right?’’ My stomach started to burn.
‘‘Thanks, Hester.’’
‘‘Sure thing.’’ We continued toward the cars. ‘‘Just one more thing, Houseman.’’
‘‘Okay,’’ I sighed. ‘‘What?’’
‘‘You got your raincoat this time?’’
Sixteen
LET ME TELL YOU . . . By Thursday, the 25th of July, it seemed like everybody wanted a piece of Herman. The DNE, as soon as they found out that he was involved somehow in the killing of their officer in the woods, wanted exclusive rights to interrogate him. They thought it was a narcotics-based conspiracy and just closed their minds to the possibility that it wasn’t. It didn’t help that they weren’t the state’s homicide investigators. The DCI did that, and they seemed to think that the DNE officer was more important than any Nation County deputy that had just happened to get in the way and get himself killed. Or any Nation County sheriff who happened to get himself shot, for that matter. Their reasoning was pretty good, though; the DNE officer was the central figure because he was first, and established the chain of events leading to subsequent shootings. It really wasn’t their logic, I guess. It was just the way they stated it.
The Attorney General’s office sent two of their best, along with two gofers, just to oversee the interrogations. Our county attorney was at his best, underpaid and overwhelmed. And, to top it all off, now that the hostage aspect of the business was over, the FBI was taking official notice of the whole situation. Melissa and her daughter, you see, were now being considered ‘‘hostages’’ and ‘‘possible kidnap victims.’’ The upshot was, if the individual officers hadn’t been used to cooperating and working together, the whole case would have fallen apart right there. As it was, we at least understood that we were all in this together.
Known Dead Page 19
