‘‘Cool,’’ I said. ‘‘Is it okay with you if we look ’em over with you?’’ You can’t be too careful with the press.
‘‘I’ll have to think about it,’’ said Nancy, ‘‘but I don’t see anything wrong with it . . . if I can get your promise that if we discover anything I get the exclusive right to it half a day before anybody else does.’’
Hester looked at me. ‘‘A gentleman would say yes,’’ she said.
‘‘So would a desperate cop,’’ I answered. I looked at Nancy. ‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘And an exclusive on the parts of the investigation I help you with?’’
‘‘And your time spent for extortion?’’ I asked.
‘‘Whatever works,’’ she said, and smiled. It was forced, but it was a smile.
We watched Nancy walk out the door. ‘‘Never gives up,’’ I said.
‘‘Well,’’ said Hester, ‘‘it could just be her way of coping.’’
‘‘Sure.’’
As soon as she left, I asked the secretaries if we’d had any word on Lamar. Undergoing surgery. I hoped they wouldn’t have to take off that lower leg, but it didn’t look good to me. They said they’d keep me posted.
We went to the jail kitchen for a late lunch. Hester had a bagel with thinly sliced turkey she’d brought that morning from Waterloo. I had brought my usual fat-free wieners, fat-free buns, no-fat cheese slices, and mustard. I put the wieners in the microwave, and set it on high for three minutes.
‘‘Isn’t that a long time for two hot dogs?’’ asked Hester as she carefully placed her paper napkin on the table between her paper plate and her silverware.
‘‘Oh, no,’’ I said. ‘‘Not at all. You gotta leave ’em in until you hear the steam squeaking as it escapes the skin.’’
‘‘You what?’’
‘‘Oh, sure,’’ I said. ‘‘Like little teapots.’’
‘‘I see . . .’’
‘‘That’s why I call ’em Screamin’ Weenies,’’ I said.
‘‘Jesus, you’re kidding?’’
I grinned. ‘‘No, I’m not kidding. That’s what I call ’em. Hell, Hester, if it enhances the price of lobsters, just think what it’ll do for hot dogs. You could go to the restaurant, pick the ones you wanted out of a tank . . .’’
‘‘Fat-free is affecting your mind,’’ she said, calmly pouring her mineral water into a small glass.
‘‘Now,’’ I said, listening for the little screams, ‘‘that’s probably true.’’
After lunch, I made a pot of coffee, and we talked about Nancy some more, and the situation in general.
‘‘You suppose,’’ said Hester, ‘‘that the people we missed, the ones who ran out the back door . . .’’
‘‘I know which ones, thank you very much.’’
‘‘. . . just might have been the ones who didn’t want Rumsford in the house?’’
I looked at her and sipped my coffee. ‘‘Go ahead.’’
‘‘Well, I was just thinking that maybe there was somebody in the house who really didn’t want to be seen.’’
That was pretty possible, actually. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed very damn possible. That Herman had agreed to Rumsford without consulting the right people. That they had shot Rumsford. Which meant, of course, that we would have a killer who got away, as opposed to just somebody who thought like Herman walking off after it was all over.
‘‘That could be tough,’’ I said.
‘‘You mean, that they got away?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Yep.’’
‘‘Yeah, I thought about that.’’
‘‘You have any good ideas to go with this one?’’
She shook her head. ‘‘Nope.’’
‘‘Wanna keep this to ourselves for a while?’’
‘‘Sure do. I was there too.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ But it had been my call. And we’d never seen them again. No, not so. We’d never seen them in the first place. But we knew somebody who had. Somebody who’d talk to us. Melissa.
Melissa hit the office about 1645 with her daughter and her mother in tow. The media had gone to ground, probably for a beer and some supper, leaving one lonely fellow sitting on our lawn. He tried to speak to Melissa, but she just barged ahead. Her mom stopped to talk, and Melissa had to go back for her. I just shook my head.
Inside, we got everything settled in a hurry, with Mom at the reception area with her granddaughter, and Melissa in the back office with us. Mom, press relations aside, seemed suspicious, and a bit reluctant to let her daughter talk to us. She wanted to be in the room with Melissa during the interview. Melissa was an adult. Mom stayed outside the interview room.
Melissa, now that she was finally out, was ready to do anything we asked, and then some. The FBI had questioned her nearly to death, trying to establish that she was either kidnapped, a hostage, or both. Melissa kept telling them that she’d gone in of her own free will, and had come out as soon as it struck her that it was time to leave. Any shots fired at her were by Herman wanting to shoot a defector. Melissa, Hester, and I pretty well agreed that Herman had shot in the air. He really loved his granddaughter, and thought well of Melissa too. Well, that’s what she said, and we didn’t have any reason to doubt her.
‘‘There were three other men in the house with us, at least until I left. After that I don’t know.’’
‘‘Sure.’’
‘‘One,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘was Bob Nuhering, the neighbor from down toward the river?’’
‘‘Sure,’’ I said. I knew who he was.
‘‘The other two,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘were from Wisconsin. One is a big man, about fifty, really fit, crew cut. Wore camouflage clothes, with boots and a hat. They called him Gabe, although,’’ she said very confidentially, ‘‘I don’t think that was his real name.’’
‘‘Why?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘You know,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘I don’t know, you know?’’ She thought for a second. ‘‘Just the way everybody said ‘Gabe,’ you know?’’
‘‘I think I do,’’ said Hester.
‘‘And the other one?’’ I asked.
‘‘He was with Gabe. Came with him, I mean. Dressed the same way, except he had a white tee shirt under his cammo stuff, and Gabe was pretty disgusted, you know, because he could see the white a mile off.’’
‘‘Yep.’’
‘‘And he was called Al, or Albert, and I think that was his real name, ’cause I didn’t get any feeling about it not being his real name . . .’’
‘‘Okay,’’ I said.
‘‘Both of them had attack guns, you know?’’
‘‘Assault rifles?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Yeah. That’s right.’’
‘‘So,’’ I asked, ‘‘what did everybody think about Gabe and Al?’’
‘‘Like, do you mean respect and like that?’’
‘‘That’s just what I mean.’’
‘‘Oh, Gabe,’’ she said, with her voice showing disrespect just the way a fourteen-year-old would, ‘‘was like God, you know? I mean, anything he just even said, they just ate it up . . .’’
As it turned out, Gabe was a real leader in that group. He was the one who had everybody but Melissa convinced that they should die for the cause. Whatever the cause was, and Melissa wasn’t too clear about that. Herman was a true believer, and so was his son. Nola had seemed a bit reluctant for others, particularly her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, to die for a cause. She’d helped Melissa out the door, in fact. But Nola was apparently determined to stay. Mostly with Gabe, according to Melissa.
‘‘I think they’ve got the hots for each other,’’ said Melissa.
‘‘Who?’’
‘‘Nola and Gabe.’’
My. She’d formed this opinion by the way they’d exchanged looks, by the way they talked to each other, and by little considerations they’d apparently shown each other. Herman, as far as she could
tell, had been pretty much oblivious to the Nola and Gabe thing.
‘‘He’s got the hots for Gabe in another way,’’ said Melissa. ‘‘Thinks he’s just about God, or something.’’
Melissa said that they were also talking to people on the outside all the time.
‘‘How did they do that?’’ I asked. ‘‘We shut the phone lines off right away.’’
Gabe, it turned out, had attached the modem of the Stritch computer to a cell phone. Of course. He was receiving messages from people all the time he was there. And apparently sending them as well.
‘‘What kind of stuff did he do on the computer?’’ I asked.
‘‘I don’t know. I mean, like, they never let me see what it was. But he’d do stuff on it, and then he’d talk to us about the ‘mission.’ ’’
‘‘The mission?’’ asked Hester. ‘‘What mission?’’
Melissa had no idea whatsoever what the mission was. But it had to be important, because everybody listened up when the mission was brought up.
‘‘Had you ever heard of the mission before?’’
‘‘Yes, sir, Mr. Houseman. I sure did.’’
‘‘And had you ever seen Gabe before?’’ interjected Hester, before Melissa could start talking and lose her train of thought.
She had. Once. At Herman’s place. About the second week of June. He’d been getting into his car when she had driven up in her pickup, bringing used tires to Herman’s place. He’d been in a blue Ford, pretty new, and had a woman with him. He was dressed in blue jeans and a white shirt, but she was sure it was the same man. She’d been told he sold insurance, when she’d asked her mother-in-law, Nola Stritch.
‘‘And the mission?’’
‘‘Oh, yeah.’’
She’d first heard about the mission in May or early June, and that from her husband, Bill. He and his dad had been over at Melissa’s, and she’d heard them talking about a mission that was coming up. They’d seemed pretty excited about it. In fact, they’d been talking mission a lot when the two killings took place in the park. She was sure of that.
‘‘And Bill was there, but he didn’t shoot? Like you told us early yesterday morning?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘That’s right.’’
‘‘What about Gabe?’’ I asked.
‘‘He was there, as far as I know,’’ she said. ‘‘When Bill finally told me what had happened, I remember him saying that the colonel was really pissed.’’ Her eyes widened. ‘‘Did I tell you they called him the colonel, too?’’
‘‘No, you didn’t,’’ said Hester.
‘‘Oh, yeah, and he was really fit to be tied, according to Bill.’’
I’ll just bet he was, I thought. ‘‘He say why?’’ I asked her.
‘‘I don’t know about the details,’’ she said, ‘‘so much as he called it a ‘cluster fuck.’ I know he called it that.’’
Without a blush. I don’t think either Hester or Sally, for example, could have used the phrase ‘‘cluster fuck’’ in front of near-strangers. At least, not without showing some reaction. Not Melissa.
‘‘And,’’ she continued, ‘‘he said it was going to get a lot of attention that they didn’t want. At least, that’s what Bill said he’d said.’’
‘‘Any reason to doubt Bill?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘No.’’
We talked some more about Bill then. He didn’t really get going too much on the ‘‘political shit,’’ as he apparently called it. He did spend a lot of time shopping for guns, buying one once in a while, and talking with others who did the same thing. He’d clean the guns, and sometimes shoot one or two of them, after he was done with his farm work for the day. She and Bill had argued once or twice over the costs, but her objections had ceased when she found out that Herman was footing the bill for most of the guns and ammo. Also, by that time in their relationship, she didn’t seem to mind it too much when Bill was gone for a while. She didn’t go into many details, but I got the impression it really wasn’t something major that came between them. It had been just the usual little resentments, with the slights, and the lack of real signs of affection. Distance. Marriage, with a child a little sooner than they were ready for. She did say, however, that she felt that Bill was nailed to the farm. That was a little strange, as he was farming mostly grain and a few hogs. Not nearly as tied down as, for instance, a dairy farmer. That struck me.
The interview was pretty routine at that point. Then she mentioned the meetings.
‘‘And we always had to go to these meetings, you know.’’
‘‘Meetings?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Oh, yeah. All over, and even whole weekends shot. He wanted me to go, at least to some of ’em. But they were so damned dull . . .’’
‘‘Where were these meetings?’’ began Hester. She had to start somewhere.
They really were all over, as Melissa had said. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri . . . all around Iowa. Of course, there were meetings in Iowa too. For the weekend ones, they’d stay with relatives or friends or at a motel, whichever was possible. Some others had campers and stayed in them. Some meetings were attended by as few as ten people. Some by as many as two to three hundred. When asked, she said that if she had to put an average figure out, she’d go for twenty-five to forty. Once they just met in a park. Other times in rented halls and buildings, ranging from sales barns to motel conference rooms. The types of people seldom changed, nor did the food.
‘‘They always had the same handouts. Always the same shit, you know. I mean, the small parts would change, like the names of the people who were getting screwed, and the examples. But it was always really the same thing.’’
‘‘Like a theme?’’ I asked.
‘‘Yeah,’’ she said. ‘‘Like that. Like with the black helicopters and stuff. Same theme.’’
‘‘They were into the black choppers too?’’
‘‘Oh, yeah. Some people saw black helicopters just about every day, or so they said. They think it’s some foreign government, I guess, spying on ’em.’’
‘‘That’s what they said they were?’’ I asked.
‘‘Yeah. But you were supposed to know, you know? They’d just say ‘black’ and you’d just nod, like ‘oh, yeah, I know.’ It was weird. I mean, some of the nicest people, even the old women, would get goin’ on that.’’
‘‘Okay . . .’’ I glanced at Hester. ‘‘Sort of like they were talking about the weather?’’
‘‘Oh, no. They get, like, really excited about that black shit . . .’’
Being bored, she hadn’t paid too much attention to the names of the people who seemed to be in charge of the particular meetings, or the ones with the handouts. Except for one, whom she got to know because he ate with the Stritch contingent many, many times. Wilford Jeschonek. From Minnesota, as far as she knew. He was a lawyer. He’d told her so.
‘‘Oh, yeah, he was givin’ Herman all this advice about how to invest and such.’’
‘‘Investments?’’ asked Hester. ‘‘And did Herman give him any money?’’
‘‘Sure. He sold the third farm. Remember?’’ She was asking me. And I did. It had made the local paper, because Herman had claimed he was being forced off the farm by the Federal Land Bank people. It hadn’t been true, he just owed them money. A lot less than he got for the farm, if I remembered correctly.
‘‘After the sale, he borrowed all he could on the other two farms, and then he bought a lot of . . . oh, what do you call those things?’’
I spread my hands, palms up. ‘‘A little more specific?’’ I grinned.
‘‘Yeah,’’ said Melissa, grinning back. ‘‘Like, when you buy part of something, that a lot of other people bought too . . .’’
‘‘Shares?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Yeah, that’s it! Shares. Shares in a whole bunch of gold kept in some foreign country . . .’’
‘‘And then,’’ I asked her, ‘‘he would get certificates s
aying that he owned so much gold in such and such a bank in South America? That he could redeem it in fifteen years for ten times the face value?’’
‘‘That’s right . . . how did you know about that?’’
‘‘Been lots of fraud cases like that, Melissa. Lots.’’
‘‘Fraud? You mean it isn’t true?’’
‘‘Nope. The ‘investors’ never see a cent. It just disappears, mainly because there isn’t any gold in the first place.’’
I noticed the beginning of the stricken look just a little too late to soften the blow.
‘‘Melissa, you and Bill didn’t . . .’’
Her face was blotchy red, and she was very near tears. ‘‘Yeah, we did. Just about everything we made on the farm.’’ She took a deep breath and gestured at her clothes. ‘‘That’s why I dress like this . . . why we have a piece of shit pickup . . .’’
‘‘I’m sorry, Melissa. I didn’t know.’’
‘‘That fuckin’ Herman!’’
I had to agree with that. Not only had he shot at her, he’d managed to get all her money flushed down a toilet, along with his own. If she’d been sticking it out thinking of a possible inheritance from both farms . . .
We had to give her a long break with her mother before we could get the interview back on track. While she was outside, I called Sally, checking where our favorite FBI agent was. On his way to Maitland, as a matter of fact. With a bunch of ‘‘material.’’ Excellent. I wanted him to talk with Melissa, especially about the financial stuff. He was much more familiar with that sort of thing than either Hester or I were, and I felt that she might be able to put him on the track of another major fraud case.
I went back out to get Melissa, and her mother didn’t look one bit happier than her daughter, but a bit more aggressive about it. I had the impression that there’d just been a discussion about how Mom had never approved of Bill in the first place. Glad I missed that one.
Melissa, as it happened, had a lot of her and Bill’s investment information at home. Company names, addresses, etc. She also had a little bomb to drop.
‘‘I was just thinkin’, Mr. Houseman. At those meetings. Some people said that we should raise marijuana, and sell it to the dopeheads, and make lots of money. Said, ‘Why let them spend their cash on foreign dope. We need the money.’ ’’
Known Dead Page 21
