‘‘Sure you do,’’ I said. ‘‘It happened just before you ran out the back door with Gabe and into the cornfield. Just after you got the e-mail message from Bravo6 telling you to kill him.’’
Wittman, who I’d thought was pale anyway, went ghostly white on us and started to tremble. Volont gave me a very strange look. We hadn’t told him about Bravo6, I guess.
Wittman’s attorney, who’d been rather stunned by it all, saw the condition of his client and said, ‘‘Well, I think it’s about time we terminated this interview.’’
Wittman shook his head. ‘‘Just give me a second,’’ he said. ‘‘Just a second.’’
We did.
He apparently realized that his attorney wasn’t going to be of much use. ‘‘So, what?’’ he asked. ‘‘What charges can I get out of if I talk to you?’’
‘‘I can’t promise anything,’’ I said, truthfully. ‘‘All I can do is recommend to the prosecuting attorney.’’ That always sounds so weak. But it’s true. ‘‘I am saying this in front of your attorney . . . I will try to get you some benefit on the charges of conspiracy to commit murder, unless you’re the shooter. If you’re the shooter. I’ll recommend that you get the maximum sentence, no matter what you say now.’’
‘‘I have,’’ said Volont, ‘‘permission from the U.S. Attorney’s office to offer you basically what was offered you several years ago. You remember what that was?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ said Wittman.
‘‘And what was that?’’ asked his attorney.
‘‘Basically,’’ said Volont coolly, ‘‘we offer to cut seventyfive percent off his sentence. If he hesitates for more than an hour, he only gets fifty percent off. We have to wait till tomorrow, and he gets twenty-five percent off. After that, no deals at all.’’
‘‘I don’t know that that’s advisable,’’ said the attorney.
‘‘If you’d like a moment with your client,’’ said Volont, ‘‘I’m sure he’ll be glad to tell you that we have him by the balls on over fifty separate charges, each of which will earn him thirty years in federal prison.’’ He squinted at the attorney. ‘‘Not Club Fed time. We’ll put him in a maximum-security facility. Very hard time indeed.’’
‘‘True,’’ said Wittman. He was breathing rather hard and sweating profusely. I was beginning to worry about his health. ‘‘I’ve got no problem with either one of them,’’ he said to his attorney. ‘‘I’ve been here before. Not this serious . . . but here.’’
‘‘Well,’’ said his attorney, ‘‘you’re probably the best judge of that.’’
‘‘Could I,’’ said Wittman, ‘‘talk to this federal officer . . . alone?’’
Wittman’s attorney looked at Volont, for God’s sake, as if to see if that would be all right. My, clout does wonders on a good day. Volont just said, ‘‘I think that would be a good idea, if it’s all right with your attorney, of course.’’
An hour later, Volont and Wittman came out of the secure room, and Wittman and his attorney conferred. Volont looked at Hester and me and gave us a tight little smile. ‘‘Gabriel stuff. Don’t ask. But you’ll get what you want.’’
Within forty-five minutes we had a complete statement. Hester and I did the basic interview regarding the events at the Stritch farm.
For our case, this is what he said:
He and Gabe had infiltrated into the Stritch compound about 2A.M. Right past our people. I could believe that. Herman Stritch was a heavy investor in Gabe’s financial and belief system, and Gabe had promised that he’d be there if any of his supporters ever needed him.
Gabe was helping the Stritch family, and Wittman was there because their tactical doctrine required two men, and he also was really good with computers. (He’d been appalled at the security of the Stritch system, and had intended to fix things just before everything went to hell. I didn’t say a word.) Anyway, it turned out that Gabe was the one who wanted to speak to the press. He was the one who asked for only one person, and newspaper, not TV. He wanted to plead the case of the Stritch family and get himself a little publicity at the same time. Wittman was adamant that there had been no violence planned. And when the message came in from Bravo6 about the bomb, Wittman said, Gabe took one look, apparently saw the ‘‘bomb,’’ and shot twice. About two seconds apart. Using the Vaime Mk 2 we’d seen in the basement. He said that Gabe preferred full-power rounds, so the silencer wasn’t effective at all. He also said that Gabe had some of the 7.62 x 51 subsonic rounds with him as well, and had Wittman load those into the rifle when they got into the cornfield. During the flight from the house, Gabe had been carrying one of the H&K G3s. For suppressive fire. That made Hester and me both a little sweaty. It had never occurred to us that there could have been silenced rounds coming from the corn. Gave me the willies.
Wittman had also been with the troops in the woods on the 19th of June, but claimed that he had not fired the shots. I asked him what the training mission was all about, and was told that Volont would handle that. Man can piss me off, even when he’s not there.
I asked Wittman about Johnny Marks.
‘‘Who?’’
I explained, very thoroughly, just who Marks was.
‘‘So what does he have to do with me?’’
I explained that Marks had been murdered, and that we had been told by his killers that it was to atone for the killing of the officer in the woods. I omitted the gory details, just in case he might know something.
You get blank stares for lots of reasons. Boredom. Ignorance. Lack of interest. In this case, it seemed too grounded in utter and complete incomprehension.
‘‘I don’t understand,’’ he said, ‘‘why someone would do that.’’ Complete honesty, as far as I could read him. ‘‘Whoever he was.’’
Damn. There had to be a connection. There had to be. Didn’t there?
We told Volont we were done.
Volont sort of pulled down a ‘‘cone of silence,’’ and talked to Wittman for a while alone again. The attorney didn’t recommend that either, but Wittman said it would be all right.
While they were doing that, Hester and I called George and got him to put our names on the Vaime Mk 2. If there was any chance of a ballistic matchup . . .
It did occur to me that Gabe had been pretty smart having Wittman carry the murder weapon into the cornfield. Like, if we had managed to find them, who would have been holding the ‘‘smoking gun’’? It also occurred to me that Wittman could be lying, but I really didn’t think so. Not the way his nerves had been working him over. Regardless, we still had him on good charges. He was in knowing possession of a murder weapon. He had been present at a murder, and fled to conceal his identity. He had been a co-conspirator with Gabriel in infiltrating police lines and thereby arriving at the scene of the murder-to-be. In other words, a very active co-conspirator all the way around. The murder charge would still stick, so we had a good bargain. Most people think that just talking to the cops is what gets them time off. Not so. Talking in court, under oath, is what counts. We needed to maintain the health of our charges until that time.
Hester and I decided to get back out to the Wittman farm and get our suspect rifle. On the way out, she showed me just how different our perspectives could be.
Idly and as if she thought I was thinking the same thing, she asked, ‘‘How long do you think Wittman’s been working for Volont?’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘I said, ‘How long do you think Wittman’s been snitching for Volont?’ ’’
‘‘I heard what you said. What the hell makes you think he’s working with him?’’
‘‘Oh,’’ she said, ‘‘it’s like when I was working dope. You see that kind of synergistic relationship develop sometimes. Between the doper and the cop who’s got him by the balls. Especially after a long time. They get to, well, sort of read each other.’’
I looked at her as she drove. ‘‘Then, you’re basing this on intuition or something, right?’
’
‘‘Yep. Trust me.’’
‘‘I don’t think so . . .’’
‘‘At Stritch’s, you ducked, Houseman, as soon as you came around the building and saw me hit the dirt. Before you saw the man with the gun. Am I right?’’
‘‘Sure.’’
‘‘You trusted my intuition then, didn’t you?’’
‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘it was more like trusting the fact that you wouldn’t get dirty unless your life was in danger.’’
‘‘Houseman . . .’’
‘‘Right. But, yeah, I did.’’
She grinned. ‘‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’’
We drove in silence for a few seconds.
‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘it’s been a great day anyway. Everything just like clockwork.’’ I leaned back in the seat. ‘‘Yes, by God, just like a clock.’’
Hester winced.
Twenty-three
WE WERE JUST LEAVING the Wittman house with our prize rifle. George, Hester, and I stood out by Hester’s car and talked for a few moments.
‘‘The only thing, George,’’ I said, ‘‘that pissed me off is that Wittman was in the woods with the group that offed Turd and Kellerman. But he didn’t make any deal with us about that. Only Volont.’’
‘‘But you know for sure who killed Rumsford,’’ said George.
‘‘Well, yeah. But just from a co-conspirator, so we also need physical evidence.’’
‘‘Houseman?’’ said Hester.
‘‘Hmm?’’
‘‘Why do you get so negative? You’re probably holding the best physical evidence right there in the bag.’’
The rifle. She was probably right.
‘‘Well . . .’’ I said.
Hester laughed. She turned to George. ‘‘Houseman suffers from postcoital depression. He screws somebody, gets all euphoric, and then gets down about it ten minutes later.’’ She turned back to me. ‘‘You should’ve been an attorney.’’
I placed the rifle in the back seat. It was about four feet long and seemed to weigh about ten pounds. The evidence people had put it in a long, thick, transparent plastic evidence bag, complete with embedded white evidence tag, obviously designed for rifles. Those Feds had everything. If I’d wanted to put a rifle in a plastic bag back in Nation County, I’d have to either get a drop cloth or cut the rifle into small pieces and use a bunch of sandwich bags.
Hester’s phone rang when my head was in the back seat. I jumped, and she reached into the front seat and picked up the call.
‘‘Anyway,’’ said George as I closed the back door, ‘‘it’s been a pretty good day, hasn’t it?’’
‘‘That’s what I was telling Hester on the way out.’’ I glanced into the car and saw her scribbling something down on a note paper. ‘‘I don’t know, now, though . . .’’
‘‘Oh, what the hell,’’ said George, ‘‘it’s late. The day’s over. Go home.’’
Hester hung up the phone and got out of the car. ‘‘That was for you,’’ she said, puzzled.
‘‘Me?’’ The first thing I thought of was that my wife’s mother had died.
‘‘Yeah,’’ said Hester. ‘‘They want you to go to a secure telephone and call them back.’’
‘‘WHO?’’
‘‘Sorry . . . the RCMP.’’
I just looked at her. So did George.
‘‘The Royal Canadian Mounted Police?’’ It was all I could think of.
‘‘You got it. The RCMP, Winnipeg office. Here,’’ she said, handing me the note.
The only secure telephone, as far as I knew, was back at the Homer County jail. That’s where we went, at about 90 mph, with George close behind. Well, he started off close. Hester can drive.
On the way back, Hester only said one thing. ‘‘Do we want Volont to know about this right away?’’
I thought it over. ‘‘I don’t think we need for him to know right away.’’ I thought some more. ‘‘Who called you, the RCMP?’’
‘‘No,’’ she said, ‘‘State Police radio. They got the call.’’
‘‘Then we really don’t tell Volont yet,’’ I said. ‘‘No ‘need to know,’ you know.’’
‘‘Yep,’’ she said, passing an eighteen-wheeler like it was standing still, ‘‘I agree.’’
Deputy Roberts turned his office over to us in a heartbeat. I called the number and was given to a Sergeant Herbert Chang. Not a name I would normally have associated with the RCMP. I was expecting something like McKenna, for example. That was the first little surprise. The second was completely out of left field.
‘‘Do you know a Nancy Mitchell?’’ asked Chang.
‘‘Yes,’’ came out automatically, and I scribbled her name on my pad, turning it so that Hester and George could see it.
‘‘We had a telephone contact with Ms. Mitchell a bit earlier today . . .’’
Nancy had called the RCMP to tell them that she had been at a friend’s funeral and that somebody was trying to kill her. She’d been clear, but sounded very worried. She’d also told them that she was at a particular motel in Winnipeg and that she wanted help right away. Winnipeg PD showed up at the motel within three minutes. Nancy was nowhere to be found. She was registered there, that checked. No signs of a struggle, no signs of any violent acts at all. No sign of her car. Just not there anymore. Typically, there had been a card for her to fill out for her room, which asked for the make and plate number of her car. Just like most of us, she’d not filled it out. Winnipeg cops had gotten her car info from the United States, but it had taken almost an hour. She had given them my name, said she was on an assignment from me, but was so scared she couldn’t remember the name of Nation County. She’d just said Iowa. It had taken a while to locate me. About four hours, in fact.
And could I please give them a little background?
I did. Rumsford’s funeral. A murder investigation. Her role in the whole business. While I was talking, I remembered that Volont had told us that Gabriel had been born in Winnipeg. Son of a bitch. That’s where Rumsford was being buried.
I looked at George, and put my hand over the mouthpiece. ‘‘Better get Volont,’’ I said. He left.
‘‘Sergeant,’’ I said, back on the phone, ‘‘I’ve just sent an FBI agent to get his superior, who’s also in this building. It may take a few moments . . .’’
That was all it took. Volont and George came flying through the door, and Volont just reached out for the phone. I handed it to him.
He identified himself, and asked, very politely, if the sergeant knew a Chief Inspector McGwinn of the Intelligence Section. The sergeant obviously did, and Volont said that McGwinn wouldn’t mind hearing from Volont at all, and would the sergeant please have Chief Inspector McGwinn come in to the office and call Volont at this number? He thanked him, and hung up.
Volont looked at the three of us. He took off his tie, sat in a swivel chair, leaned way back, and said, in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘‘I just know you can tell me all about this.’’
‘‘Most of it anyway,’’ I said.
‘‘So, what have the three of you done now?’’
‘‘Uh,’’ said George, ‘‘try the two of you. Not involved.’’
‘‘Mostly him,’’ said Hester, pointing at me.
‘‘So,’’ I said, ‘‘what ya wanna know?’’
After about three minutes, Volont knew everything we did.
‘‘So,’’ he said, ‘‘you think it’s reasonable to assume that she pushed this Borcherding, this Bravo6 too hard? That he went to the funeral in Canada, in Winnipeg, and he was going after her?’’
‘‘Sounds reasonable,’’ I said.
‘‘I suppose it does,’’ said Volont. ‘‘Except for the fact that Mr. Borcherding is in custody at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids.’’
Well, you could have knocked us over with a feather, as they say.
Volont told us that the ‘‘fire’’ at the Linn County jai
l in Cedar Rapids, the one that our helicopter had to go back for, wasn’t so much a fire as an explosion. The Linn County sheriff and the CRPD had originally thought it was a botched attempt to free somebody, by blowing a hole through the wall. Well, what would you think? After the smoke cleared, and the prisoners were all secured at a gymnasium, and the police could get into that area of the jail, they discovered that the explosive had been delivered by a rocket. The Fire Department had also responded to a car fire fairly close to the jail, but had thought it was associated with the explosion. It sort of was. The rocket launcher had been fired from the car. The car was owned by one Gregory Francis Borcherding. One Gregory Francis Borcherding had been admitted to the emergency room at St. Luke’s about fifteen minutes after the explosion. He’d walked in, with some pretty bad burns. The cops went over to St. Luke’s, just to see if they could help.
‘‘Too dumb to live, as they say,’’ said Volont. ‘‘Fired the damn thing from the front seat. Lucky it didn’t kill him.’’
Apparently the backblast from the LAW rocket had taken out the car window behind it, and most of the blast had vented that way. Most. Enough had remained to light off the inside of the car and burn the back of Borcherding’s clothing off.
‘‘To bust out Herman Stritch?’’ I asked. ‘‘How in the hell did he think . . . ?’’
Volont held up his hand. ‘‘Cops found out he wasn’t trying to bust anybody out,’’ he said. ‘‘He thought he knew where they were. He was trying to kill them.’’
‘‘You gotta be kidding,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Why would he want to do that?’’
‘‘Well,’’ said Volont, ‘‘I imagine he was already feeling the effects of the morphine when the cops spoke with him. He claimed that Mrs. Stritch had told him that Herman was talking to the Feds.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘No way he could have spoken with Nola Stritch.’’
Those of us who knew better got a little pale. The bogus message we’d sent via e-mail could count as having ‘‘talked to Mrs. Stritch.’’ Yeah, it sure could.
‘‘People actually hallucinate on morphine, don’t they?’’ said Hester.
Known Dead Page 31
