Code 61 ch-4

by Donald Harstad

  It was a nice release. They'd done a nice job. Predictably, as soon as she'd finished the last sentence, the assembled reporters all started asking the vampire question. Hester held up her hand. “There has been a rumor started that there is somehow an involvement of a so-called vampire in this case.” She drew a deep breath. “Vampires are mythical creatures. Period.” She produced a great, open, honest smile. “Any suspect or suspects in this case would be human beings,” she said, in a calm, clear voice, “and would be treated as such. You can count on that.”

  “So, who are you looking for with all these people?” the Dubuque TV reporter asked.

  I found myself just as curious about her answer as the media.

  “We have a possible suspect, who may be in this vicinity. We are checking to see if our information is correct.”

  Cool. I almost clapped.

  “Is it true that this suspect has been shot?” I peered into the group, but with the TV lights and the light rain, I couldn't see who was talking.

  “Nobody has been shot,” said Hester. Too true.

  “We were told that a person had been shot, and had fled into the woods.” I moved a step or two to my right, and looked hard into the assembled media people. It appeared as if the La Crosse TV reporter was the one doing the talking. As my eyes moved over the group of media people, I recognized William Chester standing near the La Crosse SUV. I suspected I'd identified their source, although where he had gotten his information was beyond me.

  “No one was shot and then fled into the woods,” she said.

  She tried to forestall further questions by saying, “The law expressly does not allow the release of more information at this time. The sole reason we chose to respond to the first question was to put an unfounded and kind of silly rumor to rest. We are allowed to do that under departmental procedure.” The smile again. “We're encouraged to do that, in fact.”

  There was a barrage of questions, many containing the “V” word. One actually asked if the vampire had drained the blood from the victim.

  “I'm really sorry, but I can't say more at this time. We'll keep you posted on the critical steps in the case. Thank you.” She and Lamar turned, and began to walk back into the house.

  Hester should have gotten some flowers for her performance.

  “Is the dead girl any relation to you, Sheriff?”

  Lamar stopped, and stood for a second, with his back to the cameras. We had a good view of his face, and it was absolutely stony. He turned.

  “Edith Younger was my niece,” he said. “That's why I'm not personally involved in this investigation.”

  He turned, and ignored the hubbub behind him. Then, he did something I'd never seen him do before. As they headed into the Mansion, he held the door for Hester.

  About fifteen minutes later, we had all the arrangements made to secure the house pending the return of the owner, and the search warrant team was going to head in for the night. The area searchers were still out there, but it was beginning to look like our quarry had given us the slip.

  “We'll keep at it all night,” said Lamar. “And do a daylight search, too. He's gotta be somewhere.”

  “Hey, Lamar,” said Hester. “You puttin' everybody on double time and a half?”

  “No,” he said gruffly. “They're all just workin' a shift.”

  “Not since midnight,” said Hester. “Happy Columbus Day!”

  Lamar looked at her. “Well, shit.”

  Columbus Day be damned, Lamar decided to leave three officers in the woods, with orders to search until 9 A.M. They'd be relieved, and the next trio would search until four o'clock.

  “I'm not sure he's gone far,” said Lamar. “Somethin's not right.”

  It was hard to fault that reasoning. Besides, we'd had a little bit of luck come our way. When you do an application for a search warrant, you have to describe the property to be searched with exceptional accuracy. According to the Platt maps, the area surrounding the Mansion was owned by the State of Iowa, as part of the adjacent wildlife refuge along the Mississippi. The demarcation between the Hunley property and the state land was the woods, naturally enough. That meant that we were searching on state land. There was no permission required from the Hunley people in order for us to tramp through the woods all day and night.

  Before we left, Hester and I decided that we'd better get an interview in with Hunley and Ostransky fairly early tomorrow, and see just what they could tell us about Peel, vampires, and the kinky stuff on the third floor.

  We pulled right past the reporters, who were caught, as usual, completely flat-footed. We were headed down the drive before any of them had a good chance to get a photo.

  Just as we reached the end of the lane, and were stopping before entering the main road, I saw some blue out of the corner of my eye. I slammed on the brakes, just about causing the lab van to rear-end me. I opened my door, took off my seat belt, and started into the overgrown area on the right.

  “You see him? Have you found him?” came from Chris.

  “What? Oh, no, no, but you better come, too. We forgot something.” What I'd forgotten, and what had bothered me while we were still up on the third floor, was sitting just off the driveway. The garbage. In the big, blue container. Of course.

  We made an executive decision, seeing as how all the contents of the big steel box were in several black garbage bags. Just take the bags, list them on an amendment to the inventory sheet before we left the property, take a copy back to the house, and just haul the bags down to the sheriff's department, and lock them in the evidence room, and go through them tomorrow. Anything we didn't seize, we could just haul back. And, since it was my bright idea, I got to cram all five bags into the backseat of my car.

  The ride home was uneventful, but a little smelly.

  I was less than popular at the office when I put five bags of garbage in the evidence room, and locked the door.

  “That shit's gonna stink up the whole office,” said Deputy Kline, who'd been with the department long enough to know what he was talking about. “I'm gonna have to go out and drive around, for Christ's sake.”

  “Imagine that.” I dropped my notes on my desk, and fumbled for the key.

  “You find the guy you're lookin' for?” he asked. He'd been assigned as the general duty deputy for the night, and was the only one not up at the Mansion. He was actually in the office because it was centrally located, and it made more sense for the only one on duty to be there than anywhere else.

  “Nope,” I said, inserting the key and opening my drawer. I shoved my notes in, took my undeveloped film from my pocket, and put that in there, too. “I'm beginning to think he got away,” I said. “Although it must have taken some talent.”

  “For sure,” said Kline. “You got an army up there.”

  “Yeah,” I said, very tired. “That we do.”

  I walked out to Dispatch, and left a hurried note for Borman that we were going to start about 09:00, maybe as late as 10:00, and that he could meet me at the office when I got there.

  When I handed the note to Winifred Bollman, the duty dispatcher, she looked up and said, “Jeez, Carl, you look wiped out.”

  On that note, I called it a night.

  EIGHTEEN

  Monday, October 9, 2000 (Columbus Day)

  08:39

  I woke up about 08:02, to a ringing phone. I answered it, sleepily.

  “Yeah?”

  There was about a one second pause, then, “Hello, my name is General Norman Schwartzkopf, and I'm calling you on behalf of… ”

  I hung up. Iowa was predicted to be a close contest in the upcoming presidential elections, and we were getting a lot of automated phone calls. I turned over, thinking I could get another thirty minutes of sleep. I lay there thinking about that extra sleep for thirteen minutes.

  I rolled out at 08:15, and drank my first cup of coffee in relative peace. Always a good way to begin a day. I'd just missed Sue. Education did not wait for Columbus and
his day. I called the office as I poured my second cup.

  “Houseman? We thought you'd be up here by now.” Sally.

  “Mmm? Who's 'we'?”

  “Hester and me.” She giggled. “Really, we thought you older folks needed less rest.”

  “Thanks, brat. So, anything happening?”

  “I'd better let Hester take that one,” she said, and I found myself on hold. We'd installed hold music about a year earlier. The only good, reliable station we got was a country amp; western FM outfit that played music all day long. Unfortunately, they had an amateur portion during their broadcast day that began at 08:00 and lasted until 10:45.

  “Carl?” Hester's voice interrupted some unfortunate young man's rendition of “Sixteen Tons.” It was sort of too bad, because I'd never really heard somebody so close to being a tenor sing it before.

  “What's up?”

  “You can forget our interview this morning.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Ms. Hunley was called away on urgent business.”

  “You're kidding?” Damn.

  “Nope. Her 'awnt,' ” she said in a pretty good imitation of a downstairs maid, “with whom she resides, was suddenly taken ill.”

  “I'll bet. And she of the iridescent hair went, too?”

  “Oh, yeah. Tatiana had to go with. It's a two-or three-hour drive, you know.” She sounded a little aggravated. “At least, that's what Attorney Junkel said when I called. He said they left really early this morning.”

  “Right.” Well, shit. “Gone to Lake Geneva, then?”

  “You bet. Located on the other side of America's Dairy Land.”

  Eastern Wisconsin put them out of our reach, at least for a while. “Well,” I said, trying to make the best of it, “we can always let you beat up Toby.”

  She laughed at that.

  It occurred to me that, while she might be out of our reach, Jessica Hunley was now within the grasp of one Investigator Harry Ullman, Conception County's best. A silver lining, maybe.

  I'd pretty much decided to spend Columbus Day playing catch-up with the case, anyway. That originally had meant interviewing Jessica Hunley and Tatiana Ostransky, the five remaining residents of the Mansion, and then sorting through all the garbage I'd dumped into the evidence room last night. Since Jessica and Tatiana were gone, I thought I might as well go straight to the garbage, to see just what we had, and then get to the five sometime in the early afternoon. Very early if the garbage search didn't pan out.

  The phone rang again. “Hello?”

  The familiar pause, and then “My name is Senator Tom Harkin, and… ”

  Click.

  I always stayed on just long enough to hear who the recording was. It was becoming a big thing at the post office, kidding each other about what important recording had called. It had kind of a baseball trading-card aspect. “Hey, I got two Colin Powells, but no Jimmy Carters.” “Really? I got a Jimmy and a call from Tipper. Beat that!”

  I got to the office at 09:09, where I met Borman, who was standing at the counter and talking with Sally in Dispatch.

  “Ready to get going?” I asked him.

  “Not really.” He was acting kind of funny, not looking right at me, and obviously pretending to fiddle with some papers on a clipboard.

  “There a problem?” I really hated to ask.

  He didn't say a word. Sally broke the awkward little silence with “He's been suspended for a day.”

  Well, damn. It had to be the warning shots from last night. “With or without pay?” was the first thing I asked. It was important, but not for the money. Without, and he only had one more screwup and Lamar would fire him. With, and he'd be able to erase it with good performance over the next three months.

  “With.” He was honest-to-God petulant. Twenty-five years old, and pouting.

  “Well, that's good,” I said. “Why don't you just go home, and come back in tomorrow like you had a day off?” He'd gotten off pretty easy, I thought, because warning shots were prohibited by department policy.

  “He wants to ask you something first,” said Sally.

  I looked at her. Her tone of voice told me she was at least half on his side, for some reason.

  “Well, go ahead,” I said, remembering in the nick of time not to say “Shoot.”

  “You had to tell Lamar, I suppose,” he said. “Didn't you?”

  Honest. That's what he said.

  “You shouldn't even have to ask that,” I replied. “Of course I did. I was present, I was senior officer, and it was my responsibility and duty to do so. You know that.”

  Silence for a few seconds. Then he asked what I considered the second dumb question in a row. “I don't suppose you could have waited for me to tell him first, then, could you?”

  It wasn't only a dumb question, there was resentment creeping into his voice. If I hadn't liked him I just would have told him to grow up. Instead, he got a bit more than he bargained for.

  I looked at my watch. “Okay. Sit down.” He looked blank. “I said to sit down.”

  He did.

  “Deadly force is justified only to protect your life or that of another, right?”

  “Sure.” He couldn't really say anything else. That was the fact of the matter.

  “And only if there's no other way to accomplish that protection. Right again, no?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “sure. Of course.”

  I looked at Sally. “Since you're carrying a gun as a reserve, you knew that, too, didn't you?” She nodded. She damned well better have.

  “This is for you, too. Sort of a refresher. The most dangerous shot you can fire is a warning shot.” I was warming to my task. “Let me tell you why. Number one: You have absolutely no business discharging your weapon if deadly force is not justified. It can't be justified, because you are making a deliberate effort not to hit the individual. You with me?”

  He nodded, but was beginning to look bored.

  “I'm doing this because I think you have potential, so listen up. Number two: You have no goddamned clue as to where those bullets went, do you?”

  “I shot into the air,” he said.

  “Exactly. Unless they defied gravity, they came down. Do you know where they came down?”

  “No.”

  “Damn right, you don't. In some departments, where they have more people and could afford to have you off for a while, you wouldn't get back off suspension until you produced both rounds for the sheriff's inspection. Did you know that?”

  No, as a matter of fact, he hadn't.

  “Number three: When the bullets stop, if they should because they hit somebody, it damned well isn't anybody who you'd be justified in shooting, is it? We had two reserves in the yard around the other side of the Mansion. What in hell would you have done if one of 'em had come down and hit Old Knockle in the head?” I waited a second. “How about an answer?”

  “I don't think they went in that direction.”

  “You don't think? Well, that's swell. Do you know?”

  “No,” he said, “I don't know, but I know I didn't hit Knockle.”

  “That's really lame,” I said. “But don't let's stop there. Number four: The suspect who got you to pop two warning shots may very well have killed Edie in the preceding twenty-four hours.” I saw he was going to say something, and held up my hand. “No, we're not sure. Just a good bet. At the same damn time, the son of a bitch had just slashed you across the chest with a very sharp object, and would have severely injured you if you didn't wear your vest. Right?”

  “Yes, but that's why we wear 'em.”

  He was starting to piss me off. “Did it ever occur to you,” I said, very slowly and distinctly, “that he was trying to cut your throat, just like he did to Edie? That he just missed because he was in a fucking hurry?”

  He got pretty pale, pretty fast. Obviously, it hadn't occurred to him at all.

  “So, he was still facing you, he cut at you, and you shot in the air. Assume
for a second that you had hit Old Knockle.” I let him think about that for a second. “Can you imagine me telling Lamar that you'd killed Knockle because the man who probably murdered his own niece, and tried to kill you… ” I stopped, and let it sink in. “Now imagine this. Imagine that I'd said to myself, 'Carl, why don't you wait and see if Borman can tell Lamar on his own?' You with me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And Lamar hears about this from somebody else. Before you tell him. Now, wouldn't that look like we were both trying to cover it up?”

  “It might.” He looked up. “Yeah, it would. I'm sorry. You're right, Carl, you had to do it.”

  I turned back to Sally. “You understand this, too?”

  “Oh, yeah. You betcha.” She smiled. “Got it.”

  “Okay, then.” I looked over at Borman. “Go home. Come in tomorrow fresh and ready to go.”

  “You still want me with this investigation?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Of course I do. So does Lamar.” But I made a mental reservation. The sulking, plus the arguing, followed up by the sudden agreement and phony “… you had to do it… ” apology really pissed me off. Insincerity? Maybe. Whatever it was, he'd showed me a side of himself that I hadn't seen before. He'd also had Sally half convinced that he'd been wronged by both me and Lamar. That was a new talent he'd revealed, and one that I didn't want to see again. I still thought he should be on the case, because he knew quite a bit about the thing, and because I still had a good impression of him from before it began. Stress might be a factor, but I was going to be watching him.

  My little stint as wise and fearless leader over for the morning, I collected Hester from the main office, where she was typing a report, and we went right to the evidence locker. Ugh. It did smell, but not as much as I'd feared. My nose told me that the residents at the Mansion had recently thrown out onions, garlic, and some meat.