It's always amazed me how thieves and burglars tend to go home. I've never had one take off for parts unknown to me, at least not one who lived in Nation County. Itinerants didn't count, nor did the traveling pros. I was pretty certain we'd find Toby at home.
When we pulled up, Huck and Melissa were standing over a bonfire of burning leaves a little distance from the house. From the absence of the numerous piles Melissa'd raked when we'd been there before, it looked like they were just finishing up the yard work.
We got out of the car, and I waved. They didn't wave back, but Huck started over toward us, pulling off her gloves and stuffing them in the pockets of her hooded gray sweatshirt.
“Surprised to see you two,” she said.
“Surprised to be here,” I answered. “Where's Toby?”
“Toby? Uh, inside, I think. He was in the kitchen a minute ago. Eating.”
“Thanks,” said Hester. “Want me to give you a second?”
“Yep,” I said. “About five, then go.” I headed at a quick walk around the right side of the house, toward the back door at the kitchen, where Toby had exited before. Huck looked confused, and started to follow me. Hester went straight for the front door.
As I passed Melissa, she said, “What are you doing?”
A reasonable question, considering. I held my finger to my lips. “Shhh, you should see in a second or two,” I said. “Just both of you stay back.” I continued, stooping so I wouldn't be seen from the interior as I was passing the windows on the south side of the house, and reached back under my jacket and pulled out my gun.
I noticed that Huck stopped at that, and that Melissa moved closer to her.
I reached the back door, just as I heard Hester's muffled voice say, “Toby, you're under arrest!”
The back door flew open, I raised my gun up at arm's length, and greeted the emerging Toby with “Freeze!”
He stopped so fast, he slipped on about the third step, lost his balance and fell over backward, grabbed for the rail, missed that, and slid down toward me like a little log in a chute. It all happened in the blink of an eye, and he was as shocked as anybody I've ever seen. He looked up at me, open mouthed, and tried to speak, but only managed to make a wheezing sound, while looking cross-eyed into the muzzle of my pistol.
Hester appeared at the top of the steps, also gun in hand.
“You were right,” she said. “Predictable.” She nodded toward him. “Check him, I think he has a knife on his hip, and then check out the hands,” she said.
I reached down, fumbled for a second, and pulled a folding Case knife from the sheath on his left side. I put it in my pocket, and looked at his hands. Band-Aids on three fingers of his right hand. Well, well. They were multicolored and had some sort of printing on them. I looked closer. “Buzz Lightyear?” I said. “Cool. What'd you cut your fingers on, Toby?”
Silence.
I glanced at his feet. Tennis shoes. Good so far. “Hold up your foot,” I said. He looked at me strangely, but did. The same pattern that I'd seen in the alley.
“Get up to your knees,” I said, “turn around so that you face the steps, and put your hands over your head.”
He did, still not speaking.
I put my gun in its holster, and pulled my handcuffs out of my back pocket. I took his left hand by the wrist, snapping the handcuff on, and pulled it down and to his rear. I grabbed his other hand, and brought it close enough to the other to slip a cuff on that one, too. I put one hand on his arm, and pulled him to his feet.
“You're under arrest, like she said,” I told him.
He spoke for the first time. “For what?”
The universal answer to my statement. “Burglary,” I said.
He then inserted his foot into his mouth. “I didn't steal anything,” he said.
I turned him around. “You have the right to remain silent… ”
“It must have been the old hag,” he said, swallowing his foot with that one. His attorney would probably call that a “statement against interest.” But old Toby apparently felt compelled to speak, no matter what. That's a fine trait in a suspect.
We took Toby directly to my car, past the astonished Huck and Melissa, and put him in the backseat.
“Watch your head, Toby,” I said, and shut the door. Hester motioned toward the porch. The four remaining residents were all standing on the porch, looking down on us.
“And then,” said Hester, sotto voce, “there were four.” She motioned me up toward the front of the car, and well out of Toby's possible hearing. “I don't know how to ask this,” she said, “so I might as well come right to the point. Are you sure we had a burglary? I was thinking about that when I confronted Toby in the kitchen just now. Doesn't the code say you have to unlawfully enter a premises, with 'the intent to commit a felony, theft, or assault'? For a burglary… ”
“Hmm.” She was right in her quote, of course. It was felony, theft, or assault. The question being, was mutilating a corpse a felony? “Well, we may have just made a very strong trespassing arrest,” I said. “Very strong.”
“I mean,” she said, “sticking a stake in a corpse damned well should be a felony, but I don't know if it is.”
“It may not even be illegal,” I said. “It may never have been considered in Iowa before this.” I don't mind being near the leading edge, but I dearly hate breaking new ground. But, realistically, how many times could it have come up in Iowa before today? I knew it was illegal to exhume, but poor Edie wasn't even buried yet.
“This could be another very long day,” I said.
“Where are you taking him?” came a loud voice from the porch. It may have been Melissa, but by the time I looked, I couldn't tell.
“Jail,” I said, as loudly. Just to be polite.
“Tell him,” said Kevin, “that we'll call his attorney.”
Hardly necessary, at that point. Veiled threat?
“Will do,” I called back, got into the car, buckled up while Hester leaned back and buckled Toby in, and we were off.
I picked up the mike. “Comm, Three.”
“Three, go.”
“PBX One, advise him we have a suspect in custody, and are ten-seventy-six the jail.” I'd told Lamar I'd let him know right away.
“Ten-four, Three. He's called twice, and will have your assistant go with the seventy-nine to the location.”
Now, that might have sounded kind of cryptic to the normal person, but anybody with any savvy now knew that a coroner or medical examiner was going to a scene, that the boss had called twice, and that my assistant was being called out. I had to admit, though, that even I was thrown by the last bit. I didn't have an assistant.
“Uhh, Comm, Three?”
“Three?”
“Ah, who's my assistant this week?” As soon as I said it, I knew she had meant Borman.
“Eight.”
Borman, all right. Well, we'd see if this examination of a mutilated corpse would get his act on track.
“Ten-four, Comm.”
Toby was quiet for about the first quarter mile, and I was starting to get worried. As it turned out, I shouldn't have been concerned. His tendency to talk overcame all caution.
“It had to be done,” he said.
“Toby,” said Hester, “let's not discuss it. You've been advised of your rights, and we'd feel a lot better if you waited until you had an attorney present.”
That was partially true. Sure, we'd like Toby to rattle on, but we had the old problem that, even if he said he waived his rights to the attorney, we could lose a suppression hearing later. If that happened, everything he said, and everything we'd found out based on that, could be ruled inadmissible. It happened just often enough to make us very leery about questions without attorneys there. I mean, we knew we'd be right, but that sometimes did very little good in court. There, it came down to the briefing and arguing abilities of two attorneys. We would have nothing at all to say about that. This was, well, safer, I guess.
&nb
sp; It was also pretty damned prudent, because the more I searched my memory, the more convinced I became that there was no statute on the Iowa books about mutilating corpses.
Toby, thwarted in his first attempt to enlighten us, switched to philosophy.
“It doesn't make any difference, anyway,” he said. He fidgeted.
I glanced at Hester, who was half turned in the front seat, to keep an eye on Toby since we had no cage in an unmarked car, gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Keep quiet, Carl.
I did, and so did she. That bothered Toby, who began to tap his feet against the back of her seat.
“Well, it doesn't, does it? Make any difference. I can't make any difference. You can't make any difference.” He couldn't quit.
Hester and I, being in the process of making a difference in Toby's life, said nothing.
“Oh, fuck you two.”
I grinned. I just couldn't help it. The tapping of his feet got more intense.
“What's so funny, cop?” He did try. He sort of had to, I guess.
Hester said, pointedly to me, “Well, most of the leaves are off the trees, now, aren't they.”
“Yep,” I answered. “Sure are. Ought to slow the tourist trade a little.”
“Ought to slow the tourist trade,” said Toby, mockingly.
“Especially,” said Hester, “if it rains again tomorrow like they say it will.”
“Are you fuckers stupid or what?” Toby was getting a bit angry, which is not what we wanted. Without a cage, we'd have to stop and restrain him if he started thrashing about in the rear, and he could get hurt. So could we, but it was a lot less likely.
“Nope,” I said. “Not stupid, Toby, just not particularly interested. That's all.”
“Just not particularly interested,” came the mocking reply. “I staked the bitch, and you tell me you're not interested? Bullshit you're not interested!”
I glanced at Hester. “Just irrepressible, isn't he?” But I was also beginning to think he was a little high.
She smiled. She held out her personal tape recorder, down low in the seat, where Toby couldn't see it.
“We said we'd prefer not to hear about that, Toby,” said Hester, “until your attorney can be present.”
“Attorneys,” proclaimed Toby, “don't know shit.” His voice was lowering, though. He just wanted to talk, and didn't care to whom. The foot tapping ceased.
“Most don't,” I agreed, grinning in the knowledge that his attorney would likely hear this tape, “but you might get lucky and get a smart one.”
He seemed to think that over for several seconds.
“I doubt it.” He sounded a little sullen. “Hey, I'm not mad at you guys,” said Toby. “Really.”
“We know that, Toby,” I said. “Never thought you were.” Big mood and attitude swing there. Toby was on something. No doubt.
“I been under a lot of pressure,” he said.
“Things do have a way of piling up on somebody,” said Hester.
“You got that shit right,” said Toby. “What do you do, if somebody who's gotta be obeyed tells you to do something, right? What do you do?” His voice was becoming agitated again. “I'll tell what you do,” he said. There was a pause, and then he said, in a more moderate tone, “You fuckin' do it, because you fuckin' better do it, you know?”
“Depends on who it is,” I said, “but we all have to get in line once in a while.”
“When it's Dan Peale, you do,” he said.
I was glad we'd just gotten onto a paved road, otherwise I might have gone in the ditch. You don't get a gift like that every day.
TWENTY-FIVE
Tuesday, October 10, 2000
11:55
The first thing I'd done when we got to the jail was start the call to the county attorney. Now that we had Toby in our clutches, and in a talkative state, I wanted to keep him as long as I could.
The first conversation with our county attorney had been very brief.
“I'm sorry, he's with a client now,” said his secretary.
“Tell him, Darlene, that this is really important. Really. I need to talk with him in five minutes or less. Something's happened that he's gotta know about.”
In about ten minutes, he called back.
“What's so important, Carl?”
“We need some fast research,” I said. “I've got to know what to charge somebody with who broke into a funeral home, and drove a stake through the chest of a corpse.”
There was a pause. “You're kidding?”
“Nope. I've got the dude in custody, but I gotta have a good charge, and quick.”
“You've gotta be kidding?”
“No, Mike, I'm not.”
“What's wrong with burglary? Just plain burglary, Carl.”
I reached behind me, and pulled one of the volumes of the 1999 Code of Iowa off the shelf. “Got your code handy?” I asked. I was going to have to work with him on this, and I really resented the time.
“Sure.”
“Okay, under 713.1… the burglary statute… got it?”
“Yes.”
I read it to him. The pertinent part was “Any person, having the intent to commit a felony, assault or theft therein… ”
“So?” he said.
“Well, he didn't steal anything, and since you can't assault the dead, he has to have intended to commit a felony, right?”
“Yes. Sure.”
“Well, is it a felony to mutilate a corpse? We gotta know, Mike.”
“I'm sure it is,” he said, and I could hear pages flipping in the background.
“Here it is,” he said. “Chapter 709.18. Abuse of a corpse. Right here.”
I flipped my pages. It said, “A person commits abuse of a human corpse if the person knowingly and intentionally engages in a sex act, as defined in section 702.17, with a human corpse. Abuse of a human corpse is a class D felony.”
We were both silent, as we read it. “It wasn't exactly a sex act, Mike.”
Naturally, he had us both turn to 702.17, which defined sex acts. They all included the word “genitalia.” No go, and I told him so.
I could tell he was getting worried, too. Just about everything else regarding dead human bodies had to do with licensing funeral directors, medical examiners, and the paperwork required when one came into possession of a corpse. It was too bad Edie hadn't been buried, because if she had, and she'd been exhumed by the suspect, it would have been an aggravated misdemeanor. But, of course, she wasn't in the ground yet.
“Wait, Carl… Just a second… ”
“Mike, the only statute that covers it is the trespass section.”
“Wait, let's check 716, criminal mischief… ”
We did. Criminal mischief required damage to “tangible property.”
“I don't think a corpse is 'tangible property,' I'm afraid, Carl. I'll look, though.”
I had to agree with that. “Yeah, when was the last time you saw a price tag on a corpse?” I flipped the page. “Yep. Right. So, look at 716, trespass. That fits.”
It did, too. Under 716.7.2(a). Very specific. “Entering upon or in property without the express permission of the owner, lessee, or person in lawful possession with the intent to commit a public offense, to use, remove therefrom, alter, damage, harass, or place thereon or therein anything animate or inanimate… ”
That covered it. Edie was definitely “inanimate,” all right. And she'd been both “altered” and “damaged.” By something that had been “placed” there by hammering it into her chest. Unfortunately, trespass was a simple misdemeanor. That meant a hundred-dollar fine, maximum. Burglary charges required a felony.
That's when Mike, bless him, finally earned his keep. Sort of.
“Wait a minute, Carl, wait a minute… look under the 'hate crime' provision, down in 716.8. See, it says that if there's the intent to commit a hate crime, the penalty goes up to a serious misdemeanor.”
Wow. A whole five-hundred-dollar fine. Still two
steps away from a felony, but we'd made some progress, at least.
“Hate crime?”
“Well, won't the relatives be offended, on, well religious grounds, Carl?”
I gotta admit that would never have occurred to me.
I would have just been very, very angry, religion aside.
“So, what do I hold him on, then?”
“Uh, well, a serious misdemeanor, I guess,” he said, “at least for now.”
At least for now. What did he think, that Toby was going to commit some more serious crime while he was in jail? A serious misdemeanor would keep him just long enough to do the paperwork, if we were lucky.
“It's gonna have to do,” I said. And if the bond were typically reduced to ten percent of the fine, he was going to walk on a fifty-dollar deposit. Great.
I got back to Hester, who was baby-sitting Toby in my office. No real point in beginning the process that would book him into jail, at least not if he was still talking, and there wasn't a really good reason to distract him with a lot of jail-related questions.
“How we comin' for an attorney for him?” I asked.
“Attorney Junkel called,” said Hester. “He's on his way down. Wanted to know what he was being charged with.”
“And?”
“I told him the charges were still being determined.” She looked at Toby, who was listening closely. “He told Toby not to talk about the case with us until he got here.”
Expected, as any good attorney would say that. Toby, unfortunately, simply had to talk, and about anything that came into his head, I guess. Talk, talk, talk. And bouncing his feet. Still handcuffed, he looked pretty disheveled, because his hair was falling down over one eye, and he couldn't reach out and push it back. Consequently, he kept tossing his head, to clear his field of vision. I was thinking in terms of crystal meth or ecstasy. I didn't want to ask him, though, because it might lead to a charge, which his attorney would use to discount what he'd said.
“Nothing can be done, anyway,” said Toby.
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