Code 61 ch-4

by Donald Harstad

  “He used some pliers on Randy Baumhagen, after he was dead. He tore a hole in his neck. Sort of a signature, we think.”

  “That's absurd,” said Jessica. “It's absolutely… ”

  Harry used an old ploy. He looked at Hester. “You agree with me?” he asked.

  “Yes I do,” she said.

  “You, Carl?” he asked.

  “You bet. All the evidence leads there.”

  With that, Harry had established that three of the five people in the room were in agreement. It's surprising how well that can work.

  “Why are you telling us this?” Jessica looked at each of us in turn.

  “Because,” I said, “we think you can tell us where Dan Peale is.”

  It got very quiet in that room. Neither Hester, nor Harry nor I were about to say anything at that point. We wanted Jessica to come across with some information herself, and we wanted to see what it was going to be.

  “If you can't find him”-and she looked quizzically at us-“then what makes you think I can tell you?”

  “To begin with, our information indicates,” I said, “that you know more about him than anybody connected with the Mansion. We've been told about your, uh, relationship with Dan Peale.”

  “Long-term relationship,” said Hester. “You know we were on the third floor. Believe me, we didn't miss a thing.”

  Jessica said, “All right.” Just like that. Tatiana let her cheeks puff out, and let out a long breath. She'd apparently been holding it in.

  Jessica took a quick drink from her water bottle. “He and I have been lovers for years. I admit it freely, although not publicly. You do understand? He's involved in another relationship, and I would not want to embarrass him.”

  “Sure.” I tried to sound encouraging.

  “You must know he's into a bit of blood tasting. Not often, but we both consider it to be an intimacy enhancing act. I would like to keep that private. Many people don't understand that sort of thing.” With that, she graced us with a smile. “Especially my Aunt Bridgett.” She shrugged. “But all that aside, I have only contacted him at his office. I presume he is not there?”

  “You presume right,” I said. Office?

  “That doesn't surprise me,” she said.

  “Why not?” asked Hester.

  “Well, the night he escaped,” she said. “You knew who he was as soon as the shots were ffred. We could hear your officers calling him by name, on the loudspeakers.”

  You know when, in cartoons, the little lightbulb comes on over the character's head? Epiphany city.

  “They did his name over the PA systems in the cars, now that you mention it,” I said. “I heard it myself. We were calling him by name, all right. But at that time, we were spelling it P-E-E-L. Not P-E-A-L-E. We had no idea who he was, then, or where he lived.”

  “Oh?”

  “That's right,” said Hester. “But if he could hear, then he must have thought we had him dead to rights, and that he couldn't go home.”

  “Certainly,” said Jessica. “How very silly of you.”

  Shit, in a word. We'd prevented his running to the only place we were going to know where to look. His home. Silly wasn't the word for it.

  “So,” said Hester, “you don't know where he is?”

  “No,” said Jessica.

  I got mixed signals on that one. Her head was turned more to Hester, so I didn't get a good look at her eyes. Her body was kind of levered up on one hip, and she had her hand on her ankle, pulling toward the center of her back, stretching her quad muscles. No signals or tells from the body language, that was for certain. But her voice was just a tiny bit too high. Strain from lying, or from stretching? I thought from lying.

  Tatiana was just sitting with her legs straight out in front of her, pulling a perfect “L.” I looked at her squarely.

  “What about you?”

  “Me?” She sounded a bit surprised.

  “Yes. Do you know where he is?”

  “No. Why would I?” She answered as she bent forward, pressing her rib cage to the tops of her thighs. She stretched and extended her neck, so that we didn't break eye contact. A difficult read. But the nonchalant “question with a question” told me that she, too, was lying to me. It also told me she wasn't as adept at lying as Jessica. She was the weak link, all right.

  I smiled at her. Flies and honey. “Now, I suppose a really good cop would say something like”-and I lowered my voice-“I dunno, 'Why would you?' Right?”

  “Maybe,” she said, with a hint of a smile.

  “Well, speaking as one of the cops who unintentionally misled our suspect into eluding us, I think I better ask something else instead.”

  “Good idea,” she said, straightening back up into a seated position.

  “So,” I said, “who would you ask if you had to find out where he was?”

  It worked. Her eyes shifted to Jessica for an instant, and then back to me. I don't think she was aware she'd done it, even after it had happened. Jessica was looking directly at me, and I was pretty certain she hadn't noticed it, either.

  “I can't think of anyone.”

  “Okay.” I made a totally bogus check mark on my little notepad.

  Jessica made a large point of pulling a watch out of the bag, and checking the time. “We really have to be getting back to work,” she said. “I can't think of anything I know about this that I haven't told you.”

  “One more question,” said Hester. “Why does Dan Peale pretend to be from London?”

  Jessica handled that one on the fly. “It's an affectation. A charming one. We just play that he is.”

  “Ah. But it's made clear that it's an affectation, then?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But there are a lot of people at the Mansion convinced he's from England,” persisted Hester.

  “And,” said Jessica, “if they choose to believe it… What's the harm? Some people are more naive than others.” She replaced some of their luncheon items in the cupboard under the counter.

  “I'm just making sure in my own mind,” said Hester, “that it isn't a case of the two of you acting together to conceal his real identity.”

  Again, Jessica seemed to be unconcerned. “Well, of course we are. I certainly wouldn't want one of them trying to contact him.”

  She was really good.

  She straightened up. “All this is being treated with the strictest confidence, isn't it?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Won't tell a soul who doesn't need to know,” said Harry.

  “I thought as much,” she replied. “But I'm sure you understand that this little ruse we played to avoid, oh, complications, was just that and nothing more. That's all.”

  “Sure,” I said. Right. I was thinking how tough this woman would be in front of a jury. I thought I'd give her something to think about. “Before we go, could you tell us how to get to the historical society building?”

  “Yes.” She told us.

  “Thanks,” I said. Being so damned self-possessed, she hadn't asked. Because of that, I had to tell her why we were looking for it. “I understand they have blueprints of the old Givens place, from way back. We'd just like to see 'em.” That certainly took the bite out of it.

  “They're fascinating,” she said. “I hope you enjoy them.”

  “And we'll be needing to see you once more,” said Hester. “This evening?”

  “For?”

  “I really hate being melodramatic,” said Hester, “but I can't tell you that until then.”

  Hester had salvaged my objective.

  “Perhaps after supper?” Jessica shrugged. “We have some guests coming late this afternoon. I'd rather not disturb them. It will be brief?”

  “I hope so. Where can we call you?”

  Jessica gave Hester the number of Bridgett Hunley's private line. “After seven,” she said. “I'll answer.”

  After we got back downstairs, and out onto the sidewalk, I nudged Heste
r. “Why the hell did you have to tell her this evening?”

  “I don't know.” She quickened her pace. “But I'm not going to let the woman off the hook that easy. She's lying, and we all know it. She knows where that SOB is, Houseman, and she's gonna tell me if I have to strangle her.”

  “Attagirl,” said Harry.

  “That'd be a sight,” I said. “But I think we might have a good lever in her Aunt Bridgett. It strikes me that Jessica would do just about anything to keep this sort of involvement from her.”

  We still had a card up our sleeves. We hadn't mentioned anything about vampires.

  We walked to the historical society building, and I noted us in at 12:39. In five minutes, we were looking at the blueprint and history of the Mansion.

  In 1903, a vertical shaft had been completed between the silica mine and the top of the hill where the Givens Mansion was located. He owned that mine, and much to my surprise, the tunnel system in 1900 already extended more than a mile and a half along the Mississippi. All they apparently had to do was drop the shaft through about thirty feet of limestone before they got to the silica sand. Piece of cake. We were looking at both plan and elevation diagrams, and it appeared that shaft was vertical, with a simple elevator box, and the machinery at the bottom.

  According to the illustration, the previous tramcar and track that had run down the hill, and that Old Knockle had described to me, had been abandoned. The shaft replaced it. Complete with a small building that looked suspiciously like a shed, which was labeled “upper terminus” on the blueprint. The “lower terminus” was in the mine itself.

  The “upper terminus” was precisely located on the blueprint. It was 112 feet south southeast of the rear door of the Mansion. In the drawing, it was a simple shed kind of structure, with a steeply angled, one-sided roof.

  “I'll be damned,” I said. “The upper portion has to be one of the old foundations, right there with the ones that the German Kommune group built before the Civil War.”

  “That would be those,” said Hester, pointing to a series of dotted lines arranged in rectangles that salted the area.

  “Yeah. Right about in this area here,” I said, pointing with my pen to an area northeast of the Mansion, “is about where we found Toby that night.”

  “If that shaft's still functional… ”

  “Yeah. That's where Peale went after he got past Borman. Damn.” I indicated where Toby had been found. “When Sally and I were headed over here, looking for Toby, something ran past us. Coming from the direction of the 'upper terminus,' back toward the house from us. I'll bet it was Toby that ran by us. I'll bet it was.”

  “Why?” “Beats me, but I bet that little shit was over by the elevator shaft, or goin' in that direction.”

  I looked at the plans on the table. “I wonder how much farther the mine got, before they closed it down. I know it was still functional in the sixties.”

  “Regardless,” said Hester, “Peale could easily have made it to that elevator, if he knew where it was. Right down to the highway, a good half hour before he could have made it any other way. Hitchhiked, or the train tracks, or the landing about what, a half mile south?” She pushed her chair back. “Everything but an airport.”

  “Or the mine,” said Harry. “You don't suppose he could still be in the mine, do you?”

  We exchanged glances.

  “I think our budget can stand a photocopy of this plan,” I said. “Let me get one from the lady over there… ”

  “I'd better,” she said. “You'll have to stand the initial cost. My department pays me back faster than yours.”

  “Well, okay. Twist my arm. While you do that, though, let me use your cell phone,” I said. “I want to call the office and see if we can get somebody up to the Mansion and check on things. And then get hold of somebody who can get us into the mine.”

  “I gotta make a call, too,” said Harry.

  The first part was a snap, as Borman was to be sent up right away, to check the status of the Mansion's residents. The second part was a bit more complicated. The mine was officially closed, as I was already aware, and ownership was with a corporation in New Mexico. That I hadn't known. We knew who the Nation County man was who oversaw the place, but he wouldn't give permission for us to enter the mine on his own. It was going to take a call from our county attorney to their corporate headquarters to obtain permission. I told Dispatch to get Lamar to arrange that.

  When I was finished with my call, Harry said he had some information for us as well.

  “You know that hot-lookin' Tatiana Ostransky gal? Jessica Hunley's dance partner?”

  “No,” I said, “I hadn't noticed.”

  “Uh huh. Anyhow, I just checked with Hawkins about her. Turns out that her real name is Hutha Mann, she's from Milwaukee, and that she was in this area in 1993.” He looked at us expectantly.

  “And?” I asked.

  “Peale was busted here back in ninety-three,” he said. “Didn't you get our fuckin' reply to your inquiry?”

  “Oh, yeah! Yeah, okay. Consensual blood ingestion, wasn't that it? And some involvement with a juvie, too.”

  “You got it. Want to guess who the fuckin' juvie was?”

  “Hutha Mann,” said Hester. “Hutha Mann, a/k/a Tatiana Ostransky, right?”

  “You got it.” He laughed.

  “The plot thickens,” I said. “So, what did he do to her?”

  “Probably a statutory sex thing, I bet. The reporting officer says that she was not a complainant in the matter. She was seventeen at the time, so she could have legally consented, but this Peale dude provided her with booze, and since she was not able to consent to drinking, and she was intoxicated at the time she was discovered, he was in problems.”

  “Ouch.” I grinned. “Bad choices, there.”

  “Yeah. He didn't get shit out of it, with the plea bargain and everything.” Harry shrugged. “She had a fresh cut on her lip, but she claimed that was an accident.”

  “I'll just bet she did,” said Hester.

  “Now, here's the good part,” said Harry. “The guy who was in charge of that bust retires next week, but he was in, and he said that Jessica Hunley was involved in the edges of the case. She wasn't at the cabin at the time they made the arrests, but the Hunleys' attorney came to the cop shop and made everybody's bail. And this Hutha Mann, a/k/a Tatiana, gave her address as a place that turned out to be Jessica Hunley's fuckin' dance studio.”

  “No shit?” I said. “So they go way back as a group, then.” “Apparently so,” he said, looking very satisfied with himself.

  We walked over for lunch at a great place called Popeyes. Multiple levels, it had a maritime decor and a great menu. Well, a cop would think so.

  “It must be great,” I said, “to work in a town that has restaurants like this.” There was a faint, multi-tone sound, and Hester pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She answered it, and then held it out to me. “For you. Your office.”

  I took the phone. “Yeah?”

  “Carl, Lamar. Nothin' major, but the attorney we got to talk to to get in the old mine won't be in until tomorrow sometime. Is this a problem?”

  “No, I don't think so.” I didn't think we'd be back there until then, anyway. “I'd appreciate it if you'd look for some sign, down at the highway level, where somebody might have gone over the fence, or something. Stack of crates? Rocks? We think there's a really good chance our buddy might have made it down there pretty fast that night.”

  “Borman and Knockle are already up there, and everything is okay, as far as they can tell. Most of the kids up there are at work, I guess.” He paused. “I'll have 'em check the mine area. Do you want 'em wandering around up on the hill, looking for an entrance?”

  I did not. No point giving the game away before we were ready.

  “You do know that it runs for about three miles or better?” asked Lamar. “Inside the hill, mostly north and south, but it does go back in under the bluffs for a good five hun
dred feet, too?”

  “Okay… ”

  “I just asked because, if you want to do a search or something, it could take a real long time. The chambers are big enough to be easy to search, you know, but they cover a lot of territory.”

  “I sure hope not,” I said. “I hate caves.”

  He chuckled. “The troops been getting really curious why I'm telling 'em to do all this stuff. I ain't told where you are, and they're thinkin' that I'm on the case.”

  “Hey, we brought in the best.”

  “Uh, Carl, while I got you on the phone… did you have some sort of confrontation with Borman about that warning shot business?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Why?”

  “Well, he says you jumped in his shit in front of witnesses. Embarrassed him, or something. Gave him a lecture, I believe he said. Here in the office. You know anything about that?”

  “Sure. He flagged me down on my way through Dispatch, and wanted to know why I told on him. Just like a little kid.”

  “Yeah. Well, Carl, he's filed a grievance with the union. Alleges harassment on your part. Wants you disciplined.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Yeah, but that's what he says.”

  “Ask Sally,” I said. “She was there. She was there for the whole thing.”

  “Okay,” said Lamar. “But don't you talk with her about this. She's a witness, let the process take its course.”

  “I want that little moron off this case,” I said. “Can't do that, Carl. You know the rules, here. Just watch your step.” “Watch my step, hell,” I said. “I'm gonna strangle the little shit.”

  “Right. Oh, before I forget, that Huck girl called for you guys a few minutes ago. Dispatch didn't tell me 'cause it went in your 'to do' box, but I was readin' the log.”

  Quite a gear change, as Lamar intended. “When did she call?”

  “About an hour ago. No message, just said she needed to talk to you before you came back.” He stopped, surprised. “Let me check that note… ”

  “Back? How did she know we were gone?”

  “Okay, Jesus, I didn't think. Yep, here it is. The note says '… before they come back… ' You didn't tell her you were leavin'?”

  “No. I didn't… just a sec.” I covered the phone. “Hey, did you tell Huck we were leaving the area?”