‘‘So, Deputy, what do you think?’’ asked Volont, after George had briefed him.
‘‘It doesn’t add up at all,’’ I said. ‘‘We all agree.’’
‘‘It might,’’ he said, and launched into an explanation. He incorporated the possibility that some of the people on the right wing might sell marijuana to dopers. He seemed to like the concept. He emphasized that Herman Stritch was broke and in dire need of cash. He indicated the proximity of the Stritch residence to the town where Johnny Marks lived. They could easily know each other. Maybe through one of the Stritch boys. Things were going wrong, and they decided to ambush the officers. Marks with them. Try to harvest the plants the same day, make a clean getaway. He could have been the one who fired the fatal shots, in that case. Our case could well be solved right now. At the same time, the market, a.k.a. the Living Dead, would have had their investment blown by the killing and resultant heat. Got even with Marks. They got Johnny Marks; we got the Stritch family. Tidy.
I let him finish. ‘‘I don’t think so,’’ I said. ‘‘I kind of wish it was, but I don’t think so.’’ I quickly reiterated the basic evidence. ‘‘And,’’ I said, ‘‘there’s absolutely no indication that Marks was in the woods at all.’’
‘‘Ah,’’ he said, ‘‘that’s true. Didn’t have to be. But there’s every indication that he paid a very high price for angering the people he was growing the dope for. I think he might have been in the woods that day. He and the Stritch family. Working in concert.’’
‘‘Ahh,’’ I said, ‘‘I just don’t think so.’’
‘‘Reasons?’’
‘‘Let me work on it for a while,’’ I answered. I noticed the relieved look on George’s face.
Volont had been telling the truth about the federal kidnapping charges. Eight State Patrol cars pulled up about two minutes after he left the back office. Troopers all over the place, shooing everybody but us out of our parking lot, and then getting us to move our cars as well. Creating a security lane for the prisoners. Pretty soon, three separate cars came zipping into the lot. Federal marshals. To transport the prisoners, separately. The two people we had working the jail were busier than they had ever been in their whole lives, for about thirty minutes. Then, with all three prisoners wearing jail clothes and bulletproof vests, and pretty well surrounded by troopers, marshals, and George, they were whisked off into the waiting cars and left under heavy trooper escort.
They were gone, leaving some really confused attorneys in their wake. None of our local lawyers were even qualified to appear in Federal Court. Which meant that, within the next few hours, there would be another layer of three more attorneys to deal with. The Stritch family might as well have gone to the moon.
What was more, Volont had inadvertently created a situation where the press was absolutely bound to follow the trail of the prisoners. He’d just started the machinery that would probably take Borcherding to Cedar Rapids and out of our immediate view. And now that I thought about it, Nancy would be going there as well, both to do her job and to do ours. And with the prisoners now under the control of the Linn County jail, I wouldn’t be able to slip Nancy in for an ‘‘accidental’’ interview, even if I wanted to.
‘‘Jesus Christ, Hester,’’ I said, ‘‘doesn’t anybody want us to solve these cases?’’
Tomorrow was Saturday, the 27th, and Bud’s funeral. It had been delayed a bit by the forensic people, but they had guaranteed Saturday. That meant that things were going to be really crowded, and things we needed to do weren’t going to get done. Interestingly enough, there didn’t appear to be anybody interested in Rumsford’s body. They were having a hard time finding relatives, I guess. For whatever reason, his funeral was going to be on the 29th. Someplace in Canada. I was surprised to find out that he was a Canadian, although I don’t know why. I wondered if that French-Canadian film crew would come back.
Anyway, we had to get cracking on something, and soon.
‘‘Hester,’’ I said, ‘‘why don’t we give Colonel Gabe a jingle?’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘On his e-mail.’’
‘‘Can we do this?’’
‘‘That’s easy,’’ I said. ‘‘Making him think it’s from Herman Stritch is gonna be a little tougher.’’
‘‘But,’’ she said, ‘‘can we do this? I mean, isn’t this a wiretap?’’
We both looked at George. ‘‘Well, in the strictest sense, or any other, for that matter, I think the court would appreciate it if we got an order to do this…’’
‘‘You think we can get one?’’ It had to be federal. Iowa didn’t have any enabling wiretap legislation.
‘‘If I fax an application to my partner, we can get it pretty fast. But Volont will know about it.’’
‘‘Right away?’’ I asked.
‘‘Oh, probably not,’’ said George, ‘‘but the U.S. Attorney will, and he’ll get around to mentioning it sooner or later.’’
‘‘And that’s a normal way of obtaining a wiretap order?’’ asked Hester. ‘‘You don’t have to go through your boss?’’
‘‘Pretty much,’’ said George. ‘‘He’ll read it in the monthly summary, or somewhere.’’
‘‘Go for it,’’ said Hester. ‘‘So long as it doesn’t get you fired.’’
First of all, I figured that if it took George a short time to track down the address of Borcherding, it would take somebody like this Colonel Gabe maybe just a bit longer. So we had to be accurate. Second, I thought it was likely that Billy Stritch was the one who set the computer stuff up in the first place, although we’d have to confirm that with Melissa. We might have to make the message from him. But it was going to come through to Colonel Gabe as an authentic contact from the Stritch family.
Predictably, the Sheriff’s Department didn’t have a computer, except our NCIC terminal, which was connected to a modem. First item of business. Equally predictably, nobody in Maitland sold modems. Hell, nobody in Maitland even sold disks.
George of the Bureau was very eager to please, after the Volont encounter. All three of us knew he’d have to tell Volont anything he was asked. We also knew that George was now under a bit of a cloud with his own bureau, and would have to watch his step very carefully. It was never mentioned. We just knew that George could be used only so far before he’d be required to report something. We were all trying to avoid crossing that line. After he had sent his fax to his partner, applying for a wiretap order, he drove to Dyersville and purchased a modem for us. With software and a special offer from a local server. All right. Guilt can be great.
Then we had to find out where Stritch’s server was, in computerese.
‘‘Don’t we need Herman’s computer for this?’’ asked Hester.
I smiled all over myself. ‘‘Nope. Downloaded it all last night.’’
It was easy, once we had the modem hooked up to the PC in the back office. Hooking the modem up was a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. George, frugal to the end, had gotten the least expensive modem. Internal. External modem, we could have done in fifteen seconds. Internal, thirty minutes.
‘‘Jesus H. Christ, George!’’ I said. ‘‘I’m gonna have to tear this whole machine apart…’’
Ah, but he didn’t have to pay for a modem case, though.
‘‘You saved eleven dollars?’’ asked Hester. ‘‘Really?’’
So after I got the cover back on the PC, it was easy, like I said.
Entered the name of Herman’s server (Widetalk), our area code and telephone number, country (United States of America(1)), which set the keyboard commands. We connected using our ModoMak3564, which had hardly cost us a thing, configured the port to Com1, set the Databits to 8, Parity to None, Stop Bits to 1.
Then, it was a simple matter of doing his network protocols: the TCP/IP settings, which were server-assigned with an IP address: Primary DNS 699.555.123.6, with no secondary, no primary or secondary WINS, using IP header compression
and the default gateway on remote.
We engaged the ‘‘call forwarding’’ mode, and were done.
As far as the e-mail service knew, we were now, for all intents and purposes, Herman Stritch. We had his default number, which was the modem line into his residence. I wanted to use one for Cedar Rapids, because that’s where they were gonna be, and that’s where Colonel Gabe would know they were.
We hesitated for about ten seconds. Then I called an officer I knew with the Linn County Sheriff’s Department, and asked for a number that would be used by a modem there. By a prisoner. He hesitated, so I let him talk to Hester and George.
That taken care of, we were simply going to call the Linn County jail number, have our call forwarded to the appropriate line, and call Colonel Gabe. Just as soon as Melissa confirmed what we needed to know about who the brains was behind the Stritches’ computer system.
Melissa called within half an hour. Damn me for a sexist. The whole thing was set up by Nola Stritch. In a computer sense, neither Herman nor Billy could find their ass with both hands.
Two minutes later, and George’s partner called. The order had been granted.
‘‘Okay,’’ I sighed. ‘‘Way to go George.’’
‘‘Just what did you say in that application?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Well, nothing that wasn’t true,’’ said George.
‘‘Great piece of jurisprudence,’’ said Hester.
Thus armed, we sallied forth.
By now it was 1750, and the Stritch family should have been in Cedar Rapids for about an hour. Booked in, and all settled for supper. Good.
In looking for an address for Colonel Gabe, it had become immediately apparent that he was using other people’s e-mail addresses, and seldom the same one for more than an hour. Fascinating. We also noticed that Herman Stritch nearly always contacted Colonel Gabe via our man Borcherding. Mr. Free Press himself.
We decided to be cagey. At George’s suggestion.
‘‘I’m not comfortable with being Herman right at first. This has got to be something that Nola is going to do on the sly.’’
Hard to argue with that. The scenario we came up with was this: Nola would be meeting with her newly appointed attorney for Federal Court. He or she would have a laptop. Nola would place a message on the laptop, hoping the attorney would just send his accumulated messages when he got to his office. Nola is alone with the laptop for a few minutes and sends a hurried message. Most of the scenario came from Hester.
‘‘Wow,’’ said George, ‘‘I can’t believe that. You came up with that in about two minutes.’’
‘‘It’s from some movie I saw,’’ said Hester. ‘‘It worked for them …’’
‘‘We need a sender’s address,’’ I said. ‘‘Just for the first message…’’
We sent a message to George’s brother-in-law in Marion, IA. Right next to Cedar Rapids. He sent the message for us.
Our first message went like this:
FROM: KLINEB@LAWNET. COM
TO: BRAVO6@xii. COMONCOMON. COM
SUBJECT:
DATE: FRIDAY, JULY 26, 1996 6:11 PM
WE’RE IN JAIL IN CEDAR RAPIDS. I HAVE AN ATTORNEY WHO HAS A LAPTOP. I HOPE HE SENDS THIS TODAY. HE DOES NOT KNOW I AM DOING THIS. HAVE GABE CONTACT ME AT THE SAME OLD ADDRESS. THEY MISSED SOMETHING IN THE SEARCH. NOLA
The only thing I wasn’t sure of was whether or not the attorney would have an automatic spelling corrector. George said that he most assuredly would. Even better, since then we didn’t have to fake a hurried message.
The ‘‘they missed something’’ was mine. What we intended to do was have Nola get access to a computer and call her own back at the farm. You see, when you do a warranted search at a residence, like the FBI lab people had participated in at the Stritch farm, you always have to give the owner a receipt for everything seized. So Nola would have a receipt for the computers that were taken. There had been one older one. Great. That’s the one they’d ‘‘left,’’ as nonfunctional. We could probably sneak the one we were using up to the farm yet that night, as there were still forensic people at the scene.
After that, all we had to do was wait.
‘‘We’re going to have to go up there after dark, to put this in place,’’ I said. ‘‘But all we gotta remember is to change the phone number to Herman’s, and we’re set.’’
‘‘Right,’’ said Hester. ‘‘You think we have time for supper?’’
I looked at my watch: 1826. ‘‘Sure,’’ I said. ‘‘Let me just check our mail…’’
We had a response.
It worked. The server thought we were Herman.
The message from Bravo 6, our man Borcherding, was:
WILL LET HIM KNOW. ARE YOU ALL OK? WHAT DID THEY MISS? WHY ARE YOU IN CEDAR RAPIDS? HAS ANYBODY TALKED? DINGER
‘‘Dinger?’’ Hester grinned. ‘‘Dinger…’’
‘‘Short for Borcherding,’’ I said.
‘‘Don’t ruin the moment, Houseman,’’ she said. ‘‘I want to enjoy the romance.’’
‘‘He bit,’’ I said a few seconds later. ‘‘He did, didn’t he? He bit, and so did the server, by God.’’
‘‘You got it,’’ said George.
‘‘You want to come along when we plant this thing?’’ I asked.
‘‘Hadn’t better,’’ he said. ‘‘Can’t tell what you don’t know.’’
The scene was still secured by two of our reserve deputies when we got there at 2130. It was just dark.
I told our guys that we were returning some stuff the FBI had seized and it turned out didn’t work. It was no problem for them. Hester and I lugged the big cardboard box in, containing the computer and monitor. I made a second trip for the printer. It only took a second to hook things up and get the system up and running. I changed the telephone number back to the one the Stritches used for their modem, enabled the call forwarding device, and we were in business. Now all we had to do was have it call us and forward any message. Slick. So far. We had a call in to X1, asking him if we could borrow his laptop. We needed a computer and modem at the office, and we both knew X1 had one. Prying it loose might be a little problem…
On the way back, Hester asked the big question. ‘‘How long you think it’ll take him to figure out that he’s not talking to Nola?’’
‘‘Three messages,’’ I said. ‘‘Four, if we’re lucky.’’
‘‘It’d be just our luck,’’ said Hester, ‘‘if Nola already really figured out how to make contact with him.’’
‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘then George is out one inexpensive, internal modem.’’
When I got back to the office, they told me that Lamar was coming to Bud’s funeral tomorrow. It was true. By ambulance, but they thought he could be helped into the church. We were to watch closely. Any bleeding, or any signs of fainting, and he was to be hustled back out immediately. Lamar was tough. But I was surprised the docs would let him go that soon. It was good news, though, too. I mean, they were letting him go. Things had to be looking up.
Twenty
I’ve told you already how much I hate funerals. Especially cop funerals. Bud’s was no exception, so I’ll just hit a couple of highlights, so to speak.
The first came when Lamar showed up, being wheeled into the church by Art and me. We were all three in uniform again, which is de rigueur for cop funerals. We caused a minor sensation, even though we tried to avoid one by going down the side aisle. It was hard to be inconspicuous, with the nurse in trail and all.
The second point of interest was that every cop involved in the investigation was there, including Volont and Nichols, for God’s sake. In the same pew, but not together. I hate to admit it, but having them there did sort of soften my attitude toward them. I hate to admit it, but it did.
The third point of note was that good old Borcherding of the fourth estate was also there, way back on the sidelines outside the gym, but there nonetheless. Nancy was there too. At Hester’s suggest
ion, we had a DCI tech taking photos of Borcherding all day, and the people around him.
The fourth point of interest, and the best news as far as I was concerned, was that ‘‘The Lord Is My Shepherd, He Rides in My Patrol Car’’ wasn’t on the show bill.
We’d not been bothering Lamar about office business, on doctor’s orders. All through the service, the poor son of a bitch kept trying to get Art or me to answer questions about the state of the office, and the murder of Bud. We’d just put our finger to our lips, pretty much telling him to be quiet and respectful in church. He’d nod furiously, then lean over and whisper a question ten seconds later. He finally got us on the way to the ambulance that was to take him back to the hospital.
‘‘You guys better tell me what the fuck’s happening, or you’re both gonna have your asses on the street lookin’ for work…’’ Or something like that. It was kind of hard to hear, with the ambulance engine running and Lamar trying not to make a scene. Art and I both got in the ambulance with him for a minute. We both started with a ‘‘don’t sweat the details’’ attitude, but Lamar knew us better than that. By the time five minutes had elapsed, he knew just about everything, in a general sense. You ever see anybody who was unhappy but content at the same time?
Art and I waved at the ambulance as it pulled away.
‘‘Well,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s over.’’
‘‘For today,’’ I said.
He grinned. ‘‘Yeah. I think we got off easy, don’t you?’’
‘‘Absolutely. Until he finds out what we didn’t tell him.’’
Art and I didn’t always get along, but we’d been together for nineteen years. We coped well.
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