A Long December

by Donald Harstad

  “It’s a long explanation,” I said.

  He just nodded. “Anything else I can do?”

  “Any idea,” asked Hester, “when this ‘coffee break’ will be over?”

  “Unions. What can I say? Maybe tomorrow. Maybe two, three days? I think it will depend on the, ah, ‘activity’ around our plant.”

  There was a knock at the door, and a secretary entered with a stack of files. Ben picked out Rudy’s and handed it to me after she left. “Look through it. You need copies, say so.”

  “Thanks. Any idea why Rudy was killed?” It was a long shot, but you never know until you ask. Frankly, I half expected Ben to pick up the phone and ask his secretary. Instead, he looked very thoughtful.

  “Rudy was not our most ambitious employee. But he was liked. No, I don’t know. So, do you know who killed him, or can’t you say?”

  “No comment,” I said with a smile. “Union rules.”

  16:51

  “YOU OKAY?” I ASKED HESTER.

  She nodded, then spoke very deliberately. “How many grenades do you think they have left?” She shook her head, reached inside her coat, and pulled out a bottle of water. She took a swig, tilted her head toward the wounded side, and let the water do its work. She turned away, spit, and turned back to me. “God, that’s irritating,” she said.

  “Now that you bring it up, I don’t suppose you walk in someplace and buy just one.”

  “Right.” She was looking out a wide crack that some past farmer had tried to fill with cement. It hadn’t worked. “It’s getting dark.”

  “Yeah. I was thinking about that.”

  “Me, too.”

  “George is comin’ down as soon as it’s dark enough.” I looked around. “The yard light will cast a shadow on this corner, from about the big door over the whole left side of the place.”

  “They’ll shoot it out,” she said. “Damn thith thing.”

  “Be quiet and have some more water. No, they won’t. If they leave it on, they can see anybody who comes our way up the lane.”

  It was the grenades that had me worried. “I’ve been thinking,” I said. “Either they got modern frags, or concussion grenades.” She looked at me questioningly. “Modern grenades have a fine wire wrapped around a central core. Notched. Tiny fragments, but a cloud of’em. Lethal radius to ten or fifteen feet, not worth shit twenty-five feet away. Well, somethin’ like that. Not like the old grenades in the movies, with the Hershey-bar squares.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “Concussion grenades don’t have very effective fragments at all.”

  She nodded again.

  “I don’t think any fragments made it through the barn, so…” We left it at that. I had no idea if I was right or not. Just something to say.

  “You want me to see if I can start George’s heater for you?”

  “No thanks. I’m just fine.”

  I patted her on the shoulder and moved back over to my position.

  “Hester okay? “asked Sally.

  “Yeah. You think dehydration could be a problem for her?”

  “Well, she’s thin, and she lost a bunch of blood…might as well not take a chance. How much water you got left?”

  I patted the left side of my Canadian Army parka. “Three bottles.”

  “Better keep ‘em on the inside,” she said.

  I only had two inside pockets that were available, so I gave her one of the bottles. Our body temperature would keep them from freezing.

  “She has one bottle now.”

  “I’ll make sure she drinks,” said Sally. “What do you think’s gonna happen when it gets dark?”

  “No idea. Just stay alert. Everybody calling the shots is outside this barn, one way or the other.”

  “Yeah. You know what?”

  “What, Sally?”

  “I wish the people at the Academy could see me now.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “All the guys gave us gals shit. About being smaller. About having to do only eighty-five percent as many push-ups and sit-ups and things. ‘I suppose the bad guys will only try eighty-five percent as hard to kill you.’ Shit like that.”

  “Sorry to hear that. I thought it might have changed since I was there.”

  “Oh, it has,” she said. “They have electric lights now.”

  “You little shit,” I said. “I’m not that old.”

  “Yeah, right. I’m about eighty-five percent as old as you.”

  She looked right at me as she said it, and the reflection of the setting sun bounced off the little gold and silver badge on her winter hat, and just about blinded me.

  I told her what had happened. “You better unpin that hat badge and stick it in your pocket.”

  “Anyway,” she continued, as she stuffed the badge inside her coat, “I think I can hold my own, huh?”

  “With the best of em,” I said.

  “You’re not just trying to cheer me up?”

  “No, I’m trying to cheer myself up.” I grinned. “Just getting back for the electric light comment,” I said. “Can’t think of anybody else I’d rather be pinned down with.”

  At that moment, Lamar’s voice came crackling over the walkie-talkie and we both jumped.

  “Go ahead, One,” she said.

  “Tell Three the TAC team’s here.”

  That was good news. I told Sally to have Lamar give the TAC team leader my cell phone number, and I’d talk with him on the phone. I was still worried that the people trying to kill us might somehow be monitoring our radio traffic, or that the media would be monitoring us and broadcast something that the riflemen in the shed could somehow hear. I was also getting worried about the batteries in the walkie-talkie. Especially in cold weather, they will deplete really fast if you do much transmitting.

  The Assistant TAC team leader was a trooper sergeant named Ed Henning. I’d met him once or twice.

  “My boss ain’t here yet. What you got up there? “asked Ed.

  I told him, gave an approximate number of six suspects, told him where we thought they were, said they all seemed to have AK-47s, and that they seemed to have chucked at least one grenade at us.

  “What you got cornered up there?” he asked. “Osama bin Laden?”

  “Close enough,” I said.

  While I’d been on my cell phone, Sally had been busy on her walkie-talkie. “George says he’s comin’ down in about ten minutes,” she told me.

  Good. If we had any chance of making a break for it, I didn’t want George stranded on the upper floor of the barn. Besides, I was really worried about these guys trying to set the place on fire. If we had to get out of a burning barn, anybody in the hayloft was as good as dead.

  “Make sure he tells you when,” I said.

  “He will.”

  CHAPTER 08

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 15:12

  OUR NEXT MOVE WAS TO GO LOOK UP ONE JOSE GONZALES, also known as Orejas. After Ben’s comment about the common name, I was pretty sure even Jose Gonzales wasn’t our man’s real name, either. The address was 206 Jefferson, Battenberg. It was an old, two-story frame house, of the sort that the zoning board would call a single-family dwelling. We went up the porch steps and stood under the overhanging roof and knocked on the storm door. And knocked and knocked. No answer. I tried the knob. Locked. We could see through the cheap lacy curtains on the front windows, and there was no sign of life.

  Hester tapped the printed list of about fifteen names neatly duct-taped to the mailbox. “At least one of these should be here.”

  I knocked again, and an elderly woman came around the corner of the house, clutching her hooded sweatshirt closed.

  “They all left,” she said.

  “Pardon?” She’d taken me by surprise.

  “They all left last night,” she said, standing at the bottom of the porch steps and looking up at us. “I’m the part-time manager. I live right over there, and they all left. Just like that. There’s
nobody there now.”

  “And nobody’s returned?” asked Hester.

  “Nope. Nobody I’ve seen.” She pointed to the single-lane driveway that led to a garage toward the rear of the house. “That’s where they park their cars.”

  There were no cars there. A point for her. It sounded like she had the place under pretty close surveillance. “They ever done that before? “I asked.

  “No.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “Myra Gunderson. What’s yours?”

  “Carl Houseman. I’m a deputy here in Nation County. Could you tell me who owns this house?” I thought we could try the owner and see if he could do us any good.

  “Helen Fritz,” she replied. “But she’s dead. Her son, Herman, lives in Cedar Rapids, I think. He owns this place now, but I think Mary Klein, the realtor, manages the rent and things for him, I guess. I just pick up the rent and call Mary when there’s a problem with the plumbing.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Would you call us if you see anybody back over here? When they come back, or anything.”

  She sure would.

  “When are the checks due?” I asked. I figured they’d have to be back by then.

  “The first of the month. But no checks. They pay cash,” she said.

  I should have guessed. But a week and a half. Damn.

  I tried to reach Mary Klein, one of the local real-estate agents, but got no reply. I picked up my aluminum logbook, opened it, took out my pen, and made a ceremonious check mark on my daily log sheet.

  “What’s the check mark for? “asked Hester.

  “To remind me to tell Lamar how much time a cell phone saves me. He hates it when I do that.”

  Next, we tried Juan and Adriana Munoz, the newlyweds. They lived in one of four apartments above the hardware store. The place had a long, very narrow stairwell with one dim light, a long, dark hall with old musty carpet, and a floor that creaked with every other step. The apartment doors were plywood, with a cheap dark stain on them and gold paper numbers stuck on them with tape. Dingy. Again, I knocked and knocked. No answer. It was apparent that Juan and Adriana Munoz were gone, too. The only difference in this instance was that Myra Gunderson wasn’t there to tell us.

  Downstairs, the owner and proprietor of the hardware store said he hadn’t heard footsteps all day.

  “I don’t know why they all left,” he said. The defensiveness in his voice told me he damned well knew. “Maybe some beaner reunion or something. None of my business, though.”

  Beaner. That told me what I needed to know about his attitude toward Hispanics. I try not to be judgmental, but I’m always looking for a lever that I can use to move somebody.

  It was an unhappy fact that a few landlords in Battenberg were gouging the illegal immigrants for rent and other services. We’d received few complaints, mainly because illegal aliens don’t feel that they can go to the cops or the courts. And they’re right, although it wasn’t a trust sort of thing. We’d get the bad guy, but the illegal aliens themselves would be referred to INS. They’d be held in a facility a long way from Nation County, and maybe even deported before the bad guy went to trial. Either way, chances were that we’d have no complaining witness, and the bad guy would walk.

  “You notice when they come back,” I said, “give me a call.”

  “Sure.” It was said with a noticeable lack of sincerity.

  “State fire marshal’s office is asking us if we know anything about people being warehoused in unsafe conditions. You heard anything about that?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I just asked ‘cause I noticed there wasn’t a fire exit up there. Hate to have the fire marshal get the wrong impression.” I nodded to him. “Thanks for the help.”

  Back outside, I said, “That might get a fire escape opened up, anyway.”

  “Pretty crude, Houseman.”

  “You gotta know your audience.”

  “I suppose. Now, speaking of knowing your audience,” said Hester, “how many illegal aliens are we talking about?”

  I thought for a moment. “In Battenberg, maybe three hundred. Give or take. Not necessarily counting their families…. There’s just no way to get an accurate count.”

  “That many? Good God, I didn’t realize there were that many up here.”

  “That includes a bunch of ethnic groups. Not just Hispanic. And not all the new people are illegal, not by any means.”

  “Oh. But as many as three hundred gone for now, right?”

  “Looks like.”

  Hester pulled out her Palm Pilot, slipped the stylus out, and did something. “Okay. So, answer this. Where did they all go?”

  I didn’t have to think about that at all. “Beats me.”

  We drove in silence for about a half mile, up the main drag of Battenberg.

  “That’s a lot of people to accommodate,” said Hester absently. “We’re at least a thousand miles from the Mexican border, and a good five hundred from Canada.”

  “Well, shit,” I said softly.

  “What?”

  “The border. They can cross one. Anytime, and pretty damned quick.” Hester looked at me quizzically.

  “The bridge at Freiberg, Hester. Sixteen miles from here, they can cross the Mississippi at Freiberg. I’ll bet they’ve gone to Wisconsin.”

  It was 16:00 on the button when we got to the Battenberg police department. We needed to contact Harry Ullman, my investigative counterpart in Conception County, Wisconsin. The most secure way to do that was by land line. I didn’t want any chance whatsoever of an intercept of what we were going to discuss.

  The Battenberg chief, Norm Vincent, graciously let us into his private office. There were three phones there, sharing lines, and I wanted to talk to Harry with Hester on the line as well. What I didn’t want was Norm overhearing the conversation. Unfortunately, he quite rightfully sat behind his desk and waited for us to begin.

  “Norm?” I asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Look, we’re about to discuss a long shot with another agency. A real long shot. I wonder if we might ask you to step out for a few minutes?”

  He looked hurt. Almost as if he thought I thought he couldn’t keep a secret. Well, he was right.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You should have said something.”

  As he started to get up, I said, “Look, it’s like this. If we’re right, I’ll tell you as soon as we know, okay? But if we’re wrong, it’s best this doesn’t get out. At all.”

  That mollified him a bit, I think, but it also whetted his appetite.

  “Sure, Carl. Just let me know when you’re done.”

  Within a minute, we had Harry on the line.

  “Hey, Houseman! How they hang—”

  “Hello, Harry,” said Hester.

  “Oops,” said Harry. “It’s the fuzz.”

  We all went way back.

  “Got a question for you, Harry,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with a deader over there last evening, would it?” Harry loved homicides.

  “Matter of fact,” I said, “it does.”

  “Hot shit,” he said. “Fire away.”

  “It’s also kind of a missing persons case,” I told him.

  “Okay. Cool. Who you lookin’ for?”

  “Well, maybe as many as a couple of hundred people.”

  Good old Harry never missed a beat. “Got names and physical descriptions for me there, Carl? Let me get a pencil…”

  He had me there. I did, however, give him the names of the people we had identified in the wedding photos. I placed particular emphasis on Jose Gonzales, aka Orejas.

  “So. Okay on Big Ears,” said Harry, before I’d had a chance to translate the nickname. “Now you wanna tell me why you need these guys?”

  We explained to him what was going on. Or, more correctly, what we thought might be going on.

  “Not all of’em,” I said. “But I’ll bet a bunch just might be over t
here. They don’t have the cash to go too far or to pay for much lodging.”

  “I’ll let you know,” said Harry. “And Hester, I just want you to know I’ll only blame Carl for this one.”

  “Thanks, Harry,” she said.

  “Any of the ones I’m lookin’ for suspects? Or we just talking witnesses?”

  “I’d tell you if I knew,” I said. “I don’t think the names we gave you did the killing, but don’t take chances. Just in case.”

  “Sure.” Over the phone I could hear a tapping sound in the background. Harry had a tendency to drum on things when he was showing restraint.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Well, I hate to butt in, ya know, none of my business and all that shit, but… you think this might be dope-related?”

  It always seemed to come back to that. “We don’t know,” I said. I explained about the meth lab, and the shoe linking the deceased to that location.

  Harry chuckled. “Pretty fuckin’ coincidental, ain’t it? Oops…Sorry Hester.” He cleared his throat. “An amazing coincidence, I’d say.”

  Hester laughed. “Either way. But remember, just ‘related.’ Not necessarily the main motive.”

  “You betcha,” said Harry. “Three hundred missing persons…you want me to call you when I find the first one, or should I wait until I get the first fifty?”

  “Just let us know how it’s going,” I said.

  Since we were sort of at a dead end, we left Battenberg and headed back to the sheriff’s department to get a running start on the paperwork. If you don’t keep up with it, you can destroy a case that depends on a large number of precise details. Admittedly, the number of individual details now was small, but I expected it to grow rapidly. Well, I hoped it would. If it didn’t, we were in deep trouble.

  CHAPTER 09

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 18:04

  I GOT A CALL TO RETURN TO BATTENBERG when we were only about five miles out of Maitland.

  “Three, Comm.” It was Sally at the office.

  I picked up the mike. “Go ahead.”

  “Three, request you ten-twenty-five with Car Forty; not ten-thirty-three, but as soon as possible. He has a situation and requests your assistance.”