A Long December

by Donald Harstad

  Next, we got Iowa’s Deputy Director of Emergency Preparedness, who outlined the pecking order for conducting the investigation. She also gave us a good five minutes on keeping our mouths shut, and measures in place for preventing panic. Good stuff. She had handouts, which I also like.

  Next, the Iowa Department of Health people briefed everybody on ricin, its effects, and its methods of transmission. I had one moment during that part of the briefing, when the speaker asked if anybody knew what a mechanical vector was. Hester and I were the only two cops who raised our hands. That scored points for us, even if I’d only known for five or six hours.

  From that point on, it was emphasized about every five minutes that what we were dealing with was not “catching.” One of the Health folks, a Dr. McWhirter from Iowa City, also briefed us on prophylactic measures.

  “Basically,” he said, “all you have to do is wear a decent filter mask, like this one.” He held up something that looked like a simple dust mask for working in a shop. “This is a very fine filter system; you can’t pick them up in a hardware store, but you can buy them at your local pharmacy. And,” he said, “remember to wash your hands. That’s it. That’s all it takes.” He paused. “Oh, also,” he added, “if you come across some contaminated food, just don’t eat it.”

  It sounded like an afterthought, but I thought that was a pretty key point. So, apparently, did Lamar.

  “You hear that, Carl? No lunch!”

  There were a couple of laughs. There would have been more, but lots of the people in the room had no idea who I was.

  After that little tension-breaker, I felt a bit silly, but I raised my hand, getting a dark look from Art. He was the sort who thought any question was a matter of showboating. That went a long way toward explaining why he never seemed to get completely with a program.

  “Yes?”

  “Would cooking decontaminate food?”

  “Protein is pretty tough stuff,” McWhirter said. “Might. I wouldn’t want to rely on that, though. Iffy at best.”

  “So we get this stuff,” asked Lamar. “Then what? You haven’t said anything about an antidote.”

  “That’s right,” said Dr. McWhirter. “There is no antidote.”

  That sank in for a second.

  “The treatment is supportive. That means we do what we can for the symptoms and let things take their course.” Dr. McWhirter looked out on the unhappy faces. “I wouldn’t be too concerned; the LD50 levels are really high for this substance.”

  “What’s LD50?” asked Lamar.

  “LD50 is shorthand for what would constitute a lethal dosage for fifty percent of the exposed population.”

  “Oh.”

  “Any more questions? Okay then, let’s get on here…”

  The Health briefing continued, with them handing out the same sheet of questions we’d gotten from Henry that morning. They then went over each question, explaining why it was being asked, why it was important, and how that answer would be used to further the investigation. It seemed to take forever.

  When that segment was over, the assistant attorney general got back up and outlined the approach to the groups of people to be questioned.

  “Since we are starting off with the supposition that Gonzales was exposed at his place of work,” he said, “we’ll begin with his coworkers.”

  My hand shot up.

  “Yes? “He seemed irritated.

  “Most of them are unavailable at this time,” I said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Most of them are Hispanics who worked with Gonzales at the plant. Most of them are here illegally. There was a murder Tuesday up here, and it involved a member of the Hispanic community. The illegals all went missing. They’re afraid we’re going to find them and deport them.” I paused. “We’re looking for them right now, but so far, no luck.”

  “Just how many people are we talking here?”

  “As many as a couple hundred,” I said. “They had to close the plant on Wednesday, and it’s not back up in operation yet.”

  I had to give him a lot of credit. He didn’t miss a beat. “So, we talk to the plant management first. I assume they’re not illegal aliens, too?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said.

  “Excellent. We’ll assign a team to interview them, along with health and safety inspectors to go over the plant, and you can let us know when you find the missing people.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Just when I thought we were done, our own county attorney got to put his two cents’ worth in. His “Hi, I’m Carson Hilgenberg, and I guess I’m supposed to say something here” was vintage Carson. What followed didn’t exactly enhance his position.

  “I think this is, uh, a really worthwhile endeavor. I want you to know my office is open for you, and I’ll be there to help you understand these heavy legal complications as they come up.”

  Honest. He even made little quote mark gestures with his fingers when he said “legal complications.”

  He paused, and then said, “I’ll be happy to answer any questions regarding this case, if you have any.”

  I was about to raise my hand and ask him for a definition of protein, but Hester beat me to it with a real question.

  “What authority do we have to act here?”

  “Pardon?”

  “If somebody asks us under what authority we are questioning workers and inspecting premises, what do we tell them? “she asked, just as though she didn’t know.

  Carson Hilgenberg simply looked toward the assistant attorney general and said, “Maybe you’d like to take this one?” He had assumed the role of emcee without blinking an eye.

  The deputy AG never missed a beat. He pulled the appropriate citation from his open briefcase and read it to us. “According to Chapter 135.35 of the Code of Iowa, ‘All peace officers of the state when called upon by the department shall enforce its rules and execute the lawful orders of the department within their respective jurisdictions.’ You have officially been ‘called upon.’ Any other questions?”

  I love those “toss it to the nearest cop” sections of the Code. They were put there by legislators who didn’t want to fund any enforcement arm for Health, but who just couldn’t leave them with no muscle at all. So they assigned cops to them upon request. The problem is, having virtually no prior training or experience, if we were requested, we had to spend time in long meetings just to get up to speed.

  “What do we charge somebody with for noncompliance?” Lamar. Good boy.

  “Ah, just a sec…the next one…here. Cite them under 135.36. Interference with authorized agents of the Department of Health.” The AGA looked at his audience. “That’s you.”

  “Talk about potential!” said Deputy Mike Connors, one of our longtime guys. “Spread your cheeks and freeze!”

  “Knock it off. How much penalty does that section have?” Lamar, again.

  “Simple misdemeanor. A hundred and fifty-five dollars, with court costs,” said the assistant AG. He spread his hands at the groans. “I know. But let’s just make a procedure now. You bring ‘em here; you don’t cite into court. Haul ‘em in. Fill out a complaint and affidavit. No automatic ten percent bond. You call a magistrate. That way, it gets ‘em out of the hair of the other members of the investigative team. For a while. How’s that? If you can’t beat ‘em, annoy ‘em,” he said.

  That went over well. I leaned over to Hester. “I like this guy,” I said. “Who is he?”

  “Morton Bligh. Really. And everybody calls him Captain already, so don’t start.”

  “Which of you are the ones who first saw the body of Mr. Gonzales?” asked Bligh.

  Hester and I held up our hands.

  “I’ll need to talk to you two in a few minutes, so stick around, okay?”

  Hell, why not. We’d shot most of the day by now already.

  CHAPTER 14

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 15:30

  BY THE TIME EVERYBODY GOT SORTED OUT AND SQUARED AWAY, we end
ed up sitting down with Bligh in my office at 3:30 in the afternoon. He brought Dr. McWhirter along with him.

  “So, you two were the lucky ones,” Bligh said.

  “Yep. You have our preliminary reports yet?”

  “Attached to the main case file already. Good reports. What else can you tell us about this Gonzales?”

  I figured what the hell. “Gonzales was the best friend of a man who was murdered, execution-style, the day before we found him, Gonzales, in his room. Dead guy’s name was Rudy Cueva. Both claimed to be either U.S. or Mexican citizens, but as far as we know, Cueva, the guy who was shot, was from Colombia, and we think Gonzales was, too. Both seem to be illegals.”

  Bligh and McWhirter just stared.

  “Both were employed at the meat-processing plant. Both are suspected of some sort of narcotics involvement, past or present, but we can’t confirm that. We have reason to think both of these men were murdered, but we’re having one hell of a time getting any hard evidence for Gonzales.”

  Bligh cleared his throat. “You’re saying that ricin was deliberately…applied… to Gonzales?”

  “It begins to look that way,” said Hester. “The only problem is, that’s not the way drug-related killings go down. Not poison, at least not delayed action. They’re usually really violent: knives or guns, like this Cueva murder. Instant gratification.”

  Bligh leaned forward in his chair. “Let me get this: Cueva was killed on…?”

  “Tuesday,” I said.

  “And your investigation led you to Gonzales.”

  “Only as a witness, and one before the fact. Gonzales wasn’t an eyewitness, as far as we know. He was Cueva’s best friend.”

  “Right. And who sent you to Gonzales? Who thought it was a murder?”

  “Nobody,” said Hester. “The county needed a response to an unattended death. Carl and I were together working Cueva’s murder. We were all that was available,” she said. “The Battenberg officer called us for assistance in a simple unattended death, and that’s what we thought it was at first.”

  There was a scratching sound at the door. I thought it was somebody playing a joke, and said, “Not now. We’re busy.”

  It persisted. I got up and opened the door. Big Ears, who had been standing on his hind legs to scratch, tumbled through the door, spotted Hester, and galloped over to her outstretched hand.

  “That’s Big Ears,” I said, smiling. “Named after Gonzales. It was his dog, and now there’s nobody but Hester who wants him.”

  I got a questioning look from Bligh.

  “Uh, okay, Gonzales was called Orejas, that means ‘big ears,’ or so we’re told. The dog was under his bed.”

  Dr. McWhirter spoke up. “The dog was in the room with the dead man?”

  “Yep. Been checked by the vet. He’s just fine.”

  “So,” said Bligh, getting us all back on track. “You think Cueva and Gonzales were murdered.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “I’m afraid it sure looks like it.”

  “Because of some drug involvement?”

  “It’s the only thing that even begins to fit,” said Hester, lifting Big Ears up to her lap. “It fits the pattern, except for method in the case of Gonzales.”

  “You aren’t absolutely certain as to motive, then?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. Cueva’s live-in girlfriend might be a big help with that, but she split on us early today. We’ve got an ATL out on her, but apparently nobody’s seen her yet.”

  “She’s illegal, too?” asked Bligh.

  “No,” said Hester. “She’s local, born and bred.”

  Bligh shook his head. “You two really stepped into one, didn’t you?”

  “Houseman’s cases are always like this,” said Hester. “He never has a simple one.”

  “I try,” I said, “to make it interesting for everybody. So far, I’ve succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.”

  Bligh got out a notepad. “So, you two have any information as to how the ricin was, uh, applied, to Mr. Gonzales?”

  I looked at Dr. McWhirter. “I was thinking the Doc here might know that.”

  Dr. McWhirter cleared his throat. “I helped with the autopsy, and the subsequent testing,” he said. “We had a wide variety of symptoms, from gastrointestinal chaos to virtual drowning from pulmonary edema. That perplexed us. It appeared to us that we had a case involving both aspiration and ingestion.”

  “Really? “said Hester. “Both?”

  “Yes. And in highly concentrated doses in both methods. Highly. In my opinion, he was as good as dead after the exposure. No amount of care would have come close to saving him.” He paused again. “We were wondering just where he could have been to acquire that heavy dosage.”

  “His last day of work was Monday,” said Hester. “We know that. He worked the late shift. We found him on Wednesday, about 18:00 or so. He’d been dead, what, Carl? You thought about twelve hours?”

  “From the rigor, yeah. About that.”

  “Makes the time of death about six A.M. Wednesday,” said Hester. “Infection at thirty-six hours puts it at six P.M. on Monday. End of his shift at the plant, or thereabouts.”

  “So, it happened at the plant, then? Could it be an accidental exposure? An informant claims it was ‘something they did to him.’ But the informant wasn’t a witness,” I said. “Could we be talking accidental here, after all?”

  “I’d expect a broader contamination, if that were the case,” said Dr. McWhirter. “We only have one victim here. That’s a pretty narrow exposure.”

  We decided that Hester would accompany Dr. McWhirter to the Gonzales apartment, along with two techs, to recover any dirty laundry he might have had and to test the shower and washbasins. Everything would be tested for contaminants.

  Bligh and I were to go to the packing plant and get the ball rolling. Two health and safety inspectors came along.

  Bligh suggested that the county attorney, Carson Hilgenberg, go with Hester and her team so we had a legal presence at both locations. Hester rolled her eyes, but accepted it.

  Bligh and Hilgenberg did a fast application for a search warrant, and I went with them to a local magistrate’s office, where I signed as affiant. At that point, even though we’d lost most of a day, we were finally getting back on track.

  Bligh and I got to the plant at 16:21, according to my watch. I’d called ahead for Ben, and he’d agreed to wait for us. I hadn’t told him much, but I’d made it clear that this was very, very important.

  We were ushered immediately to Ben’s office. When the door opened, I saw a very familiar face with Ben.

  “Hey, George!”

  “Carl.” He didn’t look at all happy.

  “Who’s that?” asked Bligh.

  “That’s Special Agent George Pollard, FBI,” I said to Bligh. “We know each other from way back. How ya doin? “I said, sticking my hand out to George.

  “Wonderful,” said George, flatly. “Just wonderful.”

  “This is Mr. Bligh,” I said, unable to remember his first name. “Iowa AG’s office.”

  “Call me Mort,” said Bligh.

  “Glad to meet you,” said George.

  “And this,” I said to Bligh, “is Mr. Chaim B. Hurwitz.”

  “Call me Ben.” When he spoke, I looked at him more closely. Ben looked terrible. My first thought was that he was sick.

  “So, what brings the FBI to Nation County?” asked Bligh.

  Now, that was a truly good question. FBI anywhere in Iowa these days was a rare event all by itself. It was another example of the effect of 9/11 on everybody. On September 10, 2001, there were tweny-six FBI agents working in Iowa. By September 15, about twenty-four of them had been assigned to terrorism investigations. You didn’t even expect to see one at a bank robbery anymore. To spend one on a meatpacking plant was most unusual. What was more unusual was that I knew for a fact that George had been assigned to counterterrorism.

  “I’m afraid it’s an aspect
of what brings you two here,” said George, reaching behind us and closing the door. He stepped back toward Ben’s desk and picked up a file. “I assume you’re here about the ricin?”

  “We are,” I said. “You, too, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s up?” I found it kind of difficult to believe that the Bureau was concerned with the death of one illegal immigrant.

  “We were notified by CDC in Atlanta that there had been a case of ricin ingestion in Nation County,” said George. “Maybe you two should sit down,” he said to Bligh and me.

  We two did.

  “Like I just finished telling Ben here, CDC found themselves working two separate but contemporaneous cases involving ricin poisoning,” said George. “Yours, and an outbreak in New York City.”

  “New York?” I was surprised, to say the least.

  “This is terrible,” said Ben. “Terrible.”

  “We have four dead people in New York,” said George. “All from ricin. We have fifty-seven who are ill, with at least one more who is not expected to survive.” He checked his file. “The lab people say that they think many of the ill are psychosomatic reactions, because several are good friends of deceased, but didn’t eat the same things. Not all of them, though. It takes time for this stuff to finish its job. They started getting sick enough to need medical attention on the fifteenth. Three cases. Eight more on the sixteenth, twenty-two on the seventeenth, twenty-nine on the eighteenth. One of the first three died on the seventeenth. He was a deli employee, by the way. Three of the cases from the sixteenth were also fatal. They’re all older people, so far.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “It gets worse,” said George. “All the victims except two are Jews. We have a vector of three specific delis in the city. Everybody who was infected either worked at those delis or ate meat purchased there. Everybody.”

  “Oh, crap,” I said. I saw what was coming.

  “During Hanukkah,” said Ben softly. “They got sick eating our meat during Hanukkah.”

  George nodded. “Right. As luck would have it, those three delis get most of their beef products from this plant.” He looked at Bligh and me. “What we have here is very possibly a hate crime. Regardless of the motive, we suspect an act of terrorism. Domestic or otherwise.”