A Long December

by Donald Harstad

  “Okay. You know that you have been charged as an accessory to the murder of Rudy Cueva, is that correct?”

  “Please explain this ‘accessory’ to me. Please.”

  “In this case, it means that you were there when Rudy Cueva was killed, and you either helped to kill him or did nothing to prevent him being killed.”

  He considered that for a moment. “I did not think Hassan was going to kill him, okay?”

  “By Hassan, do you mean a man who calls himself Hassan Ahmed Hassan?” asked Hester.

  “Yes I do. I mean, too, a man who calls himself Juan Alvarez. This person is the same.”

  “That would be ‘Juan Miguel Alvarez,’ as far as you know?” asked Hester.

  “As far as I know.”

  He looked at us for a second, digesting Hester’s use of Alvarez’s middle name. He was smart enough to have picked up on it, but did he realize the implications? It had definitely dawned on him that we already knew something about Alvarez. I wondered if he realized Hester had done it deliberately.

  “Can I ask here a question?”

  There might be a time when you say something about being the one doing the questioning, but we wanted Yevgenny relaxed and as comfortable as possible.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “Do you think truly that I wanted Rudy to be dead?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “I don’t have enough information.”

  He thought again. “Okay. I understand. I did not want to die, this Rudy, at all. I will explain to you why I mean that.”

  “Fine. What happened that day? “I asked. “What were you doing there in the first place?”

  According to Skripkin, he had come to the Midwest with his friend Hassan Ahmed Hassan, also known as Juan Miguel Alvarez, back in August. They lived in Harmony, Minnesota, for about a month, and then moved to Iowa City, Iowa. They were unemployed but Hassan always had cash. Skripkin claimed that he had no idea where the money came from. That seemed to be the first lie.

  He then claimed they would drive around sometimes, and on one of those little drives, they came up north to Battenberg, and that was where he and Hassan met with Rudy Cueva for the first time.

  “You came up specifically to meet Rudy Cueva?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t think that a hundred-mile drive without knowing who you were going to see was a little…strange?”

  “How would I know that? I think…no, I am guessing that Hassan he knew Rudy already. Is that right, guess?”

  “Could be. Why do you say that?”

  “That was my guessing when we got there, because he…just a second, I reach for word…recognized him. That is it, recognized.” He looked genuinely pleased.

  “How do you know that?” I asked. “That he recognized him.”

  “Because we were driving around looking for address of Rudy and Linda, and we went by the Casey’s store, and there was a man filling gas into his car, and Hassan turned in the driving place and said, ‘That’s him there.’ That is why.”

  “Does it for me,” I said. “So, you two came up to see Rudy and Linda, then?”

  “No, just Rudy. I did not know both of them, and I think Hassan, he also met Linda that night for first time when we went to the apartment.”

  “So,” asked Hester, “why did you come up to see them?”

  Skripkin leaned a bit forward. “It was business, lady agent.” And he winked.

  Lady agent. I suspected that the troops on the other side of the glass were going to have a good time with that one.

  “Narcotics? “asked Hester, not missing a beat. “Drugs, dope?”

  “No. No drugs. No.”

  “What for, then?” She was pretty insistent.

  “This makes me frightened,” he said. “I do not know what to say.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  He thought. “I tell you, because you have my fingerprints. You will know soon, if you do not know already.” His whole demeanor had changed, just like a switch had been tripped. He became much more confident, and more assertive.

  “My real name is truly Yevgenny Skripkin. I am wanted in Ukraine for murder, which I did kill that man, because I am hired to do that. I do that for a job. I was brought to this country in 1996, arrangement from my old boss with the boss of Hassan. I come to this country from Canada, then to Chicago. I had job, and pretty good visa and not so good green card. I was cook at restaurant there.” As I started to speak, he held up his hand for silence. “No, I do not know boss of Hassan. I do not know that Hassan knows boss of Hassan.” His prominent jaw muscles clenched. “It is good for me not to know those things. I know this.” He appeared to relax a bit. “So, I am wanted to become hard to find in Ukraine, and this is good deal for bosses. I am to help the boss of Hassan whenever he asks. Otherwise, I am to be a U.S. citizen as soon as I can, so I keep my nose pretty damn clean.”

  I thought I heard a muted thump from behind the one-way glass, and imagined that Volont had just sent George scrambling to run Skripkin’s prints through AFIS.

  “What’s the name of your old boss? “asked Hester.

  “Vladimir Nadsyev.” He said it very freely, which surprised me.

  “And you don’t know the name of Hassan’s boss?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you would tell us if you knew it? “she asked.

  “Of course not,” he said, with a big smile. “I am not stupid.”

  “Then,” she asked, “why did you tell us the name of your old boss?”

  “He is husband of my sister,” said Skripkin. “Everybody knows I work for him for years.”

  “Then are you really a U.S. citizen?” I asked. I thought I could get away with the question because I was asking it for verification purposes for a prior statement.

  He sighed. “No, I am not U.S. citizen.”

  “Okay.” Lies were piling up. Now we had to determine if we were actually getting closer to the truth of the matter, or if we were just getting more lies. Filtering can be a real pain in the butt. I looked at my notes. “So, back to this Hassan and his boss…”

  “This is first time boss of Hassan asks for favor. I am to come with Hassan and be his guard, and be his strong right arm if there is to be trouble.”

  “And this is the first time you met Hassan?”

  “To be truthful, yes. I never met Hassan before then.”

  It’s amazing how many times the people we interview say things like ‘to tell the truth’ or ‘to be truthful.’ It’s a dead giveaway that they’ve been lying to you. That’s the easy part. The hard part is determining just where and why.

  “Just what was it that this Hassan was supposed to be doing? “asked Hester.

  “He did not tell me, so much as I figure it out.” That’s how Skripkin began, but I thought he’d figured it out very well, indeed.

  First, he said that Hassan was supposed to do some “contamination” in the meat plant. Skripkin had thought, originally, it was to “make the meat bad,” and to force a recall.

  “Why did he want to do that?”

  “To hurt the jews who run the plant,” he said. “This is what I think. This is the…impression I get. From him. He tells he hates Jews. I figure it out.”

  He said then that as time passed, and things happened, he began to think that something more was being planned.

  “You know, of course, that Linda, she and I are lovers.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “When did that start?” asked Hester.

  “From the moment she sees my eyes,” he said, with a completely straight face. “We start to be with the other that same time, only one day after we meet.”

  That surprised me, but considering where Harry said he’d found them, it did fit.

  “You started bagging her the day after you met her, then? “I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, okay,” I said. “So you’re sleeping with Linda almost right away,
then?”

  “We never sleep together until last night.” He smiled in a friendly way. “That is how we find ourself caught. Never sleep together, just screw together. Hard to catch you.”

  I imagined Harry was rolling on the floor by now. I tossed one in for the audience when I said, “I’ll make a note of that.”

  “So, then what happened?” Hester brought us back into line.

  As it happened, Linda, at some point, had told Skripkin that Rudy was getting worried about just what was up, and that Hassan and company were asking him to do something he objected to.

  “Why didn’t he just walk away? “asked Hester.

  “Agent lady,” said Skripkin, “Rudy had been bought like me. They had…hired him, out of Colombia, to do a job for them, and he had agreed to do it. This man who was boss of Hassan? He was, too, boss of Rudy, but Hassan was boss of Rudy too. Same man. Do you understand? Very important man.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So you have this boss, and under him you have Hassan, and under him you have Rudy, right?”

  “Absolutely correct,” he said.

  “So…?”

  “Rudy got very mad because Hassan and me, we also…ah, recruit…the Orejas man who is friend of Rudy. Rudy cannot get to the right place in the processing line, okay, to put the stuff on the meats. Rudy said he would not take a—what do I want to say—lesser job to do that. You know many Colombians? No? They are that way. I do not know. But Rudy was higher than the meat carrier, and he also said that there would be suspicion if he asks for a lesser duty. So, then, we do not ask Rudy, we ask Orejas. Orejas carries meat into trucks, and is very often having privacy for a several seconds as he is in the truck. He is in right place to do this deed.”

  Ah-ha. “Just what deed?”

  “He was to use this substance, this white stuff, and…what is this word…place it on, like butter you place on bread. Only this it was on the meat. Spread! That is it, spread. At first.”

  “At first?”

  “Yes. We do experiment for spread, we see it cannot be done…well…with a plastic bag and a rubber spreading tool. Hassan telephones his boss, and a few days later, the ups,” he said, pretty clearly meaning United Parcel Service, “they deliver a very nice package, and in the package we have cans that spray.”

  “No shit?” I said.

  “No shit, yes. And we give cans to Orejas, and Rudy gets very mad.”

  “Why was he so mad? “asked Hester. “Orejas worked for him, didn’t he?”

  “Rudy says that when this Orejas was very small, he gets very bad injured in his head. Orejas is made to be very easy to persuade. Rudy takes care to see Orejas stays out of trouble from that day. Rudy says that Orejas, he is ‘too fucking dumb to know if he wants to do it or not,’ and Hassan should leave Orejas alone.” Skripkin shrugged. “I know for a fact that Orejas, he is not smart. He does it because Hassan tells him that it will help Rudy. I was there.”

  “Okay…”

  “Then Rudy finds out that Orejas is supposed to use a mask and gloves, and he gets a lot worried. He says that Orejas cannot do things like that the right way.”

  “Just a second,” I said. “Orejas just wasn’t quick enough to follow the procedures?”

  “That is correct. Rudy is very mad, and Rudy is making talk like he is going to tell Orejas to stop. So we take Rudy to the old farm, and we have talk with him.”

  “Who’s we?” I asked.

  “That would be me, and Hassan, and the one they call Chato, and Rudy.”

  “Chato? “Another unknown.

  “Yes. Chato, he was the driver. He works at the plant, he knows Rudy and Orejas, and everybody there.”

  Hester and I exchanged glances.

  “You know his real name?” asked Hester.

  “I do not, lady agent. I swear.” And he gave her another wink.

  “So, what happened? First, why did you pick the old Dodd place? “I asked.

  “What is this ‘old Dodd place’? I do not know it.”

  “Sorry. The old farm where you took Rudy.”

  “Ah. Dodd? That is funny name, Dodd. We take Rudy there because we know where it is. We go there sometimes, to do private meeting and talk about plan. Hassan, he is very worried that FBI listens in at walls of apartment.”

  “How did you ever find that place? “I asked.

  “I do not know this. This Rudy would know.”

  “Okay. But you’d been there before?”

  “Oh yes,” said Skripkin. “Four, five times.”

  “Okay. So, when you got to the farm, what happened?”

  “I am sorry to say that Rudy knows by then about Linda and me. He is very angry at that. Hassan is very angry. He is angry at Rudy, and he is angry at me. We start to beat up Rudy a bit, you know. To make him to listen. But my heart is not in my work, because I feel bad about Linda. Hassan gets mad at me again, too. I tie Rudy’s wrists, and Hassan hits him many times. Rudy falls down and starts to kick Hassan. It was very bad.”

  “Why was Hassan so mad? “asked Hester. “Did Rudy talk to Orejas and tell him to stop?”

  “No. Rudy came to us first, I think. Me and Hassan. He never had a chance to talk to Orejas about it after that.”

  “So why was he so mad at Rudy?”

  “Because, Rudy, if he go to Orejas and tell him to stop, the experiment cannot be done, and the boss of Hassan will get very angry at Hassan.”

  “So Hassan pisses off his boss…so what?”

  “Boss of Hassan is very bad man. Very bad. Very important in many places. Hassan would be killed in a slow way and the way will be full of meaning to others.”

  “So,” I asked, “just how did Rudy find out that Orejas was involved in the first place? Do you know? “It wasn’t adding up.

  Skripkin lowered his eyes. “I am afraid that I tell Linda after we are making love. She likes Orejas, he is like a little pet to her. So she tells Rudy. But she tells him everything, you know? About me, about screwing, about all these things.” He looked up again. “Women I do not understand very well. I think very hard that if Rudy did not have so much on his mind, he might not have done what he did.”

  “Good bet,” I said. “Okay, now, back to you four at the farm. Rudy was kicking Hassan. What happens next?”

  “Yes. Sure. So, after Hassan is kicked by Rudy, Hassan gets very, very angry. He says, ‘Okay you motherfucker, we will see how you talk to the boss.’ He says it just that way. You understand, they are speaking Spanish to each other most of the time, okay? I don’t understand Spanish. So I don’t know all that is said. But when he wants me to know, he speaks English. You understand he is not Arab person. He is Mexican kind of person. He calls himself Hassan because he says he has come to that religion. You see?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Good. Do not forget this, that Hassan is not Arab. So he tells me and Chato in English to put Rudy in the car, in the back, and he has me in the back, too, because I am so big to Rudy. Hassan and Chato, they are in front. Chato is our driver. Hassan gets the shotgun that is in the…back. No, trunk, in trunk, and has it in now with him. He tells Chato to go to Iowa City.”

  “Iowa City?”

  “That is where we can meet the boss.”

  “And that would be…?” asked Hester.

  “Pardon, lady agent?”

  “What’s the name of the person you refer to as ‘the boss’?”

  “I tell you before. This is something I do not know.” He gave her an intense look. “You must believe me, lady agent.”

  “I’ll try,” said Hester, dryly.

  “Okay,” I said. “Then what?”

  “I am feeling badly about things, and not looking at anything but Rudy, but Hassan is starting to really talk loudly at Chato about going the wrong way. So Chato, he stops in a hurry, and starts to back up, and when he does this, Rudy opens the car door and he just falls backwards out of the car, and he gets away.”

  We questioned him more closely, and establish
ed that he was on the left side in the rear of the car, and that Rudy was on the right side. As Chato started to try to turn the car around on the narrow, sixteen-foot gravel road, he pulled toward the left and stopped very close to the ditch on that side. Most of that was explained with hand motions, and I was very glad we were on video. When they were stopped for a second while Chato shifted into reverse, Rudy got out the back door on the right. Skripkin figured that Rudy’s hands, being bound behind his back, had been near the door latch, and that he had grabbed it when Chato braked hard. At that point, Skripkin was trying to get out on the left side and go after Rudy, but Chato apparently didn’t realize that Rudy had gone out of the car, and started to back up. That also slowed Hassan’s exiting down, and actually knocked him over when his open car door pushed him to the ground. It also made him even madder. Skripkin said that they both were delayed for a second or two, and that Rudy disappeared around the curve. He also said that for a moment, he thought Hassan might shoot Chato for being so stupid.

  It had a ring of truth. It seemed to have been the sort of total screw-up that was typical in most crimes.

  “So, then what happened?” I asked.

  “We were running up this road after him,” said Skripkin, “and Hassan was in front of me, and then Rudy falls to the ground. And Hassan catches him and so do I, and Hassan is very, very angry. He yells at Rudy, and Rudy, he begins to cry. I do not know what was said, but I think it occurs to Rudy that life is over. And Hassan, he calls him a motherfucker again, and then he just shoots him in the back of the head, while he is kneeling on the ground. Bang. Just like that. Very quick.”

  “Just the three of you, and then just the two of you, right?” I asked. I wanted to know if they’d seen old Jacob there.

  He grinned. “Good way to say it. Yes. Three, then bang, then two.”

  He never mentioned seeing anyone else, so I guess Jacob Heinman had been right with his theory about the cat and the mouse.

  “I was not expecting the shooting,” said Skripkin. “I was taken by surprise. I said, ‘What do we do now?’ because we had a body to get rid of. And Hassan says, ‘We leave now,’ and I did not think it wise to argue as I did not have a gun.”

  “So you just took off, and left the body on the road? “asked Hester.