Known Dead (13 page)

‘‘For all intents and purposes,’’ said Dr. Peters, ‘‘that’s right.’’ He looked thoughtful. ‘‘But that doesn’t mean that there were only two of them present.’’

Hester and I just looked at him.

‘‘I’ve been thinking about your ambush theory. I’m sure you’re right. It fits well.’’ He looked right at me. ‘‘As I’m sure you know, most ambushes are L-shaped, if done professionally. The X shape is ideal, of course, but seldom achieved.’’ He stopped talking.

I didn’t know if I should say anything or not, so I just kept my mouth shut. So did Hester.

‘‘But the L would require at least three participants, wouldn’t it? While the X requires a minimum of four, I suppose.’’

‘‘Yeah . . .’’ I said.

‘‘And if we presuppose these are true professionals, they would be certain to know this. So they would bring at least three, possibly more people.’’

‘‘Hmm,’’ said Hester.

‘‘But in the L, only one side usually fires, at least at first. Depending on the initial fire to drive the quarry toward the other leg of the L.’’

Silence again.

‘‘But if they’re not set, or at least not set in an immobile position, but are moving toward contact, they will try to keep something of the shape they wish . . .’’

I wasn’t about to say a word.

‘‘Let me call someone I know,’’ he said abruptly. ‘‘I think we may be on to something here.’’

Twelve

ON TUESDAY, the 16th, we had a briefing for the investigative team. Every assigned officer was there, and we began to put together a case. Believe me when I say ‘‘began.’’ The upshot of the meeting was that we had two shooters. Confirmed. Minimum. We were able to pretty well eliminate Howler and Marks, at least from a list of shooters. We were about evenly divided as to whether or not they might know who had done it. The dope guys were strangely silent regarding anything of substance. Altogether sort of a down meeting. And, if you could believe them, everybody said they were unable to locate Marks. I, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure that the Feds weren’t stashing him in some safe house somewhere. If they were, it would fit into their criteria for ‘‘need to know,’’ and I was sure I didn’t qualify for the right list.

As the meeting broke up, Agent Dahl asked to see Hester and me for a minute.

‘‘We’d like to meet with just you two tomorrow.’’

‘‘What’s up?’’

‘‘I better let Nichols say,’’ he said.

After that, I was in a much better mood. It appeared that DEA/DNE had something important. Thank God, I thought, because we in General Crim. sure didn’t. Oh, yeah. Another down thought. The damned meeting had taken up so much time and energy I don’t think anybody got anything done that furthered the case that whole day. I know I didn’t.

Wednesday, the 17th, began as a day full of promise. I hit the office at 0830, ready to greet the narcotics team. Hester was there by 0900. We sat around for almost forty-five minutes before dispatch told us that Dahl had just called, and that they were going to be a little late. Dahl and Nichols walked in at 1145.

Off to a snappy start.

Nichols was pretty straightforward.

‘‘We have indications of some pretty strange involvement here,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t like it.’’

‘‘What kind of involvement?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘I don’t know,’’ he said, spreading his hands. ‘‘There seems to be something moving around in the background, but we don’t have any good shit rising to the top here. I mean . . .’’ He stopped. ‘‘Damn.’’ He grinned. ‘‘How about I start again?’’

‘‘Fine with me,’’ I said.

‘‘Right. Now, what we have is this: there is an indication of well-equipped, well-trained or experienced shooters acting in concert, very effectively, very efficiently.’’ He looked at us. ‘‘Okay so far?’’

‘‘Yep.’’

‘‘We know of, oh, maybe three or four groups who would be able to put together a unit like that on short notice. That means,’’ he said, ‘‘that they don’t have to go outside the group to find people like that.’’

‘‘No hired guns,’’ I said.

‘‘Right. No hired guns.’’

‘‘All right,’’ said Hester. ‘‘And?’’

‘‘And none of those groups are involved. Positive.’’ Nichols looked at the ceiling, trying to be as precise as possible. ‘‘Since that is the case, we are faced with the possibility that this is a group who have, so far, avoided becoming known to us.’’ He looked back down at us. ‘‘I don’t think that a group with those resources could have gone unnoticed.’’

‘‘I wouldn’t think so myself,’’ I said.

‘‘You have to understand what that entails,’’ he said. ‘‘The resources available at a few hours’ notice. The funds. The arms.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘We’d have heard of ’em.’’

‘‘So,’’ asked Hester, ‘‘who do you think that leaves? Who could do that?’’

‘‘Well,’’ smiled Nichols. ‘‘Us, for one. We could do it.’’

‘‘What? I don’t think I understood that,’’ I said.

‘‘We could. We didn’t, but we could.’’ Nichols looked mysterious.

‘‘Logically,’’ I said, ‘‘what that leaves is the possibility that it wasn’t engineered by some cartel or criminal organization. Maybe it was part of some other government?’’

‘‘Whoa there,’’ said Hester.

Nichols chuckled. ‘‘Yeah. That’s what I was thinking too. Not really time for an act of war, is it?’’

‘‘Christ,’’ I muttered. ‘‘A foreign power on U.S. soil. That’d do it.’’

‘‘No,’’ said Nichols, ‘‘not a foreign power.’’ He shrugged. ‘‘What it really means is that we have no idea, at least not yet. None.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘And I find that very hard to accept.’’

‘‘Maybe,’’ I offered, ‘‘it was planned for a while. I mean, not the hit, but the setup?’’

‘‘They don’t seem to have been there long enough,’’ said Nichols. ‘‘Nice try, though.’’ He hesitated just a moment, and then apparently decided to go ahead. ‘‘We thought of that too. The plants were in the ground for just a few days. Still too fast and too remote for anybody but the best.’’

‘‘So,’’ asked Hester, ‘‘what’s the next move?’’

‘‘We keep digging,’’ said Nichols. ‘‘I’ve got help calls in to everybody but the National Archives, and they’re next. We’ll find out. What I’m afraid we really have,’’ he said, ‘‘is a group that can do this in other areas who’s moving into the narcotics business. We really don’t need that.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ I said, ‘‘but around here?’’

He grinned. ‘‘I know. Hard for me to believe too.’’

‘‘How much was that dope worth?’’ I asked.

‘‘Oh, not more than a hundred thousand on the street,’’ he said. ‘‘But as a message it may have been worth a whole lot more.’’

‘‘ ‘We can reach you anywhere,’ ’’ said Hester.

‘‘Exactly.’’

Lamar insisted I stick to the regular schedule, so I didn’t get worn out. Consequently, I got the 18th and 19th off.

Saturday, the 20th, I was called out early, and in uniform, for a bad car wreck about six miles north of Maitland. One killed, five injured. Two cars, one pulled out from a gravel road right into the path of the other. By the time we were finished with that, I’d lost six hours. Hester was off, since it was a weekend. I pretty much spun my wheels for the rest of the day.

Sunday morning we got a report of an agricultural chemical theft/burglary from a plant and warehouse just outside the Maitland city limits. Great. I got stuck with that one too. A whole lot of agricultural chemicals were taken, totaling something over $30,000. Usually, that doesn’t take up much room, as you can hold several hundred dollars of certain herbicides in one hand. Comfortably. This one had the added attraction of involving about three hundred pounds of chemical fertilizer. At least we were looking for a burglar with a container bigger than the trunk of a car. That’d help. We processed the scene all day, for very little in the way of evidence. There were so many cars and trucks in the yard of the place on an average day that there were no tracks of value to be found. Just as a for instance.

I went back to the office, after spending about four hours at the plant, ate a couple of my hot dogs, and called some of my cop friends in the surrounding area. They confirmed two things I suspected. One, they hadn’t had any reported in their jurisdictions since April. Two, it was unusual for the chemical burglars to hit between April and September. The demand for the chemicals was when the farmers would need it. Three separate cops said that: ‘‘You’re either early or late, Houseman.’’ Well, that was probably true. It sure as hell didn’t make it any easier to solve. We’d worked really hard last spring, and managed to put together a task force that caught three chemical burglars. I didn’t even have the advantage of the ‘‘usual suspects.’’ They were in jail.

Anyway, another day lost.

Monday, the 22nd, Hester was back, and I ran the chemical burglary by her.

‘‘You’re early this year, Houseman.’’ Great minds, I guess, think alike.

We got back to the real case. For all the good it did us. We sure as hell didn’t have any suspects that Nichols hadn’t been able to turn up. We spent most of the day going over the physical evidence one more time.

We did get a call from Dr. Peters. He knew, it seems, a man near London, who had been in the SAS. He’d faxed him, and he’d been right. Minimum of three men in an L ambush, and the SAS fellow said he’d bet on four. Also said to wish us good luck. He said that if there were four, there’d be no real way of knowing, because they wouldn’t bury their trash all in the same place anyway. Could have been many, many more. Dividing the number of meals by four wasn’t going to help.

Four. Well, if that was the case, our people really hadn’t had a chance. It surely wouldn’t have been hard to conceal four in the terrain up there. Eight, for that matter.

We did get a call from the narc boys. They’d heard that the people who were dealing with Johnny Marks for the harvested dope were really mad. They just weren’t sure who they were.

I was a little depressed when I got home.

Thirteen

ON JULY 23rd, I shuffled into the office at about 0930. It was going to be a hot day, with high humidity and forecast thunderstorms. I was in my usual blue jeans and polo shirt, with a fairly good pair of tennis shoes. I’d talked to Hester the evening before, and we had decided that the interviews of the farmers in the area surrounding the crime scene should be redone. By us. Just in case one of the other officers who had done the initial interviews had missed some small thing. That can happen if you’re not fully versed on all the details of a case. What we had done, in our efforts to move things along quickly, was use officers from outside our area to do many of the interviews we considered to be less than likely to turn a suspect. They’d talked to every farmer, or nearly so, for eight miles around the scene. Sixty-one farmers, or their family members. Pretty much anybody on the farm who was available. In the early summer, most farmers are in the fields, so many of the interviewees had been wives or children. None had been productive. None probably would be. But we were desperate, and we needed something to convince ourselves that we were doing all we could.

I went back to my office, coffee cup in hand, and got out the file. I was going over the list of named interviewees, trying to come up with a schedule, when Lamar stuck his head in the door.

‘‘What’s up?’’

I told him.

‘‘Bud and I are goin’ up to serve papers on Herman Stritch, you want us to talk to him for you?’’

Stritch was on the list. His wife had been interviewed; he hadn’t. Their farm was about two miles southwest of the crime scene, nearly half a mile off the nearest county road. If I remembered correctly, the lane was a mess. Lots of big, big holes. Full of water if somebody spit within half a mile.

‘‘Sure. If you want.’’

‘‘Might as well.’’ He grinned. ‘‘You just wash your car?’’

‘‘Last couple of weeks.’’ We had to pay for that out of our own pockets too.

‘‘You could always walk in.’’

‘‘You both going up?’’ Stritch was a little to the right of Hitler, had his land posted saying he would shoot uninvited officers on sight. He was in debt over his head, and didn’t believe in any form of government except himself. We usually didn’t have any real problem with him, or those like him. All you had to do, generally, was be polite and reasonable. Most of the time. But a second officer never hurt.

‘‘Yeah.’’ He grinned. ‘‘You never know.’’

‘‘True.’’ I glanced at the file. ‘‘His wife was interviewed; he wasn’t . . . was out in the field.’’

‘‘Okay.’’

‘‘This might piss him off.’’ What I meant was that Stritch would probably give Lamar a lot of crap about being pulled away from his work, just for a ten-minute interview. If it lasted that long.

‘‘Well, if it does, it does,’’ said Lamar.

‘‘You need anything, just holler. Hey. Look on the bright side.’’ I smiled. ‘‘Talking about a dead cop and a dead doper will probably cheer him up.’’

Lamar shook his head, and left.

About forty-five minutes later, I was on the phone with Hester. I had just told her that I was going to do the first six or seven interviews while she testified in another case, and that we could plan on joint interviews for the rest of them. She agreed.

The intercom buzzed.

‘‘Just a second, Hester . . .’’ I put her on hold and pressed the Comm line. ‘‘Three.’’

‘‘Three.’’ It was Sally, working a rare day shift. ‘‘Lamar says not to count on an interview. The man they wanted to talk to saw them coming and is hiding in a little shed.’’

‘‘No shit?’’

‘‘Yeah, so Lamar says that Bud’ll just go to the shed, and if he won’t come out, he’ll read the paper to him and leave it. But he thinks the interview is probably out.’’

I grinned. ‘‘Yeah, I’d say so. Look, tell him it’s fine with me, and Hester and I will do it later. No big deal.’’

‘‘Okay.’’

I got back on the line with Hester for about ten seconds, when the buzzer went again.

‘‘Three . . .’’

‘‘Three, Lamar says you might want to head up that way.’’

‘‘What’s happening?’’

‘‘I don’t know. He just said that you might want to come up.’’

‘‘Right.’’

One thing about Lamar: when he said ‘‘you might,’’ he meant ‘‘you better.’’ He was never one to ask for help, but when he did, it was pretty urgent. I hung up on Hester, and got in my car. As I was leaving the lot, I was thinking that we were going to have a messy one, and that my incipient ulcer was going to have a field day. Probably going to be a long drawn-out argument, followed by a wrestling match with a screaming family all over our backs. Not to mention a lengthy report, just to cover our collective asses. Great. And me with a murder investigation to conduct. I turned onto the main highway, and couldn’t help smiling at myself. It wasn’t like I was having a lot of luck sleuthing out killers. Might as well get in a fight over some stupid paper service. I let the speed build up to around 80. Very little traffic around 1030 hours.

‘‘Three, Comm, ten-thirty-three!’’

‘‘Go ahead.’’ Ten-thirty-three is, of course, the code for an emergency.

‘‘Just received a 911 call from the Stritch farm, female subject. One needs help fast. Situation isn’t clear, but we have shots fired.’’

‘‘Ten-four,’’ I said, accelerating and trying to reach my red-lights switch with the mike in my hand.

‘‘Female is still on the line.’’

Red lights were on. ‘‘Ten-four, Comm, contact One via radio.’’ I wanted to know what Lamar thought. If he wasn’t too busy trying to duck to talk.

‘‘Ten-four. One, Comm? One, Comm?’’

As she continued, I put the mike down for a second and turned on the siren. As I did, I overtook a pickup and had to pass. Less than gracefully done, the swerve caused the mike to go onto the floor. I had to lean down into the leg well to pick it up, hit the shoulder, swerved again to regain control, and was just starting to breathe when Sally came back on the radio.

‘‘Three, no contact with One.’’

Not good. I took a deep breath. ‘‘Okay, Comm, get ten-seventy-eight lined up.’’ Ten-seventy-eight is the code for assistance. ‘‘As much seventy-eight as possible, and let me know how close they are . . .’’

‘‘Ten-four, Three.’’

‘‘And keep trying One, and keep the female on the phone.’’

‘‘Ten-four.’’

Passing though 110 mph on one of the few straight stretches of the county highway, I was trying to figure out what to do if things had really gone to hell in a basket. You have to understand that there is always that nagging little voice that tells you you’re being silly, that this really isn’t going to be as bad as you think. That little voice is constantly arguing with a much louder voice that is telling you it
has
gone to hell, and that you’re going to be in a firefight as soon as you arrive. It pays to listen to the louder of the two.

The loud one was telling me that I was not in uniform, that if there was backup coming from a considerable distance they wouldn’t have the faintest idea who I was, and that I was about to get shot by mistake.

I absently reached down and changed the siren from ‘‘yelp’’ to ‘‘wail’’; the constant up and down of the yelp gets irritating in a hurry.

‘‘Comm, Three.’’ I was getting curious.

‘‘Three?’’

Now, I knew that if she had anything she’d tell me instantly. I knew that. But I couldn’t help asking, after about a minute had elapsed since our last transmission.

‘‘Anything yet?’’

‘‘I’m working on it,’’ she said. Irritated, but sympathetic. In just the right tone to let me know to shut up and let her do her job.

‘‘Ten-four.’’

I slowed from about 120 to 90 as I entered a series of curves. All the way down to 50, as I came roaring up behind a pickup truck. The adrenaline was really flowing. As always, when you slow abruptly from over 100 to about 50, it feels like you could step out and walk faster. And we were in a double yellow zone, and this particular pickup was obviously being driven by somebody who was both blind and deaf. By this point, my bright headlights were flashing, red lights in the grille were flashing, a red light bar on my dash was flashing, my siren was blaring, and my air horn was going full blast. Dum de dum de dum. Finally, we crested a hill, and the yellow line in my lane was gone. Around I went, drawing a startled and confused look from the driver. Hadn’t a clue.

‘‘Three, Comm?’’

‘‘This is Three, go ahead.’’

‘‘Three, no contact with One. Two troopers en route from Unionville, ETA about twenty minutes. Subject on the phone says there may be an officer down.’’

Son of a bitch.

‘‘Ten-four, call out our people. Get an ambulance.’’

‘‘Ten-four . . .’’

I didn’t have my bulletproof vest on, since I was in plain clothes. It was in the trunk. With my rifle, my extra ammo, and my first-aid kit. My future in the trunk.

‘‘Comm, my ETA is about five. Get a description of the locations from the lady, and, uh, especially the location of the shooter, uh . . .’’ It’s hard to be glib at these times.

‘‘Ten-four.’’ She knew what I meant. Been there, done that.

I hung up the mike and reached over into the passenger seat and got my walkie-talkie. I shoved it into my breast pocket and hoped it wouldn’t fall out until I could get it into my pants pocket. I touched my left leg, feeling the spare set of keys in my pocket. Good. I could leave the engine running, with the flashing lights going, front and back, and wouldn’t drain the battery when I left the car. It’d be locked up, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. Make it easier for the responding troopers to find us, with the lights still flashing. Thinking about that, I reached down and turned on my rear-facing yellow flashers in the back window. That’d help too. I had an awful feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to talk to the troopers after I arrived. Speaking of whom . . .

‘‘Comm, what troopers are responding?’’

‘‘884 and 732.’’

I switched frequencies to LEA, which is Law Enforcement Assistance. Runs off repeaters, and you can talk to any officer within 150 miles.

‘‘884, Nation County Three . . .’’

‘‘Three, go.’’

‘‘884, we may have an officer down. You comin’ in from Unionville on 288?’’

‘‘Ten-four.’’ You could hear the road noise and her siren over the radio. Moving right along.

‘‘Uh, 884, when you get to Porpoise Road . . .’’ A board had named the roads in the county, trying to use names that would be inoffensive.

While I was giving directions to 884, Sally apparently got through to One.

‘‘Three, Comm, ten-three!’’ Shut up, everybody, this is important.

‘‘Comm?’’

‘‘They’ve both been shot. I have One on the radio, need help FAST!’’

Fuck.

‘‘Ten-four.’’ What else could you say? I was going as fast as possible. I turned off Porpoise into Stritch’s lane, sliding from gravel to dirt. It was worse than I remembered, and I think I broke two shocks right away.

‘‘Where are they, Comm?’’ The calm in my voice surprised me.

‘‘She says the toolshed and behind a combine.’’

‘‘Ten-four, put me ten-twenty-three.’’ That meant I’d arrived at the scene. I hadn’t, not quite. But I knew that I’d be too busy to talk to her when I did arrive.

I came around a bend in the lane, locked into the ruts, and saw the house. White, two-story. Red barn. Three red outbuildings, one of which was probably the toolshed. Lamar’s vehicle, parked near the house. To my right, a pile of rusting farm equipment, metal roofing, fence posts, other junk. I accelerated to get out of the ruts, and jammed on the brakes just in time to miss his car. I hit the trunk release, and saw a combine parked near one of the sheds. My car slid to a stop, the cloud of dust I had stirred up slowly overtaking me and making it hard to see and breathe. I got out, and heard the crack of a rifle round. I ducked, grabbed my AR-15 from the trunk. Screw the vest, I thought. He’s got a rifle, and it won’t stop one of those anyway.

‘‘Lamar!’’

I couldn’t see anybody.

‘‘Here,’’ croaked a voice to my right. From a pile of rusting junk metal, about fifty feet away. Lamar.

I started toward the pile, and about ten rounds kicked in the dirt and splattered off some cast iron in the pile. I flattened. More rounds, kicking damp, black dirt in my face. I rolled to my side and crawled back toward my car. I couldn’t even tell where the rounds were coming from.

As I came around the rear of my car, I saw a black boot, toe up, in the grass off on the other side of the lane. Green pants leg. Pinkish-gray stripe. Sheriff’s trousers. Bud. The boot wasn’t moving.

‘‘Bud?’’ I hollered. Nothing.

‘‘He’s dead, the son of a bitch killed him,’’ yelled Lamar. ‘‘No reason.’’

I poked my head up, just enough to see into the trunk of my car, and got my first-aid kit. They’re small and not worth much. But better than nothing.

‘‘Lamar!’’

‘‘Yeah?’’

‘‘You hit?’’

‘‘Yeah, the legs, I think.’’

I could barely hear him, and wished I’d turned off my car. Too late now, it was running and locked.

‘‘Okay.’’ A dumb thing to say, as though he was asking if it was all right to get hit . . . What to do? As I pondered, my eye caught a black object on the ground between me and the junk pile. My walkie-talkie. Great. It had fallen out of my pocket when I hit the ground.

Well, I was going to have to have it. And I was going to have to either get to Lamar or get my first-aid kit to him. And I was going to have to find that son of a bitch with the rifle. So . . .

I half stood up, leaving my rifle at the back of my car, and ran straight toward my walkie-talkie. As I reached it, I bent down, scooped it up, threw my first-aid kit toward the junk pile, and spun around as the first shots rang out. Two of them hit my car, but I made it back all right. I grabbed my rifle and hunkered down behind my car again. I was breathing very hard and sweating a lot. And I hadn’t seen where the shots were coming from. I could live with two out of three.

‘‘Lamar!’’

‘‘Yeah?’’

‘‘You get the kit?’’

‘‘I can see it.’’

Oh, good. ‘‘Can you get to it?’’