Known Dead (22 page)

‘‘There were three other men in the house with us, at least until I left. After that I don’t know.’’

‘‘Sure.’’

‘‘One,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘was Bob Nuhering, the neighbor from down toward the river?’’

‘‘Sure,’’ I said. I knew who he was.

‘‘The other two,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘were from Wisconsin. One is a big man, about fifty, really fit, crew cut. Wore camouflage clothes, with boots and a hat. They called him Gabe, although,’’ she said very confidentially, ‘‘I don’t think that was his real name.’’

‘‘Why?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘You know,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘I don’t know, you know?’’ She thought for a second. ‘‘Just the way everybody said ‘Gabe,’ you know?’’

‘‘I think I do,’’ said Hester.

‘‘And the other one?’’ I asked.

‘‘He was with Gabe. Came with him, I mean. Dressed the same way, except he had a white tee shirt under his cammo stuff, and Gabe was pretty disgusted, you know, because he could see the white a mile off.’’

‘‘Yep.’’

‘‘And he was called Al, or Albert, and I think that was his real name, ’cause I didn’t get any feeling about it not being his real name . . .’’

‘‘Okay,’’ I said.

‘‘Both of them had attack guns, you know?’’

‘‘Assault rifles?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘Yeah. That’s right.’’

‘‘So,’’ I asked, ‘‘what did everybody think about Gabe and Al?’’

‘‘Like, do you mean respect and like that?’’

‘‘That’s just what I mean.’’

‘‘Oh, Gabe,’’ she said, with her voice showing disrespect just the way a fourteen-year-old would, ‘‘was like God, you know? I mean, anything he just even said, they just ate it up . . .’’

As it turned out, Gabe was a real leader in that group. He was the one who had everybody but Melissa convinced that they should die for the cause. Whatever the cause was, and Melissa wasn’t too clear about that. Herman was a true believer, and so was his son. Nola had seemed a bit reluctant for others, particularly her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, to die for a cause. She’d helped Melissa out the door, in fact. But Nola was apparently determined to stay. Mostly with Gabe, according to Melissa.

‘‘I think they’ve got the hots for each other,’’ said Melissa.

‘‘Who?’’

‘‘Nola and Gabe.’’

My. She’d formed this opinion by the way they’d exchanged looks, by the way they talked to each other, and by little considerations they’d apparently shown each other. Herman, as far as she could tell, had been pretty much oblivious to the Nola and Gabe thing.

‘‘He’s got the hots for Gabe in another way,’’ said Melissa. ‘‘Thinks he’s just about God, or something.’’

Melissa said that they were also talking to people on the outside all the time.

‘‘How did they do that?’’ I asked. ‘‘We shut the phone lines off right away.’’

Gabe, it turned out, had attached the modem of the Stritch computer to a cell phone. Of course. He was receiving messages from people all the time he was there. And apparently sending them as well.

‘‘What kind of stuff did he do on the computer?’’ I asked.

‘‘I don’t know. I mean, like, they never let me see what it was. But he’d do stuff on it, and then he’d talk to us about the ‘mission.’ ’’

‘‘The mission?’’ asked Hester. ‘‘What mission?’’

Melissa had no idea whatsoever what the mission was. But it had to be important, because everybody listened up when the mission was brought up.

‘‘Had you ever heard of the mission before?’’

‘‘Yes, sir, Mr. Houseman. I sure did.’’

‘‘And had you ever seen Gabe before?’’ interjected Hester, before Melissa could start talking and lose her train of thought.

She had. Once. At Herman’s place. About the second week of June. He’d been getting into his car when she had driven up in her pickup, bringing used tires to Herman’s place. He’d been in a blue Ford, pretty new, and had a woman with him. He was dressed in blue jeans and a white shirt, but she was sure it was the same man. She’d been told he sold insurance, when she’d asked her mother-in-law, Nola Stritch.

‘‘And the mission?’’

‘‘Oh, yeah.’’

She’d first heard about the mission in May or early June, and that from her husband, Bill. He and his dad had been over at Melissa’s, and she’d heard them talking about a mission that was coming up. They’d seemed pretty excited about it. In fact, they’d been talking mission a lot when the two killings took place in the park. She was sure of that.

‘‘And Bill was there, but he didn’t shoot? Like you told us early yesterday morning?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘That’s right.’’

‘‘What about Gabe?’’ I asked.

‘‘He was there, as far as I know,’’ she said. ‘‘When Bill finally told me what had happened, I remember him saying that the colonel was really pissed.’’ Her eyes widened. ‘‘Did I tell you they called him the colonel, too?’’

‘‘No, you didn’t,’’ said Hester.

‘‘Oh, yeah, and he was really fit to be tied, according to Bill.’’

I’ll just bet he was, I thought. ‘‘He say why?’’ I asked her.

‘‘I don’t know about the details,’’ she said, ‘‘so much as he called it a ‘cluster fuck.’ I know he called it that.’’

Without a blush. I don’t think either Hester or Sally, for example, could have used the phrase ‘‘cluster fuck’’ in front of near-strangers. At least, not without showing some reaction. Not Melissa.

‘‘And,’’ she continued, ‘‘he said it was going to get a lot of attention that they didn’t want. At least, that’s what Bill said he’d said.’’

‘‘Any reason to doubt Bill?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘No.’’

We talked some more about Bill then. He didn’t really get going too much on the ‘‘political shit,’’ as he apparently called it. He did spend a lot of time shopping for guns, buying one once in a while, and talking with others who did the same thing. He’d clean the guns, and sometimes shoot one or two of them, after he was done with his farm work for the day. She and Bill had argued once or twice over the costs, but her objections had ceased when she found out that Herman was footing the bill for most of the guns and ammo. Also, by that time in their relationship, she didn’t seem to mind it too much when Bill was gone for a while. She didn’t go into many details, but I got the impression it really wasn’t something major that came between them. It had been just the usual little resentments, with the slights, and the lack of real signs of affection. Distance. Marriage, with a child a little sooner than they were ready for. She did say, however, that she felt that Bill was nailed to the farm. That was a little strange, as he was farming mostly grain and a few hogs. Not nearly as tied down as, for instance, a dairy farmer. That struck me.

The interview was pretty routine at that point. Then she mentioned the meetings.

‘‘And we always had to go to these meetings, you know.’’

‘‘Meetings?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘Oh, yeah. All over, and even whole weekends shot. He wanted me to go, at least to some of ’em. But they were so damned
dull . . .
’’

‘‘Where were these meetings?’’ began Hester. She had to start somewhere.

They really were all over, as Melissa had said. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri . . . all around Iowa. Of course, there were meetings in Iowa too. For the weekend ones, they’d stay with relatives or friends or at a motel, whichever was possible. Some others had campers and stayed in them. Some meetings were attended by as few as ten people. Some by as many as two to three hundred. When asked, she said that if she had to put an average figure out, she’d go for twenty-five to forty. Once they just met in a park. Other times in rented halls and buildings, ranging from sales barns to motel conference rooms. The types of people seldom changed, nor did the food.

‘‘They always had the same handouts. Always the same shit, you know. I mean, the small parts would change, like the names of the people who were getting screwed, and the examples. But it was always really the same thing.’’

‘‘Like a theme?’’ I asked.

‘‘Yeah,’’ she said. ‘‘Like that. Like with the black helicopters and stuff. Same theme.’’

‘‘They were into the black choppers too?’’

‘‘Oh, yeah. Some people saw black helicopters just about every day, or so they said. They think it’s some foreign government, I guess, spying on ’em.’’

‘‘That’s what they said they were?’’ I asked.

‘‘Yeah. But you were supposed to know, you know? They’d just say ‘black’ and you’d just nod, like ‘oh, yeah, I know.’ It was weird. I mean, some of the nicest people, even the old women, would get goin’ on that.’’

‘‘Okay . . .’’ I glanced at Hester. ‘‘Sort of like they were talking about the weather?’’

‘‘Oh, no. They get, like, really excited about that black shit . . .’’

Being bored, she hadn’t paid too much attention to the names of the people who seemed to be in charge of the particular meetings, or the ones with the handouts. Except for one, whom she got to know because he ate with the Stritch contingent many, many times. Wilford Jeschonek. From Minnesota, as far as she knew. He was a lawyer. He’d told her so.

‘‘Oh, yeah, he was givin’ Herman all this advice about how to invest and such.’’

‘‘Investments?’’ asked Hester. ‘‘And did Herman give him any money?’’

‘‘Sure. He sold the third farm. Remember?’’ She was asking me. And I did. It had made the local paper, because Herman had claimed he was being forced off the farm by the Federal Land Bank people. It hadn’t been true, he just owed them money. A lot less than he got for the farm, if I remembered correctly.

‘‘After the sale, he borrowed all he could on the other two farms, and then he bought a lot of . . . oh, what do you call those things?’’

I spread my hands, palms up. ‘‘A little more specific?’’ I grinned.

‘‘Yeah,’’ said Melissa, grinning back. ‘‘Like, when you buy part of something, that a lot of other people bought too . . .’’

‘‘Shares?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘Yeah, that’s it! Shares. Shares in a whole bunch of gold kept in some foreign country . . .’’

‘‘And then,’’ I asked her, ‘‘he would get certificates saying that he owned so much gold in such and such a bank in South America? That he could redeem it in fifteen years for ten times the face value?’’

‘‘That’s right . . . how did you know about that?’’

‘‘Been lots of fraud cases like that, Melissa. Lots.’’

‘‘Fraud? You mean it isn’t true?’’

‘‘Nope. The ‘investors’ never see a cent. It just disappears, mainly because there isn’t any gold in the first place.’’

I noticed the beginning of the stricken look just a little too late to soften the blow.

‘‘Melissa, you and Bill didn’t . . .’’

Her face was blotchy red, and she was very near tears. ‘‘Yeah, we did. Just about everything we made on the farm.’’ She took a deep breath and gestured at her clothes. ‘‘That’s why I dress like this . . . why we have a piece of shit pickup . . .’’

‘‘I’m sorry, Melissa. I didn’t know.’’

‘‘That fuckin’ Herman!’’

I had to agree with that. Not only had he shot at her, he’d managed to get all her money flushed down a toilet, along with his own. If she’d been sticking it out thinking of a possible inheritance from both farms . . .

We had to give her a long break with her mother before we could get the interview back on track. While she was outside, I called Sally, checking where our favorite FBI agent was. On his way to Maitland, as a matter of fact. With a bunch of ‘‘material.’’ Excellent. I wanted him to talk with Melissa, especially about the financial stuff. He was much more familiar with that sort of thing than either Hester or I were, and I felt that she might be able to put him on the track of another major fraud case.

I went back out to get Melissa, and her mother didn’t look one bit happier than her daughter, but a bit more aggressive about it. I had the impression that there’d just been a discussion about how Mom had never approved of Bill in the first place. Glad I missed that one.

Melissa, as it happened, had a lot of her and Bill’s investment information at home. Company names, addresses, etc. She also had a little bomb to drop.

‘‘I was just thinkin’, Mr. Houseman. At those meetings. Some people said that we should raise marijuana, and sell it to the dopeheads, and make lots of money. Said, ‘Why let them spend their cash on foreign dope. We need the money.’ ’’

‘‘Do you think they were serious?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘Well, I
thought
they were kidding, until the officer got shot.’’

We sent her home to get any documents she might have, with the suggestion that she leave Mom there with her daughter when she came back. Sounded good to her.

Well. Not too shabby for an afternoon. And we weren’t done yet.

When Melissa returned, George was there. We were just a little concerned about her reaction to another FBI agent, after the hassle about the kidnapping, and as we knew how her in-laws felt about the Feds. We needn’t have worried.

She smiled at George. ‘‘I wasn’t kidnapped, but I’m getting screwed over, and I want something done about it.’’

She had a stack of papers in a brown grocery sack. A thick stack.

‘‘I kind of brought stuff you might be interested in.’’

I picked up the phone. ‘‘Sally, could you come back here when you get a chance . . . we have a whole bunch of copying to be done . . .’’ I looked at Melissa. ‘‘If that’s okay with you?’’

‘‘Fine,’’ she said.

‘‘Then let her do it,’’ came a faint voice over the phone.

‘‘We’ll see you back here in a couple of minutes?’’

‘‘Yes . . .’’ said Sally, just a little disgusted.