Known Dead (32 page)

Twenty-three

WE WERE JUST LEAVING the Wittman house with our prize rifle. George, Hester, and I stood out by Hester’s car and talked for a few moments.

‘‘The only thing, George,’’ I said, ‘‘that pissed me off is that Wittman was in the woods with the group that offed Turd and Kellerman. But he didn’t make any deal with us about that. Only Volont.’’

‘‘But you know for sure who killed Rumsford,’’ said George.

‘‘Well, yeah. But just from a co-conspirator, so we also need physical evidence.’’

‘‘Houseman?’’ said Hester.

‘‘Hmm?’’

‘‘Why do you get so negative? You’re probably holding the best physical evidence right there in the bag.’’

The rifle. She was probably right.

‘‘Well . . .’’ I said.

Hester laughed. She turned to George. ‘‘Houseman suffers from postcoital depression. He screws somebody, gets all euphoric, and then gets down about it ten minutes later.’’ She turned back to me. ‘‘You should’ve been an attorney.’’

I placed the rifle in the back seat. It was about four feet long and seemed to weigh about ten pounds. The evidence people had put it in a long, thick, transparent plastic evidence bag, complete with embedded white evidence tag, obviously designed for rifles. Those Feds had everything. If I’d wanted to put a rifle in a plastic bag back in Nation County, I’d have to either get a drop cloth or cut the rifle into small pieces and use a bunch of sandwich bags.

Hester’s phone rang when my head was in the back seat. I jumped, and she reached into the front seat and picked up the call.

‘‘Anyway,’’ said George as I closed the back door, ‘‘it’s been a pretty good day, hasn’t it?’’

‘‘That’s what I was telling Hester on the way out.’’ I glanced into the car and saw her scribbling something down on a note paper. ‘‘I don’t know, now, though . . .’’

‘‘Oh, what the hell,’’ said George, ‘‘it’s late. The day’s over. Go home.’’

Hester hung up the phone and got out of the car. ‘‘That was for you,’’ she said, puzzled.

‘‘Me?’’ The first thing I thought of was that my wife’s mother had died.

‘‘Yeah,’’ said Hester. ‘‘They want you to go to a secure telephone and call them back.’’

‘‘WHO?’’

‘‘Sorry . . . the RCMP.’’

I just looked at her. So did George.

‘‘The Royal Canadian Mounted Police?’’ It was all I could think of.

‘‘You got it. The RCMP, Winnipeg office. Here,’’ she said, handing me the note.

The only secure telephone, as far as I knew, was back at the Homer County jail. That’s where we went, at about 90 mph, with George close behind. Well, he started off close. Hester can drive.

On the way back, Hester only said one thing. ‘‘Do we want Volont to know about this right away?’’

I thought it over. ‘‘I don’t think we need for him to know right away.’’ I thought some more. ‘‘Who called you, the RCMP?’’

‘‘No,’’ she said, ‘‘State Police radio. They got the call.’’

‘‘Then we really don’t tell Volont yet,’’ I said. ‘‘No ‘need to know,’ you know.’’

‘‘Yep,’’ she said, passing an eighteen-wheeler like it was standing still, ‘‘I agree.’’

Deputy Roberts turned his office over to us in a heartbeat. I called the number and was given to a Sergeant Herbert Chang. Not a name I would normally have associated with the RCMP. I was expecting something like McKenna, for example. That was the first little surprise. The second was completely out of left field.

‘‘Do you know a Nancy Mitchell?’’ asked Chang.

‘‘Yes,’’ came out automatically, and I scribbled her name on my pad, turning it so that Hester and George could see it.

‘‘We had a telephone contact with Ms. Mitchell a bit earlier today . . .’’

Nancy had called the RCMP to tell them that she had been at a friend’s funeral and that somebody was trying to kill her. She’d been clear, but sounded very worried. She’d also told them that she was at a particular motel in Winnipeg and that she wanted help right away. Winnipeg PD showed up at the motel within three minutes. Nancy was nowhere to be found. She was registered there, that checked. No signs of a struggle, no signs of any violent acts at all. No sign of her car. Just not there anymore. Typically, there had been a card for her to fill out for her room, which asked for the make and plate number of her car. Just like most of us, she’d not filled it out. Winnipeg cops had gotten her car info from the United States, but it had taken almost an hour. She had given them my name, said she was on an assignment from me, but was so scared she couldn’t remember the name of Nation County. She’d just said Iowa. It had taken a while to locate me. About four hours, in fact.

And could I please give them a little background?

I did. Rumsford’s funeral. A murder investigation. Her role in the whole business. While I was talking, I remembered that Volont had told us that Gabriel had been born in Winnipeg. Son of a bitch. That’s where Rumsford was being buried.

I looked at George, and put my hand over the mouthpiece. ‘‘Better get Volont,’’ I said. He left.

‘‘Sergeant,’’ I said, back on the phone, ‘‘I’ve just sent an FBI agent to get his superior, who’s also in this building. It may take a few moments . . .’’

That was all it took. Volont and George came flying through the door, and Volont just reached out for the phone. I handed it to him.

He identified himself, and asked, very politely, if the sergeant knew a Chief Inspector McGwinn of the Intelligence Section. The sergeant obviously did, and Volont said that McGwinn wouldn’t mind hearing from Volont at all, and would the sergeant please have Chief Inspector McGwinn come in to the office and call Volont at this number? He thanked him, and hung up.

Volont looked at the three of us. He took off his tie, sat in a swivel chair, leaned way back, and said, in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘‘I just know you can tell me all about this.’’

‘‘Most of it anyway,’’ I said.

‘‘So, what have the three of you done now?’’

‘‘Uh,’’ said George, ‘‘try the two of you. Not involved.’’

‘‘Mostly him,’’ said Hester, pointing at me.

‘‘So,’’ I said, ‘‘what ya wanna know?’’

After about three minutes, Volont knew everything we did.

‘‘So,’’ he said, ‘‘you think it’s reasonable to assume that she pushed this Borcherding, this Bravo6 too hard? That he went to the funeral in Canada, in Winnipeg, and he was going after her?’’

‘‘Sounds reasonable,’’ I said.

‘‘I suppose it does,’’ said Volont. ‘‘Except for the fact that Mr. Borcherding is in custody at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids.’’

Well, you could have knocked us over with a feather, as they say.

Volont told us that the ‘‘fire’’ at the Linn County jail in Cedar Rapids, the one that our helicopter had to go back for, wasn’t so much a fire as an explosion. The Linn County sheriff and the CRPD had originally thought it was a botched attempt to free somebody, by blowing a hole through the wall. Well, what would you think? After the smoke cleared, and the prisoners were all secured at a gymnasium, and the police could get into that area of the jail, they discovered that the explosive had been delivered by a rocket. The Fire Department had also responded to a car fire fairly close to the jail, but had thought it was associated with the explosion. It sort of was. The rocket launcher had been fired from the car. The car was owned by one Gregory Francis Borcherding. One Gregory Francis Borcherding had been admitted to the emergency room at St. Luke’s about fifteen minutes after the explosion. He’d walked in, with some pretty bad burns. The cops went over to St. Luke’s, just to see if they could help.

‘‘Too dumb to live, as they say,’’ said Volont. ‘‘Fired the damn thing from the front seat. Lucky it didn’t kill him.’’

Apparently the backblast from the LAW rocket had taken out the car window behind it, and most of the blast had vented that way. Most. Enough had remained to light off the inside of the car and burn the back of Borcherding’s clothing off.

‘‘To bust out Herman Stritch?’’ I asked. ‘‘How in the hell did he think . . . ?’’

Volont held up his hand. ‘‘Cops found out he wasn’t trying to bust anybody out,’’ he said. ‘‘He thought he knew where they were. He was trying to kill them.’’

‘‘You gotta be kidding,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Why would he want to do that?’’

‘‘Well,’’ said Volont, ‘‘I imagine he was already feeling the effects of the morphine when the cops spoke with him. He claimed that Mrs. Stritch had told him that Herman was talking to the Feds.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘No way he could have spoken with Nola Stritch.’’

Those of us who knew better got a little pale. The bogus message we’d sent via e-mail could count as having ‘‘talked to Mrs. Stritch.’’ Yeah, it sure could.

‘‘People actually hallucinate on morphine, don’t they?’’ said Hester.

‘‘Well,’’ said Volont, ‘‘what he said sure isn’t going to be admissible, for that reason.’’

Piece of cake. All a few of us had to do now was convince the world that Borcherding was nuts. As soon as he came out of it.

‘‘Oh,’’ said Volont. ‘‘The best part . . . the rocket was a
British
model LAW 80. Just like the ones at Wittman’s farm.’’

That I’d expected. Finally.

All of which left us with the fact that something had happened to Nancy, and we didn’t know what. Or where, or who the threat was, or why, or anything else.

‘‘So,’’ I said. ‘‘Nancy . . .’’

‘‘Unless there were two or more people trying to get her,’’ said Hester, ‘‘I think her car being gone is a good sign.’’

‘‘Me too,’’ said George.

‘‘Possibly,’’ said Volont. ‘‘Which has her running, probably on a predictable path toward Iowa, probably eliminating herself.’’

‘‘Eliminating herself?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘Getting herself killed,’’ said Volont.

‘‘How so?’’ I asked.

‘‘Because,’’ he said, ‘‘Gabriel is very good at what he does.’’

‘‘Just because he was born there . . .’’ I said.

‘‘Oh,’’ said Volont, ‘‘he maintains contacts.’’

‘‘But why would he be at Rumsford’s funeral?’’ asked George. ‘‘Isn’t that a lot of a coincidence?’’

Volont’s eyes looked upward, beseechingly. ‘‘Because, Agent Pollard,’’ he said, patiently, ‘‘he wasn’t going to the fucking funeral. He was tracking the fucking newspaper lady, and he decided to have her done in an area where he knew the right fucking people.’’

I was beginning to like Volont, in spite of my loyalty to George.

‘‘So,’’ I said, ‘‘you think there may be several people working her?’’

He didn’t so much shake his head as flick it left and right, holding up his hand at the same time. ‘‘No. We don’t know how many. He won’t do it himself.’’ He smiled. ‘‘Not at this stage. He’ll hire it done.’’

The phone rang, and I picked it up. It was the RCMP, for Volont. I started to get up to leave the room, but he gestured for us all to stay.

‘‘McGwinn,’’ he said in a warm voice. ‘‘Surprised they still let you work . . .’’

He filled the chief inspector in very rapidly, very accurately. They both apparently knew Gabriel well. After the initial briefing, Volont said, ‘‘Oh, by the way, I’ve just come across a part of the Bruggen Shipment.’’ He paused. ‘‘No. Just a small part.’’ He paused, then said, ‘‘I think so . . .’’ and looked at us, gesturing politely toward the door. We could take the hint, and left.

Well, I thought, Volont sure is a lot more concerned about his weapons than he is about Nancy. Probably logical too. She was one person. A load of weapons, the size of which I was beginning to comprehend, could kill hundreds.

‘‘We’ve got to help Nancy,’’ said Hester.

We agreed. It was a matter of how, and until she was in Iowa at least, helping her was up to the Canadians and the FBI. We both looked at George.

‘‘We’ll get on it right away, I’m sure,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ll do everything we can.’’

I thought about that for a second. If we felt that it was Gabriel himself who was threatening her, we’d get her a lot more attention. If she was still alive.

Volont came out of the office. ‘‘Well, that was interesting. McGwinn thinks that Gabriel was seen in Winnipeg today.’’ He looked at his watch. ‘‘It’s time to go home, boys and girls. Tomorrow could be a very long day.’’

George was delegated to make some preliminary moves, such as getting a Nationwide Pickup out on Nancy, alerting all law-enforcement agencies in the United States. It didn’t take long.

We were all on our way out to our respective cars, when I said to Volont, ‘‘You know, I’d hate to be Gabriel. Wouldn’t you?’’

‘‘For more than one reason,’’ he said. ‘‘Why would you?’’

‘‘Well, you said he hangs out sometimes in London. Germany. But with those stolen weapons, the German cops are going to be on his case, the British cops, the RAF . . . not to mention you and the Canadians.’’

‘‘What do you mean, the RAF?’’ he asked. Quickly.

‘‘Well, Bruggen is an RAF base in Germany. Protected, I assume, by a unit from the RAF regiment, their base security forces, since they’re forward-deployed. Had to come from them. The weapons. Or from their storage.’’ I smiled. ‘‘He’s not welcome anywhere.’’

‘‘Houseman,’’ he said, ‘‘you amaze me.’’

‘‘Thanks.’’

I hit the Nation County line at 0227, and was at home and in bed at about 0300.

Twenty-four

I WAS AWAKENED by the telephone at 0718, according to my little fucking clock. On the 30th day of July, to be exact. Good little clock. Just that sometimes you like to see it, sometimes you don’t.

‘‘Helumph,’’ I said. Or something close to that.

‘‘And a very good morning to you,’’ said an unfamiliar voice.

‘‘Who is this?’’ I managed to get out.

‘‘Jacob Nieuhauser,’’ he said.

Jacob Nieuhauser. Jacob Nieuhauser. Damn, it was ringing a bell, but I just couldn’t grab on to it.

‘‘Do I know you?’’ I asked.

‘‘Not as well as you think you do,’’ he said.

The bell rang really loud. ‘‘Gabriel,’’ I said. My mind was working fast. So was my heart.

‘‘To some,’’ he said. ‘‘I prefer that my friends call me that, but you go ahead.’’

‘‘Thanks.’’ A bright thing to say.

‘‘You need to do me a favor,’’ he said. Very conversational.

‘‘What would that be?’’

‘‘Stop sending reporters out to look for me. It won’t work.’’

‘‘If I hadn’t, would we be talking now?’’

‘‘Point well taken,’’ he said. ‘‘But it gets rather expensive for the reporters.’’

‘‘Well, for one,’’ I said.

‘‘No,’’ he answered. ‘‘For two.’’

‘‘Do you have her?’’ I asked. ‘‘Have you harmed her?’’

‘‘No, to both,’’ he said. ‘‘Hostages just get you killed. First rule.’’

‘‘So?’’

‘‘But I can see her. She’s at a telephone at a Travel King just outside Fairmont, and from the frustration, I’d say she might be trying to call you.’’

I didn’t know just what to say.

‘‘You see,’’ he said, ‘‘I find it much more effective not to take a hostage in the traditional sense. I take my hostages at a distance. I don’t hold them. I simply kill them if the time comes. If it doesn’t, they live. A random harvest, almost.’’

‘‘Really?’’ Brilliance is not easy for me in the morning.

‘‘Certainly. Only the important ones have to know the potential. After all,’’ he said, ‘‘hostages don’t pay their ransom, do they? Others do it for them. Something you should remember.’’

He hung up.

I couldn’t believe it. I looked over at Sue, who was looking at me wide-eyed. ‘‘Who was that?’’

I told her what I could, which wasn’t much.

I headed downstairs to get some coffee and to try to decide what to do, and maybe even how to do it. The phone rang. The microwave said it was 0724.

‘‘Hello . . .’’

‘‘Jesus Christ, where the hell have you been?’’ It was Nancy.

‘‘Nancy, listen carefully . . .’’

‘‘Don’t you ever do that to me again, damn you, Houseman. I’m gonna get fucking killed up here.’’

‘‘Where are you?’’

‘‘Fairmont fucking Minnesota!’’

‘‘At a Travel King?’’

She stopped in her tracks. ‘‘What?’’ At least she stopped shouting.

‘‘You’re at a Travel King, aren’t you?’’

‘‘Yes . . . How did you know that?’’

‘‘Because the man you think is trying to kill you just called me and told me where you were.’’

‘‘Shit. I thought I lost him.’’ Her voice went up an octave, and began to shake. ‘‘You gotta help meeee, he’s gonna kill meeee . . .’’

‘‘No, he’s not, Nancy. That’s what he told me.’’ Maybe a white lie.

‘‘What?’’

‘‘He’s not going to kill you.’’

‘‘Oh, yeah,’’ came the tremulous reply. ‘‘I’ll just bet.’’

‘‘Give me your number.’’

‘‘It says you can’t call in on this telephone.’’

Shit. ‘‘Okay, just don’t hang up, and listen to me. I’m going to call my office on my walkie-talkie here. You listen to it, but feel free to interrupt anytime, ’cause I’ll keep the phone right at my ear, okay?’’

I took my portable out of the recharger that sat on top of the microwave, and called in.

‘‘Go ahead, Three.’’

‘‘Contact Fairmont, Minnesota, ten-thirty-three, tell them Nancy Mitchell is at the Travel King, at the pay phone, and to get officers there immediately.’’

‘‘Ten-four . . .’’

‘‘Do it on teletype. No radio. You got that?’’

‘‘Ten-four, Three.’’

‘‘There,’’ I said to Nancy. ‘‘Just stay put.’’

I could hear her take a deep breath. ‘‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ll, all right, yeah, I’ll stay here . . .’’

She talked to herself like that for about forty-five seconds. Then I heard sirens in the background.

‘‘They’re coming now,’’ she said.

‘‘Stay on the line,’’ I said, ‘‘and have one of them talk to me.’’

I picked up my walkie-talkie and called the office. I had them make immediate radio contact with Fairmont PD and get me the name of the responding officer. They did, just as he came on the phone.

‘‘Who is this?’’ he asked.

‘‘This is Deputy Houseman in Nation County, Iowa. Who is this?’’

He told me. It matched.

So by 0800 on that bright Tuesday morning, I was up, wired, worried, and getting hungry. I had coffee and started frozen fat-free waffles in the toaster, while the office contacted Hester, George, and Volont.

Just as the waffles came up out of the toaster, blackened but at least hot, the phone rang. I figured it was either Hester or Volont.

‘‘Hello.’’

‘‘You’re so predictable.’’ It was Gabriel.

‘‘I can’t be original this early,’’ I said.

‘‘I’ll bet you’re old and fat too,’’ he said.

Well, nothing hurts like the truth, but I’m hard to bait before noon. ‘‘You’ve been peeking,’’ I said.

There was a pause, for about two beats. ‘‘Let’s not waste time in banter,’’ he said.

‘‘Fine.’’

‘‘Find a way to be happy with those idiots you’ve already got.’’

‘‘Like who?’’

‘‘You know who. Wittman. Borcherding. Stritch. They’re the ones you want, really, and they will satisfy the public and the Zionists.’’

‘‘What about the rest of the people in the woods? The ones who really did the killing?’’ I thought that was a fair question, given the circumstances.

‘‘You never want to meet them,’’ he said. ‘‘Believe me.’’

‘‘I’m gonna have to, I’m afraid.’’

He sighed heavily. ‘‘No, don’t do that. Just make the evidence fit the others. You can do that. Your kind can always find a way.’’

‘‘Sorry,’’ I said. ‘‘You’ve got the wrong man for that stuff.’’

He sighed again. ‘‘I know you can’t possibly have a trace on your phone,’’ he said, ‘‘and I want you to know that when I say this conversation is getting boring, it really is.’’

‘‘Want to tell me why you sent Borcherding to snuff Stritch?’’ I asked.

‘‘That’s need to know,’’ he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

‘‘I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t that e-mail I sent you,’’ I said.

‘‘You can’t reach me by e-mail,’’ he said. He thought he was calling my bluff.

‘‘I can when I call myself Nola, and relay through Bravo6.’’

Dead silence.

‘‘Just so you know,’’ I said, ‘‘I’ve done two other things you will probably hate.’’

‘‘Oh?’’ Very cold. Brittle, almost.

‘‘If we chat again, I might tell you what they are. But you should really do a background check on us lowly folks. You might be surprised. Goodbye.’’ I was the one who hung up the phone this time. I was sweating, and my waffles were cold. And I was really going to have to think about this one. I had him off balance, but . . . well, really, what else could I have done? I knew I hadn’t done any ‘‘two other things.’’ But knowing that I’d done one ‘‘thing,’’ he’d be looking over his shoulder for a little while at least. The same principle he used on his hostages. I hoped it worked as well as he seemed to think it did.

I had just gotten my pathetic reheated waffles out of the microwave when the phone rang. Hester. I dumped my waffles out, and told her what had happened. She was, well, a little less than overjoyed. But she was glad to hear that Fairmont PD had Nancy. I told her I was going to eat breakfast and then mosey up to the office. I called the office, and told them that if anybody bothered me in the next forty-five minutes, I’d come up and kill them as soon as I ate my breakfast. I asked about Lamar. He’d called in at 0545. Good. He really was getting better. I put my last four waffles in, and tried again. It worked. I don’t even really like waffles.

I debated for about one second whether or not to send Sue up to her mother’s house, just to get her away from an easy locate by Gabriel. She and I left the house together.

I got to the office at 0922. By 0924 I knew that George and Volont would be there in an hour, Hester in about forty-five minutes, and Nancy in two hours. Nancy was being escorted by three Iowa state troopers from the Minnesota border on down. Nothing is perfect, but she certainly wouldn’t be an easy hit.

When Hester arrived, I told her about the entire morning, including my comment about sending the e-mail. We agreed to tell George at some point, but not Volont.

When Volont arrived, the first thing he did was tell me that there was going to be a wiretap on my home phone. I couldn’t argue with that. With instant ability to trace. Except for cellular telephone traffic, which would take a while, if it worked at all. I said we might as well forget the trace, but Volont insisted. He said that assumptions about what an adversary will do will cause you to make silly little errors that might cost you a lot. Like I said, I was beginning to like him.

‘‘Frankly, Houseman,’’ he said, ‘‘I’m very surprised that he called you. It’s not like him.’’

‘‘Oh?’’

‘‘You must be getting close to something, even if you don’t realize it.’’

‘‘Thanks a hell of a lot,’’ I said.

‘‘No, no, really, that’s something we all do,’’ he apologized. ‘‘The important thing is to realize when you must have known it, and then you’ll know what it was.’’

Intelligence work does some of that to you. Counterintelligence, on the other hand, does a lot of that to you. I’d been told that in a school run by a real expert, and it had always stuck.

‘‘You work a lot of counterintelligence cases, don’t you,’’ I said.

‘‘Houseman, your perception stuns me.’’ He grinned. ‘‘You really did pay attention in that little school of ours, didn’t you?’’

The school had been run on a federal grant. ‘‘Sure did,’’ I said. He’d obviously looked up my file. Thorough. I wondered if he’d come across the motto of the counterintelligence agent who’d taught the class: ‘‘Sometimes you gets the Bear. Sometimes the Bear gets you.’’

Counterintelligence is the most dangerous thing you can do, because, almost by definition, you really can’t thoroughly know the mind of your target. I’d found that out very clearly with the e-mail to Gabriel. My intention had been that he contact Herman, thereby giving us a conduit we could trace. He turned around and tried to get Herman shut off forever, and just happened to use our only conduit in the process. I’d have to write to my old instructor. Sometimes the Bear, it seemed, got somebody else entirely. You had to get to know the Bear, and the one who knew him best was Volont.

Volont was still talking, mostly to George and Hester. ‘‘I think that’s typical of him,’’ he said.

‘‘What?’’ I asked. ‘‘I was thinking of something else . . .’’

‘‘To tell you to charge the others in the cases.’’

‘‘Oh, yeah.’’ I looked at him for a second. ‘‘You know,’’ I said, ‘‘it occurs to me that, aside from Rumsford, Gabriel hadn’t actually committed a crime in my jurisdiction. Or in Iowa, for that matter.’’

‘‘As a conspirator,’’ said George.

‘‘But as a practical matter,’’ I said, ‘‘that would be much, much easier to charge federally.’’

‘‘That’s true,’’ said George.

‘‘The point?’’ said Volont.

‘‘The point is,’’ I said, very carefully, ‘‘that the error on his part was to go to Stritch’s farm.’’ I looked at all three of them. ‘‘Until that time, there was a tenuous federal case against him at best. Right?’’

George nodded.

‘‘For the expedition into the woods,’’ said Hester.

‘‘Yep,’’ I said. ‘‘Nothing else, except a likely financial scam, but we don’t know that, do we?’’

‘‘No,’’ said George. He looked at Volont, who was sitting quietly, with his arms folded. ‘‘Do we?’’

‘‘Immaterial,’’ said Volont. He looked at me. ‘‘Keep going.’’

‘‘Wittman tells us that Gabriel came to the Stritch residence when summoned, even though they were supposedly surrounded by cops, even though it was a murder scene, just to honor a prior sort of philosophical commitment, right?’’

‘‘Yes,’’ said Volont.

‘‘Is that really true to form? For him?’’

‘‘It could be,’’ said Volont.

‘‘No, no,’’ I said. ‘‘Don’t hedge now, for Christ’s sake. Is it or isn’t it?’’

‘‘I wouldn’t have expected that,’’ said Volont. ‘‘No. I would have expected he’d send an emissary.’’

‘‘It would have been the logical thing to do, then?’’ I asked. ‘‘Send somebody else, and not go to Stritch’s place himself. Right?’’

There was general agreement.

‘‘Any idea why he’d do something so . . .’’ I hunted for the right word. ‘‘So . . . nonoperational? Not tactically correct? Not . . .’’

‘‘Professional,’’ said Hester.

‘‘Reasonable,’’ said George. ‘‘Not reasonable.’’

‘‘Completely out of character,’’ said Volont briskly. ‘‘Go on . . .’’

‘‘Right,’’ I said. ‘‘So . . . why?’’ I grinned at Volont. ‘‘To be fair, I think I’ve thought of something you haven’t,’’ I said. ‘‘I believe I know why.’’

Volont raised his eyebrows. Tough soul, there.

‘‘Nola Stritch,’’ I said.

To be fair, I had to fill Volont in on everything, and I mean everything. All that I said was either corroborated by Hester or, on safe occasions, George. When I was done, Volont sat in silence for a moment.

‘‘I’m not going to jump your asses yet,’’ he said, ‘‘because what you’ve done may just justify how you’ve gone about it.’’ He looked squarely at George. ‘‘In fact, I suppose there’s only one ass I can get on.’’

He wasn’t kidding, so we didn’t either. But Hester jumped right in.

‘‘All well and good, Houseman,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s good background. But what makes you think it’s her?’’

I shrugged. ‘‘Well, she’s not at all bad-looking,’’ I began. Hester made a face. ‘‘She’s in her, what, late forties? Very fit. Very bright. Dynamic, in a lot of ways. Great with computers. Dedicated to some cause or other. Altogether a very attractive, capable, interesting woman. Right?’’