Burt’s blunt face closed up and his brows came down.
“I’m not sayin’ I won’t say anything. I’m just sayin’ that if it gets into blamin’ me or stuff like that, then I’m outta here.”
“You can be subpoenaed, Mr. Burt.”
“Fire away. I haven’t been summoned for this hearing. I’m giving my testimony freely and of my own good will. It’s just I got no intention of being no scapegoat for a police fuckup.”
“Hey, Danny, come on, man,” said Klein, looking hurt. Ballard raised a delicate, long-fingered hand and he snapped his mouth shut.
“Mr. Burt, these proceedings are not criminal. We are gathered
here merely as a committee of inquiry, to examine in an orderly way the events surrounding the several deaths that took place this past Friday. I can assure you that, as assistant district attorney for Yellowstone County, I would be seriously remiss in my duties if I were to allow any development of evidence here that provided a
prima facie
basis for an indictment without first ensuring that you—that any person appearing here, any person who might be the subject of a criminal inquiry leading to an indictment—had been apprised of your rights under the law, including the right to counsel and the right not to make self-incriminatory statements. Now, if you have reason to believe that there is a material possibility that information will come forth at these informal hearings that might … incriminate you or create some inference of guilt or culpability, then I would most strongly advise you now to get up from this table and leave. Mr. Sterling and I have a long professional acquaintance, and I would be delighted to communicate with him in this regard and to have him present at any formal interrogation.”
Burt’s face went through a number of changes. “I—I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“And no one here thinks you have, Mr. Burt.” Her tone softened. She shut off the recorder.
“Look, Danny. This is merely an administrative function here. Obviously, Spellman thinks so, too, or he’d be here with his moustache in flames. Nobody thinks you’ve done anything that could, or should, result in any charges at all. Now, I know how sorry you must be, and I know you feel that, in some way, you are responsible for Peter Hinsdale’s death.”
“Hell, Ms. Ballard—I feel like shit about it! Can’t get any sleep! Been pissed—been drinking all weekend! Poor little bastard. I mean, the kid was a pain in the butt, only—not even—I mean, I think the whole thing
sucks
. Ma’am.”
“So do we all, Danny. We all think it … sucks. Now that I’ve tried to reassure you, may we continue?”
Burt looked around the table.
“Sure, Ms. Ballard. I’m sorry for my language.”
She smiled and turned on the tape recorder again. “Now
we have reached the time when, as it has been reported by other witnesses, you and Peter Hinsdale arrived at the scene of the first shooting. Perhaps you could go on from there, in your own words?”
“Sure. Well, me and Pete, we had another call to make, over at Laurel. Mr. Gentile has a contract with Zweibeck’s Nursing Home, so we were trying to get this done. The medical examiner had already been there, and Rowdy said—”
“Let the record show that Mr. Burt has made reference to Dr. Marco Vlasic, acting as coroner, and to Sergeant Rudolph Klein of the CIB.”
Klein refrained from mentioning to Ballard that he preferred to use the name Rowdy.
“Yeah, and Sergeant Klein told me that it was okay to take the sti—the client away. So me and Pete, we bagged him and filed him in the cooler.”
“Try to resist the idiom, Mr. Burt.”
“What?”
“Please speak in plain terms, Mr. Burt.”
“Oh. Okay. We placed the client in a body bag, and we put him in the tray, and we slid the tray into the wagon. Then we—well, I got on the CB and Bob—Mr. Gentile—says that the people at Zweibeck’s called to say that the old far—the elderly client who died was Jewish, and since it was Friday and the guy was orthodox, it seems that he hadda be taken by his own family and they’d made arrangements with the synagogue to take charge of the body and get him buried within twenty-four hours. So we had nothing to do, and I figured, you know, it was hot as hell and we’d had a long day, and the kid was yarfing at me—I mean, Pete was whining and complaining about the shift. Kid complained a lot, ma’am, he was kind of a pain in the—well, so just to, I guess, crank him off, I decide to stop in at Fogarty’s for a coupla brews.”
“Fogarty’s being Fogarty’s New York Bar in Pompeys Pillar?”
“Yes, ma’am. So I park the cooler and Pete starts in yarfing again, so I say I’m going in and he kin slide if he don’t—doesn’t—if he isn’t thirsty.”
“And this would have been at what time, approximately?”
“It would be exactly six. Or seven. Maybe.”
“Exactly maybe or perhaps maybe?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Please go on.”
“Well, I had a coupla drinks with Fogarty and we talked about this and that. And then I get into talking with this Indian guy who came in.”
“Can you describe him for us?”
“Yeah. Long black hair, in braids. Not old, but he had a tough face. Like he’d been around, you know. Big guy. But he was friendly and—well, one thing leads to another, and …”
“Yes?”
“So, I know this is stupid, but I get to drinkin’ and I say to Fogarty and this guy, I’m tellin’ them about the shoot-out, you know, and here I got this kid in the cooler. So we just go out, you know, to take a look at him.”
“And who took part in this … expedition to view the corpse?”
“Me. Fogarty. This Indian guy, said his name was Earl. So we scope out the stiffie and everybody says, you know, like it was too bad. I was feeling kinda bad because it was a dead Indian and here I am showing the body to another Indian. Like it was a sensitive issue. Which I guess it was.”
“Was this Native American male someone you knew, even casually?”
“Nope. I know most everybody in the county. This guy was from nowhere around here. Real hardcase, too. Looked like he’d done time.”
“Thanks for the guesswork, Mr. Burt. If you’ll just relate, in any words you like, just relate the events as you were in a position to observe them, we’ll take care of the forensic inferences.”
Burt ducked his head, swallowed, and ran them through it. After a few more drinks, the Indian named Earl had paid for his beers and gotten up from the barstool just as Burt and Hinsdale were leaving. At the door, he asked Burt which way
they were going. Burt said into Billings, and the man asked for a lift.
“And that was that. We get about a half-block away, and suddenly I got this machete at my throat and Pete is crying, and next thing I know we’re out at the end of the street. Earl gets me to pull in behind the grain barn there, you know, Minnocks Feed Barn? And there’s a whole gang of them there. A young girl, pretty thing, but not in any mood for talk. Another man they called James, an old guy whose name I didn’t get, and Earl from the bar. They all get in, Earl in beside me and Pete, and the rest in the back with the stiff. Pull the curtains around, and boom, we’re outta town.”
“Did you see any other weapons?”
“Oh yeah! Metal bows and arrows. Real modern stuff. Expensive. And knives. They didn’t talk much. They were … scary.”
“Did they discuss the events at Joe Bell’s gas station?”
“Not a lot. I got the idea that it was the kid they wanted. Like it was a religious thing. The girl was pretty strong on that point. I got the idea getting the body back had been her idea, and they were going along with it to please her. But the old guy, he was pretty pissed about it. He opened up the crate—the casket—and man, was he cranked about
that
! I thought, that’s it. Good-night nurse. Touched the wound, rubbed the blood on his cheeks and his forehead. Total fruit-basket! But you got the idea he was running things, and that the other two guys were muscle.”
“Did you form any opinions regarding their intentions?”
“They were getting the hell outta town, ma’am.”
“Yes. I meant, what their intentions might have been in their initial approach to Bell’s Oasis.”
“Intentions, ma’am? I’d say their intentions was to rob the shit outta the place. They had the bows, and they was sure as hell a gang. Had a boss and a plan and a skinfulla bad intentions. They went there to rob Joe Bell. I already been over this with Finch and Rowdy.”
“Were they specific about that? They named Joe Bell?”
“Yeah! Joe Bell, they said. They said they were going to
get the man, get Joe Bell. They said they had gone after ‘the old man,’ and I took that to mean Joe Bell.”
“Their exact words were ‘get the man. Get the old man’?”
“Yeah. I got the impression that’s what they wanted. Like they had picked out Joe Bell’s place, and the rest had just happened. They said something about the shotgun, about it being under his desk, and one of the younger guys, I think it was James, says, ‘We should have taken him at the pumps,’ and then the old man tells them all to shut up. I guess he was worried about them talking in front of us.”
“And it was your distinct impression that this group of people, one young woman and one young male, and two middle-age males whom you knew as Earl and James, and the elderly man—”
“Donna! They called her Donna! She was crying and carrying on, and the old man said something like ‘Be still, Donna!’ and she clammed right up. That old guy, yeah, he was definitely running things.”
“Thank you. That Earl and James and—Donna? And this ‘old man’—it was your impression that they had initiated the contact with Joe Bell in order to carry out an armed robbery of the premises.”
“Yes, ma’am. They had the bows and shit. They were as pissed off as a buncha scorpions in a frying pan. They were all fired up. I figured, listening to them growling at each other, I figured I could just bend over, kiss my—”
“I’m sure. And what happened then?”
“Then? Then they get me to drive to the Ballantine road and off into the creek. That’s one thing. It was like they knew the creek, you know? Knew that it was shallow enough to drive in. And we get a few miles up the creek—by now, I’m hearing on the CB from Mr. Gentile and from you guys”—he nodded at Finch Hyam and Rowdy Klein—“so I know, like, the search is on.”
“I understand, from other reports, that you were now separated from Peter Hinsdale.”
“Yes, ma’am. They stopped up the creek there, by the big bend below the bluffs. They go around, open up the back. Take
out the kid’s body. That was when I figured we was dead, because the girl, she goes nuclear. Rangy! Crying and stuff. The men were just sort of solemn and sad, but she—I don’t wanna run into
her
, she’s got a gun or something.”
“I understand.”
“So they take a look at us, and they tell Pete to get into the coffin. I tried to stop that, but the way it looked, I figured if they were gonna stick him into a coffin alive, then maybe they weren’t going to kill him. So I got him calmed down, and they put him in there. He was crying a lot, and they just slammed the lid on him. It was hard. They were hard people. Then they took me some ways up the creek. I figure, this is it, say your prayers and kiss your butt good-bye. But they just tied me to a tree. Did a good job, too.”
He held up his wrists and pulled the sleeves of his suit jacket back.
“No screwing around there. I’m down on my knees in the gravel by the creek there, all I can see is the tree bark in front of my face. I’m thinkin’, okay, one of them just reaches around, cuts me a new mouth, takes my scalp, and I’m tryin’ not to whine, you know, to go out with a hard-on—shit, ma’am, my language—”
“Yes. It must have been terrible for you. Would you like a glass of water?”
“I’d fuck a bobcat for a brew, ma’am.”
Ballard looked across at Meagher, her thoughts clear. She asked Burt a few more questions, which soon became circular. Burt was earnest, but beyond his feelings about being tied to a tree all night, he had little to add. When she told him he was excused and thanked him, he let out a long sigh, like a deflating tire. It was all he could do not to run from the room.
“What do you think’ll happen to Burt, Vanessa?”
She shut off the tape. “I think Bob Gentile will probably get sued by Hinsdale’s mother, and she’ll sure as hell include Burt in that. I can’t see any criminal charges against him. He’s a victim, same as Peter Hinsdale. If Spellman Sterling’s defending him, he’ll do okay. I just don’t see how he can afford
Sterling. I know he asks for at least a thousand as a retainer. I didn’t think Burt had that sort of money. On the other hand, he could pawn that Rolex.”
“I saw that,” said Meagher. “Think it’s a fake?”
“No. It’s real. Okay,” said Ballard. “Let’s wrap this up.”
By the time they finished with the rest of the witnesses, everyone at the table could see that there was a pretty good basis for treating these shootings as justifiable use of force.
There had been an assault, an armed assault witnessed by Marla LeMay and others. Missiles had been fired with malicious intent. Regardless of the actual sequence of events, it was obvious that these Native Americans had arrived on the scene with weapons, that some kind of confrontation had ensued. They’d present those results to the SPEAR people. Maybe they’d go away.
Klein spoke up. “That’s true, Ms. Ballard. But we haven’t established whether Staff Sergeant McAllister had any call to shoot Joe Bell. And he did allow the Indians to escape. Seems to me we ought to suspend—”
Meagher sat forward and slapped his palm down hard on the table. Even Vanessa Ballard jumped.
“God-
damn it
, Howdy, will you get
off
that horse! You got corks in your ears or what? Haven’t you heard a thing said here?”
Ballard stopped the exchange by making a display of turning the tape machine back on. Police officers hate tape recorders. They use them to tape snitches and criminals. Having to talk into one turns their world around, and they don’t like it.
“Thank you. Perhaps someone will see if Sergeant McAllister is out in the hall?”
Finch Hyam got up and went out the door. In a few minutes, he was back, followed by Beau McAllister in civilian clothes, a two-piece blue suit, a shirt and tie. He smiled at everyone, including Rudy Klein, and took a seat at the end of the table.