Known Dead

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.