Known Dead

Three

Two hours later, things were starting to sort themselves out, and get much more complicated at the same time. Typical investigation in that you just couldn’t simplify things, no matter how you tried.

Lamar and I were returning up the trail, after trying to direct the officers who were beginning to search the park. He and I had just gone back through the yellow crime-scene tape and past the hurriedly arriving media. I overheard some reporter, who had set up his own camera and was speaking into it, say ‘‘… there are known dead so far, but how many is still not certain…’’

‘‘They’re all known to somebody,’’ I said to Lamar.

‘‘What?’’ His hearing was going.

‘‘Never mind.’’ Known dead… I didn’t know how else to put it myself. The term just sort of offended me, with the implications of body counts and things. Known dead. Like they wouldn’t count, somehow, until they were known.

We’d also been briefing various investigative people as they showed up, and picking up items from our cars down on the road. The area search was a hopeless task, but it did serve to make those of us who were concerned with the crime scene feel a little more comfortable. As far as I was concerned, though, the shooters were long gone.

‘‘Where’s Johansen?’’ I asked Lamar. I’d lost track of him in the combined process of getting resources assigned to the scene and scrounging gear from my trunk.

‘‘He’s still up there, talkin’ to DNE and DCI. He just doesn’t want to leave. He ain’t hurt, but I’m gonna have to get him out of here.’’

‘‘Yeah, but let me talk to him again first, okay?’’

‘‘Just for a while.’’

I could imagine the conversation between Johansen and the Iowa Department of Narcotics Enforcement and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. A state agent being murdered in the woods was bad enough, but to have heavily armed and unknown suspects to boot…

‘‘Shit, they were just sittin’ on a patch, Lamar… What went wrong?’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ Lamar said, stopping and turning around. ‘‘I thought you might.’’

‘‘Hell,’’ I said, ‘‘I haven’t worked dope for five or six years. I don’t even known who they thought they might have.’’

That was very true. We worked all dope cases that way within the department. Need to know only. I was our intelligence officer, but I wouldn’t pressure them for the information unless I thought they might have something I needed. Lamar, as sheriff, had automatic ‘‘need to know,’’ but seldom asked.

‘‘Oh,’’ he said. He sounded a little disappointed, and turned back up the trail.

‘‘But I’ll know shortly,’’ I said. ‘‘Just a minute…’’

Since we were stopped, I took a spray can of insect repellent out of my camera bag. I sprayed it liberally on my face, hands, inside my hat, inside my shirt, on my waist, and finally on my ankles. As I was replacing the can, Lamar spoke.

‘‘Got somethin’ against bugs?’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ I said as we started back up the long, winding path to the crime scene. ‘‘I hate chiggers and mosquitoes.’’ I reached back into my camera bag. ‘‘You want some?’’

‘‘Nope. Never use the stuff. Bugs gotta eat too.’’

It occurred to me to look for my raincoat, which I’d tossed aside on the way to help Johansen. The fact that it was an olive green wasn’t going to be a lot of help, but it should have stood out because of its shape, if nothing else. I couldn’t find it, and made a mental note to look again when we came back.

We hit the crime scene proper about two minutes later. You really have to have worked a crime scene in the deep woods, with a temperature hovering around a hundred, and the humidity in the high nineties, to appreciate what a pain in the ass it can be. This one looked like it was scattered out over an area like a little plane wreck. Most of the activity was centered just up the path from where I’d encountered Johansen with the body of Kellerman.

There was one strand of yellow crime-scene tape winding its way from the path off to my right, disappearing into the bushes. Another went away to my left, and uphill, disappearing into the trees. They weren’t being used as barriers, but rather to indicate paths or tracks. Other tape was screening off small areas on both sides of the path. There was a large area to the left, where the underbrush gave way to grass. That whole area was festooned with little white boxes, covering small items of evidence. There seemed to be at least a hundred of them, maybe more. Then there were small tags, marking photo locations. Lots of those too. Plus, there were about five lab people there, as well as three Division of Criminal Investigation agents, and the deputy state medical examiner. And two young officers, a deputy from another county, and a state trooper I didn’t know, standing uncertainly around on what appeared to be a perimeter, looking a little nervous, but still spending most of their time looking at the scene through their dark glasses rather than scanning for possible bad guys in the bush. Hester Gorse, my favorite DCI agent, was there. Hester and I had worked together before, and I had a lot of confidence in her. She was kneeling down over a matted area in the underbrush, which contained a lump under a yellow disposable blanket. The medical examiner was standing beside her, pulling off a set of latex gloves. Hester looked up as we approached, and smiled.

‘‘What we got here?’’ asked Lamar.

‘‘We’re not sure,’’ said Hester, ‘‘but it looks like maybe the doper shot at Bill, Bill shot and killed the doper, and then the doper’s friends shot and killed Bill.’’

‘‘Hell, that oughta clear up who was involved, then,’’ said Lamar.

It flashed through my mind that there’s no such thing as an open-and-shut case. Little did I know.

‘‘Well, not really,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Something about this just isn’t adding up.’’

‘‘Okay.’’

‘‘Johansen has told us a lot,’’ she said, ‘‘but we need to know a lot more.’’

‘‘Where is he?’’ asked Lamar.

‘‘He and two DNE people are up toward the end of this valley.’’ Hester stood, and winced. ‘‘Almost as old as you, Houseman.’’ She grinned. ‘‘And you were the first one at the scene?’’

‘‘Naturally.’’

‘‘Good. Let’s get you together with the DNE troops, then.’’ She took off her gloves, and shook her hands to get the sweat off.

DNE. Also good. They could tell me a lot about who was growing what up here. And, just about on cue, there was a crunching noise up to the north, and two people I didn’t know came into view, with Johansen between them. He saw Lamar and me, and started over. The two DNE folks, whom I didn’t recognize, hung back for a second, and then decided that, whoever I was, they’d better be around when Ken talked to me, and overtook him in a couple of strides.

‘‘You okay, Ken?’’

‘‘Jesus, Carl. It was like a fuckin’ war.’’

‘‘Agent Bob Dahl, DNE,’’ said Agent Bob Dahl, interrupting.

‘‘Deputy Houseman, Investigator,’’ I said. ‘‘You helping out here with my case?’’ It’s always a good idea to establish the territorial limits. Right off the bat. Of course I put him at a bit of a disadvantage, because he wouldn’t ever say that he was helping me. After all, it was a DNE officer who was dead. But it was in my jurisdiction, and we were going to be fully involved. But he knew that I knew that he was supposed to do just that, and that was what counted. I decided I was going to like him as soon as he answered.

‘‘I’m helping them,’’ he said, indicating Hester and the rest of the Division of Criminal Investigation team. ‘‘But I’ll bet they’re helping you. I was his partner,’’ he said, obviously referring to Kellerman.

I nodded. ‘‘I’m sorry. And I’m really sorry about this,’’ I said, gesturing at the entire scene. ‘‘We’ll find out who did it.’’ I turned back to Ken. ‘‘What happened, Ken? Who did this?’’

Ken didn’t know. But he did tell me, all in a rush, that he was certain that he was taking fire from at least three different locations at once; that he thought the dead doper was local; and that he thought Bill had shot the doper; and that the doper’s associates, whom they had apparently missed when they came up, shot Bill, and he damned well knew that he hadn’t killed anybody. But that he’d tried pretty damned hard.

‘‘Okay.’’ I was thinking about his shots at me as I came up the trail. Well, at least now I knew that he aimed a little high. Thank God.

‘‘We saw this one,’’ said Ken, gesturing at the mound under the blanket. ‘‘He was just walkin’ through the woods, came right up the path.’’

‘‘Okay…’’

‘‘Like he wasn’t all that cautious. Had a shotgun, and that other gear with him. We saw him, then we lost him as he hit the trail.’’ He pointed uphill and to the right of the trail. ‘‘We were up there.’’

‘‘Right.’’

‘‘We saw him again, once, and Kellerman and I decided to go get him.’’ Johansen looked at us, distressed. ‘‘There are two ways to the patch from here, you know.’’

We didn’t, but we nodded just the same.

‘‘We split up,’’ he said, ‘‘and after a few seconds, I heard two shots, about the same time. I thought, maybe, that somebody…’’

Johansen gulped down some water. None of us said a word.

‘‘God, it’s hot,’’ he said. ‘‘I thought that he’d fired a couple of shots to get the doper to stop. I went running back, and hollered, but nobody said anything, and then there were a whole bunch of shots. .. Jesus, there were a lot.’’

He’d rushed on, and as he came to where the dead doper was lying, he saw someone in camouflage clothing rise up and point a gun at him. ‘‘Shit, I thought it was Kellerman, you know?’’

Oh, yeah. When you’re expecting to see a particular person, you see ’em. Even if it’s not them at all.

‘‘I said, ‘It’s me,’ and then I saw it wasn’t him, and I just dove into the bushes and the son of a bitch just started shootin’ at me.’’ He shuddered. ‘‘I fuckin’ landed on Bill, man. Right across his legs. Oh, shit, I mean, he was alive…’’ He looked at Hester. ‘‘I hope I didn’t hurt him…’’ He was going pale. ‘‘And…’’ Ken looked around. ‘‘I think I’d better sit down,’’ he said. And did. Plop. We all tried to grab him at the same time, but he sat too quickly.

Lamar was on us in a second, talking on his walkie-talkie. ‘‘Get me a couple of EMTs up here, I have a man who needs some attention, possibly heat.’’

Dr. Steve Peters, the deputy medical examiner, was with Ken in about two seconds.

We just sort of stood around, looking dumb. That’s what happens when you want to help and either can’t or can’t do anything useful. We stayed around long enough to make sure Ken was okay.

I gestured with my head, and Hester stepped aside a bit with me. ‘‘Okay if I look at the doper?’’

Hester smiled. She has a great smile. I mean, it really looks like she’s glad to see you. An honest smile, I suppose you’d call it. She’s about ten years younger than I am, which makes her mature enough for most anything, and still young enough to do it. At about five feet six, she’s also close to a foot shorter than me, very fit, with short hair. That makes her look even younger. Just based on appearances, you wouldn’t consider her much of a threat. Not unless you knew her.

‘‘Sure, Carl.’’

‘‘Thanks, Hester.’’ I grinned back. I must have looked a little more stressed than I thought.

Her smile faded. ‘‘This is a bad business, Carl. Very bad.’’

‘‘You got that right.’’ I stopped at the body. ‘‘We don’t know who he is?’’

Agent Dahl spoke up. ‘‘No. Not yet, anyway. We’ve checked him for ID, but there’s none on him.’’ He paused. ‘‘There probably shouldn’t be any, anyway.’’ I wasn’t aware he’d been following us.

‘‘Can I move him a bit?’’ You should always ask, to make sure all the photos are done, and all the ‘‘in place’’ data has been gathered.

‘‘Go ahead, Carl,’’ said Hester. She lifted the blanket.

The body was a real mess. Blood had soaked his faded blue jeans, and the front of the unbuttoned shirt was so sticky it matted to his ribs. He’d been torn up from the lower belly through the side of his head. Half dozen wounds, at least. The head wound had pretty well removed the top of his head, making a channel as it did so, so that he looked like a purple smiley face with a bite out of the top. His lips puffed out, and one eye was completely gone, probably having come out under the terrific pressure that builds up with wounds like that. But I thought I recognized him. His chin, the scraggly beard, and the awful teeth. I pulled a pair of rubber gloves from my camera bag, put them on, and very gently moved the body over in a quarter roll to his left. I pulled aside his blood-soaked red-and-blue short-sleeved shirt. The tattoo of a skeleton on a motorcycle, hair streaming in the wind, was on his right shoulder blade.

‘‘I think this is Howie Phelps,’’ I said, looking up at the two agents.

‘‘You know him?’’ asked Dahl.

‘‘If it’s Howie, and I think it is, I busted him for dope about ten-twelve years ago.’’ That was to tell Dahl two things; that I had made dope arrests of my own, and that they had been made while Dahl was still working Capitol Security. I mean, he likely knew a lot about dope cases, maybe a bit more than I did. But I wanted him to know that we were on a pretty even playing field.

I looked at Dahl. ‘‘It’s true,’’ I said, and grinned at him. ‘‘I used to hate old fart deputies who said they knew everybody and really didn’t. I really do know this dude. Had an a.k.a. of Turd, if that rings any bells with you?’’

He shook his head. ‘‘They’re all turds. No bells. What kind of dope?’’

‘‘Grass and meth.’’

‘‘Much?’’

‘‘No, small time. Maybe a pound of grass at a time, just enough meth to get his ego up, so to speak.’’

‘‘He seems to have had a shotgun,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Did he usually go armed?’’

I looked at her. ‘‘Never, as far as I know.’’

‘‘And a small water pump, and a battery, and some hose,’’ she said.

‘‘That time of year,’’ said Dahl. He was right there. The little pile of equipment would be used to pump water from a little stream up into the patch.

‘‘Seems to me,’’ I said, looking back down at the remains, ‘‘that Turd here’s got a girlfriend… lives with her, in Freiberg.’’ Freiberg was about five miles from Basil State Park. Right on the Mississippi River. ‘‘Give me a while, I’ll think of her name.’’

I stared at Howie, then took out my camera and snapped a couple of shots. I put my camera back, and said, to nobody in particular, ‘‘That was a pretty powerful rifle.’’

‘‘We have over fifty 7.62 mm casings, about thirty 5.56 mm casings, and probably a lot more to come. In four different locations so far,’’ said Hester.

I digested that for a moment. ‘‘Those little white boxes I see everywhere?’’ She nodded. ‘‘Two different calibers?’’ Again, a nod. ‘‘No shotgun shells?’’ She shook her head. Four locations.

‘‘So the dead doper had a couple of friends our guys didn’t see? Not till it was too late?’’ I was just speculating.

Silence.

‘‘Agent Dahl?’’

‘‘I don’t know. It sure looks that way, though.’’

‘‘Hester?’’

‘‘Looks like it.’’ She shrugged. ‘‘Maybe.’’

‘‘If that’s what it is,’’ I said, ‘‘we’re lookin’ for at least two people. Do we know which casings are from our guys?’’

‘‘Not yet,’’ said Hester. ‘‘I’d bet on three people myself. However, there’s one bunch of 5.56 rounds, maybe five to ten of ’em, in that general area.’’ She pointed to some heavy underbrush down near Kellerman’s body. ‘‘Those are probably officers’ rounds.’’

‘‘Okay…’’ I turned to Dahl. ‘‘Just how big is this patch, anyway?’’

He looked at me, deciding. ‘‘Hundred six plants. Sinsemilla.’’

That gave me pause. ‘‘That was grown here back in the middle eighties. DEA said it couldn’t be done in this climate.’’ I smiled. ‘‘Iowa farm boys can grow just about anything on a slab of concrete. Kind of makes you proud.’’

I’d been squatting down, and stood up slowly. My back acts up on occasion, and I don’t like to push my luck. I looked the area over again, sweat dripping down from my forehead. I swiped at it with my gloved hand, so it only moved around. I peeled the glove off, and brushed my forehead with the back of my hand. The glove was dripping. High humidity.

Hester handed me a small cloth. ‘‘You’ve got powder from your glove all over your forehead.’’

‘‘Thanks, Hester.’’ I looked at both her and Dahl. ‘‘Thing is, I can’t really see Turd havin’ this kind of patch. I mean, both quality and quantity. He isn’t… wasn’t bright enough to tend it properly. That stuff takes a lot of attention, doesn’t it?’’ Dahl nodded. ‘‘Let alone afford it,’’ I finished up.

Alan Hummel, the special agent in charge of the DCI in our area, chose that moment to come up.

‘‘Hello, Carl.’’

‘‘Hi, Al.’’

‘‘Bad business.’’ Al was always brief like that. He’s been a cop for twenty-some years, all of it with the state. He’s a very good investigator, but it was our misfortune that he got promoted once too often. He was now an administrator. I would much rather have had him actively investigating on this one. He’d known Bill.

‘‘Yeah.’’ I looked him right in the eye. ‘‘You think we have a drug war here?’’

‘‘I don’t know.’’ He hesitated just a moment, and then did exactly the right thing. ‘‘I’ll get a meeting set, DNE, us, you, DEA, and FBI. We’ll find out.’’

‘‘FBI?’’ I asked. ‘‘They in on this?’’

‘‘Yeah, an offer of assistance.’’

‘‘Cool.’’ FBI has incredible lab and scene analysis people. I suspected they were really in because of the DEA involvement, although when an offer is made like that, you take it without asking. All of which was a convoluted way of arriving at my next point. ‘‘Al, I’m not cleared on all the dope stuff anymore. I’m general criminal investigations.’’

‘‘You still the intelligence officer?’’

‘‘Yep.’’

‘‘That’ll do.’’

Murders take precedence over dope cases. Especially cases where a cop is killed. At least in theory. But dope cops just hate to give up any information that’s really valuable. Goes against everything they think. Reasons range from fear of jeopardizing informants to having another agency get in ahead of them and get the credit.

I looked at Dahl. ‘‘You be there?’’

‘‘Sure.’’

‘‘You and Kellerman were working this one together?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘I see.’’

That meant he was carrying quite a load himself.

‘‘Just for the record,’’ he said, ‘‘I had no idea anything like this… I mean, I woulda been here for this if…’’

There was a long silence. Then Hester said, ‘‘You’ll want to take a look at Bill? We’re going to have to move him soon.’’

I hesitated for a second. ‘‘Okay.’’

We walked downhill on the path.

‘‘Doc’s already seen him?’’ I needed to know if I could touch the body.

‘‘Yeah,’’ said Hester. ‘‘He’s been done. Johansen found him right about here,’’ she said, pointing at a depressed area of grass and weeds. There seemed to be quite a lot of blood. ‘‘He said that there was still shooting going on, so he dragged him up here to cover.’’ There was a lane of down grass with a thin trail of blood, leading up to the little mound and the log where I’d first seen the two of them. A yellow emergency blanket now covered the remains of Kellerman. He’d been reduced to the lump underneath the blanket. With the little torn blue compress packets like flowers.

‘‘There’s not much blood on the track up to this point,’’ she said. ‘‘Doc says he thinks that he was probably either dead or nearly so when Johansen got to him.’’

Dr. Peters was about twenty yards away, still with Johansen and Lamar. I really wanted him to be there when I looked at Bill, but didn’t want to wait. I put on another glove.

‘‘Well, let’s get on with it.’’ I knelt down and pulled the blanket aside.

Bill was a mess. He was the whitest corpse I’d seen in a long time. Must have completely bled out. From the front, there really wasn’t much remarkable, just some dents in his vest, with little holes in the center. His cammo shirt had some holes in it too. Looked like they’d been made by a pencil or something. Nothing that looked lethal. The ME had apparently undone the Velcro straps that held the vest in place. I lifted it, gingerly. There was a wad of gauze wedged between his vest and his chest. Obviously a futile effort on the part of Ken to stop the bleeding. It was so pathetic, so sad, it hit me pretty hard. I just stayed hunched over the body, not looking up, not doing anything, until it passed. I took a deep breath and continued my examination. There were five ragged holes in his chest, starting just at the top of the sternum and traveling down and to his left. The last one had made a long, gaping rent in his side about an inch in from the entrance. They weren’t in a line, but rather in a bunch that traveled together. I looked for a few moments. Full auto. Rifle, not a pistol-caliber submachine gun. And what I’d assumed to be the last round was probably the first, as the recoil of the rifle lifted its muzzle as it fired. Damned fast rate of fire, I thought, to group this close. Or awfully close to the target. The holes were ragged because the ‘‘bulletproof’’ vest had stripped parts of the metal jackets off the rounds and flattened them just a bit, on their way through. So when they came out of the back face of the front of the vest, they weren’t quite round anymore. I dropped the vest back down on his chest, and pulled the blanket back over him. It snagged on the weeds, and I tore it.

I looked up at Hester.

‘‘M-16?’’

‘‘Likely,’’ said Hester. ‘‘We’ve got a lot of 5.56 brass around here.’’

I sighed. ‘‘Well, they tell you that these vests are only designed for pistol ammo.’’ I thought for a second. ‘‘What was Johansen carrying?’’

‘‘AR-15. Both officers were.’’

I stood up. ‘‘We have the rifles now? I mean, all we need is for some defense attorney to say Kellerman shot him himself by accident, or that Bill was shot by Ken…’’ I shook my head. Since I knew he’d just about shot me, that was a lot closer to reality than anybody else knew. ‘‘I hope we can find some bullets to match up with the weapons.’’

‘‘I think there are some fragments trapped in the rear panel of his vest,’’ said Hester.

‘‘I hope so.’’ I took off my gloves, and stuffed them in my pocket. I looked up the hill, and was stunned to see two people with a still camera panning the scene. One male, one female.

‘‘Uh, who the fuck are those people?’’

Everybody followed my gaze, and were equally dumbfounded.

‘‘Media,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Honest to God…’’

I looked around, and the young deputy and trooper assigned to the security detail for the scene were standing facing the crime scene, rather than looking outward. They were still the only ones at the scene wearing dark glasses. Of course.

‘‘Suppose maybe Elwood and Jake there could run ’em off?’’ I asked.

‘‘HEY!’’ yelled Al, waving uphill and getting the attention of the gawking troopers. ‘‘Get those people secured right NOW!!!’’

It took them a second, but then they started uphill at a run. The media people tried to outrun them to the top of the hill, but were caught well before the crest. After a few moments, the whole group started down toward the crime scene.

‘‘Jesus Christ,’’ said Al, ‘‘they’re bringing them back to us!’’

By this time Lamar had joined us. ‘‘I’ll talk to them,’’ he said, and stomped uphill, gesturing to the troopers to keep them away from the scene.

I looked at Al and Hester. ‘‘We better go with him,’’ I said. We all knew that Lamar was really bad with the media, and not much better with junior state troopers. We also all knew that processing this scene was probably going to take well into tomorrow, and that the media weren’t done out here by a long shot. We’d better get ground rules they would all have to follow.

‘‘Just me,’’ said Al. ‘‘You two are going to be working the case, and there’s no point in letting them get to you, or even know who you are.’’ He watched Lamar trudge up the hill. ‘‘I’ll let Lamar talk to ’em for a couple of minutes first.’’ He grinned. ‘‘Makes my job that much easier.’’

‘‘You love it,’’ said Hester. She wiped the sweat off her own forehead with the back of her hand. ‘‘That’s why you look so pretty.’’

He grinned, but she was right. Of all the people at the crime scene, only Al looked cool. He had removed his suit coat, and carefully rolled his pale blue shirtsleeves up two rolls, and barely loosened his navy blue tie. There was just a hint of perspiration on his shirt. Shirtsleeves, mind you. Sleeves.

‘‘How’s he do that?’’ I asked Hester as he began moving uphill.

‘‘What, walk without falling over?’’

‘‘No, damn it. Always look so neat.’’

‘‘You’ll never know, Houseman.’’ She grinned. ‘‘Back to work.’’

We got together with Dr. Peters, and talked over what we had. Not a lot, but too much for anybody but a very meticulous lab team to make much use of.

‘‘Anything at all that’s unusual, Doc?’’

‘‘Not really, Carl. Pretty straightforward gunshot wounds, all through and through. Those vests aren’t much good against high-powered rifles, are they.’’ A statement, not a question.

‘‘Well, they say they’re only effective against pistols.’’

‘‘Hmmmm. Did you notice the range seems pretty short?’’

‘‘Yeah, I thought so too… Did you see any powder or tattooing?’’

‘‘No, but it’ll be there. I’m sure of it. The clothing probably trapped most of it.’’

‘‘Less than fifty feet, with high power?’’ Hester asked.

‘‘I’d say so. But let’s check. I’ll tell you, though, any further than that and whoever it was wouldn’t be able to see a target. Not in this undergrowth.’’

That’s one of the many things I like about Doc Peters. He does medical examining very thoroughly, and is something rare in our state; a forensic pathologist. Another thing I like about him is that he sort of takes the bite out of bad events. I don’t know how, but he does. I was already distancing myself from the emotions permeating the scene, and it was talking with Doc Peters that was doing it. Being clinical helps, I guess.

‘‘Okay, look, Doc, I have to get to an interview before this thing gets all over the state. Girlfriend of the dead doper up there. So I’m sure you and the lab people will have things well in hand… and DCI will provide autopsy coverage.’’ That meant an officer to witness the proceedings and take photos. Every effort would be made to have an officer who didn’t know Kellerman do the work.

‘‘Oh, yes.’’

‘‘So, if it’s all right with Hester here, maybe she could come with me for the interview…’’ It’s always good practice to have a woman officer present when you interview a female… In fact, sometimes it’s better to have her do the interview.

‘‘Sure,’’ said Doc.

‘‘Fine,’’ said Hester.

‘‘So,’’ I said, ‘‘let’s meet later…’’

We had to run a small press gauntlet on the way down from the scene. I tried to think of a way around the little media cluster, but there were thick woods on both sides of our path until we hit the meadow just off the road. Trapped.

‘‘Officer, can you tell us what happened up there?’’

‘‘Officer, were any of the victims police officers? Can you confirm that there is an officer involved?’’

‘‘Did this happen today, or is this a discovery of old bodies?’’

That was original. I kind of liked that one. And then, of course: ‘‘Can you confirm the known dead? How many known dead?’’ It rankled.

Hester, fortunately, was quite adept at this sort of thing.

‘‘An official statement will be issued in a short while. Thank you …’’

I glanced at her as we got into my car. ‘‘Who’s going to issue a statement?’’

‘‘Don’t know,’’ she said, slamming her door. ‘‘Not me.’’

On the way into Freiberg, in the blessed air conditioning of my car, Hester and I discussed just what we had. Or, more precisely, didn’t have.

‘‘So we agree that our people received fire from three separate locations?’’

‘‘At least,’’ said Hester. She leaned back in the seat and put her feet up on the dashboard, clasping her knees with her arms. ‘‘But not necessarily simultaneously.’’

‘‘Oh?’’

‘‘Nope… the two 7.62 mm locations could be the same shooter, and he moved.’’

‘‘Hmm. What’d Ken say about that?’’

‘‘I don’t think he got that far.’’

‘‘Ummmm.’’ I stopped at the stop sign, then turned off the gravel and onto a blacktop road. That scenario fit just about exactly with the faint popping I’d heard from near the barn on the hill.

‘‘So that leaves us with two, possibly three suspects.’’

‘‘Or more,’’ I said. ‘‘In firefights, not everybody always shoots.’’

‘‘What, are you being difficult?’’

I grinned. ‘‘No, just thinking.’’

We drove in silence for a few moments.

‘‘Can I ask you a personal question?’’

‘‘Sure,’’ she said.

‘‘Do you feel anything special. I mean, with an officer involved and dead?’’

She thought for a second. ‘‘No, not really.’’

‘‘Me either,’’ I said. I looked over at her. ‘‘Should I be worried about this? I mean, I knew everybody up there, even the doper.’’

‘‘No, Carl. Don’t worry. You’ve had years to build up the defenses. Look on the bright side… they work.’’

She had a point. Although I thought that I should have felt more.

We went a couple of miles in silence.

‘‘So,’’ said Hester, ‘‘just what do we want to know from this girl we’re going to see?’’

‘‘Oh, the usual stuff.’’

‘‘No, what do we really want to know?’’

‘‘Well,’’ I said, passing a pickup truck, ‘‘maybe why Howie was there in the first place, for starters.’’

‘‘I’d rather know why he came back after he saw the officers yesterday.’’

‘‘WHAT!’’

She smiled. ‘‘Thought that’d get your attention.’’

‘‘You’ve got to be kidding.’’

‘‘Nope. He even left them a note. ‘Fuck You Pig,’ or something like that.’’

‘‘You sure?’’

‘‘That’s what Dahl said. But Ken said that the doper was in cammo yesterday. He sure wasn’t today.’’

‘‘Cammo? Turd?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’

‘‘No,’’ I said. ‘‘No, never happen. He’d never wear something like that. Especially not to go tend a patch. Too much attention.’’

I glanced at Hester. She was giving me the old one-raised-eyebrow look.

‘‘Really,’’ I said. Maybe a bit on the defensive.

‘‘You his dad or something?’’

‘‘He was a snitch for me for a while.’’

‘‘Do you any good?’’

‘‘Two defendants.’’

‘‘Over how long?’’

‘‘None of your business.’’

‘‘Humph,’’ she snorted. ‘‘Not much of a snitch.’’

‘‘Hey, we do what we can.’’

‘‘So,’’ she said, ‘‘you think he’s got a partner?’’

‘‘Probably not… but this girlfriend might think so.’’