Читать книгу A Long December - Donald Harstad - Страница 11

THE NATION COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT and County Jail sits on a hillside at the edge of the town of Maitland. I imagine the parking lot is about twenty or so feet higher than the approaching roadway. That being the case, the first hint I had of the presence of the media was as I glimpsed a four-wheel-drive with a conspicuous KNUG/TV on its side. Another hint, and one that boded no good for me, was the glimpse of Lamar’s four-wheel-drive parked to the rear of the building. If he was there, and he was, then he was reluctant to come out of the building because he’d have to talk with the media. Lamar hated the media. So I knew who was going to be the spokesperson for the department. I just didn’t know how he was going to order me to do it, since I had all that typing to do.

As we came up the steps to the main office entrance, I saw three reporters and their cameramen, and heard Lamar’s voice saying, “Here’s the man I was telling you to wait for. Just ask him anything, and if he can answer it, he will. He’s been there, and he’s seen it.” This was followed by a big, hearty “Hello, Carl,” as I reached the counter. “Glad you’re back so soon.”

I could tell by the look on his face that he had had just about as much media attention as he was going to allow for the rest of the year. I just smiled, turned to say something to Hester, and discovered that she’d disappeared. She’d probably ducked down the hall and into Dispatch. I was on my own.

“Hi, Boss.”

“He’s all yours, folks,” said Lamar, and headed for his office in the back of the building. He didn’t quite run.

I’d pretty much managed to avoid all media attention over the years, mainly because I was afraid that if they got me talking I’d say too much. Especially the TV reporters. Not that I’m all that chatty, but I tend to get very enthusiastic about my work.

“Detective Houseman?” asked a young, pretty TV reporter I saw on the tube just about every night. “I’m Judy Mercer, KNUG, and I’d like to ask a few questions…”

“Bill Nylant here, and I’m with KYYQ…”

“—Handy, with KK.NN…”

I thought that maybe if we went outside in the cold, it would be shorter. “Come on out here, and I’ll be glad to answer some questions if I can.”

Once on the front steps, I remembered that I was on closed-circuit TV at the dispatch center from out there. With sound. As if the media weren’t bad enough, our own people were now taping me, as well. Something for the Christmas party.

The cameramen had the tripods set up, cameras attached, and the lights came on, right in my eyes.

“Hey, do we need to do the cameras?”

Judy Mercer answered first. “Well, detective, I’m sure you’ve noticed that this isn’t radio. We really like to have something to show.” She paused and then said, “If you’d like to take us to the scene, we could shoot footage of that, and leave you as a voice-over.”

No way in hell, and she knew it.

“Okay, just don’t get reflections off the top of my head. And I’m not a ‘detective,’ I’m an investigator.”

They asked standard questions before they rolled tape. Just so I wouldn’t clutch on camera and cost them their footage.

“We need at least fifteen seconds of clear voice from you on camera,” said Barbara Handy of KKNN. “We can do the parking lot and the jail for fill, and do our own narrative.”

“Good. Okay, whenever you’re ready, we might as well get it over with,” I said.

“So, and we’re rolling now,” said Judy Mercer. “Deputy Houseman, can you just give us an idea what happened here today?”

I inhaled, held it for a second, and then said, “We received a call from the public that a body was on the roadway in the southern part of our county. The caller said that it appeared the victim was deceased, and that it appeared the victim had been shot.”

“And what did you find when you responded?”

“The report was quite accurate. The victim was dead, and the initial evidence suggested a gunshot wound.” Boy, I thought, did it ever.

“Have you identified the victim yet?”

“I won’t be able to tell you who the victim is until after the relatives have been notified.” I wasn’t going to be able to notify relatives until I knew who in the hell the victim was, either, but I couldn’t exactly say that.

“Do you have any suspects yet?”

“We’re investigating now. I can’t discuss that any further at this time.”

“Has it been ruled a murder?”

“No,” I said. “The autopsy results won’t be in for at least twenty-four hours.”

“Thank you.”

That was it for Judy Mercer. Each of the other two, in turn, asked about the same questions. Then they were done. It occurred to me, during the first interview with Mercer, that they didn’t care who or why so much as they needed the information to get to the stations. The tough questions could wait until later. That was all right with me.

The media types sort of milled about for a few minutes, taping themselves with the jail and cop cars in the background. I beat a hasty retreat and went directly to Dispatch. Just as I suspected, the duty dispatcher, Martha Behrens, along with Sally, Hester, and Lamar, were all sitting there, watching the external monitor.

“No popcorn?” I asked.

“Nice job,” said Lamar. “I knew you could do it.”

“The reflections off your bald top were pretty bad,” said Sally.

“I’m surprised your nose isn’t growing,” came from Hester.

Martha, who hadn’t been around us all that long, wisely said nothing. Her lack of tenure obviously didn’t interfere with her enjoyment of the comments made at my expense, though.

“Being on TV doesn’t seem to bother you,” said Hester.

“Naw.- Piece of cake,” I said.

I made for the back room and my office, as if to take off my jacket and get started on my report. As soon as I got there, I picked up my phone and started to dial my home number to call my wife, Sue. I’d never been on TV before and sure didn’t want her to miss this. As I did so, I happened to glance at my watch. Ten twenty-six.

The TV people were from either Cedar Rapids/Iowa City or Waterloo. Both were a good seventy miles from us. It was already too late to make the ten o’clock news.

Decorum forgotten, I hung up the phone, hustled back out the main door, and almost knocked Judy Mercer over.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, sorry, but could you tell me if my bit will be on tonight?”

She laughed. “No way. We haven’t got a link. We have to go back to the studio and uplink from there. We’ll send it in, but you won’t see it until tomorrow morning at six.”

“Oh. Well, thanks anyway.”

I hustled back into my office and called Sue.

“Hello?”

“Hi! Hey, guess who’s gonna be on TV?”

“You?”

“Absolutely!”

“What’s happened?” She sounded as much concerned as anything else.

I told her we’d had a homicide, and that I’d be late, but that I was going to be on TV as spokesman for the department. I also included the information that it would be aired at six A.M. Since she was a teacher, and just getting up at that hour, she might get a chance to see it.

“Things are all right, though? “she asked.

“Sure. Just a murder case.” I chuckled. “Nobody barricaded, or anything like that. Just have to use our heads and figure it out.”

“Not one of my students, is it? “By that she meant any that she’d had for the last twenty years of teaching middle school English.

“To be completely honest, I couldn’t tell, dear. Probably not, though.”

She said she’d watch for me on the tube, and then told me there was some cold macaroni and cheese in the refrigerator. Being married over thirty years gives people a certain perspective.

“Got it.”

“Good night. I’ll miss you, but I’m really looking forward to seeing you on TV. If I knew anybody else up at that hour, I’d call them!”

“It ain’t exactly prime time, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Oh, it sure is. Did you ask for a copy of the tape?”

I hadn’t, but I made a note to do so as soon as I could next morning.

I went back through Dispatch on my way to the kitchen for some coffee, and was stopped by Martha, who was waving furiously at me from behind her console with one hand as she tried to write with the other and hold the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

“Yes sir, one moment,” she said into the phone. She pressed the hold button, and said, “It’s some dude for you, who says he knows who the body is. He won’t give his name.”

We had a fine phone installation in Dispatch, with a total of six instruments, two of which had full 911 capability and four where you could talk on any line you told the dispatcher to select for you. With twelve lines, we had lots of leeway unless things went to hell.

“Put me on this one,” I said, picking up one of the phones at the end of the console.

She did.

“Houseman here.”

“It was Rudy. Rudy Cueva,” said the muffled voice. Muffled or not, it sounded so much like Hector I almost called him by name.

I wasn’t able to connect any Rudy Cueva to anybody I knew. “Who is that?”

“He’s a team supervisor at the plant, man. A really smart dude.”

“What plant?” I knew, but if Hector wanted to play a game, he had a reason.

“The packing plant in Battenberg. That one.”

“How do you know it’s him? “This was going to be the telling point.

“I heard it just now, one of the workers in the kill room. He said that it was Rudy.”

The kill room was just that, the location in the packing plant where they did the actual killing of the livestock. “How did he find out?”

“I cannot say, man. You know that.”

There was absolutely no doubt that it was Hector, but if he wanted to remain officially anonymous, that was his choice. “Any idea why he was killed?”

There was a prolonged sigh on the other end of the line. “Because he knew something, and they dint want him to talk.” He was getting exasperated.

“And what was that?”

“I got to go, man,” and the line went dead.

“He hung up,” I told Martha and Hester. “That didn’t happen to be a 911 line, did it?”

Martha grinned. “It sure was. Cell phone, hit one of the two U.S. Cellular towers in Battenberg. Here.” She handed me the printout.

PROGRAM: E9C0NPRT PROCESS id: 2599 18-DEC-01 22:45:47

TRUNK SEIZURE: 22:45:16 RLI REQ: 22:45:19 FIRST RING: 22:45:19

MF RCUE RER0V:22:45:16 ALI RECU: 22:45:23 CALL ANSWERED: 22:45:28

PANI RECEIUED: 22:45:19 PILOT RTE: 22:45:19 CALL RELEASED: 22:47:02

PH: (563) 555-8298 CS: WRLS EHCH: 515-319-563 NO DESCRIPT. PILOT: 319-9132 NAME:

US CELLULAR (HYPOINTI LOC: 5633887343

ADOR: 1.16 Ml SwBRTTENBERG OMNI

CITY 00054-0-198, NATION ID: 90-88789

ESN: 00069 MAITLAND —-WIRELESS BATTENBERG PD UERIFY UERIFY UERIFY

DATE: 12/14/02 AAI: SON: 101

Nice. We were still in Phase One for cell phones, which meant that at some point in the future, several towers would triangulate the call and we’d get an actual physical location. That was what they called Phase Two. Right now, we got the tower that the cell phone had accessed and the number of the phone. Good enough for government work, as they say.

I looked in my billfold, just to make certain. The caller’s number belonged to Hector Gonzalez, my buddy.

“Okay, Martha. Time to earn your keep. Run a OLN on a Rudy Cueva, no middle name available, so just first and last, if you can do something like that. Probably a Rudolph instead of Rudy, but do both. Probably within five years of thirty, but I’d be guessing. An address of Battenberg. See what you get.”

Hester looked at me quizzically.

“The informant I talked to earlier. He thinks that this Rudy Cueva’s our victim.”

“Well, outstanding!”

The search for an Operator’s License Number came back within two seconds. Nobody in Iowa by that name had a driver’s license, nor an automobile registered in their name. In fact, the four Cuevas who were listed were all female. We couldn’t try a Computerized Criminal History on a name without a date of birth.

“Try a dummy one,” said Hester. “Give him a birth date sometime in 1971. It might work.”

It had in the past, on occasion. This time, there was no such luck.

I looked in the phone book. Now, that’s not as large a resource as you might think, because the entire Battenberg directory was only about fifty pages, and that included the government and business sections. No Rudy Cueva listed. No Cueva listed at all. The three of us checked the book for the entire county, using three books and taking sections. Took about five minutes. Nothing.

“Damn.”

That had been the first real break in the case. Well, I’d thought so, anyway. It still could be, but we were at a dead end for the moment. I didn’t dare call Hector back, because if he was at work, there were bound to be people around, and I was sure he’d preferred anonymity for a good reason. I figured he’d be the very best judge of whether or not it was safe for him to be chatting with a cop on his cell phone.

We checked with Battenberg PD. No Rudy Cueva listed in their city directory, but Norm Vincent thought the name sounded familiar. We had him go into the city manager’s office and check the water bills. If you lived there, you had to be hooked up to city water, simple as that. Nothing.

“Well,” I said, “our caller said he works for the packing plant. I sure as hell don’t want to call their night shift and start asking questions, though. If he does work there, and if he’s got family, the first thing that’s gonna happen is that somebody calls his wife and tells her that we’re checking.”

“Couldn’t you get there first? “asked Martha. Like I said, she was new.

“Not guaranteed, and we aren’t sure it’s him that’s dead in the first place. Just a tip.” I shrugged. “Let me call that anonymous caller back.” It had to be done. Having made such a momentous decision, I was kind of disappointed when I got a recording telling me that the owner of that mobile phone had either turned it off, left the car, or left the dialing area.

“If it’s who I think it is,” I said, “he’s turned it off. And he’s at work in the plant, and I don’t want to go there and…” Well, what the hell. “Give me the phone book,” I said, holding out my hand. “Might as well call the owner.”

He, naturally, was unlisted. I started with our Emergency Notification List, which was pretty much for fires and tornadoes, and started going down the chain of command for the packing plant. I finally got a very sleepy woman named Gloria Bennett. She was the head of accounting. She seemed to think I was INS or something. Finally, I got out of her that there might be somebody working there named Rudy Cueva, but she had no idea where he lived. I asked if her company records might indicate an address or a phone number. She said they might, but she wasn’t about to go to the plant at this time of night to find out. She said she’d call us in the morning.

It’s a free country.

Less than a minute later, Carson Hilgenberg called. He was the new county attorney. Really new, really young. About Carson’s only experience with criminal cases was to accept plea bargains for fifth-degree theft. He wanted to know if there had actually been a murder.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “First-class one at that.”

There was a slight pause, and then, “What do you mean, ‘first-class’? Do you mean first-degree?”

I chuckled. “Let’s call it ‘first-degree-plus,’“I said. “Victim was found in the middle of a county road, wrists bound, and his head blown off.”

This time the silence was a little longer. “No shit?”

“You betcha. Execution-style, as they say.”

“Uh, well, has the state prosecutor been called?”

“Not yet, Carson. We won’t do that until we have an arrest, or a really good suspect. No reason to. Nothing for him to do. Besides,” I added, “you have to be the one to do that.”

“What?”

“The AG’s office only gets involved in county cases if the county attorney requests it.”

“Right. Well then, do you have their number?”

I was having trouble keeping a straight face, and hoped it didn’t affect the tone of my voice. “We’ll get it to you. For now, though, we’re going to be busy just developing a suspect.”

“You don’t have anybody in custody? “Carson sounded worried.

“Oh, hell, no. We don’t have the faintest fuckin’ notion who did it,” I said. It was just too hard to resist.

There was another pause, and then, “Well, what are you going to do if you need help on a search warrant, or something, like an arrest warrant, or…”

“If we need help, Carson, we know where you live,” I said. “We’ll just call.”

“Oh.”

“We’re pretty good with that sort of thing, really we are,” I said. No sense in scaring the kid to death right off the bat. “But if you want, it’s okay for us to take you along when we do the arrest. If you want.”

“I’ll let you know, Carl,” he said, so seriously that it was almost touching.

“Okay,” I relented a little bit. “It’s not really necessary for you to be there; we’ll try to videotape it. Anyway, as soon as the reports get done, we’ll forward copies to your office. Interesting reading so far, and I get a feeling that it’ll get better as we go.”

“Thank you.” He sounded absolutely grateful.

He wasn’t such a bad kid, really. Just not much of an attorney. “Just remember, Carson, don’t do any press stuff until you double-check with us to get the most up-to-date information. DCI will probably brief you tomorrow sometime. Okay?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m glad they’re involved.”

He meant that. It was almost a guarantee that the State Attorney General’s Office would be available for the case, thereby relieving Carson of any practical responsibility other than making the obligatory phone call.

On that note, I went home, leaving instructions for Dispatch to call me if they got any more calls from anybody regarding our case. Anybody but the media, that is. I was very specific about that.