Known Dead (28 page)

When Nola was brought in, resplendent in jail orange, I was the only familiar face in the room. A slight advantage. I introduced Hester.

‘‘Before we say anything more,’’ said Miller, ‘‘I want Nola to know that she is not required to answer any questions.’’

Nola nodded.

‘‘Maybe,’’ I said, ‘‘I can save us all time.’’ I looked at Miller. ‘‘I assume you want written questions, so you can advise her prior to the asking?’’

‘‘I’d prefer that.’’

‘‘Forget it,’’ said Nola. ‘‘I’m not answering any questions at all.’’

I held up my hand. ‘‘Wait a minute. Hester will write out five or six questions.’’ I looked at Nola and her attorney. ‘‘I’m not going to ask any right now. All I want is to tell Nola what I know, and let her know that.’’ I grinned. ‘‘Sort of a prediscovery discovery, so to speak.’’

‘‘I’ll tell you now that that’s acceptable,’’ said Miller, ‘‘unless I begin to feel it’s an intimidation tactic.’’ He looked at Nola. ‘‘We’ll stop it at that point. Oh, yes, don’t think you can just read back the indictment, to buy time,’’ he said.

‘‘Of course not.’’

Nola had clamped her mouth shut. No matter what happened from now on, she was going to assume her ‘‘liar’’ and I were conspiring against her. Well, that was her business.

‘‘Nola,’’ I said, in my best monotone, ‘‘I want you to know just where things stand. I’m telling you this because, in the next few days, you may be approached by us again, and I want you to be absolutely clear as to what we’re talking about.’’

‘‘I just want to know what that nice insurance lady is doing here,’’ said Nola.

Oops. Hester. Late of Lloyds of London. I’d already introduced her as DCI, and she’d shown Nola her ID.

‘‘That was an authorized ruse, Nola,’’ I said, as matter-of-factly as possible. ‘‘It was done for the sole purpose of saving lives.’’ I looked her squarely in the eye. ‘‘Yours, as well as mine.’’

‘‘Hold it right there,’’ said Miller.

It took about two minutes to explain it to him. I made my points when I said, ‘‘I said I want to let Nola know everything that’s happening. I would have gotten to that. If you think I’m not telling the truth, why would I bring Hester here at all?’’

Now, he might have been thinking ‘‘because you’re so dumb,’’ but he would have been wrong. ‘‘Forgetful’’ is the word he should have used. I
had
thought of this on the way down. Along with too many other things, apparently.

That out of the way, I began again.

‘‘Nola, what we know is this . . .’’ I ran through the training exercise, the ambush as well as I could, and told her that we were relying on forensic evidence for some of the reconstruction. I really had Miller’s attention, but I wasn’t sure about Nola. She had large blue eyes that showed absolutely no expression. When I talked to her, I looked right between them most of the time, saving solid eye contact to make specific points. I had the distinct thought that, a few years ago, when her hair would have been black, she must have been very striking. The question of how Herman had ended up with her flickered through my mind.

Then I did the events at her house. The fact that Lamar and Bud were serving a paper which she and Herman should have known was coming. That Herman had shot both the officers. Making it very clear that she, as far as we could tell, had not shot anybody. Not yet. I also threw in the fact that Lamar wanted to ask Herman some questions, as the DCI team had missed him the first time around. All matter-of-fact. All low-key.

Then I did the shooting of Rumsford, and saw her eyes flicker. I said that the angles hadn’t been fully described as yet but we believed that the first shot had come from the second floor and the second shot from the ground floor. Where she was.

At that point, she started to speak and I held up my hand before her attorney did. ‘‘Personally, I don’t think that was you.’’ I looked directly into her eyes. ‘‘But I don’t know for sure, so we won’t talk any more about that aspect of this.

‘‘But now,’’ I said, ‘‘I want to let you know some things you probably think we don’t know. Just to let you be aware . . .’’

I reached behind me and grabbed the handle of the old square-cornered attaché case my grandmother had given me when I went off to college. It looked pretty well worn, but it was still going. It was my favorite. I opened it and got out a couple of sheets of paper, as well as a small case containing my reading glasses. And a small pack of tissue.

‘‘Just a sec here,’’ I said, doing my little nervous act, ‘‘want to be able to read this.’’ I smiled apologetically. You have to be careful with this sort of tactic, because if you let it go a second too long, you lose their attention, and may never get it back.

I put the glasses on. ‘‘There!’’ I looked over them at Nola. Still had her.

‘‘Okay,’’ I said, looking at the paper in my hand. ‘‘We know your son Billy was with the ambush team, as an observer. But, hey, you knew that. What we also know is all about Borcherding.’’ I paused, looking over my glasses at her again. ‘‘You also know him as ‘Bravo6’, I believe.’’ That hit home.

I looked back down at the paper for an instant. You do that to make sure you’re the one initiating the eye contact. It’s a control thing.

‘‘That brings us,’’ I said slowly, ‘‘to Colonel Gabriel.’’

Nola’s anxiety became audible at that point. Just a little gasp, but it was there.

‘‘Well,’’ said Miller loudly, to break the spell, ‘‘I think we’ve heard about enough at this point . . . and we seem to be getting well on toward ‘menacing’ here . . .’’

Perfect. ‘‘Sure,’’ I said, removing my glasses. He’d just saved me. I really wasn’t sure of where I was headed after Colonel Gabriel. ‘‘If Nola has any questions . . .’’

She did. Now, you have to understand, she didn’t particularly like me, but I appeared to have my shit together, as they say. She didn’t like Miller, didn’t trust him for a whole bunch of reasons, none of which were true anywhere but in her own mind. She also thought he was in my pocket, which was very, very wide of the mark. But she had some pretty solid concerns. She was a very bright woman, but once the paranoid mind-set gets going, it’s virtually impossible to turn it around. A shame, in a way.

‘‘My Bill didn’t shoot anybody. Not in the woods. Not at the house. Nobody.’’

‘‘All right,’’ I said.

‘‘I didn’t either.’’

‘‘Okay,’’ I said. I believed her, especially since she’d placed Bill Stritch first on the list.

‘‘What Herman does is his business, but he never shot anybody in the woods.’’

‘‘Okay.’’

Miller started to speak, but she held up her hand. ‘‘Just a minute. He knows Herman shot Lamar and Bud. Nobody else could have.’’ She knew them by name. Well, so much for community policing. But she was right. There was nobody else who could have.

‘‘But we never shot the newspaperman.’’

‘‘I’ll buy that, Nola,’’ I said. ‘‘Herman’s carbine didn’t pack the punch, for one thing. But after you got that message, Gabriel sure had to.’’

She was quiet.

‘‘At least, one shot. I know he fired once. But he couldn’t be on both floors at the same time. Remember how Rumsford just sort of stood there, and then the second shot came to make sure . . . I’ll be honest, I have some thoughts about that being Billy . . .’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘Or the guy who was with Gabriel,’’ I said, starting to rummage through my papers again. . . .

‘‘Wittman,’’ she said, helpfully.

Well, thank you, God.

‘‘Nice,’’ said Miller. ‘‘Very nice. But I want to advise my client to stop talking at this point.’’

‘‘She’s not incriminating herself,’’ said Hester, ‘‘but if that’s what you want . . .’’

‘‘Time to stop,’’ said Miller.

‘‘I never should have said Connie’s name, you mean?’’ asked Nola.

Connie. Well, thanks to stress, we now had what might be the first name of Wittman. All right!

‘‘Thank you both,’’ I said. ‘‘I have no interest in seeing anybody railroaded. If you need to know anything, just ask us.’’ That was directed at Nola, but intended as much for Miller. He was going to need a bargain.

Just as we were finding our way out, I saw Herman Stritch being ushered into another interview room, which contained Volont and another man. Volont looked up as we went by. I couldn’t resist. I smiled and gave him a discreet wave.

Connie Wittman was our first order of business. We called the Nation County Sheriff’s Department, and got Sally, bless her. We had her start running driver’s license information in the form of a fifty-state inquiry. All we had for her was a partial name. We thought Connie might be short for Constantine. Hester, who was the only one who had even glimpsed the man, thought he’d been about five feet ten, and light. He had to be over twenty, and likely under sixty-five.

‘‘You’ve got to be kidding,’’ said Sally. ‘‘Can’t it be a little more vague?’’

‘‘Sorry, but that’s about all we have until I can get back up there and start going over some of the other stuff, and maybe talk to Melissa.’’

‘‘It’s way outside parameters,’’ she said. ‘‘State’ll get pissed.’’

‘‘Explain it’s part of our murder investigation,’’ I said.

‘‘Yeah, right. Maybe to their supervisor.’’

‘‘Do what you can. I’ll be up in a couple of hours.’’

‘‘Gonna eat, huh?’’ she asked.

‘‘Never mind,’’ I said.

We’d used Sally and my department because if we’d used Linn County, we figured Volont would have a lot better chance of knowing we were doing the checks. At least, right away. We knew he’d help where he could, but we also knew his sense of security could get in our way in a hurry.

I was so happy overall that I took Hester to a late supper. Most unlike me. We ate in a small restaurant that served excellent seafood. I had nothing breaded. The diet, you know.

I relaxed for the first time in what seemed like months.

‘‘I don’t know why,’’ I said before the entrée, ‘‘but I finally feel like we’re making progress.’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ said Hester, using her fork to push the little mushroom slices to a far corner of her salad plate. ‘‘Maybe when I can tell you why Johnny Marks was killed, and by whom.’’

We had a fine meal. About the time I was deciding whether or not my mood would justify chocolate cheesecake, Volont walked in. He was persistent, I’ll give him that. Neither Hester nor I had checked out on the radio.

He slid into our booth beside Hester. Obviously, he wanted to talk to me.

‘‘Enjoying your meal,’’ he said. He wasn’t asking. He was commenting.

‘‘Sure am,’’ I said. ‘‘You think we should have the cheesecake?’’

He looked at me for a beat. ‘‘Are you trying to screw this case up on purpose?’’

I’d had it. He was now going to thoroughly ruin my meal, as well as complicate my case. ‘‘I could ask you the same question,’’ I said pleasantly. ‘‘If I really gave a fuck what the answer would be.’’

He was the more mature one at that point. ‘‘We aren’t communicating very well, are we?’’ he asked.

‘‘No,’’ I said, conversationally, ‘‘we aren’t.’’

The waitress chose that moment to ask me if I had made up my mind about the cheesecake.

‘‘Sure,’’ I said, smiling at her. ‘‘Make it three. This gentleman’s going to be here for a bit.’’

Volont started to protest, but I cut him off. ‘‘You want peace, yellow hair, you gotta smoke the pipe.’’ I grinned. I was really making an attempt.

‘‘I’ll take some coffee too,’’ he said.

There was a short silence.

‘‘Can I put my gun away?’’ asked Hester.

Just before the dessert came, Volont said, ‘‘What
is
the problem? Seriously, I want to know.’’

‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘it’s this.’’ A brief interruption as the dessert was placed on the table. ‘‘You have no jurisdiction in the murders. Okay. You have an interest, though, and not just the weapons charges. Okay. You have lots of information that you obviously can’t share. That’s not okay, but I could probably live with that. But you seem to think you can actively interfere with my obtaining that information myself. That’s what I don’t appreciate. You are a narcotics man, with that as your chief area of interest. I understand that. But your primary interest isn’t the murders.’’

‘‘I see.’’ Volont sipped his coffee, and took a bite of the cheesecake. ‘‘Not bad,’’ he said. ‘‘What you don’t see, Deputy Houseman, is that you are getting into a very sensitive and dangerous area.’’

‘‘Tell Lamar and Bud,’’ I said. Unfair, maybe. But true.

‘‘Point well taken,’’ he answered.

‘‘You know what I want.’’ I looked at him. Were we doomed to repeat this conversation every day until the case was solved?

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘You also know that,’’ I said evenly, ‘‘aside from his involvement in the shooting of a narc cop, DEA couldn’t give a damn about what Gabriel does with his life.’’

‘‘Very true.’’

‘‘You should also know that I have a very deep interest in who he is, and what he does, and whom he associates with. Not to mention where he is.’’

‘‘I know that too. Yes,’’ said Volont. ‘‘I don’t doubt it.’’

‘‘What you obviously don’t know is that I am also able to differentiate between intelligence data and prosecution data.’’

‘‘Oh, no,’’ said Volont. ‘‘I don’t doubt that. Not at all.’’

‘‘Then,’’ I asked, ‘‘what’s the problem? Why won’t you brief us, Hester and George and me, and let us get on with the business at hand? With George to play watchdog for you. We have no problem with that.’’ Well, just a little bit of a lie, but I didn’t want George to get in any more trouble than he was already in.

‘‘There are things I’m not allowed to disclose.’’ He looked at both of us. ‘‘I simply can’t. You know that.’’

‘‘So,’’ I said, ‘‘the identity of Gabriel is one of those, right?’’

‘‘I shouldn’t even say that,’’ said Volont, and a small smile flickered over his face. ‘‘But, yes.’’

‘‘Do you have to obstruct our efforts, though?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘I’ll have to ask,’’ said Volont. Very serious. Wow.

‘‘I’ll tell you,’’ I said, ‘‘I’d rather go through you than have to try other approaches. And I’d think you, or your boss, or whoever would agree with that.’’ I forced a grin. ‘‘Better the devil you know . . .’’