Code 61 - Donald Harstad [13]
“What's he got?” I asked as I walked down the hall to our bedroom to dress. I was pretty sure he didn't want me to show up in just my boxer shorts.
“The first call said there'd been an accident. That was on 911. Something about a lady in a tub. The caller wasn't really clear, female, just wanted help in a hurry.”
“What's he want, help lifting her?” I asked. That wasn't good enough a reason to call me out early, and it was a hell of a long way from being sufficient reason to wake Sue. I guess I sounded a little exasperated.
“No, no. No, we got a second phone call after the Freiberg ambulance got there. I sent them right away. They said”—and she seemed to be reading right off her dispatch log—“this subject is code blue, and we think there should be a cop up here right away, it looks like a suicide.”
Well, that explained the call to me. Department policy is to treat suicides as if they were homicides, at least until murder had been ruled out. Who do you call to deal with a possible homicide? I was still the investigator, even though I was supposed to be working the noon-to-midnight shift. I couldn't blame Eight. He was new, and working the ten-at-night to ten-in-the-morning shift. The worst possible shift, as far as I was concerned. Even if he was virtually certain sure it was a suicide, he should ask for an experienced investigator. That would be me. And, since he asked for my assistance, I was now stuck with the report. “Right. I'll get dressed and—”
“It's three and a half miles south of Freiberg, off County Road X8G, then the second gravel to—”
I hate to be rude, but I was trying to pull on my blue jeans and still talk on the phone. Writing the directions down was out of the question.
“Just tell me after I get in the car and I'm headed up to Freiberg. I'll take X8G up, okay?”
“Sure,” she said. Her voice got some crispness back into it, and I knew I'd hurt her feelings by implying criticism.
“I'm trying to put on my pants,” I said, and grinned as I said it, to lighten my voice. “Only so many hands.”
“Oh … sure … Just one more thing, maybe, while I have you on the phone. I don't think this should be on the radio.”
Having at least managed to get both legs in the jeans, I sat on the end of the bed, and said, “Sure.”
“Eight called me on the phone, and said that this is a really bad one, but that it's a confirmed suicide.”
“Oh?” I hate pulling on socks with one hand. I also hate junior officers making bald-faced statements like that. I mean, they're probably right most of the time, but all you need in a possible murder case is for some defense attorney to get his hands on a logged statement like that one. “But doesn't it say, right here, that the first officer on the scene determined this to be a suicide?” But the log couldn't be changed. Only amended, sort of. “Log it that I say that it's not a suicide until the ME's office says so,” I said. “Anything else?”
“Really bad. And to handle it code sixty-one. That's all he said.”
We used the signal code sixty-one to indicate that all radio communication regarding a particular incident be circumspect, and terse. It meant we had either a sensitive matter, or a very serious one, or both. At any rate, it was designed to prevent those with police scanners from becoming well informed.
“Okay, kid. You call Lamar yet?” Lamar was our sheriff, and he liked to be kept apprised of tragic and disastrous happenings in the county. Mainly because he hated to go to breakfast at Phil's Café and have somebody ask him about a case before he knew we had a case. Looked bad. I pushed my stocking feet into my tennis shoes.
“Yes, and he said to send you right up.”
“Well, let's see if we can't arrange that,” I said with a hissing sound as I bent over to tie my shoelaces, the phone pressed tightly between my shoulder and my ear.
“And he said to call him if you needed him to come, too.