Code 61 - Donald Harstad [176]
“Whadda ya think? Take him out?” I asked George. So far, we hadn't returned fire since the first exchange about ten minutes back. We hadn't because they had pretty much been shooting the upper floor of the barn, and into the loft, and were down in the stone foundations. They were far enough off-target, we'd been reluctant to reveal our actual position by shooting back. They had a lot more firepower than we did. But now Hester had been hurt. They were getting closer.
“Not yet, I think,” said George. “Wait and see what he does.”
The dumb one started waving his assault rifle in the air, screaming something at us.
“Gotta be stoned,” I said. “Gotta be.”
“Any idea what he's saying?” asked George.
“No,” I said. “Don't even know what fucking language. But I don't think he's trying to surrender.”
The dumb one took the hint, I guess. He lowered the assault rifle to hip level, and pointed it right at us.
“Down!” yelled George.
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
16:21 hours
My name is Carl Houseman, and I'm a Deputy Sheriff in Nation County, Iowa. I'm also the Department's Senior Investigator, which is a title that probably has about as much to do with my being fifty-five as it does with my investigative abilities. It's also a title that can get me involved in some really neat stuff, even in a rural county with only 20,000 residents. That's why I like it.
I was about halfway through my usual noon-to-eight shift. Hester Gorse, my favorite Iowa DCI agent, and I had just finished interviewing Clyde and Dirk Osterhaus, brothers, antiques burglars, and new jail inmates, regarding seventeen residential burglaries that had been committed in Nation County over the last two months. The interviews had been conducted in the presence of their respective attorneys, who were both in their late twenties. The brothers, both also under thirty, had thrown us a curve when they'd readily confessed to only fourteen of the breakins. Why just those fourteen, when we all knew they'd done the whole seventeen? Some sort of strategy? A bargaining chip? It beat both Hester and me.
Anyway, the attorneys had left and the brothers were back in the jail cells, arguing with the other prisoners over whether or not they were all going to watch Antiques Road Show at 7:00 p.m. We only had one TV in the cell block. I was pretty sure the Osterhaus boys were going to win. Research comes first.
Hester and I were in Dispatch, having a leisurely cup of coffee. We were talking to the duty Dispatcher, Sally Wells, about whether she should take her niece to see Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings when she got off duty. The phone rang, and our conversation stopped.
Sally answered with a simple “Nation County Sheriff's Department …,” which told me it wasn't a 911 call. They answer those with “911, what's your emergency.” I relaxed a bit, and had just brought my coffee cup to my lips when Sally reached over and snapped on the speaker phone.
“ … best get the Sheriff down here … there's this dead man in the road just down from our mailbox … ” came crackling from the speaker.
“And your name and location, please?”
“I'm Jacob, Jacob Heinman,” replied the brittle voice. “Me and my brother live down here in Frog Hollow … you know, just over from the Welsh place about a mile.”
“I'll be paging the ambulance now,” replied Sally, very calmly, “but keep talking because I can hear you at the same time.”
“We don't think he needs a ambulance, ma'am,” said Jacob, politely, “I saw 'em shoot him just about right smack in front of me. We went back up there. He's
still laying there just like they left him. He's awful dead, we're pretty sure.”
I suspect, even in departments where they have