Code 61 - Donald Harstad [177]
As we left, I said, “On the way. Backup, please.”
Sally waved absently. She knew her job, and would have everything she could drum up out to help as soon as possible. You just like to remind even the best Dispatchers, in case something slips their mind.
The Heinman brothers were known throughout the area as the “Heinman boys.” Confirmed bachelors, neither of the so-called boys was a day under eighty, and you couldn't excite either of them if you set his foot on ffre. Or, apparently, if you shot somebody right in front of him. As I got in my unmarked patrol car, started the engine, and strapped on the seat belt, I could hear Sally telling a State Trooper whose call numbers I missed that she was looking the directions up in her plat book. Frog Hollow was an old place-name for a very remote stretch of road about two miles long that wound down through a deep, mile-long valley where there were just two farms. I don't think anybody except the rural mail carrier and the milk truck went there in the daytime, and just kids parking and drinking beer ended up there at night. Sally probably had a general idea where it was, but considering there were more than 2,000 farms in Nation County, this would be no time to guess and end up giving the Trooper bad directions. Hester, behind me in her own unmarked car, couldn't possibly know where we were going and was going to have to follow me to the scene. Her call sign was I-388, so I waited until the radio traffic between Sally and the Trooper paused, and picked up my mike.
“Three and I-388 are 10-76,” I said. That meant we were heading to the scene, and was meant as much for the case record as anything else. You always need times. “Which Trooper you sending?”
“216 is south of you, I'm working on the directions … ” There was no stress in her voice, but I could tell she was really concentrating. “Be aware I've confirmed there at least two suspects. Repeating, at least two suspects.”
Two for sure. That always meant, to my mildly paranoid mind, that we were talking a minimum of two. Okay. Well, there was Hester, me, and 216. Fair odds, as 216 was a new State Trooper sergeant named Gary Beckman, who'd transferred into our area about six months ago. He was about forty, and really knew his stuff.
“I'll direct him,” I said so she could forget the directions for him and concentrate on getting an ambulance and our Sheriff notified. “216 from Nation County Three, what's your 10-20?” I needed to know Gary's location before I could give him directions. I also needed to find out where he was because we were both going to be in a hurry, and it would be extremely embarrassing if we were to find ourselves trying to occupy the same piece of roadway at the same time.
“I'm four south of Maitland on Highway 14, Three.” I could hear the roar of his engine over his siren noise. He was moving right along. Hester and I pulled out onto the main highway and headed south. The Trooper was four miles closer than we were. There was no way I'd be able to have him just follow me and skip the directions over the radio.
“10-4, 216. We're just leaving Maitland now. Okay, uh, if you turn right at the big dairy farm with the three blue silos, take the next right, and, uh, continue on down a long, winding road into the valley. That's the right road, and the farm you're going to is the second one.”
“10-4, Three.” His siren was making a racket in the background. My siren was making a racket under my hood. Hester's siren was making a racket behind me. I reached down and turned the volume way up on my radio.
“Okay, and the, uh, subject is right in the roadway, so … ” The last thing I wanted was for a car to run over the victim. “And Comm confirms two suspects.”
“Understood.”
I hoped so. After 216 and I shut up, I heard Sally talking to our Sheriff, Lamar Ridgeway, whose call sign was Nation County One. From listening to their radio