Code 61 - Donald Harstad [74]
FLIR is a Forward Looking Infra Red device. It can see a heat differential of less than half a degree Fahrenheit. Any mammal would show up, and clearly enough that you could spot the antlers on a buck deer from about five hundred feet up. The beauty is, the target has no idea you're looking at it. You can hide under things, of course. Behind things, inside things. But if even your legs were uncovered, it would have you. But the rain, like Lamar said, would make it less effective.
“Where could he go?” I was thinking out loud, more or less.
“I hope,” said Lamar, “that you didn't come all the way downstairs just to ask that.”
Lamar hates the press. It isn't always so obvious, but he really does. He's also very nervous around them, and will do almost anything to avoid having to talk with them. The fact that the so-called vampire's victim was his niece just compounded the problem past all reason.
“You give a statement yet?” asked Hester.
“Nope. Nothin' to say, I guess.”
“Let's give a joint statement,” she said. “You and I can write it up real quick, and I'll go with you and both our offices can issue it.”
He nodded, and the two of them went into the main dining room, and sat at the long, beautiful table. The setting was quite a contrast to the turmoil both inside and outside the Mansion.
There was a familiar voice at the door.
“Hey, Houseman, kin we have your picture, or you gonna feed all of us?” Harry.
As it turned out, Harry had been in Milwaukee most of the day, talking with the pathology team that had done the autopsy on Randy Baumhagen. The death had been the result of the blow to the head with one of those ubiquitous “blunt instruments.” Probably about three to four inches wide, probably fairly heavy. The throat injury was, as we had been told in the preliminary report, the result of the use of a sharp object, but not a blade.
All well and good. But Harry had been busier than that. He'd talked with people about William Chester.
“He ain't got a sister, Carl, and he never fuckin' had one. Dead or not.”
“Really?”
“He was livin' with some gal, over around Walworth, who died in a car wreck. That's it. He lied.”
“What do you think? We dump him?”
“I dunno. Everything else checks out so far. I dunno.” Harry looked around the interior of the Mansion, taking it in for the first time. “Nice fuckin' place.”
“We like it,” I said.
“So, the press people tell me that you found our boy?”
I explained that he'd more or less found us. I gave Harry all the details.
“Warning shots?”
“Yeah.” I sighed.
“Kids these days,” said Harry. “They just think too much.” He looked around some more. “So, you think he was up there all the time, then?”
“Yeah. Zonked, maybe. Enough pills up there to keep you out for a while.” I motioned him over to the stair, near the inglenook. “Hear anything?”
He tried. “Nope.”
“Quiet, isn't it?” I gestured around me. “I mean, even with all the commotion outside.”
“Well, yeah, now that you mention it.”
“I'll tell you, Harry, this is the quietest house I've ever been in in my life. You could make a lot of noise one or two rooms away, and never be heard. Not to mention up a floor or two.”
“It's all the insulation in the interior walls, I betcha,” he offered. “These old places are like that.”
“I think so, too,” I said.
“So, where ya think he's got to?”
“Beats me. Lots of area to hide in out in those woods. Lots.” I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we got lucky, though.”
“How's that?”
“Maybe he's a good swimmer, and made it to the Wisconsin side.”
While Harry paid his respects to Lamar and Hester, I called the office to find out whether or not the Freiberg cops had been able to find Kevin Stemmer. Turned out they had, in a local bar called The River Bank. Strike one suspect.
The news conference was remarkable. Hester and Lamar stood together on the front steps, starkly lit by the TV reporters and their lights, and with their breath visible against the shadows