Code 61 - Donald Harstad [77]
I hung up. Iowa was predicted to be a close contest in the upcoming presidential elections, and we were getting a lot of automated phone calls. I turned over, thinking I could get another thirty minutes of sleep. I lay there thinking about that extra sleep for thirteen minutes.
I rolled out at 08:15, and drank my first cup of coffee in relative peace. Always a good way to begin a day. I'd just missed Sue. Education did not wait for Columbus and his day. I called the office as I poured my second cup.
“Houseman? We thought you'd be up here by now.” Sally.
“Mmm? Who's 'we'?”
“Hester and me.” She giggled. “Really, we thought you older folks needed less rest.”
“Thanks, brat. So, anything happening?”
“I'd better let Hester take that one,” she said, and I found myself on hold. We'd installed hold music about a year earlier. The only good, reliable station we got was a country & western FM outfit that played music all day long. Unfortunately, they had an amateur portion during their broadcast day that began at 08:00 and lasted until 10:45.
“Carl?” Hester's voice interrupted some unfortunate young man's rendition of “Sixteen Tons.” It was sort of too bad, because I'd never really heard somebody so close to being a tenor sing it before.
“What's up?”
“You can forget our interview this morning.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Ms. Hunley was called away on urgent business.”
“You're kidding?” Damn.
“Nope. Her 'awnt,' ” she said in a pretty good imitation of a downstairs maid, “with whom she resides, was suddenly taken ill.”
“I'll bet. And she of the iridescent hair went, too?”
“Oh, yeah. Tatiana had to go with. It's a two-or three-hour drive, you know.” She sounded a little aggravated. “At least, that's what Attorney Junkel said when I called. He said they left really early this morning.”
“Right.” Well, shit. “Gone to Lake Geneva, then?”
“You bet. Located on the other side of America's Dairy Land.”
Eastern Wisconsin put them out of our reach, at least for a while. “Well,” I said, trying to make the best of it, “we can always let you beat up Toby.”
She laughed at that.
It occurred to me that, while she might be out of our reach, Jessica Hunley was now within the grasp of one Investigator Harry Ullman, Conception County's best. A silver lining, maybe.
I'd pretty much decided to spend Columbus Day playing catch-up with the case, anyway. That originally had meant interviewing Jessica Hunley and Tatiana Ostransky, the five remaining residents of the Mansion, and then sorting through all the garbage I'd dumped into the evidence room last night. Since Jessica and Tatiana were gone, I thought I might as well go straight to the garbage, to see just what we had, and then get to the five sometime in the early afternoon. Very early if the garbage search didn't pan out.
The phone rang again. “Hello?”
The familiar pause, and then “My name is Senator Tom Harkin, and … ”
Click.
I always stayed on just long enough to hear who the recording was. It was becoming a big thing at the post office, kidding each other about what important recording had called. It had kind of a baseball trading-card aspect. “Hey, I got two Colin Powells, but no Jimmy Carters.” “Really? I got a Jimmy and a call from Tipper. Beat that!”
I got to the office at 09:09, where I met Borman, who was standing at the counter and talking with Sally in Dispatch.
“Ready to get going?” I asked him.
“Not really.” He was acting kind of funny, not looking right at me, and obviously pretending to fiddle with some papers on a clipboard.
“There a problem?” I really hated to ask.
He didn't say a word. Sally broke the awkward little silence with “He's been suspended for a day.”
Well, damn. It had to be the warning shots from last night. “With or without pay?” was the first thing I asked. It was important, but not for the money. Without, and he only had one more screwup and Lamar would fire him. With, and he'd be able to erase it with good performance over the next three months.
“With.” He was honest-to-God petulant.