Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [125]
Gabe was helping the Stritch family, and Wittman was there because their tactical doctrine required two men, and he also was really good with computers. (He’d been appalled at the security of the Stritch system, and had intended to fix things just before everything went to hell. I didn’t say a word.) Anyway, it turned out that Gabe was the one who wanted to speak to the press. He was the one who asked for only one person, and newspaper, not TV. He wanted to plead the case of the Stritch family and get himself a little publicity at the same time. Wittman was adamant that there had been no violence planned. And when the message came in from Bravo6 about the bomb, Wittman said, Gabe took one look, apparently saw the ‘‘bomb,’’ and shot twice. About two seconds apart. Using the Vaime Mk 2 we’d seen in the basement. He said that Gabe preferred full-power rounds, so the silencer wasn’t effective at all. He also said that Gabe had some of the 7.62 x 51 subsonic rounds with him as well, and had Wittman load those into the rifle when they got into the cornfield. During the flight from the house, Gabe had been carrying one of the H&K G3s. For suppressive fire. That made Hester and me both a little sweaty. It had never occurred to us that there could have been silenced rounds coming from the corn. Gave me the willies.
Wittman had also been with the troops in the woods on the 19th of June, but claimed that he had not fired the shots. I asked him what the training mission was all about, and was told that Volont would handle that. Man can piss me off, even when he’s not there.
I asked Wittman about Johnny Marks.
‘‘Who?’’
I explained, very thoroughly, just who Marks was.
‘‘So what does he have to do with me?’’
I explained that Marks had been murdered, and that we had been told by his killers that it was to atone for the killing of the officer in the woods. I omitted the gory details, just in case he might know something.
You get blank stares for lots of reasons. Boredom. Ignorance. Lack of interest. In this case, it seemed too grounded in utter and complete incomprehension.
‘‘I don’t understand,’’ he said, ‘‘why someone would do that.’’ Complete honesty, as far as I could read him. ‘‘Whoever he was.’’
Damn. There had to be a connection. There had to be. Didn’t there?
We told Volont we were done.
Volont sort of pulled down a ‘‘cone of silence,’’ and talked to Wittman for a while alone again. The attorney didn’t recommend that either, but Wittman said it would be all right.
While they were doing that, Hester and I called George and got him to put our names on the Vaime Mk 2. If there was any chance of a ballistic matchup . . .
It did occur to me that Gabe had been pretty smart having Wittman carry the murder weapon into the cornfield. Like, if we had managed to find them, who would have been holding the ‘‘smoking gun’’? It also occurred to me that Wittman could be lying, but I really didn’t think so. Not the way his nerves had been working him over. Regardless, we still had him on good charges. He was in knowing possession of a murder weapon. He had been present at a murder, and fled to conceal his identity. He had been a co-conspirator with Gabriel in infiltrating police lines and thereby arriving at the scene of the murder-to-be. In other words, a very active co-conspirator all the way around. The murder charge would still stick, so we had a good bargain. Most people think that just talking to the cops is what gets them time off. Not so. Talking in court, under oath, is what counts. We needed to maintain the health of our charges until that time.
Hester and I decided to get back out to the Wittman farm and get our suspect rifle. On the way out, she showed me just how different our perspectives could be.
Idly and as if she thought I was thinking the same thing, she asked, ‘‘How long do you think Wittman’s been working for Volont?’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘I said, ‘How long do you think Wittman’s been snitching