Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [29]
‘‘Don’t know for sure, Hank, but it’s about the murders, I know that. We’re gonna form a task force.’’
‘‘That’s good, isn’t it?’’
‘‘Oh, yeah. That’s good.’’ But I had my doubts. Task forces had a tendency to get top-heavy very, very fast.
When I reached the basement, I saw Hester, Al, two or three DCI people I’d known from previous cases, DNE Agent Dahl, John Fallingstad of the Iowa AG’s office, and about six people I had never seen before in my life. Everybody else except Dahl and me was fairly well dressed, with the state people tending toward slacks and a shirt, the Feds to complete suits. Dahl and I were in blue jeans. I don’t know about him, but I felt just a bit out of place. I also noticed a lot of bakery goods and a large coffeepot on a long side table. Maybe it wasn’t going to be a total loss, after all.
Wrong again.
The people I didn’t know turned out to be a mix of Iowa DNE, federal DEA, FBI, IRS agents, and a man from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Heavy hitters, no doubt. They seemed out of place somehow, but I chalked that up to my provincial outlook. They sure moved fast, though, I’ll give them that. As soon as I sat down (apparently being the last to arrive), they handed out contracts for all present to sign, promising not to reveal anything to anybody, on pain of all sorts of things. I signed. I had before, on other task forces. It had never meant a whole lot before, because I’d never learned anything I hadn’t either already known or surmised. I truly hoped this would be different. I glanced around. Nobody had a doughnut, and only two had coffee. It would cause a commotion to wander over to the food now. I resigned myself to having to wait until the meeting was over.
They got right to the point.
The man from the U.S. Attorney’s office stood up and looked around. ‘‘I understand that this case has been handled by Deputy Houseman and Agent Gorse. Would you please stand up?’’ We did, and although Hester was clear across the room with her boss, I got the impression she was as uncomfortable as I was about this. We sat immediately.
‘‘We believe this case may possibly have international implications,’’ said the Deputy U.S. Attorney. ‘‘For that reason, much of it comes under the jurisdiction of the DEA and the FBI.’’
Now, that was bad news. Both agencies having jurisdiction, I mean. DEA and FBI had been competing for the spotlight and the money from the Federal Drug Czar’s office for years. Competition in an investigation wasn’t a good idea, and I began to get a bit more leery of the whole task force business. Somebody up the line was going to bump the locals right out of business. At least, they would as soon as a good suspect turned up. The good suspect was, by the way, identified by locals in well over 50 percent of the cases.
‘‘We are forming this task force,’’ he continued, ‘‘for the purpose of bringing the considerable resources of our agencies to bear on the problem. We feel that these officers were killed because they got too close to the operations of a cartel in South America.’’
It was too bad that nobody had told him that ‘‘two officers’’ weren’t killed, but that one of the dead just happened to be a miserable little doper instead. Not that it probably mattered. I should have seen this coming from the sinsemilla marijuana, though. That was sure to have been read as a sign of possible organized involvement. But foreign? The problem was, any foreign concern would be crazy to raise it here in Iowa. Risk the growth stage? Hell, even a bunch of dummies like us could find it here. We just had, after all. It would be a hell of a lot easier to ship it in. Sinsemilla was what I’d raise to compete with foreign imports.
‘‘Special Agent in Charge Volont will be the officer in charge of the task force.’’
Volont stood up and walked to the center of the room. He was fit, well-groomed, and had a very intelligent look in his eye. You could see a lot of energy burning behind those eyes. He somehow struck me as being more than