Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [43]
‘‘I can understand that,’’ I said. ‘‘Especially at this stage.’’
‘‘The scoop on the street is that it was a gang hit,’’ said Dahl. He adjusted his black Harley sweatband, which matched his black Harley tee shirt. ‘‘We’ve checked that one, haven’t we?’’ He directed that question at Nichols.
Nichols just nodded.
‘‘I mean. I don’t think there’s anybody really connected up there . . .’’
‘‘They’re not,’’ said the DEA rep.
‘‘It does look a lot like a hit,’’ said Hester. ‘‘An organized hit. It really does.’’ She was wearing tan slacks, a white blouse, and looked like she came from a whole different world than Dahl. Yet, five years before, she’d been in blue jeans, a cutoff denim jacket, and could have passed for his old lady. That’s what she’d worn the first time I saw her, and she could have fooled me.
‘‘That’s it,’’ said the senior DEA agent. ‘‘We can’t come up with an outfit with motive . . . we really can’t come up with any sort of gang that’s into it at all. Not yet. There will be once it’s harvested and bagged, but not yet. Just some high hopes, so to speak.’’
‘‘And it wasn’t that much of a patch and there’s no war on,’’ said Dahl, ‘‘but the bad guys have been wrong before. They’ve knocked off some pretty unimportant people who just happened to have given the impression they were important.’’
I nodded. I was aware of that sort of thing. ‘‘Not this Howie Phelps,’’ I said. ‘‘He couldn’t even convince himself he was important.’’ I shrugged. ‘‘Besides, if the shooters were involved with the ownership of the patch, they would have known who Howie was anyway.’’
‘‘How about this Marks?’’ asked Hester. ‘‘Boy seems to have a certain air about him.’’
‘‘Could be,’’ said Dahl. ‘‘Everybody up there thinks he’s important.’’ He thought a second. ‘‘Naw, that’s just because Marks has told ’em so. Anybody with any savvy could spot him for an idiot in a short second. Besides, he sure as hell knew Turd.’’
‘‘And his old lady,’’ said Hester dryly. ‘‘I just don’t see how anybody without savvy could put together a hit like that.’’
‘‘Yup,’’ said Nichols. ‘‘That’s the problem.’’
‘‘The real problem,’’ said Hester, ‘‘is that, as far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no reason for this to have happened at all.’’
We were quiet for a moment.
‘‘A mistake?’’ asked Dahl with a wide grin. ‘‘You can’t be telling me that it was all a well-organized mistake.’’
‘‘No,’’ said Hester. ‘‘It was no mistake. If it was a mistake, Marks wouldn’t rabbit. We just don’t know the reason, that’s all.’’
‘‘We need a motive that works,’’ I said, almost absently.
‘‘We have the motive,’’ said Nichols. ‘‘Dope is the motive, and it sure works. We just gotta get the details right.’’
I took the 13th and 14th off. It was either that or beat some kid to death with the mailbox he’d just knocked over. Saw a movie. Mowed the lawn. Got to see my wife, Sue. I remembered her from my vacation. Just being with her was a help, even though we couldn’t discuss any of the specifics of the case. She knew it was driving me nuts, because I was driving her nuts. Only I wasn’t driving her nuts directly because I was hardly around. We had a nice little reunion.
On the 15th, Hester and I met with Dr. Peters, the forensic pathologist assigned to the case. We met at his office in Cedar Rapids. He’d offered to come to the Nation County Sheriff’s Department, but I told him we could do it as easily at his place. I really didn’t want to get back into routine crap at the office, and this way I could delay it by a day. Besides, he had a really nice office, especially compared with ours.
Peters was really special. Every autopsy I’d ever been at with him in attendance, he had a story with a good point for every single organ he took out of the corpse. He’d make every effort to point out to me every single detail and explain each point. And I hung on his every word. I found we were in complete agreement about what I thought was the most vital part of the relationship between the pathologist and the cop. He narrowed the parameters for us, with anything