Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [6]
Lamar appeared around the corner, in uniform, with his shotgun pointing in front of him. He stopped and looked at the three of us.
‘‘Holy shit,’’ was all he could say.
Three
TWO HOURS LATER, things were starting to sort themselves out, and get much more complicated at the same time. Typical investigation in that you just couldn’t simplify things, no matter how you tried.
Lamar and I were returning up the trail, after trying to direct the officers who were beginning to search the park. He and I had just gone back through the yellow crime-scene tape and past the hurriedly arriving media. I overheard some reporter, who had set up his own camera and was speaking into it, say ‘‘. . . there are known dead so far, but how many is still not certain . . .’’
‘‘They’re all known to somebody,’’ I said to Lamar.
‘‘What?’’ His hearing was going.
‘‘Never mind.’’ Known dead . . . I didn’t know how else to put it myself. The term just sort of offended me, with the implications of body counts and things. Known dead. Like they wouldn’t count, somehow, until they were known.
We’d also been briefing various investigative people as they showed up, and picking up items from our cars down on the road. The area search was a hopeless task, but it did serve to make those of us who were concerned with the crime scene feel a little more comfortable. As far as I was concerned, though, the shooters were long gone.
‘‘Where’s Johansen?’’ I asked Lamar. I’d lost track of him in the combined process of getting resources assigned to the scene and scrounging gear from my trunk.
‘‘He’s still up there, talkin’ to DNE and DCI. He just doesn’t want to leave. He ain’t hurt, but I’m gonna have to get him out of here.’’
‘‘Yeah, but let me talk to him again first, okay?’’
‘‘Just for a while.’’
I could imagine the conversation between Johansen and the Iowa Department of Narcotics Enforcement and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. A state agent being murdered in the woods was bad enough, but to have heavily armed and unknown suspects to boot . . .
‘‘Shit, they were just sittin’ on a patch, Lamar . . . What went wrong?’’
‘‘I don’t know,’’ Lamar said, stopping and turning around. ‘‘I thought you might.’’
‘‘Hell,’’ I said, ‘‘I haven’t worked dope for five or six years. I don’t even known who they thought they might have.’’
That was very true. We worked all dope cases that way within the department. Need to know only. I was our intelligence officer, but I wouldn’t pressure them for the information unless I thought they might have something I needed. Lamar, as sheriff, had automatic ‘‘need to know,’’ but seldom asked.
‘‘Oh,’’ he said. He sounded a little disappointed, and turned back up the trail.
‘‘But I’ll know shortly,’’ I said. ‘‘Just a minute . . .’’
Since we were stopped, I took a spray can of insect repellent out of my camera bag. I sprayed it liberally on my face, hands, inside my hat, inside my shirt, on my waist, and finally on my ankles. As I was replacing the can, Lamar spoke.
‘‘Got somethin’ against bugs?’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ I said as we started back up the long, winding path to the crime scene. ‘‘I hate chiggers and mosquitoes.’’ I reached back into my camera bag. ‘‘You want some?’’
‘‘Nope. Never use the stuff. Bugs gotta eat too.’’
It occurred to me to look for my raincoat, which I’d tossed aside on the way to help Johansen. The fact that it was an olive green wasn’t going to be a lot of help, but it should have stood out because of its shape, if nothing else. I couldn’t find it, and made a mental note to look again when we came back.
We hit the crime scene proper about two minutes later. You really have to have worked a crime scene in the deep woods, with a temperature hovering around a hundred, and the humidity in the high nineties, to appreciate what a pain in the ass it can be. This one looked like it was scattered out over an area like a little plane wreck. Most of the activity was centered just up the path from where I’d encountered Johansen with the body of Kellerman.
There was