Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [76]
The TAC man was talking on his portable, but was catching our conversation, and looking at us strangely.
‘‘Come on . . .’’
‘‘Never.’’ She was giggling. ‘‘You’re gonna have to do it yourself.’’
I looked her right in the eye. ‘‘Who was that masked man?’’
‘‘God, Houseman. You have no pride.’’
Whoever the ‘‘masked man’’ was, he and his partner were in a cornfield of some eighty acres, about twice as long as it was wide, which was bounded on one end and one side by a large, heavily wooded hill, which bumped into a string of hills. One side was bordered by a curving gravel road. At the other end of the field was the Stritch house.
We put people on the road, and at the Stritch end. We had a couple of people going onto the hill at the far end, but there was no way that we could put people in the center in a hurry.
Whoever the two were, they had to be pretty damned uncomfortable. It was well over ninety degrees, brightly sunny, and as humid as I’ve ever felt it. In an eight-foot-tall green cornfield, there isn’t a breath of air. It’s even more humid, if possible, because of the wetly green plants. I don’t think it’s actually possible to suffocate in one, but you sure feel like you’re going to. Especially if you’re lying still after exerting yourself. You can’t hear anything further away than ten feet or see anything further than five. Not a pleasant place, especially with a TAC team and a K-9 team after you.
We couldn’t find them.
We had a helicopter from Cedar Rapids PD come up, equipped with FLIR. I talked to the officer who operated it, a man I’d known for years.
‘‘Right now, FLIR is out of the question. That field would just look like a hot pond, with waves. Tonight, it’s possible, but without a breeze to cool the plants . . .’’
We got a corn picker running, and put four TAC guys on it, with one of our people driving. Went through the field. Not harvesting, just making a lot of noise and beating the corn down. They were the only officers above ‘‘corn level,’’ so to speak. They didn’t find anything either.
During the search of the cornfield, George came over. He was in a bit of a sweat. Seems that SAC Volont had come up. I hadn’t even seen him. He, as it turned out, had seen George walking with the rest of us toward the house. When it was over, Volont had been all over George like stink. Said it was stupid, foolish, and a bunch of other things.
‘‘Well, shit, George,’’ I said. ‘‘It worked.’’ I shook my head.
Turned out there was nobody else in the house. But Hester was right. You really gotta know that sort of thing.
Tired as we all were, we had to jump right in on Herman Stritch, and try to do an interview before we got him to the jail and whatever attorney he was going to have would be telling him to shut up. We did the interview in the Winnebago, just Hester, George, and me. Yeah, I know. It was a custodial interrogation, not an interview. But he was thoroughly advised of his Miranda rights, and he very deliberately waived them.
You have to understand that, after killing somebody, the guilty party has an almost uncontrollable urge to confess. Really. Not, as some attorneys would have you believe, that they ever had an uncontrollable urge to confess to something they didn’t do. But there is some mechanism at work there, if there’s guilt, that compels them to tell. All you have to do is be a listener.
‘‘Herman,’’ I said, ‘‘what the hell happened here?’’
He just shook his head.
‘‘Herman,’’ I said, ‘‘why did you shoot Bud and Lamar? They weren’t gonna hurt you.’’
He shrugged. ‘‘They were throwing me off the farm. I can’t have that.’’
‘‘No, they weren’t,’’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘‘They were just serving papers. You still had other avenues available.’’
‘‘No more.’’ It was said in a flat, final sort of tone. ‘‘Done with that.’’
‘‘With what?’’
‘‘With all the bullshit!’’
As it turned out, Herman had really lost the farm. Borrowed heavily over the years. The entire farm was in hock. The notes had come due five years before. All Herman had done was pay the interest on the notes. No principal.