Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [79]
‘‘Well?’’ I asked. ‘‘What do we want to do?’’ Like I said, I do that well.
As it turned out, what we wanted to do was this: Hester and I were to do the Rumsford murder, with our first priority being to discover just who in hell had shot him. Bob Dahl was to continue working the narcotics connections, but from a slightly different perspective, in light of what we now knew. He was to go back on the street and find out who had known about the dope patch and might have been connected to Herman et al. Al Hummel and the DCI would do the murder of Bud and the shooting of Lamar, which they would normally have done anyway. But Al was to coordinate between all four murders and try to maintain a line of evidence. We used the word ‘‘line’’ because there was no ‘‘chain’’ yet . . . nothing linked solidly to anything else. Just a bunch of points on a trail. George was to coordinate all the information regarding the extremists who might be involved. The FBI was really good at that, and he’d be able to trace connections none of the rest of us could. He was also assigned to the ‘‘kidnappings’’ by his home office. Sally would handle all the computer checking, including the National Crime Information Center or NCIC, the Interstate Identification Index, also known as ‘‘Triple I,’’ and basic things like driver’s license and vehicular information stored in computers around the United States. Too, she would handle all the secure teletype information between agencies and officers. And keep it all extremely confidential, with access limited to the investigative team only. Since this would entail her working odd hours, and no particular shift, it had to be cleared through Art. We’d work that out.
We would also have meetings every three days, whether we needed them or not. Mandatory. Nobody was to be allowed to lose track of the overall investigation. George, of course, would be in close contact with all three investigations.
After that was decided, it was just a matter of where to start and how to go about it.
Art vs. Sally was a potential problem, as he hated her with a passion, for refusing to do something for him years back. He would not approve her flexible time. We knew that. But he had to. We knew that too, because she was the most reliable and efficient dispatcher any of us had ever known, and we needed her. George and Al, as usual, came through.
About an hour after the meeting broke up, Hazel Murphy, our secretary, called Art on the intercom.
‘‘Art, it’s for you on line three . . . the Director of Public Safety, Des Moines . . .’’
The director talked briefly with Art about recent events, kind of like he was really in charge. Then told him that there had been a request from his field agents for use of a dispatcher in our department, flex time, for special assignments. That he’d had his staff go over the records in Des Moines and that he was assigning Sally, as she had scored highest on her database tests when she’d been certified by his department. If that was okay with Art, of course.
Piece of cake.
Art called Sally and told her. She protested, she had things to do at home . . . Art insisted. Sally ‘‘caved in.’’
Art, however, wasn’t quite finished. He knew I liked Sally, and that I had likely recommended her for the assignment. He also probably suspected that the director had been doing somebody a little favor. He tapped me on the shoulder when I was in the reception area, in front of Hazel.
‘‘You put in lots of hours the last few days.’’
‘‘Well, yeah, I have,’’ I answered.
‘‘Since you were acting sheriff, you don’t get paid for the overtime.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘Yep. Chalk up thirty-seven hours of OT to experience. You were administrative.’’
About twelve hundred bucks went down the drain. Oh, well. It just made me more determined to keep Art busy supervising us. He was administrative, and I figured I could keep him on the job for more than thirty-seven extra hours in a week. Easy. But it hurt the pocketbook just the same.
Then, the press weren’t exactly absent. Normally, we could expect something of