Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [84]
Inside, we got everything settled in a hurry, with Mom at the reception area with her granddaughter, and Melissa in the back office with us. Mom, press relations aside, seemed suspicious, and a bit reluctant to let her daughter talk to us. She wanted to be in the room with Melissa during the interview. Melissa was an adult. Mom stayed outside the interview room.
Melissa, now that she was finally out, was ready to do anything we asked, and then some. The FBI had questioned her nearly to death, trying to establish that she was either kidnapped, a hostage, or both. Melissa kept telling them that she’d gone in of her own free will, and had come out as soon as it struck her that it was time to leave. Any shots fired at her were by Herman wanting to shoot a defector. Melissa, Hester, and I pretty well agreed that Herman had shot in the air. He really loved his granddaughter, and thought well of Melissa too. Well, that’s what she said, and we didn’t have any reason to doubt her.
‘‘There were three other men in the house with us, at least until I left. After that I don’t know.’’
‘‘Sure.’’
‘‘One,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘was Bob Nuhering, the neighbor from down toward the river?’’
‘‘Sure,’’ I said. I knew who he was.
‘‘The other two,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘were from Wisconsin. One is a big man, about fifty, really fit, crew cut. Wore camouflage clothes, with boots and a hat. They called him Gabe, although,’’ she said very confidentially, ‘‘I don’t think that was his real name.’’
‘‘Why?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘You know,’’ said Melissa, ‘‘I don’t know, you know?’’ She thought for a second. ‘‘Just the way everybody said ‘Gabe,’ you know?’’
‘‘I think I do,’’ said Hester.
‘‘And the other one?’’ I asked.
‘‘He was with Gabe. Came with him, I mean. Dressed the same way, except he had a white tee shirt under his cammo stuff, and Gabe was pretty disgusted, you know, because he could see the white a mile off.’’
‘‘Yep.’’
‘‘And he was called Al, or Albert, and I think that was his real name, ’cause I didn’t get any feeling about it not being his real name . . .’’
‘‘Okay,’’ I said.
‘‘Both of them had attack guns, you know?’’
‘‘Assault rifles?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Yeah. That’s right.’’
‘‘So,’’ I asked, ‘‘what did everybody think about Gabe and Al?’’
‘‘Like, do you mean respect and like that?’’
‘‘That’s just what I mean.’’
‘‘Oh, Gabe,’’ she said, with her voice showing disrespect just the way a fourteen-year-old would, ‘‘was like God, you know? I mean, anything he just even said, they just ate it up . . .’’
As it turned out, Gabe was a real leader in that group. He was the one who had everybody but Melissa convinced that they should die for the cause. Whatever the cause was, and Melissa wasn’t too clear about that. Herman was a true believer, and so was his son. Nola had seemed a bit reluctant for others, particularly her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, to die for a cause. She’d helped Melissa out the door, in fact. But Nola was apparently determined to stay. Mostly with Gabe, according to Melissa.
‘‘I think they’ve got the hots for each other,’’ said Melissa.
‘‘Who?’’
‘‘Nola and Gabe.’’
My. She’d formed this opinion by the way they’d exchanged looks, by the way they talked to each other, and by little considerations they’d apparently shown each other. Herman, as far as she could tell, had been pretty much oblivious to the Nola and Gabe thing.
‘‘He’s got the hots for Gabe in another way,’’ said Melissa. ‘‘Thinks he’s just about God, or something.’’
Melissa said that they were also talking to people on the outside all the time.
‘‘How did they do that?’’ I asked. ‘‘We shut the phone lines off right away.’’
Gabe, it turned out, had attached the modem of the Stritch computer to a cell phone. Of course. He was receiving messages from people all the time he was there. And apparently sending them as well.
‘‘What kind of stuff did he do on the computer?’’ I asked.
‘‘I don’t know. I mean, like, they never let me see what it was. But he’d do stuff on it, and then he’d talk to us about the ‘mission.’ ’’
‘‘The mission?’’ asked Hester. ‘‘What