‘‘I don’t know,’’ she said. She was becoming genuinely afraid.
‘‘Look,’’ said Hester, ‘‘talk to us just a bit longer. This can still be considered routine, in a death case. No suspicion.’’
‘‘And you leave here, and go right up and talk to Johnny Marks, right? Straight to the man, right from me. No, thanks. No, thank you very much!’’
‘‘Now, slow down,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Don’t get all upset over something that hasn’t happened.’’
‘‘Yeah, right.’’
‘‘Tell you what,’’ I said. ‘‘I’ll use your phone, and get some of our people to talk to Johnny Marks right now. While we’re still here. So it looks like you both got heat at the same time.’’
She thought about that. Finally: ‘‘That’s good. That’s okay.’’
I picked up her phone and called the office. It had a long cord, and I went around the corner while she and Hester continued to talk.
Sometimes the simplest things can get so complex. Let me just say that I was on the phone for better than five minutes, making the arrangements to get somebody to go talk to Marks without using police radio.
I went back to Beth and Hester. They were really getting along.
‘‘Beth tells me,’’ said Hester, ‘‘that she doesn’t think Marks would go along, but that a man named Howler Moeher might.’’
‘‘Reasonable.’’ I kind of knew Howler. She was right, he probably would.
‘‘Howler’s got a machine gun,’’ said Beth.
There was a pause at that. Most people wouldn’t know a machine gun from a semiauto rifle, unless it was one of the big ones on a tripod. But you always had to ask.
‘‘What do you mean by machine gun, Beth?’’
‘‘Well, you know, it’s black, and it fires real fast, and Howler says it is.’’
‘‘Right,’’ said Hester. ‘‘How big is it?’’
‘‘Oh,’’ said Beth, extending her hands about three feet apart, ‘‘like this or so, with a thing hanging down from the bottom, like.’’
‘‘Where is old Howler these days?’’ I asked.
‘‘On a farm between here and Maitland, on the highway, you know, by the old train station…’’
‘‘Yeah, I think so,’’ I said.
We had to talk to Howler.
We stayed with Beth for a few more minutes, and I checked to make sure we had a unit talking to Marks, before we left. We did. The Freiberg officer. He’d been the only one available. We headed right up to Marks’s place, both because we wanted to talk to him and because the unit already there had damn little idea what they were doing with him.
On the way, we started sorting things out better. And were faced with a pretty familiar dilemma. Do we talk with Marks on the fly, to get him while he’s still off balance? Or do we wait, and talk to him later, when we have more information, and ammunition enough to impeach his story? We figured that, since we had to protect Beth, we’d better do it now, and then hit him again later if we had to. And we’d probably have to.
Then, we had Howie with a shotgun, and nobody that we saw had been hit with a shotgun. But, according to Hester, the shotgun had been fired. She had seen no blood trails at any of the other obvious locations. Therefore, Howie had missed? Most likely. But who had he been shooting at? Bill probably. But were we sure? No. And why in the hell did Howie have a shotgun in the first place? It wasn’t like him at all.
Ah, but we knew that Marks and Howie were working together. Marks was almost guaranteed to know something worth our while, even if he hadn’t been out there today.
Johnny Marks was about twenty-five, a little over six feet, slender, tanned, black-haired, and very indignant.
‘‘I said,’’ he said to me, ‘‘I want to know just what the fuck you people are doing here.’’
‘‘I’m sure you do,’’ I replied, and continued my introduction. ‘‘As I was trying to say, my name is Houseman, and I’m a deputy sheriff here in Nation County. And this is Special
Agent Gorse of the DCI.’’
‘‘Big fuckin’ deal.’’
‘‘We’d like to ask you a few questions.’’
‘‘Fuck you. I’m leavin’ town for a vacation.’’
‘‘May we come in?’’
‘‘No.’’
I reached out and grabbed the front of his Hawaiian shirt. ‘‘Then you get to come out.’’
‘‘Get your fuckin’ hands off me!’’
‘‘I’m placing you under arrest as a material witness. You will come with us.’’ I pulled, hard. He came out the door, stumbling. ‘‘Now.’’
Hester shot me that damned eyebrow again.
‘‘You heard him say he intended to leave?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ she said. ‘‘I did.’’
‘‘I want my attorney, and I want him now!’’ Typical. ‘‘You can’t arrest me!’’ Natural progression. ‘‘For what?’’
The handcuffs went on easily.
‘‘I’m going to handcuff him in front, if that’s all right with you?’’
‘‘Fine with me,’’ said Hester.
‘‘You can’t handcuff me!’’
‘‘He doesn’t look like much of a threat,’’ she said.
‘‘You can’t do this!’’
‘‘Take him in our car, Carl?’’
‘‘No. Let’s get a marked car.’’
‘‘You can’t do this!’’
I pushed him toward the Freiberg officer. That officer was aware that he’d been the choice of desperation, just to get somebody up there. He’d been very patient with both us and Marks. I’m not sure about us, but he was definitely losing patience with Marks.
‘‘You hold him for us for a little bit?’’
‘‘Sure.’’ He grinned.
‘‘I said…!’’
I stopped, Marks stopped. ‘‘You have the right to remain silent. ..’’
He actually listened. Then: ‘‘What am I charged with?’’ Civil, calm, with no sign of the excitement of a few moments before. Typical of an experienced criminal. As soon as you’re truly serious, the show stops and we get down to business.
‘‘You weren’t listening,’’ I said, reasonably and with a smile. ‘‘You’re under arrest as a material witness. You aren’t charged with anything.’’
‘‘Witness to what?’’
‘‘Oh, manufacturing of dope, for instance.’’
‘‘Hey, I don’t cook anything!’’
‘‘Marijuana. Patch.’’
‘‘Oh, well, I don’t know nothin’ about no patch, man.’’
‘‘Conspiracy to manufacture.’’
‘‘Nope. Not me.’’
‘‘Murder.’’
Stunned silence.
‘‘Conspiracy to commit murder.’’
‘‘Whaaa?’’
‘‘Murder of a police officer in conjunction with manufacturing a controlled substance.’’
‘‘WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?’’
Well, we had his complete attention now.
