lieutenant had figured that one out for himself.
I was tired, I was soaked, and I wanted a cigarette so bad I thought I’d kill for it. Did I mention that I quit smoking? After twenty-nine years of three packs a day? Did I?
Oh, well. At any rate, I have to take full responsibility for missing the obvious, and wasting time before it occurred to me to try to seal off the area around the farm, especially on the other side, toward the hill. In hilly country like this, it’s exceptional to be able to see your neighbor’s farm. You couldn’t see anything but Herman’s place from where we were, and I hadn’t known that the other farm run by the family was just over the hill to the northwest. By the time I found it out, when Eddie said something like ‘‘Do you know his son lives just over that hill?’’ Herman had apparently had two other sons join him and his wife on the home place. Also a daughter-in-law, who had come in with her husband, and brought her three-year-old daughter with her. We found that out when Sally started hearing voices in the background over the telephone, and asked.
So, by the time the trooper captain arrived, along with a trained negotiator, we knew we were dealing with a full-blown family. The captain was real nice, and since we had lost about half our department in the last couple of months, got a lot more troops up to help with cordoning off the farm. But, as acting sheriff, I was supposed to call the shots. The only problem was, if the state didn’t like what I decided to do, they could simply refuse to participate. They owned most of the resources. Would you court them? I would, and did. We met under the convenient tree, which had been so well used that the ground under it was all churned into mud.
The negotiator was a man named Roger Collier. Young fellow, thin. He asked me if I wanted to talk to them at all. It was perfunctory, and I knew that. But it was nice of him to ask.
‘‘I think my welcome’s wearing a bit thin right now. You go right ahead.’’ I shook my head. ‘‘But I’ll want to listen.’’
‘‘No problem.’’ He went off to set up a secure telephone contact with the telephone company, locking the Stritch line open and only open to us; and getting established in a large, beige motor home. That would be our command post for as long as we needed it. They’d parked it just outside the line of sight from the Stritch farm, on a concrete bridge deck about a hundred yards up the road. I continued to talk with the captain. His name was Ron Yearous, and I had only met him twice. Good man. Nonetheless, an administrator. Well, what the hell, so was I now.
‘‘Bad business here. Sorry to hear about your boss and deputy.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ I shivered a little, and shifted my feet, trying to get some of the water out of my tennis shoes. ‘‘I really want Herman. Really bad.’’
‘‘He’ll be brought in.’’
‘‘Brought in,’’ I thought. ‘‘Brought in!’’ I hadn’t heard that term for years. Although the captain and I were about the same age, that told me one thing. He hadn’t been in the field for a long, long time. A pencil pusher wasn’t going to be a lot of help out here. But. ..
‘‘Ron, could you do me a favor?’’
‘‘I’ll try.’’
‘‘I’m not real good at organizing something like this. I know you are. While I try to get a better feel for what’s happening here, could you handle the heavy job for me?’’
‘‘I’ll give it to my people. Don’t worry about anything. We’ll get everything set.’’
‘‘Damn. Thanks, Ron.’’
He clapped me on the shoulder, and started getting things done. Seriously, he did a fine job, and we never did have to worry about anything concerning support, rotation, supply, or anything else. He just had it done before anybody realized we needed it. And, what was even better, he never had an opportunity to interfere with what I wanted to do.
Five minutes later, I was on a cell phone in the captain’s car, talking to George Pollard, resident FBI agent from Cedar Rapids. ‘‘George of the Bureau.’’ I was glad it was George. He was good, and he was bright.
‘‘Carl, is Lamar all right?’’ He knew us all.
‘‘He’s pretty bad, George. He’ll make it, but Bud’s dead.’’
‘‘Shit.’’
‘‘Yeah, tell me.’’
‘‘So what have you got up there?’’
Basically, he wanted to know about the right-wing involvement. I told him what I knew, which was that Herman was pretty much your generic tax protester, and it appeared that he had at least the support of his family. George wasn’t pleased. Ever since the Waco business, the Feds were understandably leery about dealing with the extreme right.
‘‘Tell me,’’ said George, ‘‘that he isn’t a member of some sort of militia group.’’
‘‘Not that I know of, George.’’
‘‘But his property is posted?’’
‘‘It’s posted, but as far as I know, he’s just a typical tax protester. Nothing special about him.’’
‘‘Has he broken any federal laws?’’
‘‘Not today, as far as I know.’’ I sighed. ‘‘I’m sure he has, but it probably has to do with taxes.’’ I knew George. He wanted to help, but he needed a legal reason to do so. Most people don’t realize it, but the FBI has very little to do with murder cases. They only handle them on federal government property and on Native American reservations. They didn’t have much reason to actually work the case, but they could certainly ‘‘assist’’ in every way possible.
‘‘Right. And you say that it was an Original Notice he was resisting?’’
‘‘George, as far as I know that’s what was happening. I didn’t really pay too much attention. Why don’t you get hold of our office, and talk to Margaret. She can tell you all about the civil action.’’
‘‘I’ll get back to you.’’
‘‘Thanks, George.’’
It was 0200 hours. The rain had dropped off to a light mist, the temperature still hovered around eighty, and the humidity was fierce. So were the damned mosquitoes. I had thoroughly sprayed myself and my clothing, but since I was soaking wet in the first place, the repellent didn’t seem to be working well. I was talking with Hester, who had been sent up because there was a murder and she knew our county so well. We were in a large tent pitched by the good captain. Al Hummel, the agent in charge, was there too. We were going over what we had. Not much more than I had known eight hours ago, except that we now had a pretty accurate head count inside the farm perimeter, and they were demanding that we all just turn around and leave. Well, that was about as realistic as that bunch ever got. We had a negotiation in progress, as they say. And getting nowhere. They were a stubborn group, and were in denial. Just go away. Right.
‘‘But the shooter is Herman Stritch, right?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘No doubt in my mind. As far as I can tell, there’s only one way into that little shed, and I had that in view. Herman was in there, and he’s the one who threatened to shoot me.’’
‘‘That’s good.’’
‘‘That,’’ I said, ‘‘depends entirely on your point of view.’’
‘‘Good’’ was right, though. We’d gotten a warrant for Herman Stritch’s arrest earlier that evening. We were still waiting on the rest of the family, but I had the feeling that the young man I’d talked to was going to get it for obstruction. Nobody else yet. But they could all take a hit for accessory before it was finished.
‘‘I’m going to the Winnebago,’’ I said, ‘‘and check with the negotiator.’’ I hadn’t been in the HQ unit yet, and from the sound of its auxiliary generator, I had the strong impression that it was air-conditioned. Hester and Al said they’d be along in a minute. Micro DCI administrative conference. Fine with me.
As I squished over the soggy ground to the Winnebago, I played things over in my head again. It did bother me a bit that there was no longer any activity around the shed where I’d talked to Herman. If he had gotten out, and I believed that he had, it was also possible for someone to get in. Ergo, some ‘‘unknown’’ individual could be postulated as the shooter. By Herman’s attorney, during the trial, sworn to by Herman and his family. I’d always wondered about that aspect of the extreme right. I mean, they’d scream bloody murder about the ‘‘truth,’’ the Constitution, and swearing on the Bible, and then lie like a rug on the witness stand.
One of our biggest problems, from an evidentiary standpoint, was that we couldn’t get the lab team onto the property until the threat had been removed. And that could take days. Meanwhile, any biological evidence was fast disappearing because of the rain.
