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 a respite after we got the ‘‘suspects’’ in jail. But not now. Especially after one of their own had been killed. Poor old Rumsford was being elevated to a kind of sainthood within the fourth estate. Talk about sad… they would have nominated him for a Pulitzer, if they’d been able to find anything that he’d ever done. Instead, they hovered around our jail like electronic vultures, waiting to pounce on a sound bite. One of the first things they did was go around Maitland interviewing anybody who walked slowly enough to catch. I will say this, though. They seldom got what they wanted.
One memorable sound bite was aired in what I think was desperation. They stumbled on Harvey Tinker, an elderly gentleman who nearly always wore seedy gray slacks, a white shirt, blue suspenders, and an Ivy League sort of hat. Smoked cigars one after another. I saw him on TV early on, being interviewed in front of the courthouse.
The interviewer was a young man, blond, eager, and very outgoing.
‘‘I’ve been talking with Harvey Tinker, a longtime resident of Maitland,’’ he intoned. He turned to Harvey, who had kept his cigar in his mouth. ‘‘Tell me, Mr. Tinker, what do the residents of Maitland think of all this?’’
Harvey looked squarely at him and said, ‘‘Shouldn’t shoot cops.’’
‘‘Do you mean there’s a sense of outrage here over the shooting of the local lawmen?’’
‘‘Nope. It’s just dumb to shoot a cop.’’
‘‘Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Straight from the heart.’’
The press aggravated us no end, except one French-Canadian team who did the neatest shots of the jail with the sunset turning the old limestone building orange and with a real live deer in the background. It turned out they were doing a travelogue on the Mississippi when their home office sent them inland a few miles to do us. They were attuned to nature shots. They were nice.
To top things off, the extreme right descended on Maitland like a pack of locusts. Not the armed groups. Not militias or paramilitary folks. Oh, no. We weren’t that lucky. No, we got the ‘‘political’’ people. The ones who had convinced themselves they knew what they were doing, and so offered their services to ‘‘represent’’ Herman and family. They were only egos with big appetites, but they could drive you crazy if you let ’em. Especially one named Wilford Jeschonek. We came to call him ‘‘W.J.’’ or ‘‘Rotten Willie,’’ depending on our mood. We hadn’t known him before he came to the jail and demanded to see Herman Stritch and family. Claimed he was an attorney of the common law.
I first saw him as he was arguing with Norma, the duty jailer. She was refusing to let him talk to the Stritch family until she cleared it with the clerk of court.
‘‘Who is that asshole?’’ I asked nobody in particular.
‘‘Sounds like a right-winger,’’ said Al as he passed. ‘‘Wants to bail ’em out with a homemade credit slip, or something like that.’’
‘‘Oh.’’
Old W.J. thought he’d made it impossible for us to see who he really was. Had no license plate on his car. Had no driver’s license. Had canceled his social security number. Had filed a paper with the clerk of court declaring his birth certificate, marriage certificate, U.S. citizenship, etc., invalid. Denied citizenship in anything but the Free and Sovereign Republic of Iowa, as a matter of fact.
‘‘Jeschonek, Wilford Frederick, DOB: 03/19/40, SSN 900-25-0001, 5’7’’, 180, brown and brown,’’ said Sally, five minutes later. ‘‘Nearly a hundred traffic violations, from speed to no seat belt.. . mostly no registration, no DL, stuff like that. Got it for carrying a concealed weapon in Minnesota two years ago, busted for sex with a minor in Wisconsin four years ago, two public intox. in Iowa, and one domestic abuse assault in Iowa last year.’’
‘‘Thanks.’’ She was good. ‘‘Get his wife’s name, will you? Might want to interview her sometime.’’
‘‘Martha June,’’ said Sally absently. ‘‘Lives in Oelwein.’’
‘‘Right.’’ I went back toward the investigator’s office. Speedy, too. If the wife was separated or divorced, she might have information regarding his contacts. I’d have George get with Sally. And if W.J. was connected with any particular group, Herman might be as well. And
…
And we were off and running.
Seventeen
The first really difficult problem we had was that none of the suspects we had in custody would say anything.
Herman Stritch, who we pretty well had to take for the leader, was kept in a separate cell area from his son William. We’re talking fifteen feet apart here, by the way, so communications between them were quite possible. For that reason, the television in the main cell containing William was kept on, with the sound up, twenty-four hours a day. If Herman wanted to talk to him, he’d have to yell.
