‘‘Small bombs?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Really small,’’ said George. ‘‘Like they blow up mailboxes.’’
‘‘They getting these folks confused with teenagers?’’ I asked.
‘‘Oh, no,’’ said George. ‘‘Not at all. The little bombs are planted as proof that the mechanism works, for one thing. Very sophisticated, they tell me. But, more important,’’ he said, in a worried tone, ‘‘it proves that the strike teams they sent out actually reached their target.’’
Food for thought.
‘‘What kind of targets?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Oh, investigators’ ‘in’ boxes in Sheriff’s Departments,’’ said George, deadpan.
I admit it, I looked at my ‘‘in’’ box. Broke him up.
Actually, as he explained when he’d recovered, what they did was get either close to or into government property and set off these little devices. Not only federal but state and local property as well. They’d started off with places like isolated forest and park ranger stations, and had expanded to include police stations, office buildings, a couple of post offices, a Coast Guard installation, and others.
‘‘Were these connected to the Oklahoma City bombing?’’ I asked.
‘‘No. Not at all. Nothing like that. So far, at least,’’ he said. ‘‘I haven’t heard of anybody even being slightly injured.’’
‘‘Just for the effect?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Seemed to work in a few cases,’’ said George. ‘‘Several victims were really intimidated. But that’s not what they have in mind.’’ He shrugged. ‘‘According to my sources.’’
George’s sources, in this case, were from Washington, D.C., and were pretty damned accurate. What these people were doing was honing their skills. More than fifty incidents, in all sorts of locations. Practicing. But for what?
‘‘If anybody at the conference knew, they sure didn’t tell us,’’ said George.
Hmmm.
‘‘And Herman has been corresponding with the bombers?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘At least with their parent organizations,’’ said George, with the addition of the ‘‘federal hedge.’’ ‘‘Inasmuch as there is any true organization, of course.’’
‘‘Well, sure,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Inasmuch as…’’
‘‘Well, they’re pretty loose,’’ said George.
‘‘You wish,’’ she said.
‘‘Anyhow,’’ I interjected, ‘‘what’s old Herman been saying to these people?’’
Oh, yes. Herman. George leafed through the messages. ‘‘Basically,’’ he said, looking up, ‘‘he offered to provide a training area for them, and they accepted.’’
You could have heard a jaw drop.
After a moment, I asked George if, or when, a date had been set.
‘‘I believe so,’’ he said. The last message had been on June 3rd, and stated that they would be glad to take advantage of the training area, and that two to four selected local men could also be included to participate and observe the training. Further contact would be in person.
‘‘The message was accepted for, but not by, a fellow named Gabriel.’’ He waited, but just for a moment. ‘‘That would be Gabriel, you know, for which Gabe is short,’’ he announced.
‘‘We know,’’ said Hester. ‘‘I think we’ve met.’’
‘‘Our favorite colonel,’’ I said, remembering the tall man at the edge of the cornfield. ‘‘Well, somebody better tell DEA. None of this is dope-related, and never has been.’’
‘‘Maybe now,’’ said Hester, smiling, ‘‘we can have our whole case back.’’
Right.
Nineteen
We had a little problem. Since we’d gotten all our information in a somewhat irregular manner, we might have trouble telling George’s superiors about any of it. Especially when they found out what was in the computer, and they probably knew already. I mean, if I can tell, they can tell much faster. And in more depth. But if colonel Gabriel was for real, and he certainly appeared to be at the cornfield, we certainly couldn’t do this one ourselves. Well, maybe not past a certain point anyway. It was that point we were now trying to establish.
We decided to go to work on Herman, Nola, and Bill Stritch in earnest. They were the key, not only as to who did the shooting in the woods but also as to who did the shooting at the farmhouse. I was especially encouraged as it appeared to me that none of the Stritch family had shot anybody in the woods. That might enable them to talk with us without fear of being discovered as a shooter. We could always bargain away a co-conspirator charge in exchange for the name of a shooter. Just in case, though, we requested ballistic tests on all the 5.56 mm guns seized from the Stritch family. Just in case we came up with anything, like ejector marks on spent shell casings.
It was much more complex than that, though, because of the implication of the whole family in the death of Bud and the wounding of Lamar. And they were still in court making their appearances. We had to wait. What did we do?
There was almost nobody in the restaurant when we got there. Great. Just after we’d been served, several people, men and women, all in their late forties to mid-sixties, came in and were seated all around us. They seemed pretty well dressed for a Friday noon crowd. They began talking about the ‘‘damned Feds,’’ the ‘‘damned judges,’’ and the ‘‘conspiracies’’ of various sorts. Obviously, a support group from the Stritch appearances. Obviously a little biased as well. Thing was, I didn’t know any of them. I normally would have known at least one or two people in a group that size and age, if they were local.
We all looked at each other and ate just a little faster. One of the men announced that there were ‘‘Feds’’ everywhere and that they’d better be careful what they said. But they just kept on talking. I thought George would choke.
When we left, I wrote down the license plates of several of the cars in the lot. They were from northern Iowa and southern Minnesota, for the most part. Not local.
We got back to the Sheriff’s Department, and discovered that the Stritch family had demanded to be represented by ‘‘common law’’ lawyers, which request had been quite rightly refused by the judge. He’d appointed three local attorneys to represent the family, individually. The family didn’t want them. So we had three prisoners who were pissed off, three attorneys in the reception area trying to figure out how to represent clients who refused to talk to them, three cops who wanted to talk to those same clients…
As one of the attorneys said to me: ‘‘Look, Carl, if I let you talk to them and advise them as to how to answer, they’ll just sue me. If I don’t let you talk to them, they’ll sue me. And any way you cut it, they’ll try to get me censured by the court for not properly representing them in the first place. I’ll just have to get back to you on that…’’
One of the others, who had a sense of humor, said, ‘‘If I let you talk to my client, will you give him my bill?’’
We weren’t getting very far. Hester, George, and I moved to the back office to regroup.
A phone call came in. Dispatch said it was from somebody who wanted to ‘‘speak with the cop in charge of the killings in the woods.’’ I took it.
‘‘Houseman.’’
‘‘You the cop doin’ the killin’ of the cop and the little snitch in the woods?’’ It was a male voice, fairly deep, matter-of-fact. I frantically waved my free hand at Hester and George. This sounded real.
‘‘One of ’em.’’
‘‘We just want you to know, for what it’s worth, that we got the guy who did it.’’
‘‘You do?’’
‘‘No, man. We did.’’
Hester had picked up the second phone, and was listening.
