‘‘Sure. Like a person’s belt, for instance. Don’t want it left around. They want us to find only the evidence they want us to locate.’’
‘‘Oh.’’
‘‘Just think,’’ said Hester, ‘‘maybe somebody is walking into your favorite restaurant, wearing the belt that did it…’’
We had to stop in the Conception County Sheriff’s Department to fill out written statements regarding the phone call and what was said. I gave written permission for them to have our department’s tapes, although the only part that was recorded had been the dispatcher and the caller. When he’d been transferred back to me, he’d gone off taped line… we did that on purpose, as we didn’t want anybody else to be able to listen to recordings of confidential conversations. There were drawbacks.
The three of us then went to a little coffee shop on the Wisconsin side, to talk and gather our thoughts. George and Hester had coffee, and I had coffee and a chocolate doughnut.
We agreed we had a problem. All the available evidence said that Johnny Marks hadn’t been one of the shooters in the woods. The shooters been amateur guerrillas in training, not dope dealers. At least, not as far as we knew. But we had what appeared to be a great lead, a direct connection to a meth-dealing cycle gang, and a clearly murdered man who had definitely been connected with the patch. Yet we had nothing that connected Johnny Marks to the Stritch family, let alone the mysterious Gabe and his outfit. Nothing. Marks’s only connection had been with Turd and the fact that he’d been the supervisor, if not the owner, of the patch itself.
But we had the possibility that some of the right-wing folks had at least intimated that they might be persuaded to grow dope and sell it, as a way of pissing off the Feds and of making money for the cause.
On the way back in the car, thoughts still ungathered, we finally came to a temporary conclusion.
‘‘We just have to figure out which one is the liar… Melissa Stritch or the folks who did Johnny Marks.’’ George summed it up pretty well.
‘‘Hell,’’ I said. ‘‘Why don’t we go ask Howler? He’s on our way back.’’
Nan answered the door this time. Girl was never happy, apparently. We were ushered in, and Howler came struggling out of the bedroom. He was really thin, not an ounce of fat being visible as he pulled on his tee shirt. Big tattoo on his chest. A spiderweb, complete with a spider with two red eyes, and a skull and crossbones. He looked like a poster boy for an exterminator.
‘‘You might as well fuckin’ advertise I’m here, excuse me, ma’am, who is this one?’’ References to me, Hester, and George in that order.
‘‘FBI,’’ said George, producing his credentials. Howler’s eyes widened. Always has the same effect, every time I see it done.
‘‘Should I get my lawyer?’’
‘‘ ’S okay, Howler. We just have some stuff to tell you,’’ I said.
‘‘Sure.’’ He motioned Nan to the other room. She went, but she was reluctant. She should have been, it was her house. ‘‘Whatcha got?’’
We told him about Johnny Marks. I described what we found, then Hester provided the name.
Howler had slightly red hair, and consequently a fairly pale complexion. He is the only person I’ve ever seen who actually ‘‘went white.’’ His eyes started to roll up, his eyelids fluttered like a flag in a stiff breeze, and he buckled. I reached for him, but got tangled with the coffee table, knocking over an old quart beer bottle, and he hit the floor with a thud. Nan was around the corner like a shot.
‘‘What did you do to him?’’ She pushed George, and knelt beside her ‘‘man.’’ ‘‘Talk to me, speak, you shithead,’’ she wailed.
‘‘He just fainted,’’ I said. ‘‘He’ll be okay.’’
‘‘You hit him. I heard it!’’
‘‘No, no. I knocked into the table trying to keep him off the floor.’’
‘‘Sonofabitchyoudid.’’
Howler started to come around. He looked up, right at Nan, and grinned. Then he saw me. ‘‘Noooo! Nooooo!’’
If there had to be a reason they called him Howler, I think we found it.
We helped him up to the couch. He was shaking a bit. He looked right at Hester and said, ‘‘Ssshit, mma’am, if there was ever a time I wanted a fufufuckin’ joint…’’
We had a rather long conversation with Howler. He was sure it was the cycle gang. There was no doubt in his mind. That’s who he thought that Marks had been dealing with, although it turned out that Marks had never specifically stated the fact.
‘‘Had to be, man. Had to be.’’
Convincing. We asked in about fifty ways if there had ever been any connection with anybody in cammo clothing or paramilitary types. Never. He was certain. Not even likely, as far as he could tell. And he was so damned scared, you had to believe him. He was absolutely sure he was next.
‘‘They’re gonna get me, man. Sure as shit. I’m dead. I’m just fuckin’ dead.’’
‘‘We can help you disappear for a while,’’ said George.
Howler looked at him for a long second, and shook his head. ‘‘Yeah, right.’’ He was in kind of a bad position. No weapons. Nowhere to go. And his main man was being autopsied even as we spoke. It can be lonely at the bottom too.
We left Howler with the option to be hidden by us, if he wanted to. I think he might have gone along with that, but Nan wouldn’t have been able to go, and Howler wanted sex a little more than safety. After all, Nan was here and now. Death was at least a lay away.
We got back to the Nation County Sheriff’s Department just in time to be handed a message from Volont. The Stritch family was being transferred to federal custody in Cedar Rapids regarding federal kidnapping charges.
That was not a particularly good development. The Stritch family was being effectively removed from our control and our reach. Interviews were now going to be out, unless we went to Cedar Rapids, filled out all the proper forms, and talked to them in an interview room under the control of the Feds.
‘‘Maybe,’’ I said, ‘‘if we explain that there really wasn’t a kidnapping…’’
George was just about to make a phone call to his boss, to see if he could reach Volont, when the ubiquitous SAC rolled into the parking lot.
‘‘Hey,’’ said Hester, looking out the window. ‘‘It’s Volont.’’
‘‘Oh, right,’’ said George, still on the phone with his office. It was hard to fool George twice in the same day. I noticed he’d removed his coat and tie, and was getting downright comfortable.
‘‘Wonder why he’s here,’’ I said idly. George didn’t even bother to look up.
‘‘Probably came to shoot George for bad driving,’’ said Hester.
‘‘Or me for my raincoat,’’ I said.
George, who had cradled the phone on his shoulder, now had one foot propped on the desk, and was busily jotting down notes in his leather-bound notepad, and chuckling to himself. ‘‘You guys really crack me up…’’
‘‘Comfortable, Agent Pollard?’’ asked an even, cool voice.
Volont, as it happened, had come up because the DEA had been contacted by Harry regarding the demise of Johnny Marks. They had contacted him. He had asked where George was, and was told that he was already at the scene across the Mississippi in Wisconsin. In the territory of the Madison field office. Before their cooperation had been requested. Before he knew it was Johnny Marks, and positively related to our investigation. I thought George was surely going to be done for, but it didn’t really seem to make any difference. Volont was extremely curious about the condition of the body, and George was a veritable fountain of information on that. I thought it probably saved him.
‘‘So, Deputy, what do you think?’’ asked Volont, after George had briefed him.
‘‘It doesn’t add up at all,’’ I said. ‘‘We all agree.’’
‘‘It might,’’ he said, and launched into an explanation. He incorporated the possibility that some of the people on the right wing might sell marijuana to dopers. He seemed to like the concept. He emphasized that Herman Stritch was broke and in dire need of cash. He indicated the proximity of the Stritch residence to the town where Johnny Marks lived. They could easily know each other. Maybe through one of the Stritch boys. Things were going wrong, and they decided to ambush the officers. Marks with them. Try to harvest the plants the same day, make a clean getaway. He could have been the one who fired the fatal shots, in that case. Our case could well be solved
