not TV. He wanted to plead the case of the Stritch family and get himself a little publicity at the same time. Wittman was adamant that there had been no violence planned. And when the message came in from Bravo6 about the bomb, Wittman said, Gabe took one look, apparently saw the ‘‘bomb,’’ and shot twice. About two seconds apart. Using the Vaime Mk 2 we’d seen in the basement. He said that Gabe preferred full-power rounds, so the silencer wasn’t effective at all. He also said that Gabe had some of the 7.62 x 51 subsonic rounds with him as well, and had Wittman load those into the rifle when they got into the cornfield. During the flight from the house, Gabe had been carrying one of the H amp;K G3s. For suppressive fire. That made Hester and me both a little sweaty. It had never occurred to us that there could have been silenced rounds coming from the corn. Gave me the willies.
Wittman had also been with the troops in the woods on the 19th of June, but claimed that he had not fired the shots. I asked him what the training mission was all about, and was told that Volont would handle that. Man can piss me off, even when he’s not there.
I asked Wittman about Johnny Marks.
‘‘Who?’’
I explained, very thoroughly, just who Marks was.
‘‘So what does he have to do with me?’’
I explained that Marks had been murdered, and that we had been told by his killers that it was to atone for the killing of the officer in the woods. I omitted the gory details, just in case he might know something.
You get blank stares for lots of reasons. Boredom. Ignorance. Lack of interest. In this case, it seemed too grounded in utter and complete incomprehension.
‘‘I don’t understand,’’ he said, ‘‘why someone would do that.’’ Complete honesty, as far as I could read him. ‘‘Whoever he was.’’
Damn. There had to be a connection. There had to be. Didn’t there?
We told Volont we were done.
Volont sort of pulled down a ‘‘cone of silence,’’ and talked to Wittman for a while alone again. The attorney didn’t recommend that either, but Wittman said it would be all right.
While they were doing that, Hester and I called George and got him to put our names on the Vaime Mk 2. If there was any chance of a ballistic matchup…
It did occur to me that Gabe had been pretty smart having Wittman carry the murder weapon into the cornfield. Like, if we had managed to find them, who would have been holding the ‘‘smoking gun’’? It also occurred to me that Wittman could be lying, but I really didn’t think so. Not the way his nerves had been working him over. Regardless, we still had him on good charges. He was in knowing possession of a murder weapon. He had been present at a murder, and fled to conceal his identity. He had been a co-conspirator with Gabriel in infiltrating police lines and thereby arriving at the scene of the murder-to-be. In other words, a very active co-conspirator all the way around. The murder charge would still stick, so we had a good bargain. Most people think that just talking to the cops is what gets them time off. Not so. Talking in court, under oath, is what counts. We needed to maintain the health of our charges until that time.
Hester and I decided to get back out to the Wittman farm and get our suspect rifle. On the way out, she showed me just how different our perspectives could be.
Idly and as if she thought I was thinking the same thing, she asked, ‘‘How long do you think Wittman’s been working for Volont?’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘I said, ‘How long do you think Wittman’s been snitching for Volont?’ ’’
‘‘I heard what you said. What the hell makes you think he’s working with him?’’
‘‘Oh,’’ she said, ‘‘it’s like when I was working dope. You see that kind of synergistic relationship develop sometimes. Between the doper and the cop who’s got him by the balls. Especially after a long time. They get to, well, sort of read each other.’’
I looked at her as she drove. ‘‘Then, you’re basing this on intuition or something, right?’’
‘‘Yep. Trust me.’’
‘‘I don’t think so…’’
‘‘At Stritch’s, you ducked, Houseman, as soon as you came around the building and saw me hit the dirt. Before you saw the man with the gun. Am I right?’’
‘‘Sure.’’
‘‘You trusted my intuition then, didn’t you?’’
‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘it was more like trusting the fact that you wouldn’t get dirty unless your life was in danger.’’
‘‘Houseman…’’
‘‘Right. But, yeah, I did.’’
She grinned. ‘‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’’
We drove in silence for a few seconds.
‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘it’s been a great day anyway. Everything just like clockwork.’’ I leaned back in the seat. ‘‘Yes, by God, just like a clock.’’
Hester winced.
Twenty-three
We were just leaving the Wittman house with our prize rifle. George, Hester, and I stood out by Hester’s car and talked for a few moments.
‘‘The only thing, George,’’ I said, ‘‘that pissed me off is that Wittman was in the woods with the group that offed Turd and Kellerman. But he didn’t make any deal with us about that. Only Volont.’’
‘‘But you know for sure who killed Rumsford,’’ said George.
‘‘Well, yeah. But just from a co-conspirator, so we also need physical evidence.’’
‘‘Houseman?’’ said Hester.
‘‘Hmm?’’
‘‘Why do you get so negative? You’re probably holding the best physical evidence right there in the bag.’’
The rifle. She was probably right.
‘‘Well…’’ I said.
Hester laughed. She turned to George. ‘‘Houseman suffers from postcoital depression. He screws somebody, gets all euphoric, and then gets down about it ten minutes later.’’ She turned back to me. ‘‘You should’ve been an attorney.’’
I placed the rifle in the back seat. It was about four feet long and seemed to weigh about ten pounds. The evidence people had put it in a long, thick, transparent plastic evidence bag, complete with embedded white evidence tag, obviously designed for rifles. Those Feds had everything. If I’d wanted to put a rifle in a plastic bag back in Nation County, I’d have to either get a drop cloth or cut the rifle into small pieces and use a bunch of sandwich bags.
Hester’s phone rang when my head was in the back seat. I jumped, and she reached into the front seat and picked up the call.
‘‘Anyway,’’ said George as I closed the back door, ‘‘it’s been a pretty good day, hasn’t it?’’
‘‘That’s what I was telling Hester on the way out.’’ I glanced into the car and saw her scribbling something down on a note paper. ‘‘I don’t know, now, though…’’
‘‘Oh, what the hell,’’ said George, ‘‘it’s late. The day’s over. Go home.’’
Hester hung up the phone and got out of the car. ‘‘That was for you,’’ she said, puzzled.
‘‘Me?’’ The first thing I thought of was that my wife’s mother had died.
‘‘Yeah,’’ said Hester. ‘‘They want you to go to a secure telephone and call them back.’’
‘‘WHO?’’
‘‘Sorry… the RCMP.’’
I just looked at her. So did George.
