'Ah.' Volont actually chuckled. 'Understood. This time, we won't let him blow up Maitland.'
'That's right.' Lamar glared at Volont. 'This time we just got two people killed… so far.'
'So,' said Volont, 'please tell me more about the murders…'
I did. I even repeated some detail. Drive it home. When I got to the part about the Colson brothers very likely attempting to convince their killer that they were undercover cops, he nodded. 'Really not the man to use that story on,' he said.
I explained about the 5.45 mm PSM shell casing. He nodded again. No surprise to him. Well, now that I knew who the perp was, it wasn't a surprise to me, either. During the last incident with Gabriel, we'd found that he had been assigned to Europe a lot of the time he was in the Army.
I went through the autopsy findings, and the best guess as to the manner of the death. He spoke.
'What he likely did was to shoot the first one as soon as the undercover cop story was brought up,' he said, slowly. 'The other one was probably on his knees, pleading his case by denying he was a cop. He was either shot because Gabriel had to conceal the death of the first, or because Gabriel was still convinced both were officers. From what you say, it seems he still thinks they were officers of some sort.'
I continued with the part about Davies and me interviewing the hired man, our helicopter flight over the area, and ended with the snowmobile chase.
'So, to keep the ball bouncing,' I said, 'let me ask you a question.'
'Go ahead.'
'Just what is Gabriel's 'business' in Nation County?'
'Money,' he said. 'My sources tell me he needs financial support for his activities.'
'He's here on a fund-raiser?' I asked.
'Of a sort. Not the fifty dollars for a plate of chicken type, though. He apparently intends to rob several banks in the area. Simultaneously.'
Suddenly, it was one of those conversations where two threads spring up at once. While I said, 'Several?' George said, 'Simultaneously.' And Lamar said, 'Take him out now.'
Lamar won for two reasons. He was proposing a course of action, and it just took him longer to get it out, so we all heard his last two words.
'You mean on the murder charges?' I said.
'You're goddamn right.'
'Are they good enough?' asked George.
'You're goddamn right they are,' said Lamar. 'You know where he is, we go now!'
'Oh, I agree,' said Volont. 'We only have one problem.'
We three just looked at him.
He looked at me. 'Could I have some coffee, now?' Before I could answer, he continued. 'The problem is, I'm not, well, precisely sure where he is. Are you?'
It all boiled down to the fact that, after the murders, Gabriel had split. Fast and clean, to parts unknown. Which was beginning to look like why the surveillance team stayed on location. To pick him up when he came back.
'This sounds a lot like 'The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime,'' I said. 'Surely you have more than that to go on.'
Volont smiled, shrugged, and simply said, 'Of course.' In that 'If I tell you, I have to kill you' tone we all knew and loved.
We had to take him at his word. We sure as hell didn't know where Gabriel was.
'Another question…?' I asked.
'Go ahead,' said Volont.
'Just when were you intending to tell us about the bank robberies?'
'I would have given you twenty-four hours notice, naturally.' He looked at Lamar. 'You'd be right there.'
For publicity. Not for any participation in the bust. That's not what he said, but it was what he meant.
'And now?' I asked.
'Now,' he said, 'you're in the loop. Right along with everybody else.'
Sure.
As I headed back to the booking room, Lamar gave me the rest of the bad news. He'd decided to let DCI know we'd made an arrest in the Colson case. Well, that was all right, and I should have thought of it first. The unfortunate part was that Art was on his way back to Maitland. Just who I needed.
Booking Cletus had been a drawn-out process. His attorney had practically followed us in the office door. Well, actually, he'd followed us from Cletus's farm. He'd been one of the two people who had come out of the house with Cletus. He was a largish man, Ray Gunston out of Cedar Rapids. I'd heard of him. Well known, successful, and on TV a lot. Attorney to the rich and infamous, as we said.
Anyway, after forty-five minutes, Cletus was tucked away on a $250,000.00 bond. A tidy sum, but I wasn't at all certain he couldn't raise it in a hurry.
We'd also made the acquaintance of his other attorney. This guy named Horace Blitek had just walked in the office, and announced he was 'at law, assisting in the representation' of Cletus Borglan.
'I wasn't aware that Mr. Borglan had any other…'
'I'm part of the defense team, Deputy. Mr. Borglan is a very important man. I received a call from his friends, and since I represent some of his corporate interests, he'll need me if he's compelled to raise a bond.'
Sure. I notified Cletus, and he said that Blitek was, indeed, a member of the defense team. Gunston didn't seem too happy with the arrangement, though. I, for one, had never heard of Blitek. He hadn't given a card. I did notice, though, that his clothes looked a little worn, especially his shoes.
We'd notified Davies immediately, and he'd driven up when his court case had adjourned for the day. The first thing we did was brief him on Gabriel.
'Holy shit.'
Well, he got that right. I'd just told him that Gabriel, whose real name was Jacob Henry Nieuhauser, was an ex-Army colonel, who had all sorts of Special Ops knowledge, and who was the man who had been so heavily involved in the case where Lamar had been shot, and one of our deputies killed. Not so damned long ago, either.
He laughed a little nervously. 'You got extra security laid on for the building here?'
I explained how much good that had done us before. 'Besides,' I said, 'it's not in the budget.'
'We need a warrant for his arrest. Pronto.'
Lamar took that one. He left for the judge's office. We were going to get a 'confidential' arrest warrant, one that would be filed with the Clerk of Court herself, and sealed until it was executed. A nice thing to have, if we had to do anything unusual to effect the arrest.
Davies knew Gunston very well. Before we'd gotten to the kitchen, he'd said that the Cedar Rapids attorney was reasonable, but fast. 'Tell you what,' Davies had said. 'He's gonna want to move this right along to a point. Only to a point. But he's assessing the case as he goes, trying to see if it works for him. Understand? He'll hustle your socks off, you let him, and he'll be persistent to the bitter end.'
'Whether or not Borglan's guilty?' asked Lamar.
'No,' said Davies. 'Whether or not the case will generate enough billable hours to enable him to own Borglan's farms.' He laughed. 'For true. That'll be his first checkpoint. Shit, guilty, schmilty, he won't care. He gets paid either way.'
I was surprised that Cletus was even talking to us, and said so.
Davies laughed. 'Cheap discovery. He stops talking as soon as he knows what he wants to know. Well,' and he chuckled, 'whenever Gunston tells him to, anyway.'
We didn't know a lot about Cletus, mainly because I didn't think the man had ever been arrested in his life. Not until now, anyway. Between Lamar's and my recollections, we were able to piece something together.
First of all, Cletus Borglan wasn't an extremist, not in the violent sense of the word. Neither was he a 'Militia' man, or Nazi, or anything like that. Cletus was a fairly wealthy farmer, a truly successful farmer, who honestly didn't like the tax system. Well, who did? He also was very much pro-family farm.' Well, maybe it was more of an anticonglomerate farm stance, to tell the truth. Regardless, he really felt for the small farmer who was slowly going under. Cletus was a hard worker, who had inherited two farms, and bought another. Lucky there, and nobody knew
