traffic. It began to appear very unlikely that Peel, or whoever it was, was going to be able to get off the bluff. Within minutes, we had two squad cars sitting at the base of the bluff face, right at the only possible path down from the house. We had officers in the woods shortly after that, accompanied by the Conception County K-9 unit. Their black Labrador appeared to pick up a trail right at the back door of the Mansion, and pulled his trainer toward the woods in hot pursuit, then seemed to pause about ten yards from the back door, and started “casting about,” as they say. Looked like he was earning his keep to me.
The radio informed me that Lamar was on his way, as well, and that he had two DNR Fish and Game officers putting their boats in up at Freiberg. They'd be on the river in our area within a few minutes.
All in all, it looked like whoever had come thundering out of the third floor was going to be in our custody fairly soon.
Unfortunately, Jessica Hunley and company had fled the house when the shots were ffred. Reasonable, I suppose, and certainly justifiable in court, but we'd lost the threat of a search to hold them in the house.
Hester and I decided to let them take off, with the promise that they'd be available in the morning for “a few more questions.” We offered to put up Jessica and Tatiana in a local motel for the night.
“I won't hear of it,” said Junkel. “They're more than welcome to stay with us.”
I expressed the gratitude of the taxpayers.
As they left, they met Lamar at the Mansion end of the long drive. He pulled halfway into the trees to let them by, and then came to where Hester and I were standing near the front steps.
“That's a nice car, there,” he said, as he got out of his four-wheel-drive pickup. “Who belongs to that?”
“That'd be Jessica Hunley,” I said. “Owns the house, too.”
“How's Borman?”
Well, I told him. And, since warning shots had been ffred, and since I was the supervising officer at the scene, I told him about that, too.
“You talk to him about that?” he asked.
“Yeah. You could say that.”
“Okay, Carl. No need for me to say anything, then.”
That, it seemed, was to be the end of that.
Lamar decided that, since the small army of officers that were in the woods could handle the search, Hester and I should join the rest of the search team, and get the business in the Mansion conducted and behind us.
“Before hell freezes over,” he said. “Be really nice if you could do that.”
SIXTEEN
Sunday, October 8, 2000
20:12
The longest warranted search of my career resumed on the third floor of the Mansion, duly logged in at 20:12. Participants were recorded as me, Hester, Grothler, and Barnes. Hester, by virtue of already having been there, however briefly, went first.
The third floor was divided into two equal segments. One half was a well-furnished apartment, in a loft style, and furnished with very modern furniture, in complete contrast to the rest of the Victorian-style house.
The only separate area in the apartment half was the bath. The rest, kitchen, living area, and bed were separated by kind of artfully arranged furniture. Hester stood just inside the main door.
“Didn't get much of a look as I came through,” she said. “Nice.” She had her gun in her hand, as did I. We were taking no chances that there was a second suspect who'd decided not to run with the first. “This stuff is just about all IKEA,” she said. “Wow.”
“Oh.” I assumed that was either a brand name or a designer's name. Or, maybe a style? I didn't want to embarrass myself by asking.
Outside, we could hear some officer calling over his PA system. “Peel, we know you're out there! You might as well give up.”
I looked at Hester. “Who gave out the Peel name?”
“Not me.”
“Had to be Borman or Lamar,” I said. It was too late to hold it back now, regardless of who had released it. Considering how Borman's night was going, I hoped for his sake it hadn't been him.
The lighting, which we'd accessed via the main switch panel by the entrance, was muted but very thorough. Track lights, free-standing lamps, lights built in to the kitchen cabinets, all came on with the master switch. Made it really easy to check it all out.
The bed was what I'd describe as “king-size plus,” and was in the far corner. Solid all the way to the floor, with cabinets underneath. Nice, indeed. The most interesting thing about the bed was the tripod with video camera positioned to cover about a three-quarter view of the bed and its sometime occupants. Two halogen lights, on their independent stands, were set to light the area covered by the camera.
There was a huge black and white photo, framed and lit with two special ceiling lights, on the wall above the bed. Being a WWII buff, I thought at first it was a photo of an anti-aircraft emplacement in Normandy. A closer look showed it was a series of sunken concrete entrances, very much like church doors. They were arranged in a circular shape, with a large hub in the center that also had doors, with names chiseled on the lintels. What had made me think of WWII was the abundance of undergrowth. There was a small label in the lower right corner. “Circle of Lebanon.” Interesting.
The kitchen was all built-in stuff, including a dishwasher and a really nice combination microwave and gas stove setup. Nice hood. My dream kitchen.
I looked at Hester. “This is the kind of place I'd kind of hoped to get to when I died.”
“Yeah.”
I noticed the computer, of course. I do that. Nice Dell outfit, with one of the new two-inch-thick monitors… flat panel displays like that ran about $2,500. Nice. An ergonomic keyboard. The whole unit had its own IKEA desk, with matching executive chair. The thing that struck me most about it, though, was that the thing was so uncluttered.
There were some extra boxes attached to the computer. I looked more closely at them, and saw a note entitled “Suggested Replacement for SOHO Server.” I knew just enough to know that SOHO stood for “Small Office/Home Office.” I knew what a server was; it connected several computers, and also connected them to the Internet. The list included things like Emulator, 300 W power supply, motherboard, 2 PIII CPU, 256 MB SDRAM DIMM minimum, floppy drive, DVD-ROM drive, PCI adapter, Ethernet adapter, networking card, keyboard and mouse, two 60 GB HD, and the like. Hmmm.
“Hey, Hester, when you get a minute… ”
She took one look at the note and said, “Apparently they're thinking of upgrading the SOHO server.”
“Yep,” I said. I kept my eyes moving about the place, just in case our Mr. Peel had had a guest.
“And,” she added, “they may not have decided yet, because there are no brand names attached to the descriptors.”
Ah.
“And I hope they're running ME.” She said that mostly to herself, her eyes, too, constantly moving about the vast room.
“Mmm.” Noncommittally, I hoped. I didn't have the faintest idea why she hoped that, and didn't want to seem uninformed enough to have to ask.
“Every bedroom we searched,” she said as she passed me, moving toward the center of the third-floor apartment, “had a computer. None of them even close to this beast. I think the residents bring their own, and then link to the net through this stuff. Nice system.” As she spoke, she darted her hand inside the doorway of the bathroom, and flicked on the light. She stepped in as I covered her. “Nothing,” she said, reappearing a moment later. We continued to move about.
There was a very strange structure dividing the third floor neatly in half. It looked like a small, peaked-roof house, about eight feet high, with sash windows on all four sides. The windows on the long sides were offset, on
