file.”
“He doesn’t think so,” said Lamar. “But, like I say, the media gets things that way.”
Hester and I got on with what we were doing. One thing you have to be constantly aware of when writing a good police report is that you need to differentiate between what you know and what you suspect. Cueva’s origin was a good example.
“We know he’s not from L.A., and that he used forged a Social Security number and birth certificate,” said Hester. “We have anything confirmed that he is actually from Colombia?”
I leafed through my notes. “Nope. Well, Hector said Cueva was Colombian. Nothing confirmed, though.”
“Okay…”
We both assumed Hector was probably right, and I felt that he’d given us good information. But we hadn’t been able to confirm it.
Another thing you have to be able to do is be absolutely certain you don’t leave anything out. Bad leads, for example, have to stay in the report, and you handle them until you’re satisfied that they’re bad. You always say what criteria you used to discount information. Otherwise, the defense gets hold of it and tries to make it sound as if you ignored the real evidence just to focus on their client. This can lead to some pretty interesting conversations between investigators.
“Okay, we believe anything she’s told us?” I asked, meaning Linda Moynihan.
“Sure,” said Hester. “Just the indirect, though. Emotional state.” I knew she was referring to Linda’s reaction at the autopsy, and later.
“So…really grief stricken…maybe even surprised?” I was referring to Rudy Cueva’s death in general. Hester picked that up right away.
We both thought about that for a moment. “Not surprised,” said Hester. “Not necessarily. Maybe just really unhappy.”
“So the reaction could have been…well, probably was more like ‘Holy shit! They said they were gonna do it, and they did.’ You think?”
“That’s fair,” said Hester, going through her own notes and looking for something else. “Might even be a case of’I told you so, Rudy.’ Maybe that…”
“Gotta find her,” I said, and went back to the keyboard. “Really quick.”
“That goes in your part of the report,” she said. “I’m still on the scene.”
“Okay. Be sure to tell me when you figure out who the white guy is standing there when Cueva gets shot.” I was only half kidding, because we really needed to figure out who in the hell that man was.
“Sure. When you tell me who Rudy really was.”
“And then the ricin…”
“Oh, no. The ricin’s yours. All yours. I’ll go the connections route, summary, thing.” She was already typing on her laptop again.
“Good enough.”
George stuck his head in once, bringing us coffee that Sally had made. “She says this is her best stuff,” he said.
I was impressed. Sally had a small bag of specially ground coffee she’d picked up in Dubuque. Nobody had gotten to do anything but smell it brewing, except Sally herself.
“I, uh, made a couple of calls, based on what you told me. ATF’s going to helicopter an agent up from Des Moines.”
“ATF?” said Hester.
“The shell casings,” said George. “We think there may be another connection. We’re having all of them dusted, by the way. Thumbprints…”
When you load a magazine with shells, you tend to press down pretty firmly on the shell casings as they go in, especially the last few. It was a possibility.
“The DCI lab hadn’t gotten to that?” I was kind of surprised.
“Probably not,” said Hester. “The legislature had us get rid of overtime for the lab personnel for this year. I’d think the technicians would be concentrating on the homicide evidence from the scene itself.”
“We picked the casings up from your lab. They’re being flown back to our labs in Washington.” said George. Then he added defensively, “Well, we had a plane going that way anyway.”
“Some got resources, some don’t,” I said, trying to lighten things up a tad. “We could have offered our facilities, but the high school chemistry lab closes at three forty-five.”
“Speaking of labs, George,” said Hester, “you wouldn’t happen to have a couple of large hazardous material containment packages, would you? I need two tubes, concentric, the smaller one being able to hold this can, plus a couple of hazmat or biohazard stickers.”
“In my car,” he said, “I’ve got evidence tubes. No biohazard stickers, though.”
“I’ve got some of those,” I said absently. There was a silence. I looked up. “What?”
“What on earth are you doing with those? “asked Hester.
“Oh, Sally snagged a bunch of’em from the hospital. She stuck the things all over my lunch containers and my sauce bottles. She had a couple of rolls left… they’re in that drawer over there.”
“Figures,” said Hester. “I don’t suppose you’d have any address labels for the FBI labs?”
“Check with Dispatch,” I said with a straight face.
George let us get back to our reports.
16:56 IT WAS LAMAR ON THE RADIO AGAIN. Apparently he’d been calling, but in all the commotion we hadn’t heard him.
Sally cranked up the walkie-talkie volume and reassured him that we were still alive and as well as could be expected. However, as she so succinctly put it, “We could sure use some company up here, One.”
“We’re working on it,” said Lamar, and I could really hear the strain in his voice, even ten feet from the walkie-talkie.
“What do we think?” asked George. “We haven’t seen any movement for a while.”
“But we’ve sure seen grenades,” I said. “I think they’re still there, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I was thinking about that,” he said. “Could those have been a blind, to distract us while they slipped over the bluff?”
“Possible,” I said. “Lamar says there are about fifty cops watching the perimeter, though. Maybe more by now.”
I heard Hester’s voice, but I couldn’t make out the words. “What?”
She stood, took a big swig from her water bottle, and then did sort of a gargle thing that ended in, “Ahh!”
The water had hit one of her broken teeth. She shuddered for a few moments, shaking it off, and then said, “No. They won’t be leaving.”
“How so?”
“They’re protecting something,” she said. “By stayin’ here, distracting us some way.” She made as if to take another swig, thought better of it, and said, very deliberately, “Deception.”
“Okay,” I said. “You want to sit back down?”
She shook her head.
“You’re above the wall,” I said, indicating the limestone foundation. She crouched.
“So, you think they will stay at us, not trying exceptionally hard to take us out, but to keep us here? “George didn’t sound fully convinced.
Hester made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat and said, “Not just us!” She made a sweeping gesture. “Us!”
I got it. “They think we were headed up there. They aren’t trying to get out. They’re trying to keep us out.”
“Yes!” she said.
Sally, as usual, put her finger right on it. “Why?”
Damned good question.
We didn’t have any sort of a good answer. We all moved back to positions where we thought we could cover the approaches to the barn fairly well, and made that our priority. The whys could wait.
