Known Dead ch-2 Read online

  Known Dead

  ( Carl Houseman - 2 )

  Donald Harstad

  Known Dead

  Donald Harstad

  One

  My name is Carl Houseman. I’m a deputy sheriff in Nation County, Iowa. I’m also the department’s senior investigator, and senior officer, to boot. I’m getting a little sensitive about senior and elder being interchangeable terms. I turned fifty, recently. It’s gotten to the point that people ask me whether AARP sells cut-rate ammunition to older cops. Anyway, I’d like to tell you about the killings we had in our county in the summer of ’96, and the subsequent investigation that stood the whole state on its ear. This is my version of what happened. It’s the right one.

  It all started for me on June 19, 1996, about 1500 hours. I had pretty much assigned myself as pickup car for a team of two officers who were conducting surveillance on a cultivated marijuana patch we’d located in Basil State Park. Basil’s a large park, about twenty-five square miles, in steep hills, and just about completely covered with thick woods.

  At 0458, Special Agent Bill Kellerman, Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, and our Deputy Ken Johansen had been inserted into the park, being dropped off by one of the night cars. The patch itself was located some distance from the road, in a little valley. I’d never been there, but I knew the general location. I’d done surveillance on patches in the past, and was very glad not to have to do this one. It was hot, it was dull, and it was seldom successful. Bill and Ken were good officers, although they both had only a couple of years dope experience, and were pretty anxious to bust this patch. The cultivated area had been observed during a fly-over by a Huey helicopter provided by the Iowa National Guard, under a marijuana eradication program. Ken had been in the chopper when they first discovered the patch wedged in a deep valley, and reported the event to Bill, the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement agent assigned to work undercover in the area. They’d gone in, discovered over a hundred plants, and decided to go for the bust.

  The whole purpose of the exercise was to lie in wait and catch the owner of the patch as he or she came into the area to water and tend the plants. We had no idea who that was, though there was some speculation.

  I’d picked a hilltop location for my car, about a mile and a half from the two officers in the patch. I couldn’t see them, but I could see a large chunk of the park, and the height of my location would ensure that I could receive their walkie-talkie transmissions in the hilly terrain. I’d gone up a long farm lane to an abandoned barn and parked in the bit of shade the barn offered. It was a slow day, and I had gotten into position early. Been there for over an hour, in fact. Quality time. It was ninety-four degrees, and the humidity was about 95 percent. I’d turned off the engine, and air conditioner, so I would make less noise, and sat there trying to use thread to rig a spar for a ship model I was building. I’d given up smoking, and was wishing I hadn’t. I had started sweating, and was wishing I hadn’t too. I’d opened one of four cans of soda pop I’d brought with me, in a small ice-filled cooler. One for each of us when I picked them up. And a spare for now. I had the driver’s door propped open, hoping for a little air. Not even a hint of a breeze. And they shouldn’t be ready for pickup for a good half hour yet. I started the first knot in the thread that attached the stuns’l boom to the spar.

  I heard a faint pop, then another. Then a whole lot of popping noises, almost like an old lawn mower. I put down the spar, and looked over toward the valley where the patch was. It was very quiet. The slight haze caused the distant features to dance. I checked both sides of the thin ribbon of graveled road that wound toward the pickup point, but I couldn’t pin down where the sounds had come from. There were lots of farms surrounding the park, and I thought it was probably a tractor. I was just starting to pick up my spar, when the popping began again. A lot of it. I dropped the spar, and got out and stood alongside my car. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. It got very quiet again.

  ‘‘MAITLAND, FOUR!’’ my car radio blared, and nearly scared me to death.

  No answer. Dispatch probably hadn’t heard him, down in his tree-filled hole. Four was the call sign of Johansen. He was transmitting on the AID channel, as instructed. He sounded out of breath and excited. Did they have the suspect? I began to suspect that the popping sound had been a four-wheeler.

  I picked up my mike and went on a different channel from Four. ‘‘Maitland, Three,’’ I said, ‘‘Four has traffic on AID.’’

  ‘‘Unable to copy him, Three,’’ came the soft, feminine reply.

  I was starting my engine and closing the door. I figured they’d need transport now, for sure.

  ‘‘MAITLAND, FOUR ON AID!’’

  He sure sounded excited. I headed the car down the rutted lane as fast as I could. Maybe the suspect had fled, and would be heading toward a vehicle parked somewhere on the gravel road that snaked through the base of the hills.

  ‘‘He’s got traffic, Maitland,’’ I said. He couldn’t hear me on the INFO channel, which was fine, as I didn’t want to interfere with his talking to the base station on the AID channel.

  She heard him on his third attempt.

  ‘‘Go ahead, Four…’’

  ‘‘MAITLAND, THIS IS FOUR… THIS IS TEN-THIRTY-THREE, I REPEAT, TEN-THIRTY-THREE! WE’VE BEEN HIT, AUTOMATIC WEAPONS, 688 IS SHOT! I NEED ASSISTANCE, FAST!’’

  A brief pause.

  ‘‘Four,’’ she said, pretty calmly, ‘‘I copy ten-thirty-three, ten-thirty-two, one officer down?’’

  ‘‘Ten-four!’’

  ‘‘Maitland… all cars… ten-thirty-three, Basil State Park, ten-thirty-two, officer down, possible automatic weapons…’’

  I punched up AID as I slid out of the farm lane onto the gravel. Shot? 688 shot?

  ‘‘FOUR, THREE’S ON THE WAY, ABOUT A MILE OUT!’’ I hit the siren and lights on my unmarked car, and floored it, while trying to fasten my seat belt. The siren was to let anybody who was thinking about doing any more harm know help was on the way. Just maybe they’d back off. The little red light on the dash was for insurance purposes, in case I hit anybody. So was the belt.

  I heard a garbled transmission, with the word Three in it, from Johansen. The damned hills were giving me problems as I came down into the valley. Shot? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  It hadn’t rained for a while, and the dust plume behind my car was extremely dense. If somebody shot a cop, they were going to leave, and in a hurry. I thought I should be able to follow their dust. I slid around the biggest curve, onto the old wooden bridge deck, just about lost it on the wood, came off into a dip that just about broke the shocks, and got into the short straight stretch where the marijuana patch valley met the road. I slid to a stop. No dust. Except mine, which came boiling up from behind me, and blocked my view up the valley. No dust. I could see for almost an eighth of a mile. No dust, no cars, no four-wheelers.

  ‘‘Three’s ten-twenty-three,’’ I said, letting both Maitland and Johansen know I was at the pickup point. I grabbed my walkie-talkie and shut down the car as I got out.

  ‘‘Come up the valley, Three,’’ said Johansen, sounding unnaturally quiet. ‘‘Be careful, they got machine guns, I think they’re still around…’’

  Christ! I opened the trunk of the car, and got out my AR-15, and three thirty-round magazines. Dopers with machine guns? Around here? What the hell had the team gotten into?

  I was in blue jeans, blue tee shirt, and white tennis shoes, with my handgun on my right hip. Not exactly camouflage wear. I grabbed my dark blue ball cap with the logo ‘‘USS Carl Vinson, CVN 70’’ in yellow letters. Not my choice of clothes to sneak through the woods after heavily armed suspects. I reached back into the trunk and pulled out an old rubber
ized green rain jacket and put it on. That’d help. SHOT? I fumbled with the little first-aid kit they give us. I’d need that. I looked at the ballistic vest in the trunk. It was white. Its strap-on carrier was white. And, as a joke, I’d drawn a series of concentric circles over the middle, in red marker. It was too hot to wear on days like this, so I kept it in a garbage bag in the trunk. I hesitated a second… if I were to put it on, I’d have to do it under my shirt and raincoat…

  I started up the valley without it, and contacted Johansen on my walkie-talkie. ‘‘Where you at, Four?’’

  There was a pause, and then he whispered, ‘‘Straight up, about hundred fifty yards, then off to the right. Stay on the path.’’ After a moment: ‘‘Be careful!’’

  No kidding. I felt like a lightbulb in a well.

  As I had trotted about fifty yards up the gentle slope, the grass had gotten deeper and the underbrush had closed in on both sides, forming the beginnings of a narrow path. I’d gone another twenty-five yards when I realized that staying on the path might not be a good idea. I moved a bit to my right, into the underbrush. I stopped. Shit. Underbrush, my ass. The crap was over six feet tall, and most of the stalks, stems, and branches were as big around as my finger. This was not going to work, not at all. It would take an hour to go through the brush, and I’d sound like a herd of elephants. Johansen was right, stay on the path and try to be as quiet as I could. Maybe a smaller herd of elephants. Damn.

  Back on the path, I slowed way down, trying to pick up any sign of a shooter. Not much chance of that, and I really began regretting leaving my vest back at the car.

  Another thirty yards or so, and I took off the raincoat. I was drenched in sweat, and my heart was pounding. My breath was becoming more and more labored, as much from allergies and humidity as the exertion. I just dropped the raincoat alongside the trail. I continued, but had slowed to a cautious walk. Shot. I just couldn’t believe it.

  ‘‘Three, where you at?’’ came crackling from my walkie-talkie. Johansen. I turned the volume down.

  ‘‘Just about there, Four.’’ I was panting. Nerves, exertion, sinuses… ‘‘Just about.’’

  ‘‘Okay, it might be clear. I can’t hear them moving around at all.’’ He was whispering now.

  ‘‘Okay.’’ I whispered too. Them. Not him, them. And if you can’t hear them, it doesn’t mean they’re gone, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean they can’t hear you.

  ‘‘He’s dead.’’

  What? He was whispering, and it was difficult to understand him. ‘‘Repeat.’’

  ‘‘Dead. He’s dead. Hurry up…’’ He was whispering.

  Dead. ‘‘Who’s dead?’’

  ‘‘Kellerman. He’s dead.’’

  I had really slowed by now, from both exertion and caution. My pulse was making so much noise in my ears that I wouldn’t be able to hear a horse on the path. I stopped, and caught my breath, moving carefully off the trail and into the brush as I did so. Five feet from the trail, and I was invisible, even standing up. So, of course, was anybody else. I tried to catch my breath and adjust to the situation. Dead. Oh, boy. One dead state narcotics officer, a well-armed deputy sheriff somewhere up the trail who was scared, and an unknown number of hostile dope growers, armed to the teeth, somewhere in the woods. I took a very deep breath. And me. Didn’t want to forget me.

  After a second or two, I heard a thumping sound, starting up the trial and going by me and off down the trail toward the road, at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour. I brought my rifle up to my shoulder, and froze.

  Silence.

  ‘‘Three, are you moving?’’

  Don’t talk to me now, Ken… I have to lower my rifle to use my walkie-talkie. But it was a question he had to have answered. ‘‘Negative, no. Not moving,’’ I whispered. ‘‘You?’’ My voice sounded funny, and my throat was dry. Rifle back up.

  ‘‘Negative.’’ Great. If he wasn’t moving, and I wasn’t…

  I waited a few seconds, but there was no more noise. I found my left hand on the pistol grip of my assault rifle almost cramping. I took a deep breath, and slowly stepped onto the narrow trail. I stopped. I looked both ways, but saw nothing. Total silence. For the first time, I doubled over, and began to move very slowly up the little dirt track. It curved to the right. I knelt down on one knee just at the bend, and listened. Nothing. It was really hard to force myself to get back up, and go around that blind curve. I stayed bent over, and very cautiously started into the bend.

  The shots just about deafened me. I threw myself into the brush, landing on my right side in the damp dirt and grass. Bits of shredded leaves were slowly falling around me, and dust motes filled the air. Then silence.

  Two

  The quiet in the woods seemed even quieter, after the explosion of noise. I moved my legs slightly. I wasn’t hit. After a couple of seconds, it stopped raining leaf bits. I realized I was holding my breath, and let it out slowly. The shots, three or four of them, must have been high. Then I remembered the tops of the bushes were just over my head. Not that high.

  ‘‘Carl…’’ came a whisper on the walkie-talkie. ‘‘Carl…’’

  Cautiously, I reached down and brought the little radio up to my mouth. I wanted to scream at him to shut up, but I knew he needed information. ‘‘Yeah, go ahead,’’ I whispered back.

  ‘‘They’re still here,’’ came the whispered voice. ‘‘Be careful.. .’’

  No shit. Thanks for filling in the gaps.

  ‘‘Where are you now?’’ he asked, in a barely discernible whisper.

  ‘‘Right at a sharp bend to the right…’’ I whispered back. The best I could do.

  There was a long pause. ‘‘Come on ahead, I’ll cover you, we’re just past the bend.’’

  Fine. Why didn’t you cover me before? ‘‘Ten-four,’’ I whispered. Yeah, come on ahead. Sure. All I had to do was force myself to get up, at least into a crouch. That was difficult, because all my instincts told me to keep down and still. But I had to get to Johansen. He needed assistance.

  When I got to my feet, I found I was only about one step off the trail. Very carefully, I stepped out. I stopped, crouched down, and looked around, my rifle pointing ahead of me. Nothing. But… I didn’t have my first-aid kit. Where in the hell had I lost it? I backed back into the tall brush, and glanced down. It was to my right. Holding my rifle in my left hand, I picked the metal kit up and stuffed it partway down the front of my jeans. Both hands on the rifle again, I got back on the trail.

  ‘‘Carl,’’ I heard from the walkie-talkie. ‘‘You comin’, Carl?’’

  I didn’t bother to answer, because I would have had to take one hand off my rifle again to do so, and I was feeling eyes on me all the time. Instead, I crept around the corner to the right. About four steps into it, and I saw them.

  Johansen was about a foot off the trail, kneeling by a body that had to be Kellerman, although I could only see his lower half. They were both in camouflage clothes, and Johansen was as white as a sheet. They were shielded a little by a grassy mound about two feet high and a dead tree that stretched into the brush just past them. There were several pale blue paper wrappers strewn on the ground… first-aid kit compresses. They reminded me of flowers. I was to them in two steps, and knelt back down just off the trail.

  ‘‘You all right?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ said Johansen. His eyes were wild-looking, and his head was moving constantly, scanning the area. ‘‘They fuckin’ killed us, man. They killed us.’’

  Shock does strange things. I moved slightly, and reached out to try to find a carotid pulse on Kellerman. Johansen blocked my hand.

  ‘‘He’s dead.’’

  ‘‘Just let me check, Ken. Just for the record.’’

  He thought for a second. ‘‘Yeah, yeah. Okay.’’

  I reached out and pressed two fingers into Kellerman’s neck. Nothing. Cool to the touch, but damp. His color and texture reminded me of pale cheese. I noticed he hadn
’t shaved that morning.

  ‘‘Okay,’’ I said softly. I wiped my hand on my jeans, and pulled the first-aid kit out before it cut me in half. ‘‘What happened?’’ I asked, keeping my eyes focused opposite Johansen’s, peering uphill. It occurred to me that, crouched down as we were, we couldn’t see much more than a few feet, except uphill, and up the trail. ‘‘You sure you’re all right?’’

  ‘‘We got set up,’’ he said. ‘‘They were waitin’ for us. Just waitin’… No, no, I didn’t get hit. I’m just fine.’’

  Off in the distance, a fragment of a siren’s wail came drifting up the little valley.

  ‘‘I’m sorry, man,’’ said Johansen, to me.

  ‘‘Nothing for you to be sorry about,’’ I said, scanning the area around us. I was thinking the siren might stir up the ambushers. ‘‘This shit can happen.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I do. I am, I mean,’’ he said softly.

  I kept looking up slope. There could be a tank up there, and I wouldn’t be able to see it unless it moved. ‘‘Why?’’ I asked, almost absently, trying to humor him.

  ‘‘It was me that shot at you, just now. I thought you might be them.’’

  I looked at him. ‘‘Oh.’’ I looked back uphill. ‘‘Apology accepted.’’ Sort of.

  ‘‘I didn’t mean to,’’ he said.

  ‘‘No problem.’’ I just wasn’t going to think about that. ‘‘How many you mean by they?’’ I asked.

  ‘‘Lots.’’

  ‘‘Right.’’

  The siren was Lamar Ridgeway, Nation County sheriff, and my boss for more than fifteen years. He was a good sheriff, dedicated, and tireless. He was also the only other one working today, and had come all the way from Maitland. It’s a big county we live in. People don’t seem to realize just how big. Or how few of us there are. Nation County is about half the size of Rhode Island. Now, that’s not exactly huge, I admit. But there are usually two or three cops out, at the most. Seven hundred fifty square miles is a big area.