Known Dead Read online

  ‘‘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.

  ‘‘Three or Four, can you copy me now . . . ?’’ Lamar’s voice has a raspy quality to it, unmistakable. I picked up my walkie-talkie.

  ‘‘We copy, One,’’ I answered him.

  ‘‘Where ya at?’’

  The question of the hour. I looked over at Johansen. ‘‘Did you brief One as to how to get up here?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ he said. ‘‘We showed him the aerial photos.’’

  I held my walkie-talkie to my lips. ‘‘One, Three. Up the trail. Wait, if you can, for some more backup, before you come up. We might have shooters in the area.’’ I knew he wouldn’t, any more than I had. I just had to say it.

  ‘‘Yeah, ten-four . . . What’s goin’ on up there? Somebody shot?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ I answered. I turned my head to look at Johansen, who was getting a dazed look about him.

  I brought the walkie-talkie back up. ‘‘688 is down.’’

  ‘‘Need an ambulance?’’ asked Lamar, hopefully.

  ‘‘Negative,’’ I said. ‘‘Medical examiner.’’

  ‘‘Ten-four.’’

  I looked at Johansen. ‘‘You able to wait for a bit more?’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’

  ‘‘We’re fine here right now, One,’’ I said to Lamar. I hoped I was telling the truth. But I sure didn’t want Lamar charging up to the rescue and getting blown away for his trouble. ‘‘But let us know when you start up the trail. We’re about a hundred fifty yards up, and just kind of off the trail to the right. We won’t be able to see you until you’re right on us . . .’’ I glanced at Johansen. I knew about that hazard, all right.

  ‘‘Ten-four,’’ said Lamar. ‘‘I got people comin’ from all over. Be there right quick.’’

  I nudged Johansen. ‘‘You got a canteen, or something? Could use a drink.’’ The heat was oppressive, and there seemed to be even less air here than before. For some reason, the whispering made it seem even hotter.

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ he said, reaching behind his hip and unfastening the GI canteen. ‘‘Here.’’

  I took a long swig. It was warm, but wet. I thought about the three cans of diet soda in my car, in the icefilled cooler. I handed it back to him. ‘‘You better have some too.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ he said, shaking his head. ‘‘I’m all right . . .’’ and his voice trailed off as he looked around the brush again.

  ‘‘Drink some,’’ I said. ‘‘Don’t want you goin’ into shock or anything. We got enough trouble without that.’’

  In the distance, there were more sirens.

  Johansen swallowed water from his canteen, loudly. He sighed, and said, ‘‘At least we got one of ’em.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, Kellerman got one of them. He’s up there,’’ he said, gesturing up-trail. ‘‘Just a little ways.’’

  ‘‘Dead?’’

  ‘‘Oh, yeah,’’ he said. ‘‘Real.’’

  There was a sudden rustling in the brush, just on the other side of the trail. I brought my rifle around just as Johansen’s came up to his shoulder.

  ‘‘Don’t fuckin’ shoot unless we got a target!’’ I hissed.

  ‘‘Right,’’ he whispered. He wasn’t convinced.

  It couldn’t be Lamar. Not yet, and not from over there. We waited in dead silence for several seconds. Sweat ran off my left cheek, which was pressed against the butt stock of my AR, dripped onto my left hand, and ran down my forearm. I don’t remember ever being so tense. Nothing.

  Then a ground squirrel chattered, and there was a faint rustling again. We relaxed a bit, but didn’t talk.

  It was about two more minutes when Lamar’s voice crackled over the radio. I sort of jumped.

  ‘‘Okay, I’m comin’ up. I should be about there.’’

  ‘‘Ten-four,’’ I said into the walkie-talkie. Way to go, Lamar. I knew you wouldn’t wait. ‘‘Be careful, but there has not, I repeat not, been any activity for ten minutes or so. But keep your eyes open.’’ And at least I won’t shoot at you until I know who you are, I thought. God, the idea of being blown away by Johansen sent a little shiver up my back, despite the heat. God, what a stupid way to go.

  Lamar appeared around the corner, in uniform, with his shotgun pointing in front of him. He stopped and looked at the three of us.

  ‘‘Holy shit,’’ was all he could say.

  Three

  TWO HOURS LATER, things were starting to sort themselves out, and get much more complicated at t
he same time. Typical investigation in that you just couldn’t simplify things, no matter how you tried.

  Lamar and I were returning up the trail, after trying to direct the officers who were beginning to search the park. He and I had just gone back through the yellow crime-scene tape and past the hurriedly arriving media. I overheard some reporter, who had set up his own camera and was speaking into it, say ‘‘. . . there are known dead so far, but how many is still not certain . . .’’

  ‘‘They’re all known to somebody,’’ I said to Lamar.

  ‘‘What?’’ His hearing was going.

  ‘‘Never mind.’’ Known dead . . . I didn’t know how else to put it myself. The term just sort of offended me, with the implications of body counts and things. Known dead. Like they wouldn’t count, somehow, until they were known.

  We’d also been briefing various investigative people as they showed up, and picking up items from our cars down on the road. The area search was a hopeless task, but it did serve to make those of us who were concerned with the crime scene feel a little more comfortable. As far as I was concerned, though, the shooters were long gone.

  ‘‘Where’s Johansen?’’ I asked Lamar. I’d lost track of him in the combined process of getting resources assigned to the scene and scrounging gear from my trunk.

  ‘‘He’s still up there, talkin’ to DNE and DCI. He just doesn’t want to leave. He ain’t hurt, but I’m gonna have to get him out of here.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, but let me talk to him again first, okay?’’

  ‘‘Just for a while.’’

  I could imagine the conversation between Johansen and the Iowa Department of Narcotics Enforcement and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. A state agent being murdered in the woods was bad enough, but to have heavily armed and unknown suspects to boot . . .

  ‘‘Shit, they were just sittin’ on a patch, Lamar . . . What went wrong?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Lamar said, stopping and turning around. ‘‘I thought you might.’’

  ‘‘Hell,’’ I said, ‘‘I haven’t worked dope for five or six years. I don’t even known who they thought they might have.’’

  That was very true. We worked all dope cases that way within the department. Need to know only. I was our intelligence officer, but I wouldn’t pressure them for the information unless I thought they might have something I needed. Lamar, as sheriff, had automatic ‘‘need to know,’’ but seldom asked.

  ‘‘Oh,’’ he said. He sounded a little disappointed, and turned back up the trail.

  ‘‘But I’ll know shortly,’’ I said. ‘‘Just a minute . . .’’

  Since we were stopped, I took a spray can of insect repellent out of my camera bag. I sprayed it liberally on my face, hands, inside my hat, inside my shirt, on my waist, and finally on my ankles. As I was replacing the can, Lamar spoke.

  ‘‘Got somethin’ against bugs?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ I said as we started back up the long, winding path to the crime scene. ‘‘I hate chiggers and mosquitoes.’’ I reached back into my camera bag. ‘‘You want some?’’

  ‘‘Nope. Never use the stuff. Bugs gotta eat too.’’

  It occurred to me to look for my raincoat, which I’d tossed aside on the way to help Johansen. The fact that it was an olive green wasn’t going to be a lot of help, but it should have stood out because of its shape, if nothing else. I couldn’t find it, and made a mental note to look again when we came back.

  We hit the crime scene proper about two minutes later. You really have to have worked a crime scene in the deep woods, with a temperature hovering around a hundred, and the humidity in the high nineties, to appreciate what a pain in the ass it can be. This one looked like it was scattered out over an area like a little plane wreck. Most of the activity was centered just up the path from where I’d encountered Johansen with the body of Kellerman.

  There was one strand of yellow crime-scene tape winding its way from the path off to my right, disappearing into the bushes. Another went away to my left, and uphill, disappearing into the trees. They weren’t being used as barriers, but rather to indicate paths or tracks. Other tape was screening off small areas on both sides of the path. There was a large area to the left, where the underbrush gave way to grass. That whole area was festooned with little white boxes, covering small items of evidence. There seemed to be at least a hundred of them, maybe more. Then there were small tags, marking photo locations. Lots of those too. Plus, there were about five lab people there, as well as three Division of Criminal Investigation agents, and the deputy state medical examiner. And two young officers, a deputy from another county, and a state trooper I didn’t know, standing uncertainly around on what appeared to be a perimeter, looking a little nervous, but still spending most of their time looking at the scene through their dark glasses rather than scanning for possible bad guys in the bush. Hester Gorse, my favorite DCI agent, was there. Hester and I had worked together before, and I had a lot of confidence in her. She was kneeling down over a matted area in the underbrush, which contained a lump under a yellow disposable blanket. The medical examiner was standing beside her, pulling off a set of latex gloves. Hester looked up as we approached, and smiled.

  ‘‘What we got here?’’ asked Lamar.

  ‘‘We’re not sure,’’ said Hester, ‘‘but it looks like maybe the doper shot at Bill, Bill shot and killed the doper, and then the doper’s friends shot and killed Bill.’’

  ‘‘Hell, that oughta clear up who was involved, then,’’ said Lamar.

  It flashed through my mind that there’s no such thing as an open-and-shut case. Little did I know.

  ‘‘Well, not really,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Something about this just isn’t adding up.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’

  ‘‘Johansen has told us a lot,’’ she said, ‘‘but we need to know a lot more.’’

  ‘‘Where is he?’’ asked Lamar.

  ‘‘He and two DNE people are up toward the end of this valley.’’ Hester stood, and winced. ‘‘Almost as old as you, Houseman.’’ She grinned. ‘‘And you were the first one at the scene?’’

  ‘‘Naturally.’’

  ‘‘Good. Let’s get you together with the DNE troops, then.’’ She took off her gloves, and shook her hands to get the sweat off.

  DNE. Also good. They could tell me a lot about who was growing what up here. And, just about on cue, there was a crunching noise up to the north, and two people I didn’t know came into view, with Johansen between them. He saw Lamar and me, and started over. The two DNE folks, whom I didn’t recognize, hung back for a second, and then decided that, whoever I was, they’d better be around when Ken talked to me, and overtook him in a couple of strides.

  ‘‘You okay, Ken?’’

  ‘‘Jesus, Carl. It was like a fuckin’ war.’’

  ‘‘Agent Bob Dahl, DNE,’’ said Agent Bob Dahl, interrupting.

  ‘‘Deputy Houseman, Investigator,’’ I said. ‘‘You helping out here with my case?’’ It’s always a good idea to establish the territorial limits. Right off the bat. Of course I put him at a bit of a disadvantage, because he wouldn’t ever say that he was helping me. After all, it was a DNE officer who was dead. But it was in my jurisdiction, and we were going to be fully involved. But he knew that I knew that he was supposed to do just that, and that was what counted. I decided I was going to like him as soon as he answered.

  ‘‘I’m helping them,’’ he said, indicating Hester and the rest of the Division of Criminal Investigation team. ‘‘But I’ll bet they’re helping you. I was his partner,’’ he said, obviously referring to Kellerman.

  I nodded. ‘‘I’m sorry. And I’m really sorry about this,’’ I said, gesturing at the entire scene. ‘‘We’ll find out who did it.’’ I turned back to Ken. ‘‘What happened, Ken? Who did this?’’

  Ken didn’t know. But he did tell me, all in a rush, that he was certain that he was taking fire from at least three differen
t locations at once; that he thought the dead doper was local; and that he thought Bill had shot the doper; and that the doper’s associates, whom they had apparently missed when they came up, shot Bill, and he damned well knew that he hadn’t killed anybody. But that he’d tried pretty damned hard.

  ‘‘Okay.’’ I was thinking about his shots at me as I came up the trail. Well, at least now I knew that he aimed a little high. Thank God.

  ‘‘We saw this one,’’ said Ken, gesturing at the mound under the blanket. ‘‘He was just walkin’ through the woods, came right up the path.’’

  ‘‘Okay . . .’’

  ‘‘Like he wasn’t all that cautious. Had a shotgun, and that other gear with him. We saw him, then we lost him as he hit the trail.’’ He pointed uphill and to the right of the trail. ‘‘We were up there.’’

  ‘‘Right.’’

  ‘‘We saw him again, once, and Kellerman and I decided to go get him.’’ Johansen looked at us, distressed. ‘‘There are two ways to the patch from here, you know.’’

  We didn’t, but we nodded just the same.

  ‘‘We split up,’’ he said, ‘‘and after a few seconds, I heard two shots, about the same time. I thought, maybe, that somebody . . .’’

  Johansen gulped down some water. None of us said a word.

  ‘‘God, it’s hot,’’ he said. ‘‘I thought that he’d fired a couple of shots to get the doper to stop. I went running back, and hollered, but nobody said anything, and then there were a whole bunch of shots . . . Jesus, there were a lot.’’

  He’d rushed on, and as he came to where the dead doper was lying, he saw someone in camouflage clothing rise up and point a gun at him. ‘‘Shit, I thought it was Kellerman, you know?’’

  Oh, yeah. When you’re expecting to see a particular person, you see ’em. Even if it’s not them at all.