‘‘Herman!’’ You asshole.
‘‘What?’’
‘‘I’m taking my car out. I want to talk to you. Give it up, Herman. We have enough people hurt now. Why don’t you just come on out?’’
‘‘Go to hell.’’
At that point, the door to the house opened, and the young man came out. He walked up to me. He was wearing a cammo raincoat with a hood, and he had put on fatigue pants and boots. The title of a movie came into my mind: A Soldier in the Rain. ‘‘Soldier’’ being the key word.
‘‘You better get out of here,’’ he said, stopping about twenty feet away.
I just looked at him. ‘‘I’m going over here, and I’m picking up my rifle, and putting it in my car.’’
‘‘Leave your rifle.’’
I was getting angry. ‘‘Listen, kid. One time. Don’t fuck with me. I said I’m getting the rifle, and that’s what I’m gonna do.’’
‘‘Dad’s got a bead on you, cop.’’
‘‘I’m sure he does. And I can kill you before the old fart gets off the first round.’’ Our eyes met. I shook my head in disgust, turned my back on him, walked to the post, and picked up my rifle. I was very, very careful to pick it up by the carrying handle on top. No point in pushing it too far.
As I got to my car, Junior spoke up again. ‘‘We’ll see you in the People’s Court!’’
‘‘Only for contempt, dickhead.’’
I got in my car and backed up the lane.
Fourteen
Any relief I felt about having gotten our people out of there lasted about five seconds after I got my car back to the top of the lane. As I was backing up, I thought about the People’s Court. I passed the sign, warning all to stay away. It was almost a billboard, being about eight feet by eight feet, white, with black lettering. Well maintained too. Stupid bastards. But to kill over an Original Notice? Hard to believe.
Several of the state TAC team officers had arrived, ready to go. They were being held back by the district lieutenant, who was waiting confirmation from the captain. Two of our people were there, Eddie and Tom Meierhoff. As I was mentally listing who else from our department might show up, it suddenly occurred to me that I had just been promoted. Lamar was out of it. Art was on vacation. I was senior officer, and de facto acting sheriff. Damn. Maybe I could find time to order cellular phones.
I talked to our people first, standing in a huddle under a tree. The wind had died down, and we just had a steady, heavy rain.
They wanted to know what had happened, and I really didn’t know. It was that simple. Just that two of our people were shot, and one was dead. That much I knew. As to why, I had a problem. As far as I could tell, it was over the service of an Original Notice. It did occur to me, however, that Deputy Johansen had just come back to work after taking a leave of absence after the killings in the park.
‘‘Ed, let the office know,’’ I said, ‘‘that Johansen is to be in charge at the office. Not up here. He doesn’t need another one of these.’’
‘‘Right.’’
That’s what I told the lieutenant as well when I sloshed over to him. Along with the fact that Herman was a little further to the right than most, and was heavily into organizations. And well armed, although I’m sure the lieutenant had figured that one out for himself.
I was tired, I was soaked, and I wanted a cigarette so bad I thought I’d kill for it. Did I mention that I quit smoking? After twenty-nine years of three packs a day? Did I?
Oh, well. At any rate, I have to take full responsibility for missing the obvious, and wasting time before it occurred to me to try to seal off the area around the farm, especially on the other side, toward the hill. In hilly country like this, it’s exceptional to be able to see your neighbor’s farm. You couldn’t see anything but Herman’s place from where we were, and I hadn’t known that the other farm run by the family was just over the hill to the northwest. By the time I found it out, when Eddie said something like ‘‘Do you know his son lives just over that hill?’’ Herman had apparently had two other sons join him and his wife on the home place. Also a daughter-in-law, who had come in with her husband, and brought her three-year-old daughter with her. We found that out when Sally started hearing voices in the background over the telephone, and asked.
So, by the time the trooper captain arrived, along with a trained negotiator, we knew we were dealing with a full-blown family. The captain was real nice, and since we had lost about half our department in the last couple of months, got a lot more troops up to help with cordoning off the farm. But, as acting sheriff, I was supposed to call the shots. The only problem was, if the state didn’t like what I decided to do, they could simply refuse to participate. They owned most of the resources. Would you court them? I would, and did. We met under the convenient tree, which had been so well used that the ground under it was all churned into mud.
The negotiator was a man named Roger Collier. Young fellow, thin. He asked me if I wanted to talk to them at all. It was perfunctory, and I knew that. But it was nice of him to ask.
‘‘I think my welcome’s wearing a bit thin right now. You go right ahead.’’ I shook my head. ‘‘But I’ll want to listen.’’
‘‘No problem.’’ He went off to set up a secure telephone contact with the telephone company, locking the Stritch line open and only open to us; and getting established in a large, beige motor home. That would be our command post for as long as we needed it. They’d parked it just outside the line of sight from the Stritch farm, on a concrete bridge deck about a hundred yards up the road. I continued to talk with the captain. His name was Ron Yearous, and I had only met him twice. Good man. Nonetheless, an administrator. Well, what the hell, so was I now.
‘‘Bad business here. Sorry to hear about your boss and deputy.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ I shivered a little, and shifted my feet, trying to get some of the water out of my tennis shoes. ‘‘I really want Herman. Really bad.’’
‘‘He’ll be brought in.’’
‘‘Brought in,’’ I thought. ‘‘Brought in!’’ I hadn’t heard that term for years. Although the captain and I were about the same age, that told me one thing. He hadn’t been in the field for a long, long time. A pencil pusher wasn’t going to be a lot of help out here. But. ..
‘‘Ron, could you do me a favor?’’
‘‘I’ll try.’’
‘‘I’m not real good at organizing something like this. I know you are. While I try to get a better feel for what’s happening here, could you handle the heavy job for me?’’
‘‘I’ll give it to my people. Don’t worry about anything. We’ll get everything set.’’
‘‘Damn. Thanks, Ron.’’
He clapped me on the shoulder, and started getting things done. Seriously, he did a fine job, and we never did have to worry about anything concerning support, rotation, supply, or anything else. He just had it done before anybody realized we needed it. And, what was even better, he never had an opportunity to interfere with what I wanted to do.
Five minutes later, I was on a cell phone in the captain’s car, talking to George Pollard, resident FBI agent from Cedar Rapids. ‘‘George of the Bureau.’’ I was glad it was George. He was good, and he was bright.
‘‘Carl, is Lamar all right?’’ He knew us all.
‘‘He’s pretty bad, George. He’ll make it, but Bud’s dead.’’
‘‘Shit.’’
‘‘Yeah, tell me.’’
‘‘So what have you got up there?’’
Basically, he wanted to know about the right-wing involvement. I told him what I knew, which was that Herman was pretty much your generic tax protester, and it appeared that he had at least the support of his family. George wasn’t pleased. Ever since the Waco business, the Feds were understandably leery about dealing with the extreme right.
‘‘Tell me,’’ said George, ‘‘that he isn’t a member of some sort of militia group.’’
‘‘Not that I know of, George.’’
‘‘But his property is posted?’’
‘‘It’s posted, but as far as I know, he’s just a typical tax protester. Nothing special about him.’’