"You could say that," said George.
"I know what that Spook stuffs like, George. Are you sure Volont is right about him not doing this for the 'movement,' or anything like that? Could he have misled Volont?"
George grinned. "Wheels within wheels. Just know what I've been told," he said.
"Sounds true," I said. "You know what they say about 'doing it for the movement.' Just means you don't have to pay the help."
Fascinating. Unfortunately, it didn't change a thing as far as murder and bank burglary were concerned. Ideology aside, we still had the same problems going on.
"Thanks, George," I said. "A lot." He'd taken a large risk to tell me that. I just wished it had been something I could have used to stop the "five banks" stuff, or to have prevented the deaths of the Colson brothers. But I did file it away, and very carefully, too.
Between the office and home, a distance of six blocks, I decided to go take a peek at the Grossman place.
It was about eight miles out. Dispatch thought I was going home. If anything happened, I didn't want any sort of mix-up.
"Comm, Three, on INFO?"
"Three," the dispatcher crackled back on the INFO channel, where she could hear me, but other cars couldn't.
"Comm, I'll be in the car in the central part of the county for a while."
"Ten-four, Three, ten-six at 2044."
Just in case.
Every limestone rock quarry has two "roads" that lead to it. The main one, and the one that everybody sees is the ground level entrance the trucks use. But the second one runs to the top of the quarry, and is used by workers who want to drill and blast. They aren't used all that often, and are sometimes very difficult to find. This particular one had come to my attention during a raid on a beer party more than ten years back. It entered the quarry area from nearly a quarter of a mile back down the road, and twisted through a stand of trees on it's way to the top of the quarry hill. No snow plow would ever go here, but since nobody else had, either, it wasn't particularly slippery. Road ice usually comes from traffic on snow, compressing it, and making the ice. Snow, if you're careful, isn't all that slippery. Especially in below zero temperatures. I crept up the back slope at about five miles per hour, lights off. It took me a good five minutes, but at the top I was rewarded with a passable view of Grossman's house, and the broad valley leading to the Borglan farm.
I picked up my binoculars, and cranked down my side window. Cold, but much clearer than looking through the glass. The vibrations of the engine prevented me from resting my arm on the window edge, but I needed that heater on. I looked over the area. Lights, and two pickup trucks in the yard. Unremarkable.
I put the binoculars down, and waited about five minutes. I looked around my perch, able to see more since I was beginning to dark adapt. Trees. Rocks jutting up out of the snow along the edge of the man-made bluff, to keep trucks from slipping over the edge. I looked to be about 50 or 60 feet above the quarry floor. The more I looked about, the more it appeared that I might not have enough room to turn my car around on top of the quarry. Shit. Was I going to have to back down?
I decided to give it a while longer. If I crunched the car up backing down that access road, I wanted to have something to show for it.
My radio crackled to life. "Comm, Nation County Cars, radio check…"
Every hour, on the hour, after 9 P.M., they checked. The patrol units gave their current location as a response. On the OPS channel, where all ears could hear them. When she called my number, I responded with a simple "Three, ten-four…" on Info. The other cars couldn't hear me, but they would know I was still out.
I looked at the house again. Nothing. Now, that was weird. I mean, it wasn't that big a house, and with two pickups in the yard, that meant that they had company. It was likely that they would all be on the ground floor, with the possible exception of little Carrie. But there was no movement, and most of the lights were on in the kitchen, which I could see pretty clearly.
I put the binoculars down again, and sat. What were they doing? Watching TV as a group? I rolled up my window. If I didn't, I was going to start to shiver, and shivering makes it impossible to use binoculars.
I unrolled the window after a few minutes, and thought I heard a popping sound. I switched off the ignition, and in the silence, could hear a roaring that seemed to be coming from near the farm.
Suddenly, two farm tractors emerged from Grossman's backyard, and began heading up the valley toward Borglan's. Neither had their headlights on, and both seemed to be pulling something. In the dark it was very hard to tell, but it looked like they each had a large, flat object behind them. About the size of a barn door, but it looked like they had stuff piled on top. Like hay bales.
I was surprised. No doubt. I was even more surprised about a minute later, when they both turned as a group, lined up side by side, and began to slowly traverse the valley about a quarter mile above the house. As I watched, they went about 100 yards, turned, and went back. What the hell?
They did the whole routine again. And again. And I became aware that they were slowly working their way back to the Grossmans', combing the field as they went. It took quite a while, but when they finally got back to Grossman's yard, they both turned around and went right back up to where they'd started the back and forth trips. Were they looking for something?
Then, they turned again, and this time made about fifty trips up and down the valley. Not moving over ten miles per hour.
Then it occurred to me that the sons of bitches were obliterating all the snowmobile tracks between Grossman's and Borglan's. That had to be it. And that meant that we had missed something really important in those tracks. Damn.
It took them about an hour and a half. Then, they returned to Grossman's, packed up their sleds, and left. Just like that. Two minutes after they had gone, everything looked absolutely normal.
I finally got turned around, and got back down to the road. I turned south, to avoid Grossman's place.
I saw headlights in front of me, approaching. They were about half a mile off. Crap. I was about to be discovered by a neighbor. Although theoretically unmarked, my car was pretty easily recognizable as a cop car without decals or top lights.
Nothing for it but to get moving, and pretend I was just passing by. Whoever I met would just assume I'd been traveling all along. I hoped.
We met when I was about half a mile south of Grossman's drive. Red pickup, towing a snowmobile trailer with two snowmobiles on it. BHK 234. Minnesota. Red pickup.
I waited until it was out of sight in the rearview mirror, then spun around and followed it north. I had to know.
It turned into Grossman's drive. Damn. I hastily tore off my glove, and reached inside my vest for a pen. Guiding the car with my knee under the steering wheel, I hastily scribbled the plate on the back of my hand. Damn. A late arrival?
A few minutes later, I called dispatch. "Comm, Three, I'll be ten-forty-two. Mileage 31566." That meant I was done with my shift, and the mileage was to make sure I wasn't using the car to vacation in Florida. Department rules. I'd give the mileage again when I went to work. Of course, having written it on my log, I could easily fake it. But, then, most county rules were like that.
As soon as I got to the house, I phoned Dispatch, and ran that plate. "Yeah, it's Houseman. Could you give me a twenty-eight and twenty-nine on Minnesota Passenger Boy Henry King two three four, run the twenty-seven, get a twenty-nine and Triple I on that." The registration came back to Timothy Frederick Olson, twenty-two, of Brainerd, Minnesota. No wants. No warrants. The criminal history would come back a little later.
"Would you just leave all of it in my box? I'll pick it up in the morning."
"Got it. Sleep tight."
"Thanks." Well, that had likely accomplished very little. They used to tell me that you couldn't ever have too much information. Maybe so. But you sure could have too much to process in the allotted time.