A Long December (28 page)

Great. Just great. “Everybody but the Popular Front for the Liberation of Dubuque,” I said. I don’t know if it eased the tension much, but it helped me.

“I’ll double-check that,” said Gwen. “Anyway, members of the cell, the cell he works with, would probably call him something like the ‘Wise Man’ or the ‘Wise One.’ He carries plans that are forwarded to him from higher up. He also controls their finances. They need money, they come to him.”

“Okay.” We were getting way out of my league.

“But he normally won’t be directly involved. He’s too valuable to have him get himself killed, and way, way too valuable to have him get himself interrogated.” Gwen looked around. “I feel certain it
is
Odeh,” she said, quietly. “We all should be very, very careful from now on.”

There was a momentary silence.

“Well, all right!” said Volont. “This is more like it.” He was serious. The man thrived on this sort of thing, but I couldn’t help thinking about last time Volont was in his element. We’d gotten one of our officers killed on that one, along with several others, and all those terrorists had been homegrown. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” said Volont. “This group is probably dangerous if provoked, but just from the people we know who are involved, they aren’t a top-of-the-line terrorist cell. The only one who’s probably spent any profitable time in a training camp would be Odeh.”

The intercom buzzed.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Hey,” said Sally, “Special Agent Hawse is out at the airport. His helicopter just left, and he’d like a ride in to the office.”

“Get one of the marked cars, would you? “I said, without even checking with the FBI agents in the room. “He’ll look a lot less inconspicuous in one of those, and they can get him past the CNN people out there. We really should make sure he’s up to speed before the media grabs him.”

“CNN? Holy shit,” exclaimed Sally, but not to anyone in our room, “turn on the tube, CNN’s outside…” and the connection went dead.

That broke the tension a bit.

Once he’d arrived, having successfully ducked the news teams outside, Hawse seemed very pleased with himself. “The art of distraction works every time. When I was a kid,” he said, taking off his coat, “my brother and I used to do a magic show. I never realized how useful it was going to be.”

Volont looked at the ceiling.

“So, boys and girls,” said Hawse, “what have we got this morning?”

“You might want to sit down,” said Volont.

“Go for it,” said Hawse, who remained standing.

“The skinny-faced dude in those wedding photos, with the Hispanics? The ones we saw last night? Well, we’ve got him I Ded as one Mustafa Abdullah Odeh, a bin Laden associate. Money and plans man.”

“Who did the ID?” asked Hawse.

“Manny Ortega,” said Gwen. “He gives it a ninety-nine percent probability.”

“I suspected something like this,” said Hawse, not missing a beat. “I was going over scenarios in my room last night. It fits.”

That was something to see. He’d not only fielded the news with remarkable aplomb, he’d managed to make it appear just slightly out-of-date because he’d already considered it. I’d only seen that kind of thing once before, in Art Meyerman when he was just a new deputy. No matter who was turned as a suspect in any case, Art always said, “Oh, yeah, I figured it was him.” I knew he was fudging most of the time, but Lamar didn’t pick up on it. But that was how Art had gotten promoted to chief deputy, by making Lamar think he was always on top of everything. I was willing to bet my next month’s check on Hawse making assistant director before too long.

Within ten minutes, Sally buzzed from the dispatch desk. “You guys might want to come out here, we’re on
Headline News
, and we’re being tied in to a terrorist act in New York…”

   By the time we got to the dispatch center, our segment was done, and we stood around for almost fifteen minutes, waiting for it to be rebroadcast. But, then, there it was. They showed footage of a deli in New York, and a hospital, and a bit of an interview. But all the time, the voice-over was giving out remarkably accurate information. They had the three delis the FBI had identified, the total number of casualties, the correct number of deaths, the current status of the hospitalized victims, and the date of the first admission to the hospital.

What they didn’t have was the substance. Not yet. I said as much.

“Don’t be too sure about that,” said Volont. “They’re probably doing their verifications right now.”

Then, when we thought we were going to dodge the bullet, they showed the Nation County Sheriff’s Department, complete with a lot full of media vehicles and our unmarked patrol cars. Then, they named the plant in Battenberg and identified it as the source of the suspected contaminated meat.

“Damn,” I said. “They’re good.”

“Yeah,” said Gwen. “They are. Uh-oh…”

They had just announced that there would be a special report on CNN in thirty minutes.

Sally looked at Gwen. “Bad news?”

“It means they have enough to do a long version,” Gwen said grimly. “That means they have more information, and probably interviews.”

“Time for a good statement,” declared Hawse. “We better get a press conference organized.” He turned to me. “Is there some sort of auditorium available around here?”s

“Well,” I said, “there’s the Opera House. Seats about four hundred. Stage. Balcony. Even has footlights, if you want ‘em.”

We assigned Lamar to get the Opera House opened and available for the media. I say “we” in the broadest sense. I suggested his name, and Hawse did the actual assigning. Sometimes, you just have to get even.

THE FEDERAL SEARCH WARRANT
for Jose Gonzales’s apartment arrived in our office at 11:55. We were divided into two teams, search and security. As the original case officer, I was listed on the search team. Hester got security. Everybody else was a federal agent. We were just on our way out the back door of the sheriff’s department, when I got called on my walkie-talkie.

“Coram, Three?”

I fished it out of my coat pocket. “Comm?”

“Three, return to the office immediately, authority officer One.”

That meant that Lamar had ordered it. There was no questioning. I caught up to Volont and George, who were with Hester. “I gotta get back to the office. Lamar needs something. I’ll catch up.”

As soon as I got inside, Lamar was waiting for me.

“What’s up? “I was as polite as possible under the circumstances, but I really wanted to go on that search.

“Quick,” he said, turning and leading me down the hall to his office. “I wanted you to get this first, before anybody else finds out.”

That was unlike him. “What?”

“Just pick up the phone,” he said as he shut his office door very firmly behind us. He sounded happy as hell.

I lifted the phone off the desk. It was obviously an active line, and Lamar hadn’t even put whoever it was on hold.

“This is Houseman.”

“Hey! Boy, have I got some good shit for you. You owe me dinner at Mabel’s for this one!”

It was Harry, from Conception County, Wisconsin.

“Harry, my man. What’s up?”

“You want one each Linda Moynihan and one each Yevgenny Skripkin?”

Hot damn. “We sure as hell want her, but who the hell is this, this Yevgenny whatshisname?”

“Ho ho, my boy. Da plot thickens. Your girl Linda is sitting in our jail, bawling her eyes out and screamin’ about some attorney she needs. You know anything about that?”

“Sure. She’s got some attorney in Madison who’s trying to arrange an immunity and protection deal for her.”

“Okay,” said Harry. “That’s about what she said to us. Shit, she’s about as safe as possible, she’s the only sad broad in the whole women’s cell block. I don’t know nothing about no immunity,” he added, laughing. “I can assume you still want her?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“She was shacked up with this Skripkin dude over in Blue Mound, where we found ‘em. The Whispering Pines Motel.”

“Maybe they’re just friends,” I said.

“They were in the sack together, naked,” said Harry, with some relish. “We used to call that shacked up, when I was a kid.”

“Yeah, we did, too. Okay, but who the hell is he? I don’t know anybody by that name.”

“You shittin’ me?” asked Harry. “You really don’t know who he is? Hell, Houseman, I thought you were one shit-hot investigator!”

“Get to the fuckin’ point, Harry,” I said. He found that uproarious.

“Okay, Carl. Okay. This Skripkin, a white male Ukrainian, twenty-six years of age, was with the guy who blew away this Rudy Cueva boyfriend of Moynihan’s the other day.”

“What?” Glib in the face of surprise, as always.

“You betcha, Norske. This Skripkin was right there when one Juan Miguel Alvarez, also known to his friends as Hassan Ahmed Hassan, stuck the shotgun in the back of your boy’s head and pulled the fuckin’ trigger. Makes no bones about it. Seems to think he’s part of the immunity deal or something. That’s why I thought you knew him.”

The white boy. Harry’d found the white boy.

“You still there, Carl?”

“Yeah, yeah, Harry. Just thinkin’. I don’t know this Skripkin. Whatever else, though, we got enough for an accessory to murder charge. I’ll get the paperwork started on that right away. I don’t suppose they’re gonna waive extradition?”

“I didn’t ask,” he said, “but I’d be willing to bet your ass that they won’t.”

“Me, too. How soon can I talk to ‘em?”

“You got a free pass to this facility anytime you want,” he said. “Should I put the coffee on?”

“You better put on about sixty cups,” I told him. “You’re gonna have a crowd. And Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Get a photo of this Skripkin over to me as fast as possible, okay?”

“Your e-mail up and runnin’?”

“You bet.”

“You’ll have it in less than a minute.”

I did, too. Printing it took about four, and then grabbing a half dozen photos of other white males out of our Jail files took another five. Sally did the picking, while I called Hester on her cell phone and told her what we had.

“Oh my God. You’re kidding!” She was as delighted as I’d ever heard her.

   I left, and made a flying trip to the Heinman brothers’ farm, where I showed the photos to Jacob. He picked Skripkin out immediately.

“This one. This is the white boy. No doubt in my mind. Is he from around here?”

“Well, Jacob, kind of. In a way. I can’t tell you more right now.”

“That’s fine. Good job.”

Well, it would have taken too long to explain about Harry, and Linda, and…

“Thanks, Jacob. We appreciate it.”

The trip to the Heinman farm and back, plus the identification process with the photo lineup, took twenty-eight minutes.

We got the ball rolling with the county attorney, who we told to file a complaint and affidavit with the district court and get an arrest warrant out for Skripkin. Carson needed some help, so we told him to come on up. We then called a judicial magistrate, who was just wrapping up his morning traffic court tour, and he came up to the sheriff’s department with his sack lunch and dined at a desk while watching us with a look of bemused detachment. With me dictating, Sally typing, and Carson Hilgenberg signing it, it only took about thirty minutes.

I grabbed a second with Volont. “Do you know Harry over in Conception County?”

“No.”

“Okay, look… Harry uses some pretty rough language. He doesn’t mean anything by it, and he’s one of the best cops I’ve ever known. All you have to do is give it a few minutes, and you don’t even notice it anymore.”

“That sort of thing,” said Volont, “doesn’t bother me at all.”

“I know,” I said. “But I think you might want to, well, alert some of the other federal officers. You know. Like Hawse.”

Volont looked like a kid about to pull the wings off a fly. “Oh, sure. Thanks for the warning.”

That look told me that he wasn’t about to mention anything to his superior. I made a mental note to try to be out of the room if Hawse ever met Harry.

Fifteen minutes after that, arrest warrant in hand, the four of us left for the Conception County Jail, George and Volont in one car, Hester and me in another. We arrived there at 14:14 on the dot.

“For Christ’s sake,” said Harry. “It took ya long enough!”

Harry had run all the data on our Mr. Skripkin, and gave us a brief rundown.

“Three or four minor entries on his CCH,” he said. He was referring to the Computerized Criminal History check that is run on every prisoner upon being booked into jail. “One simple po; two traffic, both speed; and one public intox.”

“Okay,” I said. A first offender, then, in the felony world. “The simple po and the intox come on the same date?” I suspected that possession of a small amount of marijuana and being stoned could easily arise from the same incident.

“Damn,” said Harry, glancing at the dates. “You still got it.”

“Thanks. It’s not much of a rap sheet, is it?” I noticed that, while it would have been normal to just hand me the thing, Harry was keeping the sheet to himself. Knowing Harry, that was an indicator that there was something else lurking on that piece of paper. Like he said, I still got it.

“Well, maybe it’s more than you’d think,” he said. The familiar grin spread over his face. “The charges were all filed by the San Diego PD. Less than a year ago.”

Ah. “No kidding?”

“Yep. And when we inventoried his shit when we booked him, we found DLs from California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Kentucky.” He handed me the sheet, finally. “All with his name, but all with different dates of birth. All bright and shiny, and all ‘issued’ on 02/18/2000.” He looked very pleased with himself. “We ran ‘em all, just to see, but there’s no record of any of these except the California one. Like the others don’t exist, which they don’t.”

“Fascinating,” I said, looking at the sheet. “Just checking…the OLN on Iowa licenses is the same as the SSN. Just wanted to see if he was using a familiar number…but he isn’t.” I was just a bit disappointed.

“Any chauffeur’s licenses?” asked Hester.