Code 61 (20 page)

It happened as Grothler was vacuuming the second set. With the whine of the vacuum in the staircase, it was pretty difficult to hear much of anything, but Hester grabbed his arm and said, loudly and distinctly, “Quiet!”

As he looked up at her from the depths of concentration, and obviously without quite comprehending, she reached out and snapped off the switch of his vacuum.

“I heard something … ” said Hester, and she reached back and put her hand on her gun.

We all heard what came next. There was the slamming sound of wood on wood, loud, and then the muted thunder of somebody running down stairs. A muffled thud followed, felt as much as heard. Simultaneously, there was a yell from Borman that sounded as if it was coming from the floor above us. Up the back stairwell, I thought. It was funneling his voice, and we were hearing noises that originated below coming from above….

Borman hollered, “Stop!”

Then we heard two shots.

FIFTEEN

Sunday, October 8, 2000
19:08

Hester flew up the stairs, right over Grothler, and I spun around and went charging down the main staircase to the ground floor. I had my gun drawn by the time I blew by Jessica Hunley and company, who were lying on the floor of the parlor.

“You okay?” I hollered, as I headed for the back door.

I think it was Hunley herself who said, “yes.” I'm not sure. By the time she got it out, I was through the kitchen, and heard the back screen door slam.

I went by the broken frame of the servants' stair door to the third floor as I, too, flew out the back door. I just about stepped on Borman, who was kneeling at the corner of the building, gun drawn.

“You okay?”

He seemed a bit confused. “Huh?”

“You hurt?”

“No.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “No, not really.”

“Where's Hester?”

“I think she's after him…. ”

I was aware of some blood on his right cheek. “After who, where … where did she go?”

He just pointed toward the dark area behind the house.

“Get some people and some lights up here,” I yelled, as I went thundering into the dark yard. “Hey, Hester!”

My eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the dark, and I heard her voice off to my left, well before I saw her.

“Over here. Slow down. He's gone.”

I slowed to a fast walk, and almost stepped on her before I saw her, crouched down, looking farther into the darkness. I could see well enough to catch the movement of her head as she spoke to me.

“You might want to get down a bit, you're silhouetted against the house lights…. ”

I dropped to one knee, breathing hard. “Who is it?”

“Beats the shit out of me,” she said. “You're slowing down.”

“Yeah.” I took another deep breath. “Hard”—an-other breath—“to stop me, though.”

“I saw him heading this way,” she said. “Lost him in the dark.”

“What's going on?” Old Knockle. The reserve was coming around the far side of the house, shining his flashlight into the backyard. Right on us.

“Turn off your light!” It snapped off. “Stay there, and make sure nobody circles around to the front of the house,” I yelled to him. “Play your light out toward the trees.”

He did. Nothing, of course. No movement. No sound.

“Borman might be hurt,” said Hester.

She was right. And he had a walkie-talkie. We were going to need reinforcements before we started to go after anybody in those woods. This was definitely not Toby or his ilk.

She and I both went cautiously back toward Borman, keeping in shadow as much as possible.

“It's us,” I said. “Don't shoot.” You can't be too careful.

“Right,” he said. “Right.”

When we got back to him, I could see he had a scrape on his cheekbone, his shirt was torn near the right shoulder, and there was an enormous slash right across his chest, through his shirt, and slitting the underlying Kevlar bullet-proof vest.

“Holy shit,” I said. “He had a knife?”

Borman looked down at his chest. “Yeah, he did, I think. It was so fast.”

“You sure you're all right?” I asked.

He nodded. “I looked. No cut or anything.” He patted his ruined vest. “Close, though.”

“No shit,” I said, impressed by the damage.

“What happened?” asked Hester as I gently reached over and pulled Borman's walkie-talkie from his belt.

“Hell,” said Borman, “I was just standing at that door, and I heard a commotion that sounded like it came from upstairs, and then the door busted open and hit me in the face and knocked me against the back door, and then this asshole came through and”—he gasped for breath—“I thought he just shoved me in the chest, you know, and then”—another breath—“I could see it was a fuckin' knife, and he was heading past me and to the yard.”

“That's when you shot?” asked Hester.

“Yeah,” said Borman. “Yeah.”

As I made sure the walkie-talkie was on the right channel, I asked, “Think you might have hit him?”

He just shook his head.

I pressed the transmit button on the walkie. “Comm, Three. Ten-thirty-three.”

You announce an emergency, right out of the blue, you get some pretty good attention.

“Three?”

“Ten-thirty-three, Comm. Up at the search location.

Armed suspect, officer slightly injured, suspect fled the scene on foot. Get us as much backup as you can ffnd.”

“Ten-four, Three. Comm, all Nation County cars, we have—” I turned the volume down so I could talk to Borman for a second.

“So, you don't think you hit him?”

“I'm positive,” he said.

“Got a description?” asked Hester.

“Dark gray shirt,” he said. “Dark pants. I think. Yeah, maybe black or dark blue. Kinda tall, maybe dark hair.”

“Happens really fast, doesn't it?” said Hester.

“Damn,” I said, mostly to myself. “Sure you might not have hit him? Make ffndin' him a lot easier.”

“I couldn't have,” said Borman. “I shot up in the air.”

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. “Up in the air? Like, you … you fired
warning shots?
”

“Yeah.”

“He slashed your chest with a knife, and you shot up in the air?” Hester gave me a “shut up he's got enough trouble right now” look. I ignored it. “He tried to do you, and you fired warning shots?”

Borman looked like he could crawl in a hole, but defended himself. “He didn't kill me…. ”

“Of course not, you idiot,” I said evenly. “If he'd killed you, I wouldn't expect you to fucking shoot at all!”

“Carl,” said Hester. “Cool it for a minute.”

“Yeah. Jesus H. Christ.” I looked at Borman. “He was running away from you, then?”

“I dunno,” said Borman, embarrassed. “No, I guess not. Not right then. He was kind of in front of me, but he was starting to move, I think. I think he might have been surprised to find me at the bottom of the stair. And I think he thought he got me, you know? I just … I got my gun out real fast. I, well, I'm not comfortable with taking human life without good reason.”

I just didn't understand. “Well, somebody around here sure as hell isn't worried about it! He may have tried to get you with the same fuckin' knife he used on her! You listening to me?”

“Houseman,” said Hester, “just lay off for a minute.”

“Yeah.” Thoroughly disgusted, I put the walkietalkie in front of my face, and called Dispatch again. “Three, go ahead.” “Yeah, Comm, have a couple of cars search the base of this bluff, down by the highway. We're looking for a white male, tall, gray shirt, black or blue pants, dark hair. Armed with a knife. Use caution.”

“Ten-four, Three.”

“And get hold of One, and tell him we need at least four or five more officers up here on the top of the hill, to search going down. Then get Freiberg PD stopped before he gets here, and have him go back and look up Kevin Stemmer.” I paused. “Just check location for now, and if he can't find him, let us know right away.”

“Ten-four, Three. Ten-fifty-two has been dispatched.” An ambulance. A good idea, as I thought Borman should be checked out. Mostly, I thought, for a suspected injury to his common sense. But it was really a very good idea.

“Ten-four.” I put the walkie-talkie down, and talked directly to Hester. “I want that Stemmer dude located, mainly to make sure it isn't him.”

“I don't think it is,” said Borman.

I took a deep breath. “Okay. That'll help. Look, we'll go over our deadly force procedures later. You did okay.” I don't think I was too convincing. “You get checked out, make sure you're all right. Then, if you can, I want you to sit down and describe every detail of this guy you can remember. Everything. Take your time, and don't rush. You got all night.”

“Right.”

“Let's get you back inside,” said Hester, and sort of gently pushed Borman back up the stairs and into the kitchen. “Where you can sit down.”

As Borman entered the house, Hester turned to me. “Our man Peel?”

I nodded. “I think it sure as hell could be. Alive and well, unfortunately. Well, we're just gonna have to work a little harder to find out, I guess.”

She smiled. “See? You can adjust, after all.”

“Hmmm.”

Lamar pulled out all the stops with the assistance. He'd contacted state patrol, as well as the boys across the river in Conception County, Wisconsin. Adjoining counties in Iowa, too, judging from the sudden surge in radio traffic. It began to appear very unlikely that Peel, or whoever it was, was going to be able to get off the bluff. Within minutes, we had two squad cars sitting at the base of the bluff face, right at the only possible path down from the house. We had officers in the woods shortly after that, accompanied by the Conception County K-9 unit. Their black Labrador appeared to pick up a trail right at the back door of the Mansion, and pulled his trainer toward the woods in hot pursuit, then seemed to pause about ten yards from the back door, and started “casting about,” as they say. Looked like he was earning his keep to me.

The radio informed me that Lamar was on his way, as well, and that he had two DNR Fish and Game officers putting their boats in up at Freiberg. They'd be on the river in our area within a few minutes.

All in all, it looked like whoever had come thundering out of the third floor was going to be in our custody fairly soon.

Unfortunately, Jessica Hunley and company had fled the house when the shots were ffred. Reasonable, I suppose, and certainly justifiable in court, but we'd lost the threat of a search to hold them in the house.

Hester and I decided to let them take off, with the promise that they'd be available in the morning for “a few more questions.” We offered to put up Jessica and Tatiana in a local motel for the night.

“I won't hear of it,” said Junkel. “They're more than welcome to stay with us.”

I expressed the gratitude of the taxpayers.

As they left, they met Lamar at the Mansion end of the long drive. He pulled halfway into the trees to let them by, and then came to where Hester and I were standing near the front steps.

“That's a nice car, there,” he said, as he got out of his four-wheel-drive pickup. “Who belongs to that?”

“That'd be Jessica Hunley,” I said. “Owns the house, too.”

“How's Borman?”

Well, I told him. And, since warning shots had been ffred, and since I was the supervising officer at the scene, I told him about that, too.

“You talk to him about that?” he asked.

“Yeah. You could say that.”

“Okay, Carl. No need for me to say anything, then.”

That, it seemed, was to be the end of that.

Lamar decided that, since the small army of officers that were in the woods could handle the search, Hester and I should join the rest of the search team, and get the business in the Mansion conducted and behind us.

“Before hell freezes over,” he said. “Be really nice if you could do that.”