Code 61 (33 page)

“Quiet as a mouse,” she said.

“Promise?” I smiled.

“On a stack of Bibles,” she answered.

I figured that ought to buy us about ten minutes. But I was happy.

But Toby, for God's sake. I would have bet heavily on William Chester. Well, maybe Toby was just the lookout for somebody. Sure.

Hester and I rode up to the Mansion together, leaving the funeral home just as one of the area TV vans pulled up to get set to cover the funeral. Close.

I used her cell phone to call Lamar. I told him what had happened, sort of. He sounded angry and sad, but I think it helped when I told him we were on our way to bag a suspect.

“Let me know when you get him in custody,” he said.

“You got it.” I handed the cell phone back to Hester. “He wants us to let him know when we've got Toby.”

“My pleasure,” said Hester. “Hey, go slow through here. I want to see if there's any sign of the old lift track from the top of the hill to the landing.”

I slowed, just past the silica mine, and we looked as closely as possible at the cliff faces and the ravines between them. There wasn't much to see, except a possible segment of a pathway up on the side of the bluff, just barely discernible among the trees. It seemed to disappear about fifty feet up the slope, among some boulders and old fallen timber.

“We should wait for winter,” I said. When all the leaves have fallen, and the first light snow comes, tracks in the hills stand out like white lines on a dark field.

“If we haven't found what we're looking for before the first snowfall, Houseman,” said Hester, “we're in real trouble.”

“Yeah.” I looked back, over my shoulder, toward the possible path. “I sure as hell wouldn't want to try that in the dark,” I said.

“Me, either. You could fall a good fifty feet onto those boulders. Especially if you were in a hurry.”

It was food for thought, though. There had been a clear way down there once, according to Old Knockle. There could be, still.

Hester used her cell phone to call Harry, over in Conception County, as I drove. She told him about the staking, and asked where the body of the late Randy Baumhagen was being kept. It was apparently in Harry's jurisdiction, because she cautioned him to keep an eye out on a funeral home.

Calling Harry had completely slipped my mind. That sort of thing bothers me, because it means that I'm not getting enough time between events to process information correctly.

“I'm about a hundred percent certain that he's up here,” I said, as we turned off the paving and onto the gravel that led to the Mansion. “He's pretty predictable.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Where else can he go? Just remember how predictable he is, when he runs into the woods on us again.”

“Good point.” I turned onto the long drive, heading up the hill. I slowed way down, so that the occupants of the Mansion wouldn't be alerted by the roar and rush of the car. “I just hope he's got the right tread pattern on his shoes, and that he's got a cut somewhere we can see,” I said, remembering the blood on the screen. Please, God. Please.

It's always amazed me how thieves and burglars tend to go home. I've never had one take off for parts unknown to me, at least not one who lived in Nation County. Itinerants didn't count, nor did the traveling pros. I was pretty certain we'd find Toby at home.

When we pulled up, Huck and Melissa were standing over a bonfire of burning leaves a little distance from the house. From the absence of the numerous piles Melissa'd raked when we'd been there before, it looked like they were just finishing up the yard work.

We got out of the car, and I waved. They didn't wave back, but Huck started over toward us, pulling off her gloves and stuffing them in the pockets of her hooded gray sweatshirt.

“Surprised to see you two,” she said.

“Surprised to be here,” I answered. “Where's Toby?”

“Toby? Uh, inside, I think. He was in the kitchen a minute ago. Eating.”

“Thanks,” said Hester. “Want me to give you a second?”

“Yep,” I said. “About five, then go.” I headed at a quick walk around the right side of the house, toward the back door at the kitchen, where Toby had exited before. Huck looked confused, and started to follow me. Hester went straight for the front door.

As I passed Melissa, she said, “What are you doing?”

A reasonable question, considering. I held my finger to my lips. “Shhh, you should see in a second or two,” I said. “Just both of you stay back.” I continued, stooping so I wouldn't be seen from the interior as I was passing the windows on the south side of the house, and reached back under my jacket and pulled out my gun.

I noticed that Huck stopped at that, and that Melissa moved closer to her.

I reached the back door, just as I heard Hester's muffled voice say, “Toby, you're under arrest!”

The back door flew open, I raised my gun up at arm's length, and greeted the emerging Toby with “Freeze!”

He stopped so fast, he slipped on about the third step, lost his balance and fell over backward, grabbed for the rail, missed that, and slid down toward me like a little log in a chute. It all happened in the blink of an eye, and he was as shocked as anybody I've ever seen. He looked up at me, open mouthed, and tried to speak, but only managed to make a wheezing sound, while looking cross-eyed into the muzzle of my pistol.

Hester appeared at the top of the steps, also gun in hand.

“You were right,” she said. “Predictable.” She nodded toward him. “Check him, I think he has a knife on his hip, and then check out the hands,” she said.

I reached down, fumbled for a second, and pulled a folding Case knife from the sheath on his left side. I put it in my pocket, and looked at his hands. Band-Aids on three fingers of his right hand. Well, well. They were multicolored and had some sort of printing on them. I looked closer. “Buzz Lightyear?” I said. “Cool. What'd you cut your fingers on, Toby?”

Silence.

I glanced at his feet. Tennis shoes. Good so far. “Hold up your foot,” I said. He looked at me strangely, but did. The same pattern that I'd seen in the alley.

“Get up to your knees,” I said, “turn around so that you face the steps, and put your hands over your head.”

He did, still not speaking.

I put my gun in its holster, and pulled my handcuffs out of my back pocket. I took his left hand by the wrist, snapping the handcuff on, and pulled it down and to his rear. I grabbed his other hand, and brought it close enough to the other to slip a cuff on that one, too. I put one hand on his arm, and pulled him to his feet.

“You're under arrest, like she said,” I told him.

He spoke for the first time. “For what?”

The universal answer to my statement. “Burglary,” I said.

He then inserted his foot into his mouth. “I didn't steal anything,” he said.

I turned him around. “You have the right to remain silent…. ”

“It must have been the old hag,” he said, swallowing his foot with that one. His attorney would probably call that a “statement against interest.” But old Toby apparently felt compelled to speak, no matter what. That's a fine trait in a suspect.

We took Toby directly to my car, past the astonished Huck and Melissa, and put him in the backseat.

“Watch your head, Toby,” I said, and shut the door. Hester motioned toward the porch. The four remaining residents were all standing on the porch, looking down on us.

“And then,” said Hester, sotto voce, “there were four.” She motioned me up toward the front of the car, and well out of Toby's possible hearing. “I don't know how to ask this,” she said, “so I might as well come right to the point. Are you sure we had a burglary? I was thinking about that when I confronted Toby in the kitchen just now. Doesn't the code say you have to unlawfully enter a premises, with 'the intent to commit a felony, theft, or assault'? For a burglary…. ”

“Hmm.” She was right in her quote, of course. It was felony, theft, or assault. The question being, was mutilating a corpse a felony? “Well, we may have just made a very strong trespassing arrest,” I said. “Very strong.”

“I mean,” she said, “sticking a stake in a corpse damned well should be a felony, but I don't know if it is.”

“It may not even be illegal,” I said. “It may never have been
considered
in Iowa before this.” I don't mind being near the leading edge, but I dearly hate breaking new ground. But, realistically, how many times could it have come up in Iowa before today? I knew it was illegal to exhume, but poor Edie wasn't even buried yet.

“This could be another very long day,” I said.

“Where are you taking him?” came a loud voice from the porch. It may have been Melissa, but by the time I looked, I couldn't tell.

“Jail,” I said, as loudly. Just to be polite.

“Tell him,” said Kevin, “that we'll call his attorney.”

Hardly necessary, at that point. Veiled threat?

“Will do,” I called back, got into the car, buckled up while Hester leaned back and buckled Toby in, and we were off.

I picked up the mike. “Comm, Three.”

“Three, go.”

“PBX One, advise him we have a suspect in custody, and are ten-seventy-six the jail.” I'd told Lamar I'd let him know right away.

“Ten-four, Three. He's called twice, and will have your assistant go with the seventy-nine to the location.”

Now, that might have sounded kind of cryptic to the normal person, but anybody with any savvy now knew that a coroner or medical examiner was going to a scene, that the boss had called twice, and that my assistant was being called out. I had to admit, though, that even I was thrown by the last bit. I didn't have an assistant.

“Uhh, Comm, Three?”

“Three?”

“Ah, who's my assistant this week?” As soon as I said it, I knew she had meant Borman.

“Eight.”

Borman, all right. Well, we'd see if this examination of a mutilated corpse would get his act on track.

“Ten-four, Comm.”

Toby was quiet for about the first quarter mile, and I was starting to get worried. As it turned out, I shouldn't have been concerned. His tendency to talk overcame all caution.

“It had to be done,” he said.

“Toby,” said Hester, “let's not discuss it. You've been advised of your rights, and we'd feel a lot better if you waited until you had an attorney present.”

That was partially true. Sure, we'd like Toby to rattle on, but we had the old problem that, even if he said he waived his rights to the attorney, we could lose a suppression hearing later. If that happened, everything he said, and everything we'd found out based on that, could be ruled inadmissible. It happened just often enough to make us very leery about questions without attorneys there. I mean, we knew we'd be right, but that sometimes did very little good in court. There, it came down to the briefing and arguing abilities of two attorneys. We would have nothing at all to say about that. This was, well, safer, I guess.

It was also pretty damned prudent, because the more I searched my memory, the more convinced I became that there was no statute on the Iowa books about mutilating corpses.

Toby, thwarted in his first attempt to enlighten us, switched to philosophy.

“It doesn't make any difference, anyway,” he said. He fidgeted.