Eleven Days (34 page)

I fired without thinking and without aiming. I saw a spark, and he twisted around to his right and disappeared through the door into the kitchen.

I was momentarily stunned by the noise made by the .44 magnum inside the steel-enclosed hall. I must have hesitated for about two or three seconds before following him.

I had enough wits about me to stop, kneel down, and peer around the door frame from about waist height, to clear my path. He wasn’t there. I hurried into the kitchen. That was a mistake, because there were several places there he could hide, and I thought about that after I’d gone all the way through and onto the back porch.

The porch was only screened, and I could hear a siren approaching. Ambulance or cop? I didn’t know.

I went outside, into the rear yard and drive. There was an old car out there, a green ’67 Chevy, and it started to roll forward and down the hill toward the roadway.

At the same time, Mike came rocketing up the drive, right past the old Chevy. Its lights weren’t on, and it was moving so slowly he didn’t recognize it as a possible fleeing vehicle. He jumped out of his car just as I fired at the Chevy.

Mike drew his gun and dropped to one knee, but obviously didn’t know what I was shooting at.

I emptied my gun.

“Stop that fucker!” I screamed, and started to run down the hill after the car.

Mike looked at me with his eyes wide, turned, and fired six rounds at the back of the Chevy. It kept going.

Its lights came on, and it leaned hard as it rounded the corner, and went toward the main highway.

Mike and I were both reloading. “Get on your radio and tell anybody you can that the car is on the highway, and we want it, and he’s killed everybody!”

Mike did even better than that, jumping into his car and screaming off in pursuit. I could hear him on my portable, giving the gist of my message to two troopers coming in from the south.

I finished reloading. Habit. Then I turned around and started back into the office. And froze.

I couldn’t move. I just couldn’t do it. I must have stood there for a full minute and couldn’t get an inch closer to that bloodbath.

I took a deep breath and reached in my pocket for a cigarette, hearing sirens coming in from all over.

I lit it on the second try and decided that maybe, if I went around to the front door, I could go in.

As I came around the corner of the building, I saw the
ambulance come up the drive, followed by the Maitland PD car.

The EMTs spotted me right away. They came running toward me as I went up the front steps. My keys were still in the lock. I started to open the door when one of the ambulance people touched me on the left arm and said, “Sit down.”

“What?”

“You’ll be okay, sit down.”

“I’m fine, damn it. We have half a dozen people shot in there—you’re needed in there,” and I went in the door. I really don’t know if I could have done it without the distraction of the EMT.

He followed me in. Jerry Foells, the Maitland cop, was right with me.

“Be careful,” I said. “We’ve got shot people all over. I think the building is clear, but let me go first.”

I walked back into the dispatch center. Jane had fallen off her chair and was in a lump on the floor. I got a little dizzy then, but took another drag off the cigarette and walked to the radio. I took a very deep breath, counted to ten, and keyed the mike.

“Maitland comm to all cars and stations,” I said. “Maitland comm has been hit. We have at least three dead, several wounded. Suspect is a white male, about six feet, slender, driving an older model dark-colored Chevy, with possible bullet holes in the rear. Use extreme caution, suspect is armed and dangerous.” I took another deep breath. “Maitland is clear at 20:42. This station will be 10–6 for several minutes.”

There was a lot of babble on the radio, but I ignored it.

I picked up the phone and used the automatic dialer to call Lamar. I told him about what had happened. I’m not sure how clear and concise I was, but he got the message. I was about to call Art when I saw him come into the dispatch center.

He saw Jane first. Then Dan in the hallway.

“Sweet Jesus Christ.”

I didn’t say anything, just punched Sally’s number up on the dialer.

“Hello?”

“Sally. Carl. We’ve had a hit at the dispatch center. Jane is dead. So is Dan, and Harvey and Kendall, and at least three prisoners. We’re secure now. Get up here right away.”

I looked up at Art, who had been listening.

“Fuck,” I said.

“You been looked at?” he asked.

“No.” I dialed the hospital. “We need the other ambulance here, right away.”

“You better get that looked at.”

“Get what looked at?”

I dialed the Maitland hospital. I told them to get both their ambulances coming.

Art went into the kitchen and came back looking very pale.

“What the hell happened?”

An EMT came in, asking for the keys to the cells, to get to the victims there. I reached into the drawer, and the EMT saw Jane for the first time. I couldn’t find the keys and then noticed them on her belt. I gestured to Art.

“Could you get those?”

He reached down, almost being hit on the head by the EMT, who was just rising up.

“She’s dead.”

“Yeah, we know … Art, you might want to go to the cell with them. Traer is alive.”

He went out. I stood up, dizzy again, and went out onto the front porch to get some air. I could hear the dispatch phone ringing. Somebody else would have to get it.

I watched the second ambulance pull up, damned near running over Sally, who had just gotten out of her car and
was heading for the office at a dead run. Getting pretty crowded out here, I thought.

Sally stopped when she saw me. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, but nobody else is. Jane’s dead. I guess I told you that.”

“Yes,” she said. Her lip started to tremble.

“Look,” I said as the second ambulance crew hustled by, “why don’t I take you in? It’s pretty gruesome, but we need a dispatcher pretty bad.”

I took her by the arm and guided her into the center. Jane was still there, and the blood was on the counter.

“I’m sorry, Sally. We haven’t had a chance to clean up.”

Dumb thing to say.

She started to cry. Looking at Jane. I squeezed her shoulder.

“It’ll be okay.”

“Oh, God.”

“Look, get busy, it’ll make it easier. Call in another dispatcher right away.”

She nodded.

“And I just think I’ll sit down,” I said as a wave of dizziness came over me.

An EMT came up to me, Donna Gorskey. “I’m going to look at your head now, whether you want me to or not.”

“My head?”

“You’ve got a large cut on your head.”

Well, what do you know about that? I thought.

It turned out that I’d been shot, just lightly grazed, by the .22. He’d fired at me, too. That must have been the spark I saw. I remembered him spinning, and the spark at the same time.

“Hey, Art!” I hollered. Him spinning. Him spinning. “Hey, Art!”

He came around the corner. “Yeah.”

“Hey Art, I think I hit him. I shot inside the hallway, and I think I hit him. How’s Dan?”

“He’s dead.”

“I thought so. He was right in front of me. We had just gone through the cell area, and I was ahead, then we came out and he was in front and he fell and that son of a bitch was shooting and I think I hit him.”

It came out pretty fast. Sally was staring at me, and so was Art.

“Who is ‘that son of a bitch’ you’re talking about?”

“Man named Travis. He did the Herkaman murders.” Revelation. “Art, I know that guy.”

“Who?”

“That Travis. I know him. I mean I recognized him.”

“You’ve seen him before?”

“Yeah. Not his face, Art. His walk. The way he carries himself. I know him, but not by this Travis name.”

Art waited as long as he could, maybe two seconds, maybe three. “Well, then, who is it?”

I looked at him. “I don’t know, I can’t place him.” I shook my head. “Ain’t that a son of a bitch?”

“Yes.”

“Something else … but I can’t put my finger on it. Oh. Did Mike get him? Mike chased him out of the back drive.”

“Check with Mike,” said Art to Sally.

I saw Lamar come into the dispatch center. He was pale. He’d evidently come in through the kitchen.

“What happened?”

I told him as best I could. I was getting a little confused myself at that point.

He listened, then said to Sally, “Start calling everybody who isn’t on the radio. Start with Lieutenant Kainz, we’re gonna need people. Then get the medical examiner. Then, Art, you call the reserves. We’ll need to secure this place and the hospital.”

“Okay. I can call Theo and Mike of our people.”

“Do it. And Mike’s out, I just saw him. Get as many people on the road as you can. If Carl did hit him, he might be out on a gravel somewhere. Dead, but I hope not. Not yet.”

“We’d better call Dubuque,” I said. “DCI is waiting for this guy down at his house. He might be going back there.”

Mary Quentin, another dispatcher, came in. She seemed stunned. We all were.

My attending EMT, the soft-spoken Donna Gorskey, said, “You need a head X-ray.” She turned to Lamar. “You better get him up to the hospital right away, we’re gonna be awful busy here for a while.”

“Right,” said Lamar. Which, of course, would take him out of the picture at a critical time. He also didn’t want to lose Art right now, either.

“Carl, we’ll get you up there as soon as we can free somebody up.”

“No rush, I’m fine.”

I continued to sit in the side chair at dispatch. Under the No Smoking sign. I lit up. Who was that son of a bitch? I knew I’d seen him before. Often, to be able to say that. Looked awfully familiar. I tried to remember if he’d said anything. No, no voice. I was sure of that. But my head felt kind of thick. His moves. His build. What
was
it?

They came for Jane’s body, and I thought that Mary Quentin was going to lose it right there. She got hold of herself, though, with little help from anybody. I was just about all helped out myself.

I caught a ride with the first ambulance to leave the scene, and sat in the hospital for a little while, as Kenneth Mills was hurt a lot worse than I was. But he was still alive. Doing better than Elizabeth.

I got my head X-rayed again, and Henry looked at it carefully.

“You’ll be all right. No new cracks. How do you feel?”

“Oh, okay, I guess.”

“You could be dead.”

“Yeah.”

I had already called Sue from the hospital and told her the gist of what had happened. She wanted to come up, and did. She fought her way through the crowd and was crying when she got to me. I put my arm around her and tried to get her out of the way when Dan’s wife arrived. Too late.

Sue stayed with Alice Smith, and I hitched a ride back to the office with a lab tech.

I wanted Travis. And I was beginning to think I knew where he was.

I went into the dispatch center, looking for Lamar or Art.

Sally looked up. “How are you?” she asked with genuine concern.

“Oh, I’m fine. How are you?”

“I’ll make it.”

“Good. They find him yet?”

“Not yet. But they found the car.”

“They did?”

“About half a mile out. Flat rear tire, I guess. Everybody just drove by where it went off over the edge by the vet’s office. No tracks, I guess. State trooper found it when he was on his way into town.”

“Where is it now?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But there were two holes in the back of the car. One in the tire. You must have got it.”

“Good.” I sat down on the edge of the desk. “Where’s Lamar?”

“Back in the cells, I think. He and Art are taking pictures
before they move the last of the bodies.” She glanced at the jail monitor screen. “Yeah, there he is.”

I looked at the familiar shape of Lamar on the black-and-white TV screen. I was very tired, I realized. I’d talk to him later, when he was done. I sure didn’t want to get dragooned into taking any pictures tonight. That should have been Theo’s job, anyway.

“Theo should be doing this.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Don’t bother with him, Lamar took him off the case. We don’t need him, anyway.”

She smiled. “The one good thing …”

I smiled back, glad for a bit of distraction. “Not enough.”

I sat in the dispatch center, on the floor, leaning my head back against the wall. They were becoming enormously busy, with a tremendous amount of radio, telephone, and teletype traffic. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was seeing the beginning of the largest manhunt in the history of Iowa.

The noise was constant, but always the same, so to speak. I found it helped me relax, and let me think about what had happened. I had to think it through. I didn’t know if I missed something or what, but I was getting the feeling that there was something I had to remember that I had forgotten. Who was it? of course.

There was a discordant note in the background noise, and I opened my eyes and saw Hal and Hester looking down at me, with Sally saying, “I think he’s asleep.”

“I’m not asleep.”

I stood up. “You guys made good time back from Dubuque.”

“Are you all right?” asked Hester.

“Fine.”

“He keeps saying that,” said Sally with considerable doubt in her voice.

“You up to giving us a statement?” asked Hal.

“Sure.”

We went through the thinning crowd to the rear and into Lamar’s office. The first thing they had me do was take a breath alcohol test. Passed with flying colors, of course. But you can’t be too careful with defense attorneys. Standard procedure. They also advised me of my rights.

Then we taped my account of what had happened. I was really surprised at myself. It seemed to me that my rendition was clear and concise. I felt nothing. Nothing at all. No regret, no sadness, no feeling of loss over Jane and Dan, Harvey and Kendall. No anger, either. Nothing. I was reminded of a song of that name, from the show
A Chorus Line
. Except I didn’t cry over feeling nothing. But it kept running through my mind. The song, that is.