The Big Thaw (19 page)

He joined me in watching our prisoner. Time to get some information.

“Who are you?”

Silence.

“You got a name?”

Nothing.

“Well, let me put it this way,” I said. “Any ID you got is going to be mine as soon as we get that suit off you.” In the ensuing silence, I recited his Miranda rights. No reaction. Nothing. “Right.” The radio was blaring in the background. “I’ll get the radio,” I said. I trudged up to the front, and reached in for the mike.

“This is Three, go ahead.”

“Three, One is ten-seventy-six. So is Seven. 388 is coming from Wheaton, ETA ten.”

“Ten-four, Comm.”

“Ten-fifty-one is also ten-seventy-six.” That meant that a wrecker was also coming. Well, we needed one, no doubt about that. Unfortunately, that also meant a civilian at the scene, as well.

“Which fifty-one, Comm?”

“Eddie’s Body Shop.”

If it had to be anybody, I was glad it was Eddie. He was pretty good at keeping his mouth shut.

What we needed was a cover story. Something that most people could be told, something that would explain a chase of a snowmobile, and a subject in custody. We were going to need it in a hurry, too. I could see the faint flashing red lights way back down the valley. Probably Seven. Deputy Gary Oberbrech. Fairly new, and a good officer. He’d need to know some details, but I didn’t think I wanted the whole world to know that I had my real suspect. Not just yet.

Two deer broke cover, about ten yards from me, and just about finished me off right then and there. “Holy shit,” I said to myself, when I got my breath back. “That woulda been cute, Carl. Scared to death by a couple of nervous deer…”Ah, but yes. That was going to be it. Our cover story. “John!”

“Yeah…”

I walked back up on the road. “Listen up. Except for Lamar, everybody is told this is a poacher. Got that? We caught a poacher. Use ‘poacher’ every chance you get. Poacher.”

“‘Poacher’? Okay, yeah, poacher … sure.”

“Stick to that even if they torture you.” I grinned. “Coffee, doughnuts, chocolate bars … the works. Don’t give in. Except Lamar,” I added. “Never lie to Lamar.”

“Got it.” He grinned back. “You know how close we came? I almost ran over the fucker, I swear. Another hundred yards of straight road…”

“Yeah. Close.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll bet you scared the crap out of him when you touched off that round, too.” Bravado has its uses. Oh, yeah.

According to my watch, it was 2310 when we got our suspect to the jail, and field-stripped him down to his dark blue union suit. Three of us, Gary, John, and me. No chances. You gotta take the cuffs off to get ’em undressed. We did find a knife, a Gerber, underneath his bulletproof Kevlar vest, which was also dark blue. He hadn’t said a word to that point.

“Pretty well equipped for a poacher,” said Gary, dryly.

“Got a wallet here,” said John, who was going through the snowmobile suit. He handed it to me. Junior officers will do that, I suspect because they think us older folk would like the privilege of opening the prize, or something. This time, I was glad that he had.

I opened the wallet, and found myself staring at a complete FBI identification set. Photo, document, everything.

I just looked at him for a long moment. He just looked back. Well.

I cleared my throat. “It says here you’re Norman John Brandenburg,” I said. “That right?”

“That’s right.”

“And that you’re a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…”

Both Gary and John stopped their inventory of his gear.

“That’s right.”

“How do you want us to go about proving that?” I asked. I’d seen FBI identification many times, and this was about as authentic as you can get. Including subtleties like slight wear and scuffing.

“Just make a phone call,” he said. “The office will confirm.”

I thought for a second. “Field office?”

“Yes, but not a local one. I’ll provide the number.”

I’d asked, because I’d never known a local field office to be open for phone calls after 1700. Not that I was going to be satisfied with a phone call, anyway.

“How about I call an FBI agent I know, and we have him do it?” It wasn’t really a question.

Special Agent Norman John Brandenburg didn’t seem happy with that. “You shouldn’t do that.”

My first thought had been that it was a phony ID, and that we were getting a phony number. Now I was just about certain I was right.

“I think we’ll do it my way,” I said. “John, why don’t you put the cuffs back on him, and sit him over by the booking desk. This won’t take too long…”

I went out to dispatch, where Sally was monitoring the taping of our activities with our suspect. She’d arrived about 2245 for the start of the eleven-to-seven shift, and had made sure that the recording system was working well. Audio and visual.

“Well, holy shit,” she said, in a conversational tone. “You think he really is?”

“Dunno,” I said. “Got George’s home number?”

She found it in a second, wrote it on a slip of paper, and handed it to me, all the time monitoring the activities in the booking room.

“Can they execute you for arresting a Fed?”

“No,” I said. “But I’m not sure about embarrassing one…”

I dialed George from the “officer’s” phone, at the end of the dispatch console, near the coffeepot and supplies. The pot was empty. We’d have to do something about that.

“Hello…” came the familiar voice of Special Agent George Pollard, known to us as George of the Bureau.

“George?”

“Yes … Houseman?” He sounded very surprised. He should have. I think this might have been the second time in five years that we’d called him at home.

“Yep. Got a second for a strange one?”

“Oh, no. Now what?” He knew the Nation County Sheriff’s Department pretty well.

“Well, it appears that we may have arrested a federal agent…”

“What?!”

I chuckled. “Well, somebody who’s claiming to be one, anyway.”

“My God. For what?”

“That,” I said, “is pretty much going to depend on whether or not he’s a real FBI agent.”

There was a small groan on the other end. “An FBI agent…” George cleared his throat. “I was assuming it was some other agency…”

“Nope. Fucking Big Indian, as they used to say.”

“What are the charges?”

“Well, if he isn’t one, then we start with impersonation, and go down the list to concealed weapons, eluding pursuit, and reckless driving. If he is, we just got reckless and eluding pursuit.”

“My God,” whispered George. “Do you have his car?”

“No,” I said, unable to suppress a grin, “but I got his snowmobile.”

Who is it?” asked George, with an air of fatality. “I probably know him…”

“A Norman John Brandenburg,” I said. “According to his ID.”

“You have his ID?”

“Sure do,” I said. “Retrieved it when we stripped him. You recognize the name?”

There was a profound silence. Then, “No. No, I don’t. Look, let me get right back to you, all right?”

“Yep. But make sure it’s you. Tell whoever you talk to that we deal with you only, because we’re having a tough time trusting this dude.”

I caught a waving motion out of the corner of my eye. Sally, waving me over to the bank of camera monitors.

“I will,” said George.

I hung up the phone, and went over to the monitors. “What?”

“Look at this,” she said, her voice up an octave. Very unusual for Sally. She pointed to screen three, which showed the rear of the office and jail; and then to screen eight, which showed the corner of the jail and the edge of the parking lot.

I looked, and didn’t see anything. “What?”

“Right here!” she said, tapping the screen. “There, see, he moved!”

By God. There appeared to be a figure moving around the back of the building, in the shadows thrown by the yard lights. It paused, then moved into contact with the building.

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s looking in the window,” I said. “Call Twenty-five to the office, fast but quiet. Gary and I will try to get this dude.”

I went flying back into the booking room. “Gary! Intruder out back, we can get to him through the kitchen door, come on!”

John started to move, and realized that somebody had to stay with the prisoner. He looked so frustrated it was almost funny.

Gary and I thundered back to the kitchen, through it, and onto the little service porch where we kept the washer and dryer. I picked up my walkie-talkie mike.

“Okay, where’s he at now?”

“He just moved,” said Sally, in a near whisper, “and he’s just around the corner from the kitchen door. He might be trying to look in that back window by the old pantry…”

Our jail is over 100 years old, and has too damned many nooks and crannies.

Gary and I carefully opened the outside door, and slipped through. So quiet. The air was unbelievably cold, and I almost instantly started to shiver. I think it was the cold.

I just pointed to the wall to our left, and eased my way toward it. Our target ought to be just on the other side. Putting slowly increasing pressure on the thumb break of my holster, I silently unsnapped the restraining strap, and slipped my handgun free of the holster. I tried to get right against the wall, but drifted snow kept me about three feet away from the massive limestone blocks. We were at the edge of the shadow from the backyard light, but the bright moonlight illuminated us wherever we were in that little yard. We’d have to move very fast, around the corner, and try to get him before he heard us coming. It was going to be difficult.

Suddenly, there was a squeaking from the parking lot, as Twenty-five, the Maitland officer, drove up, responding to Sally’s call. The parking lot was also on our left, placing the suspect between us and the Maitland officer. Now, I thought, if we can get around that corner fast enough, we can chase him right toward Twenty-five’s car…

There was a brief flurry of footsteps, and the suspect came flying around the corner, fleeing from the line of sight of the Maitland officer.

“Freeze!” From both Gary and myself, same instant.

The suspect turned toward the sound, looked down the barrels of two handguns, tried to stop, skidded, slipped, waved his arms, and hit the ground on his back with a loud
thump
.

I love Iowa winters.

“Don’t fuckin’ move!” thundered Gary, as we approached the supine figure.

“Comm, Three, I think we got him,” I said, into my mike.

“Way to go!” came from Sally. “It’s on tape!”

“You okay?” I heard Gary asking. I looked down, and saw that the suspect was gasping like a landed fish.

“Fall knocked the wind out of him,” I said. “He’ll be fine.”

Just then, Ira Tully, part-time Maitland PD officer, came huffing and puffing around the corner. “We get him?”

“Got him, Ira. Thanks for comin’ up.”

“No…” puff “… problem…” puff “… Carl.”

Ira had just turned sixty, and worked one night a month. As reliable as the seasons, and a plumber in real life.

“Well,” I said, “let’s get on with it.”

Between the three of us, we lifted the gasping suspect to his feet, and slowly and carefully frisked him.

“Don’t puke on me, buddy,” said Gary, consolingly.

Beneath his dark blue parka, we found another .40 cal. Glock. No knife. No bulletproof vest. I felt the Glock was plenty.

When we got him inside, we sat him down at the kitchen table. I didn’t want him to be in contact with the other prisoner, who I assumed was an associate of his. He stopped gasping, and was merely breathing hard. He had a desperate air about him, not threatening, but sort of actively unhappy.

“So,” I said, in a friendly tone, “who are you?”

No reply.

“Name?”

Silence, except for the heavy breathing.

I was getting a little tired of this approach. “Strip him,” I said to Gary. “I’m getting sick of this shit tonight.”

“James Hernandez,” he said. He shook his head, and shrugged in a resigned way. “Special Agent James Hernandez, Federal Bureau of Investigation. My ID is in my back pocket.”

“No shit? The real FBI?” said Gary.

I glanced at Gary. He’d missed the wallet. He shrugged.

We let Hernandez very slowly reach back, and produce his ID wallet. He opened it, and showed it to me. I reached out and took it, although he resisted for an instant. It looked real enough, just like the last one I’d seen a few minutes ago. I laid it on the table, while I wrote down the information. “It won’t leave your sight,” I said.

Sally stuck her head in the room. “Carl, George for you…” She had a huge grin.

“Right.” I followed her back to dispatch.

“This is just so cool,” she said, bubbling over. “I got the whole thing on tape, him falling, you guys pointing your guns at him, the whole thing…”

Dispatchers hardly ever get to see what happens as a result of their efforts. This was quite a treat. Not only for her.

“I’d like to see that sometime.” Cops don’t get to watch, very often, either. “We’ll have to bootleg a couple of copies…”

I picked up the phone. “George?”

“Carl, I’m afraid that Norman John Brandenburg is a real agent.” He sounded very worried.

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. I hate to complicate your life like this, but he really is one of us.”

“George,” I said, “you ain’t heard the half of it. We just bagged a fellow named…” I looked at my note. “James Marteen Hernandez. Out trespassing behind the jail.”

“Oh, no…”

“Yep. You guessed it. His ID says he’s one of your special agents, too.

“Oh, no,” he said, again. “You’re right, that’s who he is. He’s assigned along with Brandenburg … I was supposed to contact him as soon as I could find him…”

“I know where you can reach him,” I said, smiling.

“Look, Carl, I’ll get back to you, but expect me there within an hour or so. I’ll be coming up on this one. But keep it as quiet as you can.”

“I’ll try,” I said, “but you really ought to talk with your agents about that.”

“Yes. I’m sure somebody will do just that.”