Donald Harstad: Code 61

“That fang business is weird, you know?”

“Just a pair of novelty teeth, I guess. He can put 'em in or take 'em out whenever he wants to. If we develop a suspect, shake him down right away. He'll be carrying his teeth in his pocket.”

We had walked along the conduit, and I'd been staying about three steps back from the edge.

“Have a problem with heights?” asked Byng conversationally.

“Sometimes,” I said.

He shined his light up the back walls of the buildings, to that door into emptiness I'd observed before.

“Bet you'd just hate to open that one,” he said.

I looked up, just to oblige. I stared at the peeling white paint of the door.

“What?”

“Byng, I'd swear to God that door was covered with black weatherproofing when I got here. I looked at it… ”

We checked. There was no material on the ground anywhere near the door. There was nothing in the nearly dry conduit. There was no wind.

“Guess you're mistaken, Carl.”

“Yeah.” But I didn't think so. “Think we can get into that building tonight?”

“I suppose. Why?”

“I'd like to see if that door opens.”

We drove around the block, parked, I grabbed my camera, and we just walked in the front door, went up two flights of steps, and were on the third floor. Security in a rural Iowa town isn't too tight. The third floor was gutted, totally unused, and covered with birdlime, rat droppings, and accumulated debris. Dusty? Oh, my. Perfect medium for the footprints we could see leading to and from that damned door. I took photos, with Byng holding my little tape measure as a scale. Then we went to the door. I had Byng do it, but it opened easily. There were two ringbolts, brand new, attached to the outer door frame. They'd been painted black, and bright silver shown through where something had rubbed the paint off.

“Rope?”

“I'd bet on it,” I said. I didn't know enough about climbing to be able to guess whether the rope would be a safety feature, or would actually be used to help our suspect traverse the flat wall between the victim's window and this door. Or both. “It must have been useful.”

“Yeah.”

“He must have just about reached this door when I came into the alleyway,” I said. “He just froze in the frame. And when I went up the back stairs, I wasn't more than twenty feet from him.”

“Me, too,” said Byng. “When we went up the ladder.”

“Good thing we came fast,” I said. “I wonder how close he was to her when she came out the back door. Ten feet or less?”

“Probably.”

I got a spooky feeling when I said, “And I'll bet you she didn't hear a noise down below. I'll bet what she heard was him, and she just naturally assumed it was down at ground level.”

Byng leaned way out the opened door. “Boy, Carl, there ain't much place to grab hold of on that wall. It'd be a mean climb, even with a rope, I think. Well, though, like she said, those crazy rock climbers can find handholds all over the place.” He shone his flashlight out the door, toward Alicia's apartment.

“Hey, Carl?”

“What?”

“I think there's rings in the window frame above Alicia's apartment, too.”

“Can I take your word for that?”

“Sure.” He chuckled. “He really musta shit his pants when we came up.”

“Yeah. Or laughed his ass off watching me go up that ladder.”

Examination of the floor revealed that the suspect had paced back and forth between the boarded windows at the front and rear of the building. The boards had been pried, and then replaced, so they could be moved aside fairly easily. He was looking at or for something. Maybe us, as we looked for him.

I shined my flashlight up into the rafters.

“Whatcha lookin' for, Carl?”

“Him.”

“Oh.”

We were on the way down the stairs when Byng thought of something else.

“This is gonna sound dumb, Carl, but Alicia's boyfriend had his car keyed by somebody last night. Parked on Main Street, pretty near her apartment door. Scratch on the sidewalk side, bumper to bumper, and deep. He's gonna have to have it repainted.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. You think maybe somebody's watchin' her? Doesn't like her boyfriend going up to her apartment… ”

Interesting. I couldn't resist. “Maybe he didn't key it. Maybe he fanged it instead?”

We both chuckled. “Any idea who it was?”

Byng shook his head. “He said to me, he said, 'I think I know who it was, but I don't want to say until I'm sure.' That's what he said. I asked him twice, but he wouldn't tell me. Said he'd get back to me.”

“Okay. Well, if you see him, you might suggest this dude with the teeth as a possible suspect. After Alicia tells him about tonight, he might be willing to talk.”

As we left, Byng summed it up. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “I hate these cases that go nowhere.”

I wish he'd been right.

Friday, October 6, 2000

12:25

It was a good day. Bright sunshine in a cloudless blue sky, with the yellow, orange, and red leaves of fall covering the landscape. I was in a very good mood, considering the fact that I was at work.

I was driving up to Freiberg to meet with Byng, and exercising my prerogative of taking the scenic route along the Mississippi. Byng had telephoned the office earlier and said that he'd been back on the roof and could find nothing. That meant that I wouldn't have to go back up that damned ladder. A very good mood.

I picked up my mike, and called Byng on our OPS channel. “Twenty-nine, Three.”

“Go ahead, Three.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I'm about five out. Want to ten-twenty-five somewhere?” I thought I'd leave where we'd meet up to him.

“Uh, yeah. Why don't you meet me over at the Conception County Sheriff's Department?”

Conception County Sheriff's Department was in Jollietville, Wisconsin, just across the river from Freiberg. A large bridge that crossed the Mississippi in two spans joined the towns, and the two states.

“Ten-four. Be there in a couple of minutes.” Well. A nice, if unexpected, change of plan. I hadn't seen Harry and the Conception County boys in a good month.

“Ten-four. Got somethin' over here I think you should see. Talk to ya when ya get here.”

For some reason, I didn't like the sound of that.

A second later, Sally's voice crackled on the INFO channel. “Comm, Three?”

I leaned forward, and pressed the second of eight frequency buttons. “Comm, go.”

“Three, remember the case you had about, oh, four years ago, when you got your car stuck and had to be towed out?”

Of course I did. It had been at a drowning, where a canoe had turned over, and we were trying to get to the victim in an area without a road.

“Ten-four, Comm, I do.”

“They had a similar case in Conception County last night. This might be in reference to that.”

“Ah, ten-four, Comm.” And I hung up the mike.

“KQQ 9787, 12:29.” She gave the call letters as a sign she was through transmitting and ready to receive; and the time was given then so that it appeared on the voice recording, just in case her console clock was different from the electronic clock on the recorder.

I was pretty sure that, if they'd had a drowning in Conception County last night, and Byng wanted me to see it, it was either one of our locals or somebody we had an interest in. You always wonder, and hope it isn't anybody you know personally, and maybe like.

I was pulling up in front of the Conception County Sheriff's Department about eight minutes later.

“Comm, Three's out of the car at Conception County.”

“Ten-four, Three. 12:37.”

I made a quick note of the time in my log. I had a feeling that it was going to be needed in a report.