Donald Harstad: Code 61

I walked in, and got buzzed through the bulletproof area and into the main part of the office. Byng was standing in the hall, and motioned me back to Investigator Harry Ullman's office.

“Hey, Houseman,” said Harry, getting up from his desk and extending his hand. “Long time no see!”

“You got that right, Harry. What's up?”

He shook his head. “Another fuckin' floater in the river last night. That's seven this year. Called me out in the middle of the damn night.”

“You wear your life jacket this time?” I asked because Harry had fallen in once, on a recovery a few years back, and nearly drowned himself. He couldn't swim.

“Always, Carl. You know me.” He picked up an incident report sheet from his desk and handed it to me. “Ring any bells?”

I scanned the sheet, and the driver's license stapled to it. The deceased was a white male, twenty-four years of age, named Randy Baumhagen. His driver's license indicated he was from Freiberg, Iowa, but I didn't know him. His color photo showed a fairly good-looking young man in a frilled white shirt with black trim. The standard uniform worn by employees of the General Beauregard, the gaming boat moored in Freiberg.

“Works on the boat,” I said.

“Worked. You know him?”

“Nope, just can tell from the shirt.” I grinned at Harry. A small “gotcha,” but it was all part of the game.

“You must be a detective,” said Harry.

“I work at it,” I said lightly. “Any reason I really should know him?”

Harry glanced at Byng. “He thinks so.”

I looked over at the Freiberg officer, and raised an eyebrow.

“Remember the car that I told you got scratched? The boyfriend of Alicia from last night?”

“You're kidding,” I said, without much conviction.

“Nope. Same kid.” Byng looked almost sad.

“Well, hell,” I said. “That's a shame.”

“It gets worse,” said Harry, in his garrulous way. “You're gonna love it.”

“Oh?” I don't know where Harry got the impression I was as ghoulish as he was. “I don't know, Harry. I'm a sensitive kind of guy.”

He motioned to his computer monitor, on a side stand near the window. “Take a look at these.”

I walked over, and watched as he pulled up a series of electronic photos that showed young Baumhagen. The first two were of him floating; facedown, in a pretty shallow area, judging from the vegetation. “Pretty close to shore?”

“Just above Frenchman's Landing,” said Harry. “Water there's about three-feet deep. Looks like he went right off a floating dock.”

“He drown?” I asked as Harry brought up a different set of images.

“Christ,” said Harry, “I hope not. Look here.”

On the screen was a close-up of the right side of Baumhagen's head. It was just about completely caved in, like he'd fallen from a height and gone into rocks headfirst. That kind of completely. Never happen from a floating dock. He couldn't have fallen more than five feet.

“That ought to have done it,” I said. “I didn't see any rocks in the other photos. Murder?”

“You bet,” said Harry. “See, I told you you'd love it. Wait, though, it gets better than this, even.”

I didn't see how that was going to be possible, but I've learned to trust what Harry says over the years.

The next series loaded. This time Baumhagen was lying on his back. His neck was a mess.

“Whoa,” I said. “You don't see that every day. Is that what got him?”

“Not sure,” said Harry, “but we don't think so. He's in Milwaukee right now, getting autopsied. Great bunch, some of the same people who worked the Dahmer case. Top of the fuckin' line, Carl. Lemme tell ya.”

“Name dropper.”

“No, really. Anyway, they tell me that they think the cause of death was the blow to the head, and that the neck was done post mortem.”

The hole in the neck was pretty large. “Somebody try to remove the head? Or are the turtles just hungrier this year?”

“The forensics people are just guessing, but they say that it was done with a sharp object, but not a blade. More rounded, like a sharpened pencil, you know? Only probably steel. One of the docs is a farm kid, and he said that it reminded him of the sort of wound you might get from something like a fencing pliers.” Harry looked up from the screen. “You know?”

I knew. A fencing pliers was kind of a big gripper or snipper, really, with a long, rounded point on one side of the head, so you could slip it under one of the big staples used to hold wire onto a wooden fence post. Heave on the handle, and you pulled the staple out.

Harry went on. “No damage at all to the cervical vertebrae. Most of the major muscle groups are intact. Just a big fuckin' hole, Carl.”

“This is a little way from usual, isn't it?”

“You got that right, Carl.”

“Why do the throat bit?”

“I told him about last night,” Byng interjected.

“About the teeth.”

“Whatcha think, Carl?” asked Harry. “Could a guy do this with his fuckin' teeth?”

“No way,” I said emphatically. “Never happen. Human can't bite that hard, and fake teeth would be pulled right out of his mouth. Real teeth couldn't do that.” I looked at both of them, in the sudden silence. “Well, that's just an opinion,” I said.

“I agree,” said Harry. “So do the boys in the ME's office in Milwaukee.” He reached up and patted me on the shoulder. “Not bad for an Iowa boy.”

It was quiet for another few seconds. “You know, though,” I said, “if you wanted to make somebody think you'd done it with teeth… ”

Harry chuckled. “And that you'd crushed his fuckin' skull because you got a little eager?”

“Well, no. Although I sure as hell didn't see any rocks in any of the photos that could have dented his head like that. But… ”

“I know what ya mean, Carl,” he said. “From what Byng says, it might tie in.” He snorted. “Vampire. Suspect that weird has to be from your side of the river.”

“I'll tell you what,” I said. “I'll bet the odds are at least fifty-fifty that if we find whatever caused the scratch on that boy's car, we'll find the weapon that did his throat.”

“That makes sense,” said Harry. He straightened up.

“So, Carl, did I lie or what? I said it was gonna be a good one.”

“You didn't lie, Harry,” I said.

“Great.” He seemed quite pleased with himself. “Whatcha say? Let's go get some lunch.”

On our way out the door, I asked another question. “Who found him?”

“Couple of old farts on their way to ffsh.” Harry clicked open the remote locks on his car. “Why?”

“Just wondered what they'd be saying.”

“They were worried about the deceased scaring off the ffsh.”

“Figures,” said Byng.

“I told 'em not to worry,” said Harry. “It's Friday. Fish can't eat meat on Friday, either.”

The try at humor helped. We had a young man, brutally murdered and thrown into a river, without a real chance to live his life. All we could do to help was to try to get whoever killed him. Not much consolation for his friends and family, and not for us, either.

Harry's one of the best cops around. I knew that when I told him, “You know what? You're such a good cop, I'm glad this is your case. Hell, Harry, I'm glad this is a Wisconsin case.”

“Right,” he growled, as we got into his car. “And if you poor bastards from Iowa had any talent, you'd have a suspect from your peeping tooth fairy from last night. And if you had a suspect, you could tell me. And if you could tell me who your suspect was, I might have a fucking suspect myself!” He flashed a wolfish grin. “Pedro's sound all right? They have cheese burritos as the Friday Special.”