Donald Harstad: Code 61

I traveled along the Mississippi again, past a stretch of maybe thirty small cabins on the right, or river side, of the road. They were across the railroad tracks that ran the length of the county in the valley of the Mississippi. I drove past a large, abandoned silica sand mine carved into the bluffs on the Iowa side, on my left. Then past a small sign near the railroad tracks that proclaimed “Givens' Switch.” There was nothing there but the sign, which had recently been placed by the county historical society. Commemorating one of those myriad little places that had just disappeared over the years.

I thought some more about Borman. He was taking a class in “Humanizing the Police,” or some such thing, taught by a sociologist via a college extension plan. He was picking up on all these “empathy” techniques, and I strongly suspected that this had somehow influenced him this morning. Or maybe I just was reluctant to acknowledge that he was a younger generation of cop. I chuckled to myself. Maybe, indeed. Fifty-five really isn't that old. Well, not if you're ninety.

About a quarter of a mile later, I turned back west, or inland, onto a gravel road called Willow, slowed to fifty or so, and called in for better directions.

“Comm, Three. Just turned onto the gravel. How 'bout those directions now?”

This sometimes got very interesting, because under code sixty-one rules, it forced a radio transmission that had to be very circumspect. Try that with directions, sometime.

“Ten-four, Three. Take your next right turn to the north. Take the second drive after the curve that sends you back east, toward the river.”

I paused, setting the directions in my mind. It was the great big house on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi. It was usually known as “the Mansion,” although some of the local kids called it the Dropout Dorm, because of the people who lived there.

“Comm, M Mary?” I hoped she got it, because I didn't want anybody to know precisely where I was headed. I didn't know if the dispatcher, the ambulance crew, or Borman had specifically referred to the Mansion, but I wasn't going to. If somebody with a scanner had missed the initial traffic, I wasn't going to help them out now.

It took her a few seconds. “Oh, sure. Ten-four, that's the one. Confirm with last three: three five four.”

The 911 address would be 24354, useless to anyone who didn't have the name of the particular road. She asked for the last three digits to make sure I didn't have the wrong place. Nobody listening would know the first two digits unless they knew where I was all along.

I'd always been fascinated by that house. It was huge, of a kind called Victorian or Queen Anne, or something. It was perched at the end of a long lane on top of the bluff, with what had to be one of the finest views of the Mississippi River that was available from privately owned land. I'd never really been in the place before, although I'd been in the yard once. It was far and away the biggest house in Nation County.

“Ten-four, Comm, I know the location. ETA about five.”

If it hadn't been for the 911 address sign 24354, a partially hidden mailbox, and a big, blue plastic refuse bin that was just visible from the road, you wouldn't even have known there was a lane there at all. Located smack in the middle of the Beiderbaum Timber, a wooded area that ran along the west, or Iowa, bank of the Mississippi for about ten miles, the house sat out toward the east end of a long, wide finger of land that pointed right at the Mississippi River. Bordered by two streams, or creeks as they're called locally, the ridge itself was about half a mile wide, with the east end about two miles from the road that ran along its west side. I'd guess that the top of the ridge was about 250 feet above the roadway, covered with trees and low bushes and foliage on the long sides, and ending in a vertical limestone bluff overlooking the river. The gravel drive that extended uphill was nearly a mile and a half long, winding from the valley floor through a heavily wooded area that had littered the road surface with fallen leaves. I crested the rise, onto the top of the finger-shaped ridge, and traveled the last quarter mile on nearly level ground. The trees were just as thick up here, a mixture of brilliant yellow maples and tall, dark green pines. As I drove on to the house, I caught a glimpse of its reddish turreted roof through the trees. I passed through a weathered iron gate set in limestone blocks. They were part of a limestone wall that demarked the area between the woods and the cleared, almost manicured area that displayed the house. My car bumped slightly as I left the gravel and drove onto the wide new blacktop of the circular drive.

The large house was three stories, with two turrets and a vast wraparound porch, all in a dark blue-gray wood frame with maroon trim. Actually, “enormous” was a better word for the house, I thought. It got bigger as I got closer. It stood on a little rise, about ten feet above the level of the drive, and with a wide flight of limestone steps that led up through the little berm to a double door with tall, oval, etched and stained-glass panels. The doors themselves were flanked by very tall, oval windows. Etched and stained glass there, too. It had been built in the 1890s to mark the great wealth of the Givens family, who had amassed a tremendous fortune in grain.

Both the ambulance and car Eight, Borman's fully marked squad, were parked near the front door. No flashing lights or anything. No reason for them. Both vehicles were running, though. There were two other vehicles in the yard, a '90 Buick four-door, and an '87 Ford pickup. Both looked to be well maintained, but showing signs of their age.

“Comm, Three, I'm ten-twenty-three. Be out of the car.” I didn't have to say where, as she already knew that. And it concealed my whereabouts from the folks with the scanners. Always a good idea. I swung my legs out of my car.

Comm acknowledged, and then Eight came up on his walkie-talkie. “Three,” he said, sounding sort of brittle, “I'm up on the second floor. First room on the left. Come in there and one of the EMTs will show you just where we are.”

I headed for the house, and as I came around the side of the ambulance, saw a young male subject, about twenty years old, sitting on the bottom step. He had ear-length black hair, parted in the middle. A silver stud through the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes, sort of stood out. Dark blue sweatshirt, black jeans, black shoes.

“Hi.” Not the best opener, under the circumstances, but you have to start somewhere. “I'm Deputy Houseman.”

He just looked at me. He had a lit cigarette in his right hand.

“And you'd be?” I knew I'd seen him before, mainly because of the stud in his nose, but I didn't remember arresting him or anything. The instant database in my head had him filed under “decent kid.”

“Oh.” Like I'd startled him. Hard to see how. “I'm Toby. Toby Gottschalk. I live here.”

Oh, sure. Toby. “What's happened, Toby?”

“Ah, it… oh, you know, Edie's done herself.” He looked sort of unaffected by the whole thing. Sometimes, that can be one of the effects of an emotional shock in some people. He took a drag from his cigarette.

“Did you see her do it?” The name Edie rang a bell, but, again, no placement.

“No.”

“Did you find her?”

“No. No, I just heard Hanna holler, and then she came running down the hall to use the phone. That's how I found out.”

You hate to belabor a point, but it can be important. “Hanna found her, then?”

“Well, yeah.” A little exasperated. And why not?

“Thanks, Toby. I'll probably have to talk with you a little more, when I'm done in the house.”

“I know.”