Donald Harstad - A Long December

“We can use the time,” said Hester, “to chat about the cases. Sit in the dark and tell scary stories about supervisors, paperwork, and court. How about we all meet back here in half an hour. If I’m going to this slumber party, I want to get my warmest stuff.”

That was an excellent idea.

We left singly, spaced a few minutes apart, so we wouldn’t tip off the media.

I hit the house like a herd of buffalo. I kissed Sue as I passed her on the way up the stairs.

“What’s going on? I thought the case was over.”

“It is,” I said from the top of the stairs “This is a wrap-up stakeout. We gotta be out all night, but all the action is way far away.”

I heard Sue coming up the steps as I fished out my thermal underwear and thermal socks.

“You must be going to be outside,” she said.

“Well, part of the time. And if somebody tries to get away, it’ll be a good idea to be wearing warm clothes.” I sat down on the bed to put my socks on over the thermal long johns.

“I thought nothing was supposed to happen,” she said, pulling my Gore-Tex boots out of the closet.

“You always gotta be ready,” I said as she handed me the boots. “Thanks.”

“Sure. You need anything else?”

“Well, if I can remember where I put that big thermos, I’d like to fill it with hot soup. Just a couple of cans of minestrone will do. Could you put,” I said, lacing the boots, “maybe a couple of cans in the mike? Make sure they boil, and I’ll look for the thermos when I get downstairs…”

As she left, I slipped my thermal knit undershirt on over my head, then a short-sleeved sweatshirt, and my green woolly-pully sweater. Perfect. I clipped my gun and holster to my right hip and put two extra magazines in my back pocket. Handcuffs in the other back pocket. Badge case and ID in the left front. Always on that side, since if you stuck your gun in somebody’s face, you really didn’t want to have to put the thing down to get your badge out of the right-hand pocket. My Canadian Army parka was in the trunk of my car, equipped with Gore-Tex gloves, a woolen muffler, and a stocking cap. My rifle, an AR-15, was there, too, along with three extra magazines. Now for the important stuff…I headed downstairs to the kitchen.

I thought I remembered where I put the big thermos. I bent down to open the lower cupboard door.

“What are you looking for?” said Sue, over the hum of the microwave.

“The thermos…”

“I’ve got it right here,” she said. She was washing it out at the sink.

“Oh. Okay. Good. We got any crackers?”

We did. A whole box. A new pack of string cheese, a small bag of pretzels, and six half-liter bottles of water, and I was ready to go.

I gave Sue a kiss. “See you tomorrow.”

“Okay.” She took a step back and looked me up and down. “Carl goes to camp,” she said.

“Well, yeah. Sort of.”

She handed me the thermos of soup. “Stay warm,” she said, and kissed me again.

I opened the overhead garage door, to have enough room to stash my stuff in the trunk, and almost stepped on KNUG’s very own Judy Mercer.

“Going somewhere?”

“Well, yes, actually.” Damn. We’d promised to tell her when things started to go, and here she was.

“Mind if we,” she said, indicating her cameraman, who was stepping around the back of their four-wheel-drive with his camera at his shoulder, “tag along?”

“Actually, yes,” I said. “Kill the camera.”

He did.

“Just like you were afraid of,” I said, leaning in my trunk and packing my food carefully around the spare tire. “The focus has moved elsewhere. We’re a backwater again. We’re gonna be staking out a place where, if anybody gets through the FBI, then they might show up.”

“Shit.”

“Tell me,” I said. “Anyway, the best I can do for you is going to depend on whether you can get away without the rest of the media seeing you.”

“No problem,” she said. “Shoot.”

“Okay. Here’s the deal…” and I told her to go to Battenberg and sit someplace where she could watch the north end of the town. I told her that she’d probably hear any commotion starting up on the scanner and be able to get into position to do her story long before the other media were alerted.

“Just where do I go? When it starts to hit the fan?”

“If,” I said. “If. Not when. But I don’t know, so I can’t tell you. You’ll get aware in a hurry, though, on the off-chance it does heat up. Lots of cop traffic will either come in from the north, or go out from the south. And we ought to light up your scanner.” I thought that was vague enough.

“You gotta do better than that!”

“You already got an exclusive on the dude in Coralville,” I reminded her. “Talk to that lady in the apartment as soon as you can.”

Her eyes lit up. “Really!?”

“Yep. You ought to have your groundwork pretty well done before any other reporter even gets started on that end of it. It was a good break.”

I shut the trunk. “Now, listen really close to this…if I catch you following me, you’ll have four flat tires, a free trip to the Linn County Jail, and a federal felony in your pocket. No question about it.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No. For real. I’m absolutely serious.”

“You can’t arrest us for a federal offense,” said her cameraman. “I know that much.”

“Too true,” I said. “But the federal agent with me sure as hell can, and will.”

Just to make sure, I took a back road out of Maitland, turned on a Class B, minimum-maintenance road, and came back to town from the opposite direction. I pulled up in the driveway of Sally’s place and beeped the horn.

She came out looking like two winter boots underneath a laundry pile. She was carrying a large red cooler stacked high with blankets, a parka, a large box of crackers and a Girl Scout backpack.

I opened my door and got out. “Need a hand? “I called to her across the roof of my car.

“No, I got it!”

“You sure? “It didn’t look like it to me.

“This is the twenty-first century, Houseman,” she said.

Consequently, I was still on the driver’s side when she walked right into the side of the car, and I heard a faint, “Jesus Christ, Houseman, give me a hand!”

I did. Her stuff took up the whole backseat.

“Got enough? “I asked, wondering if the back door would shut.

“It could get really cold. I’ve got hot coffee, and water, and sandwiches, and pop, and string cheese, and pretzels, and trail mix, and tea…”

“There aren’t any rest rooms out there,” I said.

“You and George will be in the shed anyway,” she said primly, while sliding into the front seat and closing the door.

There was to be no radio traffic unless absolutely necessary, in order to prevent the media scanners from picking us up and giving a hint that there was something afoot. Sally and I met George and Hester at the motel. They were already seated in Hester’s car as I drove into the parking lot. George gave a thumbs up, and I just kept on driving right back out and headed south. They followed us.

“Where we gonna park these cars?” said Sally, still trying to get her seatbelt fastened. It was completely out of sight under the left edge of her heavy winter coat.

“I thought we’d park in the yard at the Heinman boys’ place,” I said, reaching down and lifting the edge of her coat so she could find the buckle.

“Oh, cool. The crime scene in daylight.” She clicked the belt in place. “Thanks.”

“Yep.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “How far is that from the barn we’re going to be stuck in?”

“About three-quarters of a mile,” I said.