Donald Harstad: A Long December

I truly didn’t think that was the case, but I did feel that it was something that needed to be done, just in case.

“Right.” He didn’t sound very happy about it, but I noticed that he turned north out of the drive and accelerated in the direction the media van had been heading.

As Hector and I approached my car, I noticed there were lights on in the Heinman boys house.

“That’s my car, there,” I said, unnecessarily. “I’ll be there in a minute; I’ve gotta see these folks for a second.”

I trudged up their porch stairs and knocked. I thought it would be nice to thank them for their help and to give them just a little information about what had happened. Sort of an inside account, to be taken to the coffee shop in the morning.

I could see lights in the kitchen and in the living room, and saw that the TV was on. I knocked again. No response. They were probably asleep in front of the TV. I turned and walked down the steps, and across the yard to my car. The amber sodium-vapor yard light gave the falling snow a gold tint. I thought we just might have our white Christmas after all.

“I guess they’re asleep, Hector,” I said. “We can go.”

I fumbled around for a second for my car keys, and unlocked my car door. I didn’t hear a sound as the lock worked, but just assumed it was still my temporary hearing loss. I reached across the car as I got in and unlocked the passenger door for Hector. Being a cop car, the switch that automatically turns on the interior lights when the door opens had been disconnected, so I was sitting in the dark as I tried to insert my key into the ignition. My hand encountered a sharp edge, and a bunch of what felt like exposed wiring. I looked down, and saw that the plastic cover of the steering column was beat to hell, and some of the wiring was hanging down.

Somebody had tried to bypass the steering wheel lock. Somebody had gotten into my car. Somebody had tired to steal it.

“Get out of the car!” I said to Hector.

I got out of that thing as fast as I’ve ever moved and ran for the shadow cast by the barn. “Over here, this way!”

Hector slipped once, and then was right with me.

I stopped there, drew my gun, and looked back toward the house, catching my breath. I took in the quiet scene. There was no movement, no sound, nothing. Our foot tracks in the quarter inch of snow were the only ones in the yard.

It had been snowing for a good half hour, I thought, as I slowly scanned the area around the house. It might take ten or fifteen minutes for enough to accumulate to show decent tracks. That meant that there hadn’t been anybody but me around the two cars since the snow had covered the ground. At least. I pulled out my walkie-talkie, and tried to call the sheriff’s department. No luck. Way too far down in the hollow, and I already knew my cell phone wouldn’t do the job from here.

I changed channels. “One, Three?” I spoke in a low voice and hoped I was clear at the other end.

It took him a second, but then Lamar answered. “Three?”

“One, I’m here in the Heinman’s yard, and it looks like somebody tried to steal my car. Could be our suspects. You want to send somebody up this way? “I tried very hard not to whisper, because whispers are very difficult to copy over a radio. But I was talking so low with my damaged hearing that I found it difficult to hear myself.

“Ten-four, Three. Are they there now?”

“Unable to advise, One. I’m gonna try to wake up the Heinman boys and see if they saw anything. I’ll be at the house.”

“Ten-four. We’ll get somebody right up.”

“Be advised I have a Hispanic subject with me, in a”-I looked at Hector- “a blue jacket and a blue baseball cap. Repeat, he’s a Hispanic male, and he’s with me.”

“Ten-four.”

“Thank you,” said Hector.

“Stay here. Don’t move, and put your hands up every time you see a cop,” I said.

“You got that right, man.”

I put my gun away and walked back up to the Heinmans’ porch. This time, I knocked harder. Nothing. I sighed, opened the outer door, and walked onto the porch proper. I knocked at the kitchen door hard enough to rattle the glass pane. I tried to see into the living room area to my right, but the refrigerator stuck out too far from the wall for me to see through the interior door. There was a wall rack between the fridge and me, and there were two coats on it. They were definitely home. After a second, I thought I heard somebody moving around, but couldn’t tell for sure.

“Jacob! Jacob, it’s me, Deputy Houseman.” I knocked again. Silence. “Hey, Jacob! Wake up!”

I tried the door. Unlocked, of course. I turned the knob and pushed, and I was in the kitchen. “It’s Deputy Houseman! I gotta talk to you for a second!”

This time, there was a “yes, coming” from the direction of the living room. It didn’t sound like either Jacob or Norris, but they’d been asleep… no. No. That was a rationalization. My gun came out again, and I held it down at my side.

“That you, Phil?” I asked.

“Yes,” came the reply. It sounded closer.

Phil, my ass. Nobody named Phil lived in this house. My gun came up, and I pressed my back against the wall, with the refrigerator now between the doorway and me.

“Where are you,” said the voice, sounding like it was just about in the kitchen.

If I’d been really, really lucky, the refrigerator door would have been hinged on the left, and I could have just reached out and thrown it open to startle whoever it was. I found myself, however, staring at the right-hand hinge just below my chin. Shit. I heard the floor creak, and thought somebody had crossed the threshold to the kitchen. I was absolutely convinced that if I stuck my head around to see, it would be the last thing I ever did.

I lowered my shoulder and pushed that refrigerator harder than I’d ever pushed anything in my life. It shot across the doorway so much faster than I thought it would, I lost my footing and went down on one knee. The big white box tipped away from me, and I heard a startled yell from the doorway, just as the refrigerator crashed over onto the floor. It shook the whole room.

I brought my gun up and pointed it in the face of a man on his knees who was trying to pull his AK-47 out from between the fallen refrigerator and the doorframe. We were eye to eye.

“Don’t!”

He didn’t.

“Put your hands over your head. Now!”

As he started to comply, a second man suddenly appeared in the doorway, pointing the business end of an old shotgun at me.

“Drop the gun.”

“Well, shit,” I said. I don’t know about me, sometimes. But that’s just exactly what I said. I did not, however, drop my gun.

“Drop the gun!”

“Can’t do that.” I didn’t look at him, concentrating on the forehead of his partner. “You just better give up right now.”

“Arrogant American Zionist pig!”

The one I’d got with the refrigerator kept glancing up at the one with the shotgun. It struck me that the man on his knees was the subordinate, and the man with the shotgun was the leader.

“You must be Mustafa Abdullah Odeh,” I said. Odeh, or whoever the guy with the shotgun actually was, sucked in his breath, and I figured I had the right guy. “Just give up now. You’re done.” I was still concentrating on the forehead of the kneeling man, and saw his eyes widen. He wasn’t making the decisions. The “up” man must be Odeh, all right. Good.

“I must kill you.” Odeh said it very coldly.

“Why on earth do you think that?” I asked, stalling. Make ‘em talk. Always get ‘em to talk.

“You have seen me.”

I was very much aware that it was going to take a second or two for the kneeling man to retrieve his AK-47 from where it was wedged beneath the refrigerator. Therefore, he really wasn’t the immediate threat. Odeh, on the other hand, had just announced his intentions. I merely flicked my gun about six inches to my right, and pulled the trigger as I fell to my left.