Window to Heaven

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Read: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, VI, VII, VIII, IX

The Price of Doing Business

The tracks in the newly emerging oats from previous landings and the supporting truck traffic did considerable damage to the soft, tilled ground in Hardin’s long field by the river. These druggies weren’t used to this kind of farmer. About any of them, Sandy knew, would react hard; the law, proportionate response, be damned.

After he drove past the little screen of woods fronting where the public road curved in to the field, he found R. Model already there, out of her car, examining but correctly not touching the pair of flatbed trucks. The first thing he noted was that the windshields were intact but the hoods and the fenders and the back tires had taken a hell of a load of what appeared to be thirty caliber rounds. This was done in the dark, rapid fire, which meant that whoever had done this had allowed the men driving the truck to live. Hardin at least had some sense.

He pulled himself back. It was Hardin, but he had no proof, and the scene wouldn’t offer any. Abandoned shot-up trucks only required so much departmental time. Whereas, the presence of bodies, even the bodies of druggies, and the world would notice, and demand somebody pay. Nothing in this scene would absolutely prove a connection to the airplane.

He said to R. Model, “I told you to stay away from this place.”

“You called me to come.”

“Don’t give me that. You found this scene.”

“Where did you think a drug flight was going to try to land?”

R. Model’s attitude, demeanor, her petulance, edged well past insubordination. She was right and she knew it, and she knew as well that he recognized it. His basic sense of fair play wouldn’t allow him to punish her when she was right — which just served to make him madder. He didn’t want to admit that this was the first place he had intended to look. Neither did he want to argue that these shot-up trucks had no provable connection to the drug flight. Most likely, they’d never prove the connection, but it was there.

“Sheriff, we can match the bullets we’re bound to turn up in the engine block to the rifle of the person who did this. A little searching should find the place the shots came from, which will give us his fired cases.”

“Are you really going to try to teach me the capabilities of forensics?”

Ignoring him and on a roll, she plowed on. “Once we have the fired cases, we’ll have the evidence needed to get a search warrant on Hardin Rolf.”

She was right. A tame judge would tell them to go ahead and search what they wanted to search, but they needed to careful. Once this tame judge figured out they were abusing him to indulge wild speculations, he wouldn’t stay tame long.

“Unlikely. The airplane itself won’t hold a slug. Airplane skin is thin. Against the engine blocks the slugs will deform to the point that nothing will be left to make a match.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, “the fired cases will give us what we need.”

“And we’ll look, but even if we do find them, and if they do match something Hardin Rolf has, he’ll simply say it’s his land. He likes to shoot. So what if we find fired cases?”

“Don’t you think a jury could be led past that kind of bullshit?”

Some women only turned that much more beautiful when their complexion darkened in anger. Why did damn R. Model have to be one of those? Sandy didn’t need to notice what he noticed.

“It’s hard to tell, but on its own it isn’t enough. And I want to suppress that line of thinking hard. I don’t want to convict anybody by pretending to a jury that we believe in evidence we know is questionable and doesn’t lead to where we say it does.”

He also knew but wouldn’t say that the thirty caliber rifles they’d find in Hardin’s possession wouldn’t include the one he used here. To most juries that little detail wouldn’t help him much. They’d figure his department said the holes in the vehicles and the planes were thirty caliber. He would have a number of thirty caliber rifles. Close enough.

He could see it in her that she didn’t like this and that she wanted to say it was done all the time. Law enforcement agencies relied heavily on evidence that would look good to a jury but a more experienced player would know wasn’t. When you knew a person was guilty, the temptation to bolster a weak case with evidence a jury wasn’t capable of properly evaluating was almost overwhelming.

He broke the silence. “So if you’re thinking that Rolf is shooting at the flight loaded with drugs coming down on his land, how does that fit in with all of this?”

“I don’t know. Internecine warfare between drug dealers maybe?”

Jesus, internecine. When the hell did Sandy have a deputy who used that kind of language? “That’s reaching. If he were a cartel’s in-country liaison, he’d make money. Enough to go on sprees, buy fancy cars, maybe a house . . . but farms? An empire like this?”

“Then how do you explain his newfound wealth?”

“Why do you imagine I’m obligated to do such a thing?”

“You just don’t want to see it.” She looked like she wanted to slap him, and she wouldn’t stop. “Even if he’s a private citizen acting on his own against drug traffickers, he’s still overreaching.”

“Yes, he is, if that’s what he’s doing. But how are you going to prove it?”

“We can start with an interview.”

“We will. I assure you, although you won’t be a part of it, but do you really believe we’re going to get anything there?”

“It’s worth trying.”

No, actually it wasn’t and would more likely be counterproductive. The interview used as a bludgeon and not as a scalpel, laid your cards on the table, and would almost certainly gain nothing, especially when attempted against a skilled practitioner of verbal warfare, and Hardin Rolf was skilled. “The effort will only be going through the motions. If he did what you think he did, we’ve got a war on our hands.” He was in less mood to teach her about interviews than she was to listen.

“Which is what you care about, Sheriff. What they’ll do to Rolf. But if we can’t prove what he did, how can they?”

“They won’t care about proof. If they think he did it, and they very well could, that’ll be enough for them.”

“Maybe we can use the fear of that to get him to admit his role in this.”

“You don’t know Hardin Rolf.”

“Better than you think. I’ve been studying him.”

“After I specifically ordered you not to.”

She flushed.

“If you want to put it that way.”

“Let’s suppose your theory is correct. He did shoot up the drug plane and their trucks. That he was offended that these people would try to use his land as an entry point for their drug operation. What does that say about him?”

“He has no respect for the law. I see where you’re going that he’s doing our job for us without our constraints. No man has a right to do that.”

“No they don’t, but that kind of action suggests lack of judgment, lack of willingness to accept the authority of the state, and less that he’s venal.”

“I’m not ready to accept that. I think this could be evidence of a drug war. Maybe more than one cartel is involved. Maybe he’s trying to blackmail them for more money. It happens all the time.”

“He’d never be involved in something like that.”

“The Hardin Rolf you know was from a long time ago. You remember the boy you knew from school.”

“What do you know about that?”

“I’ve talked to people who knew both of you when you were young, and most of them agree, there was always something wrong with him.” She just looked at him, her disgust evident. Why he took it, he didn’t know.

“Maybe there was and still is, but he isn’t involved in what you think he is. Based on the information you had on Rolf you made a good guess. It’s just that in this case you’re wrong. We operate on gut feelings. Something has to spur us to look into things we can’t prove. What you haven’t learned is that when we do start looking into things our initial ideas are as often wrong as right. People are funny. They surprise you. We’ll follow up on this one, and the evidence or lack of evidence will take us where it takes us. But it’s not your case. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He didn’t believe for a second in her willingness to back off.

After R. Model left, Sandy looked around a bit more, kicking at the dirt. The girl was dead on and like a bulldog wouldn’t let it go. Hardin probably used an M1A1 with some kind of night vision telescope, or maybe he didn’t. Hardin might very well be good enough with a Garand to do this. There was something apart about the way Hardin Rolf handled a rifle, born to it, inheritor of a tradition.

He wished he could have asked what it felt like to have done a thing like this. He’d have loved to shoot those druggies up. At least Hardin was smarter than he thought. He hadn’t killed anybody. If he had, it would be almost impossible to let it slide. As it was there was no evidence. Forensics would come up with nothing. He’d have to have a talk with Hardin. The man traveled a lot. Nobody knew where he went or when he was coming back. About now would be a good time for him to disappear for a while.

So far as he knew, Hardin had never killed a man, but the man had a lot of unaccounted for time in rough country. If the druggies decided to take revenge on this man they’d be making a mistake. He might be able to help. If the druggies could be led to suspect his department was somehow involved, they’d simply shrug, call it the price of doing business, and forget it.

He had a Rotary dinner coming up tonight. If after a few drinks, he intimated to one of those fat, main street business sons of bitches that he knew something he couldn’t talk about concerning what happened to that airplane and the two trucks, in the strictest confidence of course, they’d bust a gut, getting home, and telling it to their families, in the strictest confidence as well. A son or a daughter who smoked a little dope would tell it to his or her friends, and it’d work its way up the line from dealer to distributor soon enough to whomever coordinated these flights.