Free Known Dead by Donald Harstad

from the scene were what were known as rimless. ‘‘Well, we got a Tokarev, model 1940, from a possible suspect. Aside from the fact that it’s only a semiauto, it also fires the wrong 7.62 round.’’
    ‘‘Keep looking,’’ said Dr. Peters.
    ‘‘Oh, yeah. We will.’’

    So, there we were. With virtually nothing but two dead people and a lot of shell casings. Complete with two suspects who looked like they weren’t going to pan out.
    We sent another team up to reinterview Beth. We needed any information we could find linking Johnny Marks to the dope. And to the crime scene. We needed a warrant to search his place for a suspect weapon. We didn’t have enough yet. In the meantime, we had several people out interviewing everybody he knew. Getting background data, but just inserting a question about an assault rifle at some point. We needed something, anything, to place that kind of rifle in his possession.
    Hester and I did the Howler interview. He had been tested with chemical swabs, and had fired a firearm recently. It began to appear that he really had shot at a deer.
    ‘‘I told you I did,’’ he said. ‘‘I didn’t hit it, but I shot at it.’’
    ‘‘Well,’’ I said, ‘‘would you be willing to talk to a DNR officer about that?’’
    ‘‘Sure. I mean, shit, man, you got me on that one.’’
    The rest of the interview was unremarkable, except for his reaction when we asked what kind of guns Johnny Marks had.
    ‘‘Oh, shit,’’ he said. ‘‘Oh, hey, lots of ’em, man. Lots of ’em. Rifles, at least three. Four handguns. At least three, for sure.’’
    Hester and I exchanged glances. ‘‘Where are these guns?’’
    ‘‘He keeps ’em in his gun locker, ma’am.’’
    ‘‘You have observed these guns yourself. At his place?’’
    ‘‘Yes, ma’am.’’
    ‘‘Recently?’’
    ‘‘Oh, about a week ago or so. Yeah, I’d say recently. About then.’’
    ‘‘Can you tell me what kind?’’ I asked.
    ‘‘You know,’’ he said, ‘‘I never handled those or anything. Just saw the bunch of ’em in the locker when he opened it. It don’t have a glass door or anything, so I could only see . . . but the handguns were on little pegs, and hanging from their triggers, like . . .’’
    Since Johnny Marks was a convicted felon, that was enough. Three hours later, we had our search warrant for his house, and just after midnight, we were through the door.
    We found lots of interesting stuff, including a little dope. And the guns. All either muzzle-loading rifles or cap-and-ball revolvers. Black powder. Iowa considers them not to be firearms, for felonious matters. I’ve always been under the impression that those guns, which killed soldiers by the hundreds of thousands in the American Civil War, were a technology that was quite capable of killing today. And they are. But, apparently, if they make a lot of smoke, they’re not what the legislature considers a firearm.
    As Hester said: ‘‘A chickenshit dope charge and some antique guns!’’ Hester has a way with words.
    Dahl, our intrepid dope cop, had found lots of stuff in the infamous gun locker. Written records that indicated a connection to several large dealers in the Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota triangle. ‘‘Indicated’’ being the key word. Evidence enough to keep Dahl on the track, but not nearly enough for a charge. We charged Marks with simple possession. Pretty much to make it look like we had done something. But it did give us something to trade for real information, if he had any.
    We ended our day at 4:24 A.M. Knowing just about as much of real worth as we had at 4 P.M. Not a good first day on a murder investigation. A pretty good rule of thumb is that, if you haven’t developed a good suspect within forty-eight hours of the start of the investigation, you have a serious problem, and may never get the thing solved. Time was getting short, and we’d hardly started.
    Damn.

Eight
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