Eleven Days Read Online Free PDF Page B

get him to speculate. Unfortunately he wasn’t always too specific about when the speculation line was crossed.
    “Got any suspects, Carl?”
    “No.”
    “God, who could do something like that? You know, guy? Really, who could do that?”
    “Beats me, I just know somebody did.”
    I was forty then, and Dan was twenty-eight. I felt that I had to play the role of the cool, older cop with him. Wasn’t always hard, but it had left Dan with the unfortunate impression that I was always sure of myself. Making him think he had to be sure of himself, too. Since he seldom was, he tended to feel a little inadequate. Eager, therefore, to impress and provide information. That was never my intention. It did prove helpful, though.
    “You know,” said Dan, “I don’t think it could be local. Honest, nobody around here could do that.”
    Local meant Maitland to Dan. He was originally from Cedar Rapids, but had adapted so well to Maitland that he had considered it home from the first week he was here.
    “I’m not so sure, Dan.”
    “Yeah, but, well shit, Carl, there just isn’t anybody …”
    “Well, nobody leaps to mind, Dan. That’s for sure.”
    As we had been riding around the two square miles of Maitland, I had noticed that most of the homes had lights on. Unusual.
    “Lot of houses lit up tonight.”
    “Yeah, I noticed that earlier.”
    “Natives are a little nervous.”
    There were about 250 residences in Maitland, not counting about thirty apartments above Main Street stores. I had noticed that several homes were dark—maybe ten or so.
    “Do me a favor, Dan. Make a list of the houses that are dark, would you?”
    “Why?”
    “I want a list of the people who aren’t nervous.”
    “Okay, guy.”
    He let me off at my house. It wasn’t dark, either.
    It was 01:30. I was wide awake, there was nothing on TV, and I hadn’t been able to find a good book the last time I’d looked, either at the bookstores in Dubuque or in the local library. I made some coffee and went into my little office area, turned on my PC, and called up the database program that contained everybody we had ever arrested for possession or sale of dope. Or had good reason to suspect of same. I had no specific search criteria, of course, so merely browsed the list.
    In a county of some 22,000 people, I had amassed some four hundred names over a period of a year and a half since I had begun the project. I had been really restrictive in establishing the criteria for inclusion in the list, and sort of wished I had been a little more liberal.
    I cross-indexed the names, after looking at the whole list, and came up with those who had been involved in violent acts. Reduced the list to about three hundred. Dumped the index and did one for those involved in burglary. About seventy-five. Made a new index and did those suspected of occult involvement. Went down to about forty. Cheap database program, could only open one index at a time. Had to buy it myself, along with the computer and all the other software. Office bought me some printer ribbons. Once.
    So now I had a list. Of suspects? Why not, you had tostart somewhere. I hadn’t printed the lists out, so went back and did each index again, dumping them to the printer. Nine pin dot matrix. Loud. Woke up my wife, could hear her stomping into the upstairs bathroom. Damn, I hated it when I did that. She was a light sleeper, and I was a little less than quiet, especially when I was trying to be. This time, for example, I had put a blanket over the printer, to deaden the sound. I made a mental note to either find a thicker blanket or get some foam.
    My printer is a little slow, as well as a little loud. She woke up halfway through the first list. I drank coffee and waited about half an hour before printing out the second list, to let her get back to sleep. I looked for another blanket and couldn’t find one without going into the bedroom, so I put two seat cushions from the couch around it. Printed the