“You got that shit right,” said Toby. “What do you do, if somebody who's gotta be obeyed tells you to do something, right? What do you do?” His voice was becoming agitated again. “I'll tell what you do,” he said. There was a pause, and then he said, in a more moderate tone, “You fuckin' do it, because you fuckin' better do it, you know?”
“Depends on who it is,” I said, “but we all have to get in line once in a while.”
“When it's Dan Peale, you do,” he said.
I was glad we'd just gotten onto a paved road, otherwise I might have gone in the ditch. You don't get a gift like that every day.
TWENTY-FIVE
Tuesday, October 10, 2000
11:55
The first thing I'd done when we got to the jail was start the call to the county attorney. Now that we had Toby in our clutches, and in a talkative state, I wanted to keep him as long as I could.
The first conversation with our county attorney had been very brief.
“I'm sorry, he's with a client now,” said his secretary.
“Tell him, Darlene, that this is really important. Really. I need to talk with him in five minutes or less. Something's happened that he's gotta know about.”
In about ten minutes, he called back.
“What's so important, Carl?”
“We need some fast research,” I said. “I've got to know what to charge somebody with who broke into a funeral home, and drove a stake through the chest of a corpse.”
There was a pause. “You're kidding?”
“Nope. I've got the dude in custody, but I gotta have a good charge, and quick.”
“You've gotta be kidding?”
“No, Mike, I'm not.”
“What's wrong with burglary? Just plain burglary, Carl.”
I reached behind me, and pulled one of the volumes of the 1999 Code of Iowa off the shelf. “Got your code handy?” I asked. I was going to have to work with him on this, and I really resented the time.
“Sure.”
“Okay, under 713.1… the burglary statute… got it?”
“Yes.”
I read it to him. The pertinent part was “Any person, having the intent to commit a felony, assault or theft therein… ”
“So?” he said.
“Well, he didn't steal anything, and since you can't assault the dead, he has to have intended to commit a felony, right?”
“Yes. Sure.”
“Well, is it a felony to mutilate a corpse? We gotta know, Mike.”
“I'm sure it is,” he said, and I could hear pages flipping in the background.
“Here it is,” he said. “Chapter 709.18. Abuse of a corpse. Right here.”
I flipped my pages. It said, “A person commits abuse of a human corpse if the person knowingly and intentionally engages in a sex act, as defined in section 702.17, with a human corpse. Abuse of a human corpse is a class D felony.”
We were both silent, as we read it. “It wasn't exactly a sex act, Mike.”
Naturally, he had us both turn to 702.17, which defined sex acts. They all included the word “genitalia.” No go, and I told him so.
I could tell he was getting worried, too. Just about everything else regarding dead human bodies had to do with licensing funeral directors, medical examiners, and the paperwork required when one came into possession of a corpse. It was too bad Edie hadn't been buried, because if she had, and she'd been exhumed by the suspect, it would have been an aggravated misdemeanor. But, of course, she wasn't in the ground yet.
“Wait, Carl… Just a second… ”
“Mike, the only statute that covers it is the trespass section.”
“Wait, let's check 716, criminal mischief… ”
We did. Criminal mischief required damage to “tangible property.”
“I don't think a corpse is 'tangible property,' I'm afraid, Carl. I'll look, though.”
I had to agree with that. “Yeah, when was the last time you saw a price tag on a corpse?” I flipped the page. “Yep. Right. So, look at 716, trespass. That fits.”
It did, too. Under 716.7.2(a). Very specific. “Entering upon or in property without the express permission of the owner, lessee, or person in lawful possession with the intent to commit a public offense, to use, remove therefrom, alter, damage, harass, or place thereon or therein anything animate or inanimate… ”
That covered it. Edie was definitely “inanimate,” all right. And she'd been both “altered” and “damaged.” By something that had been “placed” there by hammering it into her chest. Unfortunately, trespass was a simple misdemeanor. That meant a hundred-dollar fine, maximum. Burglary charges required a felony.
That's when Mike, bless him, finally earned his keep. Sort of.
“Wait a minute, Carl, wait a minute… look under the 'hate crime' provision, down in 716.8. See, it says that if there's the intent to commit a hate crime, the penalty goes up to a serious misdemeanor.”
Wow. A whole five-hundred-dollar fine. Still two steps away from a felony, but we'd made some progress, at least.
“Hate crime?”
“Well, won't the relatives be offended, on, well religious grounds, Carl?”
I gotta admit that would never have occurred to me.
I would have just been very, very angry, religion aside.
“So, what do I hold him on, then?”
“Uh, well, a serious misdemeanor, I guess,” he said, “at least for now.”
At least for now. What did he think, that Toby was going to commit some more serious crime while he was in jail? A serious misdemeanor would keep him just long enough to do the paperwork, if we were lucky.
“It's gonna have to do,” I said. And if the bond were typically reduced to ten percent of the fine, he was going to walk on a fifty-dollar deposit. Great.
I got back to Hester, who was baby-sitting Toby in my office. No real point in beginning the process that would book him into jail, at least not if he was still talking, and there wasn't a really good reason to distract him with a lot of jail-related questions.
“How we comin' for an attorney for him?” I asked.
“Attorney Junkel called,” said Hester. “He's on his way down. Wanted to know what he was being charged with.”
“And?”
“I told him the charges were still being determined.” She looked at Toby, who was listening closely. “He told Toby not to talk about the case with us until he got here.”
Expected, as any good attorney would say that. Toby, unfortunately, simply had to talk, and about anything that came into his head, I guess. Talk, talk, talk. And bouncing his feet. Still handcuffed, he looked pretty disheveled, because his hair was falling down over one eye, and he couldn't reach out and push it back. Consequently, he kept tossing his head, to clear his field of vision. I was thinking in terms of crystal meth or ecstasy. I didn't want to ask him, though, because it might lead to a charge, which his attorney would use to discount what he'd said.
“Nothing can be done, anyway,” said Toby.
When you deal with someone who is wired like that, you talk to them. If you don't at least provide some input from an outside source, they get angry, and sometimes violent. It's not difficult to talk with them, though, because they will chat about virtually anything you toss their way.
“I'm not so certain about that,” I said. “Frequently… ”
I'd started him off on another tangent, and he interrupted.
“A lot you know. There's this physics thing called the Uncertainty Principle, you know, and it says that nobody can know anything for certain. Ever. Nope, they can't, and it's been scientifically proven, too.”
My, he was wired. “You mean Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle,” I asked, offhandedly as I was wondering what to do when Attorney Junkel arrived.
“Ooooh, you can read,” he said.
“I think Uncle Werner was referring to subatomic particles that can be influenced by the impact of a photon,” I said. “Not whether or not your bank account balanced.”
“Uncle? He was your uncle?” There was wonder in his voice. It was apparently easier for him to believe I was related to the famous physicist than for him to believe I had read anything concerning the man. Helped along, no doubt, by the fact he was stoned.