The fire chief came up beside me. "We ain't got a ladder that will make it more than seventy-five feet," he said, simply. "They better hurry."
"Yeah."
"Funny, isn't it, I mean the way they want to jump, and then they don't?"
"Sure is," I said. "I wonder why he just didn't shoot himself."
It took, oh, probably a minute, for them to get to the top. It seemed like an hour to me, and I was just an observer. They had to go over the rail, and then about twenty feet to my left, before they could get to him. I could hear them hollering to him to hang on.
It was very close. Too close for me.
The two firemen each grabbed at him over the edge, and then the EMT reached way down, and caught the back of his coat in her hands. I could just see the top of Volont's head, and supposed he was pulling on her waist. They all seemed to freeze that way for an instant, and they all sort of heaved together, and the dangling sniper slid back up, over the rail, and they all disappeared from view.
"Know who he is?" asked the fire chief.
"Not yet," I breathed. "But we will…"
By the time they got back down, there was a little crowd of us waiting for them at the bottom of the ladder. Lamar and me, Art, the two troopers from the parking lot, several firemen, and a couple of EMTs.
Volont suggested the troopers handcuff the sniper. As they did so, I got my first clear look at him. I was flabbergasted.
Our trembling, nearly collapsing sniper was none other than Horace Blitek, the screwy member of the Borglan defense team.
You could have, as they say, knocked me over with a feather.
We hauled him up to the hospital in an ambulance, to be checked out.
We were met by my old friend Dr. Henry Zimmer at the entrance to the emergency room of our thirty-bed hospital. As soon as Henry had heard there was a sniper, he had prudently called in two extra nurses, a couple of lab and X-ray techs, and his junior partner, Dr. Paul Kline. Consequently, as soon as Horace Blitek was out of the ambulance on his stretcher, he was nearly mobbed by attention.
"So, this is the guy everybody's making such a fuss about?" said Henry.
"Yep. In the flesh," I said. "He did try to jump, Henry. You might want to know that."
"Depressed," asked Henry, "or just in a hurry?" He chuckled, and started in to the ER, where Horace Blitek could just barely be seen through the little bevy of nurses and ambulance personnel. "We'll see if we can't cheer him up…"
While they attended to Blitek, I got a chance to talk to Volont and Art.
"All he had was an SKS. The pauses were to reload. Just had loose ammo in boxes. No clips." Volont shook his head. "He had to reload by hand after every few rounds."
The SKS doesn't have a detachable magazine, but it was a favorite of some survivalist types, for some reason. Semiauto rifle, 7.62 mm. Chinese manufacture of an old Soviet design. They cost about $75.00, which may have gone a long way toward their popularity.
"So, why didn't he shoot himself?" I asked.
Volont grinned. "Out of ammunition. Not even proficient enough to save one for himself."
"So," said Art, "now we just have to find out why he was so pissed off."
Henry pronounced Blitek fit a few minutes later. "Just some bruises on his forearms, and on his butt. Otherwise, he's just a picture of physical health."
"Thanks, Henry. We just needed to be sure."
"You might want to have a psychiatrist check him out, though. He's really upset. Told me that he's let Gabriel down, and that Gabriel is going to 'get' him." He clapped me on the shoulder. "You do get some strange ones for us, Houseman. But a personal feud with an archangel…"
"Yeah…"
Volont and I conferred. Based on what Henry had just said, we really needed to talk with Blitek. Even in his possibly mentally disturbed state.
"We won't be able to use anything we get against him…"
Volont shrugged. "Then we don't use it against him… but we use it to get Gabriel."
We took Blitek to the office, and began making the arrangements for an emergency committal to a mental health institute, for evaluation. He had, after all, attempted suicide. But we'd have at least two hours before the arrival of the mental health referee, who would examine him.
While we had been at the hospital with Blitek, two state troopers, and Art and George, had been to the top of the elevator. Lots of shell casings. 7.62 mm. The rifle. Some brown cardboard ammo boxes. Nothing else, though. Courtesy Maitland PD, chains and padlocks had been installed on the caged, exterior access ladder, in three layers, where a cop in a car could see them. A potential sniper could still climb to the top, but it was hoped that he'd at least be more obvious. The area was pronounced secure.
Pronouncement be damned, I noticed that almost everybody was suddenly using the back door to the office.
20
We sat Blitek in a chair in the reception area, while we tried to find a room without bystanders where we could interview him. "Cletus and his attorney are in the interview room," said Lamar. He indicated Blitek, sitting bedraggled in the corner. "Shit," he said, "he looks like somethin' the cat dragged in."
He did. At the hospital, they had pretty well undressed him, looking at what turned out to be minor injuries, and prodding and probing to make certain there was no internal damage. Typically for those under emotional duress, and on the downside of a suicide high to boot, he had then replaced his clothing in a rather haphazard manner, not tucking in his long john top, or buttoning his plaid shirt. His fly was unzipped. His boots were untied, with the laces dragging on the floor. He was sitting in a small wooden chair, with his head in his hands, and his elbows on his knees; his disheveled gray and brown hair sticking straight out between his fingers. The only bright element in the picture was the touch of silver provided by the handcuffs.
We decided the best place for him was the kitchen. Available coffee, rest room, and no phones. We kicked everybody else out, including the troopers and Maitland officers who were regaling a small crowd of late arrivers with lurid descriptions of the monster sniper. They looked a bit silly as we brought Blitek in and shooed them out.
We sat him down, and I went out a different door on my way to get note tablets and pens for the interview. As I did, I had to excuse my passage though the interview room containing Cletus Borglan and Attorney Gunston.
Cletus looked kind of bad, and Gunston was being all protective. "Did you manage to get whoever it was? Is this area secure now?"
"Oh, yeah," I said. Just passing through. I was on my way back with the tablets before it occurred to me. I excused my way through the interview room again, and hit the kitchen with a plan.
"I think," I said, "we'd be better off doing this interview in your office, Lamar." Way back on the other side of the building.
As he started to protest, I motioned him over by the sink. "I just came through the interview room," I said, in a low voice. "Cletus and his attorney are in there, and they don't know who the shooter was."
I could almost see the cartoon lightbulb come on over Lamar's head. To arrive at his office, we would have to transit the interview room occupied by Cletus and company.
"Let's take him back to my office," said Lamar, in a loud, clear voice.
We paraded past Cletus and Gunston. Lamar, Volont, Blitek, and me. Slowly, of course, so that Blitek wouldn't trip on his shoelaces. Blitek's head was down, and in his state, I don't think he even noticed who we were passing by. None of us said a word. Except for Lamar, who simply said, "Excuse us, please," as he led the way through.
I glanced at Cletus, who had the now familiar pre-heave glaze in his eyes.
It was much more crowded in Lamar's office, but it had been worth the trip.