The Big Thaw

3

Fred kept talking. "I came back two hours later, like I was supposed to, and they wasn't there. I came back again after an hour, and they wasn't there. I honked the horn, even if I wasn't supposed to do that. I waited right there. I wasn't supposed to do that, neither. I waited fifteen minutes or so. Nobody. I drove all the way to Vickerton, and came back. Nothin'. Nobody there. Then it got light, and I had to go." He was speaking in a rush. "This morning, I got scared they'd really be wantin' to get back at me for missin' 'em like that, and them havin' to walk and all, and I called Aunt Nora, and she said they wasn't home. I called again at suppertime. They still ain't home!" He looked at me, worried he wouldn't find them, and sort of afraid that he would. "I went back tonight, and they wasn't there then, either. That's why I was honkin' the horn. It wasn't no deer. And I was afraid to go in, 'cause I figured you'd be there by then, and waitin' for me." He drew a deep breath. "And they ain't come home." He looked up at me, his face all screwed up. "They still ain't come home, and I think maybe they froze to death!"

I hate to admit it, but my thinking was running quickly along these lines: I had a confession, albeit a tentative one regarding details, to a string of very irritating burglaries. I was virtually certain that the two cousins who had been dropped off were lying low somewhere else, having, for reasons of their own, ditched Fred. I was in a position of having good reason to check the Borglan place, based on Fred's statements. I certainly didn't need a warrant. But, to make the case as good as possible, I wanted to have Fred with me when I went to Borglan's, so he could show me where he'd let them off, and where he would pick them up. So far so good. But to take Fred with me, and to talk with him any more, I really should have him talk with his attorney first. Except… The lateness of the hour helped. But the biggest boon of all was Fred's genuine concern for the safety and welfare of his two dumb cousins. Exigent circumstances, as they say.

I picked up a pen. "What are your cousins' names, again?"

"Dirk Colson and Royce Colson. They would be brothers. Both of 'em."

"Okay, Fred." I wrote the names down. "And how old?"

"My age or so," he said. "Are you gonna help 'em, Mr. Houseman?"

"Of course."

Mike followed Goober and me as we drove back along the track of the chase toward the Borglan farm. We left John at the accident scene, to help the wrecker with any possible traffic control as they pulled Goober's car out of the ditch.

About a quarter mile from Borglan's farm drive, just around a curve screened from the farm by a low, tree-covered hill, Goober told me to stop.

"Here's where I let 'em off," he said.

"Look here on the right," I said to Mike, over the radio.

Mike turned on his right alley light, and I squinted through the window on Goober's side. Although the ditch was filled, you could just make out faint depressions in the snow, from inside the barbed-wire fence line, up and over the hillside. Filled in almost completely by the new snow, the tracks would have escaped all notice if they hadn't been pointed out to us. There could have been two sets. It was hard to tell.

"Right there?" I asked Fred.

"Yeah… ooh, shit, I wish they'd of come back…"

"And you were to pick 'em up here, too?"

He began to rock again. "I didn't, I didn't screw it up. I was here!"

I picked up my mike. "Delivery and pickup point," I said. I began to move down the road, toward Borglan's lane. "Let's just go on in, Five," I said.

It took us about three minutes to negotiate the lane at the Borglan place. It wound to the right, then back to the left, among the stark and leafless trees. The branches were outlined with fresh white snow, which proved to be a distraction in my headlights. I nearly slipped off the lane and into a small ditch on the right. As I concentrated on the lane, though, I noticed that there were absolutely no indications of any tracks. None. Given the faint tracks where Fred had told me he let them off, I thought there surely would have been some indication if his cousins had left by this, the easiest route.

Fred was becoming more and more frightened and nervous the closer we got to the Borglan house. He was tapping the heel of his left foot on the floorboard so vigorously his left knee was jumping in and out of my peripheral vision.

"Fred! Knock off that foot-stompin' shit! It's bothering me."

He stopped abruptly. "I don't like this. I sh, sh, shouldn't be here…"

"Why not?" I asked, distractedly.

"I don't know. I just sh, sh, shouldn't be…"

"Don't worry," I said, as we pulled into the Borglan farmyard. I stopped, and rolled down my window to obtain a totally unfogged view. No tracks here, either. Not even faint.

It was a nice place. Nice house and large garage. Fresh paint on the outbuildings. Bright orangish light provided by a sodium vapor streetlamp on a high pole. Really looked homey.

There were no lights on inside, except the faint glow of what I assumed was a night-light in the kitchen.

I walked back to Mike, who was rolling his window down at my approach.

"You want to get Fred back here to your car? I'll have a look around, but I don't want to leave him alone in my car too long."

"In the cage?" asked Mike.

"Naw. He isn't in custody. If we need to secure him, though, I'll let you know."

"How we gonna know that?" asked Mike.

"If I have signs here of forcible entry, we just pop him for suspicion of burglary. He drove 'em in, according to him."

"Suits me," said Mike, with a wide grin. "From those tracks, you mean?"

I grinned back. "Yep. It's beginning to sound like he and his cousins have done the whole series over the last month or so. Cool."

I went back to my car, instructed Fred to get in with Mike, and grabbed my winter coat and flashlight. It was terribly cold.

I crunched and squeaked my way around to the left of the house, where the ground sloped away to reveal a limestone basement wall. I swept my flashlight back and forth on the slope. No signs of any tracks down there, so I stayed up top, not sure I'd be able to keep upright if I tried to walk the slope. I retraced my steps toward the right side, and newer section, of the house, looking for a point of entry. As I passed close to the sliding glass door, I flicked the beam of my flashlight toward the lock and handle. I noticed it seemed to be open just a crack. There was also a very obvious silver metallic mark on the flat black frame, near the lock. I stopped, and squinted in the bright beam of my flashlight. I clumsily took off my glove by holding a finger in my teeth, unzipped my vest, and reached in under my sweater to my shirt pocket, and took out my reading glasses. I looked more closely. Yep. A very small pry mark at the latch, probably from a quarter- or half-inch screwdriver. Not all that big, but in the beam of my light it was like a little mirror. I reached out, and put side pressure on the handle. Sure enough, the door slid to the right. Point of entry, no doubt. I put my glasses back, zipped my coat, and put on my glove, and closed the door again, most of the way. I left a small crack, because, with my luck, although pried, it was still functional, and I didn't want to lock myself out.

I walked back to Mike's car. He unrolled his window again.

"Looks like a forcible entry," I said. "You want to do the honors?"

As I squeaked and crunched back to the Borglan residence, I heard Mike begin to recite a Miranda warning to Fred again, having just placed him under arrest for burglary.

"Not gonna be your day, Fred," I said to myself.

Having been burned a couple of times by assuming one obvious entry point and later finding the real one, I continued around to the right, checking toward the rear of the house. The slope was gentler here, partly illuminated by the headlights of our cars, and I ventured carefully down. I played the beam of my flashlight around, and saw lumps and bumps all over the backyard, probably small bushes, and lawn stuff covered with snow. There was a gazebo sort of structure, all snow and ice. It reminded me of some sort of a Russian village church. A snow and ice gas grille stood on its silver pedestal in what had to be a patio area. There were very slightly depressed tracks, visible only as I looked back up the slope, fairly close to mine. I'd missed them in the glare of the headlights, but now that I was in the shadow, they were easier to see. More were around the rear, and some at the back door, which was recessed and in even deeper shadow than the rest of the place. I checked it. It was protected here, though, and there was almost no snow near the walls. I stood on a narrow concrete walkway, and looked at the door. There appeared to be a fresh dent in the white steel storm door casing, and fresh pry marks on the wooden main door. I tested it with a gentle push, and it stayed firm. I pushed a bit harder. No result. Out with the glasses again, which I dropped in the snow. Made them wet, and very cold, but at least they hadn't broken. I peered at the marks on the door. Looked to be about quarter- or half-inch screwdriver marks. There was also a pretty good footprint near the lock. I grinned. Burglars almost never noticed the print they left when they tried to kick a door in. At night, when it was fresh, it probably just looked wet. But everything outside has a coat of dust, and with snowy boots making wet dust, and with wet dust making very fine mud, you'd frequently get a very fine shoe print. At least after it froze or dried. I angled my flashlight more, and could even make out a possible section of lettering from the label on the sole. Cool.

I pushed the door once more, very hard. Nothing. Tough door. Most good modern doors were. I noticed the rubber doormat had been pushed away from the door. A couple of drops of white paint on the concrete, and three or four pink ones. Sloppy painters, I thought. I removed my glasses, which were beginning to freeze to my face, and put them back in my pocket. I stepped back, out into the reflected light from the headlights.

Perfect. They'd tried the back door, found it difficult to pry, and had come up to the front, where the sliding door offered much less resistance. Happened often at burglaries. The suspect would go for the obvious entry point, and find it blocked. Proceed to another, hoping it would be easier. It also fit, since it was reasonably likely that the cousins hadn't closely scouted the Borglan place before going in. That brought up another question, which was how they'd know Borglan's was empty in the first place. The answer was, of course, that they probably wouldn't know. Ah, but living within five miles, good old Fred sure would. Grumbling slightly to myself, I struggled back up the slope, breathing hard in the cold air. I was puffing by the time I reached the top. "Better lose some weight," I puffed to myself.

I went to the sliding door, and opened it. I shouted, "Anybody home?" It never hurts to ask. Especially as I was looking for the two lost cousins. Well, ostensibly, anyway. "Police officer, anybody home?" I waved at Mike, stepped inside, and closed the door behind me.

It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust, coming from the brightly lighted snow to the dark room. I fumbled for a moment, located a light switch, and turned on the lights.

The first thing that struck me was the bright blue carpet. Wall to wall, it had a fine nap, and was the same shade of blue I remembered seeing in copper sulfate solutions in high school chemistry. It was a nice place. Matching blue and white recliners close together in sort of random positions in the middle of the room, and a large three-piece couch, with really big pillows. Red and green throw rug in front of a modern fireplace, where a dog might lie in front of a fire. Huge TV set and stereo in a nearly ceiling-high oak entertainment center. Photographs of family-type people all over the walls, with many, many children. Grandchildren, I suspected. A large oak gun cabinet with a flying duck etched in the glass door. Every slot was filled; six shotguns, two 9 mm auto pistols, and two.357 revolvers. That was a surprise. I stepped closer. No signs of a break, and there simply wasn't an empty slot in the cabinet. That struck me as strange, as the guns were very nice, and in the other burglaries, they'd taken guns and cash.

I was also struck by how warm it was. Well, probably not more than fifty. But quite a contrast with the outside. I slipped off my winter coat, and hung it on a big brass hook just inside the door. Much better. Off with the gloves, sticking them into the pockets of my down vest.

I reached over and turned on an another, adjustable light switch. Track lights came on, flooding the room with light and making my job very much easier. I stepped toward an arched doorway, which obviously led to the older portion of the house. The carpet gave way to yellowish tile at the archway, which continued into a large modern kitchen in the remodeled older part of the house. There was a blond wood island running the length of the room, with hanging cabinets, hanging pots and pans, and hanging glasses with long stems. The stove was counter-top, and the oven was a stack of three running up the wall. My. But nothing appeared at all disturbed.

I turned, and headed back toward the living room arch, intending to head for the basement. As I approached the carpet, I was seeing it from that direction for the first time, and I saw two things that made me stop in the archway.

One: I could plainly see dents in the carpet, which looked to have been made by the bases of the recliners. The dents were in a very reasonable location facing the entertainment center, unlike the rather pointless current arrangement of the chairs. Strange. Most of the time, if you're going to change the position of a chair like that, you'd vacuum underneath, and restore the nap at the same time.

Two: There were two parallel tracks, connecting the closest recliner and the steel separating band between the carpet and the tile, in the archway. They were faint, but they were there. My first thought was that they'd stolen a third recliner. Right, Carl. Embarrassing, but not the sort of thought I'd have to share with anybody else. It did conjure up a quick image of two burglars struggling over hill and dale in ankle-deep snow, lugging a recliner. I grinned to myself. Best not put that in the report.

I crossed the carpet again, and looked at the end of the tracks, where they disappeared under a recliner. No reason at all for them to be there. None. I squatted down, reached into my shirt pocket again, and took out my reading glasses. I peered very closely at the carpet. There appeared to be a faint discoloration at the edge of the chair base. I pulled my little mini-mag light from my utility belt, and shined it on the carpet. Sure enough. Rusty color, faint and deep into the nap. I stood, and lifted the arm of the chair, tilting it sideways on its base. Underneath was a very large spot, only about two shades darker than the surrounding carpet, that looked like somebody had spilled about half a gallon of water and then dried it the best they could with towels. Still damp-looking, but not too bad a job. I moved the chair aside, and knelt back down, shining the mini-mag and running my fingers against the nap of the carpet. Rusty-looking, penetrating, stains very deep, almost to the base of the carpet. It looked for the world like somebody had tried to clean up a bloodstain, and had done a pretty damned good job of it. I stood, and took the room in again.

Bloodstains are strange. If your imagination gets ahead of you, you can look at a spot of spilled spaghetti sauce and see a bloodstain. With the small reddish stains I was seeing, it was going to take a lab to tell. Great. How was the Borglan family going to feel when a deputy sheriff, having discovered a burglary with nothing missing, cut out a sample of their carpet from the middle of the room…

My eye settled on the red and green throw rug near the fireplace. It was at a bit of an angle, and the red didn't go with anything in the room, and the green was jarring against the blue carpet. I walked over and lifted it. Smaller stains, two of them. Just like under the chair. Well, maybe the dog wasn't housebroken.

I stepped to the second chair, tilted it, and sure enough, a bigger stain under there, too. I walked to the middle of the room, and turned slowly through 360 degrees, looking at the pale blue walls. Sure as hell, there was a paler portion, over near the throw rug. I went over and peered closely. A small dot, like a nail hole, near the top of the lighter area. Well, a largish nail, for sure. I couldn't see any stain on the wall, but it looked like somebody had wiped something off, and thoroughly. The "nail hole" was about five and a half feet off the floor, and not quite round. Oblong. Well, it could have been distorted when somebody pulled a nail out of the wall. Swell.

A creepy feeling came over me, like I was being watched. I stopped, and just stood still, listening. The faint sound of Mike's and my cars running outside. The refrigerator way out in the kitchen was humming. Nothing else. No creaks, no bumps. But I felt eyes on me. Not terribly strong, but it was there. I turned and looked out the sliding glass doors. Just the cars, Mike half turned away, talking to Fred, neither of whom was looking my way. After a few seconds, the feeling began to subside.

"Grow up, Carl," I said to myself. But I casually reached down and unsnapped my holster, anyway. Feeling more confident, I tried to pick up where I'd left off.

"So," I said, "let's tell the court…" I do talk to myself occasionally, hopefully when I'm alone. Just to organize my thoughts. Somebody told me once that it was a trait of only children. At least it fit.

When I go through a possible crime scene, I try to imagine describing the evidence to the court. It helps me concentrate, and to evaluate what I've got. In this particular instance, I said to myself, "Your Honor, there was what could have been a tomato sauce stain on the carpet, and there was a lighter mark on the wall, so I assumed it was where blood spatters had been washed off around a nail hole…" "And how did you come to discover this evidence, Deputy?" "Uh, well, I was checking on the welfare of two burglars…" I smiled to myself. Sounded a little weak.

So, I needed more. Well, for the court, anyway.

The residue of the feeling of being watched lingered, just at the edge of my mind. My first instinct was to call for backup. I didn't, though, for several reasons. First, the only backup available was Mike, and he had to be with Fred. Second, what I had wasn't anything solid, and even if it had been, the evidence indicated the scene had been created a couple of days ago. Third, if we did have a scene of something more than a burglary, then the more people tromping about, the worse it would for a lab team.

I squatted down near the chairs, and looked back toward the kitchen, trying to get a better indication from a lower angle. I could just barely discern the parallel tracks from here, and they didn't head toward the kitchen so much as off to the right side of the archway. They looked suspiciously like drag marks, to me. There was a sliver of a door frame, just visible, through the arch. I got up, my left knee complaining, and crossed to the door. Descending stairs to the basement. Great. I hate going down stairs into basements, especially when you aren't sure who might be there. You expose 90 percent of your body on the way down the stairs before you can defend yourself.

I turned on the lights at the top of the stairs, rechecked my holster strap, and went down slowly. It was one of those basements that's about three-quarters finished, with the area around the furnace and water heater left in concrete floor, studded walls, and unfinished ceiling. The first thing that caught my eye as I descended the stairs was the top of the water heater. White. Clean. Except for a puddle of what looked like a rusty water stain near the middle. The center of the puddle was reddish, and the outer edges were yellowish to almost clear. The problem was, all the pipes seemed to come out the side of the heater, not the top. So much for a rust stain. I peered over the edge of the railing. It looked like the water had dripped from somewhere up under the stairs. I continued down to the basement floor, and walked back to the heater. The puddled stain was dry, but thickish, looking like you could flake off chips from the edges. And there was a similar colored stain on the underside of the basement stairs, right over the heater. I looked a little closer, and saw that this stain, too, was more solid than water stains would be. It had a bit of a convexity at the center, like it had been trying to form into a droplet when it congealed. Stalactite or stalagmite? flickered through my head. I could never remember which was which.

I was virtually certain it was blood. I couldn't "prove" it, not yet. But that's what it was. The lighter edges were a dead giveaway. Large stains tend to congeal, leaving the plasma in a ring around the outside, the red cells clumped together in the middle. They begin to clot, while the plasma seems to stay liquid longer, so it spreads a little farther.

Well, so I was sure it was blood. So what?

I was getting really creeped, mostly because the house was so completely quiet. I moved through the partition door and into the finished part of the basement. Nothing remarkable, it was plainly a playroom for the grandkids, with those big plastic tricycles and riding tractors and things parked next to the far wall. Plastic ball, Hula Hoop, and an old couch and a Nintendo on a caterer's cart. Nice room.

The throw rug at the door was bunched up, right where it would've been if the door had been opened and it had been pushed aside. But I'd tested that door from the outside, and it was locked. I snorted to myself. Sure, Carl. But it could be opened from the inside, and shut again. Concentrate.

I opened the basement door, and looked out into the blackness of the backyard. I played my flashlight around at the gazebo ice palace. With the light angle, I saw something I hadn't seen when I was out there. There was a gentle depression, kind of like a filled in furrow, in the snow, leading right from the back door to the gazebo, past it, and on toward the largest of the machine sheds. A virtually straight line, in the old snow. Made before Monday noon, when the new snow was laid down deep.

I glanced down, and the pink drops on the concrete took on a more sinister meaning. Frozen blood on concrete looks for the world like drops of Pepto-Bismol. Pink. I'd thought it was paint. Now I was pretty sure it was blood. If you'd dragged a body down the stairs, and then opened the door, and paused to get your breath, and let the body sit just long enough for blood to drip…

Well.

I was going to have to go to the machine shed, to see what was at the end of the furrow. Had to do that. I was now just about certain that the cousins had argued, and that one had killed the other. Just about. Either that, or somebody had been staying at the house after all, and they had been killed by the cousins. Or, that Fred had killed somebody and was trying to place the blame on two noninvolved cousins. That brought me up short.

As soon as I got out the basement door, I pulled my walkie-talkie from my belt, and contacted the office.

"Comm, Three?"

"Three?"

"Could you get somebody else here? We'd like some ten-seventy-eight out here. We'll be ten-six for a while. Not ten-thirty-three, but send him." That meant that I was going to be busy, and it wasn't an emergency. I sure didn't want my favorite sheriff sliding into the ditch, running lights and siren, coming to help me look into a shed. Even though he was a good boss, that sort of thing could adversely affect my career.

"What you got, Three?" asked Mike, from his car in the yard.

"Maybe something on the order of a seventy-nine. Not sure. Wait a couple. I'm gonna be walkin' over to that big machine shed, from the basement back door." 10-79 was the code for coroner notification. A "79" told Mike I might have a body in here someplace.

"Ten-four," he said, crisply. Bodies, even if just suspected, tend to get your attention.

I put my walkie-talkie back on my belt, turned up the collar on my quilted down vest, pulled my stocking cap down over my ears, pulled on my gloves, and headed the fifty yards over to the steel machine shed. God, it was cold. I'd left my coat upstairs in the house. Of course. Well, I wasn't about to go back. I squeaked and crunched through the snow, being very careful to swing widely away from the drag marks. It was remarkable, but looking back toward the house, the different light angle prevented me from seeing the marks at all.

When I got to the machine shed, I found the "walk-in" door stuck with ice. Great. I stepped to the big sliding steel doors, kicked at them a couple of times to break the frost adhesion, and slid it open about five feet. "Never trap a burglar, unless you want a fight." Training turned to habit.

I went into the gloom of the big building, which was designed to hold a couple of tractors, and a combine. There was hay on the concrete floor, as insulation. One tractor off to the other side. A workbench. Those I could see in the light provided by my flashlight. I needed more light. This was a very large building. I reached over to my right side, feeling for a switch. Not likely I'd find one at the machinery entrance, but there should be one over by the walk-in door. I shined my flashlight to my right, and saw the switch at the end of a length of steel conduit, on the other side of the "people" entrance. I moved toward it, stepping over what I thought was some lumber, covered by a tarp. I glanced down to avoid tripping, and in the shadowed gap between the tarp and the wall, I saw a human hand.