The Big Thaw

6

Art and Lamar had decided to have a meeting of the investigative crew before the lab unit left for Des Moines. Swell. I hadn't even gotten to bed when they called. According to Lamar, both he and Art thought I'd better attend. Right. I'm sure Art did.

I'd just finished explaining to Sue that I'd been up all night, that we had a murder, and that she'd missed the experiment with the water in the air.

"Well, now you can get some sleep," she said, pulling her sweater over her head, and continuing to dress for school.

"Don't think so. That was the office, and they want me to be back in about an hour or so."

She stopped fastening her earrings, and turned to face me. "I don't want to sound mean, but you're getting too old to stay up twenty-four hours a day."

"Eh?" I cupped my ear.

"I said…" She stopped. "It's not funny."

As I came through the office door, I smelled fresh pastries. Great. I'm on a fairly strict low-fat diet. I stomped my feet to shake off the snow. I had on the same lace-up boots as yesterday, but was dressed in blue jeans, sweatshirt, and my own parka. Fortified with long johns, of course. It had warmed up, but was still minus fifteen or so. And, I admit it, I wanted to be in plain clothes just to prove to Art that I wasn't a "uniform." Ego. Always seems to be there when you don't need it.

Everybody was in the jail kitchen, seated around a long, industrial-sized folding table that had been in the kitchen since the 1950s. The initials of many prisoners were scratched into its top, along with a reasonably good checkerboard on one of the corners. Sort of a department heirloom. I grabbed a doughnut and some coffee, and sat down.

Lamar told us that the phones had been ringing like crazy since about midnight, with the media getting all worked up. So far, they hadn't put in a physical appearance, but he was pretty sure they'd be here by ten or so. Lamar hated media people, primarily because he was self-conscious. He also hated them because they seemed incapable of getting a story straight. He tended to leave terse, handwritten statements for the duty dispatcher to read to whoever called. He handed us all copies of his most recent effort.

THE BODIES OF TWO MALE SUBJECTS WERE DISCOVERED ON THE CLETUS BORGLAN FARM YESTERDAY. BOTH WERE FROZEN, THE CASE BEING TREATED AS A MURDER.

Great. I started to laugh, and drew a heavy stare from the boss.

"Jesus, Lamar," I finally got out. "You want to reword this?"

"What?" Gruffly, at best.

"Well, maybe you could put in something about the cause of death being undetermined at this time?" I grinned. "Otherwise, it sounds like they were killed by Jack Frost."

He looked at the note, and his eyes twinkled a little. "Write in the change," he said.

Lamar then announced that he'd talked to the two officers who had the responsibility to do the residence checks at the Borglan place. They had not had any tire tracks or foot tracks in the lane for the last eight to ten days.

The first case item of importance was Art's announcement that he had "ordered up" an Iowa National Guard helicopter for sometime today, hopefully to arrive before noon. He wanted to "scope out" the snowmobile tracks from the air. I just loved it when he used cop talk like that. He was the sort of guy who wouldn't say to his wife, "I always miss you, dear." Instead, he'd say, "I miss you, twenty-four-seven." But it was a good idea. I dearly wished we had resources like that in our department.

"I don't know what they have available," he said, "so I'm not sure how many of you will get to go up." Leaving absolutely no doubt that he would be in the chopper, regardless.

Over the years, I've flown a few times in Iowa Guard choppers, and knew we had a choice of two types: the OH-58, which held four; and the UH-1H, which held ten or more, and was called a Huey. I really hoped for a Huey.

Art said Dr. Peters was going to X-ray the two heads in Manchester in about an hour. The bodies were still thawing, or "defrosting," as he had put it. He said they were apparently able to remove the clothing by now, so the clothes had been seized, bagged, labeled, and would be relayed to the lab in Des Moines.

Next, the lab team had made several interesting confirmations at the house. The small hole in the wall appeared to be made by a.22 caliber bullet. They hadn't found any shell casing yet. But it was a fairly good bet that it had been deflected by one of the Colsons' heads, and was not traveling point-first when it hit the plaster.

The marks in the carpet were originally bloodstains, somewhat smaller than the dark area indicated, and had been cleaned up. Placing the chairs over them had kept them damp longer than they would have been, and made them more noticeable to me. The stain under the throw rug was not blood. It appeared to have been grease, and was old. They could have taken up the entire sections of carpet, and bagged them. Cut them right out of the floor. They didn't, but had taken small inch-square samples in several places. Easier to replace for the owner. Not that Cletus had been appreciative.

The dried puddle on the top of the water heater had been confirmed as blood, too, and had dripped down through a crack in the floor above, near the top of the basement stair. There was a large bloodstain extending between the edge of the stairs and the wall. As one of them said, just like you'd spilled some liquid, and cleaned it up in a hurry. As you moved the rag, you'd push the liquid toward the wall…

They had found no rags, by the way. Bloody or otherwise.

Traces of bloodstains had been found in a kitchen drawer, and on a box of white trash bags contained therein. All blood samples were going to the lab. Comparisons to the blood of the victims would be made.

There were numerous fingerprints on the sliding doors, but they were old. (You can tell older ones if you use print powder, because they don't jump out the way really fresh ones do.) They'd fumed several items with cyanoacrylate, and had raised many prints. Most of them appeared female, and if the lab team had to bet, they'd say they belonged to Mrs. Borglan. They'd know when they got a set of prints from her for comparison. (Female prints are often finer, and smaller, than male ones.)

They'd fumed the chairs, and gotten some smudges. Nothing legible. Played hell with the chairs, though.

All trash receptacles had been checked, and nothing of evidentiary value was present. Same with clothes hampers. Attic in the old half was checked, and nothing was there. Crawl space above the ceiling of the new addition was checked. Nothing.

They were preparing scale diagrams of the scene, and would have them for us in a couple of days. They gave us a copy of the measurements taken, so we would be able to do our own rough sketches with accurate distances.

That was it. No murder weapon. No spent shell casings. No foot tracks, except the one on the back door that seemed to match the shoe on one of the bodies.

Oh. The marks that I had followed to the chair from the archway? The ones I thought were drag marks? They were fresh vacuum cleaner tracks.

"We're taking the vacuum cleaner and bag back to the lab with us." They did that, because sometimes the critical part of some evidence wouldn't make it all the way into the bag. They disassembled the cleaners completely, down to slitting and opening the hoses.

Well. You just never know.

Art spoke up. "It looks pretty much like that's all the physical evidence, then. Except the bag, and the bodies."

We agreed.

"Anything anybody needs before we let these people go back to Des Moines?"

Lamar spoke up. "When can we expect your photos?"

Four days, max, as it turned out.

But that reminded me. I excused myself, and hurried out to my car, and got the film I'd used yesterday, and hustled it back to our new secretary, Judy. "Could you get these developed, today or tomorrow, rush job?"

"Sure, I think, I'll check…"

"If you could take 'em down? I'm not going to have a chance for a while, and I don't want 'em to be delayed."

"What do you want, like, double prints?"

"Sure," I said. "One for us, one for the DCI people. Maybe a third for the official file, so we have something to work with. Just keep it cheap, or Lamar will have a fit." I hurried back into the kitchen, to catch the lab team.

I met the county attorney as I passed the dispatch center.

"I'm here to see what we can make of this." He sounded burdened, as usual. Being county attorney in our county, as in most of the state, was a part-time job. A large case could really hurt his private practice, which is where most of his income came from.

"Oh, it's a murder, all right," I said.

"Damn," he muttered, as we entered the kitchen.

"Our photos will be back in a couple of days, too," I announced. The lab people said, "Fine," but Art had a better idea.

"Why don't you give your film to the lab, they can develop it for you?"

I'd experienced that before. The state then kept the negatives. We always wanted, to keep our own negatives. "That's okay," I said. "They've already gone."

"Where do you take them?" asked Art. " Dubuque?"

"No, right downtown here, to the local drugstore. They'll be back in a couple of days."

After the lab team left, Lamar, the county attorney, Art, and I conferred. Actually, we argued perspectives, as they say. Art, who had a reputation for preferring the quick and dirty approach, insisted that Fred had done the deed.

"No doubt," he said. " Opportunity? You bet. I'm sure we can find a motive."

I disagreed. "Nope. Look at the scene. This is about the tidiest crime scene I've ever seen. Fred's not that careful. Not that patient."

"I'm not ruling out his having help, here," said Art. "An accomplice."

"Who," I asked, "Martha Stewart? Whoever cleaned up had lots of 'Helpful Household Hints' for the carpet."

"But, Carl," interjected the county's finest, "didn't you say that Fred had asked you if you'd charge him with murder if they were dead?"

"Yeah." Hard to argue that one.

"Speaking as an attorney," he said, grinning, "it certainly sounds to me like he had prior knowledge."

"I really don't think so," I said, leaning forward. "I think Fred was really worried that they might be dead, but I got the impression he thought they might have frozen to death. Not been shot. Don't forget, he was also worried that they were going to crap on him for missing his pickup assignment." I leaned back in my chair. "He just didn't want to be held responsible, that's all."

"Look," said Art. "Give me another suspect… anybody else. Then I might be able to cut Fred some slack. But, Carl," he said, leaning forward, "he was the only one who knew they'd fucking be at the Bergerman residence!"

"That's Borglan," I said. "The Borglan residence." He just blinked. I shook my head. He'd just had to use "fucking," to show he was one of the guys.

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I hate the 'gut feeling' bullshit as much as you do, but I just don't think that Fred did 'em. It doesn't make any sense to do all the covering up, and then sit outside the farm and honk your horn. Whoever killed them cleaned up the evidence really well, and did it so that the hired man, or anybody else watching the place, wouldn't pickup on the crime. Right?"

"Possibly," said Art.

"Possibly" my ass. "So, why then sit on the road and draw attention to yourself, on the off chance that a cop might come along? I just don't think so."

"Well, with the bodies salted away in the shed, the only person who might stumble on them was the hired man, right?" Lamar was off on his own track.

We all agreed.

"Let's not rule him out," said Lamar. "He might have been at the place when the two guys showed up. He might have done it."

"That could be," said Art, "but what motive would he have, really? He could just watch them, and call the cops when they left."

"Maybe he knows Fred?" said Lamar. "Let's get this checked out, too."

"Sure," I said. "Will do."

"Murder makes the mind do strange things," interjected our prosecutor. He just does that sometimes. Tosses in whatever is in his head. He does it in court, too. Leaving an occasional flabbergasted judge in his wake.

"So, what's with the bodies in the machine shed?" asked Art. "Why there? Just for argument's sake."

"Not enough room in the refrigerator?" I just stuck that in. Well, I was tired, and I thought it was funny. Apparently, I was a little more tired than everybody else.

"The ground is frozen solid," said Lamar, quickly. "Can't dig anywhere, so you store the bodies. Just like they do at all the cemeteries this time of year. Either that or heat the ground. Mostly, though, just come back later, haul 'em away, and dig a hole someplace." Lamar looked around the table. "Nothin' in the machine shed the hired man would need."

That, of course, implied that the Borglans' itinerary was pretty well known to the suspect. I said as much. This led to a brief discussion as to how many people knew where the Borglans were. Many, as it turned out. But it brought the hired man right back into the limelight.

What I couldn't understand was why Fred would salt the bodies away, clean the house, and otherwise erase any sign of his presence, and then come to the cops. It just didn't make any sense. I said as much.

"It would have if he'd changed his mind," said Art. "Guilt working on him, especially after he contacts his aunt, to make his alibi, and sees how worried she really is."

"Hell," I said, "if he was feeling guilty, he'd just confess and get it over with."

"Look," said Lamar. "So far, I think Carl's on the right track, here. We have no evidence linking Fred to the scene, and no motive for him to kill them." He looked at Art. "I know we don't need to prove motive, but it sure as shit would help to have one." He looked at me. "For anybody."

"Do we have any idea yet," asked Art, "where they were selling the stolen guns? That might get us somebody who knows more about the three of 'em. More background."

Actually, no, we didn't. This was shaping up into a long investigation, any way you cut it.

Then the county's finest prosecutor came up with the most telling point against Fred, and one that I had been missing. "I get the impression that we're all assuming that Fred planned this out in advance. Maybe not. Maybe he was there, and they just got into an argument. Maybe it was spur of the moment. Or, just maybe, Carl, it went down like the Whiting case."

About ten years ago, a man named Whiting got into an argument with a drinking buddy at a remote river cabin. Killed him. In the presence of another drinking buddy. He'd convinced the survivor to help him dispose of the body and the evidence. The guy had done so, apparently frightened and glad to be alive. He also had no place to run. Or to call for help. Then Whiting killed the second man.

"Could be," I said, "but don't forget that Whiting was a really dominant sort of guy. Fred isn't. And Whiting was really a cold man. Fred isn't that, either."

"Oh, I don't know," said Art. "Standing there with a gun…"

"And," said Lamar, "we only have Fred's word that he dropped them off. He could have gone in with them just as easily."

"Well, anyway, you people hash this out," said the prosecutor, standing up. "I'm afraid I'm asking the Attorney General for an assist on this one, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to remove myself from the case, anyway."

"You're what?" asked Lamar.

"I do Borglan's taxes, there's a possible conflict here." He raised both hands to shoulder level, palm up. "I'm sorry. But I do think you should interview Fred."

"His attorney will never permit it," I said. "Even if he's innocent."

"Christ. It's not Priller, is it?"

"It's Priller," said Lamar.

Priller was a well-known obstructionist. A pompous, irritating, aggravating little twerp. But somehow he managed to be likable at the same time, because he never took it to a personal level.

Mike grinned and shook his head. "Well, gentlemen, I wish you all the best of luck."

This was a bit of a blow, as the county attorney would normally be available for the quick questions during an investigation, while the assigned prosecutor from the Attorney General's office would do the long-term prosecutor's stuff.

"Are you going to appoint a special prosecutor at the county level?" I asked.

He stopped for a second, on his way to the door. "Boy, Carl," he said. "I don't know that the county board of supervisors is going to approve that… it could be pretty expensive, and with a state prosecutor assigned… But, I'll ask."

Expenses. It always came down to that.

It was only a few seconds after he left that our secretary stuck her head in the door and motioned to me.

"Manchester PD called, and said to say that Dr. Peters was on the way here, and that everybody should stay put."

"Really?" I relayed the information back to the table. It was just a bit unusual. I hadn't expected Dr. Peters to come back up today.

At 0945 we, as they say, reconvened. Being an opportunist, I grabbed another doughnut.

Dr. Peters had brought a portable light-board device, to backlight X rays. We didn't have one. Who does, except hospitals?

We watched, paying very close attention, as Dr. Peters described the film.

"Subject number one," he said. "This is… Royce Colson… the fellow we looked at first at the scene. The one who was on his back. Bullet wound in his right temple…"

The X ray showed the hole, cracks in the skull, a little trail of debris through the brain toward the left side, and a fragmenting of bone on the left side.

"Through and through," said Dr. Peters. "Entered just behind the eye, into the sphenoid, right above the zygomatic arch. Transverses the brain, and exits via the lower edge, just about precisely at the squamous suture. Caused a stellate, circumferential fracture of the skull, as it did." He traced the points with his hand as he talked. Good thing.

The bullet had gone in right behind the eye, kept pretty level, and come out the other side a little farther aft, cracking the skull completely around its circumference. The stellate or star-shaped portion was a crack running up the side of the skull from the entrance, and stopping near the top of the head.

"This victim may have been upright, and I suspect standing erect, at the time the shot was fired." He looked at us. "I strongly suspect that the bullet which exited this man's head is the one discovered that made the hole in the wall of the Borglan residence." He paused. "The entrance wound is about two-tenths of an inch in diameter, so I think we're dealing with a.22 caliber bullet. Close examination of the wound, after washing the clotted blood away, reveals very intense tattooing around the entrance." He stepped back from the X ray. "Photos will be available soon, I'm sure, but it was a nearly perfect circle, and I suspect we have a contact gunshot wound, here. I would also think it was made with the muzzle in contact because the projectile actually exited the skull… Lots of energy available here," said Dr. Peters.

The muzzle was in contact with the skull when the gun went off. This was usually an indication of a suicide, but hardly likely in this case.

"Self-inflicted?" asked Art. Thinking aloud again.

"I don't believe so," said Dr. Peters. "Let's have a look at the next one… this would be a Dirk Colson," he said, checking his notes. "Notice that both entrance wounds are from the top of the head, in the right rear portion of the skull." He pointed. "The second round entered just ahead of the first, also traveling downward. It caused these fractures here," he said, "that stop at the sagittal suture, and also stop at the hole made by the first wound."

"This second one travels in a path to here," he said. "Again in the basilar part, but on the left and more forward."

We could see that one, too. It appeared to be on its side.

"This is the one that caused the extrusion of the brain tissue out the first entrance hole."

I remembered that. Like frosting out of a cake decorator.

"Close examination of both these wounds indicated a contact or near contact gunshot, as well." He removed the last X ray, and put one of each victim up on the board.

"Likely a double murder, then," said Art.

Dr. Peters said, "Oh, yes. And a bit more flavor, I think." He paused, pointing at the X ray of Dirk Colson. "From the nature and path, I would strongly suspect that this second victim was in a lowered position, possibly seated or kneeling, possibly squatting, when the two wounds were inflicted." He cleared his throat. "With the shooter behind the victim.

"So," said Dr. Peters, "based on the angles of the bullet tracks, the second victim was shot by a gun almost directly above and behind him. Even with a.22 pistol, that would require that the victim be either on his knees or seated." He paused. "Well, absent a ladder." He shrugged. "However, given the fact that both victims would very likely fall just about right where they were shot, it would explain the bloodstains on the floor. With the lack of bloodstains on the chairs that were moved to cover the stained area of the carpet, I will say this: The major carpet stains likely were from each of the victims, that the stains occurred when they were lying on the floor, and that the blood came from their heads. With the stained areas nearly in the center of the room, there doesn't appear to be any item of furniture close enough to permit the second victim to have been shot while seated, or for the shooter to have stood upon while shooting."

"An execution, sort of?" I asked.

"I can narrow your parameters, Carl. I can tell you they weren't shot at a distance. I can tell you what the evidence tells me happened. An execution… is a possibility. A strong one. But a possibility. Not a proven fact."

"Execution," said Art, disdainfully, "in my book requires restraints, bindings, things like that. Could this, Doctor, have been done in the heat of anger, not in a cold-blooded style?"

"Yes."

Art shrugged. "Well, that still leaves us with Fred. He goes in with them, gets mad, and shoots both of 'em." He looked around the room. "Like they say, go for the simplest solution."

Keep it simple. Naturally. But I hate oversimplifications like that. In the first place, people are complex. In the second place, you can get too simple, and jump before all the facts are in. I said as much.

"Oh, sure, Carl," said Art. "I can keep an open mind. But I'll tell you the truth… it's gonna take a lot of evidence to convince me that it wasn't either Fred or the hired man." He shrugged. "I sure don't think it looks like it's anybody else."

Like I said, Art always liked the quick and dirty approach. I suspected he was right more often than not, but I was getting just a little weary of this approach. Simple is one thing, easy is another. If we went with Fred, the easy touch, we were going to cut off the rest of the possibilities. If I was right, and Fred hadn't done it, that would be a catastrophe.

"This still doesn't go down quite right with me," I said.

"It's probably just because you know Fred," said Art.

"Could be," I replied, "but I'll still reserve judgment."

What bothered me about all this was that I felt Fred would be more than willing to talk with us, and probably would be a great help, but Priller the lawyer would not give us any slack on the questioning. He'd want immunity or some such for the burglary charges and as Fred was still the primary suspect for the murders, giving away the burglary charges now would set him free. Then Priller would advise him not to tell us anything about the murders anyway.

That left us with the scene as our only source of evidence. The lab crew had all the materials from there. But we could still go out and look at the place again, especially the tracks left by the dead men on their way to the house. It does help, and you will sometimes get an insight if you look the entire scene over again, after you have developed a scenario. Well, that's what they tell you in the Academy.

Right.

We called Cletus Borglan, and he told us two things. One, it was going to have to be soon, as he was going to be leaving for Florida the day after tomorrow. Two, he wouldn't let us on his property without four hours' prior notice, and he and his attorney would have to be present.

We checked the forecast. A big upward bump in the jet stream was moving inexorably eastward. But ever so slowly. It was supposed to be warming steadily for the next five days. Good. We wanted to see the tracks over the hill in the daylight. They were faint, we knew that. But we wanted to see if there was a way to tell how many people had gone over the fence and to the house. We'd better be sure about that before the snow started to melt again.

It took three hours to type the search warrant application, but Judge Winterman issued a warrant to search the property for the exterior tracks and patterns of tracks, from the roadway to wherever they would lead us. It was the first time I'd ever included a National Weather Service forecast in a search warrant application. I was kind of proud of that.

Art was in his slacks and sport coat. With wingtips. No overshoes that I'd seen, and just a dress coat. "You got anything warmer?"

"Don't worry about me."

"Well, I wasn't really worried. I just didn't want to have to examine another frozen body."

We contacted the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and got a Fish and Game enforcement officer named Sam Younger to meet us at the office. Sam could track just about anything, and was sure a lot better at it than the rest of us.

As soon as we got the search warrant in our hands, we called Borglan, and got no answer. Tough. Out we went. Not so tough that we didn't leave orders for the dispatcher to call the Borglan residence every five minutes until she got an answer, though. Lamar, having once been shot by a farmer who didn't honor a court process, didn't want us taking any chances, either. Wisely, as he still needed a cane most of the time, Lamar also opted to stay at the office.

I drove us directly to Borglan's house. No vehicles. I called dispatch, and they said there had been no answer yet. I got out, and went to the door and knocked several times, calling out Cletus's name as well. Satisfied there was no one home, I slipped a copy of the search warrant into the sliding door. The legal requirements had been satisfied.

I thought it best if we started where the two brothers had, so we linked up with DNR officer Sam Younger near the Borglan place, and I took everybody to where the tracks began. I explained to Sam that we wanted to try to discover how many people had made the track. It was a good thing that I'd seen them the day before, because the snowplows had been by again, "dressing" the edges of the gravel road, and the deep ditch was now completely filled with road snow. Although we were just able to make out the disturbed area on the other side of the barbed-wire fence, where the tracks led over the hill, it didn't look too promising. Well, as they say, you gotta try. We waited for Art to pull a pair of black five-buckle overshoes over his wingtips. They had N C JAIL hand painted on the sides. Ah, yes. Don't worry about Art. He'd also apparently borrowed one of the quilted, knee-length coats the prisoners wear when they go out for exercise in the winter. Mustard-colored. He cut a fine figure.

"You look like a North Korean soldier," I said. He glared, but didn't say anything.

Crossing the ditch was especially difficult for those of us who were a bit heavier than the others. I was treated to the spectacle of Art virtually walking straight to the fence line, while I was knee-deep in snow.

"Hey, Houseman," he said, "how's the low-fat diet coming?"

I would have done something cute, like answer him, but I was too out of breath.

Sam, the Department of Natural Resources officer, responded for me. "It's all the damned rice those North Koreans eat," he said.

We grouped at the fence, and Sam Younger scrutinized what he gamely referred to as the track. "You know," he said, "there really isn't a hell of a lot left, is there?"

"It might help," I said, "if you see it in an angled light, like early evening."

"I'm sure," he said. He looked over at Art. "Is there any magic sort of thing you people do to lift tracks from under snow like this?"

"Nope."

"Well, then," said Sam, "all we can do is see if the tracks diverge into three separate sets as they go… How far is the farmhouse?"

"About three-quarters of a mile, just over the hill, here," I said.

Art propped his arm on the fence post, and took three or four photos of the very faint track leading up the hill. It was hard to see among the trees and large limestone outcroppings on the slope of the hill. He wanted photos before we crossed the fence and tracked the area up.

We crossed the barbed-wire fence, and followed the track. My over the hill comment had made it sound so simple. Actually, the hilltop was divided, and we had to go down a long reverse slope, and back up again before we reached the crest that allowed us to see the house. The track split into two distinct portions three times in that distance. Never into three, though.

Worse, on the way down to the house, it split into two discernible depressions, and they stayed that way for about a hundred yards, until we lost them in the multitude of tracks made yesterday and since. Just the way two men, walking together, would approach their target. Walking parallel, with about a fifteen-foot separation.

We stopped in Borglan's yard. There were now two cars there, and a pickup truck. Cletus Borglan opened the door just before I got there.

"What do you want?"

"We just wanted to let you know that we were done with the tracks," I said. I watched him eye Sam. Cletus was one of those who had no time for the DNR, especially their Fish and Game officers.

"Did you think they took a deer on the way?"

"No point in being sarcastic, Cletus," I said. "We were just trying to learn something from their route."

He looked at me with cold, unblinking eyes, and it was very much apparent that he didn't believe a word I was saying.

"Right," he said. "So, if they were burglars, how come there's nothing missing?"

"Well," I said, "I don't think…"

"We aren't allowed to discuss a current investigation," interrupted Art, quickly. "Everything must be held confidential while the investigation is active."

I had been about to say that they hadn't had a chance to take anything, but Art was right. Technically, anyway. It's just that the official confidentiality thing sounds so much like an attempt to conceal something. Besides, there was always some slack you could let out, but apparently, Art didn't want any going toward Borglan. I wasn't about to be so unprofessional as to argue the point in front of Cletus. Although, come to think of it, I wouldn't have been so unprofessional as to interrupt me, either.

"'Investigation'?" asked Cletus, just as two men I recognized as being area farmers came to the door behind him. "Isn't that just another word for cover-up?"

"Cletus," I said, grinning, "I just wish I knew enough about what happened to know what should be covered up." I shook my head, and glanced at Art. "Anyway, just wanted to make sure you got that copy of the search warrant, and answer any questions you might have."

"Nothin' personal," said Cletus, "but I'd just as soon ask my attorney."

"I would, too," I said, turning to go. "That's what you pay 'em for." As I was turning, I could see through the sliding glass doors, and became aware that there were at least two other occupants of the house. As I walked away, I heard Cletus say, "That one's a deputy, and one is a damned game warden." I began to suspect that one of the unknowns might be his attorney. I didn't look back, because when there is a bit of tension in the air, looking back after you've done what you've come to do can get you into an argument. But I was certainly glad I'd dropped the search warrant copy off before we went for our walk.

The consensus among us was that we had achieved very little. This was expressed by Sam Younger as we walked back to the cars.

"Well, shit…"

We parted company with Sam, who had to go on a deer-poaching call. I was sorry there hadn't been anything more for him to get his teeth into.

Back in my car, Art and I did some serious thinking. I could remember very clearly that there had been no other car tracks when I drove into the Borglan yard the day before. With what I'd say was a high probability that there were two sets of tracks going from the roadway, over the hill, and to the farm, I just couldn't see how it was possible for Fred to have gotten there to do the deed.

"Simple," said Art. "One of the brothers was already there."

Well, I have to admit, I hadn't thought of that possibility. "Why?"

"Don't know, yet," he said. "But I'll figure it out."

"Well, one thing's for sure," I said. "Somebody was already there. Any way you cut it. It could have been Fred, too, for that matter. Could have been."

So. Two sets of tracks going in. Two dead bodies, both shot in the head. They hadn't killed each other, nor had they killed themselves. No obvious involved weapon at the scene. (There wasn't a.22 in the gun cabinet. All shotguns and larger caliber handguns.) No spent shell casings, which indicated to me a revolver. The mess pretty much cleaned up. The bodies put in the shed, covered with a tarp, as if awaiting disposal at a later date.

"Who do you think was going to go back and dispose of the bodies?" I asked of no one in particular.

"Fred," said Art. Instantly. "Probably as soon as he got a buddy to help." He paused for a second. "Or, maybe, if he wasn't able to get a friend to help him out, that's why he just gave up and went to the cops?"

"Yeah?" I said. I just didn't think Fred had done it. I did have to admit, though, that I still didn't have another suspect.

"You still skeptical?" asked Art. "Well, that's good. Keeps us honest." Condescending. Immediately separating me from "them," the true professionals. I resent things like that, but there are simply times where you can't let it show.

I cleared my throat. "Which still leaves us with the snowmobile tracks," I said. "Time to talk with the hired man."

"I'd like to see 'em from the air first," said Art. "To see where they all go."

Well, sure. Who wouldn't? It was just that some of us weren't used to working with choppers available. We checked through dispatch for the status of his flying machine.

"They're supposed to be at the Maitland Airport in about ten," she said. "They report a 'window' of about an hour, and then they want to head back. There's a front moving in."

Reasonable, as they had probably come from Des Moines to Dubuque, refueled at the Dubuque Airport, and then headed up to Maitland International, as we called it. Reverse that to go home, and you're talking about three or more hours. Maitland International, also known as MAX, was a grass strip and one tin shed with a wind sock on the curved roof, and a large machine shed that was called a hangar. But it was ours.

We had just enough time to get to MAX, to meet them. I really hoped we'd get a Huey.

We hit the airport about fifteen minutes later, and there was an Army-drab Huey sitting there. Yahoo! My lucky day.

We met the pilots and the crew chief, they opened the large sliding doors on the sides for us, and closed them as soon as we were secured in the canvas bench seats. We were held in by thin seat belts, and faced outward. Infantry assault helicopter, you know. Wanted to be able to jump out as soon as they hit the ground.

We were also each given a headset and mike, which we keyed by pressing a button that was clipped to our coats. I was on the right side and Art was on the left, with the crew chief in the middle. With a roar, we were airborne, and sliding over Maitland.

I gave directions to the pilot, and in about two minutes, we were able to make out the Borglan place. A minute later, we were over the Borglan house at 750 feet, and started following the snowmobile tracks to the southwest. They went over a small board bridge that crossed the stream, and then through a wooded area, along fencerows, and eventually came out at the hired man's residence. All of them.

We asked the pilot to go back, and tried to see if any tracks diverged. I made the mistake of asking them to orbit the little bridge area so we could get a photo. The crew chief slid the door open, so we could have "unobstructed vision, sir." Right. Cold, oh Lord was it cold, and my feet were hanging out over the edge of the fuselage, and we went into a bank with us on the down side, and there was nothing to hang on to, and I was so sorry I'd asked…

We got our shots, though. Art didn't seem to be bothered a bit by hanging on the edge of oblivion. I, of course, didn't let on. Having discovered the steel post toward the center of the cabin, I'd casually slipped my arm over the back of the seat, and grabbed on for dear life with my left hand. The crew chief blew my act when he said, "Don't worry, we haven't lost one yet."

He slid the door closed, again, and went back and forth between the two farms three times. We thought once that we had something, but it turned out to be a cow path.

They all went to and from the farms. No splitting off. Direct route. Then, once they got to the hired man's residence, they went all over hell. Whoever ran the snowmobiles apparently really enjoyed traveling about the countryside. There must have been fifty tracks radiating out from that other farm, some going through fields, some staying close to established paths. One particular set simply made circles in a forty-acre field. Somebody just playing around. Another several sets to and from a machine shed on what must originally have been a third farm. Big shed, with the empty foundations of a house and barn behind it. Storage for planting and harvesting equipment.

"Look," I said, brightly, on the intercom. "Crop circles."

There were also lots of black Angus cattle in the fields near the farm. Beef cattle. The hired man was likely using the snowmobiles to herd the beef cattle.

I suggested we fly the foot tracks that went from the farm, over the hill, and to the road; the ones we had just walked. We did, at about 1,000 feet. As we passed over the Borglan farm, I saw there were several people standing outside, looking up. I waved, but I don't think they saw me.

As we headed for the hill, our own tracks were glaringly obvious, but the track we had followed was pretty faint. We then flew the ridgeline, and there were no other tracks that we could see. We paralleled the roadway, and were unable to make out any points where somebody had crossed the fence line. We did a wide circle of the farm, and there were no tracks we could see coming in from anywhere. We did have one set of depressions that looked fresh. The pilot, at the request of Art, went into a low hover to give us a better look. Obligingly, the crew chief slid the door open, and in the freezing draft, we could see they were deer tracks. We came out of hover quickly, as the pilot wasn't supposed to descend lower than 1,000 feet, according to regulations.

Interestingly, I found it scarier to hover just above the tops of the trees than it was to orbit higher up. Better sense of height, I guess.

We flew back to MAX, thanked the crew, and were back in our car. Art and I compared notes. This is what we had, generally:

All the tracks out of the Borglan place go through the hired man's yard. This means

A. He did the killing.

B. He has knowledge of who did the killing.

C. He has at least heard somebody go through his yard in a noisy snowmobile after they killed the brothers.

D. The killer is still at the farm.

"I figure," said Art, "we can pretty well eliminate the 'D' above."

I figured we could, too. Although there were no foot tracks from the house going anywhere except to the machine shed. The only other track was the snowmobile track that was near the back door. If our killer didn't take the snowmobile, he would have to have been in the house when I was first there. I didn't believe it for a minute, but it gave me a funny feeling in the back of my neck, anyway.

My feelings must have shown on my face. "Got a case of the spooks, Houseman?"

"Oh, sort of…" I said. Then, "Nah, we searched that house thoroughly." But I remembered very well the feeling that I was being watched…

I just drove. Back in the days when I smoked, this would have been the time.

I picked up the mike, and called for dispatch to phone Borglan's hired man, and let him know we were coming.

Art read off the sheet he'd picked up at dispatch earlier that morning. According to his information, the hired man was a fellow named Harvey Grossman. His driver's license had said he was born in '62, five feet nine inches, 180 lbs., blue, and brown. I didn't know him, but Lamar had told me that he'd moved to our county back in '93 or '94.

I was getting a little worried. Art was pretty well established as thinking that Fred had done the dirty deed. I didn't agree, and thought that Fred was telling the truth. All well and good, and an indication of a balanced investigation. The part that worried me was that I thought it was very likely that we were just about to talk with the man who had murdered the two burglars. I mean, if Fred hadn't done it, and all the snowmobile tracks at the Borglan place led to the residence of one Harvey Grossman, who was left?

Just for the sake of arguing with myself, I assumed that Grossman had been at the residence for some reason, and had caught the burglars in the act. Perhaps there had been some sort of confrontation. Turned violent. Bang. Bang. And then, bang. Put 'em in the shed. Who else would even be looking in there until the Borglans came back? If, as he said, Cletus had been called back unexpectedly for business, then how could Grossman have known he'd be coming? Right. He couldn't. All the time in the world to dispose of the bodies, as far as he could have known. The forecast was for warming for the next week or longer. Just wait a few more days for enough of a thaw to get them into a shallow pit. Move the corpses later, if necessary.

"How certain are you," I asked, "that Grossman here isn't the killer?"

"Just about positive," said Art. "Why?"

"Well," I began, and ran my theory by him. Quickly, but with some feeling.

"It's a point." He waited in silence. "Okay, it's a good point. If Fred didn't do it, this Grossman dude is the most likely suspect. Sure. So…?"

"Well," I began, again, "if he is a suspect, shouldn't we just come right out and advise him of his rights as soon as we see him? Let him know, and take it from there?"

"Jesus Christ, Houseman," said Art, "don't be so goddamned honest!"

"What?"

"No kidding," said Art, exasperated, and with uncharacteristic length. "Look. Keep the suspect business in the back of your head, but don't go getting carried away on me. Let the conversation flow. If he sends the right signals, then we hit him with Miranda and handcuffs all at once. Otherwise, lighten up."

"I know all that," I said, getting a little exasperated myself. "But, in court, if some attorney asks when I first thought this guy was a suspect, I'm gonna have to tell him it was before we talked with him for the first time."

"What did you do?" asked Art. "Watch the entire O.J. trial?" He sighed. "Don't worry about it. Fred's the shooter. Trust me."

Yeah. Right. As I drove, I reached back under my down vest, and unsnapped the restraining strap on my holster. I'd feel a lot better trusting Art if my gun was unsnapped when we walked to Grossman's door.

We pulled into the lane, and on the way to the residence, we drove through a nest of outbuildings. The house wasn't nearly the quality of the home place, but it was nice, and well maintained, nonetheless. It and the outbuildings were white frame, and looked pretty sound. The door to the wooden machine shed was opened, and there were four snowmobiles parked inside. One thing that struck me about them was that none of them had the little orange flags, and none of them appeared to have registration numbers on the cowl. Cops with a patrol officer's background notice stuff like that. I was willing to bet Art hadn't picked up on that

We got out of my car, and walked toward the kitchen door. I knocked. It was a courtesy not to go to the front door. Most farms reserved the front door for important occasions, and the back or kitchen door was used for routine entry. If we had been accepted at the front door, and none of us had removable outer footwear, we would have "tracked in" all sorts of snow and mud. Easier to clean a kitchen floor.

The inside porch door opened, and a man meeting Grossman's description came out.

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm Carl Houseman, deputy here in Nation County. The office called, and told you to expect us?"

"Somebody did. You got any identification?"

I fished out my badge, as did Art. Grossman reached for my badge case, and I pulled my hand back a couple of inches. I grinned at him. "You just get to look, Mr. Grossman. You can't have it until you're hired." He didn't seem particularly amused.

"So," he said, having scrutinized three badges he probably had no way of telling were authentic or not, "what can I do for you?"

He wasn't even inviting us onto the porch. Not a good sign.

"We're here because you're the hired man at the Borglan farm, and they had a burglary." I moved closer to the door. "We'd like to know when the last time was that you checked the place, and things like that."

"'Burglary,'" he said. "That's what you're calling it?"

"Well, it started out that way."

"I understand that a couple of cops got it?" he asked.

Christ, what was it with these people, anyway? Wishful thinking? "No, no. No cops. A couple of burglars got killed, though."

"By who?"

"Now, that's a good question. We thought maybe you could help us there."

Much to my surprise, he invited us in. "You might as well come on in, and we can get it over with."

Get what over with? I thought. I glanced at Art, and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. Damn. Could I be right?