The Big Thaw Part 3

That was unusual, and I really didn't want to do it, because it meant that I'd have to traipse back through part of the house again. But Sally knew what she was about, and she wouldn't ask if it weren't really necessary.

I let myself back in the Borglan house, and called the office.

"Sheriff's Department..."

"Better be good," I said, grinning.

"You're not gonna like this one bit," said Sally.

"So ...?"

"The a.s.signed agent is Art Meyerman."

Oh, great. Just great. Art Meyerman had been the chief deputy in our department for several years, was a thoroughly unpleasant man, and had left under a bit of a cloud. He'd gotten a job with state, with what I suspected was a bit of political a.s.sistance, and had become an agent for the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. It was rare, but it happened.

I suspected that state wouldn't send Art back into his old county lightly. He'd been with them in Waterloo for almost two years, and as far as I knew, had never set foot in Nation County during that time. There had to be a shortage of available agents, for some reason.

I took a deep breath, and exhaled. "Hokay, Sally. Why don't you get Lamar to stop off in the office on his way through town, and give him the news. Maybe he can make something else happen ..."

I truly didn't want to be working with Art again. Although he and I could get along if necessary, he hated Mike, Sally, and just about half the rest of the department. With a double homicide, I wanted a really smooth investigation.

"Maybe Hester Gorse is available?" Hester was just about the best General Crim. agent in the state.

"Already checked, she's still on her temporary gambling boat rotation. They won't pull her out. I tried." The General Beauregard General Beauregard, a Mississippi River gaming boat was home-ported in our county.

"Right." Well, we'd just have to make the best of it. If there was a best. "Right," I said, again. "Well, as long as I've got you on the phone, get an ETA for the medical examiner, will you? And find out who it is."

"You bet. Sorry about Art."

"Not your fault. Just remember that you secretly love him ..."

"Yeah," said Sally. "Right." If she could have spit over the phone, she would have.

I got that spooky feeling again, just as I hung up the phone.

I talked to Mike on my way to my own car. "You might want to move your car around over there," I said, pointing in the general direction of the steeper of the slopes leading to the backyard, where his lights would do the most good and he could observe the back door. "I'd feel better, just in case there's still somebody in the house."

He gave me a startled look, and I kind of grinned to myself. Had him spooked, now, too. Misery loves company.

Then I sat in my warm car, and waited for everybody else to arrive.

I could hear the radio traffic begin to pick up as people came to work, or got closer. First, as John Willis, Deputy Number Nine, hit the road, and then as Lamar started out from the office. Shortly afterward, I heard a terse, one-line announcement from State Radio that an agent was en route to our county.

It was just warm enough in the car to destroy any adaptation I might have made to the cold. I reloaded my camera, and then began to scratch out a series of notes to myself. And I started to think about Fred.

Could he have done this? Sure. In this business, you learn early on that anybody can do just about anything. The real question was, did he? I didn't think so. If he'd done it, I thought it would be more likely that he simply would have run away, and sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't have been discovered sitting out on the road, honking his horn. After all, running requires the least, immediate effort. We probably wouldn't even have discovered the bodies until the Borglans came back. Which reminded me ...

"Comm, you might want to try to get hold of the owner here, wherever they said they could be reached. Not too many details, okay, but I think we might need one of them up here."

"Ten-four."

"And, let me know if you reach them ..."

"Ten-four," she said, being a bit short. Of course she'd let me know. Telling her something that basic was just a bit of an insult. I was sure I'd hear about that one later. I was wrong. I heard about it right away.

"Comm, One?" That was Lamar.

"One?"

"You want to let him know when you tie his shoes, too?"

"If it makes him feel better," said Sally. She sounded happy.

I could hear Lamar chuckle as he said, "Three, we're already on that."

I grinned, and got back to my notes. Back to Fred. Back to the Borglans' vacation. They were in Florida. Great. Should probably be a day or more before they could get a plane ... Oh, well. We'd need their permission to search the place, just as a courtesy, and to possibly extend that search over their entire farm. Not only that, but they were the only people who could tell us a lot of things, including whether or not anything was missing. Whether or not Fred knew them. Who would have had access to the place. What was disturbed. All the stuff that I needed to know.

We'd just have to do what we needed to do without them. It occurred to me that I'd be a little irked if I had to come back from Florida into this deep freeze, for something like this. h.e.l.l, for any reason, really.

"Three, Comm" jarred me back to reality.

"Comm?"

"Have contacted the subject you requested. They will be ten-seventy-six ASAP."

"The property owner?"

"Ten-four."

Cool. Almost like magic. "They give an ETA, Comm?" I still thought it would be at least forty-eight hours.

"The male subject is already on his way, was coming up for some business things, for a couple of days."

"Well, ten-four, Comm. Excellent!" I just love it when things happen to go smoothly for a change.

"Should be arriving at the Cedar Rapids Airport in an hour or so, according to his wife."

"Ten-four!" Perfect timing. How about that.

"Three, the other subject is ten-six, but will be able to head up in about an hour or so, from the Manchester area."

I thought rapidly. Who was the other subject? Oh.

"Last name end in a nine?" As in 10-79, which would be the M.E.

"That's the one." She was quick, as usual.

"Ten-four." The one I really wanted was based near Cedar Rapids. Manchester threw me. "Comm, did they say which one it was?"

"Negative, Three."

I hung the mike back up. All right. I wasn't sure just how much of a rush we should be in for the M.E., with the bodies in a deep freeze. If they'd gone out to the shed on Sunday, and it was way up in the twenties, would they be frozen through by now? Would it make an appreciable difference? How in h.e.l.l was the M.E. going to come even close to a time of death? They did have frost on them. Warm when they got out there? I thought for a second. If they'd been covered as soon as they were deposited, would the frost have formed? Or did it mean they were covered afterward? d.a.m.n. If they'd been pretty warm, I thought we might just get frost as they froze. And just what did that tell me? Nothing, yet.

We'd need to try for a core temperature, but what would that tell us? With the ambient temperature varying from what ... room temperature to minus thirty-five degrees, with pauses at the mid-twenties, how would temperature determine time of death? Or, rather, how close could it get us? I didn't have much hope for that approach.

Stomach contents. There was a chance for you. Frozen food, so to speak. We'd have to find out when they'd last eaten.

What other evidence would there be in the house? I was really anxious to do the whole place. There had to be something in there. Then Fred's question about whether or not I'd charge him with manslaughter popped back into my head. Why had he asked that? Just dumb luck? I thought so, but I was far from sure.

I was beginning to be afraid his was going to be an interesting case.

I jotted down the questions, and was just going to pick up my mike when I saw Lamar coming down the lane in his four-wheel-drive pickup, completely marked in the white with blue-outlined gold striping of a normal patrol car. It had the newest set of top lights in the department, as well. "Lamar's Awesome Machine," as Mike called it. I waved, and he pulled up on the left side of my car, motioning me to join him. I did so, gratefully. My car was a standard-sized Chevy, and bearable; but Lamar's truck was larger, and almost luxurious inside. I'm six feet three, and about 260 or so. I like to be able to stretch out a bit in a vehicle.

I clamored in, and shut the door. Lamar gave me a long look. "I posted Nine at the end of the lane, so the DCI can find this place. You know it's Art who's comin'?"

I nodded. "Can't figure that one out."

"I called his supervisor from the office. They've got a major case down in Washington County, and everybody else is out with the flu." He looked at me for a second. "Art ain't gonna know I called his boss."

"Right."

He sighed, the way only a stressed sheriff can. "So, just what the h.e.l.l you got here?"

I told him. When I was finished, he only had a couple of questions.

"How were they killed?"

"Dunno, Lamar. Didn't look that close. I didn't move anything, and I just raised the tarp enough to see that it was two males. Very, very dead." I grinned. "And no, I didn't recognize either one of 'em."

"I was gonna ask that," he said. "Okay. Okay." He was thinking. "You think Fred, over there, did it?" He gestured toward Mike's patrol car.

I took a second before I answered. While doing so, something in the truck caught my eye.

"Is that a thermos of coffee?"

Lamar squinted at me. "We'll have a cup after you answer the last question."

"Okay," I said. "Got any doughnuts? Get a better answer for doughnuts."

He reached down behind my seat, and produced a white paper sack with MAITLAND BAKERY in red letters. He sort of waved it in front of me.

"Well," I said, "I think he's pretty much the only suspect we got." I waited a beat. "But I'd be real surprised if he turns out to be the killer. Mike came up on him as he was sittin' out at the pickup point, honking his horn. That worth a doughnut?"

"Sure," said Lamar. "Yours is pretty much the only opinion we got." He grinned. "So far."

They were chocolate, with chocolate frosting sprinkled with those little multicolored things. I took one bite, and said, "You got another one of those, I'll try to think of another suspect for ya ..."

Less than thirty minutes later, the a.s.signed DCI agent drove up. Our ex-chief deputy, Art Meyerman. Art was kind of a.n.a.l retentive; so much so, he'd been stuck with the nickname of "a.n.u.s." I wasn't sure if he'd ever found that out.

I gave him a very brief description of what Fred had told me, and a short walk across the front of the house, pointing out the highlights.

"And they're over in that shed?" asked Art.

"Yep."

"And the M.E. isn't here yet?"

True to form, I thought. He had to ask. There were just four of us standing in the middle of the desolate, frozen yard: Mike, Lamar, Art, and me. With a prisoner in the back of Mike's car. n.o.body else, no other car, nada. I felt like looking behind me before answering. "Nope, but he should be here in half an hour or so."

"I'm glad to see you left a couple of uniforms at the end of the lane," said Art. He was trying to be nice, but I found it very irritating that he referred to uniformed officers as "uniforms." The way he said it, it meant "second-cla.s.s cop," and I thought it was very unfair. Partly since he had been mostly uniformed until a couple of years ago. And mostly since I was in my uniform.

We walked over toward Mike's patrol car. Art wanted to get a look at Fred, to see if he remembered him.

"Mike," he said, "would you contact State Radio and get the mobile lab up here?"

I resented his talking to Mike like that, particularly since he'd left the department to get away from the rest of us, but Mike didn't seem to mind a bit. "Sure thing, Art." Well, the "Art" did seem to have a thin glaze of sarcasm.

I stepped back with Art. "You recognize Fred, there in the back?"

Art sighed. "Can't tell. I want him out of here, though. Get him back to the office, or something. I don't want him around when we start doing serious stuff."

Fine with me. I told Mike to get him back to the S.O., and to hold him on a burglary charge. I didn't think we had anywhere near enough to do even a Suspicion of Murder on him.

"Let's go do the bodies with the M.E., at least a preliminary," I said, to both Art and Lamar. "As soon as one gets here. I haven't been back to the shed, so I don't have any photos except what I can see with the tarp pretty much in place. We can at least do that."

There was always the question as to who got to do the bodies first ... the lab folks, who would gather evidence, or the M.E., who would tell everybody what evidence to look for. Since I had absolutely no idea what had caused the death of the two brothers in the shed, I was going for the M.E.

Art didn't look too sure, but Lamar jumped at the chance to have something to do. "Good."

That ended that discussion.

It was understood among us that, while Art and the DCI were the "detectives" on the case, it was our case all the way. They were a.s.sisting the Sheriff's Department. Not the other way around. Lamar was going to call the shots. But he was also smart enough to let Art work. Art had always had a nose for certain kinds of crimes, and knew a lot of people in Nation County.

Our job at this point was to protect and preserve the evidence for the M.E. and the lab team. Not that a frozen body was going to decompose or anything. But we did want photos for the M.E.'s later reference as well as ours. I thought I'd better get my camera. I knew that DCI probably had at least one, but I wanted my own shots, too.

On the way I noticed that the light had changed quite a bit with the headlights of the other cars. Some tracks were more noticeable, others had virtually disappeared. Sunlight was going to wash them out completely.

We all got into Lamar's extended cab, and cozied down.

Lamar lifted the air pot. He glanced at Art, who held his hand over his cup. I held my cup out. As he filled it, he said, "Ain't it something. The way that cold air makes your bladder act up?"

Lamar pa.s.sed the time sweeping the area with his electronically controlled, state-of-the-art spotlight, mounted well forward on the right fender of the "Awesome Machine." The whole farmstead was in a wide valley, with a small stream running along the far side. I had to really look, but then I saw the track. Or, more precisely, tracks. There must have been a dozen separate tracks, some leading clear down the valley, some rising up a hill and disappearing.

"They look like old snowmobile tracks," I said. "I didn't see 'em before. Must have been the lighting."

"Must have," said Lamar, sarcastically, sipping his coffee. "We know how you never miss a thing." He grinned.

He was referring to an incident where I had left my raincoat at a crime scene, and it had later been found and taken in as evidence by the FBI. Art snickered.