The Big Thaw Part 4

My first thought was that the suspect or suspects had gotten away on snowmobiles. Fred had brought his cousins to the farm in a car. Couldn't have been Fred. Unless, of course, Fred had lied about their coming in a car. But the snowmobile track from the rear of the house sure looked like a possibility for a fleeing suspect.

"That could be our suspect," I said. I'd a.s.sumed everybody had been thinking along those lines.

"Then," asked Art, "how do we explain the others?"

"Hired man," said Lamar. "He checks the place once in a while, while they're gone. He lives next place down the valley. I know he has a snowmobile."

"I see," said Art, lowering the binoculars. "We may want to talk with him."

"Already had 'em contact his wife," said Lamar. "Before I left the office. She said he's gone, picking the owner, Cletus Borglan, up at the Cedar Rapids Airport. Left about three hours ago. He'll call the office as soon as he gets back." He took another sip of his coffee. "I told the office to let us know when he calls. Didn't know if we wanted him here, or if you would want to talk to him at his place."

Lamar has been around the block.

The M.E. came driving up. Very nice black four-wheel-drive Bronco. Driven by Dr. Steven Peters, my favorite pathologist, and the one I'd hoped we were going to get. He had a forensic ticket, one of very few in the state, and he had a tremendous knowledge of his subject. He was also delightful to work with, and tended to bring his own supply of snack food. I can't begin to tell you how comforting it is to know that your autopsies have been done by a solid M.E., and that regardless what else happens, you always have the firm foundation of the M.E. report to fall back on.

We all got out of Lamar's pickup, as Dr. Peters pulled up. As he got out, he said, "I hope this is in the house! My G.o.d, it's cold!"

He knew us all from past cases. Lamar broke the bad news about the bodies being in the machine shed. After a brief consultation, we decided to drive Lamar's pickup and Dr. Peters's Bronco down the slope, and park them right at the edge of the shed. We could use them to warm up in, and to avoid having to walk back and forth for various items of equipment. And, as Dr. Peters said, to keep the doughnuts soft.

We chose a course that would avoid all the visible tracks, and down we went.

Just as we stopped, Lamar picked up his mike and said, "Comm, log the time. 0207."

"Ten-four, One."

"Nine, One?" as Lamar called Deputy Willis.

"One, go ..."

"Nine, you want to stay put. n.o.body gets in without a badge."

Once we got to the shed, all the lightness left us, and the somber business of investigating two dead bodies began. Everybody had their heaviest coats on by then, and m.u.f.flers or scarves wrapped over their mouth and nose. I couldn't help noticing that Art was rather underdressed for the occasion, with a topcoat instead of a parka.

Lamar and I were able to open the door another couple of feet, letting a bit of light in, and making access easier. We cast about, and finally located a light switch on the wall about ten feet from the walk-in door that was padlocked. Large fluorescent overheads flickered, struggled a bit, and then came on, flooding the entire s.p.a.ce with light. Perfect.

I took three photos of the inside of the shed, which looked to be about 60 30 feet. The inside wall was a galvanized steel. Then three shots of the bodies as I had left them, with the tarp covering everything but the feet. That tarp was an olive-green-colored canvas, with aluminum eyelets, and stiff as a board. Lamar, Art, and I pulled sharply to unstick the frozen edges from the floor, and then slowly lifted it off the victims, and carried it off to one side, still frozen in the shape it had been when it covered them. I turned, and got my first good look at the two dead men.

The nearest one was on his back with his arms at his side, the other about three-quarters onto his face with his arms folded underneath. Both had white plastic trash bags on their heads. They didn't look to be cinched with cord or anything, just sort of twisted. Yellow pull tabs, integral to the bags, had been tied under the chins. Stains on the outside of the bags showed they hadn't been terribly effective. I figured the blood puddle on the water heater, under the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs, was also indicative of that, but we'd have to check. The white bags were stiff, too, but not as bad as the tarp.

Three shots with each head in the center of the focus, for a total of six. I changed from the 50 mm lens to the 70-210 mm zoom. I fumbled a bit, as my fingers were getting cold. They were dressed in what at first seemed a light fashion. Jackets, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. Not dressed for today, that was certain.

"What was the temperature when they were supposedly dropped off?" asked Dr. Peters.

"Would have been in the middle to upper twenties," said Lamar.

"Hmm. Snow cover at that time?" Dr. Peters was pulling out the shirt from the waistband of the first victim, and sliding his gloved hand up onto the abdomen. Checking for indications of core temperature.

"Not a lot. Maybe, oh, two or three inches?" Lamar glanced at me. "Carl?"

"Yeah, about that." As soon as I spoke, the moisture from my breath froze on my gla.s.ses.

"Like ice," said Dr. Peters, mostly to himself, as he pulled his hand away and pulled the sweatshirt of the second victim up, reaching again toward the abdomen. This shirt, too, was stiff, but movable. "Quite a bit of moisture in the clothes, to freeze like this. Not wet..." He struggled for another few seconds with the sweatshirt. "Maybe damp, though." He tried to turn the body over to get his hand underneath in the abdominal area, but failed. "Somebody got a hand?"

I reached down, with my own latex-gloved hand, and grabbed the jacket near the right shoulder of the victim. I pulled, hard, and the body rolled about a half turn. They were as stiff as steel. No movement of any joints, whatsoever. Much worse than rigor mortis, where there was at least some possibility of some movement. "Corpse sickles."

Dr. Peters felt the abdomen of the second victim. "Just like a frozen supermarket turkey," he said. He stood. "Was there any reason they might have, oh, maybe sweat a bit before they were killed? That we'd know of at this point..."

"They were supposed to have walked in from over the hill," I said, letting go of the body, and watching it roll stiffly back to its original position. Just like a log, I thought. With the arms just like stiff, broken branches. "There are what look like may have been tracks in that direction."

"Good. I think that might do it, especially if they'd stopped in a warm place for a while ... like the house, for example."

"They sure aren't dressed for snowmobiling, even in the twenties, are they," said Lamar, making a firm point.

"I shouldn't think so," said Dr. Peters. "Not an expert in that, though," he said with a grin. "But if they were to do it, they'd be needing the services of another kind of doctor by now."

"We don't have any injuries yet, do we?" said Lamar.

"Not yet," said Dr. Peters, kneeling at the heads of the victims. "I suspect we'll find something inside the bags, though."

"Asphyxiation," said Art.

Dr. Peters looked up. "Pardon?"

"Asphyxiation," said Art, again. "You think?"

"I shouldn't be betting a large amount," said Dr. Peters. He began tugging at the bag on the closest victim. "These aren't at all tight."

The white bag was stiff, the way that polyethylene gets when it's really cold. It gave Dr. Peters a rough time for a few seconds, since it also appeared to be stuck to the victim's head by frozen blood. He finally tugged really hard, and as it came off, it suddenly revealed a black-haired male subject, approximately twenty-five or so, unshaven, teeth exposed in a grimace. It was sort of startling, and took us all a second or two to adjust.

There was a lot of clotted blood on the right side of the head, stiffly clumped in with the longish hair, and with a patch of frozen polyethylene adhering to the clumped strands. The right eyeball protruded a bit, with the left appearing sunken, at least in comparison. The complexion was sallow.

"Hmm," said Dr. Peters.

"Blunt object?" asked Art.

"Not going to be your day," said Dr. Peters, gently prodding the matted blood and hair. He tapped the protruding eyeball, producing a clicking sound. "Frozen solid," he said. He felt around to the other side of the head. "I suspect a gunshot wound, I think I feel an exit here." He leaned way over, supporting himself with one arm. "Could someone shine a flashlight over here?"

In the yellowish circle of Lamar's light, he was able to clear the left side of the victim's head. "Yes. Appears to be our exit, and ... temporal."

Cool. I took four shots of the first victim's face, concentrating in the first two on the clot, the second pair on the protruding eye. Establish, then zoom in. Lamar held a tape measure next to the nose for me. You should have a scale in the shots, whenever possible.

Dr. Peters gingerly removed the white bag from the head of the second victim. This one slipped right off. This fellow had a recently shaved head, and the small goatee I could see from my angle was blondish. There was blood on the second victim, too, but not nearly as much. And what appeared to be a bluish-purple spot on the back of the head, to the right of the middle, and about halfway to the top. Above it, about two inches, was a whitish squiggle of what looked like those worms kids squirt from cans. About an inch or so long, it protruded from another purplish spot.

Dr. Peters pointed to the squiggle. "Extruded brain tissue," he said. "Shot twice."

I was working the camera, so Lamar said, "Gunshot wound on both of them, then?"

"Two of them on this one," said Dr. Peters. He pointed to the upper spot, with the extruded matter. "This is the first shot, this is an entrance wound." He pointed to the lower spot. "Entrance wound, second shot. Pressure from it caused the material to squeeze out the first hole."

Aha. Lamar held the tape again, and I got in as tight as I could, showing both wounds. "Think it was a .22?" I asked. It looked about that size.

"I should think so," he said. "Note the facial features."

The young man's face was all compressed and flattened on one side, like he had his face pressed against a pane of gla.s.s. Except there was none. The simile apparently occurred to Art, too.

"World's best mime," he said, dryly. He surprised me so much I laughed. The DCI might have done him some good, after all.

The corpse's tongue was protruding through his lips, and his teeth weren't visible. There was a yellowish tinge to him, as well as a purple discoloration to the rounded portion of his face that looked like a huge bruise. Postmortem lividity. The flattened part of the face, on the other hand, was almost white.

"He was placed here a while after he died," said Dr. Peters. "The face is flattened by this floor, but there is no lividity in the flattened area."

Post-mortem lividity was the purplish color produced by pooling blood in a corpse. Gravity forces the blood to the lower points of the body. The process stops after a time, and if the body is moved to a different position after this time, there will be no liquid blood to pool in the new low spots.

"Affected by temperature, though," said Art.

"Oh, yes," said Dr. Peters. "Very much. But when we defrost him, if freezing interrupted the clotting process, we may well have continued liquid seepage into low spots..."

"Do you think there are two holes in the first one?" asked Art.

Dr. Peters stood again. "Can't say, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised. I want to bag the hands."

He reached into his kit, and pulled out a roll of transparent bags and a roll of tape. I helped him bag the hands. The first victim's hands were easy. The second one's required Art and me to heave the body up and onto its right shoulder, so the M.E. could get at the hands. The body was so stiff it was like tilting a statue.

Lamar asked for Art's cell phone. He reached in his inner pocket and handed it to him. He dialed, and said, "Yeah, it's me. Look, get Christiansen in early and have him take Fred up to the clinic and have Doc or a nurse use the gunshot residue kit on his hands. Yeah. No, he doesn't. No. It ain't testimonial evidence. His lawyer isn't necessary. Yeah? Good." He handed the phone back to Art. "f.u.c.kin' attorneys, I tell ya ..."

"These two gentlemen," said Dr. Peters, "are very thoroughly frozen. I suggest we leave them here until the lab team can see them, too. There's certainly no harm in that, as long as they get here fairly soon."

"They should be here in a couple of hours," said Art.

"That long," said Dr. Peters, pulling off his gloves. "Well, we have to defrost them before we can do much else ... no matter. That'll take twenty-four to thirty-six hours."

"d.a.m.n," I said, pretty much to myself. "That long?"

"Just about the same formula you'd use to thaw a frozen turkey before Thanksgiving." He grinned. "Don't worry, Carl," he said. "I'll X-ray the heads as soon as we get them to a machine. Most of the information you'll need right away should be available then.

"The heads should thaw a little quicker than the rest of them, as well," he said.

"Freezing going to affect the tissues ... the tests?" asked Lamar.

"Oh, sure. But not in an appreciable fashion. Burst cell walls won't prevent toxicology testing, for instance." Dr. Peters smiled. He looked around. "It's fairly obvious they weren't killed here. Any ideas?"

I told him what I'd seen in the house.

"Very good news," said Dr. Peters. "I'll need to take a look inside, then." He glanced at me. "The heat was on in there?"

"Yes."

"Ah, excellent," said Dr. Peters.

"Let's hurry up," said Art, "I'm freezing to death."

"Next time," said Lamar, dryly, "maybe you could wear a real coat..."

We went into the house via the kitchen door, and were very careful not to disturb any evidence. If it had just been a burglary scene, n.o.body would have gone in again until the lab team got there. But it was important for the homicide investigators to see the scene in the least disturbed state possible. That outweighed the lab requirements.

I walked Dr. Peters through the path I'd taken in the house. He agreed that the carpet stain could well be a bloodstain that had been cleaned up. The hole in the wall he didn't want to speculate on, but the diameter looked about right for a .22 caliber round. The small dried puddle on top of the water cooler was, to the best of his knowledge, blood.

Dr. Peters had to leave, as he had to autopsy a questioned death victim in Manchester. He said that he'd do ours as soon as the bodies were warmed sufficiently.

"X rays first," he said. "And I'll be in touch with the lab team."

We waited in the house for the mobile lab, who arrived about half an hour after Dr. Peters left. They'd made remarkable time.

We showed the lab team the area we were most interested in, and then did an initial inspection of the rest of the house, as a preliminary, and to make sure we weren't overlooking anything that could be of primary importance. We didn't find anything useful.

What we did find was a normal home, with two possible exceptions. First, there were two PCs in the back bedroom. Both were on and running. Many farms were equipped with computers, so their mere presence wasn't unusual. The monitors, of course, were in the "rest mode," and I couldn't see what was on the screens. But, as I looked, the hard drive light on one of them flickered, and the faint buzz told me that the hard drive was being accessed for some reason. Running, all right. My first thought was of an elaborate security system. I didn't touch them, being a little reluctant to activate an alarm. I also thought that an alarm system might explain one of them being on. But two? Maybe one as a backup? Legally, I couldn't even turn the screens on, as materials contained within the machines had the same const.i.tutional protections as to privacy as anything else. I did make a mental note to ask Lamar why these were so much newer than our department machines. Curious.

The second possible exception was an extensive library, in the upper floor of the older portion of the house. Long shelves of computer books, weapons books, explosives manuals, an escape and evasion manual, and books on subjects such as the inner workings of the IRS, and countersurveillance practices. There were books describing conspiracies of several sorts, along with survivalist manuals, surviving Y2K, anti-federal government pamphlets, do-it-yourself legal volumes with emphasis on how to beat the IRS, the common law, and books on military history. Some of the latter volumes I had on my shelves at home. This little library was quite extensive, however, and tended toward the how-to end of the materials. On the table there were maps of North America, the United States, and Iowa, all shaded in a variety of colors in various areas, with no key. Some had arrows in red, some in blue, some both. Fascinating, like I said.

We had known for years that Cletus tended toward the vocal right wing, but this stuff was quite a bit more antigovernment than I'd expected.

The only possibility of additional evidence was the discovery of bedclothes in the dryer. They appeared freshly laundered. The reason that was considered possible evidence of "something" was that a woman on the lab team named Mary thought it unlikely that the wife in such a clean and tidy house would leave on an extended vacation without folding and putting away the laundry. She was probably right, but just try explaining that to the males on a jury.

The lab crew said right away that the dark areas I'd uncovered on the carpet did contain traces of blood. They also said that whoever had cleaned them up had done an exceptional job. Same for the area on the wall that looked to have been wiped clean.

A preliminary test confirmed Dr. Peters's judgment about the dried pool of blood on the top of the water heater.

This was a phase of the investigation that could easily lose the case. You not only had to locate and carefully examine all items of evidence, you had to preserve them in such a way that a defense team could conduct their own examinations. That took much, much time.

It looked like the lab team would be there for several hours. Lamar used the radio to order food brought to the farm. Great idea. About a minute later, Deputy Willis called from the end of the lane. The owner, Cletus Borglan, was here.

He was about medium height and build, in his middle fifties. He was fit, from working as opposed to working out. He also had a loud voice, which he was using. Not particularly angry. Just loud.

"d.a.m.n, Lamar! What's goin' on here? Why the little army at my farm?" He was standing in the kitchen doorway, and was using a voice that would enable him to be heard in the machine shed.

"Been a problem," said Lamar.

"So I hear," said Cletus, loudly. "What are cops doin' on my property in the first place?"

"We're investigating a murder," said Lamar.

"What? How the h.e.l.l can there be a murder here when there's n.o.body home?" n.o.body home?" He headed toward the archway, louder as he went. "What the h.e.l.l are they doin' to my carpet?" He headed toward the archway, louder as he went. "What the h.e.l.l are they doin' to my carpet?"

I was by the archway, and just stepped sideways into his path. "Sorry," I said. "You can't go in there just yet. They're not..." I was going to say "done."

"Who the h.e.l.l are you to tell me that I can't go in there?" Very loud, but he'd stopped.

"Calm down, Clete," said Lamar. "Like I said, we're here on a murder investigation."