The Big Thaw (21 page)

“Good.” I just about had my thoughts collected. “You turn up anything more on Fred, while I got you on the line?”

“Just what I got from my old reports. Remember … oh, a couple of years ago, more ‘n that, maybe? He was a juvie, and was breaking into taverns, and hitting the pin-ball machines?”

“Oh, yeah…” I’d heard something to that effect, but since it hadn’t happened in Nation County, I never saw a report.

“All three of the boys that night,” said Phil. “I remember Freddie was wearin’ a fatigue jacket, and he made one hell of a racket when I chased him. Pockets full of quarters. We weighed the jacket. Thirty-four pounds of quarters.” He had been chuckling to himself all through the recounting. “Every time I saw him after that, I’d ask if he had any change.” He broke into laughter.

“I never saw a cop who enjoyed his job more than you do…”

Breathless with laughter, he managed to get out, “Yeah, ain’t it a sin, though?”

“This is a good piece of work. Really. Can you write it up and send me a copy?”

“You bet. Oh, yeah, before I forget … when we busted the three of ’em with all the quarters, your boy Fred tried to take all the blame.”

“Really…”

“Oh, yeah. Stuck together like dried cow shit. Really tight.”

It was time I was up, anyway. And to good news, to boot. I went downstairs very gingerly, and enjoyed a great cup of coffee while leaning gently against the counter, looking for some old ibuprophen I’d acquired after a root canal. Found it. Twelve left, of 800 mg. Cool. I didn’t think I could afford to miss work today. Of all days. So, prescribing for myself, I figured, “What the hell, take it with coffee.”

Standing at the coffeepot, pouring my second cup, I looked at the outdoor thermometer. Twenty-six degrees. Same as the temperature inside a refrigerator. The warming trend had arrived. It was almost thirty degrees warmer than yesterday.

The phone rang again. I assumed it was going to be the sheriff’s office. “Yeah!”

“Boy, you’re nasty in the morning.” Lamar, calling from the scene of the snowmobile incident from last night. He was with the lab crew.

“Sorry, thought it was the S.O.”

I told him about Phil’s call. Then he told me something.

“Did you ever look in Borglan’s refrigerator that day?” He was deadly serious.

“I don’t think so … but I think I might have seen a bit inside it when Clete was making his coffee … he got the coffee can out of the refrigerator.”

“That’s when I saw it, too. Notice anything unusual about the contents? Think, now. Think hard.”

I did my best. “Nothing unusual … no more bodies … no, boss, I can’t say that I did. Just a normal inside of a refrigerator. Why?”

“It was normal, all right,” he said. “I remembered this last night … it was full of food.”

“So …?” I asked, even as it came to me.

“You don’t leave your refrigerator stocked when you’re planning to be gone for three months.”

“Right. You’re right. Son of a bitch, you’re right!”

A minor problem, though. Cletus was now back in residence. Unless we had it documented during the crime scene examination, there was no way to prove it now.

“I already checked with the lab guys,” he said. “They looked in there, just a cursory inspection. No documentation of contents, although Jake thinks he remembers seeing food.”

Jake was a lab tech. He’d had no reason to inventory the refrigerator, and he’d sure as hell been busy with enough other stuff that night.

“Damn. But I can understand it. I should have thought of that…”

“Ain’t you supposed to be workin’ today?” Gruffly.

“Can’t come to work if I’m standing here talkin’ on the phone.” Take that, boss. It did make me wonder when he slept, though.

I figured I’d go out of uniform, as much to remove the 15 lbs. of gun belt and gear as anything else. I might not be feeling much pain, but I sure didn’t want to aggravate my back. As I got dressed, I went over things in my head. Not too bad, for a short day. Somebody had been staying at Borglan’s. No doubt. Again, no conclusive proof, but we were on the right track. On the upside, we did have testimonial evidence that the Colson brothers had, in fact, impersonated undercover officers on a previous occasion. Thanks to Phil. I was in good spirits when I hit the office. I think it was mostly the ibuprophen.

Art’s car was in the parking lot, along with a blue Ford sedan that had FBI written all over it. George, I was willing to bet.

I walked carefully up the steps, but the medicine was beginning to kick in, and I hardly felt a twinge. Cool. Now, if I could just stay awake…

Art knew George, as did most law enforcement personnel in our area of the state. I wasn’t sure how well, but he certainly knew who he was. Both of them were sitting in the main office, and both of them appeared to be waiting for me.

“Hi,” I said.

“You talk to Lamar this morning?” blurted Art.

“Yep.”

“About the refrigerator?”

“Yep. I think he’s right. I remember that, now, too, I think.” I was being oblique because I didn’t know if Art had told George anything, and since Art had raised “need to know” to an almost mystical level in his own head, I didn’t want to aggravate him unnecessarily.

“I don’t think it proves a lot,” he said. “No connection with anything.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I said. I looked at George. “Have you told him…”

“No,” said George.

I looked around to make sure we were alone, and then closed the door. Dramatic, but fun. “We arrested an FBI agent near the murder scene last night,” I said.

“Oh, bullshit,” said Art. “Get serious.”

“It’s true, they did,” said George.

Art went blank-faced. He was one of those cops for whom all status resided in the kind of badge you carried. Credential envy, sort of.

“And,” I said, savoring the moment, “after we got him to the office, we busted another one who was sneaking around behind the jail…”

“Correct,” said George.

I thought Art was going to … well, swoon seemed pretty close. His face got noticeably redder, and he said, “You gotta be shittin’ me.”

We filled him in on the activities of the previous night. I did most of the talking, and even George was aghast at the thought that we had what I referred to as “the Hernandez bust” on videotape.

I did only fact. No conclusions. I wanted to see what everybody else would think. When I was done, George simply said, “I keep telling these guys that you aren’t a bunch of hicks. I keep telling all of them…”

Art, who seemed to have recovered pretty quickly, just shook his head. “So, what does all this mean?” he asked George.

“Ask Carl,” said George.

Art just looked at me.

“It means that our federal brothers-in-law have been watching the Borglan place, or at least that general area. Night and day. I’d guess for a while, at least. I’d suspect,” I added, “that they know more about the murder of the Colsons than we do…” I paused. “But we’re getting closer.”

I told about my phone conversation with Phil. About the Colsons posing as undercover cops.

“That’s nice,” interjected Art, “but it’s just a theory.

That’s all, and not a strong one. No evidence at the scene.”

“No,” I said. “The people who killed the Colsons suspected they were being watched. Long before those two poor bastards wandered in. They caught the Colsons red-handed, and the boys did what had worked before. They lied about being undercover cops.” Nobody said anything.

“The problem was, they lied to some people who believed them. And who killed them because of it.”

Art looked at George. “Well?”

George nodded. “Pretty close,” he said.

Art and I both waited. George, who had taken a sip of coffee, looked up. “What?”

“You can’t just say that and stop,” said Art. “Are you confirming, or just guessing, or what?”

George put his cup down. “Confirmation will come shortly. There’s another agent en route who will provide more information. I was just, well, letting you know that you were on the right track.”

“Do you know who the people in the house were?” I asked. “That much…”

George thought for a few moments. “No, I can’t say. I can’t give you that.” He looked at each of us. “I’m really sorry, guys. I can’t.”

We’d just have to wait.

Our secretary, Judy, came in and handed me a package. Developed crime scene photos, those I’d had her take to be developed. As cheaply as possible, I remembered.

“Got a really great deal on these,” she said, “three sets for the price of one.”

“Hey, great! Thanks … they’re quick for a change, too!”

I put the pack on my desk, and started to open the photos.

“My shots of the crime scene at the Borglan place,” I said. “Let’s see what we can find here…”

Art held out his hand for a set, and George scooted his chair closer to the desk.

I looked in the envelope, and just cracked up. Packed neatly inside were three sets of crime scene photos, all right. One set was a normal 4 x 6 inch series of color prints. Nice. The other two sets were about 2 x 3 inches … wallet size.

“You want … a … big set, or … a set you … can … carry with you?” I just roared.

“What?” asked Art. “What?”

“Here,” I gasped out, handing him a set of the wallet-sized prints. “We got a hell of a deal, though…”

George looked over, and started to chuckle. “Oh, my God…”

There was absolutely no harm done, all we had to do was resubmit the negatives. But I kept seeing myself in court, holding up a photo wallet, and letting a hundred prints dangle in their linked transparent holders…

We went over the photos, one at a time. It was almost easier, in a way. I used the one set of larger prints, and each of the other two had a set of wallet size. They just picked out the ones they wanted to see…

Privately, I spent a lot of time on the group of photos I’d taken as I turned around and shot into the distance when I thought I was being watched. To see if there was anything there. Nothing I could pick up on. Outside the area that was fairly well lit, it had been so dark that the shutter had stayed open too long and there was virtually nothing but shake lines in shades of dark gray to black. Except one. South of the farm, there was a bumpy white streak.

I looked at it more closely.

“I see you ruined some shots, there,” said Art. “Flash not go off?”

“Maybe…” I do some amateur astronomy, and one of the first things you do with your camera is just point it straight up, open the shutter, and let the stars make curved streaks in the time exposure. Like those “cars on the freeway” shots taken at night. That’s what this was. Only it wasn’t a straight, or even a curved, line. It looked more like the path of a small firefly. One that was drunk.

“What’s this look like to you?” I asked, pushing it toward Art and George.

“Flaw in the film,” said Art, turning back to the other photos.

“Yard light,” said George. “You have a lot of shake here, but I’d say it was a yard light off in the distance.”

“Oh.” I placed the print back in the stack, and continued looking at the others. Yard light. I hadn’t noticed any yard light, but it sure looked like that’s what it was. That meant there could be a farmyard with a view of the machine shed. I shuffled back through the pack of photos. Yep. Judging from the thickness of the streak, it was quite a way off. But that’s what it looked like.

I noticed George kept looking at his watch. “When are the other agents coming up?” I asked.

“Well, hopefully before lunch. They did have a lot to do, though,” he said. “They may only send one, anyway.”

George and I sat in silence for a few moments. I looked out my window, and watched Delbert Jacobs unloading buckets full of sand for his driveway. He was one of the jail “neighbors,” and a pretty decent fellow. He would dip the bucket over the rear of his pickup, which was apparently filled with sand, and carry the bucket to his sand pile, which was hidden from my view by a small pine tree. I watched him make two trips with the bucket, when it came to me. Back and forth went Delbert. And, as he stooped to pick up another load, it occurred to me that, if you were to film him, and freeze frame several shots, it would be very difficult to tell if he were moving the buckets of sand to his house, or from his house. A frozen point of time wouldn’t necessarily yield much useful information at all. Just knowing his location at a precise moment wouldn’t be enough. Movements. You had to watch his movements.

“Hey, George, how do we know Cletus was coming back from Florida the day I discovered the bodies?”

“Your office, wasn’t it Lamar or Sally, were told it was Florida … Wasn’t that it?”

“No, not that part. Not how we were told … How do we know he was really in Florida? I mean, we were told he’d be at the farm shortly, and he was. That he was coming from ‘Florida,’ and that was all. But, how do we know he was really
in Florida?
How do we know he wasn’t back at his house several days before the killings? How do we know he wasn’t the killer, especially when he’s the first son of a bitch who says there are two dead ‘cops’?”

“Damn.”

“We’ve been assuming he was telling us the truth.” I reached for the phone. “He could be a prime suspect. Well, duh…”

I picked up the phone and dialed the intercom. “Lamar, you get a second, you want to come back here…”

Our first move was to set the machinery in motion to check with the airlines to see if Clete had ever, actually, flown in the last few weeks. He could have used a private plane. He may never have gone to Florida at all. It was the first place to start.

George initiated a discreet inquiry into Freeman Liberty Enterprises, Inc., Cletus’s corporation. It was probably an incorporation for tax advantage for his farming operation, but you never know. Regardless, it had to be registered with the Secretary of State of Iowa.

I checked with the county recorder’s office, for any documents on file for FLE, as we began to call it. Same with the county assessor’s office. He might own another farm, where he had access, that we knew nothing about.