The Big Thaw Part 2

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

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

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

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

Well.

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

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

"Comm, Three?"

"Three?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four.

Tuesday, January 13, 1998, 0057 I recoiled, moving back so fast I nearly lost my footing. I caught my breath, and let the effects of the adrenaline rush subside a bit. Okay, Carl. Get it together. This is what you were looking for. Just not quite where you'd expected to find it. Yeah. recoiled, moving back so fast I nearly lost my footing. I caught my breath, and let the effects of the adrenaline rush subside a bit. Okay, Carl. Get it together. This is what you were looking for. Just not quite where you'd expected to find it. Yeah.

Standing there in the large opening at the sliding door, I felt those eyes on me again. Stronger. I turned and looked back toward the house. Nothing. "Just what I need," I said to myself. "You're turning into an old lady, Houseman." But it bothered me.

I fumbled with the microphone for my walkie-talkie with my gloved hand.

"Mike, why don't you get Nine here, and hand your pa.s.senger over to him?"

"Ten-four ... I think he's comin' over here anyway. So what's up?"

"I think we're into a real seventy-nine situation. And ... uh ... you might want to get alert here."

"We got company?" He sounded almost happy.

"Not sure, just don't take a chance. You ... uh ... might want to hand your pa.s.senger over to Nine back up the lane. Out of sight of the residence." I just couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.

"Ten-four." More serious now. It was sinking in with him, too.

I forced myself back into the shed. I hated to do it, but I stepped over the tarp again, and switched on the big fluorescent overhead lights. They flickered a few times, and then came on, casting a bluish light throughout the shed.

"There," I said to myself. "Better ..."

Cautiously, I s.h.i.+ned my flashlight down into the recesses of the mustard-colored tarp. Sure as h.e.l.l, there was a hand. Pinkish, with the flesh flattened in a way that only the lifeless can manage. And frosted.

I had to know. h.e.l.l, I was required to know. Gingerly, I reached down, and pulled at the stiff, frozen tarp. It didn't want to move. I pulled harder. It resisted, and then, suddenly, came away from the wall.

I stepped back, again. I was looking at what appeared to be a human, with the head in a white garbage bag. There was a tear in the bag, and part of the head was exposed, including the right eye. Lying on the floor of the shed, whoever it was was very, very dead.

The tarp was still clinging to the floor. A light edging of ice. In the back of my mind, that told me that the tarp had been placed there before the cold snap. I reached down, to pull it free. As I did so, I noticed booted feet protruding from underneath the tarp, at the other end.

Three of them.

Two bodies? Two? I walked over, and lifted the stiff edge of the canvas sheet. It was really dark under there, but I could see, side by side, frost-covered and stiff, the lower half of two frozen bodies.

Brothers, I was willing to bet. Both of them, as Fred would say.

They were nearly identically "packaged." White plastic bags on the heads. I could barely make out some features, like noses and mouths. The bags didn't appear to have been fastened around the neck. Just placed over the head.

I could see no obvious marks, holes, or bloodstains on the clothes. But, before the medical examiner and the lab got here, it would be most unwise to touch them.

I glanced back around the shed. One tractor. Otherwise, empty. Just a lot of straw-covered concrete floor, and two bodies under a tarp.

"Well, son of a b.i.t.c.h." I took a deep breath, and dropped the stiff canvas. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h. What'd you get me into, Fred?"

I heard the crunch of footsteps behind me. "Who you talkin' to?"

It was Mike.

"These two, here ..."

He was still just outside the doorway, about eighteen inches behind me. I stepped aside, pointing to my discovery as he stepped over the threshold.

"These dudes," I said, holding up the same corner of the tarp.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," he said, quietly.

"Yeah." I released the corner of the tarp. Being frozen, it very slowly fell back toward its original position. "We better get out of here, before I disturb any more than I have. We're gonna need the crime lab up here on this one."

"Yeah." He stared at the slowly descending tarp. "Any idea what killed 'em?"

"Not the faintest." I pulled my m.u.f.fler up about my face. "n.o.body's in the house, far as I know, but there's some evidence in there. These two might have been done in the house. No idea how. Just remember we don't let anybody in ..."

"Okay." He looked up toward the house, then back at the shed. "Are these Fred's two cousins?"

"I dunno," I sighed. "Don't let anybody say anything to Fred, yet."

"Sure," said Mike.

"I suppose he's now a murder suspect ... but don't say that." I doubted that he really was, but we had to be safe.

"Right. Yeah. So, what? Just leave him with John when he gets here?"

"Yeah. For right now. Just don't talk to him." Fred was officially in custody, and Mirandized, but I didn't want anybody talking to him without him having access to an attorney. I wasn't a raging liberal, it was just that there was absolutely no reason to blow a case at this point. Time to start dotting the i's and crossing the t's in earnest. I looked around the shed. "I sure as h.e.l.l hope there aren't any more in here."

"s.h.i.+t, don't say that..."

Mike and I trudged back up the slope together. I told him I was going to get my camera and do some quick preliminary shots through the door of the shed, and try to get some photos of the tracks in the headlights of our cars. If it was to snow again, or to warm up, all the remaining exterior evidence would be lost.

When I got to my car, I called the office. Radio being so closely listened to on scanners, particularly when everybody was in their homes to escape the terrible cold, I had to be pretty circ.u.mspect with my requests, and hope that the dispatcher got the oblique references. I felt secure that my transmissions on the 5 watt walkie-talkie had gone unnoticed, but the 100 watt car radio and the 1,000 watt main base transmitter were a different story. I didn't want anybody to know we had found bodies. Not yet.

"Comm, Three?"

"Go ahead ..."

"Yeah, look, we have a seventy-nine here, and we're going to need the whole shebang. Ten-four?"

There was a pause. "I, uh, copy the seventy-nine. Could you ten-nine the rest?"

Well, I could repeat it, but I chose instead to try to clarify. "We will need the usual ten-seventy-eight here."

Silence. 10-78 was the code for a.s.sistance. There was no code for crime lab, none for requesting a DCI agent. But, at a homicide, we always needed both. But, cagey soul that I am, 10-78 tends to vary depending upon the situation. Of course. All I had told her was that we needed a coroner, and the usual a.s.sistance.

She was new. "Copy you need ten-seventy-eight?" The edge to her voice told me right away that she thought we needed more cops, and fast.

"Negative. Negative, Comm. Look, I'll ten-twenty-one in a minute." That meant that I would call her on a phone. That would be best, naturally, and I could explain everything in detail. I hated to do it, though, because it meant that I had to reenter the Borglan residence. Each time you do that, a defense attorney will try to make it sound like you strolled through the scene, scattering bogus evidence like they used to scatter garlands in front of Roman emperors.

Never try to clarify with more obscurity, though. Especially on a radio.

Back in the Borglan household, I found a phone in the kitchen, and called the office. I explained that we would need her to contact a medical examiner, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation for an a.s.sisting agent and the mobil crime lab, and that she would have to call our boss, Nation County Sheriff Lamar Ridgeway, and tell him what was happening.

"Uh, Carl, could I call in another dispatcher to help?"

"Sure. Good idea. Just remember to tell me, 'Ten-sixty-nine' as you get the items done." 10-69 stood for "message received," and would mean that she had completed a call. "Message one will be for the medical examiner, message two will be for DCI, and message three will be Lamar. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Now, I want you to try to get a DL on two subjects... a Dirk and a Royce Colson. Should be about twenty or so. Maybe twenty-five. Not from Nation County, but I think maybe from around Oelwein."

"Okay..."

"Eventually, I'm going to need height and weight, eye color, and that sort of thing. The physical descriptors."

"Got it."

"Cool. Okay, now I'm gonna be a long way from a phone for a time, taking some photos. Just give me the ten-sixty-nines over the radio. I'll be on portable. If I don't acknowledge, Mike will. He's in his car."

"Okay..." She didn't sound quite sure, but I knew she'd do fine. Especially when the other dispatcher arrived.

"And don't give anything, and I mean anything, regarding the Colsons over the radio unless I specifically ask you to do so."

I let myself back out, grabbing my coat this time, and went to Mike's car and told him what had been said. I got my camera out of my car, and crunched my way back down to the shed. I figured I'd better take the photos there first, since the subzero temperature might deplete my camera battery and leave me with no way to take photos.

As I stood in the doorway of the big steel shed, fumbling with the flash attachment in the cold, the feeling of being watched came rus.h.i.+ng back with a vengeance.

At the Academy, years ago, one of our instructors told us that, if you ever got a spooky feeling, pay close attention to it. You might be reacting to something you've picked up subconsciously, that just hasn't made it all the way up to awareness. I'd always considered it good advice, although it had only worked for me one out of about ten times, when there was a man hiding in the rafters of an implement store we were searching. I thought that once was pretty good, though. He'd had a gun, and we later found he was just waiting for me to pa.s.s before he shot me in the back. I'd stopped, and backed up a step, which had put me out of his line of fire. We all figured I'd glimpsed him in my peripheral vision, but that it hadn't registered. Anyway, it was a distinctive feeling, and that time before it had been very strong. It was back, and this time it was even stronger.

I stopped after I attached the flash, and paused for a moment. Then I looked around, very slowly. Nothing unusual. But I had the solid feeling that I was being watched. I switched the flash off, and did a slow pirouette, snapping a shot about every ten degrees or so. It was just possible that I might catch something with the camera I was overlooking.

The feeling persisted.

I tried to shake it off. "Probably Mike," I said to myself. Could have been. Could have been the residual effect of that frozen eye. Most likely, I thought, it was the result of being alone with the two bodies. Most people seem to get really self-conscious when they're alone with the dead. I was no different.

"Three," crackled my walkie-talkie, "Ten-sixty-nine on message one!"

That startled me out of my thoughts about being watched. Just as well.

"Ten-four" was all I said. All that was necessary. The medical examiner had been notified.

I went back to the residence and took a few shots of the marks on the sliding door. I tried for a wider angle shot of the faint tracks in the snow, leading toward the shed, but didn't really have much hope. As I turned toward my car to get a fresh roll of film, I saw Fred's face in the back of Mike's car. He was just watching, but looked pretty rough. I guess he really began to catch on when he saw my camera flash down by the shed. Mike said later that Fred started to cry about then.

Five.

Tuesday, January 13, 1998, 0123 Three ..." came the familiar voice of my favorite dispatcher, Sally Wells. She was obviously the second dispatcher called in. That made me feel a lot better, as Sally had been with us for years, and was a certified departmental a.s.set.

"Go ahead," I said, turning my head toward the mike mounted on my left shoulder.

"Ten-sixty-nine on items two and three."

"Ten-four."

"Regarding item two, the mobile unit will be ten-seventy-six within ten minutes or so, with the other a.s.sistance to be ten-seventy-six shortly." Translated, that meant that the mobil crime lab would be on its way to us within ten minutes, and a DCI agent or two would be coming in shortly. The bad part was that the mobil crime lab was in Des Moines, about three to four hours away. The good part was that the agents were based much closer.

"And ... uh ... Three, could you get back to a phone?"