The Big Thaw (7 page)

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 glass. 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. “Fuckin’ 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.”

“Damn,” 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, nobody 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 constitutional 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.

“Damn, 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 hell can there be a murder here when there’s
nobody home?”
He headed toward the archway, louder as he went. “What the hell 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 hell 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.”

Cletus spun around to face Lamar. “And I said, ‘How the hell can there be a murder here if there’s NOBODY HOME?’!”

Lamar stood his ground, and I stepped one step closer behind Cletus.

“Like I been trying to tell you,” began Lamar, patiently, “one of my officers had a reason to come here, and look for somebody. He found who he was looking for, but not alive.”

Cletus cut him off. “What happened? One of you guys get killed trespassing on a farm again?”

Lamar went white, and I suspect I did, too. Cletus was referring to an incident about five miles from his house, where Lamar had gotten shot and Civil Deputy Bud had been killed, attempting to serve a notice on a farmer and his wife. Our people had not been, of course, trespassing.

The outrageousness of the statement had Lamar temporarily speechless. Cletus, too, for he knew he had gone too far. Before he could try to make amends, though, Lamar spoke up.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” said Lamar, quiet but not quite controlled. “Don’t ever say anything like that again. Ever. You got that? Ever.”

“I’m sorry, Lamar,” said Cletus, still too loud, and not quite sincerely. “It was out of line. I didn’t mean that.”

Well, there it was, though. He’d thought it, and he’d said it, and that was that. Lamar looked at me and said, “You deal with him. I’m gonna step outside for a minute.”

Thanks, boss. Thanks a lot.

“Why don’t you have a seat at the kitchen table, Cletus,” I said. “You quiet down, and I’ll tell you some of what’s going on.”

He turned and looked at me, his face a bit redder than it had been when he first arrived. He said nothing, just walked over to the table, and sat. Then, “What’s this country coming to when a man’s ordered around in his own house?” He said it almost softly, like he was talking to himself. Almost, but not really. The softness made it deniable, though, if he were to be called on it.

“Just get a handle on it, Cletus,” I said. “Things happen for a reason.”

“It’s my house. What’d you do if I just said to get off my property? Huh? It’s MY property.”

“Well, Cletus,” I said, sitting across the table from him, “first I’d tell you that we have the right to investigate the crime without interference.” I kept my voice soft and low, forcing him to listen.

“Bullshit.” This was a little louder again. “What were you doing here in the first place?”

“And,” I said, “if you persisted, I’d charge you with Interference with Official Acts.”

“On my own property?” His voice was rising. “That’s pure bullshit!”

Time to change tactics. “Look, Cletus,” I said. “Suppose you invited some guys over for a poker game, you lost, got pissed off, and shot all of ’em. You actually think that the courts would allow you to say, ‘It’s my property, you can’t come here’? I don’t think so.”

He didn’t answer.

“So, if you want to calm down, I’ll tell you as much as I can about what’s going on.”

Cletus looked me right in the eye. “Okay. Let’s hear it.” Very calm. Very matter-of-fact. It crossed my mind that Cletus had been raising hell for effect. Why? I had no idea. Sometimes people were just like that. Bluster, then calm.

Just as I was starting, Lamar came back in, fixed Cletus with a cold stare, and then moved over to the lab people. He didn’t say anything, but Cletus was a little cowed for a few seconds.

I told Cletus Borglan just about everything I knew, with some important exceptions. I left out all reference to Fred. I just said we’d been informed that there’d been a burglary. I didn’t describe how the victims had been shot. While I was telling him the details, he got up, went to the sink, and began making a pot of coffee. Being cool. He stood with his hips resting against the kitchen counter as he listened. When the coffee was done, he poured himself a cup, opened the refrigerator to get some milk, sat down, and took a long sip. He just looked at me, and smiled.