The Big Thaw

by Donald Harstad

  My feelings must have shown on my face. “Got a case of the spooks, Houseman?”

  “Oh, sort of …” I said. Then, “Nah, we searched that house thoroughly.” But I remembered very well the feeling that I was being watched …

  I just drove. Back in the days when I smoked, this would have been the time.

  I picked up the mike, and called for dispatch to phone Borglan’s hired man, and let him know we were coming.

  Art read off the sheet he’d picked up at dispatch earlier that morning. According to his information, the hired man was a fellow named Harvey Grossman. His driver’s license had said he was born in ’62, five feet nine inches, 180 lbs., blue, and brown. I didn’t know him, but Lamar had told me that he’d moved to our county back in ’93 or ’94.

  I was getting a little worried. Art was pretty well established as thinking that Fred had done the dirty deed. I didn’t agree, and thought that Fred was telling the truth. All well and good, and an indication of a balanced investigation. The part that worried me was that I thought it was very likely that we were just about to talk with the man who had murdered the two burglars. I mean, if Fred hadn’t done it, and all the snowmobile tracks at the Borglan place led to the residence of one Harvey Grossman, who was left?

  Just for the sake of arguing with myself, I assumed that Grossman had been at the residence for some reason, and had caught the burglars in the act. Perhaps there had been some sort of confrontation. Turned violent. Bang. Bang. And then, bang. Put ’em in the shed. Who else would even be looking in there until the Borglans came back? If, as he said, Cletus had been called back unexpectedly for business, then how could Grossman have known he’d be coming? Right. He couldn’t. All the time in the world to dispose of the bodies, as far as he could have known. The forecast was for warming for the next week or longer. Just wait a few more days for enough of a thaw to get them into a shallow pit. Move the corpses later, if necessary.

  “How certain are you,” I asked, “that Grossman here isn’t the killer?”

  “Just about positive,” said Art. “Why?”

  “Well,” I began, and ran my theory by him. Quickly, but with some feeling.

  “It’s a point.” He waited in silence. “Okay, it’s a good point. If Fred didn’t do it, this Grossman dude is the most likely suspect. Sure. So …?”

  “Well,” I began, again, “if he is a suspect, shouldn’t we just come right out and advise him of his rights as soon as we see him? Let him know, and take it from there?”

  “Jesus Christ, Houseman,” said Art, “don’t be so goddamned honest!”

  “What?”

  “No kidding,” said Art, exasperated, and with uncharacteristic length. “Look. Keep the suspect business in the back of your head, but don’t go getting carried away on me. Let the conversation flow. If he sends the right signals, then we hit him with Miranda and handcuffs all at once. Otherwise, lighten up.”

  “I know all that,” I said, getting a little exasperated myself. “But, in court, if some attorney asks when I first thought this guy was a suspect, I’m gonna have to tell him it was before we talked with him for the first time.”

  “What did you do?” asked Art. “Watch the entire O.J. trial?” He sighed. “Don’t worry about it. Fred’s the shooter. Trust me.”

  Yeah. Right. As I drove, I reached back under my down vest, and unsnapped the restraining strap on my holster. I’d feel a lot better trusting Art if my gun was unsnapped when we walked to Grossman’s door.

  We pulled into the lane, and on the way to the residence, we drove through a nest of outbuildings. The house wasn’t nearly the quality of the home place, but it was nice, and well maintained, nonetheless. It and the outbuildings were white frame, and looked pretty sound. The door to the wooden machine shed was opened, and there were four snowmobiles parked inside. One thing that struck me about them was that none of them had the little orange flags, and none of them appeared to have registration numbers on the cowl. Cops with a patrol officer’s background notice stuff like that. I was willing to bet Art hadn’t picked up on that.

  We got out of my car, and walked toward the kitchen door. I knocked. It was a courtesy not to go to the front door. Most farms reserved the front door for important occasions, and the back or kitchen door was used for routine entry. If we had been accepted at the front door, and none of us had removable outer footwear, we would have “tracked in” all sorts of snow and mud. Easier to clean a kitchen floor.

  The inside porch door opened, and a man meeting Grossman’s description came out.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Carl Houseman, deputy here in Nation County. The office called, and told you to expect us?”

  “Somebody did. You got any identification?”

  I fished out my badge, as did Art. Grossman reached for my badge case, and I pulled my hand back a couple of inches. I grinned at him. “You just get to look, Mr. Grossman. You can’t have it until you’re hired.” He didn’t seem particularly amused.

  “So,” he said, having scrutinized three badges he probably had no way of telling were authentic or not, “what can I do for you?”

  He wasn’t even inviting us onto the porch. Not a good sign.

  “We’re here because you’re the hired man at the Borglan farm, and they had a burglary.” I moved closer to the door. “We’d like to know when the last time was that you checked the place, and things like that.”

  “‘Burglary’” he said. “That’s what you’re calling it?”

  “Well, it started out that way.”

  “I understand that a couple of cops got it?” he asked.

  Christ, what was it with these people, anyway? Wishful thinking? “No, no. No cops. A couple of burglars got killed, though.”

  “By who?”

  “Now, that’s a good question. We thought maybe you could help us there.”

  Much to my surprise, he invited us in. “You might as well come on in, and we can get it over with.”

  Get what over with? I thought. I glanced at Art, and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. Damn. Could I be right?

  Seven

  Tuesday, January 13, 1998, 1248

  Several cups of Linda Grossman’s coffee later (I was really running on caffeine at this point), it certainly didn’t appear that I was even close to being right. After we’d all gotten settled around the kitchen table, Harvey Grossman, wife Linda, and their nine-year-old daughter, Carrie, had pretty well explained things to us.

  Carrie struck me as a pretty cool little kid. About four and a half feet tall and very thin, she had brown hair and brown eyes that were pretty intense. Especially when I showed Linda Grossman my badge. I showed it to Carrie next, including her in the business just like everybody else. Carrie examined it very closely, and nodded.

  The Grossmans told an interesting story.

  First of all, the entire household had been awakened about 2 A.M. on Sunday, by the sound of a snowmobile running through their yard at an apparently very high rate of speed.

  “Just tore right through the yard,” as little Carrie put it. “I hollered out, it scared me so much.”

  I could imagine it did. At 0200, with the temperatures hovering at minus forty or colder, no wind, over two miles from the nearest gravel road, which wouldn’t have any traffic anyway, it would be just about as dead quiet as it could get. A high-speed snowmobile passing within fifty feet of the house would shatter that silence, and very likely wake the whole family.

  Carrie had run to her folks’ room, who had also both been awakened. Nobody could figure out who it was, since the Borglans weren’t home. After settling Carrie down, Linda Grossman had come downstairs and had a cup of cocoa, because she wasn’t able to get back to sleep. She thought she’d heard another snowmobile, or possibly the same one, off in the distance, but wasn’t sure.

  All three Grossmans were certain that the snowmobile had departed heading southwest. Carrie had apparently heard it first, and said it sou
nded like it was coming from the Borglan place.

  We asked, and Harvey told us that he’d been at the Borglans’ on Thursday, and was scheduled to go there tomorrow. He hadn’t been there since he heard the snowmobile. Some farm people are like that. He’d go up and see when it was time to do his job at the Borglans’. Otherwise, he had enough to do without taking an unnecessary excursion. Not what I would have done, but I was a cop and he was a farmer.

  We asked the three of them for written statements, and they complied. Carrie was really cute, so very serious and studious, and showing off a bit for the company.

  Mrs. Grossman, Linda, struck me as being somehow edgy. It took me a few minutes, but I finally recognized the behavior pattern. She seemed overalert, and kind of watchfully aggressive in a way that reminded me of an abused woman. Most people imagine women who are abused as shy, meek, and downcast all the time. Not so. Very often, they come on a bit too strong, in a way that will seem uncalled for, or out of character. The best defense is a good offense, and they are really trying hard to conceal the fact they’re being abused. They become almost too gregarious. An overcompensation that will fool most people. Anyway, that’s how she struck me. Abused, but not to the point of real hazard or flight. With my batting average being nearly zero at this point, though, I just filed it away. No point in embarrassing myself completely.

  Anyway, she made a mean cup of coffee. I mentioned that.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I learned that when I worked at a hospital in Kansas City.”

  “You want me to put down the last time I was up at the other place?” interrupted Harvey.

  “Uh, sure, yeah,” I said. God, I was tired. I turned back to Mrs. Grossman to continue, but she was bent over her statement.

  I almost got the impression that he didn’t want her to talk to me. Not about her past, anyway. Abuse? Maybe. Or, maybe he just didn’t want her talking about his past. Or, maybe he was just antisocial. God knows, it couldn’t have been my charming ways.

  I had an unsettled feeling that I thought had begun when Art and I had compared notes about an hour ago. I got more unsettled when I discovered I couldn’t figure out why. The last time I’d felt this way, I’d left a burner turned on on our stove at home, before Sue and I took a short trip to Dubuque. I remembered it about ten miles out. That kind of persistent, almost ominous feeling. Coupled with my feeling that I was being watched up at the Borglan place … Lack of sleep? I thought that might have a lot to do with it. Especially since I felt no sense of fatigue at all, so I could assume I was still wired from the case. I refilled my coffee cup.

  Then, as he finished up his statement, Harvey Grossman asked a question of his own.

  “Just how were those burglars killed?”

  Before Art could leap in with his standard disclaimer about how we just couldn’t possibly discuss this, I said, “They were shot, Harvey.”

  “Oh.”

  Simply that. No further curiosity no further questions. Didn’t ask where, when, or why. Really didn’t seem all that interested, either. It didn’t tell me much, but it was the sort of thing I liked to hear and see. Most of the time, if you give a little, you get a little, and in the information business, that could become important at the oddest times. Harvey sort of owed me one.

  We collected the statements, all three of them, and cautioned the Grossman family not to discuss anything that had been said with any outsiders. Standard procedure. They said they wouldn’t. Also standard procedure. Except I believed Carrie.

  As we were tearing off the pink copies of their statements and handing them back to them, I noticed that Harvey and Linda had both used military time as they wrote about the events of Sunday night. Things like: “We were upstairs by 2300,” from Harvey, and “We went to bed about 2230,” from Linda. Unusual. Carrie had said, “I was to bed at nine-thirty.” I chuckled to myself. Two military times, and one Olde English.

  Back in the car, the consensus was that Carrie had, single-handedly, eliminated her father as a suspect. She was absolutely believable. You can tell, especially with kids. Well, within their knowledge, of course. But there was no doubt that both her parents had been present when that snowmobile came blasting through the yard. And, if that was our killer, and it sure looked like it could be, she’d eliminated her whole family as suspects.

  As we stopped at the end of the lane, before entering the roadway, Art said, “Looks like what we got left is Fred.”

  Sure did. Great news, except that I didn’t think he’d done it.

  We discussed things.

  What we had was a fairly good circumstantial case against Fred. Sure. At this point, however, we had absolutely no physical evidence placing him in close proximity to the two victims when they were shot. None.

  We had no evidence of animosity between Fred and his cousins. Fine. Interviews were required there, and we’d get on them. They’d be lengthy, though, and we decided to use whatever other officers we could.

  We had to find out if Fred had access to a .22 caliber weapon. True, several .22s had been stolen in the course of the residential burglaries, but we didn’t know where the weapons were. That had to be checked.

  We had to try to see if it was a .22 rifle or handgun. That would be a good start, and we’d have to rely on the expert opinion of Dr. Peters for that. As soon as he could open the heads, he might be able to give us some idea.

  .22 caliber ammunition comes in three flavors: short, long, and long rifle. Short being the least powerful, long rifle the most. Problem: the longer the barrel of the weapon, the higher the velocity of the bullet. So, a short fired from a rifle could hit with the same force as a long or long rifle from a handgun.

  It gets worse. Pistols come in two basic types: revolvers and semiautos. Because of the fit of the pieces, a lot more gas escapes from the gap between the cylinder and barrel of the revolver than escapes from the sealed chamber of the semiauto. Yep. That means that a long rifle fired from a revolver might hit with the same force as a long from an auto. Even worse, with the small bullet and small forces we were dealing with here, the differences might not even be pronounced.

  Then there would be the spent shell casings. Revolvers don’t throw their empty shells out the way auto pistols do. Rifles have to eject the preceding cartridge case in some way, regardless. Art was assuming a revolver. I was waiting to see what the lab team found in the bag of the Borglans’ vacuum cleaner. It would all be moot, however, ever, if we didn’t find the murder weapon. Only then would we be able to try to test to see if the bullets or shell casings came from that particular weapon.

  I hated the .22 for another reason. The size of things made it very difficult to do comparisons, and they were all what they call “rim fire” cartridges. No pin striking the center of the cartridge, here. That would be too easy, because center-firing are all a bit off center, and that can be an ID point. No, with a .22, you have a small rectangular notch struck in the edge of the shell rim. Hence “rim fire.” They aren’t nearly as individually distinctive.

  That’s why it was always so very nice to find the murder weapon at the scene.

  “I sure wish we had something puttin’ our man there,” I said.

  “We’re doing all right,” said Art.

  “I’d feel a lot better if we could place him at the scene. You know,” I said, “even if Fred confesses, we can’t convict unless we have some evidence puttin’ him at the house when they were shot.”

  “You,” said Art, “are just depressing the shit out of me.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  It was pretty close to 1500 by the time we got back to the office. Waiting for us there were the press. About four separate units, three of them television. With them I recognized Nancy Mitchell, formerly of the Des Moines Register, and now with the Cedar Rapids Gazette. She was close to forty, fit, and a good sort. She had the unusual virtue in the media of being accurate. I had first met her when she’d helped us out with a right-wing case a couple of years bac
k. The same one where Lamar got shot, and Bud got killed. She lost her partner, as well, shot through the chest while standing in the yard of the barricaded suspects’ residence. He’d been about to go in to do an interview they’d requested. She and he had drawn straws for the interview. He’d won.

  Nancy half waved when she saw me. I waved back. Unfortunately, the reporter for KRNQ thought we were waving at her, and hustled over to us along with her camera person.

  “Can you tell us what’s going on with the triple murder?” she asked, in her best “on” voice, pushing her epiglottis as hard as she could. “How many were officers?”

  I don’t function at my best with a light in my eyes, a mike in my face, and no sleep. The best I was able to manage was “Huh?”

  Art, on the other hand, excelled. While I started to duck inside, he began to speak blather about “investigative confidentiality,” “reasonable progress,” and things like that. He was good. As I moved away, he was beginning a statement for another camera unit.

  “Three?” I said, mostly to myself. “Where in the hell did they get three?”

  I headed for my office in the rear of the building. I opened my door, and was startled to find Iowa Assistant Attorney General Mark Davies seated at my desk. He’d been recognized, and was avoiding the fourth estate by hiding in my office.

  “Hi, numbnuts,” he said, standing as we entered. “What took you so long?”

  Every cop that ever worked with him liked Davies. He was intelligent, aggressive, energetic, and had a great conviction record. What more could you ask?

  “I didn’t see an ambulance,” I said. “You must be chasing the media today, for a change.”

  “No, they’re chasing me,” he said. “Art with you somewhere?”

  “He’s out there.”

  “Figures. I really think he wants to wear makeup someday. So,” he said, “Nation County has another murder.”

  “Looks like,” I said. “Double.”

  “Well, naturally. You guys don’t do anything simple up here. I’m surprised there weren’t little slimy space alien tracks around the scene.”