“Sure. Sure, no problem.” I was feeling generous, having just solved the case.
“You remember my wife’s sister, Arlene?” He waited for my nod. “Well, she lives in this little town in Florida, that is the same town where Cletus and Inez Borglan go in the winter.” He pulled a small piece of paper from his breast pocket, and held it at nearly arm’s length. “Same place where the Bensons, the Hazletts, the Rhombergs, and the Hefels have retired to …”
I knew all four couples. Two teaching families, one insurance man, and a retired farmer. Come on, Lamar, I thought. I’m gonna bust if I don’t tell my news.
“Wife says they want to change the name of the little town to ‘New Iowa’ because of all the Iowans there.” He smiled at the thought. “Anyway,” he said, folding the paper and placing it back in his breast pocket, buttoning the pocket, and patting it down, “Arlene says that she was talking to Cletus and Inez down there, the night before Cletus left to come back up here, and they was pretty excited about something.”
Uh-oh. “Down there the day before the killings?”
“Yeah. They were playing bridge, or something, over at Cletus and Inez’s cabin. He got a phone call about eleven that night, that really shook him.”
“In Florida?”
“Yeah, in Florida. You got somethin’ in your ears?”
“Oh, no, I guess not. We were thinking that he might have come back before we thought he did. That’s all.” Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
“Oh,” he said, absently. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Sure doesn’t,” said George.
“Anyway,” continued Lamar, “what Arlene says is that he got this phone call, and he just sort of went white. Real worried. Took the phone to the porch, but she heard him say, ‘How could they find out?’ maybe two-three times. She thinks,” he said, confidentially, “that Cletus is up to some illegal financial stuff.” He grinned. “Anyway, old Cletus kept lookin’ at Inez, like there was something she should know. Finally, they went into the kitchen together to get the coffee and some crumbly stuff … what do they call that stuff?”
“I don’t know …” I said. “Crackers?”
“No, that ain’t it …”
“Oh, yeah, that crumbly cake stuff … yeah, I know …”
“Will you two,” interjected George, “stop it!”
Lamar chuckled. “Anyway, Arlene heard him trying to whisper to Inez in the kitchen, and then heard her say, ‘Oh, my God!’ and then when they came out, it looked like she’s seen a ghost.”
I could just imagine Cletus whispering.
“Must have been pretty bad business news,” I said. “The market crash, and we didn’t hear?”
“Well, you know, that’s the funny part,” said Lamar. “I mean, you know Cletus. He ain’t quiet about nothin’ that bothers him. Hell, he ain’t quiet about nothin’ at all. But Arlene says that they never mentioned it the rest of the evening, and he left the next day. Arlene says that she talks to Inez the next day, and Inez ain’t saying nothing about it.”
“Hmm.” I tried to be noncommittal.
“‘Hmm’ is right,” said Lamar. “I was thinking that it’s too bad that there ain’t some way to find out who called him.”
“You got that right,” I said. I was disappointed that Cletus was in Florida at the crucial time. Well, disappointed was a bit mild, frankly. The excitement was only a memory. Shit.
“’cause,” said Lamar, “I got kinda curious, and I called Jack Reed.”
Jack Reed was president of one of the local banks. Curious, indeed.
“I said, ‘Jack, I got this attorney bugging me ’bout having to repossess some stuff from Cletus Borglan, due to some business failure …’” He smiled. “Jack says, ‘No way.’ Tells me that Cletus is in no way in any financial trouble. So I says, ‘Anything happen that might have hit him on the stock market, or the futures market?’ And Jack said ‘No,’ that everything was fine.” He turned to George. “Jack’s Cletus’s banker.”
“Oh.”
That was one of the main differences between the new model FBI agent and the old model sheriff. The agent would spend eighteen hours getting information necessary to get an application together to ask the court for permission to dig into somebody’s financial records. The sheriff would just go to the banker and ask.
“So, I figure that, since there ain’t no financial information of a bad nature, there ain’t no business problems up here that anybody’d get too excited about. So, I think, if it ain’t financial, what is it?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s almost got to be a death in the family, like. But nobody in the family died.”
“Yeah.” I knew where he was going. I loved it.
“But, I got to thinkin’ that maybe somebody ‘in the family’ was involved in a death. Or two …” Lamar grinned. “I think our man Cletus was told about the dead brothers a long time before we tried to fill him in.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. Yea, boss.
“So I went one step further, and I got a tape here of the telephone conversation Sally had with Inez Borglan on the day the bodies was discovered. When she called to see if Cletus could come up, and he was already on his way?”
All calls made from dispatch are taped. Without exception.
He opened his other shirt pocket with a Velcro rip, and pulled out his minirecorder. He carefully turned the volume up, and placed it on my desk. George moved in a bit closer.
“I got it right at the part we want,” he said. “You can hear the rest later.” With that, he pressed “play”
There was some hiss in the tape, and voices coming over Sally’s radio console were an irritation, but the conversation itself was clear enough.
SALLY: INEZ, THIS IS THE NATION COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. COULD I SPEAK WITH CLETUS, PLEASE?
INEZ: OH … OH … GOD …
SALLY: IT’S ALL RIGHT, INEZ. REALLY. COULD I JUST SPEAK TO CLETUS?
INEZ: HE’S ON HIS WAY. HE LEFT THIS MORNING, AND HE’S ON HIS WAY.
SALLY: HE’S COMING HERE? BACK TO NATION COUNTY?
INEZ: I JUST KNEW IT.
SALLY: INEZ, HOW CAN I CONTACT CLETUS? WHERE’S HE FLYING IN TO? CEDAR RAPIDS?
INEZ: HE’LL GO RIGHT TO THE FARM. YOU KNOW
SALLY: HE’S GOING TO THE FARM?
INEZ: HARVEY WILL GET HIM TO THE FARM.
SALLY: HARVEY?
INEZ: OUR HIRED MAN. HARVEY WILL GET CLETE IN CEDAR RAPIDS. HE’S GOING RIGHT TO THE FARM. I’M SORRY. SO SORRY.
SALLY: THAT’S ALL RIGHT, INEZ. WE CAN CONTACT HIM. WHAT TIME DOES CLETUS GET TO CEDAR RAPIDS?
INEZ: HE LEFT ABOUT TWO HOURS AGO. I’M SO SORRY.
SALLY: DO YOU HAVE A FLIGHT NUMBER?
Lamar stopped the tape. “That don’t sound like much,” he said. “But if you think about it, why the hell is she so sorry? What is it that she knew was going to happen?” He looked at us. “She sound really stressed to you?”
“Sure does,” I said. And she had.
“Very,” said George.
“Now nothin’ against females, or anything,” prefaced Lamar, “but they do worry a lot, and it ain’t that unlikely for a female to say she knew something was gonna happen beforehand, no matter what it is. Right?”
Lamar’s idea of “politically correct” was to use old high school biology terms, like male and female.
“I thought that was just my mother,” said George.
“When a male subject says he’s ‘so sorry,’ he means he’s sorry for himself, like when he gets caught. But,” said Lamar, “when a female subject says she’s ‘so sorry,’ she ain’t sorry for herself, she’s sorry for you. Or about something that happened to you.”
“Okay” I said.
“I think,” said Lamar, conclusively, “that somebody called Cletus and said, ‘I just killed two guys at your house,’ and it was somebody that Inez knew was there, too.” He hurried on. “And I think that whoever it was said that he’d shot a
couple of cops. Like you say, Carl. But that’s why Inez is so sorry. She’s apologizing to the whole department for the cops being killed. Only she don’t know she’s doin’ it.”
He was right. Absolutely. No doubt in my mind. Again.
“Totality of the circumstance,” said George. “Now, all we need is evidence …”
“I been thinking about that, too,” said Lamar. “I think there’s a chance that whoever called Cletus in Florida was calling from the murder scene. Cletus’s house.” He shifted in his chair, and winced. He’d put weight on that ankle. “So I was thinking that if somebody was to go to a judge, and just lay the whole thing out, and make a couple of really good points, maybe we could get a court order for Cletus’s telephone records. Like, maybe a longdistance call made to him, from his place in Iowa to his place in Florida.” He shifted back, more carefully. “So what do you two think?”
“Explain to the judge that this is a critical case …” murmured George, to himself as much as us.
What it boiled down to was this: A judge would take into consideration the bare evidence, but would listen to more persuasive arguments. First, we would get a bit of leeway, because it was such a serious crime. Then, it would be apparent that this evidence would go a long way to either get us on the track, or to eliminate Cletus completely. Most persuasively, though, I thought, was the fact that the order to permit examination of the phone bill was not particularly intrusive. We wouldn’t have to go on the Borglan property to get it, and we wouldn’t disrupt the Borglan household in any way. As a plus, we could be pretty restrictive with dates, as well. We weren’t going fishing, here. We could stipulate a three-day span, from Friday through Sunday. No more.
I thought we had a good chance. So did George. Lamar just sat there looking very pleased with himself.
As we were typing out the application, I thought about Cletus. He’d really had a busy day. He’d gone from innocent irritant, to suspected murderer, back to innocent, to accessory after the fact. By rights, he should have been breathing hard.
“So, what did you have to tell me?” asked Lamar
“Uh … nothing,” I said.
Fifteen
Thursday, January 15, 1998, 1520
The Febbies were still a no-show, so after we broke for lunch—a couple of fat-free hotdogs for me—we moved on with the Cletus lead. Judge Oberfeld was polite, and you could tell he was obviously pleased about George of the Bureau being with us, but suggested we simply approach the county attorney and have a subpoena issued. We explained about the conflict of interest, and that there had yet to be a special prosecutor appointed, and that Davies was in court in Pottawattamie County and not available.
Mike, who was just coming on duty, took the resulting order, and headed to the phone company records office in Manchester.
George and I went back to my office. I got busy filling out my account of John’s and my flying trip into the snowbank, in hot pursuit of a snowmobile. It ran to four pages, in which I took responsibility for authorizing the chase sans headlights. Not nearly as noble as it sounds, really, because department policy requires that the driver, regardless of authorization, operate the vehicle in a safe manner. Best I could do was share responsibility.
I had just finished the report, and signed it, when George said, “They’re here.”
I went to the window, and looked out over the parking lot. A dark blue Ford sedan was parked beside George’s dark blue Ford sedan. Twins. I opened my mouth to make some sarcastic remark to him, when I recognized who was getting out of the second car.
“Oh, shit” was all I said. “Goddamn it, George. You could have told us in advance …”
Special Agent in Charge Volont, Federal Bureau of Investigation, stuck out his hand. “Deputy Houseman, how’ve you been?”
“Fine.” We shook hands. “Yourself?”
“Except for the fact that some of the people assigned to me are idiots,” he said, deadpan, “fine, thanks.” He glanced around. “Sorry I’m late. Sheriff Ridgeway close?”
“Right here,” said Lamar, emerging from his office. “You’re lookin’ healthy.”
They shook hands, and Volont took notice of Lamar’s limp. “Any improvement?” he asked, with a hint of warmth in his voice.
“Still bothers me some,” said Lamar. “You want to talk in my office?”
As I followed Volont and Lamar into the doorway marked SHERIFF, I glanced at George. He looked a little apologetic. He should. Volont was the FBI equivalent of Machiavelli. We’d worked together before. Not exactly my kind of guy. If those two agents, Brandenburg and Hernandez, had been working for him, we were in deeper that I had thought. Much deeper. Volont was in charge of counterterrorist operations in a large chunk of the United States, and he’d worked with us once before. He was honest, fair, and very unlikely to share any useful intelligence with anybody in a rural Sheriff’s Department.
I managed to keep any expression of joy off my face as we all sat down. The twinge in my back had nothing to do with it.
It’s not often you get to watch a real expert at work. Volont was, among all the other things I thought he was, an expert in handling people.
He began by apologizing for any inconvenience his subordinate agents may have caused. He expressed concern about the snowmobile accident, and said that the Feds would gladly pay for any damage to our car. He further expressed concern for the behavior of Agent Brandenburg for kicking me, and for Agent Hernandez being so inept as to creep about the outside of the jail.
At that point, the con was in.
He then asked how we had come upon Brandenburg in the first place. Between Lamar and myself, we managed to tell the basic details of the encounter with the agents. We also gave a basic description of the two homicides, as background.
“I feel an apology is in order, for not touching base with your department, Sheriff, before we started the spot surveillance. I hope you understand, we have some problems with obtaining permission to divulge certain … aspects … of our work.”
Smooth.
Lamar accepted that. No real choice. “But,” he added, “I want to know why they were out there.”
It was very interesting. Volont had just told us that he was sorry, but wasn’t able to tell us the truth. Since nothing had been said to indicate that the “problems… divulging” had changed in any way, he had already warned us. Obliquely, but nonetheless, warned. So, now, he proceeded to tell us … well, not exactly the truth.
“We’ve had information,” he said, “concerning a possible meeting in this area. Not specifically at the farm where the two killings took place. We were watching, to see who attended.” He gave one of his familiar little tight-lipped smiles. “This is all concerning another matter, of course. One that has nothing to do with the area being observed.” He shrugged, regretfully. “I’m sorry, but my agents tell me that you really can’t see much of the Borglan place from their position.” He paused. “So, we don’t have any surveillance data we can share with you. I wish we did.”
“Me too,” said Lamar.
At this point, he’d really said he was sorry it had happened, he wasn’t able to tell us the truth, he’d proceeded to tell us something other than the truth, and had just reassured us that it was all better. Very smooth. If I hadn’t known him from before, he would have been a comfort. I was beginning to understand my feeling of being watched at Borglan’s, though.
I glanced at George, wondering if he was buying this. I couldn’t tell from his expression.
Lamar just said, “Maybe you should tell him some more, Carl.”
I did. I told him that the Colson brothers had been known to impersonate undercover officers on previous, documented occasions.
“I see,” he said. Noncommittal, but interested.
I told him that we had incontrovertible evidence that a person or persons unknown had called the Borglans at their Florida home on the night of the double murder. That, upon receiving that call, Cletus Borglan had left fo
r Iowa the following morning. That he had appeared very concerned upon receipt of the call. That, upon arriving at his farm, he had indicated that he believed that two officers had been shot there, not two burglars.
I stopped.
Volont didn’t bat an eye, but I swear I could almost hear relays popping in his head.
“Where,” he asked, quietly, “did the call to the Borglans’ Florida home originate?”
“Just a second,” said Lamar. He picked up his phone. “Where’s Mike? No shit? Bring it in, will you?” He looked at Volont. “Tell you in a few seconds,” he said. He addressed me. “Mike got here a few minutes ago, and dropped off our letter …”
There was a knock on the door, and Judy stuck her head in, and held out an envelope. “Mike dropped this off a few minutes ago,” she said. “I didn’t want to bother you …”
Being closest to the door, I reached up and took the envelope from her. It was sealed, but it had the phone company logo on it. “That’s okay, Mike should have said something…”
“Thanks, Judy,” said Lamar. After the door had closed, he said, “Go ahead, Carl.”
I carefully opened the envelope and removed the single sheet of paper. It was Cletus Borglan’s telephone records, as requested by our court order. And there it was.
LONG DISTANCE
1. 1-11 ORLANDO FL 407-555-3344 1047 P.M. 8.5 DDD NGT 2.87
One call. 10:47 P.M. Central time. Make it 11:47 Florida time. Eight and a half minutes. Direct Distance Dial. Nighttime rates applied. Two dollars and eighty-seven cents. That was it. One single call. But that was plenty.
“Just a sec,” I said, reaching for the phone. Sally answered at dispatch. “Sally,” I said, as evenly as I could, “what’s the Florida number that the Borglans left for us … for contacting them if anything was wrong while they were on vacation?”
She sounded a bit stressed. “You need that right away?”
“Faster than that,” I said. I could hear her muttering something to herself as I held my hand over the phone. “Just a second … I think we might have it…”
The Big Thaw Page 18
