The Big Thaw

by Donald Harstad

  I just pointed to the wall to our left, and eased my way toward it. Our target ought to be just on the other side. Putting slowly increasing pressure on the thumb break of my holster, I silently unsnapped the restraining strap, and slipped my handgun free of the holster. I tried to get right against the wall, but drifted snow kept me about three feet away from the massive limestone blocks. We were at the edge of the shadow from the backyard light, but the bright moonlight illuminated us wherever we were in that little yard. We’d have to move very fast, around the corner, and try to get him before he heard us coming. It was going to be difficult.

  Suddenly, there was a squeaking from the parking lot, as Twenty-five, the Maitland officer, drove up, responding to Sally’s call. The parking lot was also on our left, placing the suspect between us and the Maitland officer. Now, I thought, if we can get around that corner fast enough, we can chase him right toward Twenty-five’s car …

  There was a brief flurry of footsteps, and the suspect came flying around the corner, fleeing from the line of sight of the Maitland officer.

  “Freeze!” From both Gary and myself, same instant.

  The suspect turned toward the sound, looked down the barrels of two handguns, tried to stop, skidded, slipped, waved his arms, and hit the ground on his back with a loud thump.

  I love Iowa winters.

  “Don’t fuckin’ move!” thundered Gary, as we approached the supine figure.

  “Comm, Three, I think we got him,” I said, into my mike.

  “Way to go!” came from Sally. “It’s on tape!”

  “You okay?” I heard Gary asking. I looked down, and saw that the suspect was gasping like a landed fish.

  “Fall knocked the wind out of him,” I said. “He’ll be fine.”

  Just then, Ira Tully, part-time Maitland PD officer, came huffing and puffing around the corner. “We get him?”

  “Got him, Ira. Thanks for comin’ up.”

  “No …” puff “… problem …” puff “… Carl.”

  Ira had just turned sixty, and worked one night a month. As reliable as the seasons, and a plumber in real life.

  “Well,” I said, “let’s get on with it.”

  Between the three of us, we lifted the gasping suspect to his feet, and slowly and carefully frisked him.

  “Don’t puke on me, buddy,” said Gary, consolingly.

  Beneath his dark blue parka, we found another .40 cal. Glock. No knife. No bulletproof vest. I felt the Glock was plenty.

  When we got him inside, we sat him down at the kitchen table. I didn’t want him to be in contact with the other prisoner, who I assumed was an associate of his. He stopped gasping, and was merely breathing hard. He had a desperate air about him, not threatening, but sort of actively unhappy.

  “So,” I said, in a friendly tone, “who are you?”

  No reply.

  “Name?”

  Silence, except for the heavy breathing.

  I was getting a little tired of this approach. “Strip him,” I said to Gary. “I’m getting sick of this shit tonight.”

  “James Hernandez,” he said. He shook his head, and shrugged in a resigned way. “Special Agent James Hernandez, Federal Bureau of Investigation. My ID is in my back pocket.”

  “No shit? The real FBI?” said Gary.

  I glanced at Gary. He’d missed the wallet. He shrugged.

  We let Hernandez very slowly reach back, and produce his ID wallet. He opened it, and showed it to me. I reached out and took it, although he resisted for an instant. It looked real enough, just like the last one I’d seen a few minutes ago. I laid it on the table, while I wrote down the information. “It won’t leave your sight,” I said.

  Sally stuck her head in the room. “Carl, George for you …” She had a huge grin.

  “Right.” I followed her back to dispatch.

  “This is just so cool,” she said, bubbling over. “I got the whole thing on tape, him falling, you guys pointing your guns at him, the whole thing …”

  Dispatchers hardly ever get to see what happens as a result of their efforts. This was quite a treat. Not only for her.

  “I’d like to see that sometime.” Cops don’t get to watch, very often, either. “We’ll have to bootleg a couple of copies…”

  I picked up the phone. “George?”

  “Carl, I’m afraid that Norman John Brandenburg is a real agent.” He sounded very worried.

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding. I hate to complicate your life like this, but he really is one of us.”

  “George,” I said, “you ain’t heard the half of it. We just bagged a fellow named …” I looked at my note. “James Marteen Hernandez. Out trespassing behind the jail.”

  “Oh, no …”

  “Yep. You guessed it. His ID says he’s one of your special agents, too.

  “Oh, no,” he said, again. “You’re right, that’s who he is. He’s assigned along with Brandenburg … I was supposed to contact him as soon as I could find him …”

  “I know where you can reach him,” I said, smiling.

  “Look, Carl, I’ll get back to you, but expect me there within an hour or so. I’ll be coming up on this one. But keep it as quiet as you can.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, “but you really ought to talk with your agents about that.”

  “Yes. I’m sure somebody will do just that.”

  “Oh, George …”

  “Yes?”

  “Is there, like, a limit on agents? Or can we bag as many as we want?” I just couldn’t help it.

  As soon as the connection was broken, I turned to Sally.

  “Where’s Lamar?”

  “Over with the wrecker, getting the snowmobile.”

  “Better tell him to get here just as soon as he can …” I grinned. “Nothing about FBI agents over the radio. George wants it kept quiet.” I laughed.

  “Can we do this?” she asked. “I mean, they’re really FBI …”

  “We can even savor it,” I said. “They’re going to be the butt of every Bureau joke for the next six months.”

  We moved Brandenburg to the kitchen with Hernandez, and got them some coffee. I explained where we were coming from.

  “So, like, we have valid charges on both of you. I expect the charges to be dropped. So do you. But I can’t release you without a bond being posted, until I hear further. Regulations, you know?”

  They didn’t say anything.

  “Now, I don’t know what the hell you were doing out there,” I said, evenly, “but I don’t like people screwing around in my county, no matter who they are. Care to explain this?”

  They didn’t answer. That was all right, I didn’t expect them to.

  “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but we had a double murder in that area …” I stopped. Right there. The level of tension in the room went up an order of magnitude. “I don’t believe it,” I said, to nobody in particular.

  “What?” asked Gary.

  “Never mind just yet.” I went to the door between dispatch and the kitchen. “Sally! How soon can Lamar get in here?”

  Lamar got to the office about ten minutes later. I ran the whole thing by him, kind of fast.

  “You think I should call Art?” Art was going home every night, some seventy-five miles or better. Saved the state a few dollars in motel accommodations. He was like that.

  “No,” said Lamar. “Not until we talk with George.”

  We drank coffee in near total silence, thinking, until George arrived. When Sally buzzed the electric lock on the door to let him in, neither Lamar nor I got up. George came through the door, looking frazzled, harried, and very worried.

  He should have.

  “Ho, boy,” he said. “This is a fine mess, isn’t it?”

  “It just might be,” said Lamar.

  “What have you got on them?” George got out his little notebook. I explained the possible charges, and he wrote them down. “Right … right.” He snapped the book
shut. “I’ll talk to them, and then to you, if that’s all right?”

  “Sure,” said Lamar. “In private?”

  “If possible,” said George.

  “You can use the booking room…” said Lamar. I grinned. Everything in the booking room was taped.

  Not three minutes after we heard the muted, angry voice of George talking to his two fellow agents, George came back to our room. He looked thoroughly angry.

  “They were told,” he said, “that their supervisor is not happy.”

  “And who,” I asked, “would that be?”

  He sighed. “Carl, I’m not allowed to say.” He looked at us beseechingly. “You understand?”

  “Maybe,” said Lamar. “We just have to know what they were doing when we found them.”

  “I’m not allowed to tell you that…”

  “Well,” said Lamar, “since they might be implicated in a murder or two, you might want to get permission to reconsider that.”

  George stood there, openmouthed.

  “Let me tell you …” I said.

  I did. All about the Colson brothers. The circumstances of their death. The fact that they’d been killed in the commission of a burglary, and that it was very possible that they had stumbled upon somebody in the house. Somebody who was very efficient. Somebody who might have killed them in order to cover their presence. I went a step further. I told him the secondhand information I had about their impersonating cops once, when they were caught.

  “We’re trying to confirm that,” I said. “But if they did tend to do that, they could have identified themselves as cops to somebody who thought that was a great reason to do ’em.” I waited a second. “So, it was either your guys, or somebody who thought they had been caught by your guys.”

  George looked stunned. I think mostly because I was even suggesting such a thing.

  “I don’t know if you have ever felt this way,” I said to George, changing tack, “but I occasionally get the feeling I’m being watched. Ever have that?”

  “Sure. You’re supposed to pay attention to it.”

  “Yep.” I paused. “When I was at the murder scene, I could have sworn I was being watched. Several times.”

  Nothing.

  “When Special Agent Brandenburg of your Snowmobile Division ended up in the ditch,” I said, “he was coming from the direction of the Borglan place, where the bodies were found. He was on a machine so silent it could hardly be heard. He was equipped with night vision equipment. He was running blacked out …”

  Still nothing.

  “So it was pretty obvious he was doing surveillance,” I said. “Proximity would indicate the Borglan farm as at least a likely object. Why? Why would your people be watching our murder scene? Any ideas?”

  “None,” said George. “I don’t know what their assignment is. Honest. I think that your assumption that they were watching your crime scene is reaching a bit, though … but to even think they may be implicated …”

  “Then,” I continued, “very shortly after we bring him here, his partner shows up. Not at the door. Not that openly, by a long shot.” I studied George. He was embarrassed, but I believed him when he told me he didn’t know their assignment. “No, we catch Agent Hernandez out behind the jail, like a common burglar.”

  “I can’t explain …” said George.

  “Somebody better, and it better be damned good,” rumbled Lamar. “We’d all hate to have to bother one of our senators to find out for us …”

  George blanched, and I think I did, too. That was a first-class threat.

  “All I can do,” he said, “is try to get the information for you. Let me try that…”

  “Twenty-four hours,” said Lamar. “Try hard, George.”

  “Oh, yes,” said George. “Count on it. But, in the meantime, can I have my two agents in there?”

  Lamar grinned. “Sure. We’ll call a magistrate and recommend release on their own recognizance. But first, we do photos and prints. Standard procedure before release.”

  It was unsaid, but nonetheless a major threat. No deniability with photos and prints. Just on the off chance it might have occurred to somebody to try to deny this.

  Thirteen

  Thursday, January 15, 1998, 0200

  Lamar and I sat in his office. We could hear the Maitland town clock strike twice. The bell was exceptionally clear in the still, icy air. It was a very lonely sound.

  “You got any confirmation at all that those dead kids claimed they were cops?”

  “Workin’ on it, boss.”

  “You really think the FBI people did the Colsons?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Me, neither. Too bad, though, in a way.” He grinned. “I mean, we caught ’em. Just too bad they didn’t do it.”

  I drew a deep breath, and let it out very slowly. “Yeah. Ain’t gonna hurt to let ’em think we suspect ’em, though. We might find out what they were actually doing around there.”

  “They were pullin’ surveillance on my buddy Cletus,” said Lamar. “That’s what they were doin’.”

  I held up my right hand, measuring less than an inch between my thumb and forefinger. “Cletus is this important …” I spread my hands at arm’s length. More than six feet apart. “You gotta be at least this big before you get FBI surveillance. At least.”

  We were silent again for a few moments.

  “So,” said Lamar, slowly, “what the fuck were they doin’ there?”

  I shrugged. “Not a clue.”

  “But you do think they were there?”

  “Oh, yeah. If not actually on the property, they were close enough to see … I’d stake my life on the fact that they were the ones watching me when I felt so spooked.” I crumpled my decaf pop can. “The real question is whether or not they were lookin’ in the place the night the brothers were killed.”

  “Witnesses…” muttered Lamar.

  “Professional witnesses,” I said. “If we’re lucky, they got photos.”

  “Of what?”

  “Won’t know until they think they have to tell us what they had going. Your bit about the senator should get that machinery going real fast.” I stood. “Gotta hand it to ya, boss. That senator bit was perfect.”

  “Thanks,” he said, pleased. “Look, let’s let Art do the details tomorrow. You come in a little late. Say nine or so.”

  “Okay.” That gave me seven hours, give or take, from now. I let my feet slide off the edge of his desk, and stood up with a continuation of the motion. A low-intensity pain shot through my back muscles, catching me off guard. Must have been something I’d done in the last few hours. Probably when Agent Brandenburg had kicked me, and I’d gone flying backward. Great. I was going to be really stiff and sore tomorrow. “See you in the morning.”

  “This is getting to really bother me,” said Lamar, as I headed for the door. “You think Cletus knows what’s going on here?”

  “Beats the shit out of me,” I said. “How you gonna handle the patrol in that area? Two-man cars?”

  “We ain’t got enough people.” He looked at me. “This ain’t the only thing we got going.”

  “You don’t want to use the reserve in this sort of thing, Lamar.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. But I don’t want to send nobody down there alone, either.”

  Sue awoke as I slipped into bed. “What happened?” she mumbled. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” I said. “John went in the ditch. Took us a while to get his car out.”

  “Oh. Just so you’re all right …” And she drifted back off to sleep. I wish I’d been able to do that. I lay there, wide awake, for a good hour, thinking about the events of the evening. I tried to turn on my side, once, and my back muscles advised me not to try that again. So I lay there, staring at the shadows on our ceiling. Thinking.

  Nation County is about 750 square miles, about half of it hilly. A dozen small towns, and about 2,000 farms. Connected by 1,300 miles of roadway, 75 percent of it gravel.
So, what were the odds of us meeting up with the FBI Snowmobile Detail so close to the Borglan place? Right. Not conclusive, but a very damned strong factor.

  Not to mention the near certainty that the killer at the Borglan farm had fled via snowmobile, in the middle of the night; blasting right through the Grossmans’ barnyard, and off to … Where? Unknown, but south, that was for sure. For how far? I smiled to myself. Until the snow ran out … But that was a very loud snowmobile, at least according to the hired man and his family. I grinned sleepily to myself. Not FBI issue.

  But, then, there was the timing. The snowmobile, on the first night John had seen it, had been heading in the direction of Grossman’s. North. When I’d seen it tonight, it was heading south. But when John and I had seen it, it was earlier than it had been when John had seen it the previous night. What did that mean? Nothing. The voice of my ninth-grade algebra teacher came to me: “If a train leaves Smallville, traveling west at sixty miles per hour, and another train leaves an hour later, traveling at …” Ugh. If there was a solution to my problem there, it’d have to wait … I was just too tired.

  More work. And hopefully, a little more luck, before somebody else got killed. The bullet casing found by Jack and company, that weirdo Russian caliber, had to figure in somewhere, too.

  I started to turn over. Whoa! My back hurt a lot more, and was going to be more than stiff in the morning. Great. I moved gingerly, and tried to stretch the muscles slightly. Bad idea.

  I know I slept, though, because the telephone woke me up.

  The phone couldn’t have rung more than four times, or the answering machine would have kicked in. I fumbled with the receiver for a second. My voice didn’t quite come out, so I cleared my throat, and tried again. “Yeah, Houseman here …”

  “Hey, I get you up?”

  Phil, from Oelwein PD. I looked at the clock; 0836. “Yeah, you did … or, you will have, when I’m awake.”

  “You old folks sure sleep a lot.” He laughed heartily. “Hey, I just thought you’d want to know, I found the old fart that the Colson brothers told that they were undercover cops.”

  That perked me up. “No kidding?” I started to scoot up on my right elbow, and the pain in my back almost took my breath away.