The Big Thaw

by Donald Harstad

  “Not now…”

  “Okay,” said Lamar. No reason for him to argue that. I’d just go on building up comp time for eternity.

  “Maybe I could get next weekend?”

  “If you can get somebody to switch,” he said. “We’re still shorthanded.”

  When I got home, I explained the situation to Sue. It was one of those times when she got really mad, but was totally reasonable.

  “I expected that,” she said. “I always expect that.”

  “Look, I’m really sorry. We can try for next weekend …”

  “There’s leftovers in the refrigerator,” she said. “Scalloped potatoes and ham. I’m going to bed.”

  As she started up the stairs, I had two choices. One, I could say something apologetic, and she’d start to lose it, and we’d have a fight. Two, I could stay downstairs, and she’d lay awake for an hour, getting madder and madder.

  I hate to say it, but I let her go up the stairs. I just didn’t have the energy to argue.

  I put the scalloped potatoes in the microwave, and heated them up. I took a plateful into the dining room, and ate in silence. I hated that schedule. I hated the size of the department that made you find your own replacement for an unscheduled day off.

  The potatoes sat in my stomach like concrete. Most of the ham chunks were still cold. I didn’t care enough to take them back to the microwave.

  I took my plate out, scraped it off, and decided to go upstairs to bed. I’d just have to say something to Sue, the frustration was building to a point where I wouldn’t be able to sleep, anyway.

  I got into the bedroom, and Sue was asleep.

  I remember counting, lying there, staring at the thin strip of street light coming through the curtain. I remember making a mental note to myself that I had reached 22,500.

  Eighteen

  Friday, January 16, 1998, 0802

  I woke up, showered, shaved, and went downstairs for coffee. There was a note on the pot from Sue. She and a neighbor gal had gone to Cedar Rapids to shop. She had already taken the day off from school and chose to make the most of it without me. She planned on being back after supper.

  There being no point in sitting around the house, I checked the Weather Channel on TV. There was a great worm of a jet stream, moving up and down over the Midwest. Huge cold masses were sliding down from Canada into the dips in the stream. We, however, were just getting the benefit of a sort of peak. Warm Gulf air was just moving into the area. The forecaster said we should enjoy it. Shortly, the arctic air would be back as the hump of the jet stream moved east. It was warming up, and forecast to be above twenty degrees most of the day. A “January thaw,” as they call it, was in the making. If it got over thirty-two degrees, it would really start to mess up the gravel roads, with standing water, and softened surfaces giving under the wheels of traffic, and making ruts. Then it would freeze hard, again, and those ruts would be like steel trenches. In the meantime, the water on top of a frozen roadbed made for some really greasy driving. They say wet ice on wet ice is the slipperiest surface known … much slipperier than Teflon.

  I got to the office at 0842. Three plus hours early, since I was now going on to a noon-to-eight shift.

  I found myself wandering about the jail kitchen, waiting for the fresh coffee to brew, when Sally came in at shift change. She came out to the kitchen to store her supper in the refrigerator, and stopped to chat for a few seconds.

  “Hiding from work?” she asked.

  “Kind of. Just waiting for a phone call…”

  She opened the refrigerator door, and put her lunch bag inside. “You making fresh coffee?”

  “Yep. Want some? Be glad to pour you a cup.”

  “Sure. You must want something special,” she said, pulling a folding chair up to the long, institutional table.

  I interrupted the pot, poured her a cup of coffee, and took it to the table. “Here. Well, yeah, I sort of do.”

  “Like, what?”

  “Well, I’d like to know what impression you got from Inez Borglan, when you talked to her the other day.”

  “None,” said Sally, and took a sip of the coffee. “Strong.” She winced, and put the cup down. “To tell you the truth, I was busier that a cat burying shit. I didn’t have any ‘impressions’ of anybody, that day.”

  “Oh.” I went back to the pot, and poured myself three-quarters of a cup, and let the brewing continue.

  “That hardly seems worth a cup,” she said. “Anything else you need?”

  I sat down opposite her. “What can you get me regarding Inez? Or Cletus, for that matter.” I took a sip of my own coffee. “Just right. Anyway, I need anything you can dig up. Any criminal history at all, even misdemeanors. Any contacts out of the area, and why.”

  “It’d help if I had someplace to start. Misdemeanor stuff isn’t likely to be in the CCH or NCIC.” She was referring to the Computerized Criminal History and the National Crime Information Center. They were very useful as places to start a background check.

  “Try the town in Florida where they have their cabin,” I suggested.

  “Okay…”

  “Anything you can find. Anything.”

  “Do what I can … but I’ll tell you right now, this coffee isn’t all that good.”

  There was a knock on the open kitchen door. We looked up, and there stood Shamrock, all big eyes and smiles.

  “Mr. Houseman? They said I’d find you back here …” She looked around the room, and her eyes settled on Sally. “Hello, ma’am,” she said. “I’m a photographer. Just call me Shamrock.”

  Oops. Sally stood, drawing herself up to her full five feet. “Ma’am” was referred to as “the M word” around the department. Especially if delivered by a younger woman. “Glad to meet you. I’m a dispatcher. Sally will do. Coffee?”

  “Oh, sure. You bet,” said Shamrock, coming through the door. She grabbed a chair and pulled it around to the end of the table, then sat.

  Sally glared, turned, got a cup from the cupboard, poured the coffee, and set it down in front of the pretty photographer. “Can I get you anything else?” It was a very pointed remark, I thought. I would have said no. I would have said, “No, thank you,” in fact.

  “Some sugar, maybe?”

  I’d seen Sally use chemical Mace on a gal once. The slightly flushed face below her red hair looked very familiar. “Sure. Anything else while I’m at it?”

  “No, that’s fine,” said Shamrock, brightly. Actually, she and Sally were very similar in appearance, except for the hair color. Even with Sally being a good ten years older. Something I made a mental note to never bring up.

  Sally came over with a box of sugar cubes. It’s really hard for someone of ninety pounds to stomp effectively, so she overcompensated and almost glided across the floor. Tense, kind of, but more like a coiled spring than a stiff board. No. No, more like a stalking cat.

  “We went back and we talked to the old dude at the farm and he told us some stuff and I think it’s pretty good,” said Shamrock. About ready to burst. She was really getting into this.

  There was another knock at the door, and Nancy stuck her head in. “Hi?”

  Sally sort of knew Nancy. “Hi! Come on in!”

  Nancy glanced at Shamrock. “I don’t suppose that’s decaf,” she said.

  “Nope, full strength,” I said.

  “Just what she needs, more zip,” said Nancy, pulling up a chair. “Sugar, too, I see?”

  Sally was already getting a cup for Nancy. “Should I have gotten her parents’ permission?”

  “Mine,” said Nancy, “at least.”

  “I just can’t wait to tell what we found out yesterday,” said Shamrock. She gestured toward Sally. “Is she cleared for this stuff?”

  I really didn’t think Sally’s back could have gotten stiffer. She started to turn, and I told Shamrock, “She’s gotten clearance on federal cases. She’s currently cleared for the most sensitive cases in our department.”

&nbs
p; “Cases,” added Sally, sweetly, “that you’ll probably never even hear about.”

  “Oh, good!” said Shamrock. Genuinely glad. Innuendo-proof, I saw.

  “So, what you get for us?”

  Shamrock looked at Nancy.

  “Oh, go ahead, kid,” said Nancy. “I’ll just translate as we go.”

  Shamrock began talking in an excited rush. “So, okay, we went back to the farm … and the old guy I said had told me that there were two dead cops was there. He’s called …” And she looked at Nancy.

  “Hubert Frederick Brainerd,” said Nancy, slowly. Sally and I wrote it down. Nancy had known enough to get a middle name. “And he’s from near Waterloo.” She smiled. “And don’t forget to tell them he’s about fifty.”

  “Yeah, like she says,” said Shamrock. “So I walk up to him, and I go, ‘We heard other people say there really were two cops that got it on Sunday’ and I go, ‘so we want to talk to you again.’” She looked at Nancy, who threw her an encouraging smile. “So he goes, ‘I told you so, didn’t I, sweetie,’” said Shamrock, in her deepest voice, and tittered just a bit. “He gives me this look, and then says, ‘You might want to look into the ATF records on this,’ and I go, ‘No kidding, the ATF?’”

  “That’s a direct quote. ‘You might want to look into the ATF records,’” said Nancy. “We don’t have a clue on that one. Just what he said.”

  “How in the hell…” I couldn’t believe he’d said that. Or that he thought a reporter would be able to go to the ATF and check their records, for that matter.

  “Don’t know,” she replied. “Just what he said. Go on, Shamrock.”

  “He says that the ATF has been hanging around for a long time, ever since that other cop got killed up in the park, and then that undercover cop got killed. He means Nancy’s previous photographer, we think. And that the cops have been trying to get even, and that they fly over all the time, and that they send vans all over with listening devices.” Her eyes were wide. “Really. ‘Helicopters, jets, and reconnaissance satellites’ is what he said.”

  “Oh, boy.” It was all I could say. I guess I’d been secretly afraid of this, ever since I’d seen the survivalist and antigovernment books at Borglan’s house. The same old problem: How do you prove that something isn’t there? Tough. But when people get excited about it, it gets a lot tougher.

  “He told me all about taxes, and how you really didn’t have to pay them. How it was a conspiracy to take everybody’s money and give it to the rich and the Jews, and the Chinese, and things like that.” She glanced up at me. “Anyway … he said that the media was being fed lots of lies by the government, and that we should check out our sources better. I think that’s about it.”

  “He took quite a liking to Shamrock,” said Nancy, dryly. “Almost like I wasn’t there at all.” She addressed her photographer. “Tell Mr. Houseman about the little buildings…”

  “Oh, yeah. He also said that there was a secret government listening station right near there, with a satellite communications antenna, and that it was where the ATF went to send their reports to Washington. He showed it to us, it’s just over the bridge, it’s gray and a little building. Only it says ‘U.S. Geological Survey’ on it. Has an antenna, though.”

  She was right about the USGS station. They had set several in place over the last few years, and improved flood control considerably. Of course, if you’re paranoid enough, you can concoct just about anything.

  “Well, I didn’t know what to say, because I know he’s full of shit on that one, and then he goes, ‘I got it right from the mouth of the horse.’”

  “That’s ‘horse’s mouth,’ dear,” said Nancy, with a wicked little grin.

  “Right. Anyhow, he goes, ‘We know it was cops.’ And I go how does he know that, and he goes, ‘Because the owner of the house knows. He don’t lie.’ Just like that, he said it!” Shamrock took a big gulp of coffee, and shrugged her shoulders. “Well, that’s what he said.”

  “That is what he said.” Nancy got up, went to the sink, and poured a little cold water in her coffee cup.

  “I’m sure.” I pushed my chair back. “Well, you’ve done really well, here.”

  “Just wait,” said Nancy. She sat back down, cup in hand. “Tell him.” She glanced at Sally and me. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  Shamrock just sparkled. “I asked him if I could take his picture. He goes, ‘Sure, how about over here,’ and he stands in front of the mailbox. So I go, ‘How about you pointing at something for me?’ and I take the first shots. And he goes, ‘How about this?’ and he walks over to his car, and points at the bumper sticker that says something like ‘Remember April 17’ or something, so I get some more shots of that.”

  “April 19,” both Nancy and I said, at the same time.

  “Oh? Well, okay …” said Shamrock.

  “Couple of bad things happened on April 19,” I said. “A lot of Branch Davidians died in Waco, Texas, on that date, and a couple of years later, the Murrah Federal Office Building was blown up in Oklahoma City. Lot of people died there, too.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Shamrock. “I know about those. Sure.”

  “The sticker say anything else?” I asked.

  “Not that I remember,” said Nancy. “But you’ll get a photo of it.” She gestured with her hand held out, like a traffic cop telling me to stop. “Just a second. Don’t go anywhere. It gets still better.”

  “Three of his buds came out of the house,” said Shamrock. “Two men and a woman. I got them on film, behind him, and I don’t think they know I did. Good shots, I think.”

  “They politely asked us who we were,” said Nancy, “and then politely asked us to leave.”

  “The one with the gun looked scary,” announced Shamrock, “but I think I got a shot of it, too.”

  “What kind of gun?”

  “Assault rifle,” said Nancy. “You people up around here seem to have lots of them.”

  Well. “I can’t believe you got that,” I said. “Good job. More than a fair trade for an autopsy.” I looked at Shamrock. “I wish I knew how to get information like that.”

  “You start,” said Nancy, dryly, “with walking around with your coat unzipped, a jersey shirt, no bra, batting your eyes, and saying, ‘Oh, golly gee’ as often as you can.” She reached out and put her hand on Shamrock’s shoulder. “Faked him right out of his bib overalls. She’s like the daughter I never had.”

  Shamrock laughed. “Yeah, right.” She was blushing.

  “Well, maybe the bratty little sister, then.” Nancy patted Shamrock. “Whatever, you’ll do until some young stud with a camera shows up.”

  “Shamrock, why don’t you come with me to the local newspaper office? They can develop prints there. You can use their facilities.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Trust me,” I said.

  I had the damp prints in my hand by 1040. There they were, big as life. I recognized Linda Grossman right off, and I recognized one of the men with her as having been behind Cletus Borglan in the doorway when Davies and I were out at the house on Wednesday. Chunky, about forty or so. He was the one with the weapon. Looked an awful lot like an SKS or AK-47. I could just see the middle part of the barrel clearly. Way toward the rear, and partially hidden by Harvey Grossman, was a white male, looked about fifty, taller than Harvey, so I’d guess about six feet. Didn’t recognize him, but since I’d never actually seen Gabriel, it didn’t mean much. Nancy thought she had, and I was prepared to take her word for it. I didn’t see any weapons other than the one SKS.

  It was the only photo showing the unknown male. The rest were of a portly fellow who just had to be Mr. Brainerd.

  I was standing damn near on top of Shamrock, peering intently at the photos. “They aren’t looking at you, are they?”

  “No. I don’t think they knew we were there right away.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope. Good old Hubert had walked us down the lane
for a ways. They couldn’t see us from the house. When they came up the lane, on foot, I don’t think they were aware we were where we were.” She stopped. “That wasn’t very clear, was it?”

  “I got the gist,” I said. I was looking at the next photo. “This must be Hubert.”

  “Yep.”

  “Looks friendly enough.”

  “Oh, he’s friendly, all right. Downright gushy”

  I laughed. “Wiles are one thing, but you gotta learn to use them in increments. You don’t want Hubert asking you to marry him.”

  “Good photos, aren’t they?” she asked.

  “They’re great! Really good.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled very sincerely.

  I got back to the office just before lunch, and almost literally bumped into Art in the entrance.

  He greeted me with “You know when I forgot to tell you about the lab finding a shell casing?”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “Well, anyway, they did, as you know. A strange one, but my sources…” The way he said “sources” implied that his were much better than mine. I’ll never know just how he does that. “… tell me that good old Fred would go to a gun show occasionally. Opportunity, again.”

  I smiled. With my telephone evidence, I felt I could be magnanimous. “Still have to link him with a gun of that sort, though.” I held up the copy of Borglan’s phone bill. “I think this might change the, uh, direction of your investigation?”

  Art looked at it for a few moments, and at first seemed gratifyingly startled. Then he lowered the phone bill, and gave me the best example I’d ever heard of bending the evidence to fit the theory.

  “Insurance scam.” That was all he said, but he did it with such conviction I wondered if I’d missed some printing at the bottom of the bill.

  “What?” I truly didn’t understand.

  “Insurance scam,” he repeated, patiently “They called Borglan to tell him they were inside. He must have commissioned them to break in while he was gone, and was going to split the insurance take with them.”

  I was speechless. So was George, who’d been in the rest room, and had stepped back into my office just as I’d showed the phone bill to Art.