Donald Harstad - The Big Thaw

The bullet had gone in right behind the eye, kept pretty level, and come out the other side a little farther aft, cracking the skull completely around its circumference. The stellate or star-shaped portion was a crack running up the side of the skull from the entrance, and stopping near the top of the head.

"This victim may have been upright, and I suspect standing erect, at the time the shot was fired." He looked at us. "I strongly suspect that the bullet which exited this man's head is the one discovered that made the hole in the wall of the Borglan residence." He paused. "The entrance wound is about two-tenths of an inch in diameter, so I think we're dealing with a.22 caliber bullet. Close examination of the wound, after washing the clotted blood away, reveals very intense tattooing around the entrance." He stepped back from the X ray. "Photos will be available soon, I'm sure, but it was a nearly perfect circle, and I suspect we have a contact gunshot wound, here. I would also think it was made with the muzzle in contact because the projectile actually exited the skull… Lots of energy available here," said Dr. Peters.

The muzzle was in contact with the skull when the gun went off. This was usually an indication of a suicide, but hardly likely in this case.

"Self-inflicted?" asked Art. Thinking aloud again.

"I don't believe so," said Dr. Peters. "Let's have a look at the next one… this would be a Dirk Colson," he said, checking his notes. "Notice that both entrance wounds are from the top of the head, in the right rear portion of the skull." He pointed. "The second round entered just ahead of the first, also traveling downward. It caused these fractures here," he said, "that stop at the sagittal suture, and also stop at the hole made by the first wound."

"This second one travels in a path to here," he said. "Again in the basilar part, but on the left and more forward."

We could see that one, too. It appeared to be on its side.

"This is the one that caused the extrusion of the brain tissue out the first entrance hole."

I remembered that. Like frosting out of a cake decorator.

"Close examination of both these wounds indicated a contact or near contact gunshot, as well." He removed the last X ray, and put one of each victim up on the board.

"Likely a double murder, then," said Art.

Dr. Peters said, "Oh, yes. And a bit more flavor, I think." He paused, pointing at the X ray of Dirk Colson. "From the nature and path, I would strongly suspect that this second victim was in a lowered position, possibly seated or kneeling, possibly squatting, when the two wounds were inflicted." He cleared his throat. "With the shooter behind the victim.

"So," said Dr. Peters, "based on the angles of the bullet tracks, the second victim was shot by a gun almost directly above and behind him. Even with a.22 pistol, that would require that the victim be either on his knees or seated." He paused. "Well, absent a ladder." He shrugged. "However, given the fact that both victims would very likely fall just about right where they were shot, it would explain the bloodstains on the floor. With the lack of bloodstains on the chairs that were moved to cover the stained area of the carpet, I will say this: The major carpet stains likely were from each of the victims, that the stains occurred when they were lying on the floor, and that the blood came from their heads. With the stained areas nearly in the center of the room, there doesn't appear to be any item of furniture close enough to permit the second victim to have been shot while seated, or for the shooter to have stood upon while shooting."

"An execution, sort of?" I asked.

"I can narrow your parameters, Carl. I can tell you they weren't shot at a distance. I can tell you what the evidence tells me happened. An execution… is a possibility. A strong one. But a possibility. Not a proven fact."

"Execution," said Art, disdainfully, "in my book requires restraints, bindings, things like that. Could this, Doctor, have been done in the heat of anger, not in a cold-blooded style?"

"Yes."

Art shrugged. "Well, that still leaves us with Fred. He goes in with them, gets mad, and shoots both of 'em." He looked around the room. "Like they say, go for the simplest solution."

Keep it simple. Naturally. But I hate oversimplifications like that. In the first place, people are complex. In the second place, you can get too simple, and jump before all the facts are in. I said as much.

"Oh, sure, Carl," said Art. "I can keep an open mind. But I'll tell you the truth… it's gonna take a lot of evidence to convince me that it wasn't either Fred or the hired man." He shrugged. "I sure don't think it looks like it's anybody else."

Like I said, Art always liked the quick and dirty approach. I suspected he was right more often than not, but I was getting just a little weary of this approach. Simple is one thing, easy is another. If we went with Fred, the easy touch, we were going to cut off the rest of the possibilities. If I was right, and Fred hadn't done it, that would be a catastrophe.

"This still doesn't go down quite right with me," I said.

"It's probably just because you know Fred," said Art.

"Could be," I replied, "but I'll still reserve judgment."

What bothered me about all this was that I felt Fred would be more than willing to talk with us, and probably would be a great help, but Priller the lawyer would not give us any slack on the questioning. He'd want immunity or some such for the burglary charges and as Fred was still the primary suspect for the murders, giving away the burglary charges now would set him free. Then Priller would advise him not to tell us anything about the murders anyway.

That left us with the scene as our only source of evidence. The lab crew had all the materials from there. But we could still go out and look at the place again, especially the tracks left by the dead men on their way to the house. It does help, and you will sometimes get an insight if you look the entire scene over again, after you have developed a scenario. Well, that's what they tell you in the Academy.

Right.

We called Cletus Borglan, and he told us two things. One, it was going to have to be soon, as he was going to be leaving for Florida the day after tomorrow. Two, he wouldn't let us on his property without four hours' prior notice, and he and his attorney would have to be present.

We checked the forecast. A big upward bump in the jet stream was moving inexorably eastward. But ever so slowly. It was supposed to be warming steadily for the next five days. Good. We wanted to see the tracks over the hill in the daylight. They were faint, we knew that. But we wanted to see if there was a way to tell how many people had gone over the fence and to the house. We'd better be sure about that before the snow started to melt again.

It took three hours to type the search warrant application, but Judge Winterman issued a warrant to search the property for the exterior tracks and patterns of tracks, from the roadway to wherever they would lead us. It was the first time I'd ever included a National Weather Service forecast in a search warrant application. I was kind of proud of that.

Art was in his slacks and sport coat. With wingtips. No overshoes that I'd seen, and just a dress coat. "You got anything warmer?"

"Don't worry about me."

"Well, I wasn't really worried. I just didn't want to have to examine another frozen body."

We contacted the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and got a Fish and Game enforcement officer named Sam Younger to meet us at the office. Sam could track just about anything, and was sure a lot better at it than the rest of us.

As soon as we got the search warrant in our hands, we called Borglan, and got no answer. Tough. Out we went. Not so tough that we didn't leave orders for the dispatcher to call the Borglan residence every five minutes until she got an answer, though. Lamar, having once been shot by a farmer who didn't honor a court process, didn't want us taking any chances, either. Wisely, as he still needed a cane most of the time, Lamar also opted to stay at the office.