Donald Harstad - The Big Thaw

"Exactly the same phrase."

"Damn…" I jotted the phrase down. "You remember how close together they were when they wrote the statements?"

"Well, they were in the same room…"

"Did they communicate with each other?"

"Well, yeah, they did…" He sounded disappointed.

"Great!"

"What?"

"That's at least as good, I think," I said. "Chummy, even talk it over and decide they will stick together through and through kind of stuff. Remember if they were sober?"

"I've got the PBT stuff here," he said. A PBT was a preliminary breath test, designed for use on the highway as a precursor to arresting for DWI and doing a real test on an Intoxilyzer. The PBT wasn't admissible in court, but was used a lot to give the officer a ballpark idea of the state of the subject. "All three of them were over point one oh, but not by too much."

"Fine."

"Fred's girlfriend bailed all three of 'em out, that night."

"Cool. You remember anything else they might of said?"

"No, sorry, I was kinda busy." He was apologetic, like he should have known that they were going to end up in a murder case or something. New officers are like that. Well, the good ones are, anyway.

"That's all right," I said. "No problem. This is good." I was having a bit of trouble getting the ballpoint pen to write, and grabbed a pencil. "What was the girlfriend's name?"

"Just a sec," he said, and I could hear paper being shuffled in the background. "Ah… Donna Sue Rahll."

"Get a DL on her, will you?"

"Will do."

"Thanks. This is good."

I normally hated to be called at home, but I loved it when it was something I could use. I didn't know Donna Sue Rahll, but the last name rang a very faint bell.

I joined Sue in the living room.

"Did I hear you say Rahll?" she asked.

"Yeah. Know anybody by that name?"

"Well, John Rahll is the man who runs the Maitland Economic Development Center."

"Oh, sure… tall man?"

"Yes."

"Any kids?" One of the many benefits to being married to a teacher.

"Oh, a girl who graduated a while ago. Becky, maybe," said Sue, absently, as she shuffled through some tests she'd brought home to grade.

"Or, how about Donna?"

"That's right, Donna."

So. Tomorrow's schedule was shaping up.

"You know where Donna might be, these days?"

She looked up. I usually didn't pursue her information so far. It was an agreement we had. You don't have to tell me about school stuff, I don't have to tell you about cop stuff.

"Last I knew, she was working at the Maitland Library. She had a year of school, dropped out. Came home. I think she might live with her parents."

"Okay. Thanks. That's plenty."

"So, now I get to ask a question?"

"Uh, maybe." I grinned.

"They said in school that you were flying in helicopters today, looking for another body. True?"

"Yes, I was in a helicopter today. It was really, really cool. But, no, we aren't looking for any more bodies."

"Thanks," she said, and went back to her papers.

Rumors can plague an investigation. Especially in a town like Maitland and a county like Nation. One of the seldom appreciated effects is that it retards the flow of information. Somebody has a truly important bit, but they hear through the grapevine that something else entirely is really important. They dismiss what they know, and begin to rely on what they hear. Consequently, they don't tell you their information, because it doesn't seem important. In our case, for example, the third body bit might convince someone that a snowmobile sighting they had on the night in question might not be significant. Because we weren't looking for snowmobile sightings, after all, we were looking for a third body. So that's where that triple homicide nonsense came from with the media.

"We were looking at snowmobile tracks," I said, hinting. "Not for a third body. If anybody asks…"

"Oh," said Sue, absently. "All right."

You do what you can. I went to bed. But before I did, I turned off the police scanner.

I made an appointment with Donna Sue Rahll for 0915, at the Sheriff's Department. I went in out of uniform, to put her at her ease. That worked about half the time, and blue jeans were a lot warmer than uniform trousers.

Art was in Oelwein, interviewing the mother of the two victims, so I got to do the preliminary interview of Donna Sue all by myself. As it turned out, she was a bright, fairly attractive girl, who considered Freddie to be a phase of her life she'd just as soon forget. About the first sentence out of her was to the effect that she hadn't wished to associate with Fred for the last seven or eight months.

"So, I don't know why I'm here," she said. The second sentence.

I could tell that she was hoping for a short interview, because she'd left her blue parka on. Unzipped, though, to reveal the orange lining. There was hope.

"Any particular reason you broke up?"

She looked me right in the eye. "I don't see that that's any of your business."

"It isn't," I replied. "But it may be the state's business. There's a lot of interest in Fred right now."

She sighed. "This is all confidential?"

"Unless it has a direct bearing on facts material to the investigation. Then you may be questioned regarding things, in court."

"If I know something about the case, you mean."

"That's right," I said.

She stood, and said her good-bye line. "Well, since I don't know anything 'material,' about any kind of case, I'll leave, now."

"I think you might know more than you think," I said. "Why don't you sit back down for a minute."

She stopped, but didn't sit. At least the parka hadn't been zipped yet.

"I want to ask about Fred's two cousins, Dirk and Royce…"

She flicked out an insincere little smile. "The Colson brothers? The 'Weasels'?"

"Pardon?" I said.

"The 'Weasels.' That's what we call them."

"Why?" I asked, leaning back in my chair. I had her.

She sat back down. "Because they're greasy little shit-heads who have no respect for anybody, and lie and steal and stick their noses in and think they're just great."

Well. It came out in a rush, and I suspect she felt a lot better for having said it. It sure helped me.

"Stick their noses in what?" I was already pretty sure about the "steal" part.

"Everybody's business." She exhaled hard, and started to shrug out of her coat. "They just cause a lot of trouble." She looked at me. "Why? What have they done now?"

It took me just a second. Then the little lightbulb came on in my head. We hadn't released the names of the victims yet. And if she'd severed relations with Fred, she might not have a way of knowing.

"You don't talk to Fred and his crowd much these days?"

"I have no time for them. If I saw one of them coming toward me, I'd cross the street."

"Ah." I gave her my most serious and concerned look. "Well, I'm sorry. Really. I assumed…"

"What?"

Had her good. "That you knew they were dead."

I figured I was ready for about any kind of reaction, but was surprised when she simply said, "That doesn't surprise me."

"It doesn't? Why not?"

"They 'party hearty,' and they drive too fast. We've all been telling ' em that. For years."

"Wasn't a car wreck," I said. I paused for effect, for all the good it did me. "They were murdered."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Murdered? Like, by somebody else?"

"That's what it looks like." By somebody else, indeed.

"Well," she said, "well, shit. Huh. Whadda ya know…" She paused. "That's something. Well, you guys know who did it?"

"It's beginning to look like it might be Fred."

"Oh, no. No, no, no way. Oh, no," and she started to chuckle. "No, not Fred. No."