Donald Harstad - The Big Thaw

"Oh, sure," said Nancy. "Then you haven't told her of any of your great leaps of intuition this time?"

Hester laughed. "Now that you mention it…"

Thankfully, that got us off on what I would term "Houseman's intuition," intuition in general, and ended up with women's natural intellectual superiority over men. It also got us to the end of the meal. Hester and I were engineering a graceful escape, when Nancy scored.

"So, before you two go running off, how come we were hearing that it was two cops that were killed in there?" She knew she had us. I could tell, because she was still seated as we were standing. She knew we weren't going anywhere. The carrot had been dangled.

We sat back down. "Where did you hear that?" I must have looked interested or something. A crack in the poker face.

"Well, first from a neighbor down the road. Then from an older man at the Borglan place."

Unfortunately, we all now ordered dessert. Another $9.00 plus tax. Pie all around.

"We heard some of that, too," said Hester, pressing her fork through a slice of lemon meringue. "Do you know who these men were?"

"I think one was a Grossman… hired man or something," said Nancy. "I'd have to look around for the second one's name…" She carefully balanced large red cherries on the end of her fork, with fragments of a beautifully crumbly sugared crust clinging to the thick syrup.

"We don't know where that came from," I said, which was pretty much true. Just who might have started it when they were interrupted in a burglary. But they hadn't told anybody, that was for sure. So I wasn't really lying.

"They were sure convinced," said Shamrock. She took a bite of French Silk, topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

"Well, there weren't cops killed. So I don't know how that got going," I said, again. I fiddled with my pumpkin pie, sans whipped cream. My diet program.

"Maybe somebody thought they were cops?" asked Nancy. "Good lead story, any way you cut it."

Ah. The stick.

"Wouldn't something more accurate be better?" asked Hester.

Of course it would. But what could we do?

My thoughts were interrupted by the waitress. "Phone for you, Carl."

I excused myself, and took the call at the phone in the kitchen. It was Sally. The bodies were thawed and Dr. Peters was ready to do the autopsies. Would an officer be available at the Manchester Hospital in the next hour or so? Art was still busy, so it was going to have to be somebody from our department. Right. If I knew Art, he was ducking the autopsy, the same way he did when he was a deputy sheriff. He'd hated autopsies as long as I'd known him…

I walked back to the table. "Shamrock, I don't have my camera with me. Could we hire you to do some shots for us. In Manchester?"

Nancy knew an opening when she saw one. "Sure, she will," she said. "I'll come, too."

Hester shot me a glance, and mouthed "autopsy." I nodded. She grinned. We do think alike.

The deal was, the department got professional, first-class autopsy shots, for a reasonable price. Shamrock got to take two cameras in, taking whatever shots for herself that she thought she'd need. I'd provide death-related information, and they'd get to hear the comments of Dr. Peters. Just the latter, in itself, was one hell of a lot. I let on as if I was really sticking my neck out, but the truth was we had used professional photographers many times before. Although it was true that the Maitland Examiner newspaper was usually the provider. Nonetheless, it was a precedent, and I felt covered. There was a chance that Lamar would be pissed, but if the results justified this…

In exchange, Nancy and Shamrock would latch on to the folks who thought the victims had been cops, and find out what the hell was going on with them. Especially the older male subject at the Borglan place. For us. They'd tell us just the information that was in regard to the cop bit. No obligation to say anything else. Deal? You bet.

"So, how soon do we get to release this stuff?" Nancy got out her notebook, a pen, and poised.

"Not sure," I said, "but I can guarantee you get it before anybody else."

"Gotta have at least twenty-four hours on everybody, or no deal. 'Before anybody else' won't cut it."

"Okay. But there has to be at least one critical detail held back," I said. "Number of shots, for example. Or caliber."

"Number of shots?" said Nancy. "Oooh, I like it when you talk like that."

I turned to Shamrock. "You ever do an autopsy before? I don't want to have to get you a wastebasket…"

"All the time. Bread and butter since fourth grade."

"No distractions for the doc," I said. "I'm serious. If you start to quease out on us, just excuse yourself, and leave me the camera."

"Sure, boss," said Shamrock. "No problem."

As we left Hester, she gave me some of the best advice I'd ever had on a case.

"Houseman," she said, "the Art business is distracting you from the case. You try too hard to get along with him, you'll end up with a mess."

"Okay."

"I mean it. And keep in touch."

We headed off to Manchester, me going one way, Nancy and Shamrock another, to throw off any of their competition who might be looking at us. Since most of them didn't know me from a hole in the ground, I don't think they ever did catch on.

Dr. Peters had no problem with Shamrock the photographer, as long as he was not identifiable in the photos. Shamrock said there'd be no problem.

She looked at the two bodies, covered by white plastic sheets. "I, uh, hope I do okay on this…"

"You'll do just fine," said Dr. Peters. "Just focus on the areas I tell you. We'll keep them to a minimum, just those that will grossly affect the investigation. Most likely," he said, pulling back the sheet on the first body, "just the heads…"

The bodies were both supine, naked, with the heads resting on shaped wood blocks. I'd seen the same kind of headrests in a TV program on Egyptian mummies, used in their embalming process. Commonality of form and function. They still looked damned uncomfortable. Both mouths were open, eyes open, a little mucus in the nostrils of the first one. Part of the thawing process.

External examination of the two victims revealed nothing out of the ordinary, with the exception of the three gunshot wounds. Each had a couple of routine tattoos, poorly drawn and poorly executed, on their upper arms. Their initials, apparently, with M.F.D. underneath.

"What's 'M.F.D.' stand for?" asked Nancy, in a hoarse-sounding voice.

"Mean Fucking Dude," said Shamrock. Her voice sounded a little weak.

"Oh."

"Got an eraser? I had it down as Mighty Fuckin' Dumb." I chuckled.

Actually, it went rather well, as autopsies go. I tended to get in quite close, and had to back away for Shamrock several times. She was having no problems at all, which was kind of too bad, as I had all sorts of "Shamrock" and "green" lines ready. Well, she was a bit pale, maybe. Mostly the smell, I think.

There were very clear "tattoos" on each of the three entrance wounds. Perfect circles made by the impact of unconsumed particles of gunpowder moving out of a gun barrel at several hundred feet per second. Because the particles are so small, they disperse and slow very quickly. Perfect circles such as these meant the end of the gun barrel was in contact with the skin when the shot was fired…

"Contact wounds," said Dr. Peters. "No doubt about it."

You just can't get closer than that.

He washed the head of Victim Number One, filling the drain gutters in the table with pale pink water, which ran down toward the body's feet, and into a clear tube which was plugged into a large container. With the dried blood out of the way, the tattooing was even more pronounced. "Victim Number One, Royce Colson," he intoned into his recorder.