Donald Harstad: The Big Thaw

Perfect. They'd tried the back door, found it difficult to pry, and had come up to the front, where the sliding door offered much less resistance. Happened often at burglaries. The suspect would go for the obvious entry point, and find it blocked. Proceed to another, hoping it would be easier. It also fit, since it was reasonably likely that the cousins hadn't closely scouted the Borglan place before going in. That brought up another question, which was how they'd know Borglan's was empty in the first place. The answer was, of course, that they probably wouldn't know. Ah, but living within five miles, good old Fred sure would. Grumbling slightly to myself, I struggled back up the slope, breathing hard in the cold air. I was puffing by the time I reached the top. "Better lose some weight," I puffed to myself.

I went to the sliding door, and opened it. I shouted, "Anybody home?" It never hurts to ask. Especially as I was looking for the two lost cousins. Well, ostensibly, anyway. "Police officer, anybody home?" I waved at Mike, stepped inside, and closed the door behind me.

It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust, coming from the brightly lighted snow to the dark room. I fumbled for a moment, located a light switch, and turned on the lights.

The first thing that struck me was the bright blue carpet. Wall to wall, it had a fine nap, and was the same shade of blue I remembered seeing in copper sulfate solutions in high school chemistry. It was a nice place. Matching blue and white recliners close together in sort of random positions in the middle of the room, and a large three-piece couch, with really big pillows. Red and green throw rug in front of a modern fireplace, where a dog might lie in front of a fire. Huge TV set and stereo in a nearly ceiling-high oak entertainment center. Photographs of family-type people all over the walls, with many, many children. Grandchildren, I suspected. A large oak gun cabinet with a flying duck etched in the glass door. Every slot was filled; six shotguns, two 9 mm auto pistols, and two.357 revolvers. That was a surprise. I stepped closer. No signs of a break, and there simply wasn't an empty slot in the cabinet. That struck me as strange, as the guns were very nice, and in the other burglaries, they'd taken guns and cash.

I was also struck by how warm it was. Well, probably not more than fifty. But quite a contrast with the outside. I slipped off my winter coat, and hung it on a big brass hook just inside the door. Much better. Off with the gloves, sticking them into the pockets of my down vest.

I reached over and turned on an another, adjustable light switch. Track lights came on, flooding the room with light and making my job very much easier. I stepped toward an arched doorway, which obviously led to the older portion of the house. The carpet gave way to yellowish tile at the archway, which continued into a large modern kitchen in the remodeled older part of the house. There was a blond wood island running the length of the room, with hanging cabinets, hanging pots and pans, and hanging glasses with long stems. The stove was counter-top, and the oven was a stack of three running up the wall. My. But nothing appeared at all disturbed.

I turned, and headed back toward the living room arch, intending to head for the basement. As I approached the carpet, I was seeing it from that direction for the first time, and I saw two things that made me stop in the archway.

One: I could plainly see dents in the carpet, which looked to have been made by the bases of the recliners. The dents were in a very reasonable location facing the entertainment center, unlike the rather pointless current arrangement of the chairs. Strange. Most of the time, if you're going to change the position of a chair like that, you'd vacuum underneath, and restore the nap at the same time.

Two: There were two parallel tracks, connecting the closest recliner and the steel separating band between the carpet and the tile, in the archway. They were faint, but they were there. My first thought was that they'd stolen a third recliner. Right, Carl. Embarrassing, but not the sort of thought I'd have to share with anybody else. It did conjure up a quick image of two burglars struggling over hill and dale in ankle-deep snow, lugging a recliner. I grinned to myself. Best not put that in the report.

I crossed the carpet again, and looked at the end of the tracks, where they disappeared under a recliner. No reason at all for them to be there. None. I squatted down, reached into my shirt pocket again, and took out my reading glasses. I peered very closely at the carpet. There appeared to be a faint discoloration at the edge of the chair base. I pulled my little mini-mag light from my utility belt, and shined it on the carpet. Sure enough. Rusty color, faint and deep into the nap. I stood, and lifted the arm of the chair, tilting it sideways on its base. Underneath was a very large spot, only about two shades darker than the surrounding carpet, that looked like somebody had spilled about half a gallon of water and then dried it the best they could with towels. Still damp-looking, but not too bad a job. I moved the chair aside, and knelt back down, shining the mini-mag and running my fingers against the nap of the carpet. Rusty-looking, penetrating, stains very deep, almost to the base of the carpet. It looked for the world like somebody had tried to clean up a bloodstain, and had done a pretty damned good job of it. I stood, and took the room in again.

Bloodstains are strange. If your imagination gets ahead of you, you can look at a spot of spilled spaghetti sauce and see a bloodstain. With the small reddish stains I was seeing, it was going to take a lab to tell. Great. How was the Borglan family going to feel when a deputy sheriff, having discovered a burglary with nothing missing, cut out a sample of their carpet from the middle of the room…

My eye settled on the red and green throw rug near the fireplace. It was at a bit of an angle, and the red didn't go with anything in the room, and the green was jarring against the blue carpet. I walked over and lifted it. Smaller stains, two of them. Just like under the chair. Well, maybe the dog wasn't housebroken.

I stepped to the second chair, tilted it, and sure enough, a bigger stain under there, too. I walked to the middle of the room, and turned slowly through 360 degrees, looking at the pale blue walls. Sure as hell, there was a paler portion, over near the throw rug. I went over and peered closely. A small dot, like a nail hole, near the top of the lighter area. Well, a largish nail, for sure. I couldn't see any stain on the wall, but it looked like somebody had wiped something off, and thoroughly. The "nail hole" was about five and a half feet off the floor, and not quite round. Oblong. Well, it could have been distorted when somebody pulled a nail out of the wall. Swell.

A creepy feeling came over me, like I was being watched. I stopped, and just stood still, listening. The faint sound of Mike's and my cars running outside. The refrigerator way out in the kitchen was humming. Nothing else. No creaks, no bumps. But I felt eyes on me. Not terribly strong, but it was there. I turned and looked out the sliding glass doors. Just the cars, Mike half turned away, talking to Fred, neither of whom was looking my way. After a few seconds, the feeling began to subside.

"Grow up, Carl," I said to myself. But I casually reached down and unsnapped my holster, anyway. Feeling more confident, I tried to pick up where I'd left off.

"So," I said, "let's tell the court…" I do talk to myself occasionally, hopefully when I'm alone. Just to organize my thoughts. Somebody told me once that it was a trait of only children. At least it fit.

When I go through a possible crime scene, I try to imagine describing the evidence to the court. It helps me concentrate, and to evaluate what I've got. In this particular instance, I said to myself, "Your Honor, there was what could have been a tomato sauce stain on the carpet, and there was a lighter mark on the wall, so I assumed it was where blood spatters had been washed off around a nail hole…" "And how did you come to discover this evidence, Deputy?" "Uh, well, I was checking on the welfare of two burglars…" I smiled to myself. Sounded a little weak.