The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [155]
This is only one example of why the retention of your top-notch people is so important.
About the Author
DONALD HARSTAD is a twenty-six-year veteran of the Clayton County Sheriff’s Department in northeastern Iowa, and the author of the acclaimed Eleven Days. A former deputy sheriff, Harstad lives with his wife, Mary, in Elkader, Iowa.
If you enjoyed Donald Harstad’s THE BIG THAW, you won’t want to miss any of his suspense novels! Look for ELEVEN DAYS and KNOWN DEAD in paperback from Bantam Books at your favorite bookseller.
And turn the page for a sneak peek at his next suspense novel featuring Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman, coming soon in hardcover from Doubleday.
Prologue
My name is Carl Houseman, and I’m a deputy sheriff in Nation County, Iowa. I’ve been doing this for over twenty years now; long enough to be the Department’s Investigator, and senior officer, as well. Senior in every sense of the term, unfortunately. Somehow, when you pass fifty and realize a twenty-five-year-old fellow officer was born about the same time you took the oath, you start to wonder if you might not begin to feel old pretty soon. I mean, maybe in another ten years or so.
The case I’m going to tell about has to be about the most bizarre of all the cases in our files. I think you’ll see what I mean.
One
Saturday, October 7, 2000 0740
I was brushing my teeth in our upstairs bathroom when I thought I heard the phone ring. I turned off the water, and listened. Nothing. I turned the water back on, glad there hadn’t been a call, because my wife, Sue, was asleep. She is a middle-school teacher, and Saturday is about the only day she could sleep past six-thirty.
I was tapping the toothbrush on the side of the sink, and just reaching to turn off the water, when the bathroom door opened a few inches, and Sue’s hand and arm came through, holding out the portable phone. “Okay,” she said, her voice throaty with sleep, “he’s right here.” It would have been better if she’d said that into the phone, but I didn’t think it prudent to bring that up. I was going to hear about this. I took the phone, and the hand disappeared.
“Houseman …”
“Carl?” It was the voice of Norma, one of the newer dispatchers. Well, sure. Who else? “Yep.”
“Uh, we got a call, at, ummm … 0636 … and I sent Eight up on it. He got there, and thinks we should, uh, probably have you come up and take a look.” Her voice seemed to be about an octave higher than usual. Eight referred to Nation County Sheriff’s Car Eight, the radio call sign of Tom Borman, a newish deputy with about two years’ service. He seemed like a good sort, and pretty serious about his job.
“What’s he got?” I asked, as I walked down the hall to our bedroom, to dress. I was pretty sure Tom didn’t want me to show up in just my boxer shorts.
“The first call said there’d been an accident. That was on 911. Something about a lady in a tub. The caller wasn’t really clear, female, just wanted help in a hurry.”
“What’s he want, help lifting her?” I asked. That wasn’t a good enough reason to call me out early, and it was a hell of a long way from being sufficient reason to wake Sue. I guess I sounded a little exasperated.
“No, no. No, we got a second call after the Frieberg Ambulance got there. I sent them right away. They said”—and she seemed to be reading right off her Dispatch log—“‘this subject is code blue, and we think there should be a cop up here right away, it looks like a suicide.’”
Well, that explained the call to me. Department policy is to treat suicides as if they were homicides, at least until murder had been ruled out. Who do you call to deal with a possible homicide? The