The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [47]
“He’d do things like let the other kids keep their beer in his locker. Really. Just so he wouldn’t have to argue with them. He’d fidget all day, worried that the principal would find out. But he’d never say no.”
“Because the principal was one step removed, and the kids were right there?”
“Yeah,” Donna Sue thought for a second. “Like that. You know he was busted for DWI back in high school?”
“Oh,” I said, “yeah … I’m the one who got him.”
“Well, you know the only reason he drove that night is that the kid who was the designated driver had gotten it for DWI before, couldn’t afford to get busted again, and got drunk at the party anyway?”
“Didn’t know that.”
“Just like the beer in the locker. Knew he shouldn’t do it, but just to avoid the hassle …” She shrugged. “Like I say, he’s always been that way.”
Judy came in with the coffee. It helped.
“What if,” I said, “somebody asked him to do something he just couldn’t bring himself to do? Could he get violent?”
“No way. If it got that bad, I swear to God, he’d just move to California or somewhere.” She sipped her coffee. “He’s just not aggressive at all.”
“How about his two cousins? The ‘Weasels’?”
“They’re mostly just liars. Were, I guess.” She shook her head. “They’d get him to do shit, you know? Like keep stuff for ’em that was hot.”
“Were they violent?”
“Not really.”
“I mean, like, if they got caught at a burglary … do you think they’d get violent then?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “They’d just try to lie their way out of it. They could get pretty outrageous, sometimes.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. They used to laugh about one time, in Oelwein, when they were caught behind a store one night. They were thinkin’ about sneaking in through the rest room window, and the owner came out with, like, the garbage. He started to jump in their shit in a big way. So they told him they were undercover cops. Convinced him, too.” She giggled.
Bingo. Oh, Bingo indeed. “Really?”
“Oh, sure. They did that more than once, I think. It worked.” She shook her head. “They could convince you the sun came out at night. Look you right in the eye and lie, lie, lie. Never blink.”
When Art got back from Oelwein, I ran my interview with Donna Sue by him.
“And?” said Art, sort of impatiently.
“It explains a bunch of the stuff that’s been bothering me,” I said. “Why people kept assuming the two victims were cops, for one thing. Why it just didn’t ring true. Why there had to be somebody involved we weren’t aware of.”
“Why’s that? I must be missing something,” said Art. “I didn’t think she provided any other names?”
“Impersonating cops,” I said. “If the wrong person was in that house, he might have killed them because they convinced whoever it was that they were cops.”
“What you’re doing is this: You have a theory that says Fred didn’t do it. Okay? Yet all the real evidence points to the fact that he did. Then you feel that a story told by Fred’s ex-girlfriend, about two dead men who can’t contradict her, that you have no proof ever even happened … confirms your theory.” Art shook his head. “This now requires the presence and the involvement of a third party based on a supposition by you, based on a tale by another party.” He shrugged. “Can’t buy that, Carl.”
I gritted my teeth. “But I think that’s what happened.”
“Based solely on your instinct,” he said. Just a bit too sarcastically, for my taste.
“You have to start somewhere,” I replied, evenly. “Your so-called instinct tells you where to dig. You dig, you get the evidence, you may solve the case. I don’t guess a case. I never guess. You should know that by now.”
“I didn’t say ‘guess,’” he said.
“Do you realize the ramifications here? If I’m right, that would mean that Cletus had prior knowledge of the murders before he got to the house.