The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [69]
“Really?” I had frozen halfway over onto my side. My back felt like somebody had taken out half the length of the muscles, and sewn them back together. “Tight” does not begin to describe it.
He laughed again. “Yeah, no shit, they were just getting ready to try to pry the door. He asked ’em what the hell they were doing, and one of ’em says, ‘Be quiet, we gotta get in here, there’s going to be some kids try to break in and we want to catch ’em.’ Really!”
“Guts.” The pain in my back was subsiding. Wonderful. If I stayed like this for four more days, I’d be fine.
“Oh, yeah. Told him they were undercover state officers.”
“Didn’t he ask for any ID?” I asked, gingerly moving into a more or less upright position by carefully swinging my legs off the bed, and letting their weight help lift me.
“Yeah, and you know what they said? The one with the little beard says, ‘If you was undercover, would you carry one?’ Just cool as hell.”
I chuckled, myself. “Sharp,” I said.
Phil laughed again, hugely enjoying himself. “It gets better! He wouldn’t let ’em in, you know, so they got all pissed off, and left saying they would come back with their boss in a few minutes, and he’d better be there when they got back! You know what he did? The poor bastard apologized, and he fuckin’ waited almost an hour for ’em to come back!”
“Must have been real, real convincing.” I was sitting now, and the pain wasn’t all that bad.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Do you know if Goober was one of ’em?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t.
“Who?”
“Fred, their cousin …”
“Oh! Him! No, not him. The two he described were the brothers. Just the two of ’em.”
“Good.” I just about had my thoughts collected. “You turn up anything more on Fred, while I got you on the line?”
“Just what I got from my old reports. Remember … oh, a couple of years ago, more ‘n that, maybe? He was a juvie, and was breaking into taverns, and hitting the pin-ball machines?”
“Oh, yeah …” I’d heard something to that effect, but since it hadn’t happened in Nation County, I never saw a report.
“All three of the boys that night,” said Phil. “I remember Freddie was wearin’ a fatigue jacket, and he made one hell of a racket when I chased him. Pockets full of quarters. We weighed the jacket. Thirty-four pounds of quarters.” He had been chuckling to himself all through the recounting. “Every time I saw him after that, I’d ask if he had any change.” He broke into laughter.
“I never saw a cop who enjoyed his job more than you do …”
Breathless with laughter, he managed to get out, “Yeah, ain’t it a sin, though?”
“This is a good piece of work. Really. Can you write it up and send me a copy?”
“You bet. Oh, yeah, before I forget … when we busted the three of ’em with all the quarters, your boy Fred tried to take all the blame.”
“Really …”
“Oh, yeah. Stuck together like dried cow shit. Really tight.”
It was time I was up, anyway. And to good news, to boot. I went downstairs very gingerly, and enjoyed a great cup of coffee while leaning gently against the counter, looking for some old ibuprophen I’d acquired after a root canal. Found it. Twelve left, of 800 mg. Cool. I didn’t think I could afford to miss work today. Of all days. So, prescribing for myself, I figured, “What the hell, take it with coffee.”
Standing at the coffeepot, pouring my second cup, I looked at the outdoor thermometer. Twenty-six degrees. Same as the temperature inside a refrigerator. The warming trend had arrived. It was almost thirty degrees warmer than yesterday.
The phone rang again. I assumed it was going to be the sheriff’s office. “Yeah!”
“Boy, you’re nasty in the morning.” Lamar, calling from the scene of the snowmobile incident from last night. He was with the lab crew.
“Sorry, thought it was the S.O.”
I told him about Phil’s call. Then he told me something.
“Did you ever look in Borglan’s refrigerator that day?” He was deadly serious.
“I don’t think so … but I think I might have seen a bit inside it when Clete was making his coffee … he got the coffee can out of the refrigerator.”
“That’s when I saw it, too.