The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [7]
“I don’t know. I just sh, sh, shouldn’t be …”
“Don’t worry,” I said, as we pulled into the Borglan farmyard. I stopped, and rolled down my window to obtain a totally unfogged view. No tracks here, either. Not even faint.
It was a nice place. Nice house and large garage. Fresh paint on the outbuildings. Bright orangish light provided by a sodium vapor streetlamp on a high pole. Really looked homey.
There were no lights on inside, except the faint glow of what I assumed was a night-light in the kitchen.
I walked back to Mike, who was rolling his window down at my approach.
“You want to get Fred back here to your car? I’ll have a look around, but I don’t want to leave him alone in my car too long.”
“In the cage?” asked Mike.
“Naw He isn’t in custody. If we need to secure him, though, I’ll let you know.”
“How we gonna know that?” asked Mike.
“If I have signs here of forcible entry, we just pop him for suspicion of burglary. He drove ’em in, according to him.”
“Suits me,” said Mike, with a wide grin. “From those tracks, you mean?”
I grinned back. “Yep. It’s beginning to sound like he and his cousins have done the whole series over the last month or so. Cool.”
I went back to my car, instructed Fred to get in with Mike, and grabbed my winter coat and flashlight. It was terribly cold.
I crunched and squeaked my way around to the left of the house, where the ground sloped away to reveal a limestone basement wall. I swept my flashlight back and forth on the slope. No signs of any tracks down there, so I stayed up top, not sure I’d be able to keep upright if I tried to walk the slope. I retraced my steps toward the right side, and newer section, of the house, looking for a point of entry. As I passed close to the sliding glass door, I flicked the beam of my flashlight toward the lock and handle. I noticed it seemed to be open just a crack. There was also a very obvious silver metallic mark on the flat black frame, near the lock. I stopped, and squinted in the bright beam of my flashlight. I clumsily took off my glove by holding a finger in my teeth, unzipped my vest, and reached in under my sweater to my shirt pocket, and took out my reading glasses. I looked more closely. Yep. A very small pry mark at the latch, probably from a quarter- or half-inch screwdriver. Not all that big, but in the beam of my light it was like a little mirror. I reached out, and put side pressure on the handle. Sure enough, the door slid to the right. Point of entry, no doubt. I put my glasses back, zipped my coat, and put on my glove, and closed the door again, most of the way. I left a small crack, because, with my luck, although pried, it was still functional, and I didn’t want to lock myself out.
I walked back to Mike’s car. He unrolled his window again.
“Looks like a forcible entry,” I said. “You want to do the honors?”
As I squeaked and crunched back to the Borglan residence, I heard Mike begin to recite a Miranda warning to Fred again, having just placed him under arrest for burglary.
“Not gonna be your day, Fred,” I said to myself.
Having been burned a couple of times by assuming one obvious entry point and later finding the real one, I continued around to the right, checking toward the rear of the house. The slope was gentler here, partly illuminated by the headlights of our cars, and I ventured carefully down. I played the beam of my flashlight around, and saw lumps and bumps all over the backyard, probably small bushes, and lawn stuff covered with snow. There was a gazebo sort of structure, all snow and ice. It reminded me of some sort of a Russian village church. A snow and ice gas grille stood on its silver pedestal in what had to be a patio area. There were very slightly depressed tracks, visible only as I looked back up the slope, fairly close to mine. I’d missed them in the glare of the headlights, but now that I was in the shadow, they were easier to see. More were around the rear, and some at the back door, which was recessed and in even deeper shadow than the rest of the place. I checked