The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [78]
“You’re going to have to move very, very fast, here,” he said. “Not just on this Borglan. But very fast on the suspects afterward, as well… They’ll know just about as soon as Borglan’s been arrested.”
“We’ll move fast,” I said, “but we’re going to have to find out just who the suspects are, and that’s going to depend on Borglan.”
The fax copy of Lamar’s sister’s statement was in our possession before I got my complaint and affidavit typed out. She was also remaining at Orlando PD until further notice, just in case the judge wanted to have telephone contact with her. The FBI, as it transpired, had given her a ride. Volont was a heavy dude, no doubt about it.
George went with me to the judge.
By 1626, I was slipping and crunching in my car down Cletus Borglan’s lane. George was with me, more as encouragement than anything else. I had outlined my plan of attack, and Volont had dragged his heels. Lamar said I could pull it off.
Volont had said, “You’re asking for big trouble.”
Lamar had said, “Smaller than Waco.” Not fair, really. But effective. I got to go.
I parked my car at the edge of the little rise in Borglan’s yard, where we’d descended to the shed to retrieve the bodies, a good hundred feet from Borglan’s front door. I felt that ought to be enough. Ought to be.
I got out of the car. “Come on, George.” There were two cars and two pickup trucks parked in Borglan’s yard, all at the other end of the house, near the fancy garage.
The front door of the house opened, and I purposely opened the back door of my car, and reached for my camera bag. I kept an eye on the figures that emerged from the house through the back window. Sure as hell, Cletus detached himself, and came stomping over toward us, making loud noises. Two others followed, but hung back just a bit. Confrontation with cops wasn’t something relatively normal people undertook lightly. Unless you were Cletus Borglan, and had yelled at cops for a long time.
I backed out of the car, and made a show of opening my camera bag. “You understand him yet, George?”
“I think it’s something like ‘What the hell are you doing?’ or something like that.”
“Cool.” I rummaged in the camera bag. I was sort of worried about it, too, as it was my wife’s camera. Sue had let me borrow it about ten years before. I just never got around to getting it back to her, and it had been acting up ever since the night of the Colson brothers discovery. I would have returned it to Sue if the department had bought me one, but people like Cletus had always objected to expenditures.
“Get off my property!” Cletus. Beautiful.
“What?” I hollered back, waiving, and watching him stomp closer. He was so determined he was causing a fine spray of whitish mud to splatter around his ankles as he came toward us. I looked back into my bag.
“GET THE HELL OFF MY PROPERTY! YOU BETTER HAVE A WARRANT!”
I looked up. Son of a bitch was fast. He was already at the back of my car.
“Hi, Cletus!” I grinned.
“EITHER SHOW ME A WARRANT, OR GET OFF MY PROPERTY!”
I checked the other two. They were a good fifty feet away, but coming on. Coming in for the fun, I thought.
By that time, Cletus had come around my car, and grabbed me by my shoulder. “YOU HEAR ME?”
I just stepped back, held out a copy of the arrest warrant, and handed it to him. As his eyes dropped to read it, I pulled my handgun out, and stuck it in his face.
“You’re under arrest for murder,” I said. “Get in the car.”
“What?” He