We got out of my car, and walked toward the kitchen door. I knocked. It was a courtesy not to go to the front door. Most farms reserved the front door for important occasions, and the back or kitchen door was used for routine entry. If we had been accepted at the front door, and none of us had removable outer footwear, we would have "tracked in" all sorts of snow and mud. Easier to clean a kitchen floor.
The inside porch door opened, and a man meeting Grossman's description came out.
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm Carl Houseman, deputy here in Nation County. The office called, and told you to expect us?"
"Somebody did. You got any identification?"
I fished out my badge, as did Art. Grossman reached for my badge case, and I pulled my hand back a couple of inches. I grinned at him. "You just get to look, Mr. Grossman. You can't have it until you're hired." He didn't seem particularly amused.
"So," he said, having scrutinized three badges he probably had no way of telling were authentic or not, "what can I do for you?"
He wasn't even inviting us onto the porch. Not a good sign.
"We're here because you're the hired man at the Borglan farm, and they had a burglary." I moved closer to the door. "We'd like to know when the last time was that you checked the place, and things like that."
"'Burglary,'" he said. "That's what you're calling it?"
"Well, it started out that way."
"I understand that a couple of cops got it?" he asked.
Christ, what was it with these people, anyway? Wishful thinking? "No, no. No cops. A couple of burglars got killed, though."
"By who?"
"Now, that's a good question. We thought maybe you could help us there."
Much to my surprise, he invited us in. "You might as well come on in, and we can get it over with."
Get what over with? I thought. I glanced at Art, and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. Damn. Could I be right?
7
Several cups of Linda Grossman's coffee later (I was really running on caffeine at this point), it certainly didn't appear that I was even close to being right. After we'd all gotten settled around the kitchen table, Harvey Grossman, wife Linda, and their nine-year-old daughter, Carrie, had pretty well explained things to us.
Carrie struck me as a pretty cool little kid. About four and a half feet tall and very thin, she had brown hair and brown eyes that were pretty intense. Especially when I showed Linda Grossman my badge. I showed it to Carrie next, including her in the business just like everybody else. Carrie examined it very closely, and nodded.
The Grossmans told an interesting story.
First of all, the entire household had been awakened about 2 A.M. on Sunday, by the sound of a snowmobile running through their yard at an apparently very high rate of speed.
"Just tore right through the yard," as little Carrie put it. "I hollered out, it scared me so much."
I could imagine it did. At 0200, with the temperatures hovering at minus forty or colder, no wind, over two miles from the nearest gravel road, which wouldn't have any traffic anyway, it would be just about as dead quiet as it could get. A high-speed snowmobile passing within fifty feet of the house would shatter that silence, and very likely wake the whole family.
Carrie had run to her folks' room, who had also both been awakened. Nobody could figure out who it was, since the Borglans weren't home. After settling Carrie down, Linda Grossman had come downstairs and had a cup of cocoa, because she wasn't able to get back to sleep. She thought she'd heard another snowmobile, or possibly the same one, off in the distance, but wasn't sure.
All three Grossmans were certain that the snowmobile had departed heading southwest. Carrie had apparently heard it first, and said it sounded like it was coming from the Borglan place.
We asked, and Harvey told us that he'd been at the Borglans' on Thursday, and was scheduled to go there tomorrow. He hadn't been there since he heard the snowmobile. Some farm people are like that. He'd go up and see when it was time to do his job at the Borglans'. Otherwise, he had enough to do without taking an unnecessary excursion. Not what I would have done, but I was a cop and he was a farmer.
We asked the three of them for written statements, and they complied. Carrie was really cute, so very serious and studious, and showing off a bit for the company.
Mrs. Grossman, Linda, struck me as being somehow edgy. It took me a few minutes, but I finally recognized the behavior pattern. She seemed overalert, and kind of watchfully aggressive in a way that reminded me of an abused woman. Most people imagine women who are abused as shy, meek, and downcast all the time. Not so. Very often, they come on a bit too strong, in a way that will seem uncalled for, or out of character. The best defense is a good offense, and they are really trying hard to conceal the fact they're being abused. They become almost too gregarious. An overcompensation that will fool most people. Anyway, that's how she struck me. Abused, but not to the point of real hazard or flight. With my batting average being nearly zero at this point, though, I just filed it away. No point in embarrassing myself completely.
Anyway, she made a mean cup of coffee. I mentioned that.
"Thanks," she said. "I learned that when I worked at a hospital in Kansas City."
"You want me to put down the last time I was up at the other place?" interrupted Harvey.
"Uh, sure, yeah," I said. God, I was tired. I turned back to Mrs. Grossman to continue, but she was bent over her statement.
I almost got the impression that he didn't want her to talk to me. Not about her past, anyway. Abuse? Maybe. Or, maybe he just didn't want her talking about his past. Or, maybe he was just antisocial. God knows, it couldn't have been my charming ways.
I had an unsettled feeling that I thought had begun when Art and I had compared notes about an hour ago. I got more unsettled when I discovered I couldn't figure out why. The last time I'd felt this way, I'd left a burner turned on on our stove at home, before Sue and I took a short trip to Dubuque. I remembered it about ten miles out. That kind of persistent, almost ominous feeling. Coupled with my feeling that I was being watched up at the Borglan place… Lack of sleep? I thought that might have a lot to do with it. Especially since I felt no sense of fatigue at all, so I could assume I was still wired from the case. I refilled my coffee cup.
Then, as he finished up his statement, Harvey Grossman asked a question of his own.
"Just how were those burglars killed?"
Before Art could leap in with his standard disclaimer about how we just couldn't possibly discuss this, I said, "They were shot, Harvey."
"Oh."
Simply that. No further curiosity, no further questions. Didn't ask where, when, or why. Really didn't seem all that interested, either. It didn't tell me much, but it was the sort of thing I liked to hear and see. Most of the time, if you give a little, you get a little, and in the information business, that could become important at the oddest times. Harvey sort of owed me one.
We collected the statements, all three of them, and cautioned the Grossman family not to discuss anything that had been said with any outsiders. Standard procedure. They said they wouldn't. Also standard procedure. Except I believed Carrie.
As we were tearing off the pink copies of their statements and handing them back to them, I noticed that Harvey and Linda had both used military time as they wrote about the events of Sunday night. Things like: "We were upstairs by 2300," from Harvey, and "We went to bed about 2230," from Linda. Unusual. Carrie had said, "I was to bed at nine-thirty." I chuckled to myself. Two military times, and one Olde English.