Trying to keep the concern out of his voice, Floyd clicked back to the other line. “I asked dispatch to send someone over to pick up the note. You haven’t handled it too much, have you?”
“I thought maybe one of the neighbors left it. I opened the envelope and unfolded the note to read it. You sound concerned. Is this a big deal?”
“I don’t know. It’s too coincidental that it shows up when we’re in the middle of investigating Aaron Roberts’ disappearance.”
“Should I get out of the house?” Mary asked, a tinge of fear creeping into her voice.
“Yes. Go to your car, lock the doors, and wait in the driveway. As soon as you’ve locked the car, call the dispatcher.”
Floyd jogged to the dispatcher’s cubicle and asked, “Who’s closest to my house?”
“Pam Ryan is in Royalton Township. She should be there in a few minutes.”
“Mary Jungers is at my house. I told her to go her car, then call you on her cellphone. Keep her on the line until Pam arrives. I’m leaving now.”
The afternoon sun was still high in the sky as Floyd peeled out of the Pine County Courthouse parking lot with his lights flashing. He turned up the radio’s volume, waiting to hear the conversation between the dispatcher and Pam Ryan. He was passing McDonald’s golden arches when the dispatcher called him to announce that the call he was expecting had come through.
Within seconds Pam Ryan responded. “Please advise the homeowner I’m within one minute of the residence.”
Floyd took a deep breath knowing that Mary was still on the phone with the dispatcher and that a deputy was within a few seconds of arriving. Deputy Kermit Rajacich radioed he was a few minutes behind. By the time Floyd arrived, there were two county cruisers in his driveway with lights flashing.
Floyd ran up the sidewalk with the dog nipping at his cuffs. He found Mary and the two deputies standing at the kitchen table.
Pam looked up from the table, where she’d been examining the note. “The house is clear. It doesn’t look like anyone attempted entry.”
The note appeared to be a plain sheet of typing paper that had been tucked inside a plain white envelope. The outside of the envelope was unmarked and hadn’t been sealed. Floyd read the neat printed letters of the short message.
“This sounds familiar,” Floyd said, wracking his brain, trying to remember the interviews of the previous days. “It must have come from someone we’ve interviewed about Aaron Roberts’ disappearance. Someone told me to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“There are a lot more people than the ones we’ve interviewed who know about the investigation” Pam said. “I heard the sheriff mention Aaron Roberts’ disappearance on his Friday radio show and he said you were leading the investigation. That afternoon I was talking to the dispatcher when one of the Twin Cities radio stations called for the sheriff. They wanted an interview too. It’s not a quiet little cold case investigation anymore.”
“Several people were in the flower shop gossiping about this case,” Mary said, nodding her head. “I acted as if I was hearing about it for the first time. This is big news.”
The phone rang, jarring everyone. Floyd grabbed the receiver quickly and had a muffled discussion as he shook his head.
He hung up the phone and said, “The neighbors are checking to see if everyone’s okay. They’re not used to having sheriff’s cars race down the road.”
“Mary handled both the note and the envelope and she’d already put the envelope in the trash,” Pam said, slipping on a pair of plastic gloves. “I’ll put them into an evidence bag.”
“These investigations eat at me enough without them getting personal,” Floyd said as he watched Pam carefully fold the note, then put it in a clear bag with the envelope. “If this escalates I’ll be ready to take off someone’s head.”
“Kerm and I were over at Passenger Lake this morning with metal detectors,” Pam said. “We found a brass button from someone’s Levi jeans. But that’s about it. The guy who owns the cabin served us coffee and muffins. He’s quite a character. He’s owned that place since it was a one-room shack with a hand pump and an outhouse. He’s done a clever job of expanding and adding bedrooms. I think he did most of the work himself. The wiring didn’t look like an inspector ever checked it out.”
“Did he have any other memories of the year he found the rope?” Floyd asked.
“I think he’s been trying to remember and he had a couple other thoughts, but I’m suspicious that he’s melding a bunch of memories together. He thought that might’ve been the year he found a broken a window latch when he came up in the spring. He said there wasn’t much missing. He said it looked like someone had unlatched a window, eaten a can of Spam, and slept in the bed. To be perfectly honest, he couldn’t remember which year it was and he didn’t report the break-in. He said he and his boys just fixed the window latch and threw out the empty can.”
“Wouldn’t that be interesting,” Kerm said. “Suppose Aaron broke in after he got loose from the tree and spent a day or two there while he pondered what to do?”
“Suppose,” Pam said, “whoever beat him up broke in and had a sandwich, slept for a couple hours while they came up with a plan, and then took the body somewhere for disposal.”
Floyd shook his head. “Suppose the break-in occurred one of the other fifteen years.”
“It’s like the brass button,” Pam said. “Mr. Birkholz was all excited that we’d found a clue. I’m thinking someone in the last hundred years lost the button off their jeans, and only God knows when it happened.”
The phone rang again and Mary picked up.
“That was Esther, next door,” Mary said, hanging up the phone. “She’s bringing over some chicken salad. She saw all the activity and said that you wouldn’t have time to fix supper. She’s so thoughtful.” Before Mary could add another thought the phone rang again and she answered a call from another curious neighbor.
Floyd leaned close to her ear. “Ask if they saw any strange cars on the road today.”
“Shush,” Mary said, “it’s Beverly, from down the road.”
Floyd motioned the deputies outside where Spot ran around their feet. “Thanks for the quick response.”
“I’m on days,” Pam said. “I’ll make an extra trip past the house when I can the next couple of days.”
“I’ll pass that along to the afternoon deputies, too,” Floyd added. “I think it’s probably some kook and it won’t happen again, but we can play it safe.”
CHAPTER 16
It was almost midnight when Sandy Maki got back to his apartment. True to her word, Barb was waiting for him while watching an old Humphrey Bogart movie. She was curled at the end of the couch dressed in a white T-shirt and she was so engrossed in the movie she hardly looked up.
“Pam and Kerm checked around the tree where the guy had been tied,” he said, locking the door behind him. “All they found was a brass button. I went back and talked to the rest of the neighbors and poked around the rest of the nearby cabins, including the one where the ATV was stolen.”
Barb reached for the remote control and turned off the television. “A brass button? That’s all?”
Sandy peeled off his sweaty shirt. “Yup, that’s it unless you count the billion mosquitoes that tried to suck my blood while I was searching.” He held out his arms so she could see the numerous red welts from the bites.
“I’ve got to take a shower,” he said, stripping off his shirt. “The temperature didn’t break until long after sunset. I could wring out my shorts they’re so sweaty.”
Barb followed him into the bedroom and watched him peel off the rest of his clothes and drape them over the wicker hamper to dry. She followed to the bathroom and watched him test the water and step into the shower.