“She might need treatment for depression,” Floyd suggested. “It sounds like she hasn’t been dealing well with things since Aaron disappeared.”
“Who made you a psychiatrist?”
“I see a lot of people with lots of problems. Sue acts like a person who is dealing with depression. Lots of them get treatment or drugs and are able to cope. Without treatment they stay withdrawn and sometimes end up suicidal. I do know that beatings don’t improve depression.”
“Fuck you,” Roberts muttered.
“I suppose hitting Sue makes you a big man.”
“I’ve never hit her unless she deserved it. You can ask her yourself.”
“Tell me about your daughter? Did you hit her too? Is that why she married a guy in the Cities and moved out of the county?”
“Listen, Swenson, you’re starting to piss me off. This is a free country and how I discipline my kids is my own business. I can tell you one thing — my kids respected authority and weren’t a problem at school. They knew that if they got in trouble with their teachers they’d be in bigger trouble when I got home. That’s the trouble with the country these days, people don’t respect their parents.”
“How did you and Aaron get along?”
“I kept him in line. He tried to give me lip a couple times, but I set him straight.”
“I heard he was thinking about going to the University and you weren’t too happy about that?”
“What a fucking waste of money that would’ve been,” Roberts said, sliding back in his chair and crossing his legs. “Aaron could’ve had a job with the trucking company making twice what any smart-assed college kid was making. It wouldn’t take him four years, and it wouldn’t cost ten thousand dollars. I blame his sister and her shit-head husband for that. They put all kinds of crazy ideas into his head.”
“They didn’t convince Aaron that he was gay.”
Mark Roberts flew out of the chair and lunged across the table for Floyd. The jailer, caught totally by surprise, watched in a stupor as Floyd twisted to miss the momentum of Roberts’ lunge. In one swift motion Floyd pushed Roberts past and onto the floor before the jailer took two steps. Floyd put his knee into the small of Roberts’ back as the jailer pushed his face against the floor.
“Aaron wasn’t no sissy,” Roberts spat at Floyd over his shoulder. “My boy was as tough as any kid in the county. I taught him to fight and drink and he wasn’t a queer.”
“Sexual orientation has nothing to do with fighting or drinking,” Floyd said. “Some people are just wired differently. It’s not a choice they make; it’s just the way they are.”
“Not my boy, and don’t you go ’round spreading rumors like that. I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” Floyd asked, keeping the pressure on Roberts’ back. “You’ll beat me up like you beat your wife? Give it up, Mark. We know that Aaron came home the last weekend he was here to tell everyone he was gay and that he was HIV positive.”
“He wasn’t queer and he didn’t have AIDS!” Roberts screamed. Spittle ran from the corner of his mouth as he flailed and kicked. One heel caught Floyd in the ribs. He grabbed Roberts’ ankle and pulled it until the knee popped. Roberts grunted and the resistance ended.
“I’ll let go if you stop struggling,” Floyd said. “If you keep fighting me, you’re going to need knee surgery.”
“Let go,” Roberts said with a gasp.
Floyd released the pressure on Roberts’ knee, but he and the jailer pinned the prisoner to the floor, then fastened the handcuffs behind his back. Floyd helped him stand up.
“My boy wasn’t a queer. Who told you lies like that?”
“Several people have told us the same story,” Floyd said, setting Roberts back on the chair. “As consistent as they are, it seems like they’re telling the truth.”
“That’s bullshit. He was going with that Tucker girl and they were talking about getting married. I suppose she told you that to get even with him for breaking up with her.” Roberts twisted his head and wiped the spittle smeared around his mouth on the shoulder of the jail coveralls.
“I heard it from enough people to know that it’s probably the truth,” Floyd said, straightening his pants and tucking his shirt in. “I imagine he never told you because he feared your reaction would be just as it was here.”
“Well, they’re lying to you. If he had a problem like that, I would’ve taken care of it. No son of mine is going to be a sissy.”
“Is that what happened to Aaron?” Floyd asked. “Did you find out he wasn’t what you thought he should be and you took care of it?”
Roberts opened his mouth, but for the first time thought about his words and held his tongue. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“What happened between you and Aaron that last night before he disappeared?”
“Nothing. I was on the road.”
“When did you hear Aaron had disappeared?”
“I delivered a load in North Dakota and when I talked to dispatch they told me to call home. Sue told me he was missing and that people were looking for him. I think it was like two days after.”
“Where in North Dakota were you when you called?” Floyd asked.
“Grand Forks. I had a load of parts for the Air Force base.”
“Grand Forks isn’t a two-day drive.”
“I dropped a load in Minneapolis and then spent a day waiting at the foundry for the Air Force load.”
“Your memory of a delivery years ago is awfully good. Most innocent people can’t remember where they were last Friday night.”
“Could you forget where you were when someone told you your kid was missing?” Roberts asked.
“Probably not,” Floyd conceded.
Floyd made calls from his office, first to identify the trucking company Mark Roberts drove for in ’98, then to get copies of his logbooks from December. After half an hour he had someone at Consolidated Express promise to fax the pertinent logs that afternoon. He reached for his coffee cup, but decided that his hands were already shaking and more caffeine wouldn’t be a good idea.
He stared at the piles on his desk. “I was doing something before all this broke loose.”
Floyd read through the December ’98 report again, which said a homeowner near Sandstone had found an ATV abandoned in a ditch on his farm. The man said that it had been in the ditch for several days and he hadn’t called, assuming the owners would return for it. When no one came back for it he pulled the ATV to his yard and called dispatch to report the abandoned vehicle. The responding deputy found the vehicle and called a tow truck to haul the ATV to the county impound lot. He noted that the state-required license was missing, so he had no way to check ownership. At that time, there were no reports of stolen ATVs so the county held it pending a call from the owner.
Floyd took a box of colored pushpins from his drawer to the bullpen. He started putting pins in the wall map of Pine County to identify all the locations involved in the Aaron Roberts case. He put red pins on the homes of the six friends; yellow pins at Passenger Lake, where the break-ins occurred, the interstate rest area where Aaron’s car was abandoned, and Round Lake, where the ATV was found; and blue pins at the bar where the friends were drinking, where the fight between Aaron and Kathy occurred, and where Betsy and Mike claimed to have been necking near Minke Lake.
When he stood back, only two pins were close to each other. Betsy and Mike claimed to be necking within a quarter mile of where the ATV was recovered. “Isn’t that interesting?” Floyd said to himself.
“Isn’t what interesting?” Pam asked as she walked up behind him.
“It appears that Aaron may have stolen an ATV from a Passenger Lake cabin to make his escape. The ATV was reported abandoned right here.” He pointed to the yellow pin. “Betsy and Mike were necking here,” Floyd said, pointing to the blue pin nearest.