Oresek turned off the recorder and motioned for Floyd to join him next to the table. “You said the victim may have been strangled. There’s so much decomposition that I really can’t tell. There’s a chance that the Hyoid bone will be intact and if that’s crushed, there’s a good chance he was strangled.”
Oresek gently slid his fingers under the bones of the hand. “There’s not a single broken nail. When I find a victim who fought off a vicious attack I usually find broken nails and sometimes even broken fingers. This person might’ve just come from a manicure as neatly as these nails are trimmed.”
“What are you saying?” Sepanen asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Oresek replied.
Eddie and Floyd helped Oresek wrap the sheet over the remains, and then they gently turned the whole bundle. Pam stepped to the end of the table. She watched apprehensively as the leathery skin and empty eye sockets were uncovered. The clothing on the front of the body was stained a deep brown.
“I thought he’d look a lot worse,” she said. “This is kind of anticlimactic.”
After half an hour, Oresek stepped back. “There isn’t any trauma that I would point to as a fatal injury. We’ll take the remains to Duluth and do a full postmortem and a toxicology screen on his stomach contents. We may have something more definitive in a few days.”
Oresek stepped back to the casket and ran his gloved hands over the other set of remains. He turned to Bradshaw and said, “I don’t see any evidence that this set of remains has been disturbed. I think you can close the casket and return it to the cemetery.”
CHAPTER 52
Floyd and Pam drove to the Smith’s. Dolores met them at the door in a gray blouse and dark slacks. She’d taken time to make sure her makeup and hair were done carefully but her makeup failed to hide the dark bags under her eyes.
“Floyd,” she said, “I’m so sorry about this. I feel so sorry for Karen Solstad and Sue Roberts. I had no idea. Please come in.” She stepped aside and let them enter the air-conditioned comfort of their living room. “Oh my, Deputy Ryan, what happened to you?”
“I got caught in the wrong spot.”
“I would certainly say so. I had a friend who had a nose job and she looked like that for several weeks.”
“Great,” Pam said glumly. “I’m in a wedding party tomorrow.”
“So, here are my inquisitors,” Melissa said as she walked in the room. Her face was pale and lined like she hadn’t slept enough. She wore a plain gray sweatshirt over her jeans. She sat on the couch across from Pam.
“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me for anything,” Dolores said to Floyd as she left the room.
“I hear you’ve already told Karen Solstad. I suppose she’s taking it hard,” Melissa said quietly.
“She was happy for Sue Roberts,” Pam said, “but sad that we had to exhume Ken’s body. We haven’t told her that Ken was probably a killer.”
“Who else could’ve killed Aaron?”
“How long was it between Mike Nelson leaving the house and your return?” Floyd asked.
“I don’t know. Mike called me the day it happened, but I didn’t go over until the next day. I suppose it was at least twenty-four hours.”
“In that period of time any number of people could’ve come and gone. Since we weren’t called,” Floyd left that jab dangle, “we weren’t able to determine the time of death. Aaron may have been dead that whole time, or maybe only a few minutes.”
“It wasn’t minutes.”
“How were Aaron’s hands bound when you found him?” Floyd asked.
Melissa looked puzzled. “I don’t remember that they were. No, his arms were on the table.”
“So you didn’t untie them?” Pam asked.
“No. I remember…” Melissa stopped and put a hand over her eyes. She waved her other hand. “They definitely weren’t tied.”
“Bad image?” Pam asked.
Melissa only nodded.
“How much blood did you have to clean up?” Floyd asked.
“There wasn’t any blood. Why are you asking these questions? You already believe I was there, or you wouldn’t have bullied me into coming back to Pine City.
“He wasn’t bleeding. His face was…” Melissa took a deep breath. “There wasn’t any blood.”
“Do you remember anything that might’ve indicated someone else had been in the house other than Mike, Betsy, Aaron, and Ken?” Pam asked. Not seeing recognition in Melissa, she added, “Like a jacket that looked out of place or muddy footprints on the floor?”
“I don’t remember anything special. I dragged Betsy and Mike back that next day and we cleaned the whole house. Even then I don’t remember anything out of place. Of course, it wasn’t really my house and I might not have noticed something had been moved or was missing.”
“Betsy gave Aaron something for pain when he showed up,” Pam said. “Was the bottle still out?”
“I don’t know,” Melissa replied sharply. “My God! It was nearly twenty years ago. How the hell should I remember a pill bottle?”
“Talk us through the events after you got the call from Mike.”
“Well, I yelled at him and told him he was a jerk for using my uncle’s house for his private party with Betsy. Then I think I slammed the phone down. Later that night I realized that someone probably had to go over to clean up the place and I decided to do it the next day after work.”
“When I got to the house there were lots of tire tracks in the snow, but no cars around. I had to get the hidden key to unlock the door, and then I walked in on Aaron. He was almost straight across from the door and I remember thinking that he was sleeping.”
“Where did you place the call to Mike?” Pam asked.
“I didn’t want to be alone at the house with Aaron’s body so I called from a pay phone in the gas station parking lot on I-35. I had him meet me there and I followed his car back to the house. Mike wanted to call the cops, but I told him we couldn’t do that to Ken’s mom, especially since we were both pretty sure Ken had killed Aaron.”
“Whose idea was it to put Aaron in Ken’s casket?”
“Well, Mike was worthless. He said we should just leave him at my uncle’s house. When I vetoed that, he said we should dump him in a swamp. I insisted that we owed him better than that. I’d worked at Uncle Paul’s funeral home and still had a key and knew the alarm code. The next day I heard they wouldn’t have an open casket because of Ken’s injuries, so I knew we could hide him there and no one would figure it out. So we left him at Round Lake until the night before the funeral.”
“Wasn’t it hard for you to open Ken’s casket?” Pam asked.
“I was on automatic pilot and it went okay until we actually lifted the lid. I tried not to look, and it helped that he didn’t look like…well, you know, his face was wrapped…”
“What did you do after you closed and latched the casket?” Floyd asked.
“I reset the alarm, locked the door, and we all went home. I cried all night and couldn’t make myself go to the funeral.”
“I don’t think we have any other questions,” Floyd said as he stood. “I wish you’d been candid with us immediately instead of dragging this whole thing out.”
“Well, I wish a lot of things were different,” Melissa said. “I wish I’d never met Ken Solstad. I wish Ken hadn’t taken Ecstasy that night. I wish I’d called the cops as soon as I found Aaron’s body. I wish I’d told Aaron what a great guy he was when he was alive. I wish…”
“Anyone want a cup of coffee,” Dolores Smith asked, popping her head around the corner.