“We’re finishing up,” Floyd said, “so don’t bother brewing any. I did have one question for you, Dottie. Since your brother owns the house on Round Lake, would you call and ask his permission to get inside and look around?”
“You don’t need his permission. I have a key and I can let you in.”
“I’d prefer to have verbal permission from the owner.”
“Hang on,” Dolores said. She disappeared around the corner.
“What do you expect to find there after all these years?” Melissa asked.
“I don’t know,” Floyd replied. “But sometimes I get a surprise.”
Dolores walked back into the living room with a cordless phone in her hand. “You’re lucky. Randy is home and he says I can let you in.” She handed the phone to Floyd.
“Hello, Randy, I assume Dolores explained the situation and that I’d like to look inside your house.”
There was a pause, then Randy’s subdued voice said, “Dolores told me, and frankly I’m shocked. I had no idea a murder happened there. You have my permission to search. Dolores will let you in.”
“Thanks,” Floyd said. “I have another question. Did you notice anything missing from the house when you went back the next spring?”
The line was quiet for so long Floyd thought Randy had hung up. “Um, I can’t say. I didn’t go up right away in the spring and a few relatives had been up already by the time I got there.” He paused. “It had been a tough year. My wife was losing a fight with lung cancer and she passed away that winter. I wasn’t dealing with her death well, and I was in no rush to go back to the house. It seemed empty… Everything seemed empty.”
“Did you spend time there when she was sick?”
“We spent much of the fall there watching the leaves turn. She had a lot of pain and it finally got so bad that she let me take her to the hospital in late October. She never came home.”
“What was she taking for the pain?” Floyd asked.
“The doctor prescribed oxycontin. But at the end, even that wasn’t enough which was why we left for the Cities. We left everything at the house, even our clothes and a refrigerator full of food.”
After hanging up the phone, Floyd turned to Melissa. “What did you do when you cleaned up?”
Melissa cocked her head. “I threw the sheets into the washer. Like Uncle Randy said, the refrigerator was still full of food and that had all molded. I just scooped it into a bag and tied it.”
Pam and Floyd followed Dolores and Melissa to Round Lake and parked in the driveway leading to the A-frame house. “This place looks like a ski chalet,” Pam said as they exited the car. “I’d swear that the cedar siding and big windows could’ve been cut right out of the Swiss Alps and dropped here.”
“I can’t believe this is the place Aaron died,” Dolores said as she unlocked the door and stood aside. Melissa stood silently by the door looking ill.
“The inside is as picturesque as the exterior,” Pam said. “I love the open feel and all the cedar wall coverings.” She walked over to look through the tall windows.
“Where was Aaron?” Floyd asked.
“Um, right about there,” Melissa said, pointing to a round table in the kitchen. “He was slumped over the table, kinda like he’d fallen asleep there with his head resting on his arms.”
Floyd bent down. “This seems to corroborate your statement about no blood,” Floyd said, kneeling down to look at the hardwood flooring. “If there had been blood we would see dark stains in the cracks between the boards even after all these years.” Floyd stood again.
“It seems odd that Ken Solstad would kill Aaron, then seat him at the table.” Pam said. “Did you see any evidence that Aaron resisted Ken’s attack?”
“I didn’t look that closely,” Melissa whispered. “I didn’t want to look at him at all when I realized he was dead.”
Pam and Floyd walked out the door and Dolores was closing the screen door when Melissa said, “Wait a minute.” She pushed past her mother and looked around the inside of the house. “There was an empty prescription pill bottle on the table. I threw it in the trash when I cleaned.”
The obvious hit Floyd just as he opened the car door. “C’mon, we’re going back to the funeral home!”
CHAPTER 53
“What’s the rush?” Pam asked as Floyd pushed past the speed limit with lights flashing and siren blaring.
“It’s so simple,” Floyd said. “No one killed Aaron. He either overdosed on the pain killers or committed suicide.”
“Why are we rushing back to the mortuary?”
“He didn’t leave a note at the Bradshaw’s house or Melissa would’ve known Ken hadn’t killed him. I’m guessing there’s a note on his body.”
They parked behind the mortuary and rushed in. Tony Oresek was making notes on a desk in the corner while Eddie Paulson was wrapping Aaron’s naked remains in a sheet.
“There was an empty bottle of oxycontin on the table next to Aaron’s body,” Floyd said. “Where are his clothes?”
“In the garbage bag here by my foot.” Eddie said. “We cut them off so Tony could do a surface exam of the body.”
“By the way,” Oresek said as Floyd dove into the bag of clothing, “his chest was all sliced up. The cuts weren’t deep enough to penetrate the chest cavity, but I’m sure they inflicted a lot of pain before he died.”
“Did you find anything in his pockets?” Pam asked.
“Like what,” Oresek asked, his curiosity piqued.
“Like a suicide note,” Pam said
“I checked the pockets,” Eddie said. “I didn’t find anything but lint. The front pockets are all crusty from the decomposition so they were a little harder to check.”
Floyd spread the clothing, now cut into long strips. He dug his fingers into the back pockets of the overalls and came out with nothing. He moved to the front pockets, starched rigid by dried fluids when the body decomposed, and came up empty there, too.
“Last chance,” he said, reaching into the breast pocket of the flannel shirt. “Nada.”
“You obviously weren’t a farmer,” Pam said. After pulling on a pair of gloves, she picked up the overalls Floyd had set aside. “Every farmer who wants to keep his papers clean and dry knows you keep them in the bib pocket, here between the brass suspender buttons.”
She dug her hand into the pocket slowly, cracking the dried blood that was sticking the layers of denim together. Once the pocket was completely open she slid her fingers around until she felt the corner of something.
“There’s a piece of paper here, but it’s kind of glued to the fabric and I don’t dare try to pull it loose. Can we wet the fabric to get it loose?”
“No,” Floyd said. “Cut the fabric free around the paper and let’s have a look at it while it’s still stuck on.”
After a few moments the three of them were staring at what appeared to be a piece of paper stained almost black with the faintest hint of blue ink showing.
“You said these clothes were some he’d stolen from someone’s cabin,” Eddie said. “It might be an old shopping list.”
Floyd stripped off the gloves and took out his cellphone, dialing ten digits from memory while the others tried to make sense of the faint markings on the paper.
“Laurie, I need another favor,” Floyd said to Laurie Lone Eagle when she answered.
“I know,” Laurie said. “You never call unless you need a favor you don’t have coming. What is it this time?”
“We recovered a note when we exhumed a body, but the paper is stained and adhered to fabric. Is there anyone at the BCA who could recover the writing for us?”
“We have a woman who’s great at paper projects. She used to be a book conservationist at the historical society.”