From around the corner, Gordy interjected an emphatic, “Yes! She will!”
CHAPTER 6
Deputy Pam Ryan was sitting at a desk in the sheriff’s department bullpen when Floyd came back from the drugstore. She was the youngest deputy in the department and with her short blonde hair and small frame she could still be mistaken for the high school cheerleader she once was. Many people were deceived by her youthful appearance and mistook it for a lack of maturity and professionalism. On a few occasions, Pam’s calming influence had defused tense situations that might have led to violence had a male deputy responded. At other times, men had underestimated her training, quickness, and strength, resulting in them lying face down on the floor before they realized what had happened.
“More reports?” Floyd asked as he walked to the coffee pot.
“Yeah,” Pam said, leaning back and rubbing her hands over her eyes. “The last guy I served with a summons refused it, so I had to arrest him. I was just writing up the gory details so the judge can throw the book at him.”
“Who was it?” Floyd asked as he pulled a chair next to Pam’s desk.
“Larry Morton. He was late on his child support again so Angie’s attorney filed papers to have his driver’s license revoked and to garnish his wages.”
Dan Williams, the undersheriff, walked in, catching the end of the conversation. He was carrying a Pine City Dragons coffee cup and wore his usual uniform, a white golf shirt with a gold sheriff’s department badge embroidered on the chest and khakis. His physique had changed as he passed the fifty-year mark, but it was still evident that he’d been a star football player before joining the sheriff’s department.
“There’s an awful lot of guys out there,” Dan said, “who think it’s the woman’s fault that they’re having all these kids. They don’t seem to feel any responsibility for child support payments.”
“It’s like they never heard of birth control,” Pam replied.
“Or self control,” Floyd added.
Pam looked at the envelope Floyd had set next to his coffee cup. “What’s in the package?”
“Pictures,” he said as he opened the flap and slipped out the enlargements. He separated them and set them out for Pam and Dan to examine.
“Bloody mess,” she said. “Where’s this crime scene?”
“I don’t know. A woman bought the camera at a garage sale and it had a partial roll of exposed film. When she got it developed, this was the fifth picture on the roll.”
“I’ll bet she was shocked.”
“Luckily,” Floyd said, “Barb Dupre caught it at the drugstore when she developed the film. She had me come over to look at the pictures before the customer came back to pick up the prints.”
“You’re sure the customer wasn’t the one who took these?” Dan asked.
“Yup. The batteries were dead in the camera when she bought it. Gordy helped her replace the batteries and clean the camera up. He said there were exposed pictures on the roll of film when the camera showed up at the drugstore.”
“So,” Pam said, “who took the pictures?”
“Ken Solstad owned the camera. It’s been in his mother’s basement since he died in a car accident in 1998.”
“You really can’t see the victim’s face,” Pam said, examining the pictures again. “I don’t suppose you know who this unlucky fellow is?”
“Actually, I think it’s a guy who disappeared at the same time Ken Solstad died. His name is Aaron Roberts but I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.” Floyd took the close-up of the chest from the pile and handed it to Pam. “It looks like some pattern is cut into his chest. Can you make out what it is?”
“I can see the cuts, but the dribbles of blood make it hard to tell if there’s a pattern to the cuts,” Dan observed.
“He might be dead,” Pam said, looking at the pictures again.
Dan took the remaining pictures from the envelope and leafed through them. “These were in Ken Solstad’s camera when he died?”
“That’s what we believe,” Floyd replied. “That picture was probably taken by Ken the night before he died.”
Dan set the pictures down and poured himself a cup of coffee. He returned to the desk and stared at the pictures, obviously mulling something.
“Floyd, what are you going to do next?”
“I’d planned to hand the pictures over to you, Dan, and then I thought that I’d finish my shift patrolling the northern part of the county, take a shower, and then go to Mary Jungers’ house for pork chops.”
Dan set his coffee cup on the desk and pulled a roll of Tums from his pocket. He thumbed a Tums off the end of the roll and popped it into his mouth, chewing while he stared at the pictures.
“I think you did such a good job solving that cold case with the girl missing from the summer camp that you should spend a couple days digging into this to see if something pops up.”
“Hey,” Pam exclaimed. “I was the one who identified the murderer in that case.”
“Good point,” Dan said. “You were a great team. Get to it,” he said as he walked away.
Pam took a breath and was ready to fire back a witty retort, but hesitated as memories of the hours spent digging through computer and paper files during the missing girl’s investigation flashed past her.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Floyd said. “Your wish may come true, but not in the way you expected.”
CHAPTER 7
Sandy Maki was in the shower when Barb Dupre got home. Their apartment was in a four-plex in southern Pine City that was shared with two retired couples on the lower level and a young schoolteacher on the other half of the upper level. The neighbors were quiet, a prime requirement for a deputy who rotates shifts and sometimes has to sleep days. They were quite happy that a deputy lived in the building and the perceived security that brought. They were less pleased about the deputy’s roommate, the tattooed former waitress driving the purple Camaro with the PRTYGRL vanity license plates.
Hearing the door close and commotion in the living room, Sandy stuck his wet head out of the bathroom door. “Hey, babe, you’re home early today.”
Barb kicked her shoes off next to the door and started unbuttoning her blouse as she walked across the living room. “It was a more interesting day than normal,” she said in her slow style. “I had Floyd Swenson come over to see some pictures a woman brought in for developing. I think there was a dead guy in one of them.”
Sandy wrapped a towel around his waist and followed her into the bedroom. His light brown hair was combed but still wet from the shower. At age twenty-five he managed to maintain a moderately muscular physique despite spending most of his working hours riding in a county police cruiser or writing reports in the courthouse.
“There was a dead guy tied to a tree,” Barb explained as she threw her blouse toward a hamper set in the corner and stripped off her khaki slacks, leaving them on the floor where they fell. After living together for over a year, they treated each other like a married couple. “It looked like someone had tied him up and carved on his chest.” Barb made the observations as casually as another person might have described what they’d had for lunch.
Sandy took a carefully pressed uniform shirt from the closet while Barb slipped a pair of tattered denim shorts over her thong underwear. “What did Floyd say?” he asked.
“He said it was probably some guy who disappeared.” Barb sorted through a pile of clothes near the bed until she found a Hooters T-shirt. She sniffed the armpits and then put it on over her Wonderbra. “I guess the guy left his car at a rest stop and disappeared. They never figured out what happened to him.”