Sitting on the edge of the bed, Barb asked, “Have you got plans, or can we go out for something to eat before your shift? I’m starving.”
“We can go out to eat,” Sandy said. He took a pair of pants from a hanger and slipped them on. “So, how could you tell the guy in the picture was dead?”
“I could tell,” Barb replied with a shrug. “He was really pale and his head was hung way down. I guess it looked like all his muscles had quit working and he was tied to a tree with his hands behind his back. I saw a guy Butch beat up once and he looked kinda like that, too. Except his head didn’t fall that far down and he lived through it.” Barb hesitated, and then added, “Sorry. I forgot that you don’t like when I talk about being with Butch.”
“Did Floyd think the guy looked dead?” Sandy asked, ignoring the comments about Barb’s former biker boyfriend. “I mean, without someone actually being there I don’t think you can say a guy in a picture is definitely dead.”
“He was toast. Someone tied him to a tree, cut up his chest, his car was abandoned, and he hasn’t been seen for like twenty years. I think he’s dead.”
Sandy pulled his holster and gun belt off the closet shelf. “The truck stop serves breakfast all day. Follow me over there and I’ll buy before I go on duty.”
CHAPTER 8
It was mid-afternoon and the diner at the Highway 70 truck stop was empty except for three truck drivers sitting in a booth drinking coffee. The man facing the door nodded for the others to look as Barb and Sandy entered. Barb smiled and put a little extra swing in her step as she passed the truckers’ booth. Merle Haggard was singing about a lost girlfriend on a radio in the kitchen.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Sandy said as he slid into the booth across the table from Barb.
“Do what?” Barb asked with a sly grin.
“You know exactly what I mean. I’ll bet they’d be plotting how to get you into their sleeper cabs if you hadn’t walked in with a cop.” Sandy turned over the cup on the table and signaled to the owner for coffee.
“I’m with you whether you’re in uniform or not,” Barb said. She reached across the table and slid her hand onto Sandy’s. “Are you feeling a little insecure today?”
Feeling Barb’s toe raising his pant’s cuff, Sandy scowled. “You know how silly this is. At home you ignore your sexuality and parade around naked like no one cares. As soon as you’re around strange men it’s like you have to put on a show.”
“But you’re the one I go to bed with.”
Bud Merton, rotund, sweaty, and bald, set a large glass of Coke in front of Barb and poured coffee into Sandy’s cup. He wore a stained white apron over his white T-shirt and jeans. “Yeah, you’re the one she goes to bed with,” Bud said with a grin. “Why don’t you just make an honest woman of her?”
“She doesn’t want to get married,” Sandy replied as he poured cream into the cup. “Bring me a short stack with bacon and Barb wants her usual burger and fries.”
Bud reached out and touched Barb’s chin, getting a swat on the hand in return. “Oh, Barb, dump the cop and run off with a real man.”
“If you’re a real man, I’d hate to see what eunuchs look like,” Barb said, rubbing the spot on her chin where Bud’s hand had touched her as if she were trying to remove his fingerprint.
“Ooh, pretty and she knows big words, too!” The closest trucker said to his friends.
“All right, guys,” Sandy said, turning in his seat to face the three truckers. “If you guys give me any more grief I’ll have to do a safety inspection and check your log books.”
With Bud gone and the truckers quiet, Sandy asked, “Did Floyd know the name of the guy in the picture?”
“It was Aaron something. I guess he disappeared the same day the guy who owned the camera died. At least that’s what I understood.”
“Tell me about the other guy,” Sandy said, “the one who died.”
“I don’t know any more. Floyd’s investigating and that’s all.” Barb stirred the Coke with a straw and then changed the topic. “I saw a pair of hooded mergansers with ducklings on Passenger Lake yesterday. The drake’s plumage was incredibly iridescent. I’m going to set up a blind to see if I can get some pictures. The wind has been calm and I’d like to see if I can get a picture with the whole family mirrored on the water this evening.”
“The mosquitoes will eat you alive if you sit out dressed like that,” Sandy said as Bud set a stack of platter-sized pancakes in front of him.
“Haven’t you ever heard of Ultrathon insect repellent?” Barb asked. “It’s effective for twelve hours.”
CHAPTER 9
Floyd plucked a scribbled note from a stack of files piled on his desk and handed Mike Nelson’s name and address to Sandy Maki. He held up an eight-by-ten inch picture of the five friends sitting at the table.
“Mike is the guy with darker hair,” Floyd explained before handing Sandy the photo of the man with his hands bound behind the tree. “The blonde guy at the table is Aaron Roberts, and it’s likely that he’s the person in this second picture.”
Sandy studied the two pictures for a few seconds. “Barb said she thought the lone guy is dead. It’s hard to tell from this, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s impossible to tell from the picture. He was obviously alive when he was cut or else there wouldn’t have been so much blood. He was assaulted here or the blood would’ve smeared when he was moved. It’s likely he’s dead based on the fact that he’s been missing for years. Anyway, I’d like you to talk to Mike Nelson. Ask him what he remembers about the night before Kenny Solstad died in the car accident, and have him identify the girls in the picture. The girl by herself is Melissa Smith, who was Kenny’s date the night this picture was probably taken, and the girl on Aaron’s lap looks like Kathy Tucker. I don’t recognize the other girl, and that may mean that she wasn’t in trouble quite as often as the others. I want Mike to tell us who they are, if they’re married, what their married names are, where they live, and I want to question all three women to see what they remember about that night.”
“You didn’t say when these pictures were taken.”
“I spoke with Karen Solstad, Kenny’s mother. She said he was home on leave from the service between a Korean deployment and being called up for Iraq. The pictures were taken in December, 1998.”
“All these people are like forty years old now,” Sandy said, looking back at the group photo again. “Do you think that any of them will remember what happened on a specific night that long ago?”
“Unless I miss my guess, one or more of them will have very vivid memories of that night. Not many people forget the last night they spent with a friend who died… or participating in a murder.”
Mike Nelson’s address led Sandy to a new housing development on the western fringe of Pine City. The houses were different colors, but were built with the same design. The Nelson’s house was gray with white trim. An aging Ford pickup sat on the asphalt driveway in front of the double garage. The garage door was open, exposing a riding lawnmower and several bicycles in a variety of sizes.
“Are you Mike Nelson?” Sandy asked the man who answered the door. The aroma of roasting ham wafted out the door around the man with a slight paunch and a few crumbs on the front of his white T-shirt. Behind Nelson, Sandy could hear the voices of several children and a woman. An air conditioner hummed from somewhere behind the house. Compared to the picture, the man at the door looked like Mike Nelson’s father, with graying temples and a receding hairline.
“I’m Mike. What’s up?”
“I need help identifying the other people in this photo,” Sandy said, holding the photo out for Nelson to see.
Nelson stood staring at the picture for several seconds. “Wow,” he said, flipping the photo over to see if there were any markings on the back.
“That’s you with the dark hair, isn’t it?”
Nelson stared at the picture as if he couldn’t believe the image. “Where did you find this? I’ve never seen it before.”
“Someone bought a garage sale camera and this was on the film.”
“Well, yeah, that’s me. The skinny guy is Aaron Roberts. The girls are Betsy Ring, Kathy Tucker, and Melissa Smith. Of course they’re all married now with different last names, except for Kathy.”
“The picture was probably taken the night before Ken Solstad was killed in a car accident. Tell me what happened that night?”
Nelson’s eyes shot up and locked on Sandy’s. “The last night before Kenny died?”
Sandy nodded. “The picture was taken in December while Ken was home on leave. It looks like a group of you went out drinking together. What happened that night?”
“Kenny died the next day.”
“I know, but what happened between the time this picture was taken and when Kenny drove away the next morning?”
“We partied all night. It seems like all we did was drink and get stupid back then. Kenny was leaving the next day for his Army base and all he wanted to do was get wasted and talk about how macho he was. He was like arm wrestling everyone he could find and he tried to pick a fight at a bar with some guy about something stupid.” Nelson stared at the photo again. “I guess that’s about all we did,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and handing the picture back.
“Were you with Kenny that whole night?”
Nelson looked over his shoulder nervously, then stepped onto the front step, closing the door behind him. “Not exactly. Betsy and I left the others at the bar.”
“The others stayed together, or did the whole group break up and go their own way?”
“I don’t know,” Nelson said curtly. “Betsy was pretty drunk and not resisting much, so I didn’t hang around to see who went where with whoever else. We kinda left to, um, park.” He ended with an embarrassed shrug.
“Where did you go parking?” Maki asked as he took out a notebook and made notes.
Nelson hesitated, looking past Sandy toward a spot on the lawn. “There’s a road that runs out to Mink Lake that doesn’t have any traffic that time of year.”
“Were you out by Mink Lake a long time, and did you see any of the others after that?”
“We woke up in the car the next morning, and I never saw Kenny again. That’s why I was so surprised to see this picture. I’d never seen it before and it’s kinda strange that it’d show up now. Who took it?”
“It was on an old roll of film in Ken’s camera that just got developed. It looks like Ken probably took it himself.”
“That’s spooky,” Nelson said. “It kinda gives me the creeps.”
“Were other people hanging around with you six that night?”
“Nah, we mostly were just by ourselves except for people we met in the bars.”
“What happened to Aaron that night?”
“He was with Kathy,” Nelson said, pointing to the raven-haired girl with a trim build sitting on Aaron’s lap in the photo. “They were partying like the rest of us.”
“Did you see him again after you left for Mink Lake?”
Nelson frowned, studying the picture again. His eyes suddenly went wide with recognition. “Is that what this is all about? Has Aaron shown up?”
“What happened to Aaron that night?” Sandy asked again.
“Whew! That was like half a lifetime ago.” Nelson paused to collect his thoughts. “I don’t remember anything special about Aaron that night. I mean he was there, but I don’t remember him doing or saying anything special. He was with Kathy, but that’s about all I remember about him.” Nelson paused, looking at the photo. “I’m remembering more. Something was different about Aaron that night. He was quiet and wasn’t drinking like he had. I suppose he might’ve been intimidated by Kenny’s stupid macho shit or maybe he was pissed about something, but it just seemed like he wasn’t into the party scene like he’d been other times. I guess that’s all I can remember about Aaron.”
“Do you know how I can find the three women?” Sandy asked, making notes.
“Well, I still see Betsy once a month when I pick up Alyssa. She’s married to a guy in the Cities who’s a truck dispatcher.”
“Who’s Alyssa?”
“She’s my daughter. Betsy and I were married for a couple years.”
“Can you give me her married name and her phone number? We’d like to ask about her memories of that night, too.”
“Sure, it’s Betsy Webb, and she lives in Brooklyn Center.” Nelson repeated the phone number from memory. “I haven’t stayed in contact with the other women, although I know that Melissa got married and moved off. Kathy Tucker still lives in Hinckley and runs the garden center with her parents. You can see it from the interstate, just off the highway 23 exit. She never got married as far as I know.”