The Big Thaw Read Free Page A

out.”
    “It’s just that, well, meh, meh, me and my cousins from Oelwein … we been the ones doing those break-ins, you know?”
    “Just a second, Fred. Are you saying that you’ve been directly involved with some of them?” A confession? Could I be that lucky?
    “Mostly all, I suspect,” he answered, in a soft voice. The rocking increased, perceptibly.
    Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you. Up to now, we hadn’t had a single clue as to who had been doing the burglaries. I took a breath, to slow myself down, and to try to appear matter-of-fact. “I’m going to have to advise you of your rights, Fred.”
    “Sure, but that ain’t what it’s about. Not why I was out here … not directly, Mr. Houseman.”
    I told him to hang on a second, and very quickly recited his Miranda rights to him. To be safe. “There, Fred. Now, do you understand those rights?”
    “Yeah. But, Mr. Houseman, you gotta understand. Dirk and Royce, my cousins, they had me driving the car, you know?”
    “While they did the burglaries, you mean?”
    “I just drive ’em out to the place, you know, and they get out and sneak in, and then I go away for a while, and I come back and pick ’em up.”
    “You pick ’em up? They go in on foot?”
    “Yeah.”
    He looked up beseechingly. “Am I gonna get charged with manslaughter, or something, if they’re dead?”
    I must have given him my dumb look.
    “If they’re dead, are you gonna send me away? I just gotta know.”
    Fred leaned forward, terribly earnest. “You gotta understand, Mr. Houseman. That’s what I been trying to tell you. I dropped ’em off Sunday night. Two nights ago. On the other side of the hill back of the place. I saw ’em go over the hill, to go into the place.” He stared at me with wide eyes. “They never came back out.”
     
Three
     
Tuesday, January 13, 1998, 0018
     
    Fred kept talking. “I came back two hours later, like I was supposed to, and they wasn’t there. I came back again after an hour, and they wasn’t there. I honked the horn, even if I wasn’t supposed to do that. I waited right there. I wasn’t supposed to do that, neither. I waited fifteen minutes or so. Nobody. I drove all the way to Vickerton, and came back. Nothin’. Nobody there. Then it got light, and I had to go.” He was speaking in a rush. “This morning, I got scared they’d really be wantin’ to get back at me for missin’ ’em like that, and them havin’ to walk and all, and I called Aunt Nora, and she said they wasn’t home. I called again at suppertime. They still ain’t home!” He looked at me, worried he wouldn’t find them, and sort of afraid that he would. “I went back tonight, and they wasn’t there then, either. That’s why I was honkin’ the horn. It wasn’t no deer. And I was afraid to go in, ’cause I figured you’d be there by then, and waitin’ for me.” He drew a deep breath. “And they ain’t come home.” He looked up at me, his face all screwed up. “They still ain’t come home, and I think maybe they froze to death!”
    I hate to admit it, but my thinking was running quickly along these lines: I had a confession, albeit a tentative one regarding details, to a string of very irritating burglaries. I was virtually certain that the two cousins who had been dropped off were lying low somewhere else, having, for reasons of their own, ditched Fred. I was in a position of having good reason to check the Borglan place, based on Fred’s statements. I certainly didn’t need a warrant. But, to make the case as good as possible, I wanted to have Fred with me when I went to Borglan’s, so he could show me where he’d let them off, and where he would pick them up. So far so good. But to take Fred with me, and to talk with him any more, I really should have him talk with his attorney first. Except … The lateness of the hour helped. But the biggest boon of all was Fred’s genuine concern for the safety and welfare of his two dumb cousins.