Carl Houseman - 03 - The Big Thaw by Donald Harstad

Author:Donald Harstad
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780553583038
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2001-05-01T19:55:39+00:00

Davies knew Gunston very well. Before we’d gotten to the kitchen, he’d said that the Cedar Rapids attorney was reasonable, but fast. “Tell you what,” Davies had said. “He’s gonna want to move this right along to a point. Only to a point. But he’s assessing the case as he goes, trying to see if it works for him. Understand? He’ll hustle your socks off, you let him, and he’ll be persistent to the bitter end.”

“Whether or not Borglan’s guilty?” asked Lamar.

“No,” said Davies. “Whether or not the case will generate enough billable hours to enable him to own Borglan’s farms.” He laughed. “For true. That’ll be his first checkpoint. Shit, guilty, schmilty, he won’t care. He gets paid either way.”

I was surprised that Cletus was even talking to us, and said so.

Davies laughed. “Cheap discovery. He stops talking as soon as he knows what he wants to know. Well,” and he chuckled, “whenever Gunston tells him to, anyway.”

We didn’t know a lot about Cletus, mainly because I didn’t think the man had ever been arrested in his life. Not until now, anyway. Between Lamar’s and my recollections, we were able to piece something together.

First of all, Cletus Borglan wasn’t an extremist, not in the violent sense of the word. Neither was he a “Militia” man, or Nazi, or anything like that. Cletus was a fairly wealthy farmer, a truly successful farmer, who honestly didn’t like the tax system. Well, who did? He also was very much pro-“family farm.” Well, maybe it was more of an anticonglomerate farm stance, to tell the truth. Regardless, he really felt for the small farmer who was slowly going under. Cletus was a hard worker, who had inherited two farms, and bought another. Lucky there, and nobody knew it better than Cletus Borglan. He’d also been savvy enough not to get in over his head, when many others were mortgaging to the hilt to buy up more land, on the theory that the more they planted, the more they’d make. It had sounded good, but just didn’t work.

His wife was a second-level administrator at an area education agency, had gone back to the University of Northern Iowa and obtained her MBA, and had set up their computerized farming operation. Between the two of them, they put in long hours, but with great success.

Having encountered him often over the years, I thought Cletus had a major flaw. Aside from predictability, that is. Cletus got emotional about farming. Really. Whoever had invented the slogan “We feed the world” hadn’t done Cletus any favors. It was too evocative of images of altruism. It should have been “We sell food to the world.”

Regardless, that was a trump card. Cletus was a crusader.

George, Art, Davies, and I were at the kitchen table, with Cletus and his attorney Gunston on the other side. The whole business was being conducted here because his attorney thought it less likely that we had bugged the kitchen. Right.

We were closer to the coffee. We’d

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