Bellows Falls (19 page)

There was a long pause. Jonathon brought his gaze from the night sky to me. “Which tells you what?”

“That maybe we won’t be going to Burlington quite as soon as I thought.”

· · ·

I drove home in the morning’s early hours, the only car on the road for the entire trip, my brain struggling with the dozens of loose threads we’d identified so far, many of which didn’t even look like they came from the same fabric.

By the time I crept into the bedroom, the various scenarios had started bleeding into one another like wet inkblots, and with about as much clarity. I dumped my clothes on the floor and slipped in under the sheet, fully expecting to spend the night’s remaining hours staring at the moon in the skylight overhead.

“Been having fun?” Gail’s voice floated in the air like a comforting caress.

I reached over and kissed her cheek. “Non-stop. Sorry I woke you up.”

“That’s okay. I got to bed early tonight. What were you doing?”

“Smoothing political feathers… I wish I could start answering questions instead. They’re beginning to breed like gerbils.”

She rolled over and draped one arm across my chest. “Tell me.”

Normally, I would have begged off, for her sake if nothing else. It wasn’t like she didn’t need all the rest she could get. But her interest was genuine, and she was one of the best sounding boards I had. I gave her a guided tour of the tangled mess we were confronting.

After a few moments’ reflection, she commented, “Sounds like you need to find out what those two young cops are up to.”

“And how Jan Bouch plays into it.”

Gail punched the pillows behind her head and slid to a semi-sitting position. “I know Anne Murphy.”

It was more than a statement of fact. “Does this have anything to do with what you said a few days ago, about how ‘we’ needed to do something about all this?”

“I have a background that could be useful here—outside the SA’s office.”

I knew what she was referring to—two decades of counseling women at the local crisis center, being on the boards of half the social welfare organizations in town, even heading the town’s board of selectmen for a stretch. She had the political and social bloodlines of a thoroughbred. “What’re you thinking?” I asked.

“That maybe Anne will tell me things she wouldn’t share with you.”

“Which we might be able to use to slip through Norm’s back door?”

She laid a hand on my forearm. “Maybe. I’m going to do this strictly by the rules, briefing Derby if necessary. But I’m hoping a man of Norm’s ego wouldn’t think his wife could betray him, even inadvertently, which in my book makes her a good way to get at him.”

“God, how you’ve wandered from your days in the commune.”

She slugged me in the shoulder. “Lucky for you.”

WHEN WE WALKED INTO THE SQUAD ROOM
the next morning, Harriet Fritter gave me a broad smile and a slip of paper that said, “Call Greg Davis ASAP.” She also told me I should get more sleep.

I closed the door to my small corner office and sat, exhausted, looking at the note from Davis. The urge to follow Harriet’s advice and rest my head on the tabletop was suddenly hard to resist. I sensed only bad news lurking behind the “ASAP” in the note.

Reluctant to stir up the anxiety and despair that clung to this case like ground fog, I dialed his home phone number, suddenly worried that I hadn’t voiced my concerns about Brian Padget by telling Davis the young cop needed counseling—and wondering if I was about to be told the consequences of that oversight.

“We’ve got a small problem,” he said after I’d identified myself. “Your connecting Emily Doyle to those calls to Bouch’s place has spread like wildfire. There’s all sorts of rumors you’re investigating her, too. What’s going on?”

I remembered wondering whether Davis or that quiet dispatcher had been the one to spill the beans. Davis’s obvious irritation seemed to clear that up. Nevertheless, I kept my response tactfully vague. “Too many people are shooting their mouths off. Bill Deets was in my face last night about Doyle and Padget both, not long after you and I were seen fiddling with the computer.”

In the brief silence following, I could hear him connecting the dots. Only then, and only briefly, did I feel sorry for the dispatcher’s coming fate. “Can you tell me about Doyle?” he finally said.

“Only that we have a whole lot less than what her supposed friends are dishing out. She’s come up on the radar screen a few times, and we are checking those events out. That’s standard procedure… ”

I stopped, hearing his weary, “I know, I know,” echoing in the background. I volunteered, “Would it help if I came up there and talked to them?”

He was hesitant. “Probably not. The chief and the town manager have already gotten hold of this. I don’t think anything you could say now would make any difference.”

“What have they done?” I asked, stunned that things could get so bad so fast.

“Nothing yet. I just know they’re keeping an eye on us. They haven’t called a press conference or anything, but it won’t be long before Shippee caves in and briefs at least the president of the village trustees. After that, it’ll be public knowledge in about five minutes.”

“Is the department even vaguely functional right now?”

He sounded faintly insulted. “Of course it is. Morale stinks, but the job’s getting done. Christ, we don’t have any choice with Deets at the task force and Brian out on leave. We’re using the part-timers more, so that’s helping a little—it disperses some of the depression. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say this whole thing’s put Emily in a pretty tight spot.”

“I’m going to have to talk to her, you know.”

“When?”

“Could be as early as today. Depends on some other things I have going.”

“Could that take place outside the building?”

“Sure. You name it. And I’ll give you some warning on the timing. How’s Brian doing? He seemed a little better when I left him yesterday, but I meant to tell you, I think he ought to find a counselor soon. He doesn’t seem to realize what kind of freight train he’s facing.”

Davis’s voice was grim. “He’s finding out. I dropped by last night and found him passed out drunk on his living room floor. He’s drying out in my guest bedroom right now.”

I hoped Bellows Falls knew what they had in Greg Davis. “All right. I’ll do what I can to wrap things up, for everyone’s sake, but it’s starting to get complicated.”

“I read the paper,” he said sympathetically.

That sat me up straight. “I haven’t. What did it say?”

“Just that a presumed homicide had been discovered at an abandoned motel, and that Lavoie’s gun probably played a part. I take it that was Jasper Morgan?”

“We think so, but it does up the ante on finding out who killed him. Our forensics guy thinks it was an acquaintance killing. He was on the bed when he caught the first bullet.”

“Well, if it was Norm Bouch, I’ll do anything I can to help. Just let me know.”

“I appreciate that.” I was about to hang up when I suddenly remembered a question that had been rattling around my head for days. “There is something, since you’ve got Brian nearby. When he wakes up, ask him who his mechanic is.”

· · ·

Breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts is something I enjoy all too rarely nowadays, with Gail’s constant mutterings about the sanctity of a healthy body. So when Harriet told me Willy Kunkle was stopping there on his way to the office, I jogged down the block to catch him before he left.

Typically, he was positioned at the far end of the curved counter, his back against the wall and his eye on the front door. I took the stool next to his and ordered the largest cinnamon roll they sold, along with a cup of coffee to help ease it down.

“The old lady out of town?” he asked with a sarcastic smile.

“Business breakfast. I’m allowed. What’ve you found out about Jasper Morgan?”

“That why you’re here? You’ll get more out of that doughnut. From what I could find out, Jasper Morgan came, raised hell, sold dope, and then disappeared. Nobody knows who his contacts were, where he got his stuff, or what he did with the money.”

“How ’bout his runners? You talk to any of them?”

“Sure, and they’re pretty chatty, too. But they got zip to offer. Morgan dealt with them one on one, never in groups. He did the contacting and always met at a location of his own choosing. He’d give ’em the dope and an address and strict orders not to take any money—their cut of the profits always came in the mail later—cash only.”

“How’d he get paid, then?”

“I went to a couple of the addresses myself. The people weren’t too thrilled to see me, but I got ’em to open up.” He paused to take a swig from his coffee mug, obviously hoping I’d ask how he’d pulled that off. I kept silent.

“He collected the money himself,” he continued. “He’d phone and tell whatever customers to carry the cash at all times for the next few days, and then he’d appear out of the blue—on the street, at their jobs, wherever—and hit ’em up for it. Very cagey.”

“Very trusting. Wasn’t he ever ripped off?”

“I heard he was once—but only once. One of his little rug rats tested him and was never seen again.”

I stopped chewing and gave him an incredulous look. “He knocked off a kid? And we didn’t hear about it?”

Willy rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. There’s a ton of shit we never hear about. Some back-alley kid gets whacked and buried. His parents, if they care, take a six-second break from the bottle to look around and assume he’s split town. End of story. His buddies got the message, though, and Jasper Morgan could trust ’em with the crown jewels from then on.”

Cynical, but unarguable. “None of the runners ever saw him make a phone call or get a letter or hang out with his boss? Sounds a little unlikely.”

Willy tilted his head meditatively. “Normally, I’d agree with you. Little bastards can’t wait to squeal on each other, especially to us. But that’s where Morgan’s system really stood out. He kept switching runners—use one for a little while, give him a bonus, and kiss him off. He stayed away from the gang bit. It meant using more people overall, but no one person got too ambitious, and Morgan could keep the details to himself. I think he was making a killing—for this town—with nobody the wiser ’cause he kept a low profile and let ’em all think he was playing for peanuts. Smart.”

“Or well trained,” I said. “Rumor has it that exact same type of operation is working in Burlington right now.”

I finished my coffee, wiped my mouth, and stood up. “You coming?”

His own cup was empty, and his doughnut long gone, but his answer didn’t surprise me. “Later.”

· · ·

My next stop was Sammie Martens, whom I found with Ron Klesczewski in the squad’s conference room, using its long table to lay out a series of labeled folders. The precise methodology clearly spoke of Ron’s influence.

“That the Morgan case?” I asked, sitting on a nearby filing cabinet to stay out of the way.

“Yeah,” Sammie said glumly, “although I think we’ll end up with more folders than paper to fill ’em, the way things’re going.”

“I know. I just talked with Kunkle. What did you find out about Emily Doyle?”

She made a face and turned to Ron. “You okay with the rest of this? I gotta dig that out of my desk.”

“Sure. Go,” he said.

She spoke over her shoulder as we walked to her cubicle in the next room. “I really hated doing that, poking into another cop’s life. Gave me the creeps.”

I didn’t answer. Such sensitivities were the least of my concerns now.

She sat in her chair, unlocked a drawer, and removed a thin file.“Here,” she said, handing it over.

“Thanks.” I leaned against the partition facing her desk. “Run it down for me.”

I wasn’t being a hard-nose—not entirely. A verbal report is usually preferable to its written equivalent, since you can immediately expand it with questions. On the other hand, I was making a small point—you can’t always choose the kind of police work you do.

She let out a sigh. “Emily Doyle was born in St. Albans. Father Quebecois, mother American. Dad was a hardheaded, heavy-handed construction worker, moved around southern Canada and the U.S. border states for years before settling down in Burlington. He drank a lot and beat on his wife and kid—Emily was an only child. She uses her mother’s maiden name as her own. The cops used to drop by the house regularly to sort things out. From what I heard, she began hanging out with them as a result—they sort of tucked her under their wing.”

“The Burlington PD?”

“Right. She was about ten when they hit town. In school she showed a preference for structured organizations—team sports, the Girl Scouts, the PD’s Junior program—and she turned into a wicked jock. Super aggressive, super competitive, and not real good at accepting defeat or criticism. When she finally applied to join the department, they turned her down, as did Rutland. That’s how she ended up in Bellows Falls. The people I talked to thought she went there for the action and to build up a good résumé so she could reapply to Burlington.”

“How was she in school?”

“Indifferent student, terrific athlete, and an on-again, off-again discipline problem. Far as I know, she never did drugs or alcohol, but she got into fights all the time, and always with boys.”

“Padget told me her father wanted a son.”

“Well, she’s done everything in her power to satisfy him there.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Yeah. He migrates between the bar and whatever job he’s working. His wife still lives with him, what’s left of her. She’s not too outgoing socially—surprise, surprise.”

I ignored the bitterness. Sammie had her own struggles with aggression and competition with men. “But she never did anything crooked, right?”

“Not that I could find. ’Course, I was treading lightly here, calling in favors, telling people to keep it under their hat.”

“It’s interesting, though,” I mused. “A woman with that background, responding time after time to the residence of a submissive woman and her abusive husband. It must’ve been like stepping into her own family movie, only this time as the authority figure.”