FrostLine (12 page)

“I'd at least get a dog.”

“Alison—that's the little girl—wants a cat.”

“That'll be great protection….Sure, I'll have one more.”

I ordered for both of us. Julia insisted it go on her tab.

She drank about half. Then, up abruptly, she was signalling for her check. “I gotta git. Nice seeing you, Ben.”

She left a generous tip, and carefully put the rest of her change in her bag, except for one single she kept in her hand.

“You okay to drive?”

“Fine.”

She certainly looked sober. And walked toward the door straight as an arrow. At the jukebox, she slipped the buck into the slot and punched up her selection. She was out the door before the music began.

Bonnie Raitt.

“Nobody's Girl.”

Which, despite that old Henry King sparkle in her eye, I convinced myself might be a promising sign.

***

Dynamite sticks—we learned at the inquest over in Plainfield, the county seat—should be stored in a cool, dark place and turned regularly. Like bottles of Port wine. If they weren't turned, the nitroglycerin settled to the bottom of the filler material, and leaked out the paper wrapper. Mopping up puddles of nitro was best done wearing a Kevlar bomb suit with ceramic chest and groin shields.

Mr. Butler testified, in a low, beaten voice, that he kept his in a specially ventilated cellar of his outermost outbuilding, and turned them regularly. He admitted the shed wasn't always locked, explaining that he lived alone, most of the time, on the top of Morris Mountain, rarely left the property, and he had a large dog to discourage burglars.

Jurors rolled their eyes.

“And yet you claim,” said the Plainfield County medical examiner, who was conducting the inquest, “that your dynamite
was
stolen.”

“Dog's getting old. I admit I shoulda locked it.”

He hadn't shaved or changed his clothes in a while and his face had aged ten years since Dicky had died. The ME was treating him gently, as if he were a very old man, and I saw that most of the jurors couldn't bear to watch as he rambled on about how Newbury was changing and you couldn't trust the outsiders moving in.

“Did you report the theft?” the medical examiner interrupted.

“They only stole it the day before they blew the dam. I didn't know until I went to check after Ben Abbott told me Dicky was killed. My stash was gone. Before I could report it, the cops were all over the place. Seized my license, like they're afraid I'm going to run out and buy more.”

“How do you know it was stolen the day before?”

“Because,” he said, his voice rising, “
Two
days before—Thursday afternoon—I went up there and turned it. Like I just told you.”

“Tell us, again, please.”

“Thursday's my day. Always turn it on Thursday. Otherwise you forget and before you know it, the floor's soaked in nitro.”

In the back of Plainfield's lovely domed courtroom, which was handsomely paneled and lit by stained glass windows, Marian Boyce and Arnie Bender were taking notes. My friendly nod drew from Arnie a look he reserved for vagrants in the drunk tank and from Marian a glance to melt stone.

I had already testified how I'd found the body and had seen Mr. Butler sitting on his tractor far up the hill. But a procession of Federal officers had confirmed what Julia Devlin had reported in the Yankee Drover: the explosion had been caused by Mr. Butler's dynamite. An ATF chemist testified they had traced the dynamite to Pendleton Powder of Danbury and brandished computer printouts showing that it had been legally purchased by Mr. Butler.

Yes, the farmer admitted, his son had lived with him since March. Yes, Dicky had access to the cellar. But Dicky didn't know how to set a charge.

Marian and Arnie smiled broadly at that admission. But their smiles faded as the ME pressed the issue, forcing the farmer to admit that what he meant was
he
had never taught Dicky how to set a charge. Detective-Sergeants Boyce and Bender were shooting grim and censorious looks at the medical examiner by then, and to my astonishment and great relief, I began to realize that the gist of all the testimony was that Dicky had acted alone.

The crowd smoking cigarettes on the courthouse steps during the end-of-testimony recess saw it that way too, predicting that the jurors would find exactly what the medical examiner had gone to great trouble to steer them to find. They were right: the jury returned a verdict that Dicky had blown the dam alone with dynamite he had stolen from his father; and recommended that for his laxness, Mr. Butler's pyrotechnic license be suspended.

The courtroom emptied quickly after the final gavel—it being an exquisite end-of-August afternoon ideal for a round of golf or a beer in the woods—and soon all the spectators were gone. Except for me and Marian and Arnie.

Mr. Butler sat still, head bowed, long hair shielding his face. He didn't seem to realize that he was very, very lucky. The finding gave the Connecticut state's attorney absolutely no cause to indict him even on conspiracy, much less accessory to murder. But in his mourning, he still refused to believe that Dicky had accidentally killed himself.

“This ain't over,” he shouted. Marian recorded that in her notebook, and Arnie echoed, “It sure ain't.”

They had recovered nicely from their earlier disappointment, and they watched him storm out with the bored expressions affected by patient cops and experienced vultures.

Chapter 11

Two days later, Mr. Butler surprised me with a visit.

I was in the kitchen, serving milk and peach pie to Alison Mealy, who looked cute as a
Saturday Evening Post
heiress in an old-fashioned riding habit Aunt Connie had found in her attic, and smelled strongly of horse.

“Look, Ben.” She removed her boots and raised her jodhpurs to show me bright red marks inside her knees.

“What's that?”

“I'm gripping with my knees, the way I'm supposed to,” she said proudly. “Hey, someone's here.”

I said “Hey is for horses,” as Connie had for me when
I
was eleven, and asked, “Who?”

“Mr. Butler. Oh, wow, he's got DaNang with him. Look! He's huge.”

Butler climbed down from his pickup and knocked on the screen door.

“Gotta talk to you, Ben.”

“Come on in.”

“Okay if he comes in the house?”

“Sure. Hi there, DaNang. Want some water?” DaNang shouldered me out of his way and laid a head big as a crocodile's on Alison's lap.

“Oh, look at you. You're so big.” She started patting actively, and scratching ears. The yellow dog sank groaning to the linoleum and Alison went down with him, curling up to lay her head on his massive chest. “Ben, you can hear his heart.”

If you hadn't spent the day on a sweating horse you could smell him, too. I told her that Mr. Butler and I were going to go in my office and asked her to put down a few sheets of newspaper and on them a large bowl of water. Mr. Butler trod heavily after me through the house. I sat behind my desk and gave him the near client's chair. I had a funny feeling he was going to sell the farm.

The poor guy looked worse than he had at the inquest. He still hadn't shaved, and I guessed he hadn't been eating because his cheeks were hollow. But what struck me hardest when he finally raised his head was the void in his eyes—black holes, dead with sorrow.

“You don't look too well,” I said.

“I'm not. Can't sleep. Can't eat. Tried drinking, it didn't work.”

I said, “I'm sure you know, there's no rushing grief.”

“Drank a one-seven-five Jack in two days. All I got was a headache.”

I thought he was lucky he didn't get a stroke. “That's a lot of bourbon.”

“He didn't do it, Ben.”

I contained a sigh. What the hell was I going to say to that?

“You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“I'm telling you he didn't do it.”

“I know what you're telling me, but I—”

“The dynamite was stolen from my shed.”

I said, “I heard you say that at the inquest. And I also heard the jury decide that you were lying to cover for Dicky.”

“State troopers said they was going to get me.”

“What do you mean, ‘get you'?”

“Hold on, Ben. I'm running ahead of myself. Just hear me out.” He hung his head for a moment, then flung it back and pushed his hair out of the way. His eyes turned bright with anger.

“That dynamite was stolen from my shed.”

We had been here before. I pressed him for the same specifics the ME had, starting with, “When?”

“Day before Dicky got killed.”

“Can you prove that?”

“No.”

“Well, do you have any theory,” I asked, “about how Dicky got killed in the explosion?”

“Not a theory. It's a fact. He was framed.”

“By whom?”

“Same guy who stole my dynamite.”

“Who do you think stole your dynamite?”

“King.”

I looked out the window at Main Street, slumbering in the August sun. It was about four, traffic in a lull before people started heading home from work. He was getting worse. At least at the inquest he hadn't blamed King.

“You think I'm nuts.”

“Mr. Butler. Why in hell would Henry King steal your dynamite?”

“To frame Dicky.”

“Do you really think that Henry King hates you enough to frame Dicky so elaborately?”

“I don't
think
it. I
know
it.”

“Enough to kill your son?

“With Dicky out of the way, I'm next. If I die, he's got my farm.”

His jaw was set stubbornly. So I tried to stick to details.

“I don't see a sixty-year-old city man like Henry King sneaking into your shed and stealing your dynamite.”

“He's got hired hands. You saw that goddammed CIA agent lives there.”

“I don't see the man risking blackmail from hired hands. And I don't see him destroying his lake to frame your son in the hope that when you die he can buy your farm.”

“He won't wait. He'll kill me.”

I had heard enough. “Mr. Butler, I gotta tell you that I don't see Henry King coldbloodedly killing for a piece of property.”

“I don't care if you see it or not,” he said sullenly. “That's what happened.”

“If you don't care, why are you telling me?”

“The troopers are after me.”

“What?”

“I got a call from a buddy in Plainfield. A vet. He warned me they got a warrant.”

“An arrest warrant?”

“Yup.”

“What for?”

“Conspiracy to blow King's dam.”

“That's crazy.” I spoke automatically. In fact, it sounded as if Marian and Arnie had built a case despite the inquest. And
I
wondered if he
had
blown the dam.

“And accessory to murder.”

“That one's a lot harder to prove.”

“They're saying I killed Dicky.”

“We better call Tim Hall.”

“Ben, I didn't kill Dicky.”

“I know,” I assured him, although all I knew for sure was that he didn't deliberately kill him.

“I shoulda seen this coming. The troopers accused me to my face—said I gave Dicky the dynamite.”

“What do you mean?”

“They said it didn't matter if it was an accident. Told me it was accessory murder. They said if I owned up, they'd drop the murder charge. If I pleaded guilty to conspiracy.”

“But that's not what they said at the inquest.”

“The Feds wouldn't go along. The ATF agents insisted Dicky stole it, himself.”

“Let's go see Tim.”

“Yeah, but I had to talk to you, first. Tell you what really happened was—”

“Stop!” I said. “Don't tell me anything. I can't keep your secrets.”

“You wouldn't rat on me. I know your rep.”

“Well, I goddammed don't want to get locked up for contempt for refusing to testify. Tell Tim. He's your lawyer.”

“I'm trying to tell you the reason I know that Dicky didn't blow up King's dam.”

“I don't want to hear it.”

“But you were Dicky's friend,” he insisted, an exaggeration of that relationship which exposed how lonely “that crazy old farmer's” life had become.

“Tell Tim. Don't tell me. Please. I can't protect you. The troopers will have a field day if they think you talked to me.”

Suddenly, he stiffened and stared out the window at Main Street. I turned around just as Trooper Moody's cruiser screeched to a stop and backed up with a high-pitched whine. He swung into my drive, blocking Mr. Butler's pickup truck, and got out of the car fast.

Butler was halfway to his feet.

“Don't,” I said. “There's a child in the house. Just sit down and let's do this quietly. I'll call Tim.”

“Ben, I can't go to jail.”

“Don't worry. We'll get Tim on it, and Ira Roth. I promise you're not going to jail.”

“I can't stay indoors, Ben. I spend my whole day outside. I eat outside. Sometimes I sleep outside.”

I promised again we'd get him out real fast. Then I opened the door to Trooper Moody, who did it by the book: arrest, rights, cuffs, frisk, and a lonely ride to the county lockup.

Chapter 12

At the bail hearing the state's attorney argued that Mr. Butler would blow Newbury off the map if allowed to roam free before his trial.

He dredged up the farmer's post-Vietnam emotional problems, which made him sound like a dangerous man, and produced Josh Wiggens, dubbed the “Henry King Institute's Security Chief” for the occasion, to relate in tones of patrician outrage the morning Butler had driven up with a gun in his truck. Finally, the state's attorney reminded the magistrate that even if there weren't a very real risk to the public safety, the accessory to murder charge demanded very high bail.

Tim Hall had moved fast and elicited a quick evaluation from a friendly Plainfield therapist who testified that while on one hand Mr. Butler was stable enough to be allowed to go home, he would very likely crumble under the stress of what she dubbed “a jail situation.” Tim beat that drum hard, insisting that Mr. Butler's emotional state—exacerbated by the shattering loss of his only child—was exactly the reason why the lifelong resident of the community should not be locked up before his trial. He even finessed the magistrate into demanding that the therapist put it in layman's language: “He'll go nuts in a week.”

We lost anyhow.

The magistrate set bail at two million—about three times the value of his farm. Not surprisingly, no bail bondsman risked the two million.

Mr. Butler was stunned. “Ben, you promised.”

I couldn't meet his eye. Tim said, “We'll get busy on your appeal.”

“What about my stock?” he pleaded. “And my dog?”

I assured him I'd spoken with his neighbors. They were already pitching in to feed and milk his cows. But guess who got to keep DaNang?

Alison was thrilled.

I wasn't. I like dogs. Like them a lot. But I liked my house orderly and unhairy. Nor did I enjoy, while heading down to the liquor cabinet in the middle of the night, hearing a sinister snarl at the foot of the stairs. It was like living with one of those rent-a-cop security guards who double as a criminal when you turn your back.

DaNang didn't like the new arrangement either. The big yellow farm dog moped around the house and seemed to hold a grudge against me for a series of deodorizing baths. Though he cheered up when Alison visited him in the morning and again after riding camp. And of course at meal time. The dog ate like a carnivorous horse. Lugging sacks of dog food home from the Big Y, I had to assume that Butler had stretched his limited budget by slipping him the occasional cow.

The dog practically wept when I returned from the county lockup bearing the scent of his master, who was sweating out the bail appeal and going downhill rapidly. When I asked the Plainfield therapist to have another look at him, she convinced his jailers to post a suicide watch.

She did not want him transferred to a prison hospital, since Plainfield was a fairly gentle surrounding, as jails went; the guards were sympathetic, as guards went; and he could have visitors like the middle-aged Vietnam veterans who trooped in to sit silent in the interview room. One was a prosperous Morris Mountain banker. The less fortunate included a guy who looked like he had arrived by boxcar and hung around the courthouse muttering to himself. I gave him money, wondering if that would be me one of these days.

***

I cornered Tim Hall at the closing on the teachers' Cape Cod, while everyone shook hands on the steps of the Newbury Savings Bank.

“Let me ask you something. Mr. Butler swore to me that he knows for sure that Dicky
didn't
blow up King's dam. What does he know? Why's he so sure?”

“First I've heard this theory,” Tim admitted, anxiously. Lawyers hate surprises they haven't engineered. “How does he explain Dicky's body under it?”

“I told him to tell you. I couldn't protect him.”

“He never mentioned it to me.”

“Probably doesn't trust you yet.”

Tim got very stern. “Or suspects I won't swallow everything he swears to you.”

“I'm not saying I swallowed it. I'm just telling you that he swore he had reason to know that Dicky didn't do it. I don't want to tell you your business, but don't you think as his lawyer you ought to get him to open up to you?”

Tim asked, “Did he ever tell you that King was spying on him? Watching him with binoculars? Or a sniper scope?”

“Dicky told me it wasn't true.”

“Of course it's not true. Which is why I'm not that impressed by Butler swearing he knows for sure Dicky didn't blow up the dam that fell on him.”

I didn't know what to say. Except that Mr. Butler sounded spacier than ever.

“Happiness in your new home,” I said to the happy buyers. And Tim said, “Happiness in
your
new home,” to the happy seller. They invited us to drink mimosas in the new home. Pete the banker accepted, happy with two new mortgages. There was something really uplifting about a closing, which resonated with beginnings, but I declined for Tim and me, apologizing that we had a meeting on another matter, and marched him back to his office.

He rented the same space his father had, former storage rooms above the General Store. Tim had modernized it by popping skylights through the slant ceilings and varnishing the pine floors. But you could still smell grain and lamp oil and candlewax.

Like me, he works at his father's desk. Tim, senior, had been a real force in the region, and Tim inherited a fine country practice—wills, trusts, and real estate. He avoids divorce work, unless he can mediate for old clients, and argues the occasional criminal case, when the consequences aren't too severe, or the accused can't afford a heavy hitter like Ira Roth.

But Tim, broad and open-faced, with a gaze sometimes puzzled, has his work cut out for him if he's ever going to fill the old man's shoes. We share a bond, as I too peer into the mirror of Newbury's memories of my father. The difference is I do not expect to fill the old man's shoes. He was a pillar of the community. I was thirteen when I realized I was not pillar timber.

“Mr. Butler is a mess. How's the bail going?”

“He's broke.”

“Show me a farmer who isn't.”

“I mean really broke. The farm is mortgaged up the wazoo and he's behind in his taxes.”

“Poor bastard. Are you going to stick with him?”

“Ira practically ordered me to represent him, pro bono.”

“Generous of Ira.”

“Well, he's acting of counsel. Strategizing with me.”

“Pro bono?” I asked. Ira enjoyed a very large income and was not famous for charity. Unlike
his
father—speaking of shoes to be filled—who had died broke and beloved by all he had given and lent to in his day.

“It's a heck of a deal for me. Like a free graduate course in the law.”

“If you need an investigator, count me in. But just remember I'm a real estate agent.”

“Ira advised me to tell you, ‘Don't be coy.'”

I had no intentions of being coy. If Tim and Ira Roth would defend Mr. Butler in court, the least I could do was pitch in with some field support.

“I want client-attorney privilege. When the troopers hear I'm wandering around asking questions, the state's attorney can subpoena me to testify.”

Tim rummaged an employment application from his desk. “Sign here.”

I signed. He took out a money clip and paid me with a tattered single. “You are now an employee of Hall & Hall, with all the privileges that implies.”

“Health insurance?”

“Not while you're a probationary employee.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Mr. Butler asserts he was freeing a calf caught in his upper pasture fence when he heard the explosion. Find us a witness who saw him freeing a calf.”

“That's no alibi for conspiracy. Or even accessory to murder. He didn't have to be there.”

“You just admitted you're a real estate agent, not an investigator. May I remind you you're also not a lawyer.”

“But I'm right.”

“Ira and I are attempting to establish that Mr. Butler had absolutely nothing to do with the bombing and absolutely no foreknowledge it was going to occur. We like very much the picture of the father of the deceased calmly going about his daily chores at the moment his son was singlehandedly bombing the dam.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Of course I believe my client. Find us witnesses who saw him that far from the dam when it blew up.”

“
I
saw him far from the dam right after it blew up.”

“Grinning at the results is not exactly the kind of distance we're looking to establish.”

“If I were you I'd be worrying whether he could have detonated it by radio or set it on a timer.”

“He didn't.”

“Can you prove that? Just in case I can't find a witness in a cow pasture?”

“The dynamite was probably detonated by a fuse.”

“That didn't come out at the inquest. I didn't hear any agents commit to what detonated it.”

“There's a lot didn't come out at the inquest,” Tim said quietly. If ever his father's son was sitting at the old man's desk it was now, with a foxy country-lawyer smile on his lips and lupine cynicism in his eyes.

“Says who?”

“The word is,” he answered, “that some of King's pals slipped the medical examiner secret reports.”

“Which pals?”

“One was secretary of state. Bertram Wills from Middlebury? My dad knew him.”

“And the other one is Josh Wiggens.”

“King's security chief. How'd you know?”

“He's ex-CIA.”

“Really? Any rate, they convinced the ME that the secret reports were genuine and ‘persuaded' him not to spill the beans. So he convinced the jury to report the obvious: Dicky Butler died while blowing up the dam, alone.”

“What beans?”

“National security beans. Investigative methods. Fox Trot security. King's enemies. Secret lab techniques the Feds would just as soon not blab to the media. All under the Homeland Security blanket.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Why? It's the nature of government to be secretive. You think Vicky tells Scooter everything? She tells him enough to keep the
Clarion
off her back.”

I didn't want to discuss Vicky with Tim. He used to come to me for advice about Vicky, which obviously he didn't need any more. In fact, the first time, he asked my blessing, which I had no right to give, but gave anyway, like a damned fool. I said, “I know what you're saying, but it seems like a risky conspiracy to keep a few secrets.”

“Conspiracy is too strong a word. This was more informal. Do you know the ME's background?”

I knew that before he had retired, young, to the pleasant sinecure in Plainfield—longtime seat of his family's summer home—the ME had been a superstar pathologist in Boston. Tim explained that meant he was connected to Harvard and all sorts of federally funded institutions. “Think of him as a national ‘old boy.' Very Establishment, like the Wills have always been and Henry King's become.”

“What in hell is he doing back in Plainfield at his age?”

“What are
you
doing back in Newbury at
your
age?”

I gave Tim a back-off look. “You know I'm banned.”

“Ira says you could get around it. Don't you want to?”

“Wall Street, if you hadn't noticed, is not exactly the golden goose anymore.”

“It'll come back.”

“As a number crunching kid's game.”

“Number crunching kids do more for the economy than raiders and traders. You could help build something new and better.”

I said, “You know how after swimming you dry off and don't want to get wet again? Okay?” Tim hadn't asked me anything I didn't occasionally ask myself. But I didn't feel like wearing my doubts on my sleeve.

“Or are you scared to go back?”

“Dinosaurs don't get scared, Tim. They migrate. I'm damned lucky I had a place to migrate to. Now, could we get back to Mr. Butler and ask why would Establishment ‘old boys' get mixed up in a piece of local silliness that just happened to turn fatal?”

Before Tim could answer, the answer occurred to me. “Wait a minute. Does Henry King still work for the government?”