The Secrets of Ethan Falls

by J. W. Lucas

  He studied the warrant for a few minutes and said, “Okay, I’ll have the nurse make copies, but then I would like you to leave. I have patients to see.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen today Doctor. Very shortly you’re going to have bomb squad and HazMat teams in your yard.” “Oh my God,” he cried out. “I’m ruined after fifty years of devoting my life to helping the sick and injured,” he said forlornly.

  “Doctor, from what you’ve told me I think you’ve been a victim in all of this. And your skill and dedication to medical standards by obtaining critical evidence from Susan Peterson’s body may lead to solving her murder. That’s how people will judge you.” He looked up at me and quietly said, “Thank You. You’re a kind man for saying that. Let’s make that copy of her chart.”

  I watched the nurse make the copies and went outside to the back of the yard as three State Police cars screeched to a stop out front. Jon Michaels briefed the Troopers, and they began a door-to-door evacuation of the neighboring houses.

  “Daryl, a bomb disposal unit and HazMat crew is on its way down from Rutland,” Michaels told me. “And Captain Merrill wants you to call him as soon as you can.” I dialed the cell number that Jon gave me. “Merrill here,” he answered. “Daryl Richardson here, has Jon briefed you on what we have up here?”

  “Yeah, good job you guys. But listen, I wanted you to hear it from me first; the FBI has arrested Sheriff Hunter.”

  “WHAT?” I asked in disbelief. “On what charges?” “Insurance Fraud, Wire Fraud, Money Laundering and violation of the RICO statute.”

  I was stunned. “How can that be?”

  “It was primarily due to the hunch you had about the bail bond company. Your people in Boston sent us the documents on the company and you were right. Freedom continued to write bonds for almost two years after the State revoked their license for non-insurance. Jacob Meisner’s team put the warrant application together and a Federal judge issued it.

  “I can’t believe that all of this is coming together so quickly.”

  “Well, it is. I have a team on their way with the FBI agents to arrest

  Warren Donnelly at his office as we speak. Same charges, and I think that’s just for starters.” My heart was pounding, and my mind raced to comprehend what he was telling me.

  “And Daryl, we seized a report, if you can call it that, a two-page document that John Carpa wrote up after he and Detective Manning shot Mark Savage. It says that Savage stormed the sub-station armed with a rifle, told them that he killed the girl and shot the Judge, and said he was going to kill them too. They wrote that they had no choice but to shoot him. We also seized the rifle from the evidence room that the report says Savage was carrying.”

  “Captain, what about the video from at the sub-station?”

  “I’m not up there, I’m in Hamilton, but my team over there said that the station was unmanned, and they had to force entry. They told me that they don’t see any cameras.”

  “Captain Merrill, I’m mad as hell that I can’t be there to see the look on Donnelly’s face when they arrest him,” I said.

  “Me too Daryl. I’m heading over to Ethan Falls in a few minutes; I want to meet up with you at the court house and bring your FBI agents with you. We’re going to execute the building search warrant when I get there, I don’t want to wait until tonight. Are your tech people from Boston here yet? We’re going to need them.”

  “I don’t know if they got in yet. I’ll call Boston and get their cell number,” I said.

  “Fine. Do you need anything up there? Five more Troopers are on their way down there from up North to help contain the scene, and the Sherriff’s Department is sending some cars up to help you.”

  “Abbott Sheriffs? Are you sure that’s a smart move?” I asked.

  “Daryl, you won’t believe this, but the ones we spoke with here are glad we arrested Hunter. They actually thanked us for finally stepping in.”

  “Did Hunter offer any resistance?” I asked, privately hoping that he resisted arrest.

  “He started to come at my team but one of my Troopers, I think you met him, Rick Anderson, took him down to the floor and had him cuffed in less than thirty seconds.”

  “I did meet Rick, you sent him to my house with the warrants. He’s huge! In fact, all of you guys are huge!”

  Merrill laughed, “It’s the mountain air and maple syrup Daryl! Meet me at the Courthouse and I’ll give you a full briefing.”

  I ended the call and leaned against a fence post to think. I never saw any of this coming this fast, but I still had Susan’s murderer to find.

  Jon Michaels came up to me and asked, “You okay Daryl?” “Yeah Jon, just surprised with how fast all of this is going down. And thanks, you and your guys did a great job.”

  “Couldn’t have done it without your lead Boss, Thank You!” he said as he walked down to brief the troopers and Abbott deputies who were arriving on the street. I called Damian Costigan and his secretary put me right through.

  “Daryl, I just got a call from our Vermont office. The word here is that you’ve got drugs, bombs, the Sherriff and County Exec. Great work man!”

  “Thanks, but I need some help. I have to track down your techs and get them to the Ethan Falls courthouse ASAP.”

  “Okay. I’ll call them and see where they are and re-direct them. Sounds like things are breaking fast up there. Give me a call with status reports when you can,” he said and ended the call.

  I stood on the side of the doctor’s office and watched the crowd on the street start to grow; displaced neighbors, passersby stopping on the street to gawk. It was only a matter of time before the media circus arrived in town.

  I saw two of Jon Michael’s team walking a handcuffed Farhan Hussein down to an unmarked car parked on the street. I was surprised that he was older than I thought he would be. He shifted his gaze to me as they placed him in the back of the car and I could see hatred in his glare. “He wants a lawyer!” the undercover said turning to me. “Wait until we tell him about the Patriot Act detention provisions! He’ll start talking then!”

  Where are you taking him for processing?” I asked. “Bellington,” the undercover answered. “The Captain over there, Dan Monroe, offered us the use of his department’s lockup until we can move him to a Federal holding site, probably Boston. I’m sure seeing these guys in cuffs will give his men a lot of satisfaction.”

  I went out to my Challenger and locked Susan Richardson’s medical record and the evidence package in the trunk.

  As I started the car Jon Michaels came up to my window.

  “Daryl, can you do anything about this jackass Agent Barden and get him out of here before my guys rip his face off? He’s running around like a chicken with his head cut off, barking orders, screaming at the neighbors to move on. What the hell is wrong with this guy?”

  I turned the car off and dialed Captain Merrill’s cell.

  “Yeah Daryl,” he answered. “Cap, we have an issue with Agent Barden that was assigned to us. He’s being a jerk and is pissing off everyone around him. Can you recall him before your guys knock him on his ass?”

  “Tommy Barden? I told his boss that I didn’t want him on this case. You tell Barden that I want to meet me at the Court House immediately. I’m on my way there and I’ll call his Agent-In-Charge to re-assign him. Any luck finding your techs?”

  “I’m on it. I expect a call from them any minute now, thanks Cap.” Jon Michaels and I went to the backyard and I told Agent Barden that per Captain Merrill he was to immediately report to him at the Ethan Falls court house. He looked surprised.

  “I don’t work for Merrill, and I don’t work for you Richardson. I’m an FBI agent,” he said in resistance to the order. I was tempted to knock this guy on his ass myself before Jon Michaels did. “Barden, I’m a US Attorney, and technically at this scene, I AM your boss. And I’m telling you to get your ass down to the Courthouse now!” Before he could argue his cell phone rang, an
d he answered it brusquely. “Yeah, Barden!” He was quiet for a minute and I could hear the voice on the other end was loud, but I couldn’t make out the words. I heard him say “Right Chief, I’m on my way.” He shoved the phone into his pocket and I could see his anger was about to explode. Without another word, he stormed off, and we watched as he went to his car and spun the wheels as he raced off down the street. “Thanks Boss,” Jon said shaking my hand. Barden’s partner Agent Bill Phillips came over to us. “I wondered when you were going to have enough of him. What do you want me to do?”

  “Bill, you’re now the Agent in charge at this scene. Work with Jon and his guys to collect the evidence. If you need anything, call me.” Phillips shook my hand and said, “Will do.”

  I went back to my car and in five minutes I pulled into the court- house lot. As I parked I saw out of the corner of my eye Agent Barden in an animated conversation with an older man dressed in a suit and tie. I watched as he took Barden by the arm and opened his car door for him. I watchd Barden slowly drive away.

  I heard someone call out “Daryl Richardson?” and a man approached with his hand extended. “Jack Merrill. Finally, we get to meet face to face. Let’s sit over there on the picnic table and we can talk.”

  “My men arrested Warren Donnelly,” he said. “They grabbed him as he was trying to get out of his office building.”

  “Did he put up a fight?” I asked.

  “Oh Yeah! From what my men told me he went into a rage and they had to force him to the ground and cuff him. He was carrying a handgun, but he never got to it. They said he’s been screaming like a banshee, threatening to sue all of us, the Federal Government, demanding to see his lawyer. He went absolutely ballistic when they told him he was being detained without bail pending arraignment in Federal Court.

  “I wish I was there. What about Carpa and Manning?” I asked.

  Merrill explained that when they arrested the Sherriff his men looked for Captain Carpa and Detective Manning to interview them but were told by the dispatchers that they were on the road. Neither of the detectives responded to several radio calls asking for their locations.

  “And get this Daryl, when my men found the rifle in the evidence room it was tagged with the same inventory number as a plastic bag that contained six bullets. You’ll find it interesting that the ammo was soft lead nose, not copper jackets. Before this evening I need you to go over to the Medical Center and execute the warrant for the bullets. I’ll have an FBI agent go with you and file the return with the Court. As soon as he gets the bullets, I’ll have them hand delivered to our crime lab in Montpelier. They said they’ll rush a ballistics comparison between the bullets and the rifle we seized to see to if that was the weapon that shot the Judge. My gut feeling is that it is.”

  “Cap, I don’t believe that Deputy Savage shot the Judge or murdered Susan Peterson.”

  “Well Daryl, so far your instincts have been right on. Who do you think did?”

  “Carpa and or Manning.”

  “Okay, but keep in mind what their report says. He stormed into the building with the rifle, admitted his guilt to them and raised it to shoot. They claim self-defense. Without any video, we have to take them at their word. There were no other witnesses.”

  I thought for a moment and then it dawned on me, something I noticed last week.

  “Cap, when I gassed up my car the other day at the station across the street from the Sheriff’s office I noticed that they have four cameras trained on the pumps. The two cameras closest to the building may view the Sheriff’s office in the background. It’s worth checking out.”

  “It’s worth a chance,” he said. “Hopefully they save a few days of video on their system.”

  We saw a car pull into the lot and two young guys got out and one of them waved toward us. It was the two electronics techs from Boston. They approached and introduced themselves as Frank Paris and Pat Collins. I explained to them that we suspected that the Courthouse had been bugged, and the signals were being transmitted to a nearby house over a microwave link. We walked to the side of the lot and I pointed to the tower on Billy Barnum’s property.

  “Ham radio,” Frank remarked, “Nice beam antenna.”

  “See that smaller antenna below the main one?” I said. “There’s a matching one over here on the corner of the courthouse roof.” The techs looked back and forth between the two systems and Pat said, “Not microwave, looks like a UHF link. Piece of cake to check it out. Let me get some equipment.”

  “Wait a minute guys. The owner of that house is the Court Superintendent. He’s a suspect in the wiretapping. We don’t want him to catch you snooping around.”

  “Hey Mr. Richardson, haven’t you heard? We’re the black bag spooks! Piece of cake. What’s that next to the house? Looks like a park or something.”

  “Yeah, a small one,” I answered.

  “Okay c’mon Frankie, let’s drive up there and I’ll use the laser scanner to see what frequency is being transmitted.” As they headed back to their car I asked again, “Are you sure you can do this without being detected?”

  “Piece of cake,” they said in a unison laugh, “Chill!” As they drove out of the lot Captain Merrill looked at me shaking his head. “Daryl, this next generation of law enforcement really scares me.”

  While we waited Merrill said he wanted to share some confidential intelligence. “Daryl, we pulled our undercover agent out of the survivalist camp yesterday. He says there are eight guys living up there in three small houses about a half-mile inside the entrance. He says most of them are from out of State and have been up there a few months. He said that one of the guys is from Maine, and he’s an expert gunsmith. He’s allegedly working on some high-power ordinance.

  “Our agent thinks it’s a homemade grenade or rocket launcher. The others going up to use the firing range there are from the area, a few from New Hampshire. They’re doing weapons training with the automatic weapons that the Sherriff got through a Federal grant. That’s how our undercover got in there. Our guy said they’ve been doing some photo reconnaissance of State office buildings and National Guard storage areas and he thinks they’re planning some bombings.” “Why though?” I asked.

  “Our guy thinks that they’re going to try to blame the violence on the Islamic refugees that have settled up here, make it look like terrorism.” I didn’t answer. I only saw Yo-Yo at the resettlement camp, but from what Mandy told me there were a few families living there, not young radical types.

  “Daryl, if we can get our hands on those automatic weapons, and they trace out to be the ones the government provided, we have Hunter for arms trafficking. And if the documents your Boston office sent us to check out implicate the County Exec as the head of this so-called Patriot Foundation that’s supporting his run for the Governor’s office, we have him for conspiracy, at the least.” I didn’t respond to what he was telling me.

  “Daryl, we have to get into that camp now! We’re going to raid it!

  We’re assembling an assault team, mostly Emergency Services Units from the region and some FBI support units. The National Guard is going to provide us with some helicopters for air cover in case shooting breaks out.”

  “Jack, I can see where you’re going with this and I wish you luck. But my role in this Grand Jury probe is to find out who killed Susan Peterson and shot Judge Moran. This all seems to be far removed from that.”

  “Daryl, did Jon Michaels tell you about what his narcotics detectives have been finding in the overdose death cases?”

  “Yeah, he said that lab tests showed heavy concentrations of fentanyl mixed with the heroin.”

  “Did he tell you that the bags of heroin were stamped with some sort of Arabic symbol?”

  “No, I don’t remember him telling me that. He may have, but if he did, I missed it.”

  “That’s the link, Daryl! Make it look like the Islamists at the re-settlement center are killing off the drug users. That’s a form of terrorism, and we th
ink that somehow Susan Peterson and Judge Moran stumbled onto that information. I think the person or people you’re hunting are involved with that survivalist camp.”

  Our tech boys pulled back into the parking lot and came over to us. “It’s a pretty sophisticated UHF link as we thought,” Pat Collins said. “The laser scan got the frequency, and it sounds like one or more phones are tapped and being transmitted. There’s no noise in the background, so we don’t think any of the common areas are bugged. What do you want to do?”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted, “How do you know phones are tapped?” The two whiz kids looked at each other and smiled. “Is there a Dom Petroni or something like that in the courthouse right now?” asked Frank Paris.

  “Dan Petrone is the County Attorney,” I answered.

  “Well, he’s on the phone right now with some lawyer type arguing a plea bargain,” Collins explained.

  “You heard that?” I asked.

  “Please, Mr. Richardson, you doubt our work?” quipped Frank. ‘What’s next?”

  “Do you guys know anything about video systems?” The two exchanged a bored look and I could see that I wasn’t impressing them with my knowledge of electronics.

  I explained the shooting of Deputy Savage inside the Sheriff’s office, and the chance that a gas station across the street may have caught the scene on their video. “Then let’s take a look,” they said in unison. These two were a trip I thought, but they came highly recommended by Damian Costigan.

  The four of us drove to the gas station in Jack Merrill’s car and we met with the manager. His reluctance to cooperate surfaced quickly, and he asked if we had a search warrant. Jack Merrill pulled him aside and explained that he was the Commander of the State Police Major Crimes Unit. “Well,” he said to the manger, “we don’t, but we can get one, and that will take hours.”

  “Listen friend,” he continued, “your cameras may have evidence of a murder. So, while we’re writing up the warrant I’ll have to post a few trooper cars across your driveway to keep your customers out to make sure the video isn’t disturbed. So, let’s see, losing four hours of business will cost you what, two or three hundred dollars? And if we come back with a warrant we’re going to seize your cameras and recorder and computer. That’s what, another five or six thousand dollars?”