by Justin Scott
I hoped that Marian and Arnie were only fishing, and weren’t seriously bent on turning a stupid tragedy into a murder case. It wouldn’t be easy to nail Mr. Butler on accessory to murder. They would have to prove that he had participated—either by walking Dicky through the process, purchasing the explosives, or showing him where to detonate them.
But I’d have felt a lot better for Mr. Butler if they weren’t two of the brightest detectives in the state police with a conviction rate that would have impressed Spanish Inquisitors.
“Do you think that Dicky’s father put him up to it?” she asked again.
I operate by two rules. I never lie. And I never rat. Gets confusing, on occasion, and this was one of those occasions. “How the hell would I know?”
“You might have overheard a threat.”
While neither a licensed detective, nor a lawyer, I felt obliged to extend client-attorney-detective privacy to Mr. Butler, who had trusted me to listen to his problems. Before he set his dog on me. “What kind of threat?”
Bender looked at Marian. “He’s lying.”
“He hasn’t said anything yet.”
“He’s getting ready to lie.”
Marian sounded weary. “Yeah, you’re right.”
I said, “The front door is this way. Let me show you out.”
Bender said to Marian, “I think he’d rather talk to us at the Plainfield Barracks.”
Marian said, “Why would he go to such trouble when he could just talk to us here in the comfort of his own home?”
I said, “You guys are missing the point of good cop, bad cop. One of you has to be the good cop.”
“You’ll want an overnight bag, Ben,” said Bender.
“Toothbrush, razor, clean towel,” said Marian.
“Telephone number of my lawyer.”
“The threat you might have overheard, you might have overheard while attempting to mediate between Henry King and Butler, Senior. Butler, Senior, might have said something like, ‘If that son of a bitch doesn’t stop bugging me I’ll blow up his dam.’”
“Mr. Butler didn’t blow up the dam.”
“Did Dicky do it for him, is what we’re asking you.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Did his dad help him? Is the other thing we’re asking you.”
“Every federal investigator I talked to—and it feels like I talked to them all—sounded convinced that Dicky did it all on his own.”
“That’s their problem,” said Arnie. “Your problem is, if Mr. Butler turns around and confesses that you heard him threaten to blow up Mr. King’s dam, you’re going to look pretty foolish. And a lot worse when we hang a conspiracy charge on him. We might find room in it for someone else he shared his plans with….You’re familiar with misprision of felony?”
“Refresh me.”
“It’s when you fail to report a serious crime you know is going down.”
“Oh come on, Arnie.”
“Goes back to old English law,” said Marian. “They used to draw and quarter you. We’ll just put you back in the slammer.”
“And maybe not just any slammer,” said Arnie, “because if the explosives make Federal charges, we could ask our pals in the Feds to send you back to Leavenworth.”
Marian said, “But you got worse problems than misprision, Ben. A man was killed while participating in the conspiracy. If Butler talked his plans with you, you too could be looking at accessory to murder. Unless you help us wrap this thing up right now.”
“I’ve got work to do. I might even get a customer if you’ll move your car from in front of my house. Anybody sees that unmarked cruiser they’ll make the mistaken assumption that the police had good reason to be here.”
Marian’s big hands strayed toward the pocket where she kept her handcuffs. “Arnie,” she said after an ominous pause. “I’ll meet you in the car.”
Bender left without a word.
I said, “There goes the good cop.”
“Listen, you. Answer me one question. Am I way off base thinking the father was mixed up in this? Honestly, Ben. I got a gut feeling. Am I crazy?”
She was very serious. What we occasionally enjoyed about each other rarely spilled over into the professional side of her life, and I knew it galled her to ask. I also knew that when she said, “Honestly, Ben,” I had better proceed very carefully.
“Marian, you got a great gut. My gut tells me Dicky did it alone.”
“Based on what?”
“Based on two things: Dicky’s rep for destruction; and Mr. Butler’s genuine shock when I told him Dicky was dead.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s enough for me. The man was stunned.”
“Grief or surprise?”
“Both. The man just lost his son. His only child.”
“How about fear?”
“Fear of what?”
“Prison, for killing his son.”
The doorbell interrupted whatever she intended to ask next. I stood up to answer it, saying, “I’ll tell you one thing Mr. Butler told me.”
“What’s that?”
“Dicky didn’t know the first thing about explosives.”
“So?”
“It’s one thing to shove a stick of dynamite under a stump and light the fuse. It’s another to blow a dam. The ATF guy told me it was a real professional job.”
“Making a heck of a case against Butler,” Marian fired back. “Young Dicky had professional help from his old man. A professional. Special Forces Vietnam demolition, for God’s sake. And a state licensed pyrotechnician.”
“I’m aware of that implication. The reason I mention it is the ATF wonders who else might have helped him?”
“Yeah, right, we’re combing Newbury for Arabs.”
“How about right wing militia?” I asked, hoping she’d spill a little, and she did, shaking her head so that her short brown hair whisked her cheeks. “Our intelligence says no way.”
“No one drilling in the woods?”
“In Newbury’s woods? You got Jervises too busy stealing everything not nailed down. And your Chevalley cousins conspiring to wipe out the beer and deer supply. No, Connecticut’s organized crazies are street and prison gangs and mafia, none of which would get caught dead in the woods. Give me a break, Ben. This is local and you know it.”
“Local, yes. Father, no.” The doorbell chimed again. “Hold on, that might actually be business.”
It was a guy in blue denim and a cowboy hat. He was real friendly and gave me his card. An insurance investigator with World Wide Insurance. I invited him into the office. He leered appreciatively at Marian. Marian returned a look that could have fossilized a beetle.
“Detective-Sergeant Boyce, may I present Bud Smyth—that’s Smyth with a ‘y’—from the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Smyth looked embarrassed. As well he should have.
Marian ignored his hand. “Call me if you think of anything else, Ben.”
I walked her to the door. On the front step I asked, quietly, “Do you really want to badger that poor old guy with a conspiracy charge?”
“Not if I can nail him for murder.”
***
Bud Smyth was lurking near my desk, reading my mail.
“So how you doing, Ben?”
“Mr. Smyth, until we have a proper introduction or become friends, consider me Mr. Abbott.”
“So how you doing, Mr. Abbott?”
“I’ve had about one too many conversations on the same subject today. And how are you doing, Mr. Smyth?”
“I was wondering what you could tell me about your Mr. Butler.”
“Junior or Senior?”
“The deceased.”
“Dicky Butler was a talented brawler. He had a fast left jab most of us would be proud to call our best punch. He had great footwork. And a lazy right—his worst flaw.”
“Weapons?”
“Did you learn a shank in prison, Mr. Abbott?”
“Big difference between Dicky and me was I don’t have a lazy right. Which I will demonstrate, outside, if you don’t watch your mouth.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Yes.”
He said, “I should warn you I boxed in the Olympics.”
“You want to borrow gloves?”
Smyth looked like he wanted to change the subject. The telephone did it for him.
“Benjamin Abbott Realty.”
A soft and silky male voice I hadn’t heard since I had served in the Office of Naval Intelligence said, without introduction, “There is a very annoying fellow in your house.”
I felt my shoulders stiffen. At ONI, he had been one of those bosses that try to teach you how to maintain overview and tight focus simultaneously; the ball-busting kind that about five years later you begin to realize how lucky you were to work for him. Today, more than ten years later, if he announced an assault on Hell I’d probably suit up in asbestos and ask questions later.
“He is pissing you off.”
“Yes sir.”
“You’ve probably threatened to take him outside.”
“It’s heading that way, sir. Yes.”
“I asked him to have a word with you.”
I was surprised. It put Bud Smyth in a much better light than I’d seen him so far.
“This thing is local, sir.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Explain the details to the fellow who’s annoying you and send him back.”
“Yes, sir.”
The phone died in my hand. I hung it up, contemplating that someone very, very highly placed was worried about Henry King.
“The Captain has vouched for you,” I said to Smyth.
“Admiral. He’s been promoted. Tell me about Butler, Senior.”
“I met Mr. Butler a couple of times when I was a kid. We had our longest conversation last March when Mr. King asked me to speak to him on his behalf, which I assume you already know.”
“Go on.”
“We had another conversation half an hour after the dam blew. I told him Dicky was dead.”
“Do you think he put Dicky up to it?”
“In my opinion, if Mr. Butler wanted that dam blown he’d have blown it himself. He was Special Forces in Vietnam.”
Smyth nodded impatiently. He knew that, of course.
“And he’s a licensed pyrotechnician. He could have done it on his own, if he wanted to.”
“Therefore?”
“Therefore he didn’t put Dicky up to it. Conversely, if Dicky wanted to blow the dam, he would have done it without any encouragement from his dad.”
“So you think Dicky did it.”
I started to agree that it certainly looked that way. But I wanted to learn something, so I said, instead, “I was talking to an ATF agent earlier.”
Smyth made a face.
“He said that the explosion looked like a really professional job.”
“I was talking to one who said it was a simple fuse a farmer could have lit.”
“The agent I talked to said it’s more than how you light it, it’s where you put it. Apparently it was well-placed. So if it wasn’t simple, where the hell did Dicky Butler learn that?”
“That’s what I’m wondering.”
“What’s your guess?”
“I’m not paid to guess, Mr. Abbott,” said the pompous ass. “Henry King is an American asset overseas. Makes his safety at home a matter of national security. Which is why I’m curious how Dicky Butler learned to blow dams.”
“The guy’s life is an open book. Spent most of it in state prisons. Shouldn’t be hard to trace his movements, such as they were. And his contacts. You’d be better talking to his wardens than a real estate agent.”
“The Admiral said I could trust your take.”
“I already told him my take. This is local. A traditional Yankee land feud that got out of hand. Tell him I’ll do anything I can to help, but unless the various investigations turn up something not obvious—like it was detonated by satellite—Henry King and national security have nothing more to fear in Newbury…”
“Except what?”
A miserable thought had occurred to me.
“…Except if Dicky’s father takes it into his head to blame King for his son’s death.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“On the other hand,” I said, “King’s got good security.”
“Sure did wonders for his lake.”
“Maybe the Secret Service should leave a couple of agents around a while ’til things calm down.”
Smyth gave me a funny look and for a second I thought he was going to tell me something important. But all he did was shrug. “Let me leave a telephone number, Ben, case anything comes up you want to talk.”
He offered his hand and headed for the door. “Nice little town you got here.”
“How you happen to know the Admiral?”
“I was one of his boys. After your time.”
“How did you end up in the spooks?”
“Knew somebody.”
Sounded to me like the Admiral had infiltrated the CIA.
***
Late that afternoon, despite all my visitors, I actually sold a house. It was a sweet little cape in the borough, a starter home for a couple of young teachers at Newbury Prep. They were happy; they could walk to work. The seller was happy; she could move into a retirement condo at Heritage Village. I was happy, too, gratified that I could negotiate a deal that didn’t end in people lobbing dynamite.
I did my paperwork and walked it over to Tim Hall’s mail slot and Newbury Saving’s night box. Walking home, with Alison Mealy bike-riding circles around me, it occurred to me that she was about the age Dicky Butler had been when he got himself committed to Manson.
I noticed there were still government cars in the Yankee Drover parking lot. The joint was jumpin’ with a summer Sunday night crowd clumped around pitchers of beer. The juke box played Faith Hill, at a volume that encouraged conversation. A wide-screen TV with the sound off showed the Red Sox clinching the second loss of their doubleheader.
The Feds looked too busy trying to get lucky with maidens of the town to welcome being pumped for information that might discourage Sergeants Marian and Arnie from persecuting Mr. Butler. I looked for Vicky, thinking she could smile us both into their midst. Friends said they hadn’t seen her. I flashed on her and Tim at a candlelit dinner in her cottage behind the Congregational Church.
I took the last empty barstool. The guy to my left was nose to nose with his girlfriend. To my right sat Julia Devlin, sleek as a cat in moonlight.
Chapter 10
Her hair was swept back, gleaming like onyx, highlighting a profile that could have revived the American shipbuilding industry. She was wearing black leggings and a black sleeveless top. Muscle rippled under her smooth skin. She had hooked the heels of her laced half-boots over the rung of the barstool and she was drinking Rolling Rock from the bottle.
“Hello, Mr. Abbott. I’m sorry about your friend.”
I didn’t want to talk about Dicky Butler. So I said, “Thanks. He wasn’t exactly a friend. Sorry about your lake.”
“It wasn’t my lake.”
“I’ll bet it hasn’t made your boss any easier to live with.”
She shrugged.
“Can I buy you a cold one? I’m sort of celebrating. I just sold a house.”
“Congratulations. Sure, I’d have one more. Thanks.”
She had a faint accent. It sounded a little Brooklyn, but not quite. It had another softer sounding layer that I couldn’t place.
“I’m going to have a burger, are you hungry?”
“I’ve eaten, thanks.”
I ordered a Rolling Rock for her, a
nd a Red Stripe and a medium hamburger for me. We clinked bottles when the beers came and then I asked, “How’s the boss taking it?”
“He’s sad.”
“Yeah, I gathered he really loves that place.”
“I feel so bad for him. I’d rather he was angry. He’s easier to deal with angry.”
I asked how long she had worked for him. Six years.
“I guess you take a lot of flak.”
She bristled. “He doesn’t mean anything when he yells. He’s under tremendous pressure. He works so hard. Most of his contemporaries are golfing around the lecture circuit, but Henry just won’t stop. He’s really easygoing, once you get to know him.”
I make it a policy not to argue with beautiful women I’m trying to get to know better. But there are limits. “Nothing in that dumb land feud led me to think of Henry King as easygoing. If he were, he’d have made peace with old man Butler.”
“No,” she said, fiercely. “You don’t understand him. That house is like his child. He’s never had children. To violate Fox Trot was to attack him deep in, in, in his soul. I’m sorry, I don’t think you read him right, Ben. Not at all. He is a good and gentle man.”
She took a slug of her beer and stared moodily at the bottle.
I decided to get off the subject of her good and gentle boss. “Did the explosion get in the way of his ceramic engine deal?”
“How do you know about that?”
“Party talk. I gathered he’s brokering something big.”
She gave me a smile. “Do I hear an old Wall Street warhorse neighing?”
“No way. But it did sound big.”
“It could be.”
“Lousy timing.”
“He’s had better weekends,” she agreed. “But if you want to understand him, Ben, you have to know that seeing his beautiful lake destroyed really broke his heart.”
“It’s fixable. Mr. Butler can’t get his son back.”
“I’m not saying it’s comparable. Neither would Henry. But it’s not like Henry did it to him.”
“Is that proven?”
“Is what proven?”