FrostLine

by Justin Scott

  “Hear you been checking up on me.”

  Excellent. I said, “You were a busy man the weekend Dicky died.”

  “Why?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Why are you checking me out, you son of a bitch.”

  “You’re calling me a son of a bitch because you wonder if I’ve figured out where you were between ten A.M. and one P.M. that Saturday.”

  The sunglasses didn’t hide the tightening of his mouth.

  He covered quickly. “Stay out of my face, Ben.”

  “Are you saying stop asking questions?”

  “I’m warning you. Stay out of my face.”

  “’Cause if you are, just tell me now where you were between ten and one.”

  He amazed me by answering. “Traffic control.”

  “Could I see your log?”

  “You get a goddammed court order you can see my log.”

  “Why not save us both the trouble?”

  “Why you asking? What do you want?”

  Instinct said now was the time to get out of his car. I opened the door. He stomped the gas. The cruiser leaped forward, shutting the door.

  I counted the fingers I’d almost lost and said, quickly, “Ira Roth and Tim Hall are also curious. They told me I was taking a chance of riling you, but I said, ‘No, Ollie surely has some perfectly legal explanation for how he spent those mystery hours.’”

  “I don’t owe you any explanation.”

  “‘Besides,’ I told them, ‘a sworn peace officer isn’t about to assault a law-abiding citizen who’s already turned over his meticulous notes to the two lawyers who employ him.’”

  “You think you’re really smart, don’t you?”

  “No, Ollie. I don’t. But I don’t think you’re that stupid.”

  Maybe not, but he sped up. Which reminded me that one could go wrong forgetting that Ollie was a sociopath in uniform. I had a feeling I’d just gone wrong.

  The big Ford took the turns like a train on rails. We went through Frenchtown at sixty-five, passed Chevalley Enterprises, the garage where Pink fed my Oldsmobile money, and north into the woods and farms.

  I had turned pretty wild as a kid around the time I realized I wasn’t going to be the upstanding and proper citizen my father had been. In a small town like Newbury, “wild” meant challenging the turf controlled by the resident trooper.

  Ollie had tried to tame me. I had resisted. Pain and suffering had been shared about equally and it was largely a draw. My biggest win was the time I chained the rear end of his cruiser to a large tree, with enough slack to guarantee we would stay at each other’s throats forever.

  “You can slow down, Ollie. I won’t jump out even at thirty.”

  “You sure of that?”

  Scooter would headline the front page story, “‘Prominent Local Realtor Found Dead On Frenchtown Road.’ ‘…Thought it was some poor deer at first,’ reported Newbury’s Resident State Trooper Oliver Moody. ‘Saw what was left of the face and realized it wasn’t.’”

  Ollie swerved onto a dirt road. After a couple miles, he slammed on the brakes. The big Ford stopped fast and straight.

  “Out!”

  “Let me tell you what’s going on.”

  “Get out!”

  “I think Dicky Butler was murdered.”

  “Bull. He blew himself up.”

  “I think somebody blew his body up.”

  “You’re dreaming.”

  “I’m trying to clear suspects. Obviously, you’re a prime one when it comes to motive.”

  I waited. He said nothing. I couldn’t see a thing through his glasses.

  “On the other hand, you’re a police officer. I don’t think you go around murdering people.”

  “Well, you’re right about that, Ben.”

  “So what I’m saying is, help me and I’ll help you clear this thing up. You’re vulnerable. You help me. I’ll help you.”

  “Out!”

  I climbed out, wishing I had the brains to run and knowing pride would stop me. Ollie outweighed me by a hundred pounds and in the long run I didn’t have a chance, even if he left his stick in the car. He knew it too. He sat there, making me wait for it. It would have been nice if someone drove up, but that wasn’t likely in the middle of nowhere.

  “Any more questions, Ben?”

  “Same question. Where were you between ten and one the Saturday Dicky got killed?”

  “Traffic control,” he repeated. “Any more?”

  “Yes. What makes you think I’m not going to find out?”

  “When you do you’re going to feel pretty stupid. Could have saved yourself a long, hot walk.”

  He stomped the accelerator. The Ford threw dust and gravel and a moment later was a loud roar fading fast.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  ***

  It would have been a pleasant walk without the humidity, the heat, the swarming gnats and biting deer flies. A hat would have helped a lot. So would bug spray. I got to Chevalley Enterprises in about two hours—midmorning there hadn’t been a damned car going my way—my clothes soaked with sweat, my arms tired from waving off the gnats.

  Pink thought it was the funniest thing he’d heard in weeks. I got a free Diet Coke and doughnut in the customer waiting room while waiting for him to give me a lift, and had a chat with Betty Chevalley, my cousin Renny’s widow, who was making a go of the business in spite of Pink’s help. I asked if she were seeing anyone, yet. She told me she didn’t have the time. “Besides, who’s going to go out with a working mom?”

  “You’re a pretty cute working mom.”

  She was a redhead, a Butler girl, distantly related to my client. I assured her we had high hopes and that I was heading over to the Plainfield jail to see him now. She bagged him some jelly doughnuts.

  ***

  A sly smile started to light up the prisoner visiting room when I asked Mr. Butler about his pig manure plan. But it faded as if wind had snuffed a candle.

  “Damn truck never showed.”

  “Is that why you ran the cows in instead?”

  “My last shot.”

  He chewed mechanically on the doughnuts, polishing them off one after the other after I swore I’d had lunch on the way over. “Pig shit would have been better. Or the other thing.”

  “The ‘other thing’?”

  “You know. What I told you about. What you said don’t repeat.”

  I’d been hoping he’d forgotten.

  “So now what?” he asked.

  “Tim’s plugging away. And I’m going around asking questions for him.” No way I’d share my Dicky-was-murdered theory. He had too many theories of his own.

  “Right now, I’ve got an appointment to pump Detective-Sergeant Boyce.”

  “Yeah, you do that.” He tucked his chin to his chest. His hair curtained his face, and he curled inside a hopeless stare.

  I hurried across the street to the State Police Barracks.

  Major Case Squad Detective-Sergeant Marian Boyce looked lovely through the bulletproof glass, dressed for court in a pleated skirt that brushed her knees and a loose blazer that covered her gun. “You can buy me lunch.”

  “How about the Hopkins Inn?”

  “Room service? I don’t think you’re going to feel up to it.”

  We found a booth in the courthouse diner. Lunching troopers eyed us curiously. After we ordered, I said, “I’m surprised you’re hungry. You look like you’ve had the canary special.”

  “For breakfast.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We had a deal: You tell me what you got from Josie Jervis. If it’s not smoke, I’ll tell you what I got from J.J. Topkis.”

  I said, “Josie told me that Dicky was too drunk Saturday morning to walk, much less dynamite King’s dam. He’d been drinking all night.”

  Marian’s gray eyes complemented her basic bored-and-cynical-law-officer look. “She�
�s trying to protect him.”

  “From what? He’s dead.”

  “Go on.”

  “You want more?”

  “Damned right I want more.”

  “Josie and Dicky were planning a picnic that afternoon. He was going to crash for a couple of hours and then they were driving out to the picnic rock. By the covered bridge?”

  “I remember it.”

  “Fondly?”

  “Right up there with First Communion. Is that all you have to trade?”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “What’s it supposed to mean?”

  “It casts very strong doubt on the idea that Dicky blew up the dam. And even stronger doubt on your conspiracy case against Mr. Butler.”

  “Oh really?”

  “If they’d teamed up Mr. Butler certainly wouldn’t have left Dicky holding the dynamite.”

  “You’re reaching.”

  “Your turn.”

  “I already knew that Dicky was drunk.”

  “How?”

  “His drinking buddy told me.”

  “Who?”

  “J.J. Topkis.”

  “No way! J.J. hated Dicky.”

  “They shook hands and went drinking.”

  “You believe Topkis?”

  “I believe the witnesses I interviewed who confirmed that J.J. and Dicky were very friendly.”

  I couldn’t believe I was hearing this.

  Marian said, “J.J. says they told each other all their secrets.”

  “What did Dicky tell J.J.?”

  “Dicky got downright confessional.”

  “What did he confess?”

  “Oh aren’t we excited? Big real estate deal pending?”

  “Marian.”

  Marian licked her lips. “Dicky Butler told J.J. Topkis that his father—your client—taught him how to make a detonator timer out of a wristwatch.”

  “What?”

  “And your client also taught his son how to guarantee that the bomb squad would never find the watch.”

  Chapter 23

  I threw money on the table. “I gotta run.”

  “Oh, come on. Stay for lunch. Don’t be a sore loser.”

  “It’s not a game. The poor man’s dying in jail.”

  J.J. Topkis’ story made Mr. Butler a perjurer for testifying that Dicky knew nothing about explosives. Worse, it made him a participant and accessory to murder.

  “Wait. J.J. nails Dicky’s dead hide to the wall—not to mention Mr. Butler’s—with an uncorroboratable lie that conveniently eliminates himself as a suspect.”

  “Did I say J.J.’s a suspect?”

  “Can he prove it?”

  Marian smiled. “Did I say it’s ‘uncorroboratable?’”

  “Is it?”

  Silence.

  “Come on, Marian. I’m running around in circles. It wouldn’t be a big deal to tell me if you’ve eliminated Topkis as a suspect.”

  “Running in circles? Ohhhh. Did it ever occur to you that your circles keep you out of my way?”

  “Thanks a lot. How did this supposed timer disappear?”

  “A little watch. Coated with a nitro paste, so when it blows, there’s nothing left to find. Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Bull. They always find something.”

  “Not always. Especially when an entire lake washes away the evidence—Ben, where you going? Aren’t you hungry?”

  “You’re that sure?”

  “Believe it, fella.”

  “J.J. could have read that in the library. So could Dicky.”

  Marian grinned. “You really disappoint me, Ben.”

  I disappointed myself. I was falling way behind. I had to do something to catch up. “Look, do me one favor.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Get me a copy of Trooper Moody’s log for the Saturday morning before the explosion.”

  Marian stopped grinning. And in case I’d forgotten who she was she gave me a dose of cop eyes, bleak as a January midnight. “Out of some damned good memories, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “I apologize,” I said.

  “You have some nerve.”

  “I never should have asked.”

  Our tuna sandwiches arrived just in time. I chomped into mine to hide a smile that an unfriendly observer might have called a smirk.

  ***

  I never expected her to hand me state police documents. But if I knew Marian, she’d be poring through Trooper Moody’s reports the second she got back to the barracks, wondering what the hell I was getting at. I gave her two days of frustration before she finally came out and asked.

  A minor victory, however, compared to the damage J.J. Topkis had sown. Unless Tim could find some way to keep the biker’s testimony out of the trial, Mr. Butler would end up wishing he was back in Vietnam.

  I didn’t believe him. A banger who took pride in his sucker punch was exactly the kind to shake hands and hoist a few with an enemy he was about to blow to Kingdom Come. But why stick it to Mr. Butler, too?

  I burned up the roads back to Newbury and ran into Town Hall. The first selectman’s door was open, her receptionist off somewhere. I knocked on the frame.

  Vicky looked up and pushed her curls from her face. “What?”

  “Can we talk?”

  “Zoning and Planning are down the hall. Tax Collector across the lobby.”

  “Vicky, every time I turn around I see you holding hands with Tim.”

  “You’ve never seen me hold hands with him.”

  “Well, I’ve seen him put his arm around you.”

  “Take it up with him.”

  “Look, this is kind of important and I—”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I thought we were talking about something important.”

  “Vicky, I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, you don’t owe me apologies.”

  “But you’re acting like I do.”

  “No, I’m acting like I’m hurt. Which I am. Even cheerful Vicky gets hurt, sometimes. When I see you with somebody.”

  At that moment, seeing the hurt in her face, I wished I could say that Julia was just one of those things.

  “What do you want?”

  “Can I close the door? It’s private.”

  “Oh, this wasn’t?”

  “Okay if I close the door?”

  She nodded. I closed it and came in and sat in the chair beside her desk.

  Vicky rounded on me. “Did it ever occur to you that if I screwed around the way you do you’d think I was a whore?”

  “No. Because, as you darned well ought to remember, when I get involved I get deeply involved.”

  I felt pretty proud of the depth and clarity of my answer until she shot it down with a scornful, “That’s worse! You talk yourself into that romantic fairy tale and make yourself so damned believable that you end up hurting every woman who falls for you.”

  “I get hurt, too, Vicky.”

  “Oh good. I feel better already.”

  Several minutes into a silence less pleasant than assisting at an amputation, I ventured, “Let me say that this doesn’t come as totally new information. It’s been on my mind, too. I will think about what you said. But right now, I need a favor.”

  “If I can.”

  “Can you chat up Greg Riggs for me?”

  “Why?”

  “He’s defending a biker named J.J. Topkis. I want to know who hired him.”

  “Well, didn’t Mr. Topkis hire him?”

  “I doubt he could afford him. There are bottom-feeders who specialize in bikers.”

  “You want me to ask him?”

  “It’s for Mr. Butler.”

  “Oh….What makes you think he’ll tell me?”

  This was delicate. If not distasteful. “Remember the fundraiser party he threw for you?”

  “Gratefully. Greg Riggs was very good to me. I owe him.�
��

  “Well, I knew it made political sense. But I had the feeling he might not go to such an effort for an ugly candidate.”

  Vicky stared long and hard. “Greg Riggs is engaged to be married. And if you’re trying to flatter me by pretending to be jealous, it would work better if you had ever earned the right to be jealous.”

  I slunk home and settled in with the telephone.

  My third call to the Admiral got another promise that he would receive the message and get back to me.

  A call to Fox Trot elicited the information that Ms. Devlin and Mr. King were “out of the office.”

  At Fort Bragg, everyone I spoke to called me sir. I finally got through to a barracks with the background sound of women laughing. “Yo, Jervis!” cried the woman who answered and Josie came on the line, crisp and proud.

  “Corporal Jervis.”

  “Josie, it’s Ben Abbott.”

  Her breath caught. “Is my mom—”

  “Fine, fine. No problem. I gotta talk to you.”

  “I can’t. I’m on duty in a minute.”

  “J.J. Topkis told the troopers that Dicky said his father taught him how to make a time bomb.”

  “He did?”

  “Did you hear Dicky say that?”

  “No.”

  “But you were drinking with them.”

  “Not really.”

  “Is he lying?”

  “Well, no. I mean. When I got there, we left. Dicky and me.”

  “You mean they were drinking? Just the two of them? Then you came.”

  “I didn’t get there ’til midnight. My mom had the truck. They were pretty far gone by then. Ben, I gotta go.”

  “I’m curious why you didn’t mention J.J. when we talked.”

  “We went off by ourselves. Dicky was just killing time waiting for me.”

  “Did he say how he happened to get friendly with Topkis?”

  “Not really.”

  “I was surprised to hear it.”

  “Dicky didn’t hold a grudge. He was kind of happy….You know what he told me?”

  I waited, but she had started crying.

  “What?” I asked, and when she told me I thought, again, What a waste, just when he was getting his miserable life in order.