JG02 - Borderlines

by Archer Mayor

  I paused in front of the burned house, still contained by the thin, ging yellow Police Line, anemically reflecting the rising sun. This worked the start of the hunt, the point where seemingly random vioce yields to the search for an explanation. I wanted to begin that rch with the real owner of this house, Edward Sarris, and I wanted begin it early, before a scheduled morning meeting between Potter the State Police investigators.

  It was a warm morning, or at least warm for November in Vernt. The earth, just twenty-four hours ago crystalized with ice, was w softened and muddy. The tracks of dozens of heavy trucks had lost ir definition as if, slowly, they too were melting. I walked north up Atlantic Boulevard. There still wasn’t much ivity; sunrise had been but twenty minutes before. I’d been told all houses at this end belonged to the Order, something I could easily ve guessed. For one thing, there were no electrical wires running to y of them. They were all peculiarly blotchy in appearance, as if, after aping, they’d been repainted with a wash. None of the lawns were wed. Indeed, seen from a low enough angle, especially from the dirt d, the houses looked like museum-quality prairie homes, originally les apart, which had been gathered together in one overgrown field anthropological preservation.

  There was something else that struck me, but it took a while to k in: There were no cars. In fact, there were no trucks, or motorcys, or even tricycles anywhere to be seen. This entire end of town ked transported from the previous century. The paint, upon closer utiny, was indeed whitewash-what Tom Sawyer had applied to his nt’s fence. The clothes lines, the piled split wood, the occasional ss-saw seen leaning against a wall-all harked back to preindustrial es. Aside from a glimpse or two of a woman or child in the ubiquicotton Mao suits, all of it could have served well at Williamsburg Sturbridge Village. Except that all this looked real, including the odd ap of antique garbage.

  I saw a woman hanging laundry by the side of a house partway the street. “Hi. Excuse me.

  She turned and looked at me, her initial smile fading. She didn’t swer.

  “I’m looking for Edward Sarris’s house.” Without a sound, she pointed across the street at the narrow side road where the Wingates had waited for their daughter the night before last, the one that led off into the wooded hills east of town. “Up that street?” She nodded, now looking quite grave.

  “Thank you very much.” I followed her direction, looking back just as the tall grass and the corner of the opposite house were about to hide me from view. She was still looking at me. I waved, still to no effect.

  From Atlantic Boulevard the road looked more like a driveway than a road, but once on it, past the houses and across the wooden bridge spanning the Passumpsic, I felt myself suddenly in the country, surrounded by nothing but tall frostbitten grass, underbrush, and a growing number of gray, bare trees.

  The road led upward for only a third of a mile, but became increasingly steep, so I soon found myself stripping off my coat and dangling it over my shoulder, despite the dabbled shade the now dense trees were supplying. I wasn’t hot, just pleasantly warm, and with the absence of any bugs this late in the year, I discovered I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

  The house first appeared as more of a suspicion-something dark and solid amid the dark and distant tree trunks. Its substance grew quickly, however, along with its obvious size. It was built of logs, was no more than a few years old, and was truly gigantic, not quite the Rocky River’s three stories, but almost. This sense of size was reinforced by the fact that it was built out from the hillside, its front supported by a small forest of pillars, making it look much like a dock approached at low tide in a small boat.

  The road, which turned out to have been a driveway after all, ran past the house, circled around, and ended in a large parking area that had been cut out of the hill to the rear. Several cars and vans were parked there, only one of which-a new Jeep Cherokee-was obviously used with any frequency. The others were all aligned at the back of the lot, and covered with dust and leaves. There were about twelve of them. The license plate of the Jeep spelled “ORDER,” a word I’d always found had ominous undertones.

  I walked up to what was obviously a handmade cherry door quite beautiful in its detailing-and knocked. Edward Sarris opened up almost instantly. “Hello, Lieutenant. I thought you might be next.” He was immaculately attired, as when I’d last seen him, making his cotton garb look like custom-tailored silk. I hoped to find him at a disadvantage, dripping wet from the shower aps, but he either kept ungodly hours, or had already locked into ychological war plan. “State Police beat me to it?” “Yes. Yesterday afternoon.” “Well, I can’t promise I’ll be the last.” “I’m familiar with the system.” His tone reflected the thrill of it I tilted my chin at the building. “This is quite the eagle’s nest.”

  He smiled and ushered me in. “It suits us.” What I entered was one huge room, easily one hundred by fifty ,and extending two floors up to a web of heavy wooden supports, ss braces, and rafters. The downhill wall, leading out to an equally e deck, was a mosaic of windows-squares, rectangles, rounds, and f-rounds, which salted the room with multi-fractured light. There a church-like stillness to it all, enhanced by a view that encomsed the slope I’d climbed, all of Gannet, the hills opposite, and far ond.

  “This is beautiful.” “Thank you. We built it ourselves.

  I walked to the middle of the room, which had little furniture, and mostly benches lining the walls, and looked around. My footsteps oed majestically on the uncarpeted hardwood floor. “How long did ake you?”

  “Not long. We’re a very dedicated clan, and we work hard at what love.”

  “Well, I tip my hat. You did an amazing job.” He walked by me and threw open a set of French doors to the deck. ome outside.” I followed him and felt I was stepping aboard an aircraft carrier.

  e deck was in fact longer than the room, extending a good twenty more to the right, and revealing there was more to the building than one room. It was surrounded by a simple rail, thin enough to be almost invisible from a distance, giving me the impression of being held it, above the trees, as on a huge magic carpet. If the intent was to inspirational, it was a sure-fire success. “You guys don’t fool around with tight quarters.” “Our goal is to be as one with Nature, Lieutenant.

  Depending on ur viewpoint, that is either a practical or a romantic ambition, but either case, we have tried to capture the poetry of that mission here our place of worship.” Again, I was struck by his diction and vocabulary. He spoke with precision like a highbrow radio announcer, and had a nice baritone voice to boot. He must have been hell on the pulpit-or whatever he used.

  “So this is your church?” “We choose not to use that term. This is simply our place of worship.” “And what do you worship?” “Nature.” “It’s my understanding that for the average cause to work it has to have not only an appealing goal, but something to unite against as well.

  What is it you’re against?” He looked at me in silence for a moment before smiling. “Have you always been a Brattleboro policeman?” “Over thirty years.” “But you went to college.” I smiled back. “Why?” Now he chuckled, rubbed his chin, and wandered toward the outside rail. I followed him. “Because you display more intelligence than I have come to expect from the local constabulary.” “That’s pretty faint praise.

  There is no local constabulary.” He smiled and waved that away. “I meant the State Police.” “So who are the bad guys in your world?” He didn’t duck it this time, nor did he bother to argue semantics. “The materialists.” “The head of General Motors or the woman buying groceries at the P&C?” “Both. They both contribute to the erosion of those parts of life that are healthy, benevolent, and in harmony with nature. They are the water that cuts away at the sandy bank of our existence, making our foothold on this planet increasingly precarious.” I leaned against the rail. From the edge of the deck, overlooking a good twenty foot drop, I felt like a bird at the top of the trees. I chose to avoid a philosophical debate, by which, I was
quite sure, neither one of us would be satisfied. “Did the materialists burn your building?” His face clouded. “I don’t know. I have no reason to think so yet.

  Do you?” “No. What about Bruce Wingate?” “Bruce Wingate has chosen not to look in the mirror. He blames us for his errors and attacks us for putting his wrongs right.” “But did he kill your people?” I could see he was wrestling with his composure. I had hit a button with Wingate’s name. “I’ve already answered that.” “I understand Fox was one of your lieutenants.” “We have no such ranking: We are as one. “You’re the leader.” He hesitated. “I am.” “You must need people to help you run things.” He made an impatient expression. “Very well, as you see things, was a lieutenant.

  An Elder, perhaps, more accurately.” “One of many?” “Fox was a friend and an advisor. He was among a small group imilarly trusted individuals. We shall all miss him, as we shall miss people who perished with him.” His tone was final. I switched tack.

  “What does Julie think about all this?” “Julie?” “Cute. Julie Wingate.”

  I could just hear a small sigh. “I cannot speak for other members he clan.” “Can I speak to her, then?” “No.” Now it was my turn to smile.

  “You want to expand on that a bit?” “No.” “You’d be good in court.” “I have been good in court.” I laughed at that, and he joined me after a moment’s hesitation.

  ere was an appeal to this guy. He used the language well, he had e wit, and although dogmatic, he lacked that self-righteous tone always made me want to strangle the likes of Tammy and Jimmy kker. “I bet. I tell you what. Right now, we’ve got your man Fox ing head over heels downstairs, knocking over the stove, getting ned to death and killing the rest of the people in the building with smoke.” “So I gather.” “But I don’t swallow that.” He was staring out at the distant mountains, his hands resting on rail. He nodded. “All right.” “And you don’t swallow it either.” “I don’t?” “I’d like to know if I can have your cooperation on this investigan.

  “I’ve always cooperated with the police.” “Why do I think we’re beginning to kid around a little here?” He turned toward me. “Lieutenant Gunther, we are not on the e side. You would like to believe that you are preserving peace and maintaining rationality in a society that occasionally runs amuck. In our view, you are the chief engineer in the belly of an aging, leaking tramp steamer caught in the middle of the storm that will mark your demise. You are not in control, your crew is not in control, and the ship in which you ride is doomed. The sea controls you, the winds control you, and when you die, you will rot, and Nature will repossess your carcass. Nature will out in the end, Lieutenant, regardless of how you might choose to see things. My cooperation with you and minions like you is pragmatic-the price of survival in this society. But do not think for a moment that I will allow you voluntarily to come among us and spread your diseased philosophies. You are the plague to us, the enforcer of the greedy, the corrupt, the polluter, and all those who would take this planet and reduce it to a poisonous wasteland. I will cooperate. I will not embrace.” I smiled and gave him a mock applause.

  He turned away in disgust and took several steps-I wondered if he ever wore a cape; the gestures would have gone well with one. He turned back to face me. “I was hoping for better from you.” “From the enforcer of the greedy, the corrupt, and the polluter?” “You are being flip.

  Surely that cannot be your intention.” “Look, I don’t really care what you and your little band believe in. You could spend all day worshipping cucumbers and painting yourselves green, for all I care.

  That’s your right. I’m not here to swap philosophies or to measure up to your expectations. I’m here to investigate the deaths of five of your members.” “I said I’d cooperate.” “But only kind of.” “Lieutenant, I do not trust you or anyone else of your ilk. You may believe what you will about us-or me-but I have not reached my conclusions without serious contemplation. You do not impress me with your self-assessed role in all this; you have long been duped into thinking the way you do.

  You are blind to reality, even as bright as you are, which is a shame.”

  He began to walk purposefully back toward the house, clearly intending to show me the way out. “However, your societal placement allows you a certain power over me, which I must practically recognize and to which I will occasionally bow. But that’s it. Do not expect me to be awed by your office or to view your coming with anything other than dread.” We had reached the front door. He opened it wide to let me pass.

  “I guess I’ll never get to call you Ted.” He gave me a disappointed teacher’s look again. “You may call me thing you please, as long as it isn’t libelous.” I shrugged and walked away. I’d liked him better when he was wing my socks off.

  The room was stuffy-too small, with too many smokers. It rended me of Chief Brandt’s office in Brattleboro, where he and our James Dunn, dueled regularly with pipe and cigarettes as if the n who passed out last would win the debate. It was a contest I could ly rarely witness to the end. We were at the State Police barracks in St. Johnsbury, and the der of the band was Lieutenant Mel Hamilton, the local Bureau of iminal Investigation Chief. Sitting around in his small, bland office, th tiny rectangular windows irritatingly placed six feet up on the Il, were myself, Ron Potter, Dick LeMay, Steve Wirt, and a secrery. In addition, there was Anson “Apple” Appleby, from the Derby rracks upstate, and another plainclothesman whom I guessed was pple’s sidekick.

  Apple, whom I knew from his earlier career as a eputy Sheriff in Windham County-where Brattleboro is located a twenty-year State Police veteran.

  He had been called in to head e arson deaths investigation. Crofter Smith, the chilly BCI investigator LeMay told me was amilton’s Number One man, was not there. As yet, despite the pletha of questions we all had, the house burning was still being officially ted as “an accident pending the accumulation of further details.” Hamilton was obviously not a smoker, but polite-he didn’t ask yone to crush their butts. “I’m sorry we had to meet here. The nference room is tied up. Does everyone know everyone?” “Nope.” I pointed to the sidekick. “Sorry. Mike Churchill-Joe Gunther.” We waved feebly at each other.

  Hamilton sat on the corner of his metal desk. He was a tall man with a pudgy middle, a pleasant, uninteresting face and, judging from zs office decorations, a stickler for keeping things clutter-free, neat, d tidy. To me, that was not necessarily a good sign.

  “I’ve invited the SA and his investigator to sit in so they can get it straight from the horse’s mouth.” He smiled a tiny smile. “No offense.” The joke landed like a dud. Although he had Waterbury-based bosses who outranked him, as far as we were concerned, Lieutenant Hamilton was the top cop here-the State Police equivalent of Ron Potter.

  It was he who would be most influential in deciding just how smoothly things traveled between the SA’s office and the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. I was becoming worried he might be as guarded and rigid as Potter was skittish and uncertain. If he was, I’d be in a hell of a bind, dangling in between them.

  “Dick, what’s the arson report?” LeMay shifted in his seat and cleared his throat, the playful, nonstop manner he’d displayed in the burned house reduced to an official drone. “No better than yesterday-can’t prove willful and malicious.

  What we got so far from the lab shows nothing unusual: no accelerants, no misplaced matches or candles. From what we can tell, nothing of value was removed from the building prior, and nothing was there that looked out of place. There wasn’t much in there period, really.” He held out his hand and began counting off his fingers as he went.

  “There was no sign of violence except the window, which we know about.

  I didn’t get anything unusual out of the firefighters involved no suspicious smoke or flame color or noises. The spread, evolution, and speed of the fire were natural. The building didn’t have any wiring or gas lines or even plumbing, for that matter. The explosion that almost got
Joe and his pal was superheated air caught in a natural dead airspace in the attic. Turns out they ventilated the wrong place when they cut through the roof, the attic was partitioned and they entered the space that was fire-free.” He put his hands down. “The building is owned by something called The Elephant Clan, which is a corporation listed under Edward Sarris’s name. The insurance was legit for the value of the house, and PILR didn’t come up with anything when I ran Sarris, Elephant, The Elephant Clan, the Natural Order, or Jesus Christ through their computer.” Hamilton’s face tightened slightly.

  “Sorry. Anyway, the whole thing looks clean as a whistle.” “Thank you.” “What’s your gut reaction?” I asked. “I hate it.” Hamilton gave me a baleful look that wasn’t neat and tidy. But his tone was utterly neutral. “You hate what?” LeMay shifted again and flopped his hand over, palm up on his “Lot of things. The bullet, the locked door, the way that body’s g on the stove, among other things. Just doesn’t look real. I don’t w… I’m stuck with a lack of evidence, but I smell a rat.” Hamilton nodded.

  “Okay. That’s good. Appleby?” The one man who wouldn’t call him Apple.

  Still, I was pleased at way he’d accepted what LeMay had just said. I began to hope I was ing him short, maybe his mind wasn’t as restrained and unimaginaas his exterior had led me to believe.

  “We’re not getting much help from the Order on this. Churchill ed to Sarris and asked him to get his people to open up. He said wasn’t in a position to do that, gave us some crap about their dom to interact or something.” Hamilton frowned again and glanced at Churchill, but Apple n’t even pause. These weren’t his barracks; he’d be back in Derby ore too long.

  Besides, he was an old-time street cop, less inclined to id crude language, and considerably less concerned with impressing superiors.