Occam's Razor

by Mayor, Archer

  We’d still be involved in the case, of course. After the arraignment, both sides would retire to their corners, build up witness lists, read each other’s mail about evidence, and jockey around for advantage. And we’d be called to help in some of that—tying off the odd loose end. But as I tucked my few belongings under my arm and headed for the door, I still felt like I’d been left on the dock to wave a ship goodbye.

  I should’ve known better.

  · · ·

  With Gail anointed the lead lawyer in the prosecution against Owen Tharp, it was deemed a bad idea to have too many of my fingerprints on the case. While not married, we were a well-known couple, a connection which had come up in court before. It was obvious baloney—the police and the state’s attorney’s office were supposed to work in tandem—but on high-profile cases like this, it was best not to give the defense any more than we had to.

  And it wasn’t as if I had nothing else to do—a point driven home as soon as I’d sat down at my desk.

  Harriet Fritter, after asking about my health and telling me to act my age, dumped a thick pile of paperwork before me and informed me Stan Katz had been in hot pursuit by phone.

  I held off calling him back for a while, digging through the pile instead—half wondering if Harriet hadn’t subversively set me up to do just that—when Ron appeared in my doorway.

  “I heard back from New Jersey on Phil Resnick—the guy we’re hoping was our dead truck driver?”

  I nodded to keep him going.

  “Well, it’s a definite hit. They sent me prints, and one of them not only matches the finger J.P. found, but Waterbury just confirmed it through their data bank. It wasn’t on AFIS, but they used some other method. That’s why it took so long—that and the fact it was only one finger.”

  “Phil Resnick,” I mused. “What else did New Jersey tell you?”

  “That he was Mob-connected. Not family himself—with that last name—but more of a freelancer.”

  “Trucking haz mat?”

  “Yup,” he confirmed, “throughout New England.”

  He handed me a grainy black-and-white facsimile of a photograph of a round-faced, ugly man, apparently trying to melt the camera lens with his eyes.

  I studied the face for a few moments. “Makes you wonder if any other department up around here ever had dealings with him.”

  Ron smiled. “I just finished putting it on the wire—every PD from Maine to upper New York State, including Massachusetts. God knows what we’ll hear back, or when, but it can’t hurt. Sounds like the guy’d been doing this for quite a while.”

  That rang two bells in my brain. “According to Bobby Miller, the only thing disturbed in Jim Reynolds’s office was a cabinet filled with old files. And Gail said a few days ago that she wouldn’t put it past one of Reynolds’s old clients to want to get even with him, especially if he’d lost their case.”

  Ron just looked at me, his eyebrows arched.

  “Do me a favor,” I asked him. “Dig through the court records, back to when Reynolds started working here, and pull anything dealing with hazardous materials, illegal trucking, Phil Resnick, environmental offenses, and anything else like it.” I checked my watch. “Who’s going to the intel meeting this morning? We might as well give them a heads up, too.”

  “I was planning to go,” he admitted, “but I don’t have anything to present. Why don’t you give them this while I start on Reynolds’s court records?”

  · · ·

  Regional police intelligence meetings were held once a month in a conference room at Rescue, Inc., the area’s primary ambulance squad. They could have been held at our department, but the theory was to give all those attending a sense of neutral ground.

  The principle behind the meetings was simple: to get as many representatives from as many diverse agencies as possible into one room every four weeks to present, update, and exchange information. Depending on the time of year, and the luck of the draw, attendees could number from as few as five to as many as twenty. They were sheriff’s deputies, federal agents, state police from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, municipal cops from any one of dozens of surrounding communities, parole and probation officers from the Department of Corrections, investigators from state’s attorney’s offices, and people from liquor enforcement, the Agency of Natural Resources, and even outfits like the National Guard. The organizations they represented ranged from departments with a few officers to the United States government, and the topics discussed from stolen tires to foreign terrorists threatening to poison whole cities. Nobody was treated differently from anybody else, and all information received equal attention. Sending a bulletin out to surrounding departments—as Ron had just done concerning Phil Resnick—was worthwhile and routine, but it was hard to beat a direct sell if you wanted to have your message clearly heard.

  Pure chance had timed the monthly meeting for today. And by going, I could stave off talking to Stan Katz that much longer.

  There were about ten of us by the time we settled down, having turned the parking lot into a convention of squad cars and suspiciously bland sedans, all sprouting antennae, and all precariously huddled next to towering eight-foot snowbanks.

  Henry Roberts of the Windham County Sheriff’s Office—polite, precise in manner, and always immaculately turned out—ran the meeting, having each of us speak in a clockwise rotation around the table while desperately keeping notes on a laptop computer.

  By the time my turn came, we’d all received Xeroxed mug shots of a check kiter, a car booster, and a welfare defrauder, had been asked to keep an eye out for a suspected coke dealer, a religious right-wing gunrunner, and a two-brother team of bunco artists, and had covered our notepads with lists of names, birth dates, known associates, license plate numbers, and vehicle descriptions.

  “Sorry I don’t have anything quite as lively as everyone else,” I began. “My suspect’s not only dead but missing a head and both hands.”

  “The railroad bum?” one of them asked.

  “Yes and no,” I answered. “We had doubts he was a bum from the start. Now we’ve found out he was a New Jersey-based truck driver with Mob connections named Philip Resnick.” I passed around copies I’d made of Ron’s fuzzy photograph. “Date of birth 4/8/51. His past accomplishments are listed below the picture. We’re pretty sure he was transporting a haz mat cocktail that he dumped at Norm Blood’s farm just before his truck broke down and he had to abandon it near Bickford’s. My first question is: Has anyone here ever seen him or heard about him?”

  There was a momentary pause around the room: “Any local connections other than Blood?” someone finally asked.

  “Not really,” I answered. “The truck was leased from Timson Long Haul near Leverett, Massachusetts, but the guy we talked to there couldn’t find his paperwork and wasn’t inclined to look. Supposedly, Resnick was just one of several people who’d leased the same rig recently, so we’re thinking Timson might be a dead end. If the Mob is tied into this, it’s unlikely they’d make it that easy for us to find them.”

  A plainclothes state trooper from Massachusetts named Peter Manning disagreed. “We’ve had dealings with Timson before,” he said. “He’s definitely crooked, but he’s also probably a pure freelancer—he’s never appeared on any of our Mafia watch lists. He makes a profit, though. Leverett’s hardly the place for a trucking company, and his place is a dump, but he keeps plugging along year after year, like he was located in downtown Boston. You want to give him a visit, I’d be happy to ride shotgun. The only thing we’ve caught him red-handed at over the years is either routine vehicle maintenance shit or some minor book cooking. But his name keeps coming up with this haz mat stuff, and I’d love to let him know we’re still watching.”

  I nodded my thanks. “You got a deal. I’ll call you in a few days.”

  · · ·

  Later, back in my office, I stared dolefully at yet another pink phone message from Katz, the latest in a stack of four. I didn�
��t know what he was after, but it didn’t really matter. It was the general predictability of our conversations I dreaded more than their actual content.

  This time, however, he surprised me.

  “You at your office?” he asked right after I’d identified myself.

  “Yeah.”

  “We have to meet—now—somewhere neutral.”

  There was an edge to his voice I’d only rarely heard before. “If by neutral you mean private, how ’bout past where Corrections hang their hats? The snowplows have a turnaround just beyond their parking lot.”

  “I’ll see you there.”

  Katz was hyperactive by nature. It had helped make him the journalist he was, which, in all fairness, was honorable—if as irritating as a canker sore. But the level of energy I’d just heard on the phone was several notches above his norm, so I set out to meet him with some real curiosity.

  The Corrections Department’s parole and probation offices occupied the basement of a flamboyantly pink office building that had once housed a chocolate factory. It was located on a flat strip of land between the high bank supporting the Putney Road and the same Retreat Meadows floodplain where Ed Renaud and I had shared our meditative chat in the fishing shanty.

  The building is almost the last structure on a dead-end road, and as I’d pointed out to Katz, the snowplows have turned the area just past its parking lot into a round amphitheater of piled-up snow, visually isolated from any neighbors but with a view of the frozen Meadows.

  As a result, when we met there ten minutes later, it looked oddly like a half-completed stage set—two cars parked in an empty, featureless half bowl of white space, faced with a seemingly flat picture-postcard image hanging before us like a drop.

  I left my car to join Katz in his—a rusting, ten-year-old Japanese pickup with chained-together cinder blocks in the back to give it traction in the snow. As soon as I’d closed the door behind me, I regretted my manners. The tiny cab stank of rancid fast food and stale cigarettes, both aggravated by an overactive heater.

  Despite the cold, I cracked my window a few inches and turned up my collar. “What’s on your mind, Stanley?”

  He sat staring out at the view for a few seconds, as if collecting his thoughts. “We’ve known each other a long time, right?”

  I didn’t bother answering.

  “And we’ve helped each other out now and then. You’ve given me stuff under the counter. I’ve sat on a story or two. I mean, all the cops-versus-press bullshit aside, we’ve always gotten along pretty well, haven’t we?”

  He expected an answer this time. And despite his being someone I’d never think of inviting over for supper, at least I couldn’t argue his basic point. “I suppose so.”

  As anemic as it was, that seemed to settle his mind. “I’m in a bit of a jam. Not a legal one.” He quickly cut me a glance. “More like an ethical one. Remember when I asked you about Jim Reynolds?”

  Again, I stayed silent, this time holding my breath. “Well, I got another anonymous call about him—a little more serious.”

  “Same guy?”

  “I couldn’t be sure. It was a man’s voice but muffled like the first one.”

  He hesitated. I filled the gap. “What did he say?”

  He twisted in his seat to look at me. “It’s pretty big, Joe, even without Reynolds being who he is and this being an election year. It’s big enough that I’m going to be digging into it like nobody’s business.”

  “You want to know what we have on him?” I guessed. “Use me to see if you might be on to something?”

  “I want to know where you stand with him first.”

  I stared at him in surprise. “Stand with him? I barely know the guy. You asking if I’d shield him?”

  My incredulity spoke for me. He looked slightly embarrassed. “I had to ask, Joe. You blew off the illegal dumping when I mentioned it. Gail does have close ties to him…”

  “Tell me what you got,” I told him angrily, “or I’m out of here.” I put my hand on the door handle, impatient with his dancing around.

  “The man on the phone said Reynolds was connected to the woman who was knifed to death.”

  That stopped me. “How?”

  “You know of no such connection?”

  I hesitated before answering, suddenly wary of what might be lurking out of sight. I decided to play it straight. “None at all.”

  “But you are checking him out?”

  I sidestepped a bit, sticking to what was already in the public record.

  There was no chance in hell I was going to tell him about the presumably bogus sighting of Reynolds’s car at the railroad tracks. “His office was broken into a while back. We are looking into that, although we have no suspects, no leads, and nothing reported stolen or missing.”

  He understood I wanted him to read between the lines there. “That must be a little delicate, poking around where you’re not invited.” He paused and then muttered, as if to himself, “I don’t remember that item being in our police blotter column.”

  “It was right up there with a barking dog complaint. The current theory is that one of our patrols scared off whoever it was before he even got inside. You said it yourself, Stan, it’s a political year—hotter’n most. Could be your caller is up to dirty tricks.”

  “Tying a candidate to a murder?” he asked, his voice rising. “Suggesting I’m being used? Who says you’re not doing the same thing right now?”

  I suddenly became resensitized to the heat and stench of the cab. I wanted to get out of this conversation. “Stan, I’m not sure what we’re doing here. I could’ve told you on the phone we have nothing linking Reynolds to Croteau’s murder.”

  “Then why are you still poking into a burglary that wasn’t? Why were you checking out Reynolds’s car at his house?”

  I rolled the window all the way down. So much for the buddy-buddy routine. “Who told you that?”

  “Never mind. I know you were there, and that Willy brought J.P.’s bag of toys with him. What were you looking for?”

  “Something that didn’t pan out.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I kept talking. “Stanley, we do a lot of things nobody ever hears about. People call us anonymously, too, you know? They tell us they saw a crime, or committed one, or know someone who did. We check ’em all out, no matter how bogus they sound—just like the one that brought us to Reynolds’s garage.”

  He pretended to look at something far out on the ice. “If it was a dead end, why don’t you tell me what it was?”

  “Because it’s not news, Stan. It’s none of your business.”

  He suddenly flared up and hit the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. “Bullshit. I get two separate calls that Reynolds is dirty, his office is broken into, I know you guys have been checking him out, and the whole town is in a tizzy with two homicides, one of which I’ve been told is linked to him. And I’m supposed to ignore that?”

  “I wouldn’t be writing any stories about it.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed heavily, finally smiling at me wearily. “That’s why I’m here, Joe. I’m not writing any stories. I want to do the right thing, not play into some game his opponents are setting up. The press gets manipulated enough as it is. I want to write the truth.”

  I opened the door to get out. “I’d help you if I could, Stan. Right now, the truth is we came up with nothing when we looked at his car, so the reasons why we did so in the first place are irrelevant. And we have absolutely nothing linking Reynolds to the Croteau killing. As Jack Derby already announced, we have a confessed suspect in custody for that, and we’re going to trial with it.”

  He rolled his own window down as I circled his hood to return to my car. “You don’t put a man’s car through the forensics wringer for a fender-bender. If Reynolds is clean on the Croteau thing, then maybe you’re trying to tie him to the bum. Is that what’s happening?”

  I considered leaving it at that, with an unstated “
no comment.” But I knew Stan too well—it would have been like pouring gasoline on an ember.

  Instead, I leaned against his door in a friendly gesture. “Look, I know you want some answers. And I know that, being who he is, Reynolds brings a lot of weight to all this. So I’m not trying to blow you off. I mean, you’re right about our scratching each other’s back now and then. It’s worked out for both of us. But we move slower than you do, Stan. We have to. You’ve got readers wanting sexy news, not state’s attorneys ready to kick your ass at the first mistake. It makes us more cautious.”

  “I wouldn’t print anything I couldn’t stand behind,” he said stiffly. “That’s why I called you.”

  “I know that. I also know you’re not going to end it here. You’re going to chase after every other source you can think of.”

  “So?” he asked.

  I held up my hand. “So great. I’m just telling you to watch out… Off the record?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  “We are looking into Reynolds, for what I won’t tell you right now. But I am smelling a rat in motion somewhere, which is what’s making me extra careful. You’re going to do what you do—you always have—but I gotta tell you: On this one, watch your step. Don’t get used.”

  I couldn’t read his expression and didn’t wait around for explanations.

  · · ·

  I stopped by Ron’s desk and waited for him to finish typing on his computer.

  “What’s up?” he asked almost immediately.

  “Remember I asked you a while back to look into Reynolds’s past?”

  “The court cases? Yeah, I got that going…”

  He was stopped by my shaking my head. “No, no. I meant earlier—anything on VIBRS or even our internal files. Any mention at all?”

  He looked at me oddly. “Couldn’t find a thing. Maybe a parking ticket or two, but that was it. Why? You got something?”

  I didn’t make a habit of withholding information from my officers, but I comforted myself this time that what I had didn’t even qualify as such—yet. “No. His name just keeps coming up. Have you had a chance to tear into Brenda’s journal—line by line?”