Occam's Razor

by Mayor, Archer

  “Right—one of them actually went through a bunch of lined-up motor-oil bottles and ended in perfect condition at the bottom of the last one. They grilled West for hours. He never fessed up about the gun. Said he tossed it out the window after the robbery. They looked, but it never showed up.”

  I took the semiautomatic from him and weighed it in my hand. “Sound familiar? Young man clamming up for someone else? How often you think we run into that outside the movies?”

  J.P. leaned against my doorframe. “Basically never—not once the deal’s on the table.”

  I returned the gun. “Where’s Mr. West now?”

  “St. Albans. I called up there to ask what kind of guy he was. They said he’s real quiet, almost repressed. A loner. I also talked to someone in the Washington County State’s Attorney’s office—they prosecuted him—and what they described sounded like something between Owen and Billy Conyer.”

  “You ask them what he was like before he got caught? Past associates, criminal history, family?”

  “Yeah. That part’s more predictable, and more like Conyer’s. But we’ll probably have to talk to some of those folks face-to-face if we want to find a connection to Walter Freund. His name doesn’t appear on the record.”

  I smiled at him, the urge to grab hold of this case coming on strong. “Why not start at the source? Let’s talk to Richie himself.”

  · · ·

  The Northwest State Correctional Facility outside St. Albans is located in a long, shallow valley, and as we approached it from a distance later the following morning, after a three-hour drive, the razor wire surrounding it gleamed and glittered in the sun, making it appear faintly otherworldly, as if some glimmering, ephemeral presence had set a halo around a collection of low red-brick buildings.

  The halo is anything but that, of course. St. Albans is one of the more heavily guarded of Vermont’s prisons, and although not maximum security by federal standards, it is close enough to house some of the worst we have to offer it.

  From the outside, though, it looks relatively benign, the wire notwithstanding. Surrounded by rolling green countryside, it is designed to look like a cross between a reform school and a nondescript housing project.

  I’d chosen Sammie Martens to accompany me, hoping the trip would give us a chance to talk. So far, all I’d gotten had been monosyllabic responses punctuated by dead silence.

  We were brought to an undersized room with a table in its middle and were soon introduced to a thin man with a shaved head and a single dark eyebrow running straight above hollowed-out, furtive eyes. He looked like his stay here had not been the best of therapies.

  We sat opposite him. “Mr. West, I’m Lieutenant Gunther. This is Sergeant Martens of the Brattleboro Police Department. We’re facing a situation back home we thought you might help us with.”

  “I never been to Brattleboro.”

  “That may be, but one of your possessions has.”

  He’d been staring at the table between us. That made him look up.

  “The gun you used during the robbery,” I explained.

  His single eyebrow dipped in the middle as he scowled in concentration.

  I continued. “We had to kill a man who came out shooting at us. The gun in his hand was the same one you had that night at the gas station—the one you claimed you threw out the window.”

  He sat back in his chair and allowed a half smile. “I guess those things happen.”

  “Especially if the same man supplied the same gun to both of you. Where did you get that gun, Mr. West?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “How’re they treating you in here?”

  His eyes narrowed at the sudden change of subjects. “Like shit.”

  “Reason I ask is that if the powers that be are told the right things, they might start thinking you supplied the weapon that was used in the attempted murder of a police officer.”

  He looked outraged. “You can’t stick me with that. I threw it out the window.”

  I pretended to check the contents of a folder I’d brought in with me. “So you said. You also said you didn’t commit the robbery, were nowhere near the gas station that night, and a bunch of other bullshit. You’ve got zero credibility here, Richie. Basically, if we hand this over to the prosecutor, you’re screwed, and your stay here gets extended God knows how much longer. Aiding and abetting an attempted murder.”

  He scratched his forehead. “I didn’tdo anything.”

  “You did, though,” I corrected him. “You gave the gun to Walter Freund after you ripped off that gas station, and he gave it to the guy we had to kill. It’s a direct link, Richie, A, B, C. Simple as that. You hear what happened to Walter, by the way?”

  He fell for it, much to my relief. “What?”

  “He’s on the lam. We nailed him on two homicides, and now the U.S. Marshals are hot on his heels. He’s going up for more time than he’s got years left in him. You might as well forget he ever existed.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  I pulled a copy of the Reformer’s front page out of the folder. “Guess you don’t watch TV,” I said, having already been told of his habits, and slid the article across to him.

  He picked it up, read the headline about Freund and stared at the picture, then let it drop back onto the tabletop. He looked crestfallen.

  “It’s over, Richie. He won’t be there to help you when you get out—in fact, he used that gun to give you one last poke in the gut. Unless,” I said, “you start getting chatty. After all, the opposite can be true about my talking to someone. Help us out, and maybe life can be made a little better for you in here.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You gave the gun to Walter, right?”

  “Yeah.” His voice was a monotone.

  “You know, Richie, if it’s any comfort, you’re not alone. You might even be the lucky one. Walter set up two other people we know of. Now one of them’s dead and the other’s looking at worse time than you are, for helping kill a woman and her baby. Walter may have seemed like your only friend back then, but he was in it purely for himself.”

  “You’re just seeing one side.”

  I didn’t argue. He’d lost enough already. “I know. We don’t always have a choice. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it got you in here, and I’ll make sure to tell the SA if you help us today. Parole comes up soon.”

  He looked vaguely hopeful. “Thanks.”

  “Tell me something,” I added conversationally. “Where were you and Walter hanging out when you got nabbed?”

  “Around Barre. I was working at Thunder Road the summer we met. He had a job there, too.”

  Thunder Road was Vermont’s only paved stock car track—a quarter-mile oval placed in a bowl on the side of a mountain with an incredible view—and a magnet to locals born to the car culture. My brother Leo had driven there years ago, with me cheering him on from the pits.

  “Boy,” I said, “there’s a name from the past. I used to go up there all the time. Were you working with a crew?”

  The first signs of life stirred as his eyes lit up. “Yeah. I drove, too—street stocks.”

  “No shit? That’s great. Who’d you work for?”

  “Danny Mullen. He was into late models, but he had a street stock he let us run—a Toyota pickup. Wasn’t much to look at, but moved like a raped ape.”

  I fought to contain my own excitement and not let him see the importance of what he’d just said. “That’s great. They’re on today, aren’t they? Every Thursday? Wonder if Danny’s still involved.”

  Richie West was by now almost totally relaxed. “You kidding? He’s like addicted to it. He’d have to be dead to miss a race.”

  I got up, leaned over, and shook his hand, more grateful then he realized. “Maybe you can join him back up there before too long. I want to thank you for being straight with us, Rich. Try to keep your nose clean.”

  Sammie Martens was prodded out of her silence as w
e walked down the hall, heading back toward the parking lot. “Danny Mullen—that any relation to the speaker of the House?”

  I gave her a broad smile. “His brother.”

  28

  THE RETURN DRIVE FROM ST. ALBANS was as animated as its counterpart had been glum. From being virtually mute, Sammie was almost back to her old self again, as stimulated as I was by the unexpected mention of Danny Mullen’s name.

  “What a weird twist,” she said once we’d regained the interstate. “How do you think Danny connects to all this?”

  “Maybe not at all,” I had to admit.

  “You saying it’s a coincidence?” Her voice was incredulous. “Pinning Resnick’s death on Reynolds would’ve directly benefited Mark Mullen. Danny probably told his brother to use Walter for the job. I mean, look at the sequence: Mark Mullen’s coming off the peak of his game—running out of time to become governor. If he doesn’t move now, when Howell’s retiring on his own, he’ll not only lose his best shot at that job but probably the speakership, too, since his support’s eroding fast. Then all of a sudden, Reynolds pops up as heir apparent, complete with headline-grabbing bill. No wonder things escalated from a screwed-up break-in, to a rumor campaign, to finally pinning a murder rap on the guy. Mullen must’ve been desperate.”

  “He didn’t seem desperate when I met him,” I said. “And he doesn’t look in bad shape now, just using old-fashioned politics. The Reynolds Bill is dead, his version of it is gaining more and more acceptance, and he’s rising in the polls. If anything, the rumor-mongering and the klutzy murder frame helped Reynolds early on. He started running out of gas after they’d been proven false.”

  Sammie was so worked up she was almost bouncing in her seat. “That’s the way things turned out, maybe, but the Mullens didn’t know that at the time. You’re not just going to write off Danny’s involvement, are you?”

  “No. But I’m not going to jump to the conclusion that the speaker of the House murdered some truck driver to get the drop on a political opponent. What Richie West told us is definitely interesting and needs chasing down, but you’ve got to admit, we’re going to have to work to make a case out of it.”

  Sammie crash-dived into her previous mood, staring out the side window without uttering a word.

  “You ever been to a racetrack before?” I asked, hoping to bring her back.

  “No.”

  “Thunder Road’s right on the way. We could make it a cultural experience.”

  She turned and looked at me, smiling slightly. “You think Mullen’ll be there?”

  “You heard the man—he never misses a race. Maybe he’d be up for a little chat.”

  · · ·

  Thunder Road is located in the hills above Barre, covering one hundred and sixty acres. It represents a Vermont never seen in the tourist brochures and yet captures better than most the true essence of the state. It is an irony that Vermont is so well-known for skiing the locals can’t afford, maple sugar they have to sell, and photo-op cows that have all but disappeared. In fact, Vermont is a blue-collar state, only minimally agricultural, marked by marginal incomes, low education investment, small manufacturing, and heavy welfare rolls. Unemployment isn’t too bad, but the kinds of jobs those numbers represent are not the stuff of careers. When Vermonters are asked what they do for a living, more often than not they answer, “Everything.”

  Thunder Road was made for them, and it is fitting that it sits above a hardscrabble, working-class, melting-pot town built around the extraction of granite from the surrounding mountains. Stock car racing really boomed in Vermont following World War Two, when energy, optimism, and access to cars were suddenly rampant. There were some eighteen tracks in the state back then, creating a gypsy-like aura of tough, hard-driving, independent, family-supported racers who wandered from event to event, putting up with brutal, primitive, often dangerous conditions, all for the thrill of a near-death experience, a resurgence of the camaraderie born in battle, and a few bucks in winnings. It quickly became a tradition passed from father to son—and lately, to daughter.

  It also became a financial phenomenon the locals couldn’t exploit. Before long, the southern states had taken over the sport, using more money, better PR, and far better year-round weather to transform a madcap backfield pastime into a multimillion-dollar national passion.

  Nowadays, there are just three racetracks in Vermont, two of them dirt. Thunder Road is the best of a small bunch.

  It is also unassuming. Driving into one of the several grass parking lots, hunting for an open slot, I was struck once again by the small footprint the track made on its surroundings. The few buildings—housing ticket sellers, food concessions, announcers, and the like—were modest wooden structures built of plywood and two-by-fours. The track itself was paved, as were the access roads and the pit area, but they were all hemmed in by woods, fields, and grassy hills instead of any commercialized development. And the stands—a spread of concrete steps reminiscent of an ancient Greek amphitheater—were set into the flank of a steep grassy slope running the length of one side of the track. The total effect was more reminiscent of a semipermanent community picnic site than of a forty-year-old institution visited by up to five thousand spectators per night.

  But that rural quaintness was visual only. To the ear, there was no mistaking what the enterprise was all about. Sam and I got there late, as the light was beginning to fade, and the races had been running for several hours. The air reverberated with the scream of high-test engines, the squeal of tires, and the rattle-and-pop of other cars waiting in line for the next event. The breeze over the parking lot was thick with the acrid smell of burnt rubber and exhaust. Sammie and I walked to the entrance gate and showed our shields to the ticket-taker.

  “Is Danny Mullen around tonight?” I asked.

  She smiled brightly, seemingly unfazed by our identities. “Yup. Never misses a night. You’ll have to find him yourselves, though. God knows where he’s at. Unless you want to use the PA.”

  “No, no,” I quickly answered. “He’s not racing?”

  “He pretty much gave that up. He’s got a team, though. You could ask them—they’re parked with the other late models, up against the hill.”

  “Walter Freund around, too?” Sammie asked suddenly.

  The woman looked at us blankly. “He a driver?”

  Sam shook her head. “Never mind.”

  As we followed the edge of the access road leading to the pit area, I asked her, “You think Walter’s here?”

  “Not really. Just thought I’d ask. What did she mean by ‘late models’?”

  “They race three classes of car here: street stocks, which are four-cylinder jobs mostly run by local teenagers. Intermediates, which they call ‘Flying Tigers,’ I guess from World War Two days—they’re a little pricier and have some high-end equipment on them—and the late models. They’re what you see on TV. They come from all over, travel the country in special enclosed trailers, do about forty races a year, and basically try to make a living at it. They start at around twenty-five thousand dollars and have full support teams. When I used to help my brother Leo try to commit suicide this way, it was all pretty crude—no brakes, no rules, no floorboards, and some chicken wire to stop you from flying into the woods. Nowadays they use computers to calculate the jacking bolts, suspension, fuel loads. It’s all geometry and physics, and they fool with it nonstop, all night long. Not the street stocks, though,” I added, as we passed several of them being worked on by their youthful tenders. “They’re pretty much reduced to playing with tire pressure.” I pointed ahead. “Those are the ones I was talking about.”

  We were approaching a long line of large, enclosed, low-slung trailers, their gaping mouths looking like whales poised to swallow the cars crouching before them. Under an assortment of colorful flags advertising STP, Chevrolet, NAPA, and others, groups of men and women in overalls scurried around the cars. Several of them had radios clipped to their belts, with wires runni
ng to headsets slung around their necks.

  Sammie nodded toward one of them as he jogged by. “What’s with the radios?” A sense of intense purpose was palpable all around us. Everyone was serious and focused, with minimal laughing or joking. To our right, barred from sight by the embankment holding the curve, the racetrack emitted an undulating high-pitched howling.

  “Each of the drivers is connected to a spotter. As the cars go around the track, the spotters tell the drivers who’s ahead, whether they’re clear to cut back into line, and other things the driver can’t really tell. They’re moving at eighty-five miles an hour sometimes—twelve seconds every lap. Takes concentration. Here’s Mullen’s car.”

  We stopped before a dark blue car bedecked with advertisements, its flimsy hood open to reveal a huge engine unlike anything available in a normal car. The steering wheel had been removed to allow easier access for the driver.

  This time, I didn’t show my shield to the young woman coming out of the trailer with a tool in her hand. “Danny around?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Up in the stands somewhere.”

  We walked along the rows of cars to a chain-link fence enclosing the concrete stands mounted into the hillside. A white-haired deputy sheriff stood by the open gate.

  “Hey, Rob,” I greeted him as we drew near. “How you been?”

  His craggy face split into a wide smile. “Joe, by God. Haven’t seen you in years. How you been? How’s Leo?”

  “He’s fine. Still cutting meat over in Thetford, living with our mom.” I introduced him to Sammie and asked if he’d seen Danny Mullen. He directed us to the upper reaches of the stands.

  We climbed the paved path bordering the stands, shading our eyes against the floodlights above the crowd. The higher we got, the more the track dropped away below us, until we could see the entire layout, strung with bare bulbs, circled again and again by a mad pack of jostling race cars filling the air with their screaming. The two curves of the track were nicknamed the Launching Pad and the Widow Maker, and as each car approached either one or the other, I remembered various accidents I’d seen here over the years—miraculously none of them fatal.