The Catch

by Archer Mayor

  His laughter made the can shake on its perch.

  “How did things go today?” she asked.

  “Not great,” he admitted, thinking of how best to describe the unintended shooting of a prime suspect, followed by several hours of gathering near useless information from the man’s widow. “We had a lead that didn’t pan out.”

  “Still no Grega?”

  “Still no Grega,” he conceded.

  “I spoke to Steve today,” she said, her voice neutral.

  Joe had been absentmindedly gazing at the screen across the room. At that, he reached out for the remote by the bag of chips, hit the Off button, and responded, “How did that go?”

  “He was very sweet,” she said. “It had been a long time, like I said, and he felt badly about that. We talked about the family, or what’s left of it, and how we both played a role in letting things slide. He was really interested in trying to pick up some of the pieces.”

  “Great,” Joe murmured, adding support while not wanting to interrupt. He was dearly hoping this was heading somewhere he wanted to go.

  “Anyhow,” she continued, “he asked how I was, and if I was seeing anyone. One thing led to another, and I told him how you were working on a drug case in Maine, and how I’d mentioned his past involvement with Matt Mroz, or how he’d wanted to be involved, at least.”

  “That go over all right?” Joe asked.

  “Better than I thought,” she reported, still obviously relieved. “He laughed about it, and was very open. It made it easier to ask him if he might help.”

  “Did he think he could?”

  “He said he’d be happy to try, Joe. He stressed, like we thought he would, that a lot of water’s gone under the bridge, but he was willing to give you what little he had, in his words.”

  “That’s great,” Joe told her, although considering what they’d extracted from Jill Zachary, he wasn’t overly hopeful.

  “One condition, though,” Lyn added. “He’s a little insecure about meeting you one-on-one, and asked if I could be there.”

  “Sure,” Joe agreed readily. “What’s he have in mind?”

  She hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  “Would he like me to travel to wherever he is?”

  “Oh,” her voice lightened. “No, no. He saw this as a trip to Maine. He’d be like a guide—show you places he’d been, describe people he knew. He said that otherwise he wouldn’t be much use, since most everyone in the business uses either first names, street names, or fake ones.”

  Joe frowned at this, caught off guard. “I didn’t know he did much business in Maine.”

  “I didn’t, either,” she admitted. “I thought it was something he was planning to do, but it turns out that’s how he heard about Mroz in the first place. He’d been up there a bunch of times and was learning who some of the players were.”

  Given Joe’s other options, this didn’t strike him as a stretch. “I think he’s got a deal, Lyn,” he said. “I really appreciate it. Let me fly it by my handlers up here, so I don’t step on any toes, and I’ll let you know. But in any case, thank Steve a lot for me. It’s a generous offer, and much appreciated.”

  They hung up after sharing a few more exchanges on other topics, Joe enjoying the growing familiarity that was developing between them. As he stared afterward at the now blank TV set, his food all but forgotten, he mused over the serendipity that he could deepen his knowledge of her background, while maybe also advancing the case. If Chapman and Cathy Lawless were agreeable, this might be a way to shake things up from an unexpected angle.

  God knows, they were due for a break.

  CHAPTER 19

  Willy raised his eyebrows. “You saying I can’t talk to him without pissing him off?”

  Sammie cupped her cheek in her hand, her elbow resting on the arm of her chair, and smiled at him. “Maybe if you’re asking him about the weather.”

  Willy scowled. “You are so full of shit.”

  “Takes one to know one,” she answered him. “That’s my point. He’s got a reputation like yours, although, God knows, I doubt he’s in the same ballpark.”

  “I never heard of him before now.”

  “And you know for sure he’s heard of you?” she asked.

  “We’re both cops.”

  She remained silent, allowing the absurdity of his comeback to float in the air. They were sharing a motel room in South Burlington, their home-away-from-home while assigned to Mike Bradley’s office. Not that Bradley or his people necessarily knew of their relationship. It wasn’t something they hid—especially in a state that functioned like a small village—but they’d found it easier not to have to explain it to everyone. Besides, given Willy’s high profile among social dysfunctionals, all Sammie usually got for telling people about the two of them was a look of incredulity.

  “What I’m saying,” she continued, “is that I might fly under the radar better than you—avoid the whole testosterone thing you guys get going.”

  To her surprise, he suddenly capitulated, reaching for the TV remote and hitting the On switch. “Whatever,” he said sullenly.

  She watched him for a moment, sitting on the bed in his T-shirt and shorts. He was a head case—she knew that. Or, at least she understood what other people meant when they described him as such. But she also knew more—about his combat-born PTSD in the military, his struggles with alcohol, a painful divorce, and a difficult childhood in New York City. He had teetered on the edge all of his life—even losing his job with the Brattleboro police after being crippled early on, until Joe got him rehired under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

  Willy Kunkle was no prince, but he kept coming back, and despite a personality about as cuddly as a guard dog’s, he always stayed on the side of the righteous, not just regarding the job, but with her, as well. For that last attribute alone he was a rarity in her life, she who’d previously made a habit of only associating with men who kicked her in the teeth. Willy might have been a mess in many ways, but he was more loyal to her than anyone she’d ever known, which made her about the only person who understood why Gunther always went to bat for Willy, whenever his ways jeopardized his job.

  “So, we’re good?” she asked, risking his ire to make sure.

  He surprised her again, as he often did, by hitting the Mute button on the remote and smiling instead of lashing out. “Yeah, we’re good. No point putting two assholes in the same room. All we’d do is get in a pissing match. Tell me what you find out.”

  Doug Boyer lived in a trailer park somewhere between Addison and Vergennes—a sprawling, scraped-together collection of modest but maintained homes haphazardly aligned along both sides of a dirt horseshoe that backed up against a copse of second-growth trees, reminding Sammie of a pile of piglets, all lumped against their mother’s belly. Around them, the rolling hills of this part of agricultural Vermont looked exposed and faintly vulnerable—a sensation enhanced by the ominous twin mountain ranges to the distant east and west.

  Sam drove slowly past the trailers, scanning what numbers she could locate, until One Forty-eight finally drew abreast. She pulled off onto the grass and got out.

  Almost immediately, she saw a man standing by the corner of the trailer, watching her, his body half hidden, as if he expected her to open fire. She recognized him from the personnel file that she’d read at the sheriff’s office.

  “Deputy Boyer?” she asked officially.

  “You the one who called?” was his answer. He had apparently seen her approaching through the window and had come out to meet her. His manner was guarded, bordering on hostile.

  “Yeah,” she replied, holding out a hand in greeting. He shook it without enthusiasm, obviously wishing he didn’t have to.

  “What do you want?” he asked bluntly, skipping the amenities.

  “We’re looking into Brian’s death, like I told you on the phone,” she said. “I was hoping you might be able to help nail whoever did it.”

  He str
aightened slightly, as if struck by an offensive odor. “You got a tape of whoever did it.”

  Sam gave him a half smile, looking straight into his eyes. “We got a tape, but we don’t have the man on it, and we don’t know much about him.”

  “You saying Brian did?”

  She shook her head. “I am not. Right now, it just looks like Brian was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But you worked with him, spent time with him, sure knew him better than I did. I’m trying to get a sense of the man, pure and simple. For all we know, that car got itself stopped on purpose, just so those guys could whack him for some reason we know nothing about.”

  Doug Boyer raised his eyebrows. “That how you VBI guys think?”

  She kept the smile in place. “Apparently. Will you help me out?”

  “I got a choice?”

  “You don’t want to?” she shot back.

  Her meaning spoke for itself. Boyer dropped his gaze to the grass between them and snorted once. “Jesus. Our tax dollars at work.” He turned on his heel and walked around the corner of the trailer, speaking as he went. “Might as well be comfortable, if we’re gonna do this.”

  Sam followed along the length of the home to a flimsy aluminum set of stairs leading up to a narrow front door. Boyer preceded her, letting the screen door swing back and almost hit her in the head. When she got inside, she found herself in a gloomy living room/kitchen combination, lived in but not a mess, with every visible item looking purchased from a ten-year-old Kmart clearance sale. The TV was on quietly, showing a college football game.

  Boyer sat wearily on the worn couch facing the set, reached for a can of beer he’d previously abandoned on the nearby coffee table, and took a swig. He wiped his mouth with the back of the same hand and stared at her after a quick glance at the screen to check out the score. He didn’t offer her a seat or anything to drink.

  “Fire away,” he said instead.

  Sam chose a high stool at the counter that acted as a partial room divider, thinking that in retrospect, she should have let Willy handle this guy, regardless of any fireworks.

  “How well did you know Brian?” she started out.

  “I worked with him.”

  Great, she thought. “Were you friends?”

  “No.”

  “Did you dislike each other?”

  “No.”

  “When you worked together, was it ever in the same car, or did you keep your distance from each other?”

  “Sometimes one, sometimes the other.”

  “When you did ride together, did he ever open up and share personal details?”

  “Sometimes.”

  She paused to look at him carefully. He matched her scrutiny, his eyes boring into hers, daring her to take issue with his mulishness.

  She kept up her end. “What was the nature of those details?”

  “Like all cops—he’d bitch about the bitch.”

  She let that ride—too obvious a taunt. “Who was that?”

  “Kathleen Jabri. Lives in Florida now.”

  “You ever meet her?”

  “Yeah.”

  Still with the aggressive stare. Sam pondered shutting this down but realized that’s exactly what he was after.

  “What were the circumstances there?”

  “She came by the office with the kid. Something to do with child support. Good-looking woman. Nice tits.”

  “How would you rate the level of their animosity?”

  He smiled. “Ooh. Big word. They complained. They weren’t out to kill each other. It was a standard cop breakup—she hated the hours, the pay, and the company he kept; he hated her whining. They split. End of story. She ended up getting laid in the sun, and he probably ended up screwing her mother.”

  “Shirley Sherman?” she asked neutrally.

  That stopped him. He dropped the stare, glanced at the rug, pursed his lips, and then admitted, “Nah. Shirley’s good people. He just went over there to shoot the bull.”

  Sam enjoyed that. The first crack in his armor. “Brian regretted the marriage breaking up?”

  “Yeah, but he deserved it. He could’ve made it work. He just fucked it up.”

  She wondered if, in fact, Doug Boyer hadn’t been a little envious of his colleague for the latter’s choice of wives.

  “Too much the cop?” she suggested.

  He shook his head. “Stupid. This job is for people who don’t have a life. A woman like that …” he paused. When he looked up again, the anger was scaled back. “Even the kid was okay, and I hate kids. But she made him polite and quiet. He was smart, too, unlike the Old Man.”

  Boyer put the beer can back on the coffee table and wiped his palm against his jeans to dry it off.

  “But Brian was all ambition, all the time. Wore me out, listening to him.”

  “I heard he was angling to get out of the sheriff’s department,” Sam said.

  Boyer chuckled humorlessly. “He should’ve lived at the police academy for all the courses he took. He learned how to do stuff we’ll never get near in a hundred years, like rappelling out of helicopters. Jesus. Spare me.”

  “How ’bout his police work?” she asked. “Did he push the envelope there, too?”

  Boyer sat back in his couch and appraised her, the TV totally forgotten by now. His smile was wry when he asked, “So, we’re back full circle, huh?”

  She didn’t respond.

  He thought before answering. “I think so. The sheriff was comfortable with it—I heard him bragging once that Bri was a real go-getter, like he was a Labrador. But I wondered about some of the stuff he poked into.”

  “Like what?” she prompted.

  He shrugged. “Drugs. What else? He was obsessed that a big drug bust would put him on the fast track.” He spread his hands. “I mean, shit. Look around. I been a deputy for fifteen years. No wife, no kids, no overhead. This is still the best I can do. The Eliot Nesses of our world don’t come from sheriff’s departments. We’re the butt of everyone’s jokes—Deputy Dawg, you know? We stand around courthouses or transport prisoners or look like cartoon characters in uniform.” He pointed a finger at her. “Not like you guys—The VBI. The Holy of Holies—fancy badges, major crimes only, roaming the state like wannabe Feds. Guys like Brian grow an ulcer just looking at you.”

  She met this outpouring with a poker face. “What kind of drug work was he doing?” she asked.

  Boyer was comfortable matching her stride, apparently happy enough to simply vent now and then. “He didn’t tell me,” he conceded. “I was one of the enemy when it came to that stuff—somebody who’d steal the credit at the last second, as if I gave a shit.”

  He crossed his legs before adding, “No, he’d work off the clock, on his own. That was one of Kathleen’s biggest complaints—that when he did have time off, he still didn’t spend it with them.”

  “You have no idea what he was doing or who he was seeing? Was he developing snitches maybe?”

  “Partly,” Boyer conceded. “He did have a pretty good network. But he went to Burlington a lot, and to Montreal at least a couple of times. He wasn’t secretive about that, but he sure didn’t share what he was up to.”

  “But you think it was drug work.”

  “That much, he couldn’t resist talking about. I never gave it much thought, though. Brian was a jerk—you gotta keep that in mind. Yeah, he went to school a lot, and yeah, he had a wife like a centerfold, but none of it mattered. He was still a loser. He bitched too much, bragged too much, swaggered around, stepped on toes. It never surprised me that he could never bust out of this department. He was the only one who couldn’t see what was staring him in the mirror.”

  “Did other people see him that way, or is this all you?” she asked, risking Boyer’s irritation now that the interview was nearing an end.

  But the deputy was past his earlier defensiveness. His eyes widened as he told her, “Ask around. I know I’m an asshole, so you don’t have to believe me, but I don’t know anybody
who could stand the guy. Even the people he pulled over for a ticket thought he was a pain. We got complaints all the time. An ‘arrogant bully,’ was how one woman put it.” He smiled suddenly and added, “Of course, not that I’m complaining—he made me look good in comparison. Not too many do that.”

  Boyer paused and then asked, “Why did you come see me, anyway? It sure wasn’t my nice-guy reputation.”

  “You’re the department’s straight shooter, according to who we asked,” Sam told him. “A jerk,” she added, “but honest.”

  He burst out laughing. “Yeah—I guess that’s me.”

  She stood up to leave but asked one last question at the door. “You ever hear of a Vermont cop named Willy Kunkle?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Why?”

  “Friend of mine,” she admitted. “I was just wondering if you’d like each other, or kill each other.”

  He smiled and reached out for his beer again. “Who knows?”

  She thought she might.

  CHAPTER 20

  Alan leaned past his brother to peer through the wheel-house’s smeared front glass, shielding his eyes from the combined glow of the radar, the GPS, and the assortment of radio equipment clustered around the lobster boat’s wheel. It was late at night, on a calm sea, with the closest lights coming from the Maine coast on their port side, most prominently Lubec’s, identified by intermittent flashes from the West Quoddy Head light. To starboard, more distant, was the dimmer, twinkling evidence of Grand Manan Island, in Canada, the Yarmouth light on the tip of Nova Scotia beyond it having just slipped from sight. Finally, and oddest of all, twenty miles to their stern, in Cutler, there was the tight cluster of bright blinking lights—twenty-six of them, each suspended atop a one-thousand-foot antenna, all looking like a hovering flight of patiently waiting UFOs—that marked the location of the Navy’s huge low frequency radio station, the most powerful in the world.

  All of these combined served as time-honored navigational landmarks, backing up the high-tech instrumentation that was becoming routine even on the smallest of boats nowadays.