Death Across the Lake

by Lyle Hightower

  I wanted to see if I could find anything that might explain how he’d gotten involved in this in the first place. I wondered if he’d spoken to Andrew Hensley at the hotel. Hensley was on the executive Peck no longer trusted. I also thought it was awfully convenient that Reinhold had started work only a few weeks before Peck was due to stay at the hotel.

  When I got to his apartment nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The door was locked. I forced my way in and found the place in the exact same state of disarray it had been in when I first came to see him. There were clothes everywhere, leftovers of various meals. I dug around in his drawers and quickly found the cash he’d presumably been given, a small wad of New York State and Free Republic Dollars, significantly more than the four New York dollars he’d claimed to have been given.

  I looked around in the kitchen. He had a microwave. It looked like it was in good shape, but a working microwave is a rare thing. I’ve only seen a handful in my adult life, maybe ten or fifteen. I’ve certainly seen a lot of broken ones. It’s the magnetron. Once that goes, there’s nothing to be done, and I don’t know of anyone in the state, scratch that, the whole Northeast who makes them.

  Turned out this was was no exception. It was plugged in, but the buttons didn’t do anything. I looked inside and found that the bottom panel was loose. Taking that out, I found more cash, and some papers.

  The cash was all in Vermont Free Republic dollars, large denominations, in a nice bundle. The papers were the birth certificate of a William Smith, and a membership card to the Catfish Club, one of those swanky places in the South End, with a photo of Willy Reinhold, named Smith on the card, and a very toney Oakledge Drive address.

  Willy Reinhold was William Smith, and he might in fact have been a very wealthy young man.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was the hotel manager who put things together for me. I went to visit him the morning of the following day.

  “I never knew exactly what their relation to each other was. They were family, of course, and it was at Mr. Smith’s insistence that I hired him as the night clerk, but we never spoke about it subsequently. I was made to understand that regardless as to his performance, I was to ‘make it work’. I forgot all about it, to be honest. I assumed he had had problems with the law, or drugs. You know how dissolute these rich kids can be, all the money in the world and nothing to spend it on.”

  I did know. More than a few times I’d arrested one of them after some prank had gone wrong, or they’d gotten into a drunken brawl down by the waterfront that had ended badly. Their parents had made a killing in some shady racket or another, and lived up on the hill or in the far South End by the lake. They were hard to control, as they knew there were no real consequences to their actions.

  So that was how I found myself walking up the hill along Pearl Street to the mansion of the owner of the Smith House Hotel, a Mr. Harry Smith. I’d never heard of him. There were a few of them in the town, rich enough from whatever it had been they made their fortune at that they could live in relative extravagance in their mansions, with private security, none of us regular townsfolk knowing who they were or what they looked like. There couldn’t have been more than a half dozen of these brahmin families in town, a few dozen in the entire state. They lived in a different world, one that was unseen, indeed unseeable, by the rest of us.

  In the years after the troubles it was considered poor form to be too much richer than your neighbor. There was barely anything to go around, so hoarding was actively discouraged. Still is, really. But as things were rebuilt and trade with the surrounding region growing again, it was inevitable that some people would do better than others. The same attitudes that made them want to keep their wealth from view meant that they didn’t actively involve themselves in civic life either. Surely they had influence, but it was invisible and distant.

  When I got to the address the hotel manager had sent me I was surprised at how small the house looked. It was a gingerbread victorian, with chipped paint and and a broken white picket fence. The only thing that stood out as expensive about the place was the door, a recently refinished heavy oak thing, and the doorknob, which looked like it must have weighed twenty pounds.

  I used the knocker, and not long after I heard a scratching sound as the peephole was opened. I held up my badge, and heard various unlocking sounds. The door swung open slightly, and a deep voice bade me come in. I found myself in a narrow wood-panelled and carpeted corridor, greeted by a man in a dark three-piece suit, a very fancy antique-looking thing.

  “You are police? May I look at your identification again?”

  I let him see my badge again.

  “Mr. Bailey, what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I’m here to speak to Mr. Smith.”

  “Mr. Smith is not available at the moment. Can I take a message?”

  “Well now, I really think he’s going to want to see me.”

  “As I said, he is not available.”

  I could see this was going to be irritating. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck were standing up in that way they do when I feel like I’m in danger, or when I feel like I’m being led around by the nose.

  “It’s about a family member, so I really think he’s going to want to hear it from me, as opposed to out on the street.”

  “Mr. Smith rarely ventures out into the street, so I don’t think that will be a problem. Good day sir. Please do come back some other time, when Mr. Smith is not so indisposed.”

  I could see this wasn’t going to work. I drew my gun and pointed it at him.

  “Put your hands up where I can see them, and back away, slowly.”

  He didn’t look like the fighting type, but you never knew what you were getting with these wealthy types and their people. Their serving staff were often tactically trained, though if this guy was, he wasn’t showing it. I took out my handcuffs, took a careful step towards him, and cuffed his wrist to the radiator he was standing next to. He made a faint, defeated sound of protest and I walked past him to the end of the corridor, holstering my gun as I opened it.

  I was not prepared for the space that opened up in front of me. Two grand staircases swept up away from where I stood, and the entire space was carpeted with enormous Persian rugs, of the kind I’d only ever seen in photographs. They were worn, but undeniably the real thing. A chandelier hung in the air, and above that, a skylight in stained glass, though not much light came through it. The space was dark, and lit by sconce lights on the walls. Two large men in cheap looking modern suits walked towards me, one of them holding his hand up towards me, almost as a warning.

  “What are you doing here? Where is Mr. Smith’s butler.”

  “He’s back there,” I said, and held up my badge. “Detective Bailey, B.P.D.”

  “You have no jurisdiction here,” he said.

  “Is that so? I’d like to see you argue that in front of a mayor’s tribunal, but then something tells me you’re not a lawyer.”

  He snarled at me, but before he could say or do anything else, I cut him off.

  “I’m not here to arrest anyone. I have information about a relative of Mr. Smith’s that I think he’ll want to know.”

  “Whatever it is, you can tell me, and I’ll relay the message.”

  “He’s not going to want to be the second person to find out about this.”

  “It’s alright Benson. I always have time for representatives of our town’s police force,” said a voice to my right. It was a largish middle aged man, and he was coming down one of the staircases.

  “Detective Bailey?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, holding out his hand. I shook it. “Where’s my butler?”

  “He’s stuck in your vestibule. Here,” I said, handing the keys to my handcuffs to Benson. “I’ll retrieve them on my way out.”

  “Come, Detective. Let’s have a drink, and we can talk about whatever it is that’s on your mind. This way.”

>   He led me through a dark hallway under the stairs and into a bright, well lit area. After my eyes adjusted I could see that it was a solarium. It was full of plants, and the air was hot and humid.

  “Please excuse the heat. It’s for the plants. I find it a bit much, but I like the plants. They relax me, so the physical discomfort is worth it. And please excuse the rudeness of my staff. I can’t be too careful. We can’t let just anyone in off the street. It’s dangerous trying to be anonymous these days.”

  The solarium looked out over a large lawn. It went on quite a ways, but I could see that at the far end it was fenced in with high barbed wire-topped concrete fences carefully camouflaged with creeping vines. It was an altogether pleasant, if somewhat sinister scene.

  “What is it you wanted to talk about,” he asked.

  “Well, there’s no easy way to say this, but Willy Reinhold is dead.”

  He flinched slightly when I said this, but his face quickly recomposed itself. His expression was completely blank.

  “The desk clerk, Mr. Smith, the night shift at the Smith House.”

  “Oh, oh dear,” he said. “What happened?”

  “It looks like he killed himself.” Technically this wasn’t a lie. That is what it had looked like.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He was an accessory to a murder, Mr. Smith, the one that took place at your hotel. We took him into custody, and shortly after that he hung himself in his cell.”

  “The fool,” he said, with what looked like genuine anger.

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’m sure it wasn’t worth dying over, that’s all. In any case, thank you for telling me.”

  “Well, I do have a few questions about him.”

  Smith looked nonplussed.

  “I’m sure I don’t know much about him.”

  “Why was he sometimes using the name William Smith?” I asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know. You say he was an accessory to murder, could he have been using my name in some kind of confidence game?”

  “Were you aware that Irving Peck was staying at your hotel?” I asked.

  “No, I wasn’t, until the hotel manager called me this morning. I’d never heard of the man before today. You must understand, Detective, that I really can’t mix with the townsfolk. It’s too dangerous for a man in my position.”

  “I can see that. Do you worry about your position? About being able to hold on to all of this?”

  “That’s a rather presumptuous question. I don’t think I want to answer it.”

  “Do you have any relatives in town, Mr. Smith.”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

  “So you’re all alone?”

  “My wife lives here, with me, and our two children.”

  “And where are they now?”

  “My wife is asleep. My children are on an outing with their tutor.”

  “Really, you let them out of this fortress?”

  “No one knows who they are and they’re escorted by my own security staff. Nothing will happen to them, though I appreciate your concern.”

  “So no other relatives? No siblings? Any illegitimate children? Any deadbeat nieces or nephews?”

  This was the last straw.

  “Please, Mr. Bailey, enough. I’m not going to answer any more questions if you take that tone with me. I ought to come down to your work and complain to your boss. Does he still work there, or have the lunatics,” he said, gesturing towards me, “taken over the asylum?”

  “Chief is still hammering away at it, and I’m sure he’d clean my mouth out with soap if he heard me talking to you like this. He’d also give me a pat on the back and buy me a cup of coffee. Thanks for your time.”

  He showed me wordlessly back out into the main entrance hall. The butler was standing there.

  “Randolph, show Mr. Bailey out, and please, in future, don’t let him back in.”

  When in doubt, deny. I could dig around, look for a relative for Willy Reinhold, née Smith, but I didn’t need to. I knew what I needed to know. Harry Smith had put a nephew or lesser relation of some sort in charge of the night desk, conveniently just before Irving Peck was to have stayed there. I was also certain that if I looked at the hotel’s records, Peck’s reservation would have been made just before Reinhold was hired. One day, a few weeks ago, as Irving Peck brought in some crops, or stopped in at a local blacksmith to get a plow fixed, and before leaving town, he would have made a reservation at the hotel for the date of the meeting. It would have been probably the only time in his life that he would have stayed at a hotel. Most people don’t get to experience that. He would only have agreed at the insistence of his fellow farmers, that it was unbecoming the president of their union that he stay at some poor relative’s house. He would have reluctantly agreed, and made the reservation early, but this would have alerted enemies he didn’t even know he had that he was going to be there.

  What I didn’t understand was why Harry Smith would care. He had some horse in this race, and understanding what horse that was would make the whole thing make sense. But Harry Smith lived in a world I knew next to nothing about. His class lived separately, were secretive, part of a shadow world that seemed largely unaffected by what went on in our world, the world the rest of us lived in.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was sheer chaos at the office when I got back. I thought over my short, unpleasant meeting with Harry Smith on the walk back, trying to figure out a way to fill in the missing details of his involvement in this affair, to understand the why and the how, but all of that went out the window the second I walked in to the station house. Molly was at the desk, but as opposed to the clerical work and thumb twiddling the duty officer usually did, she was cleaning an automatic rifle. I asked her what she was doing.

  “You’d better get upstairs. Minutemen on the move, north of town.”

  I ran up the stairs. Chief was in the briefing room, yelling orders at the uniforms that were there, ordering some to retrieve the others, as well as anyone who was off duty.

  “Bailey, we’ve got trouble. The sheriff in Colchester radio’d in at least five platoons along the highway, coming from the island. They’ll be at the north end in two hours or so, if they keep marching. I’m mobilizing our people here, but between us, and the town militia, that’s only about seventy people, and we’re the only ones who are armed.”

  Just then, the librarian walked in.

  “What are you doing here?” Chief asked.

  “I received a report that Minutemen were on the move on the north highway.”

  “How did you know that?” he asked. “Oh, right,” he said. “I won’t ask. Have you heard any reports of other troop movements?”

  “No, they’re still dug in to the south and east.”

  The uniforms, McHale, McMurtry, Velasquez, the others, were all checking their guns, loading magazines, putting on their old, threadbare flak-jackets. Chief had us retreat to his office, where he already had a map of the city and surrounding area laid out on his desk.

  “We can set up a perimeter here,” Chief said, pointing to the north end of the city. “They’ll have advance vehicles there soon, but they wouldn’t be more than a few pickup trucks, maybe with mounted machine guns, and a dozen or so Minutemen troops. We’d still be able to set up a forward position.

  “No, we can’t hold that line,” Irene said. “As soon as the rest of their troops arrive, we’ll be overrun. They’ve got at least two hundred well armed soldiers, with mortars, automatic weapons, and machine guns. We have a dozen cops, a few dozen townspeople armed with ancient, broken down hunting rifles and hand guns.”

  “Well what do you suggest we do?” Chief said.

  “Their base of operations is on the island. I know this because of Navy reconnaissance reports,” Irene said.

  The ‘Navy’, or Lake Forces of the Free Republic of the Green Mountains was two converted yachts and a few dinghies, manned by the
police out of North Hero, the next island up the chain on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain. They were called this out of politeness, but they were as much a navy as I was a hot air balloon.

  “They don’t have any other supply lines, and if we can cut off their retreat, there’s a chance they’ll panic. They’re still precarious. At that point they’ll either scatter to the north, and east, or they’ll try to charge forward and get across the bridge at Winooski.”

  “What are you suggesting?” I said.

  “Someone sneaks behind their lines and destroys the bridge from the island, and we wire up the Winooski bridge and blow it up if they try to cross. The whole point of these manoeuvres is so they can be in position to catch us once they launch an offensive from the south. If we don’t do something, we’ll be boxed in. This is our only chance to preserve a route out of the city, and maybe buy us some time.”

  Chief exhaled loudly. “And who’s going to do that?” he asked.

  “Me,” she said.

  “And what happens if you’re caught?”

  “I won’t get caught. And if I do, I can take care of myself.”

  “Can you handle this alone?”

  “Send Bailey with me,” she said.

  As much as I was skeptical of the plan’s chances of success, I didn’t see any other options.

  “Alright, I’m in,” I said. Chief didn’t look too happy, but he sighed, and acquiesced.

  “See if you can find what you need in the supply room. Bailey has the keys to the explosives locker. There isn’t much, but hopefully it’ll be enough to blow the bridge.”

  “That’s okay, Chief, I’ve got my own tactical supply. You save yours for the Winooski bridge, should it be necessary,” she said.

  “Of course you have your own explosives. I should have known.”

  Irene went back to the library to dig around in some secret sub-basement where she kept a supply of demolition gear provided by her employers, the State Troopers. Where it came from, who knows. There aren’t that many sources of explosives these days, just like there aren’t many makers of bullets and other ammunition. We supplied the B.P.D. however we could; local small-scale manufacturers, men and women who worked out of their homes making ordinance, out of state suppliers, new old stock. A lot of it came from Canada, where there was still some of the large scale industrial infrastructure needed to make these kinds of things, infrastructure we still lacked, and probably never had in Vermont in the first place. Most of it was brought in by smugglers across the Canadian border.