The Price of Malice

by Archer Mayor

  But the fragile shell of tradition had been smashed for Lyn, leaving only questions, doubts, and a nagging disillusionment. Joe might have been only the proverbial messenger in the affair, but he was taking the full brunt of an untold quantity of baggage that she was choosing to keep to herself.

  As a result, although they were now both living and working in Brattleboro—she as a bar owner, and he as the field force commander of the VBI—they hadn’t spoken or seen each other for over two weeks.

  Joe hated it. His age alone put him at the top of his profession’s food chain. Most of his police academy classmates had long ago retired and a couple had died. He had witnessed much of what life had to deliver—the bloody chaos of combat, a young wife taken by cancer, a career of dealing with the destructive impulsiveness of a violent and selfish species. He had resisted becoming a hard man, but he had certainly become an experienced one.

  All of which helped him resent the hell out of now feeling like a jilted teenager.

  He blinked and refocused on the remains of Wayne Castine, struck by the absurdity of even thinking about such things, here and now.

  Time to get a grip.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Joe paused at the emergency-room reception window at Brattleboro’s Memorial Hospital and waved to the white-haired nurse on the other side of the glass.

  He leaned over so that his mouth was near the slot. “Hey, Elizabeth. Haven’t you retired yet?”

  Elizabeth Pace looked up and smiled broadly. “You old goat. You should talk. At least I tried it once—did you know that? Lasted about three weeks.”

  She hit the electronic button opening the sliding-glass door into the ER, and swiveled her chair to face him as he stopped at her counter.

  “That’s a little friendlier,” she said, reaching up for an awkward hug.

  He patted her shoulder and kissed her cheek. “You must have maxed out your retirement years ago,” he said.

  She laughed. “Six, to be exact. I think I’m working for thirty cents an hour by now. You, too?”

  He shrugged. “Something like that. I don’t bother counting.”

  She shook her head. “Warhorses. What a breed. I’ll take a wild guess and say you’re here to interview Ms. Babbitt.”

  “I am. How’s she doing?”

  “Better now. She was pretty worked up when they brought her in. Is the scene as bad as she’s saying?”

  Joe grimaced. “Maybe worse.”

  Elizabeth’s face saddened. “What a shame. The things we do. Take a left at the corner, Joe, second room on the right. We thought we’d give her a little privacy.”

  Joe pushed himself away from the counter. “Thanks. She been medicated with anything?”

  “Amounts to a sugar pill, really. Nothing that’ll get in your way.”

  Joe thanked her again and walked down the short hallway, following her directions. He had ambivalent emotions about this hospital—what the locals called BMH—despite the fact that the town’s small population and his own familiarity with it virtually guaranteed that he could have found ten other friends on this floor alone.

  But his wife, Ellen, had died here of cancer, decades ago, when his career as a cop had barely begun. His youthful sense of invincibility had undergone daily batterings entering a building that had come to embody a shrine for the dying. He respected the people working here, knew that Ellen got the best care possible, and had been coming here himself ever since, for any number of reasons. But like a well-trained Pavlovian dog, he’d never forgotten the place’s initial role in his life, and it always made him uneasy.

  He reached the door in question, knocked quietly, and pushed it open slowly, allowing whoever was behind it time to adjust for a visitor.

  At first sight, Liz Babbitt struck him as more caricature than human being, especially in the ER’s sterile, starkly mechanical setting.

  Her eyes were red-rimmed and heavily made-up, a steel stud gleamed against one nostril, her hair was teased, carefully chaotic, and dusted with something sparkly, and her emaciated, nervous body was clad in a garish mismatch of tight-fitting, exotic, borderline punk evening wear. She was bright and angular and a little bit wild, and—in this monochromatic environment—struck him as a hapless, endangered life-form, en route to some awaiting nature preserve.

  “Ms. Babbitt?” he asked, his voice soft.

  She nodded once, quickly, the gesture matching the furtive look.

  She was sitting on a chair against the wall, her thin legs stuck out at contrasting angles, her arms crossed tightly across her narrow chest.

  He perched on the gurney in the tiny room’s center. Behind them, beyond the closed door, the phone was ringing on Elizabeth Pace’s desk.

  “My name’s Joe Gunther,” he told her. “I’m one of the police officers investigating what you found last night.”

  She nodded again, her eyes still glued to his.

  “Before we get into that, though,” he continued, “I wanted to know if you’re okay. It must’ve been a huge shock.”

  “Fucking nightmare,” she said shortly and without emphasis.

  His turn to nod. “I bet. I hear they gave you something that should help a little.”

  “Yeah—like totally useless. Like, I mean: nothing. You know?”

  “Still, you seem a little better.”

  “No thanks to them.”

  She was in her mid-forties, which he knew from his research, but while her language said she was far younger, her face was ten years older. He imagined that when it came to drugs, she knew her way around.

  “I was told you haven’t lived in that apartment long.”

  “A few weeks.”

  “And you’ve never heard of the dead man?”

  “No way.”

  “Are you from around here originally, Liz?”

  “Who cares?”

  He smiled slightly. “I do. I like to know who I’m talking with.”

  “Syracuse.”

  “What’s your birth date?”

  She told him, with the bored ease of someone who’d been asked that question by a lot of cops. Sadly, Gunther had met nine-year-old kids with the same facility. Willy and Sam had mentioned her recent past; Joe had subsequently read up on a misspent youth in New York State. Liz was no heavy hitter, but she’d been paying her dues on the fringes for a long time.

  “What brought you to this area?”

  She smiled without humor. “What else? Some guy.”

  “Guess that didn’t work out,” Joe suggested sympathetically.

  “Shit. When does it ever?”

  “That’s gotta be tough, knocking around, looking for the right fit.”

  She dropped her stare for the first time and looked at the floor for a moment. “I don’t give a shit anymore. I take it as it comes.”

  Willy had commented earlier, embellishing Ron’s less florid report, that this woman had “more handprints on her than a doorknob.” It was becoming evident to Joe that Liz might have accepted the description, which, to him, amounted to the most poignant aspect about her.

  “I know you already talked to the other officer, Liz, but could you tell me what happened last night?”

  She hitched her shoulders in her quick, birdlike fashion, eyes back on him. “Nothing to tell. I got home, walked in, and found . . . it.”

  “Did you see anyone on your way into the house or going up the stairs?”

  “No.”

  “About what time was this?”

  “I don’t know—three or four.”

  “And you called 911 right away?”

  “I think so. I ran outside first.”

  This matched what he’d heard, and what he’d listened to on the 911 tape.

  “What had you been doing before that?”

  Her face hardened. “Getting drunk and laid. Is that any of your business?”

  Joe gave her a pleasant smile and shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Maybe not, but I have to ask.”

  “Why?”r />
  “What if someone wanted to get you in trouble? Distract you while this was happening at your apartment, and then saddle you with the fallout?”

  Her eyes grew round. “You’re shitting me. Is that what happened?”

  Joe shook his head. “Not that I know of. But weirder things do all the time. That’s all I’m saying.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment before conceding, “Okay.”

  “So,” he repeated, “how did you spend your evening?”

  She took one long, black-painted fingernail and daintily scratched her forehead. “I don’t remember everything. I know I was at Kelly’s for a while, then The Purple Mountain, or maybe it was the other way around. I went to some guy’s apartment with a bunch of other people.”

  “You remember the address, or any names?”

  She looked exasperated. “Right. Names. Bob, Bill, Frank, whatever. Like I know or care. I think the apartment was on Canal, not real far from the Sportsmen’s.”

  “You drink a lot?”

  “I always drink a lot,” she said aggressively, hard again.

  He returned it in kind. “You said you had sex.”

  “Yeah, in some guy’s car. Forty bucks for a fast fuck.” She stuck her wrists out. “You gonna arrest me?”

  “Never crossed my mind,” Joe said, suddenly gentle. “You’re the victim here.”

  He leaned forward and asked quietly. “Liz, during all this, did you ever get suspicious of anyone, or get a feeling that something wasn’t completely right? Any weird comments or questions or some act that struck you as out of place?”

  She slowly lowered her arms, convinced by his tone, and a little frightened by it as well.

  “That’s kinda creepy, you know?”

  “It may not mean anything,” he reassured her. “You just never know.”

  She studied the floor a moment, before answering, “No.”

  He shifted his weight slightly. “Okay, so you finally head home. Was that alone?”

  “Yeah. I was tired. My head hurt, and I wasn’t feeling too good.”

  “When you reached your door, what do you remember doing?”

  “I told you. I walked inside and I found the guy.”

  “Did you use your key?”

  She looked disgusted. “Well, of course I . . .” She then paused before adding reluctantly, “But I didn’t need it.”

  “Your door was unlocked?”

  She nodded, looking fearful again.

  “And you’re sure you locked it when you left?”

  “You seen where I live?”

  He leaned forward once more. “I’m not doubting you, Liz. I’m only asking you to be absolutely positive. Are you sure you locked that door?”

  Finally, she nodded deeply and with conviction. “Yes, I did. I’m really big on that. I got broke into once, back in Syracuse, and I lost a brooch my gram gave me. The only thing I ever loved from the only person I ever loved.”

  “And you’re also sure you didn’t get broken into this time? The lock was good and the door a tight fit?”

  “Yup.”

  Joe nodded encouragingly. “Okay. Almost done, at least this time around. I may be coming back for more questions later, though.”

  “I know,” she said, but without hostility.

  He pulled out a blow-up of Wayne Castine’s driver’s license photo and handed it to her. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

  She studied the picture. “Is this him?”

  “Yes.”

  She handed it back. “God, it was hard to tell. I mean, he doesn’t look at all like that guy, all bloody and stuff.”

  Joe didn’t answer, his question still hanging in the air.

  She finally shook her head. “He doesn’t look familiar. I mean, you know how I am, and kind of what I do. I don’t remember a lot. People come and go. But I don’t think I ever knew him.”

  Joe replaced the photo in his pocket, not surprised, but a little disappointed. “Did you touch anything when you entered your apartment?”

  “No,” she said emphatically. “It was way too gross.”

  “How ’bout the lights?” he continued. “On or off?”

  She stared at him in silence, suddenly brought up short. “Oh, my God,” she said. “You did it again—made it creepy.”

  “How so?”

  “The lights. That’s another thing, like with the key. I always leave the hall light on when I go.”

  “But not this time?”

  “No. I did. It’s just that it was off when I got back. And it wasn’t busted, ’cause it worked when I flipped it on.”

  “So it was dark when you opened the door—dark enough that you couldn’t see?”

  “Right. I pay the utilities, so I leave everything else off.”

  It was Joe’s turn to pause, thinking back to an earlier consideration. Had Castine been waiting inside and been surprised by his visitor? Or had he been the one knocking on the door? And more pertinent to what Liz had just said, regardless of who was seeking entry, could that person see who was standing before him, or what might have been clutched in the other person’s hand?

  Joe slid off the gurney and stood up. “Liz, you’ve been great. I’m sorry this happened to you, and I wish I could make the memory of it disappear. There are people I can recommend you talk to. Won’t cost you anything.”

  But she was already shaking her head. “I don’t like those people,” she said, awkwardly putting a thin, limp, bony hand into his proffered one. “I just want to go back home.”

  He looked down at her regretfully. “You know that can’t happen for a while, right? The whole apartment’s a crime scene. Do you have friends you can stay with, until you get resettled?”

  Again, the short, sharp, humorless laugh. “I got places I could stay, but I wouldn’t call them friends.” She hesitated, then conceded. “Okay, maybe I will . . .”

  She left it hanging, but Joe understood, and handed her two business cards from his wallet. “One of these is me, with all my pager and phone numbers. Call me night or day if you think of anything else, or even if you have a question. The other card is from a shelter that’ll be happy to put you up for as long as you need it. I’ll make sure they know about you, if that’s the way you want to go. They’re really good people—probably better than others you’ve dealt with.”

  She fingered the two cards without looking at them. “That mean I’ll never get back into that apartment?”

  “Not for a while,” he told her honestly. “Plus, it’s a pretty big mess, and who knows what the landlord’s going to want to do.”

  “Ugh,” she said unhappily. “That asshole.”

  Joe was standing by the door by now, ready to leave. “That strikes me, Liz; I do have one last question. When you rented the place, did you have a new lock put on the door?”

  She looked at him blankly. “He gave me a key.”

  “New or old?”

  She scowled. “That cheap bastard.”

  That was answer enough.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Brattleboro is a standard hub town on one hand, and a quirky cultural oasis on the other. Housing some twelve thousand people by night, it swells considerably during the day, inflated by commuters from surrounding villages, including nearby New Hampshire and Massachusetts. But, in part because its three interstate exits are the first in a state famous for independent thinking, social activism is valued as one of the town’s dearest assets. In the sixties, when both I-91 was being laid down and the counterculture was escaping the cities for visions of a sylvan paradise, the combination of Vermont’s Bing Crosby beauty, its Ethan Allen outspokenness, and its sudden, easy access made it almost irresistible to a legion of urban dropouts.

  However, other things were happening now—so many decades later—less amusingly anthropological, and more in common with a host of other erstwhile New England industrial beehives. Brattleboro had lately become as buffeted by tough times as many of its less lively and opin
ionated ilk. The middle class was struggling to hang on, while the poor—once cared for and comforted by Brattleboro’s socially conscious soldiers—were growing to stretch the limits of the town’s hospitality. It had gotten to where the have-nots were threatening to outnumber the haves, causing the old-time altruists to groan under the weight.

  There was an interesting by-product to this—a blurring of rich and poor neighborhoods. In modern times, Brattleboro had always bragged of some societal blending—it had been a source of pride that such disparates could live cheek-by-jowl. But now the crowding was involuntary and more noticeable, the crime rate more pointed, and the tolerance becoming frayed.

  Manor Court was an example of this: an entire street given over to the marginally solvent. The apartment that Wayne Castine had once called home was another. Perched high above Main Street—with its traffic, commerce, and upbeat pedestrian bustle—his one-room efficiency was an unqualified dump.

  Joe found it after climbing several floors, engulfed by the day’s escalating heat. He also found it under guard, at the end of a long, empty, evil-smelling hallway, by a single perspiring Brattleboro beat cop, who was clearly wondering why he’d spent half a year at the police academy preparing for the likes of this.

  “You the VBI?” he asked as Joe approached.

  Joe opened his jacket to reveal the badge clipped to his belt. “One of them. Joe Gunther.” He stuck out his hand for a damp shake.

  “Officer Nelson,” the cop said, as if still trying out the name.

  Joe raised his eyebrows. “No shit. Your parents named you Officer?”

  Nelson stared at him for a short take, unsure of how to react. “Oh, right,” he finally managed. “It’s Gary. Sorry. That’s a good one. I heard about you.”

  “But not for my sense of humor.”

  Again, the pause, punctuated by a blink. “You used to work for us.”

  “For about seventy-five years. Good ones, too.” Joe pointed at the door over Nelson’s shoulder. “That Castine’s home-sweet-home?”

  Nelson stepped aside as if the floor had suddenly softened beneath him. “Not what I would’ve called it.”

  “You been inside?” Joe asked, surprised.

  “No, no. I meant the whole building. Kind of a shit hole.”