She looked both confused and disgusted. “This is such a crock.”
“Talk to me.”
She scratched her head. “I don’t know… Bobby and me go back. We were hot once, but then he went one way, I went another. No big deal. We talked now and then… ”
“About what?”
She stopped, surprised. “Normal shit. What he was doin’, what I was doin’.”
“And what was he doing?”
“Working at Mount Snow and Tucker Peak the last two, three years—longest time he ever stuck with anything. It wasn’t much, but he said he liked the people. He was big on that, always liked being around people. Just the opposite of me.”
“He had a scam going at Tucker Peak,” I said. “He ever talk about that?”
She hesitated.
“Shayla,” I tried putting her at ease. “If you didn’t have anything to do with it, you can’t get into trouble.”
“He was pretty proud of it,” she finally said. “Like he was a spy or something—James Bond the rip-off artist.”
“He ever mention Marty Gagnon?”
“Not till he came to hide out at my place. Before then, I just knew he had a partner—that was it.”
“How did he describe the operation?”
“He called himself the inside man. He’d sweet talk the ladies or con the guys, whatever it took to get into their homes. Then he’d take pictures or draw a map, figure out which windows were alarmed, if any, find out when the owners would be away. That’s what he thought was like being a spy, ’cause he had to be real slick about it, not show his hand. It did sound pretty cool.”
She’d stretched one leg out during this, which I hoped was a sign she was becoming more comfortable with me.
“But then it went wrong,” I suggested.
She stared at her foot for a while, apparently thinking back, maybe wondering how things had turned out as they had. “Yeah. He called me up, said they’d killed Marty and were closing in on him. That was the first time I heard of Marty. He also told me he’d hit one of them over the head who claimed he was a cop, ’cept the name of the police department he mentioned didn’t exist. Bobby was really scared.”
“Who did he say was after him?”
“He wasn’t sure. He thought it was the druggies.”
I glanced at the tape recorder to make sure it was still running. “Who were they?”
But her answer was a disappointment. “I don’t know, probably one of the people he ripped off. That’s what scared him—not knowing. And that it all fell apart super fast.”
“Do you think Bobby stole drugs from someone?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t do drugs himself and he didn’t have the connections to move it. Maybe he tried—I’m not saying he didn’t—but if he did, it’s news to me.”
“Let’s talk about Marty a little.”
“I told you, I didn’t—”
I interrupted her. “I know, I know—you’d never heard of him. But you were told he’d been murdered. Did Bobby know that for a fact?”
She stared at me, looking confused. “He’s not dead?”
“He might be. We haven’t found a body.”
She became thoughtful. “Bobby just said he’d been killed, not that he’d seen it happen.”
“How do you think the two had been getting along?”
There, she seemed clearer. “Not so good. He bitched about how Marty wouldn’t move the stuff fast enough, how he had to keep at him all the time.”
“Did it sound like Marty would get angry?” I asked, my interest growing.
“I guess. It wasn’t like they were ever buddy-buddy. Bobby thought he was low-class, not a people person, which was a real put-down from him.”
Which made me wonder what he’d seen in Shayla, aside from her being the perfect person to hide out with.
“Did Bobby ever say Marty had threatened him?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nah.”
I considered continuing, going over the same ground again in the hopes of learning more—that was certainly standard practice. But chances were good that Sammie had pegged this woman’s usefulness from the start.
Still, the drug angle was new, if not well defined, and offered the slim possibility of a new line of inquiry. It also helped explain, if true, why the costs in human lives had been so high. From a simple case of unsolved burglaries, we were now facing the possibility of something far bigger—and more lethal.
All that was left now was to hope that our interviews, phone calls, background checks, and general data-crunching would yield just enough light to let us see what was going on.
And maybe lead us to Marty Gagnon, a man I was now very much hoping I’d meet alive.
Chapter 16
I STEPPED INSIDE THE WARMTH AND DARKNESS OF MY HOUSE late that night and leaned back against the closed door, feeling all the muscles in my body suddenly begin to relax.
The medicine I’d been given to both control the pain and fight off any infections had fogged my brain and made me groggy. All day, I’d been struggling to maintain concentration, which ironically had probably helped make me more efficient than usual. But now I was wiped out. I worked my way out of my coat, dropped it on the floor, wandered over to the sofa, and collapsed, falling asleep before I could remember to remove my shoes.
The respite didn’t last long. Like an approaching train whistle in a dream I wasn’t sure I was having, the phone’s ringing crept into my head as from far in the distance, only finally waking me up when I couldn’t explain its source.
I opened my eyes and stared up at the dark ceiling, feeling like a huge weight was pinning me in place. My hand groped over my shoulder, fumbling for the side table next to the sofa, until it finally located the incessant phone.
“What?”
“This Joe Gunther?” The woman’s voice sounded doubtful.
“Yeah.”
“Must be a bad connection. This is Linda Bettina at Tucker Peak. We’ve had another incident you probably want to look at.”
“What is it?” I asked, slowly sitting up.
“The new pumphouse we’ve been building just went up in smoke.” She hesitated and added, “You told me to call you if anything else happened.”
“I know, I know. Sorry. I’m a little under the weather. You sure it wasn’t a short or something?”
Her voice regained its usual slightly acerbic edge. “The pumps hadn’t been installed yet.”
“I’ll be right over.”
· · ·
The air was so cold, it felt brittle and was bathed in a full moon turned up to full wattage. As I drove between the dark mountains leading up to Tucker Peak, I kept twisting in my seat to look around, overwhelmed by the deep stillness of the snow-shrouded trees, which were tinted a faint, lunar blue by the shimmering radiance overhead. At times like these, I felt irrelevant in the world’s grand scheme, and totally powerless. I knew that we humans were wholly capable of burning, polluting, stripping, and altering the landscape to a lethal extent. But on special occasions, under just the right lighting, I trusted that the winner in this struggle would be the same force that had preceded us in history and which would, in the long run, treat us as a minor blip in time. The car I was in, the road I was traveling, and the few house lights I could see in the distance seemed as impermanent as snowflakes on a hot stove.
I drove to the equipment yard as Linda had instructed on the phone and was met by the same crooked-toothed, bearded snowmaker named Dick who’d tossed me the crowbar when I was stranded in the chairlift.
He gave me a big smile as I got out of my car. “Boy, you sure had us goin’, pretending you were a carpenter. Good thing you never got one of us pissed off. We mighta pounded you good and never known you were a cop.”
I looked at his eyes, watching for some double meaning there, but he seemed to have merely uttered a bizarre statement of fact.
He did, however, suddenly step back and give me a more careful app
raisal. “Where’s your arm?”
I’d put my coat on with the left sleeve empty. “I still got it. It’s in a sling.”
“Cool,” was all he said, before taking my good elbow and steering me toward an idling Yamaha snowmobile. “Linda said to get you up there pronto. Hope you’re dressed warm.”
He got on first and gave the throttle a couple of hormonal revs. I tucked in behind him and had just looped my hand through the thick strap binding the seat when he took off with a jolt that should have sent me ass-over-backward. So much for not pounding on a cop.
The trip was the exact opposite of my drive over: windy, freezing, lurching, and noisy. I held on for dear life, seeing little beyond the hairy nape of Dick’s neck, feeling my face and hand going numb and the muscles in my back and legs beginning to spasm as I unsuccessfully tried to anticipate which way to lean and when to brace for a bump. By the time we came to a sudden, sliding stop, I felt like simply falling into the snow and asking someone to cover me up.
Instead, I was grabbed under the right armpit and hauled to my feet, where I found myself staring into Linda Bettina’s face. “It’s over here,” was her greeting.
I followed her as best I could, regaining my land legs and trying not to stumble in the thick snow. Ahead of us, surrounded by tall, somber trees as if cupped in a pair of hands, was a pile of red embers, against which human shadows moved back and forth like black specters. In the distance was a wide, featureless opening, flat and opal pale in the moonlight, which I took to be the frozen pond.
Linda stopped as we entered the warm air bubble engulfing the glowing remnants of the pumphouse. She pointed at a large, round man in a white fire coat who was giving orders to a group of others.
“That’s the fire chief, if you want to talk to him.”
“He know what started it?”
“He just showed up with his crew and put it out.”
I looked around as someone started a generator and ignited a ring of bright lights on tripods.
“And destroyed any chance of finding tracks,” I said half to myself.
“Wouldn’t have been any anyhow,” Linda said. “It’s a construction site—was a construction site. A dozen guys have been stomping around here for weeks. Too bad, too—I’ve really been cracking the whip on this project. We were about to get this done two months ahead of schedule.”
“Who reported it?” I asked.
“Snowmakers saw the glow. We hit it right off with water from some portable snow guns and called the fire department to back us up. Didn’t make any difference. It was going full blast from the start.” She turned to face me. “You smell anything?”
I took my time before responding, sniffing carefully. “Gas?”
“That’s what I think—this was torched.”
“Did the snowmakers notice anyone or anything unusual when they first arrived?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Same as the dye job on the other pond, the generator sabotage, the water main break, and the chairlift accident, not to mention all the other shit that’s been going on. Whoever’s doing this is luckier than hell.”
I didn’t voice the other obvious possibility of it being an employee.
“Linda?”
We both turned as Phil McNally loomed into the light, squinting slightly, stopping in his tracks as he recognized me. “Oh. Are you all right?”
Linda looked at me more closely. “What’s wrong with you? Break an arm?”
“Dog bit it,” I explained, realizing just how isolated this bunch could be in their closed-off world. As far as I knew, no paper or radio or TV station in the state had failed to run the story, and yet nobody here seemed to know about it.
Nor were they particularly interested, since both Linda and Phil went back to staring at the remains of the pumphouse.
“TPL?” McNally asked.
“We don’t know,” Linda told him, jerking a gloved thumb at me. “That’s why I called him.”
He passed a hand across his neck. “Great, one damn thing after another. This morning, somebody chained about eight snowmobiles together—took an hour to untangle them. I guess I messed up big time being too friendly with those guys.”
“They may not have done this,” I suggested.
They looked at me.
“You kidding?” McNally asked. “It’s perfect for them—nobody hurt, and the whole pump project delayed for months, not to mention the money we already spent on pumps that have nowhere to live now. I’ll have to tell the manufacturer to hang on to them and probably end up paying a storage fee to boot. Christ. What next?”
It was an interesting question, and one I wanted answered before it caught me by surprise.
· · ·
My next meeting with Roger Betts didn’t have to take place in a clandestine motel. Phone calls by Phil McNally to my boss had forced the TPL case off the back burner, if only briefly, and the fire the night before now made it reasonable for me to invite him to my office in Brattleboro.
I did, however, want Gail in attendance, as before, hoping her presence would show how I wanted us all to work together against a common foe.
They arrived as a couple, Gail having picked Betts up at Tucker Peak on her way in, and entered the office chatting amiably.
The others were out, so the office was ours. I dragged two chairs across the room, and we all sat in a circle, like three card players in search of a table.
“Roger,” I began, “I really appreciate your coming down. I know it’s a hassle with everything you’ve got going.”
“Not at all,” he countered, his voice once again reminiscent of some old-world gentleman. “I understand entirely. You must have questions concerning the fire.”
I nodded. “True enough. But you should know that the ground rules are a little different this time. We’re no longer off the record, and I am less inclined to settle for a pledge of cooperation from you. Things are getting out of hand.”
“I agree entirely,” he said, to my surprise. “These events are not reflecting well on us either. I am scheduled to meet with Mr. McNally in two hours, and I suspect that will not go well.”
“I saw him last night,” I admitted. “He ain’t happy.”
I reached for a file on my desk and opened it in my lap. “Which leads me to the point of this meeting. Last time you said you feared one or more people within your ranks might be doing these things, but you had no names to suggest. This time I have some names, and I’d like you to react to them.”
He studied me passively for several seconds before saying, “That may not be ground I wish to tread.”
“Maybe so,” I agreed, pulling out a single sheet of paper and handing it to him. “Nevertheless. Look at them first. Then we can debate.”
The names included the three Gail had chosen earlier from Snuffy’s list, along with others we’d added as a result of our own research. There were eleven overall.
Roger Betts took his time, presumably pausing at one name or another and running it through his mind. Several times he gazed out the window before continuing.
Finally, he put the sheet down and looked at me. “What are you asking of me?”
“You know the dates and approximate times of each event that took place at the mountain. They’re listed at the bottom of that sheet if you don’t. What I’m asking is two questions: Do any of those names stick out as people we should check out? And do certain activities of any of them correspond to when the events occurred? I’m looking for unexplained absences, generally odd behavior, reactions or the lack thereof when news of these things broke out—you name it.”
He thought for a while and finally shook his head regretfully. “I am sorry. I don’t feel I can do that. To have told you of my misgivings was a moral duty, to put my finger on an actual individual with no proof beyond a hunch would be inappropriate and careless.”
“If you’re being truthful,” I told him, “which I choose to believe, that tells me a, that you do have a hunch, and b, that
you didn’t see any of these people fitting the profile I outlined, at least not consistently.”
He smiled thinly. “Correct on both counts, although I have to admit that b is only true because I don’t watch my colleagues like a den mother. We work shifts and we handle various assignments. Several days may go by without my seeing any of them.” He waved his hand toward the empty office around us. “This is most likely true for you, too.”
I leaned forward in my chair to emphasize my seriousness, hoping he wouldn’t see my irritation. “If you have any knowledge that might help us solve these crimes, and you don’t share it with us, it could put you and your organization in legal hot water, cost you a bundle, distract you from your purpose, and open the door to a real public relations black eye.”
He pursed his lips and glanced down at the list. “Perhaps you could give me the opportunity to investigate a little on my own?”
I sat back. “Fair enough, but we’re going to keep pushing from our end, too.”
I escorted them to the door, catching Gail’s elbow so she’d stay back a moment. She nodded to Betts. “You go ahead. I’ll be right there.”
We watched him walk down the hallway, his white hair haloed by the light from the window beyond him, and enter the stairwell.
“Be careful what you say right now,” Gail warned me before I opened my mouth. “I have loyalties running both ways here.”
“I understand that,” I conceded. “But he raised the red flag first on this. I’m just hoping he’ll see it through to the end. Whatever he says won’t be enough to bring charges against anyone, that much is pretty clear. I’m only looking for a little guidance. We can waste a lot of time and money and put everybody in TPL under the microscope, or he can help us, give that same attention to a select few, and maybe save a life—don’t forget that woman in the chairlift almost died. Either way, the same guy will end up in the limelight eventually. I don’t see this as the moral dilemma he does.”
She kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see what I can do.”
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