by Archer Mayor
The woman smiled. “I know the feeling. What can I do for you?”
They both showed their credentials as Joe continued, “We’re from the police, and we’re working a case where one of your receipts cropped up.”
She nodded. “Nothing too bad, I hope.”
Joe took out the receipt and laid it on the scarred wooden counter, facing the clerk. “This one of yours?”
The woman bent at the waist and studied it without picking it up, as if it might be tainted with something catching. “Sure is.”
“We couldn’t figure out what was purchased.”
She left her station at the counter and headed toward one of the aisles as she spoke. “We call them harness cleats, but basically, they’re super-rugged staples you can attach to a barn wall to hold heavy gear.” She stopped at a bin, reached in, and extracted an example. “Pretty beefy. You actually drill all the way through the wall and attach the cleat from the other side with a couple of bolts. I suppose if you had enough of them, you could make something like a metal ladder going up to a loft—like what you see on some of the older utility poles, you know?”
Joe held it for a moment before handing it to Sam. “You can’t sell too many of them, I’d guess.”
The owner headed back to her counter. “Nope.”
“You work here all the time?”
The woman turned and extended a hand in greeting. “I own the place. Sande Snyder—Sande with an e. If I didn’t work here, the sign in the door would say, ‘Closed.’”
“But you sold a few of these lately,” Joe stated, more as a fact than a question.
“The receipt says three,” Snyder responded laconically.
Sam laughed. “Right.”
Joe smiled. “You remember who bought them?”
Snyder placed both hands, palm down, on her counter and eased her back slightly by leaning forward. “I do, not that that’ll be of much good to you. I’d have a hard time describing my own husband’s face to you, even if he was still alive. I never can figure out how they do that on TV.”
“Tall, short, fat, skinny? Nothing?” Sam asked.
“Medium on all counts, and mean in the face,” Snyder told her. “Struck me as a city man, born and bred.” She shoved away from the counter and crouched down briefly, adding, “But you don’t have to take my word for it. I got surveillance here, ever since I was broken into a few years back.”
She reappeared with a plastic case containing a CD. “I don’t have, like, a nonstop movie system. Too expensive.” She twisted around and pointed at what resembled an old hurricane lamp, placed at about eye level on a shelf. “It’s hard to see, but it’s sort of a camera with a stutter, rigged to a motion detector. Takes about a picture per second when it’s running, so a single CD can hold a bunch of time. Lucky for you, I just swapped over to a new one. You want to find who you’re after, check toward the end. Like I said, he’s the mean-looking one, the cleats’ll be on the counter in front of him, and he’s wearing one of those Russian-type trooper hats with the ear flaps snapped up over the top. Looks pretty dumb, if you ask me, but I guess they’re warm enough.”
* * *
Joe distributed the prints of the hardware store customer to the people around the table—the assembled VBI squads of both Burlington and Brattleboro offices, and Bill Allard, who had driven up from Waterbury to be in on the meeting.
“With many hours of work from several of you here, and help from the FBI and others,” Joe began, “we now know this to be Neil Watson. Date of birth: 7/30/76. He is known as an enforcer for hire, and has multiple arrests for aggravated assault, battery, use of a deadly weapon, and so on, but nothing in the last ten years. At first glance—” Joe paused long enough to hand out a summary of Watson’s past charges. “—you’d be forgiven for thinking that he either died a decade ago or has been locked up in prison. As the surveillance photograph proves, you’d be wrong. It seems that either Mr. Watson got smart, which I personally doubt, or he finally associated himself with someone possessing a better sense of self-preservation.”
“Any idea who that someone is?” Allard asked.
“Not a clue,” Lester chipped in.
“Tommy Bajek wasn’t so well preserved by him,” Willy commented.
“Apparently not,” Joe agreed. “But look at what happened right after Tommy died. Jennifer Sisto was tortured to death, which—when you combine it with the fire bomb attack on the Colchester house—hints at a leader both shrewd and with a seriously violent revenge instinct. That could make the Neil Watsons of the world pretty loyal, I would think.”
“Sure,” Willy picked up. “All the best bosses are secretive psychopaths with a penchant for killing people.”
A suppressed wave of laughter circled the room as Joe bowed slightly and said, “Thank you, William.”
“But you’re saying they’re here in Burlington, aren’t you?” Allard asked. “Even if we don’t know the alpha dog’s name.”
“Correct,” Joe said, placing another picture on the table. “This is the car I followed on the night of the fire. It was found abandoned in a downtown parking garage near where I lost it. Tom contacted the firm that rented it out two days before the fire, and got zip for his effort—the same as with the two cars that were used to tail Tom to Colchester and Sammie last week.”
Tom explained a bit more for Allard’s benefit, “Bogus name, credit card, address, the works. They must do identity theft on the side. I showed the counterman Watson’s picture, but it didn’t ring any bells, and unlike the hardware store, there was no closed-circuit camera in use.”
Allard nodded in response. “What’s the plan, then?”
“We have three options, as we see it,” Joe replied. “One is to keep Watson’s identity to ourselves and put every VBI agent we can on the street, hoping we’ll bump into him by accident. That’ll almost guarantee keeping a lid on it and, by extension, a lid on the headline screamers that we’ve been trying to avoid with the Filson and Sandy Corcoran and Ben Kendall cases. The second option is to circulate Watson’s mug shot—if not his name, maybe—to every cop in the Greater Burlington area, with instructions to report any sightings to us, but to otherwise take no action. In other words, a red-letter, police-only, highly sensitive BOL, where we keep all details to ourselves except our need to catch the guy.”
“I like that one,” Allard muttered.
“And the third,” Joe wrapped up, “is to release everything we have to the media, complete with that picture, and turn everyone who sees it into our eyes and ears.”
“And guarantee that Watson and his boss and whoever else might be working with them will disappear like a bat fart in a high wind,” Willy cracked.
“Probably,” Joe acknowledged.
Bill Allard didn’t hesitate, restating, “Let’s go for Door Number Two. Cops get enough BOLs every week that another one isn’t likely to get leaked, especially if we keep our cards to ourselves. And I like the idea of a red alert, or high priority, or whatever they use up in this area, to make Watson stand out from the average jerkwater deadbeat dad.”
Joe scanned the assembled faces for dissent and found none. “All right,” he said. “That’s what we go with, then.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Special Agent Gunther?”
Joe had been standing before the window of his borrowed VBI office, once again admiring the snow outside. As with the region’s yearly foliage change, the annual advent of winter never ceased to impress him. He’d heard the grumblers among his friends say that retirement could only be enhanced by moving to where the word “snow” had no meaning. But Joe was a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander, and had no problem with an environment that could reach out and kill him half of every year. He felt that it added to the character of the region—and its inhabitants—even if they chose to also live in Burlington.
He immediately recognized the voice on the other end of the phone line. “Colonel Perry,” he acknowledged. “What’s up?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I got a bit more, but better than that, I think I found someone who was there.”
“Where do you mean?” Joe asked.
“The village where Kendall was shot. His name’s Robert Morgan. He’s living just outside Peterborough, New Hampshire.”
“How’d you find him?”
“He’s listed on one of the forms—as one of the men who helped get Ben to a medevac. The contact who supplied the report said, out of the blue, that he actually knew him, although they’d since lost touch. So I got his current address, as a result. I didn’t call him. I figured I’d leave that to you.”
“Thanks, Colonel. I appreciate it. You mentioned a report. Did you get a copy of that?”
“I got a summary. It’s basically a letter from one office to another. It doesn’t say much, to be honest, but I can fax it to you. The full-fledged incident or battle report seems to have disappeared. My guess is that this Bob Morgan may be a better bet anyhow, given how much was being shoved under the rug in those days.”
“And was there a medical file on Ben?”
“Yes. Sorry. I forgot to mention that. Again, what I found was a problem list and a narrative overview—what looks like a cover sheet, except that it’s a couple of pages long. The original document was probably about a foot thick, given that the VA had him for most of a year. Lord knows where that is. But, again, I can fax you what I got.”
“You have a pencil?” Joe asked, and gave him the office fax line. “Just to kill the suspense,” he then said, “what’s the summary say?”
“Only that he was shot in combat. There’s nothing detailing how it happened.”
Joe wasn’t surprised. Being ex-military himself, he’d been expecting results that would have made a mime seem like a chatterbox. He now knew not to be disappointed when the faxes appeared.
But Robert Morgan sounded promising. Before thanking Marcus Perry and wrapping up the conversation, Joe made sure to get the man’s contact information.
* * *
Neil Watson scowled at the snow up and down the street outside the condominium. “What the fuck,” he muttered under his breath. “These assholes live up here. Why the hell don’t they shovel this shit? Even we do that much in the city. Jesus H. Christ.”
Ruing that he hadn’t brought a pair of boots—or at least purchased a pair, since in fact he didn’t own any—he headed up grumpily toward the small market at the north end of the block.
He wasn’t impressed by the expansive view of the lake beside him, or—as Gunther had been earlier—by how the snow had softened the city’s harder edges. He just wanted to get this job over and return home.
It wasn’t only the weather, although, as his smooth-soled shoes slipped slightly on a small patch of compacted snow, that definitely wasn’t helping things. It was how this whole assignment had turned into some kind of chess game. Frank was in hog heaven, of course, getting off on how the cops were engaging “brain to brain,” as he put it, instead of just reacting to whatever mess Frank and Neil left in their wake. But Neil was getting antsy.
He was also stumped. While he’d enjoyed blowing up that lame-assed trap the cops had set for them, he was hard-pressed now to figure out a next move. The girl was still out there, and Frank was all hot and excited to discover who her friends and relatives might be so they could cook up a variation on how they’d treated Nancy Filson and her folks. But Neil had had enough. He’d even suggested that he head back to the city until Frank figured out what to do next. He had a life, after all, despite Frank’s opinion. It maybe consisted of bars, hookers, and watching sports on TV with his mom at the old folks’ home, but it supplied him his version of normalcy. He was due for a break.
Instead, Frank had sent him out for groceries. Typical.
And what about the three Filsons? What the hell had that been about? Leaving them alive? What had Frank been thinking? Neil didn’t give a damn about masks and disguises. You kill witnesses. That’s how it was done. This was where Frank’s eccentricity started to look stupid.
Neil saw a police cruiser turn the far corner and roll toward him, moving peacefully, the cop visibly checking both sides of the street as he went. Neil reached up, slid his trooper-style fur hat farther down on his forehead, and then propped his foot up against the base of a streetlamp, as if tying his shoelaces, thereby hiding his face entirely.
The cruiser slid by without pause. But Neil’s inner rant was over. Never let your guard down; never get distracted. There are rules.
* * *
Lester swung into the doorway like an excited kid, one hand hanging on Joe’s doorjamb. “The guy in the videotape—Watson—was just spotted on the sidewalk one street up from the lake. He tried hiding his face, but he’s wearing the same dumb hat.”
Joe was already halfway to his feet, coat in hand, heading for the lobby. “They sure? Those hats are a dime a dozen.”
Lester fell in beside him as they jogged toward the stairs down to the garage. “Everything else fits—location, stature, general appearance. They’re pretty sure.”
“Any response?” Joe asked.
“Only from us. Willy already headed out. I did alert the PD to the threat, though, in case this is the big one.”
“Let’s hope it’s not too big,” Joe countered, reaching the bottom of the stairwell and yanking the door open to enter the garage. “I want a nice, quiet, non-eventful arrest. I want a conversation at the end of this; not another shit storm with a hundred cameras all around.”
He twisted around to fix Lester with a stare. “Does Willy know that? So typical that he just headed out without waiting.”
Les answered with a tilted head. “You’ve known him longer than I have, boss.”
Joe pulled his keys out and opened the car door. “That I have,” he murmured dolefully.
* * *
Just shy of the corner market, Neil noticed a second patrol car, this one approaching from a side street. He stepped into the store’s entrance, hesitating long enough to watch the vehicle’s behavior, its driver blocked by the reflection off the windshield. But again, he saw no cause for alarm. The cruiser passed by, came to a full stop at the light, turned on its indicator to head away, and slipped into the sparse traffic to drive off. Neil grunted to himself and entered the market, pulling out his short grocery list.
* * *
Joe drew up to the curb, two blocks from the market, and approached the rear of the unmarked panel truck ahead of him, Lester by his side.
He knocked on the door after letting a couple of pedestrians pass by.
The door opened a crack, revealing an unsmiling man’s face.
“Gunther and Spinney,” Joe said. “VBI.”
The door swung back and they climbed into a stuffy command center jammed with electronics, computers, and TV monitors, along with a couple of grim-faced men.
“Kunkle not here?” Joe asked immediately.
One of the men reached up and tapped the monitor showing the front of the market. “He’s in there.”
“The store?” Spinney blurted out. “With the perp?”
“You got it.”
“That’s fine,” Joe soothed them both, inwardly irritated. “He knows what he’s doing.”
Of course, Joe could only hope that was true. On the other hand, of all the people he might have chosen to be on the inside, Willy would have been his preference. Along with his bum arm and an ability to blend into his environment, Willy wasn’t a man to draw attention to himself—until it was necessary. It had proven to be a handy range of attributes in the past.
“He wired?” Joe asked, moving on, watching the screen for activity.
“Kind of,” the same technician replied. “He’s on open mic, on his cell phone.” He reached out and twisted a knob before him t
o fill the van with the market’s ambient sounds—along with the scratchiness of the phone’s mouthpiece rubbing against the interior of Willy’s overcoat.
“We can’t talk to him?” Lester asked.
“Not unless you want to blow his cover.”
“Perfect,” Spinney said under his breath.
The side door to the van flew open, inundating the small space with light and cold air. A tall, slightly disheveled man in a coat and tie stepped in and slammed the door behind him.
“Captain,” one of the techies greeted him without turning around.
The newcomer fixed both VBI men with a glance followed by a look of recognition. “Joe,” he said, extending a hand. “I heard you were causing problems up here. You about to make another mess?”
Joe introduced Lester. “This is Michael McReady, of Burlington’s finest. You here to coordinate this?”
McReady was consulting the array of monitors now, getting his bearings. “As best as I can, given your sorry excuse of a heads-up,” he said pleasantly. “I’ve been working the phone for the past twenty minutes, shuffling troops.”
He pointed to a screen displaying an electronic map of the area. The market was highlighted, along with several brightly colored dots, most of which were moving along the streets.
“These are our vehicles, marked and unmarked. We’re still getting sharpshooters into position, and we’ve rallied our TAC people, but we’re scrambling.” He eyed Joe and added, “Of course, there are a few small details missing, like, who the hell is this guy?”
“Neil Watson, urban bad boy,” Joe replied. “The abridged version is that he’s a hit man working for somebody we don’t know. His primary assignment at the moment is to kidnap the state medical examiner’s daughter and extract information.”
McReady took his eyes off the equipment to stare at him, a startled smile on his face. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. He’s armed and dangerous and he’s killed before. This is the real deal. He’s also not alone.”
McReady scowled. “In there?” He pointed at the image of the market.