by Archer Mayor
Joe arrived as a passenger in Rob Barrows's cruiser, playing a role somewhere between investigator and representative of the injured party. They'd agreed beforehand that Barrows would do the talking, although, as a strategy, that would have been considered less than a fig leaf by any competent lawyer. But such were the agreements occasionally made by rural cops sniffing around the edges of barely definable cases.
The ambivalent tone was about right for Joe, who was beginning to feel that limbo had become a near permanent state. His mother's advancing years and frailty, his brother's precarious physical condition, Gail's proximity and yet distance-she'd called that morning to get a report-and now the reappearance of the very appealing, previously unavailable Lyn Silva, had all helped to make him feel totally easy about trespassing into an investigation based on a lost nut and involving two relatives.
Not that he minded Lyn resurfacing. She'd departed for Brattleboro shortly after finishing her coffee, but what she left behind-which Joe even heard in his mother's voice afterward-was a suggestion of positive intrigue. Not a bad thing, all other things considered.
The two men swung out of the car and eyed the garage's bland frontage, buttoned up tight against the cold.
"D'you call ahead?" Joe asked.
Barrows stayed watching the building. "I thought we'd surprise 'em."
It didn't take long. In most rural areas, it is less a door knock or a ringing bell that draws attention from inside a building-simply showing up usually does the trick. Sure enough, moments later the wooden door under a hand-lettered sign reading "Office" opened, and a small, narrow man in a soiled baseball cap and a T-shirt stepped partway out.
"Rob," he said neutrally.
Barrows didn't move. "Barrie," he answered loudly enough to carry across the distance.
"How're ya doin'?"
"Good. You?"
"Great."
Barrie looked from one of them to the other. Barrows allowed the silence to stretch out, forcing the mechanic to ask, "So, what's up?"
Only then did the deputy approach the building, Gunther in tow. Rob smiled as he drew near, sticking his hand out in greeting, abruptly offsetting his slightly threatening initial tone. Joe took note of the tactic and didn't offer to shake.
Rob jerked his thumb in his direction. "Barrie McNeil, this is Joe, from the Vermont Bureau of Investigation." He and Rob had agreed beforehand to use his last name discreetly, if at all.
For a split second, McNeil froze. Enough time had elapsed since the Bureau's inception for the initials "VBI" to carry an ominous meaning among those who might have reasons to care.
McNeil forced a small smile. "Just keeping the deputy company?"
Joe looked him straight in the eyes. "No."
Rob picked up the cue. "So, Barrie, we were wondering. There was a car crash a few days ago-the Subaru on Route Five?"
Barrie was already nodding. "Leo's car. He all right?"
"He's a mess. In the hospital. Intensive care."
"Damn."
"Yeah." Rob pointed at the doorway Barrie was filling with his slight frame. "You want to let us in?"
McNeil bobbed his head and stepped backward awkwardly. "Oh, yeah. Sure. Come on in."
They entered a waiting room of sorts, certainly a room with three mismatched office chairs lining a wall, facing a card table with a pile of ancient and bedraggled magazines strewn across its surface. There were posters hanging about advertising young, semi-clad women holding automotive products, and rows of shelves sagging under stacks of oil filters, brake pads, boxed sparkplugs, and the like. It was all beyond a restorative cleaning, aside from the gleaming spare parts themselves, and all illuminated from a single slightly flickering fluorescent light overhead, whose plastic enclosure showed off the shadows of generations of dead insects. An open door to the side revealed the garage proper and a car with no wheels, perched high atop a lift.
The entire place was uncomfortably hot, explaining how the T-shirted Barrie had so easily loitered within the open doorway without complaint.
"Barrie," Rob began, strolling around the room, looking at the posters, "tell us about tie rod nuts."
Barrie hesitated, again nervously switching his attention from one of them to the other.
"They hold the tie rods together?" he guessed.
"Just like that? You screw 'em on and they hold on tight?"
"Pretty much… There's a cotter pin."
Rob turned to face him, as if responding to a poke in the ribs. "A cotter pin? Why?"
"So it don't back off. Is that what happened to Leo's car?"
Rob tilted his head to one side. "Is it?"
Barrie pursed his lips, clearly not wanting to flunk whatever test this was.
"Probably, if it failed. That happens," he said tentatively.
"A lot?"
"No… Sometimes."
"What about Leo's car?"
McNeil scrunched up his face in confusion. "Jesus, Rob. That's what I just asked."
"And what did you come up with, Barrie? Could the nut have come loose in Leo's car?"
McNeil snatched his baseball cap off and passed his palm across the top of his head several times. "No… I mean, it could have, but I don't see why. This is all fucked up, Rob. What do you want?"
Rob leaned forward at the waist for emphasis. "I want to know about Leo's tie rod, Barrie. Talk to me."
Barrie slapped his hat back on and extended his arms out to both sides, saying loudly, "I don't know about his fucking tie rod, Rob. I never touched it."
Barrows let a slow count of five tick by before he stepped back and said pleasantly, "Geez. You seem awfully worked up about something you never touched."
Barrie didn't answer, but he'd gone paler in the process.
"Okay. Cool," Rob resumed. "Let me take a look at Leo's service records on that car. Maybe we can clear this whole thing up here and now."
But it didn't work. Barrie's face shut down. "No can do. Not without a court order. Boss's orders. That computer is, like, sacred."
"Griffis?" Joe asked, unable to stop himself.
McNeil looked at him as if he'd just stepped into the room. "Yeah. I let you do that, I'm outta here. Like that." He snapped his fingers. "That's, like, his biggest rule."
Rob looked vaguely offended. "You're shitting me. Why would the old man get all cranked up about a bunch of car repair records?"
But now it was Barrie's turn to turn the tables. "I'm not talkin' about E. T.," he said. "Dan's the boss."
Once more, Joe couldn't stop himself. "Dan owns the garage?"
"Yeah, for a coupla years. Old E. T. gave him a bunch of stuff. Passing the light."
"Torch," Rob said sourly.
Barrie stared at him, back on firmer ground. "Whatever."
Joe asked, "Why did Dan slam the door on the records? You guys get sued or something?"
Barrie shook his head. "Nope. He just came in after he made boss, and said there was gonna be some tightening up around here, and that's when he gave the order."
"What else did he change?" Rob asked, looking around at the decor to see if he'd missed some subtle improvement.
"That was it."
Rob glanced at Joe, received a barely perceptible shrug, and told Barrie, "Okay. No problem going the legal route. In fact, even better. Keeps things clean. We'll get a warrant."
"Does Dan use the computer much?" Joe asked.
"All the time."
Rob moved toward the door to leave, but Joe paused to add a final recommendation: "You probably heard on TV how once data's entered into a computer, it never really disappears, right?"
Barrie clearly had no idea what he was talking about. "Yeah," he said without conviction.
"You want to think about that. Something happens to this one, we'll come looking for you to find out why, regardless of who monkeys with it."
The two cops left the building and walked back to Rob's cruiser.
"Nice, with the computer," Rob said as they settled
inside. "Maybe he won't squeal to his boss."
Joe grunted. "Could be. If I were him, I'd solve the problem by throwing the damn thing into the river. Not that it matters. We'll never find a judge to allow us into it, anyhow."
Rob nodded without comment.
"Too bad we can't find that nut," Joe mused.
His companion glanced at him inquiringly.
Joe explained further, "It might have tool marks on it-something we could match to a wrench or something in there." He pointed his chin toward the garage. "Enough PC for a search warrant, given that Barrie said he never touched the nut."
Rob's expression began to lighten. "But that's possible. I mean, it's a reach. But it is possible."
"What? Find the nut?" Joe was incredulous. "There's two feet of snow out there. And who knows where it fell off?"
"Could be right near the crash site," Barrows said. "That's how it works sometimes-the nut falls off and the rod follows, slam-bam. There's no waiting. Not often, but when it does, it's immediate. The nut could be within a hundred feet of where they went off the road. Closer, even, if we're really lucky."
Joe was catching a fragment of his colleague's enthusiasm, but he still couldn't ignore the odds. "Be more likely to find a fresh flower in all that snow."
Rob smiled. "Can't find a flower with a metal detector, and the sheriff's got two of them. Plus," he added, holding up a finger, "a small crowd of teenage wannabe cops from the high school who love doing police work-our official Explorers troop, complete with uniforms. It wouldn't cost the department a dime to set them to sniffing around."
"The sheriff would go along with that?" Joe asked, finally gaining on the idea.
Barrows laughed. "You just watch."
Late that night, having missed the dinner hour, Joe found himself standing in the kitchen, scrutinizing stacks of cans in one of the cupboards.
"What are you looking for?" his mother asked from the door.
He turned and laughed. "Busted. I heard the TV. Didn't want to bother you. I know it's getting late. I was looking for some Spam or something."
Her eyes widened. "Spam? I should be visiting your graveside, the way you eat." She rolled farther into the room, heading toward the fridge. "I'll make you something. Leo's gotten me lazy. Time I got back into cooking. How about an omelet? I'll throw in some ham, tomatoes, maybe a little cheese?"
It was a more than acceptable compromise. Joe kept little in his own fridge except milk and mayonnaise, along with a few jars containing substances he couldn't identify. Eating was something he did out of hunger, drawing few distinctions between a doughnut and a salad. It used to drive Gail insane.
He settled down at the kitchen table to get out of his mother's way as she expertly traveled the room.
"What's the latest on Leo?" she asked as she worked, her voice self-consciously nonchalant.
He smiled at her. "As if you didn't know. I did just come from there, though. I think he's looking a little better. He certainly has more to say, which isn't pretty. I figure in a week, the nurses'll kill him and that'll be the end of it."
She gave him a dark look, which he knew not to take seriously.
"He's got company, by the way," Joe added.
"Who?"
"Cops. I found a state trooper there tonight, just visiting, and Leo said there'd been others. Word got out, and guys from a bunch of departments are dropping by, just showing support. They even started a guest book you can see next time you're there."
She nodded once, visibly moved. "That's very sweet."
"It's a small world I work in," he told her. "And cops are pretty sentimental. What did the doc tell you on the phone?" he then asked, knowing she'd called.
"That he's past the worst of it but has a long way to go." She cracked an egg into a bowl and put the shell down beside it, sighing. "I keep wondering if all this will change things."
He reached out and patted her hand. "One step at a time, Mom. Leo's pretty irrepressible. He'll have some physical therapy afterward, and you might be taking more care of him than he ever did of you for a while, but I'm guessing he'll be back in full form by the end."
She nodded and broke another egg. "What did you learn about the accident?"
He raised his eyebrows. "How did you know I was looking into that?"
She looked up at him. "I would be."
Good point, he thought. Part of the reason he'd turned out the way he had was because she'd trained him to be curious about everything and everyone.
"A piece of the car fell off," he said. "That's what messed up the steering. The sheriff's department is going to see if they can find it tomorrow, using metal detectors."
She kept working, whipping the eggs in the bowl, her eyes down and her voice neutral. "That seems like a lot of work."
He shrugged. "I've teamed up with one of their deputies, Rob Barrows. He says they have an Explorers troop that are all eager beavers. Won't cost them a cent."
Again she nodded. "Laura Barrows's boy. He was in the MPs in the Army. Got out three years ago. A nice man."
"Yeah. Seems so." Joe was watching her carefully, knowing something was brewing.
After a small pause, she added, "If you know the accident was caused by something falling off, why do you need to find it?"
Ouch, he thought. Too smart by half. "Just to make things neat and tidy."
She stopped whipping and fixed him with a baleful look. This one he did know to take seriously. "Joseph."
He pushed his lips out in defeat. "You're good, Mom. If I knew how to scramble eggs, I'd trade jobs with you."
"I wouldn't wish that on the rest of humanity," she told him. "What's going on?"
He studied the tabletop for a couple of seconds, pondering his response. "Truth? Maybe nothing, and I'm not pulling your leg. It's just that the piece I mentioned shouldn't have fallen off a car as new as the Subaru."
"What else?" she asked.
"That's it. I told you it was probably nothing."
She frowned at him. "You were the same way as a child. You could never just spit it out. Parts fall off of new cars, too, Joe. All the time. What are you not telling me?"
Joe repositioned his chair, crossed his legs and arms, and reconsidered his strategy.
"Cops are professional paranoids, Mom. You know that, right? It keeps us focused and it keeps us safe. It also makes us look under the bed, even when we know there's nothing there."
She kept studying him, the eggs temporarily forgotten.
"So," he resumed, "two members of a cop's family get injured because a relatively new car falls apart, you gotta wonder why, especially when that car is serviced by a business belonging to E. T. Griffis."
She nodded, satisfied at last, though not happily so. "Ah."
"You knew about Andy?" he asked.
"Yes. Poor boy."
"Well, I didn't. Barrows just told me. When did it happen?"
"Late this summer. He hanged himself."
"I heard E. T. and Dan took it hard."
She seemed to notice the bowl before her for the first time, gave it a couple of last swirls with the whisk, and set to work on dicing up a piece of ham. She spoke as she worked.
"Dan confronted me in the grocery store afterward."
"What?" Joe leaned forward in his chair.
She put her knife down briefly for emphasis. "I'm only telling you this because I assume you'll hear it from someone else, and I don't want to explain why I kept silent. It's the worst part of living in a small community."
"What happened?" Joe demanded.
"Essentially nothing. He just came up to me in the grocery store when I was there buying a few things-Leo had gone across the street-and he let me know he was unhappy with the way things had turned out."
Joe let out an angry laugh. "Oh, right. I bet that's the way he phrased it. Come on, Mom. What did he say?"
She was back to cutting up the ham. "It was unpleasant and said in the heat of the moment."
Now he was
the one merely staring in silence.
She let it drag on for almost a minute before finally conceding, "He said we'd be sorry. That we'd pay for it."
Joe rubbed his forehead. "Great. Did you know E. T. handed Steve's Garage over to Dan?"
That stopped her in mid-motion. "No," she allowed.
Joe sat back and thought for a few seconds. "What was the reason given for Andy doing himself in?" he then asked in a calmer voice.
"The most I ever heard was that he was having problems, whatever that means." She looked up from her task and then asked, "What did you arrest him for?"
Joe smiled bitterly and shook his head. "For something I couldn't prove he didn't do."
"He didn't do?" she parroted.
"It was a burglary. The store owner interrupted it and was injured in the process-an older lady. She didn't see who hit her, but she saw a car driving off afterward, tires squealing, and got the registration. It belonged to Andy, and when we went by his place to talk to him, the tools used in the break-in were right there in plain sight and were later matched not only to the marks left on the lock of the place he rifled, but to a blood smear belonging to the woman."
"That sounds pretty strong," his mother suggested.
"On the face of it," he agreed. "My problem was that he'd never done anything like that before and there was nothing in his private life to explain why he would-except for having a loser brother who happened to be facing what his type calls 'the Bitch.'"
Her eyebrows shot up. "I beg your pardon?"
"That's the habitual offender label that can turn a standard sentence into a lifetime in jail. The SA will slap it on you if he's had enough of giving you second chances, and I happen to know that Dan was nose to nose with it big-time back then. I couldn't prove it, but I always bet Dan was in Brattleboro when all this happened-that he'd done the job and convinced Andy to take the fall because he'd get off light."
"Three years doesn't sound light."
Joe didn't argue with her. "It was an election year, the SA had been accused of being too easy on criminals, the old lady was a charmer, complete with bandaged head, and did I mention that Andy copped to having done it? According to statute, he was looking at fifteen years. I figured-and I swear this is what Dan sold him, too-that he'd get a suspended sentence and probation. But that's not how the SA saw it, and for some reason, the judge let it fly, too. It was pure Russian roulette on Andy's part, with five out of six chances of being lucky."