The Company She Kept

by Archer Mayor

  “Not according to this.” Quayles hefted the file before replacing it on his desk. “But,” he continued, “inferring from your presence here, he may be facing some new entries, is that correct?”

  Joe waggled his hand from side to side. “Maybe. Maybe not. First, we just want to find him.”

  “Concerning Susan Raffner?” Quayles almost interrupted. He laughed at his own cleverness, and filled in, “Hardly Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Gunther. You are the VBI’s field force commander. Why else would you be slumming on my patch rather than pursuing the senator’s murderer?”

  “We don’t have a direct tie-in between Ames and her death,” Joe quickly clarified. “But his name came up in a way that’s giving us hope.”

  “Very carefully put,” Quayles complimented him. “Can you tell me what to expect in terms of what they call blowback? The Raffner investigation could no longer be called low-key by even the wildest imagination. As soon as word leaks out that you’re in Rutland, I’ll be receiving phone calls.”

  Joe and Crawford glanced at each other.

  “Ames has never been violent in our experience,” Bob said, only indirectly addressing the chief’s concern.

  “All the same,” Joe added more expansively. “The common thread between Raffner and Ames is drugs—specifically marijuana.”

  “Really?” Quayles reacted, startled.

  “Yes, but it should be stressed that we have no idea where this might lead, if anywhere. To be safe, you might want to appoint someone as a liaison to keep us from stepping on any toes, and maybe to help us with local intelligence. From what I was told about your RutStat program, you have quite a finger on the city’s pulse.”

  Quayles laughed again. “Flattery will get you everything. Well, if you know about RutStat, then you probably also know that I prefer an all-inclusive form of management. We have invited several federal agencies to stretch their muscles down here in the past, and Bob will attest to our being open to his task force operating in town when they need to. I only ask that if any actions are contemplated that might alienate the local citizenry and imperil our community policing efforts, I be advised. Is that acceptable?”

  “Of course,” Joe replied immediately.

  Peter Quayles crossed his legs and steepled his fingers before him as he concluded, “If, in exchange for my support and cooperation, a few kind words could be dropped into Governor Zigman’s ear, I would be extremely grateful. I hope that’s not too forward of me. She has not hesitated to make Rutland the state’s poster child for drug-related misfortune, and yet financial or even logistical support has been thin.”

  Initially, Joe was struck by the almost oily suggestiveness of the comment. But in fact, it was a practical request. If this man was as devoted to his cause as he claimed to be, could he be faulted for using every avenue available?

  “I’ll do my best,” Joe promised him.

  * * *

  Willy stepped into the VBI office on the Brattleboro municipal building’s second floor and looked around, stamping his feet free of residual snow.

  “You could do that in the lobby,” Sammie suggested from her desk.

  Willy ignored her. “The boss around?”

  “He and Lester’re in Rutland, rubbing noses with the chief there. Why? You got something?”

  Willy hung his coat on a hook near the door with a well-practiced gesture. He reached into his pants pocket and waved a small piece of paper at her.

  “Remember those two phone numbers I photographed at Jackie Nunzio’s?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Did Lester kick something back?”

  Willy made himself comfortable behind his desk, which he’d positioned to face the rest of the room in instinctively paranoid fashion. “Never sent ’em to him,” he replied.

  She wasn’t surprised. That, too, fit the man’s style—never show your cards if you can avoid it. Even—or sometimes especially—to your own colleagues. She sighed inwardly, the anxiety that had lessened when she’d mostly come clean with Joe earlier returned as a twinge of dread. What the hell had Willy done now?

  “Okay,” she said suggestively.

  He tilted his head and smiled. “Well, you know. Don’t give away what you got till you know what it is, right? That’s my motto.”

  “Really,” she said sardonically. “I had no idea. So, what’s on the piece of paper?”

  He was going to milk this a little more, enjoying himself for no reason she could ascertain. “I know Lester’s got his magical websites and all, but it wasn’t rocket surgery to figure that the numbers were related to drugs somehow.”

  “Rocket surgery?” He had made her smile with that one.

  “I got in touch with a pal of mine at Homeland Security,” he continued. “A sort of under-the-table request. He ran both numbers. I chose HSI over DEA ’cause I like ’em better, but also ’cause they’re getting all the funding and most of the toys lately. Anyhow, the opening news flash was hardly earth shattering: Both numbers are disconnected. But it turns out that the feds, with all their snooping hardware, keep an archive of old drop phone numbers. Christ knows why. But he called me back after a bit and said that while one of the numbers was a dud, the other had once been associated with your old sweetheart, Manuel Ruiz.”

  Despite her best efforts, Sammie’s face flushed. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”

  He laughed. “Relax. You’re the only one who carries around that ancient baggage. No one else cares.”

  She left it there, grateful for his evident lack of interest.

  “It got me wondering about what old Manny was up to, which Bob Crawford hit on the head—the man’s turned into a big wheel. You trained him well.”

  Sam became genuinely curious. “Bob talked about how the business had stopped being so top-down—that the previous underlings were now moving and shaking. Is that where Ruiz fits in?”

  “Not exactly,” Willy said. “Those were mostly New York guys. Manny is still operating out of Holyoke, for some reason, maybe because of Hispanic traditions, or family, or who-the-hell knows. He’s still pretty old-school. Again—supposedly. But you’re probably not gonna see him around Rutland anymore.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “He’s an executive nowadays. Money’s his thing. Never touches the dope. Did he dabble in the product when you worked with him?”

  “No,” she said, thinking back. That had been one of the appealing things about Manny. He’d seemed more like a young company man on the rise—little violence, no drug use, minimal alcohol, gently spoken. Of course, later—after he’d escaped and the Rutland operation had been shut down—it turned out that he’d actually killed people to serve his double game. To Sam’s way of thinking, that had only qualified him as being typical of the sort of boyfriend she’d sought out most of her life.

  Until now, she liked to think.

  She shook her head slightly at her own thoughts. “Does your source know if Manny’s tied to our case?”

  “He could be,” Willy admitted. “Rutland only got bigger for him over time.”

  Sam’s phone began buzzing. She picked it up off her desk and glanced at the screen. “Cool,” she told him. “It’s Chris Hartley, from the crime lab.”

  She put the phone where Willy could hear it. “Hey, Chris. You’re on speaker. Willy’s with me.”

  “Hey, yourselves,” her friend responded, sounding upbeat. “I heard from my brother. He really came through—record time for those laid-back academic types. Must be I have some pull after all.”

  “What did he find out?”

  “In a word? Mexico. That’s where your marijuana came from.… Well,” she interrupted herself, “that’s where it grew up. Who knows how it got to where you found it. Still, it’s an unusual finding—trash grass, all the way from Mexico. Seems cost-ineffective to me—unless you can get some hayseed to pay top dollar for it, of course. Which is exactly what you told me happened.”

  “Did your brother find anything else?” Sammie asked
.

  “I’m sending you his report in an e-mail, which goes into more detail, but that’s pretty much the punch line. He identifies the region in Mexico where your sample was grown, but unless your agency has the budget from heaven, I doubt you’re going to do much about that. Call me crazy.”

  Sammie laughed. “Nope. Right on that count. Thanks for doing this, Chris—and make sure to tell your brother that there’s a jug of maple syrup heading his way, assuming he likes the stuff.”

  “Kills for it,” she said. “That’s how I keep him in line.”

  Sam disconnected the call and glanced at Willy. “What do you think?”

  “The fact that bad weed is for sale up here just tells me the dealers are appealing to every level of the market,” he said thoughtfully. “I was surprised to find Raffner owning any—given her fancy taste in other things. What is interesting,” he added, “is that since we can prove it came from Mexico, it gives us a federal angle to exploit if we need it.”

  “You want to go to the feds with this?” she asked, surprised.

  “Not necessarily. Maybe enlist them if we need to.”

  “That’s refreshingly mature of you, Mr. Kunkle,” she commented with raised eyebrows.

  He scowled in return. “Hardly. It’s just that when I called my Homeland Security contact, he said they’d help us out if we asked them. It’s because of the whole Border Patrol and Immigration roots of their agency—any involvement by a foreign country definitely qualifies HSI to come on board.”

  “Well, we got that now,” she said.

  “Right,” he agreed. “But there’s more: If Manny is tied into this, and if he is exclusively into handling money, like Crawford claims, then HSI is the perfect partner for us if we need one—one of their specialties is confiscating other people’s cash if they think it’s dirty. I’m just saying we should keep them in mind.”

  “Meaning we’ll have two triggers to pull against whoever’s behind this—the dope and the money,” Sam said.

  Willy nodded. “It is nice to have options every once in a while.”

  Sammie, however, was thinking of the case in more specific terms. “Maybe, but unless all this is even remotely related to what got Susan Raffner killed,” she said, “we’ll be back to chasing our tails.”

  “Well then,” Willy suggested, “we better just work the hell out of this lead.” He punched her shoulder lightly and added cheerfully, “What can go wrong?”

  Sammie grimaced in silence.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sergeant Tim Dugan was the Rutland police liaison assigned to the VBI. An eighteen-year veteran, he was a steady, quiet man, Joe thought as they settled down around a table on the top floor of the PD, and as such, a reflection of his chief’s desire to be cooperative.

  Also at the table were Sammie, Lester, Deputy Attorney General Brenda Weiss, Bob Crawford, and—equipped with a wireless keyboard to help him run an oversized computer screen in one corner of the room—Bruce Steinmetz.

  “On behalf of Chief Quayles,” Dugan began, “I’d like to welcome you all here. He wanted me to thank you, as well, for the way you approached us with this thing, instead of just marching in and taking over. This is maybe the biggest case—or at least the most high-profile one—to hit the state in a few years, and we appreciate what it must’ve taken to show your kind of courtesy.”

  Matching the man’s form, Joe responded, “Tim, it’s how we try to do business every time, but thanks all the same. I also thank you for not having grilled me too hard about what we’re up to, until this meeting, so that Bruce and Brenda could be brought up to speed at the same time. Helps reduce the repetitiousness we go through so much in this business.”

  “No problem,” Dugan replied.

  “That being said,” Joe continued, “we may end up going in circles. In the simplest terms, we’re after whoever killed Senator Raffner. For that, we’ve got the biggest task force I’ve ever belonged to, combing through every scrap she left behind—physical and electronic—looking for anything relevant. But so far, both the sheer mass of it and the lack of real evidence have stymied us. That’s why what Sam and her partner discovered struck us as possibly significant.

  “It turns out that among the senator’s enthusiasms, most of which were sociopolitical, she was also fond of a little recreational marijuana. In pursuit of restocking her supply, she had an intermediary buy her a large amount awhile back. This transaction occurred in Rutland and involved Buddy Ames and we think Stuey Nichols, to a degree we don’t yet know. Problem was that when Raffner’s representative delivered the product, it wasn’t what had been expected or paid for. We believe that as a result of feeling ripped off, Raffner herself backtracked through the players that had been used to land the deal, and came to Rutland to confront Buddy Ames and force him to make good, one way or the other—as was her style. That past part is pure supposition by us.”

  “When was all this?” Brenda Weiss asked.

  “Just before she was found hanging by her neck,” Joe said bluntly. “That’s what makes us think this lead has some meat on it.”

  “So we find Buddy Ames and we find her killer?” Weiss concluded.

  “Only if you believe in miracles,” Dugan told her. “Speaking as somebody who knows Buddy Ames, I have serious doubts he pulled this off on his own. He may have played a part, but the rest of it goes way beyond his brain wattage.”

  “How ’bout Stuey … What was his last name again?” she asked.

  “Nichols,” Sammie said.

  “Stuey’s as smart as your average jackal,” Dugan allowed. “I don’t think he’s a natural for this, but people sometimes stretch beyond what’s expected of them.”

  “Implying a possible third player,” Joe said. “Sam found out that the questionable marijuana originated in Mexico, which I gather Bob thinks is a little unusual.”

  “A little,” Bob agreed. “But not unheard of in these more complicated times.”

  “I should add,” Joe continued, “that we found heroin residue on the packaging. It, too, suggests a Mexican source.”

  “What’re you referring to?” Bob asked.

  “We received an analysis yesterday,” Joe explained. “There wasn’t much to work with—a dusting on the outside of the baggie—so it’s not supersophisticated, but the telling detail turned out to be the adulterants used to cut the stuff. According to the lab, heroin out of New York is generally laced with fentanyl, Dilantin, and other higher-end pharmaceuticals, while Mexican smack is more often cut with much cheaper aspirin and the like. What was found on Raffner’s bag of dope fits the latter. What we’re hoping is that the similar sourcing of both drugs might help narrow down a suspect list and improve our chances of connecting this to Raffner’s murder.”

  Crawford pulled on an earlobe. “Huh. Interesting. Most of the heroin hitting Vermont right now is coming straight out of Brooklyn. But it used to be Holyoke.” He glanced at Sammie. “Back when you were working your case, it was less heroin and more coke, but the source was heavily Mexican, involving cartels and organized crime and outfits like the Latin Kings and the Bloods. It might be that we’re looking at a subgroup of old-fashioned dealers here.”

  “Like Manny Ruiz?” Sammie asked. “He would be smart enough to orchestrate Raffner’s murder.”

  “He would fit, if he’s who we get from Ames and/or Nichols when we find them. I have no clue why he would get involved in killing a state senator over a small deal gone bad, but that might be what’s going to help us figure out who the real bad guy is. I mean, if all this does play out, and Manny is clean, he might even hand over who we’re after, just so he can get back to business.”

  “Now you are dreaming,” Lester groused.

  “How’re you doing finding those two, Bruce?” Dugan asked his colleague.

  The screen in the corner came alive as Steinmetz spoke, making Joe think of the computer less as an extension of the young man’s abilities, and more as his alter ego—blurring the dist
inctions between a hand puppet and the hand.

  “I started with those three names,” he began, “Ames, Nichols, and Ruiz, and I applied the same process I did when you came by earlier and I got you Jackie Nunzio’s information. I’ve split the screen into three panels, each acting independently, so I can pick up on any commonalities or overlays between and among them.”

  The people gathered around the table were watching one another as much as the ever-changing screen, perhaps wondering when the first of them might make a comment. Joe was nevertheless impressed by Bruce’s command and enthusiasm. The man was a geek in his element, and confident enough that Joe doubted he would have cared if some wisecrack had been made.

  “Ruiz,” Bruce was still speaking, “is the hardest to track. Not too surprising, considering his climb up the food chain. Here, we can see his involvement with the case Detective Martens ran ten years ago—and his resulting fugitive warrant. After that, he only comes up when he’s referred to by others—people saying that they work for him, or they’re scared of crossing him, or whatever. That being said, you can see from this graph how those instances have increased to the present time, indicating his growing importance.”

  Joe found himself nodding, seeing precisely what Steinmetz was pointing out. He imagined how handy such graphics were at briefings with the patrol cops downstairs.

  “Switching to Nichols,” Bruce said, “we can see the enforced vacation he took as a result of attacking Detective Martens, followed by a few other infractions that then peter out into references by other people only—similar to in Ruiz’s case. That tells me he started getting more cautious.”

  “Or he was told to keep a lid on it,” Sam suggested.

  “True.” Bruce switched to his third subject. “Ames must be still in the trenches, if we follow that logic, because he’s in plain view. Here he is getting arrested for disorderly, or DUI, or resisting arrest, or any number of minor offenses that get him little stretches of jail time or probation or hand slaps of that nature.”

  “He might be the one to lean on,” Dugan ventured.