by Archer Mayor
He heard the conviction in her voice. Still, “The gun they found on him was definitely his,” he told her. “And it wasn’t for hunting.”
She looked at him pityingly. “It’s Vermont, Detective. Everybody has guns.”
“They don’t necessarily drive around at night with them,” Lester insisted.
She studied his face a moment in thoughtful silence, prompting him to ask further, “Did he usually carry a gun, to your knowledge?”
“Nope,” she said.
“So why was he then?”
“I don’t know.”
Lester kept with that line of questioning. “And what about that night? Do you have any idea what he was up to?”
She reflected a moment before answering. “No. I always wondered, too. He was heading away from his apartment, and unless he was aiming for North Adams or someplace in Mass, there’s no bar nearer by, and it was probably too late for that anyhow. I could never figure that part out.”
“How’d he been behaving up to then? Any ongoing arguments or love affairs gone bad?”
“None that I knew about.”
“I didn’t find any reference to a girlfriend in the file. Had he been seeing anyone?”
“It seemed like he always had something going on. That’s what I meant about his being a ladies’ man.” She paused before suggesting, “Maybe that’s where he was heading that night.”
Lester considered that before asking, “How ’bout married women? He go after them, too?”
She tucked in her chin slightly in response. “I don’t think so. I never heard about it if he did. Why would you ask that?”
“It would be an extra reason for him to be cautious,” he said. “Did he have other people he confided in, besides you? A best buddy, maybe?”
“He had a lot of friends,” she said. “High school, the fire department, the road crew—where he worked—and just people around town. He was a local and well liked. But even if the cops didn’t ask the kind of questions you are now, we talked about it among ourselves afterwards. I mean, we couldn’t make sense of it, either. How did he seem? What was he doing? Who was he hanging with? What about this Paine guy? Stuff like that. There was a lot of buzz. Nothing came of it, though—that’s what I’m saying. This was totally out of the blue.”
Lester was nodding as she reached her conclusion. “What about his family, besides you, that is?”
“What about them? How would any of them have anything to do with his shooting a cop?” She frowned suddenly and looked frustrated, adding, “Or his friends or girlfriends or anything else, for that matter? Two people shot each other, for Christ’s sake. Why all the questions?”
Les held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Whoa—hang on. I got no dog in the fight. How else’m I supposed to learn? You said the first guys with badges weren’t interested. Well, I am.”
She took a long pull on her drink before saying, “Sorry. You’re right. I don’t have a ton of people available to me. My husband’s gone most of the time, my kids are being kids, my dad’s who-knows-where, and my mom was useless before she died. Kyle was somebody I could depend on for company, if nothing else. I miss him.”
Lester let a moment’s-worth of birds chirping and breeze passing through the trees add to her recovery.
“You wanted to know about his family,” Molly finally said. “Not much there, really. Hard to tell who was worse between his mom and dad; they were both lost causes. Dead now. Kyle had an older brother who’s in the service somewhere, and hasn’t been back to Vermont in years. There’s the sister I mentioned—Lorraine. She’s outside of Ludlow nowadays, on permanent disability ’cause of a back injury. And a younger sister who headed over the hill almost as soon as she could stick a thumb out for a ride. That’s it, sad to say.”
The latter reference caught Lester’s attention. “When did the younger sister leave?”
But Molly brushed it off. “Way before when you’re talking about. Plus, it was same-ol’, same-ol’ soap opera stuff. They know where she is—California, I think—it’s just that she burned all bridges. She really hated her dad. Blamed him for everything. I didn’t mean it was a mystery or anything. She just doesn’t want anything to do with here.”
“And Lorraine?”
“She’s fine. Kind of a wise old bird, even if she’s not that old. Just seems that way, maybe ’cause of her problems. You could talk to her. Actually, come to think of it, you should. Kyle used to see her regularly. You were asking if there was somebody he leaned on. I bet she’d have a different take on him than I would. We were more like buddies. Lorraine was maybe like the mom he never had.”
Lester gazed off into the surrounding woods, reviewing his thoughts.
“What happened to his stuff?” she asked him.
He looked at her, surprised. “What stuff?”
“In his apartment. He was living in Wilmington—a rented room above a bar or restaurant or something. I always wondered what they did with his junk.”
Lester was nonplussed. He had no idea, and was embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of it.
“It’s on my list of things to do,” he answered vaguely.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“How goes the battle?” Joe asked.
Sam smiled at the phone. “Better. You were right. It does get easier. I’m learning how to separate the people from the things they say.”
His response was leading. “Oh?”
Sam knew better than to mention names, however. “Well, you know: the ones who go on and on about overtime, benefits, and vacation days, but who’d be stunned if you did anything about it. Or the guy who’s hot to turn one of the local cop shops upside down for corruption, until I found out his ex-wife was sleeping with the chief. Or half the paperwork coming from the top that apparently isn’t as urgent as it says on the cover sheet. I completed a form a couple of days ago—filled everything out—and sent it back to a clerk who had no idea why I’d gotten it in the first place.”
Joe was laughing by now. “You do know you can pile about fifty percent of that on my desk for later, don’t you?”
“I do now.” Sam was feeling that she might have gone on for too long about herself—not a rare circumstance. “How’re things out there?” she therefore asked.
“We’re settling in,” he said, in fact sounding happier than last time. “Mom’s improving. She’s got a way to go, but everyone agrees progress is being made. She’s definitely not so out of it as she was. Part of it is just sticking to a routine. She’s learning to anticipate things happening at a certain time, in a certain place, which turns out to be pretty soothing in itself. And the people are extraordinary—it’s like they’re hooked on happy pills. No matter how grouchy she gets—or me, for that matter—they have an upbeat comeback and a solution to offer. It is an impressive place.”
“Leo must be super relieved.”
He laughed. “You have no idea. He’s been driving me nuts, calling all the time. So, yes. He’s doing better, too.”
“You said they put you to work, too?”
“Yeah. I think the staff’s just keeping me busy, but it works. They make me dress like them and help out with a lot of the physical and occupational therapy. It gives Mom a familiar face to look at through the day, and makes me feel more like part of the solution. It’s odd to be away—made me realize how long it’s been since I even had a full weekend without work. On the other hand, I’m starting to take notes about how to apply some of what they do here to our operation.”
“Oh, great,” she commented. “We all gonna have to wear matching outfits?”
“You’ll love ’em,” he countered. “Pale mauve. Go great with your hair. And Willy’ll never look better.”
“I don’t know, boss,” she said resignedly. “I may have to send him out there to extract you. You been checking the dailies in your spare time?” she asked.
“Oh, sure. Sounds like Willy’s thing in Windsor is developing into something.”
&nb
sp; “Yeah—took him long enough to spill the beans, but I have to admit, it’s got me curious, too. We also had a heart-to-heart—just the two of us—so things are better there, too.”
Joe didn’t pry, instead asking, “I take it that the mysterious and toothless Samuel Jones, who presumably jumped from the train, was a totally made-up name?”
“Let’s say that nobody matches any Sam Jones we got in our database. Course, you know what that’s worth.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Willy’s inclined to sniff around in Springfield, Mass. That’s supposedly where Mr. Jones got on board. I don’t want to go all crazy, though. There’s still no smoking gun, so I’m putting him on a short rope.”
Joe made no comment, but he was tempted to wish her good luck in that department.
Instead, he moved on. “Tell me how Lester’s doing on the Paine shooting—I want to hear your thoughts about what we’re facing. Is this about to go haywire?”
“Honestly?” she asked. “I don’t know. We’re walking a tightrope, trying to dig into it without letting anyone find out. But it’s gonna blow, sooner than later, probably. And then, you’re right—all hell will probably break loose.”
“As well it should,” he mused.
“What?”
“Something’s not right, Sam,” he reasoned. “I’m not wishing us prime-time news coverage, but what’re those prints doing in the middle of an easy case? That needs to be explained.”
“I know, boss. I know,” she said quickly.
“You’re the boss,” he reminded her. “How’re you feeling about this?”
“I’m good,” she said, not feeling good at all. “In a way, we can only improve from where we are. We’ve got two dead people, killed in a mutual shoot-out. That’s not gonna change. Meaning that if we come up with another player we knew nothing about, it’ll only be to our advantage—show how thorough we are.”
“Okay,” he said doubtfully after a moment. “But if you ever want to consider a change of careers, I’d recommend becoming a negotiator. You’d be terrific.”
“Thanks—I think.”
He laughed. “Hey, did you ever get that background information for Beverly? Rachel’s new roommate?”
“No,” Sam reported. “I needed a birth date, like I told you, but I guess Beverly found that was too awkward to get diplomatically, so it’s been left hanging. Rachel really likes the girl—they’ve become best pals—and even Beverly told me her radar hasn’t picked up anything creepy yet. I can get more aggressive, if you want.”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “I was just asking. Best leave it be.”
* * *
By birth and upbringing, Willy was a city boy—New York, specifically. Vermont had won him over, at last, but never to where he’d renounced his roots. Cities had value to him—supplying a vibrancy that fueled the culture in ways the boondocks, as he still called his adopted home, could never touch.
That being said, Springfield, Massachusetts, impressed him not at all—not in its present incarnation, at least. He granted that it was in awkward transition. But the question remained: to what end? Would it take on a new identity, becoming New England’s first primarily multiethnic metropolis, and supply a completely novel and modern urban template for the rest of the nation?
That was one hopeful line of thought.
But it was being chewed over by two opposing groups. One represented commerce, business, and tourism. It wanted to transform the city with hotels, museums, a casino, and a modern version of the industry that once had been a Springfield trademark. The other side argued for something less timeworn and more radical—a new model reflecting its current mixed-culture population and striving for an identity as yet unseen in the nation’s aging metropolitan landscape.
To Willy, the uninspired wishful thinking of the first group was almost equally matched by the lack of cash, power, and political influence—or any agreed-upon grand plan—of the second.
Not to mention that the movers and shakers had all the money anyway, which explained why most of downtown was already a construction site involving the new casino and the revamped interstate causeway making room for it.
Nor the fact that neither side was tackling the black hole metaphor currently implied by places like Detroit, where the whole purpose of an erstwhile industrial powerhouse was under scrutiny. New York City might have been considered “too big to fail,” in today’s convoluted global vernacular, but Springfield? Who was to say?
Certainly not Willy, whose frequent up-or-down judgments spent little time processing such philosophical conundrums. To him, Springfield was a dump, as it had been for years. How it addressed its problems—much less solved them—was of no interest to him.
His focus at the moment was to meet with the man Keely Hooper and Al Clay had recommended: Aaron Hinkle, of the Amtrak police in Springfield. According to both sources, Hinkle was an old hand, a “good guy,” and a friend of Vermont law enforcement—having coordinated, all too often, with various Vermont agencies in documenting so-called whacks, or the one-sided encounters between locomotives and trespassing pedestrians.
Willy found his man in a featureless, windowless, concrete office buried beneath the stark elevated platform that had serviced Springfield since the 1970s, when the grandiose old Union Station across the tracks had been closed as an expensive dinosaur. All of Amtrak’s local workers had been toiling in the decades since in an increasingly decrepit hodgepodge of cell-like cubbyholes, waiting for Providence or retirement to help them escape. Miraculously, the former was about to happen. For enough money to make Croesus weep, the city had embraced mass transit once more, and was reinventing the mothballed antique Union Station as a rail, bus, and auto hub to envy.
As Willy and Aaron Hinkle exchanged handshakes, Kunkle imagined, looking around, that his host had to be counting the days—Willy had only rarely been surrounded by a more depressing set of four walls.
Hinkle, as advertised, was generous, affable, and helpful. It didn’t hurt that Willy had called ahead about his interest in Windsor’s minor “mishap” of the missing passenger, or that he’d asked Colin Guyette to throw in a good word—thereby enhancing Willy’s bona fides. But Hinkle didn’t hesitate to make available what he had, in any case. That amounted to video footage of the passengers boarding the Amtrak Vermonter on the day it was presumed that the mysterious Samuel Jones had lost his teeth later, falling or jumping off the back of the train.
As both men made themselves as comfortable as possible in front of Hinkle’s computer screen, the Amtrak cop told Willy, “I think you may be in luck. It was a super slow day—a standard crowd getting off, but not too many boarding. I also thought it might help you to see everything we got, and not just the platform footage.”
“What’s that mean?” Willy asked, peering closely at the images before them.
“We got three cameras, mostly because of problems in the past. One’s on the sidewalk outside, above the taxi stand on Lyman; the other’s mounted behind the guys at the ticket counter; and the last one’s what you asked for—the platform unit.”
Hinkle began manipulating the mouse beside his keyboard. “The key was what you got off of Al—Mr. Jones’s ticket info. From that, I could get the exact time of his purchase, and from that, I got this.”
He froze the image where it framed a skinny young man standing before the bullet-resistant glass, receiving his ticket in exchange for a crumpled wad of cash. A date and time stamp hovered in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
“Meet Mr. Jones,” Hinkle said. “Or at least I think so. He fit what you’re looking for?”
Willy leaned forward and tapped the monitor with his finger. “That sure as hell does.” He was indicating a large rucksack, slung over the young man’s shoulder. “Did you check the people before and after him, just to make sure the clocks are all lined up?”
In response, Hinkle quickly flashed ahead and back on the footage, speaking as he did. �
�Yup. There was a girl with a pack, who got off in Northampton, and another guy traveling alone, but he’s accounted for, too—rode all the way to Essex Junction. That was it for people even close to your profile. There are a few old folks, families, people with companions—I have a list for you of everybody’s names, et cetera. But that’s Jones, all right.”
He did his magic with the mouse again. “And here he is getting on board. That’s where you can see some of the others, too.” He pointed at another man and laughed. “I wondered about him for a second, ’cause I didn’t see him buy a ticket, but then I found him. He’s a relative of the engineer who was on that day. Happens sometimes.”
Willy nodded and pulled back from his scrutiny. “Will you be able to print out a face shot from the ticket counter shot?”
Hinkle proudly handed him an envelope. “Thought you might want one. I included a thumb drive with the footage, too.”
Willy gave him an admiring smile. “Nice. You got his home address?”
Hinkle couldn’t resist a broad grin. “Open the envelope.”
“You’re kidding.” Willy placed it flat on the desk and worked it open expertly with his one hand. He extracted two photos, one of the shot he’d requested, and a second of a high-angle view of the taxi stand by the station’s entrance, revealing the same young man getting out of a readily identifiable cab—its driver clearly visible.
“Not quite that good,” Hinkle conceded, “but I thought it might give you a leg up on finding where he came from.”
Willy reached over and patted the man’s shoulder—a rare show of appreciation from him. “You like Vermont maple syrup?” he asked. “Give me your mailing address.”
* * *
Two hours later, Willy sat in his car, in the McKnight section of Springfield, Massachusetts, smiling to himself as he observed a modest, low-slung warehouse on Albany Street.
Aaron Hinkle had been right to be hopeful. After leaving the Amtrak cop’s company, complete with photos, Willy had contacted Doug Murphy of the Springfield PD—an acquaintance from when the two had exchanged business cards at a training years earlier—and asked him for a little help in chatting with the taxi company’s dispatcher.