by Archer Mayor
“I am not a terrorist,” he squealed, wriggling again.
“The names, Sunny,” Willy ordered.
Malik was almost crying by now. “I don’t have names. It’s not like I wrote an invoice.”
“Cute. Sure sounds like a completely legitimate transaction. Details. How did it work?”
“It’s true, I import partial batteries. They still have to be wired and finished so that they’ll work as designed.”
“Mil-spec batteries?”
“Not technically. That’s what I was saying.” He tensed as Willy shifted his hold. “All right, all right. I admit, they are illegal, but that is the business. People are cutting corners—even people making things for the U.S. military. That is how they increase their profit. They quote one figure to the government, then they undercut that figure every way they can to make more money. It is true everywhere. It has been true forever. It is the way of business.”
“Cut the crap,” Willy growled, conscious of his narrowing time window. “I don’t care about history. How did this one deal work?”
“A man in Vermont heard about what I import. His money was good, his system with that courier worked well, and he was happy with the batteries being only halfway finished.”
“That’s bullshit,” Willy swore at him. “All that hush-hush and he tells you he’s from Vermont? How dumb do you think I am, Sunny?”
“He didn’t,” Malik protested, trying to turn his head. “It was the courier. A very stupid man. He talked and talked. He even said he lived in Windsor, specifically. I did not want to hear. I told him once to be quiet—that his boss would be angry. That is why I cannot give you their identities.”
Willy found that completely believable, given so many of the crooks he’d met. “When’s this very stupid man scheduled to pick up another load?”
“He’s not. The last purchase was when you’re talking about.”
Jesus, Willy thought. Almost missed it. I’m not usually the lucky one in something like this.
“How did you keep in touch?”
“I didn’t. He would call me. That is how it works with many of these people.”
“That’s how it used to work,” Willy cautioned him, seeing the flicker of emergency LEDs flashing against the street-side curtains.
“What is that?” Malik asked.
“Colleagues, more or less,” Willy said truthfully, not eager to meet them. “But nobody you want to talk to about me. Remember what I said about your family, Sunny? Their safety depends on your silence and flying straight from now on. Clear?”
Malik nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“One last question,” Willy proposed. “What’re these batteries for?”
“I do not know. But I suspect drones. I have seen such cells used that way before.”
Damn, Willy thought, his rebellious independence rewarded yet again. This thing won’t quit. He gave Malik an extra painful tweak with his hand. “You find some other way to pad your wallet. Don’t move.”
Willy let go of his head, reached for his gun, and tapped it against Malik’s cheekbone. “Know what this is?”
“Yes.”
“I will shoot you if you move a muscle for the next five minutes.”
Willy didn’t wait. He was gone in an instant, and out in the backyard by the time he heard the doorbell ring. He circled around unobtrusively and saw two cops by the door, and two more interviewing his hapless friend across the street.
Not to worry, he thought. And not a bad night’s work. With this, he had enough to return to firmer ground in Vermont.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Guilderland, New York, residential street Sammie Martens observed as she parked her car reminded her of photographs of old Hollywood back lots, featuring perfect suburban neighborhoods stripped clean of people or trash. Checking in both directions as she crossed over, she half expected someone to yell “Action” and for a sitcom kid to come barreling out of the house ahead of her.
He didn’t, of course. Nor was it that kind of show. To no surprise, when it came to notifying Charlotte Anne Robinson’s parents of their daughter’s death, Sam had found no takers from her Burlington colleagues or the Albany cops she was scheduled to meet with afterwards. Death notices were anathema to cops, who, despite their fictionalized portrayals, tended to dislike dead bodies or any of the emotional drama attached to them.
The door opened before she reached it, revealing a woman with perfectly brushed, shoulder-length hair and immaculately applied makeup—all in jarring contrast to her expression of unbridled anguish.
“Who are you?” she demanded in a strangled voice.
Sam displayed her badge. “Special Agent Samantha Martens, of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. Are you Mrs. Robinson?”
The woman’s hand left the doorframe and crept to her neck. “Where is she?”
“I’m sorry,” Sam responded. “I’m afraid I have to know: Are you Harriet Robinson?”
A clean-shaven man wearing a white shirt and a tie appeared by the woman’s side. His voice was deep and powerful, and his words carefully chosen. “We are Thomas and Harriet Robinson. Are you here about our daughter?”
“Yes, sir. I am. May I come in?”
Harriet Robinson was about to say something—to somehow upset the formalities—until her husband placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently, before stepping back. “Please.”
Sammie slid by them into a surgically clean front hallway. Thomas Robinson gestured with his hand. “Right ahead, to the living room. Would you like something to drink? Iced tea, perhaps?”
Sam looked back at them. “No, thanks. I’m really sorry to be meeting under these circumstances.”
Robinson continued with his hand directions, pointing out one of two opposing sofas, separated by a long, low coffee table. The room looked lifted from a two-decades-old magazine article on interior decorating. Over the mantelpiece were framed oversized graduation photos of two girls, one of whom Sam immediately recognized as a longer-haired Charlotte.
The Robinsons sat across from Sam, holding hands. “You haven’t explained the circumstances,” he said calmly, almost professorially, as if easing her through a tough moment, which—in a way—he was.
“I’m afraid I have bad news,” Sam began, feeling pedantic. “I know you realize that. I’m really sorry.”
“Our daughter is dead,” Robinson stated gently as his wife’s shoulders slumped and her head bowed to her chest.
“Yes,” Sam replied. “She was killed in Burlington, Vermont, during a break-in.”
After a long pause, “Tell us,” Thomas managed to get out.
“We don’t have much,” Sam told them. “That’s another reason I’m here. It seems a man broke into the apartment where Charlotte was staying and attacked her. We don’t know why, and we don’t know who. We have put every available resource onto the case, though.”
By now, Harriet was weeping and Thomas rubbing her back.
“When was the last time you communicated with your daughter?” Sam asked him.
That caused Harriet to cry harder as her husband explained, “It’s been a long time. We had a falling out.”
Great, Sam thought. “What would you say? Weeks, months?”
“Well over a year. She found us too controlling, to use her words.”
Harriet suddenly looked up. “I’m the one. I was the controlling one. She ran because of me.”
Thomas tried consoling her, whispering into her ear for a while. In the end, the woman couldn’t take it any longer, rose to her feet, and left the room without a word.
“Where is she?” he asked Sam.
Sammie processed the question for a second before she understood. “Burlington. By law, they had to do a postmortem. But she’s ready to be released whenever you want.”
“I’ll give you the name of a funeral home,” he said evenly. “They’ve handled other family members. Where should I tell them to go?”
“The chief med
ical examiner’s office at the UVM Medical Center,” she replied. She pulled out one of her business cards and wrote the information on its back before handing it over. “Just give them that. They may be familiar with it.”
“Thank you.”
“Mr. Robinson, I don’t want to be a pest, but I hope you understand that in order to move forward with our investigation, we’re going to need whatever information you can give us.”
“Of course.”
“For example, while I realize you weren’t in touch with Charlotte, you might’ve known what she was up to. Where she was living, for example, or going to school, or work, or who her friends were. Things like that.”
He sat with his hands now slack between his knees, staring into space. “I don’t know much,” he said, sounding lost.
“Where was she living?” Sam tried again. “In Albany? Maybe at a dorm?”
“Not a dorm,” he said, looking at her.
“Okay. There we go. An apartment?”
“She was at an apartment, with a couple of other girls, but that ended. I called once to talk to her, and was told she’d moved.”
“That’s all right,” Sam encouraged him. “It’s a start. Where was it?”
He gave her the address in a monotone.
“We heard she was attending SUNY,” Sam went on. “Is that right?”
But here, he shook his head. “That was partly what caused the rift. I guess you know that both Mrs. Robinson and I are employed by the school system?”
Sam nodded.
“Education is very important to us. It was the gateway we both used to get out of the neighborhood we lived in as children. Are you familiar with Albany, Special Agent Martens?”
“Not really,” Sam said to keep him going.
“There’s a large black neighborhood named Arbor Hill, near the river, north of downtown. Harriet and I started out there. Our educations got us out.”
His voice grew as he gathered momentum. “We are proud people, Agent Martens—proud of being black, of being successful, of making something of ourselves, and of passing along the benefits of hard work to our daughters.”
Sam nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“It has not been easy, as you can imagine, and perhaps we didn’t do as good a job as we might have in sharing those lessons properly with Charlotte Anne.”
His eyes were glistening as he spoke, and Sam understood that she was perhaps less his audience than were his own guilt and loss.
“In any case,” he continued, “she rebelled, as children do, and we dug in our heels, as parents will. We lost touch with our daughter as she dropped out of college, associated with people we didn’t approve of, and returned to Arbor Hill in search of her roots, as she put it.”
“Was she living there?”
“Not that we knew of. I know she was working at a halfway house there, which was commendable in itself, but it led to other, less savory and admirable things.”
Sam could only imagine what some of the arguments must have sounded like in this pristine, almost sterile home.
“What about her sister?” she asked. “Was Charlotte close with her?”
“As children. But Angela moved away and got married. I don’t think they’ve been in touch for several years.”
Sam paused to reflect before asking, “Charlotte’s roommate in Burlington said she was calling herself Charlotte Collins. Do you know what that might’ve been about?”
Robinson looked baffled. “Collins? I don’t know anyone named that. Another argument we had with her did concern her name, but it was her first name. She preferred to go by Jayla. Her mother had a real problem with that.”
Sam recalled Mike McReady mentioning the alternate first name in Burlington. “So that’s probably how I should be referring to her, when I look into her past?” she surmised.
“Most likely, yes,” Thomas said sadly, as if hearing of the loss of his daughter all over again. “Charlotte Anne ceased to exist long ago.”
* * *
The large, short-cropped blond man rose upon Sammie’s entrance and circled his desk with his hand extended in greeting. “Special Agent Martens? I’m Chief of Detectives Ted McTaggart, welcome to Albany.” He motioned to another man on a couch against the wall, also rising, “And this is Scott Gagne, who’ll be your counterpart while you’re here. Scott’s a detective with our Child/Family Services unit, one of our specialty branches.”
Sam performed the welcoming ritual, wondering why Child/Family Services had been chosen to babysit her.
“How did it go with the Robinsons?” McTaggart asked as they all took chairs and got comfortable. “I hope that wasn’t too rough. If it’s any comfort, we’ve been busy on our end while you got stuck with the notification. Did they give you anything, or would you like us to go first?”
“No, that’s fine,” Sam said. “Not much. They and Charlotte went their separate ways well over a year ago, which of course is tearing them up now. According to the father, Charlotte wanted more involvement with the same black roots that the elder Robinsons had spent their lives escaping. As a result, Thomas Robinson didn’t have much on where his daughter was living, who her friends were, or even what she’d been doing after dropping out of SUNY.”
She produced a pad from her pocket and waved it in the air. “He did give me the address of where she once lived with two roommates, along with a list of the few friends he could recall. He also said she’d started calling herself Jayla, instead of Charlotte, in case that name comes up.”
“It has,” McTaggart said, pointing to Gagne. “That’s actually why I tapped Scott to be your liaison. Charlotte ‘Jayla’ Robinson popped up on our computer in relation to a domestic dispute a couple of months ago, which made it his bailiwick.”
The chief of detectives shifted in his chair. “I should give you the crash course on how we do most things over here first, though, just so there’re no misunderstandings later. I’ve heard good things about VBI—”
“As we have about you folks,” she quickly threw in diplomatically, but truthfully, as well.
He smiled. “Thank you. I understand you’re kind of the top dogs in Vermont—brought in for big cases whenever other agencies ask for help. We’re more like one of those other agencies. We’re a full-service operation, and like to think we’re good at our job, but we still have municipal restrictions. A case like this—an adult female killed in Vermont, who left here under her own steam—that would normally fall to the state police.”
He held up one finger theatrically. “But—since Scott got a hit on that domestic, and since you told us this girl died in a home invasion—which could be an extension of the domestic, till proven otherwise—we’d like to see more of it before kicking it loose. That sound reasonable to you?”
“Totally,” she said. “Whatever works best for you. Can you tell me about the domestic?”
Gagne took over the narrative. “That’s actually why we’re interested. The call was to the home of a lobbyist-lawyer named Jared Wylie, who’s a rich white guy living in a fancy neighborhood downtown. Robinson was the complainant—calling herself Jayla—but there wasn’t enough traction to the case to interest the DA in pursuing it.”
His face grew animated. “But if this homicide ends up being connected, like the captain was saying, we could try ramping up the old domestic to a felony assault, death resulting, which would be a nice way to stick it to a prick who’s gotten used to walking away from the misery he causes. It would take a bunch of lawyers from both our states putting their heads together, but it’s an idea.”
Sam was struck by the man’s passion. “A wild guess: You’ve had run-ins with Mr. Wylie before?”
Gagne nodded. “And he’s walked every time. Nailing his hide would be a real pleasure.”
“Okay,” she responded, slipping off her jacket and hanging it on the back of her chair. “Sounds good to me—assuming we can connect the two cases. Let’s lay everything we got side by side right now and see what ma
tches up. And not to sound pushy, but is there any coffee to be had nearby?”
* * *
Lester stood on the dirt road beside his car and watched the house for a few moments, like a hunter studying for movement in the woods. Driving up to people’s residences uninvited was always to be done cautiously. Being a cop only increased his wariness. Even while off duty, visiting friends, he found himself checking perimeters, windows, parked cars, the general surroundings, and listening for things that fit—like TVs, yelling kids, and dogs—and things that did not—like utter silence.
What he heard as he began approaching was a TV and a dog barking.
“McKenzie. Shut the fuck up.”
Even better.
In Lester’s experience, there were four basic styles of home in the state: trailers—including upscale, permanently rooted ones like Molly Blaze’s; nineteenth-century Greek Revival piles in various states of repair; modern houses in search of a suburb, rich or poor; and shacks. This was one of the last, situated in the woods, possibly having started as a hunting camp, and now a disintegrating, much-patched, Frankenstein’s monster of plywood, tar, metal roofing, torn screens, and a few moldy antlers hanging under the eaves. The yard was a pinup for backwoods accessorizing, complete with two rotting car carcasses, a rusty washing machine, and the standard assortment of auto parts, broken farming implements, and scattered tools.
Lester felt on familiar ground. He had spent much of his professional life visiting such properties, and had several friends whose places looked indistinguishable from this.
A big man in a full ginger beard and a greasy baseball cap appeared at the door, a mastiff by his side.
“You a cop?”
“Murder police,” Lester told him, keeping things simple. “Not here to hassle.”
“I haven’t murdered anybody.”
The dog growled as Lester got nearer.
Its owner glared down. “McKenzie. I told you to shut the fuck up.”
“You Chad Raney?” Lester opened his jacket to show his badge.
“What d’you want?”
“Talk about Kyle Kennedy.”
Chad’s face showed surprise. “Kyle’s dead, man. One of you shot him.”