by Archer Mayor
Lester shrugged, getting used to the response. “Looks like he gave as good as he got.”
The other man barked out a laugh. “Jesus. That’s cold.”
“Maybe. But that’s why I’m here.”
Raney narrowed his eyes. “You saying it didn’t happen that way?”
“Just making sure it did or it didn’t. I don’t have a vested interest, either way. You were tight with Kyle, weren’t you?”
Chad stepped outside, leaving his companion behind the flimsy screen door. “Sure. Best friends.”
“Shooting buddies,” Les stated.
“That, too.” Raney moved over to one of the wrecks, sat on what was left of its fender, and fished around in his breast pocket, preparing to roll a cigarette.
“Police ever talk to you after Kyle died?”
“Nope. You’re the first.”
Lester hid his disappointment. “When did you last see him?”
Chad was intent on his task, pouring tobacco evenly along a rolling paper. “That week, drinking beer, watching TV. The usual.”
“He seem different in any way?”
“Nope. Same ol’, same ol’.”
“How ’bout what he was doing?” Lester kept going. “At work, with his folks. He have a girlfriend at the time?”
“Not right then. He’d just broken up with somebody.”
“That a big deal for him?”
Chad glanced up. “The girlfriend? Nah. He did that all the time.”
“What was her name?”
He licked the edge of the paper and twirled it expertly. “Who knows? I never kept track. He might not’ve even known. Fuck ’em and forget ’em. That was his motto. Seemed to work for them, too.”
“You know every one of them?”
“Nah—a few, by chance. It’s not like he brought ’em around. Kyle was a dog, you know? You should talk to his sister, Lorraine. They were super tight. She was always the woman he went back to. I always thought it was a little creepy, but it’s Vermont, right?”
He accompanied that with a laugh Lester didn’t share. “Kidding. Sorry. They were just close.”
Lester thought back to a comment that Molly Blaze had made, and asked, “You know the stretch of road where the shooting took place?”
“Sure.”
“Where do you think Kyle was headed, late at night? You know anybody who lives out that way?”
Raney actually seemed to give it some thought before answering, “Nope. That’s like no-man’s-land out there.”
“Did he know the cop that shot him?” Lester asked as the other man then lit up.
Raney tilted his head back and blew out a stream of smoke. “Paine? Good name for a cop. What’s yours?”
“Spinney.”
Chad seemed to consider that, as if sampling a sip of wine. “Never heard of you.”
“Just as well, given what I work on.”
He laughed. “Good point. Nah. Not that I know of.”
“Kyle didn’t know Paine?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Right,” Lester mused. “When did you two last go shooting?”
“Me and Kyle? Shit, I dunno. A while. He lost his piece.”
“The Taurus?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about that.”
Chad took another drag. “Nothing to tell. He either lost it or it was stolen. That dump he lived in, coulda been either.”
“He had it with him when he died,” Lester told him. “You know that?”
Chad looked mildly interested. “Guess he found it again.”
“He ever drive around with it?”
“When he came here to shoot.”
“How ’bout in general?”
Chad shook his head. “Couldn’t lock his car. He didn’t want it stolen.”
“Where did he keep it at home?”
“Under the bed, like most people.”
Maybe, Lester thought. Maybe not. What was becoming clear was that a once neat and tidy case was increasingly showing signs of questions left dangling and lines of inquiry ignored.
* * *
Rachel looked down at her iPhone.
“U up?” she read, startled to see Joe Gunther’s name under the trendily typed question.
She made sure to respond with complete words, just in case. “Yes. You TEXT?!?!”
She was comforted by the reply, and smiled to read, “Not even close. Fingers not nimble nuff. U up for a call? Can’t do this much longer.”
“Sure,” she typed, her own fingers a blur.
The phone buzzed moments later.
“Thanks for that,” Joe said. “I can only show off so much. And you have no idea how many times I backtyped just to write that.”
She laughed. “Even with the time difference, it’s late for you, isn’t it?”
“Hey,” he said, mocking offense. “I’ve had my Geritol. I’m good for hours. You busy right now? Am I interrupting anything?”
“It’s two in the morning, Joe. Most of my drinking buddies are gone and the circus animals just left. What’s Geritol?” she asked after a hesitation.
“Never mind. In other words, you’re staring at the ceiling and either can’t get to sleep or don’t want to.”
She was in fact sitting on a built-in upholstered window seat in her old bedroom at home, overlooking the moonlit water. She’d said good night to her mother hours ago.
“You figured that out, huh?”
“Yeah. The wizard detective,” he said. “That’s me. How’re you holding up?”
“Not great,” she admitted. “I can’t get it out of my head.”
“No reason you should. It was a horrible thing to have happen.”
“You sound like Mom.”
“You flatter me. You seeing a counselor or someone?”
“Yeah. I’m not too impressed.”
“That’s because you’re thinking they’ll make it go away. They’re only there to make you say it out loud—to sort through it yourself.”
“Damn. I should do that after I graduate.”
“Given some of the ones I’ve seen,” he told her, “you’d be slumming. I like what you’re studying. You having second thoughts?”
“No,” she gave in. “I still love being behind a camera. I’m just having a hard time being enthusiastic about anything right now.”
“It’s gonna take time to replace the images you have in your head,” he guessed.
“Yeah.”
“They will fade,” he suggested. “No matter how real they are now.”
“You must have hundreds,” she said.
“Not like yours.” He paused. “Well, maybe a few, but I usually get there after the fact. Plus, I chose to do this. She was your friend. It’s totally different.”
“Yeah,” she repeated.
“What was she like?” he asked.
“Funny, smart, lively,” she said slowly, thoughtfully. “And a little sad. She never went into details, but I sort of got that she’d had some trouble in the past.”
“What kind?”
She sighed wearily. “Guys, of course. I think her parents may’ve been really strict, too, her mom in particular. I told her about mine, and she was clearly envious. But it didn’t pull her down. It wasn’t like she was here in zombie mode, all beaten up by bad memories. What I got was that this was someplace for her to start over.”
Rachel paused before adding, “She was so full of life.”
“She never mentioned who might’ve done this?” Joe asked. “I realize I’m not the first to bring it up.”
“Hardly,” she replied tiredly. “But I understand. What I don’t get is the why. Why would anyone have to kill somebody else just ’cause they fell out?”
Joe was stumped, as he had been countless times in the past by such a basic question.
Shy of a platitude, which he couldn’t conjure up in any case, he mentioned, “We’re not sure that was the reason.”
“What e
lse could it’ve been?” she asked.
But Joe had no idea.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sgt. Colin Guyette looked up as Willy Kunkle appeared at the door of his office. “Again?” he said, surprised. “You up to somethin’ else, or are you still on those missing teeth?”
“45 CFR 164.512(f)(2),” Willy recited. “Ever hear of it?”
“She as attractive as she sounds?”
“Better, if we’re lucky. It’s from the Code of Federal Regulations. Allows us to get around HIPAA and find out if any local doc or nurse or PA, or whatever they call themselves now, treated anyone recently for three busted teeth, a split lip, and maybe more.”
Guyette pushed his chair back and put his feet up on his desk. “You’re serious. You telling me I did more than send you on a wild goose chase with this thing?”
Willy smiled. “Yeah. You fucked up if you were tryin’ to waste my time.”
Colin gestured to a chair. “Sit. Tell me.”
Willy complied. “I’m working on the details, but the key is that burned-up battery. My money’s riding on it being hot, and maybe tied into some kind of fraud to screw the feds on a government contract—or maybe worse. If we’re right about the proximity of the teeth to the battery being relevant—considering that they both suffered from blunt impact and were deposited on the tracks at roughly the same time—then it stands to reason that the owner of the teeth might take us to the source of that battery.”
Colin whistled. “Give me details. This going on in our fair city?”
“Don’t know. That’s why we need to find the toothless train rider. From what I got so far, he’s sounding like the delivery boy between an importer of these batteries and whoever’s putting them to use.”
Guyette let that sink in before saying, “What else you got?”
“A bunch of pissed-off federal, local, and probably state cops from here to Springfield, Mass.”
The Windsor cop nodded slowly. “Right. Is this where I wish you luck and later tell everybody that we didn’t see each other today?”
“If you do, I’ll know you’re getting fat and soft.”
Guyette laughed quietly, shook his head, and dropped his feet back onto the ground, preparing to head out on whatever screwy mission his old friend was about to suggest.
“Fat, maybe,” he said, rising. “Let’s find out how soft.”
* * *
Willy’s cited regulation allowed for a law enforcement officer to request of any relevant health-care supplier a person of interest’s PHI. That stood for personal health information, which of course had been shortened to an initialization in the law, just to confuse matters. “For purposes of identifying or locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person,” it stated, the provider must deliver not the intimate medical details concerning their patient—those remained out of bounds—but the basic demographics, plus a few details like blood type. It was a tool cops like Guyette rarely needed, and therefore didn’t know about. Willy, on the other hand, collected such tidbits like some enthusiasts went after butterflies. His only regret was that he hadn’t thought of putting it to use until the train-riding courier’s role had become so critical.
As he put it to Colin when they climbed into the latter’s squad car and headed out to make the rounds of clinics, ERs, and doctors’ offices, “I just hope to hell I didn’t leave this too long. I’m guessing rodents like our toothless wonder have a dozen ratholes to call home.”
But Guyette was more hopeful. “They may couch-surf, but they don’t wander far. You know that. If this fella’s local, we’ll find him.”
They didn’t precisely find him, but they soon discovered who’d treated him. At the local hospital’s ER, located on the western edge of town—and, tellingly, after Willy had invoked his open-sesame federal regulation to a slowly persuaded administrator—both men were introduced to a nurse sitting before a computer screen.
“When was this?” she asked.
Willy gave her the date, hoping he was right.
“And the injury?”
“Busted teeth,” Colin supplied.
“And probably more,” Willy added.
She kept her eyes on the data passing before her. “But you’re saying you don’t have a name?”
The two cops exchanged glances. “What the hell,” Willy ventured. “Try Samuel Jones.”
“That’ll make it easier.” She typed it in and instantly sat back. “Home run.”
“You’re putting me on,” Colin muttered, leaning over to read the fine print.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s his real name, though, right?” Willy asked. “It’s not like you run background checks.”
“That’s true,” she said. “And according to this, we don’t have any additional records on him. This was a first-time visit.”
“And what were his injuries?”
“He took a beating, all right,” she announced. “Five lower teeth—numbers forty-three through thirty-two—badly lacerated lower lip, hairline fracture of the mandible, damage to the vestibular gingiva—which is doctor talk for ‘the gum’—and a lacerated tongue.” She stopped to read further and said, “Huh. That’s weird.”
“What?”
“He had a burned right hand, too. Pretty bad, from what I’m reading. Musta touched something really hot, or been too dumb to let go.”
She turned to look at them. “All in all, looks like he was hit by a freight train.”
Willy laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. How’d they patch him up?”
“Reading between the lines, I’d say they did the best they could. He was not super cooperative, and of course he had no insurance.” She read a little more. “Something here about an injection to dull the pain, ointment and bandage for the hand, and a recommendation to see a dentist about the teeth, only two of which he actually had with him. He was told not to eat hard foods—liquids only—because of the fracture. That was pretty much it.”
“Okay,” Willy said. “Here’s where we cross our fingers and toes. To be honest, we don’t really care about his health—or I don’t. I just want to find out where he lives, who’s his next of kin, his employer—anything like that.”
She shifted to another window and scrolled through its contents, speaking almost to herself, “Don’t hold your breath, given what we usually end up with, but … Hold it. I do have a couple of things. Not next of kin, but something, at least. Employer is listed as Robb Haag, with no particulars, and a residence—not home; it actually says, ‘staying at’—this number on Central Street. That’s all I got.” She tapped the plastic surface of her monitor with an artistically decorated fingernail.
Colin squinted a moment at the information and said, “Got it.”
Back in the privacy of the car, Willy asked, “You know Robb Haag?”
“Never heard of him,” Colin replied, already calling Dispatch on his phone. While he was waiting for the computer there to be put through its paces, he told Willy, “But I sure as hell know Central Street, which sounds about right for where your Mr. Jones is hanging his hat. Which way do you want to move, assuming we get a fix on Haag?”
“Given our current suspicions-to-facts ratio,” Willy said, “which I’d rate about piss-poor, I think Jones is the better target. He can’t be in great shape, I doubt he was ever class genius, and he’s the one we can lean on the hardest, given the little we got. I say we find him first—even if we do get a hit on Haag—and squeeze him as hard as we can. Haag may have nothing to do with all this, after all.”
Guyette held up a hand as Dispatch spoke to him over the phone again. After a few moments, he hung up and announced, “Well, your wish has been granted, more or less. There is a Robb Haag. He’s got a current driver’s license and last-known address of South Burlington. But his most recent violation on record was for an out-of-date inspection sticker four years ago. Whoever he is and whatever he’s doing now, we got zip.”
He turned the igni
tion key and began backing out of the hospital parking lot. “Time for you to get up close and personal with Windsor’s own poverty hollow.”
“Swell.”
Colin took them away from the hospital, downhill along State Street toward the business district—past the old nineteenth-century prison, now converted to public housing—and briefly onto Main. There, he doglegged onto River Street to resume aiming for the Connecticut River. Main Street was the dividing line, where genteel Windsor ceded to Abigail Murray’s world of hardscrabble adventure and wonder. Just shy of the railroad tracks, however, Colin pulled on the wheel again, and entered Central. He came to a halt near the town’s municipal garage—awkwardly straddling both sides of the street and occupying several beaten-down shop and storage buildings that exemplified how little money was available for the road crew’s care and feeding.
He nodded toward a small, narrow, one-and-a-half-story ramshackle home—in appearance, like most of its neighbors—and said, “That’s it.”
Without comment, Willy swung out of the car, glanced up and down the remarkably quiet street, and walked up to the building’s front door, Colin close behind him.
The person answering the door was a heavyset woman of indeterminate middle age wearing sweatpants, a tank top under extreme pressure, and a scowl. She looked straight past Willy at Colin, who was dressed in uniform, as usual.
“What do you want?”
“Hey, Brenda,” he said. “I didn’t know you lived here.”
“Whatever. What do you want?” This time, the emphasis was on the last word.
Willy didn’t bother introducing himself, nor did he use Samuel Jones’s name, just in case Jones was flying under different colors here. If cops can avoid it, they don’t reveal any doubts they may be harboring. Instead, he held out the picture taken from the Amtrak CCTV in Springfield.
“This guy,” he said simply.
That brought Brenda’s attention to him for the first time, and to his inert left arm.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
He moved the photo before her. “You didn’t tell me where he is.”
She avoided looking at the picture. “Don’t know.”
“Brenda,” Colin warned her, drawing out her name.
“What?” she demanded angrily.