by Archer Mayor
* * *
Sammie found Beverly Hillstrom and Rachel Reiling sitting in Beverly’s car on St. Paul Street, opposite Rachel’s worse-for-wear apartment house. She walked up to the young woman’s open window and crouched down so she could see both occupants.
“Hi, guys. I hope you just got here.”
“Barely drove up two minutes ago,” Beverly reassured her.
Sam laid her hand on Rachel’s forearm, which was resting on the window’s edge. “You okay? Still willing to do this?”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
“We’ve been talking it through,” Beverly volunteered. “That’s why I tagged along. I hope that’s all right.”
Sam stood and opened Rachel’s door. “I’m glad you did. I won’t say ‘the more, the merrier,’ but maybe ‘misery loves company’?”
Rachel smiled, if a little reluctantly as Sam added, “I know. Bad joke. I’ll try to make this as quick and painless as possible.”
They walked to the back of the building, and the common entrance to both floors, where they found a Burlington police officer. He logged them in and allowed them access to the stairway.
“Okay,” Sam was explaining throughout, “it’s like I said on the phone: What I’m looking for is basically a guided tour. I want you to tell me what looks moved, what doesn’t, what’s yours and what’s not, and to tell me in detail what happened that night—now that a little time’s gone by. Still sound doable?”
Rachel paused at the foot of the stairs and looked up. “Let’s go.”
There was a museum-like quality to the apartment for Rachel. The last visitors here had been the evidence collection team, after EMS, the initial police responders, and the subsequent investigators. A lot of people, all of them careful to not leave fingerprints or hair samples or other evidence of themselves behind, but none too neat and tidy. It made for a visual commingling of the foreign and the familiar, overlaid by an odd odor of other people, dusting powder, and luminol.
“Guess I won’t be moving back in,” she barely said out loud, pausing at the door.
The other two women let her take her time, following her at first without comment, so she could habituate to the surroundings.
Fortunately, Rachel had inherited some of her mother’s clinical detachment, and thus maintained more composure than Sam could have hoped for.
Indeed, once the girl had reached the disrupted center of the living room, she turned to face the detective and asked, “Where do we start?”
“Let’s get the hard part done first,” Sam recommended. “Act out what happened.”
It didn’t take Rachel long. Quietly, without emotion, she slowly explained her actions, describing the screaming, the sight of two people wrestling, her seizing the frying pan just as the man hit Charlotte with the lamp, resulting in a horrible, dull-sounding thud.
She pointed out the chair he’d launched at her after she’d hit him, and finally, she circled the still-open sofa bed to point out where she’d cradled her new friend’s head and called for help.
Throughout, Sam recorded the narrative on her cell phone camera. At the end, without comment, Rachel walked over to her mother and wrapped her arms around her neck.
Sammie gave them a few moments, after which Rachel broke free, wiped her eyes, and asked, “What now?”
“Let’s go through the whole place, section by section, and identify everything. What I’m looking for is what’s yours, what may be Charlotte’s that we missed, and what you can’t account for.”
“That might belong to him?”
“Possibly. Or was left behind by someone else. It doesn’t matter. And don’t expect to find much of Charlotte’s. If we’ve done our job right, that’s all at the lab being analyzed.”
They worked their way from the back of the tiny kitchenette, around the counter, along the wall, and into Rachel’s bedroom, looking through cabinets and drawers, under furniture, along shelves, shaking out clothing, checking the backs of closets. Accounting for everything along the way, they reached the living room some forty-five minutes later, and started anew from the corner farthest from the sofa bed.
Fortunately, it was a small apartment, not overly stuffed with belongings, and—obviously—they didn’t need to be careful about returning everything to its proper place.
Finally, at the doorway connecting the entrance hall to the living room, the three of them stood observing where they’d just been. They were about to turn their attention to the hall behind them, when Sam pointed to a pair of plastic dark glasses, half-wedged under the back pillow of the chair right beside them.
“Yours?” she asked, almost in passing.
But Rachel stopped. “No,” she said. “Those were Charlotte’s.”
“You’re kidding,” Sam said softly, pulling a single latex glove from her pocket and slipping it on to retrieve the glasses. As she wiggled them from under the pillow, the right temple came loose.
“Oh, hell,” she muttered, stopping to don a second glove for better control. She crouched to take more careful hold of the glasses and brought them into view of the other two women. The temple was still attached, but almost dangling from the actual frame.
“That looks odd,” Beverly commented, leaning in for a better view. “It’s not broken at the hinge.”
Sam lifted her find to eye level. “You’re right. It’s not broken at all. It’s designed to come apart.”
She took hold of the frame in one hand and the loose temple in the other and gently tugged. They separated to reveal a shiny metal rectangle at the end of the temple, designed to snugly fit into a corresponding slot in the frame.
“I’ll be damned,” Beverly said, in a rare use of profanity.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
Sammie was smiling, turning it in the light. “A handy solution for backing up your computer when you’re on the go. It’s a secret USB thumb drive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Joe was struck by how emotional he felt, seeing his brother, Leo, enter the hospital lobby and look around to get his bearings. After so many days of dealing with their mother’s recovery, experiencing Rachel’s and Beverly’s trauma from afar, and seeing his team get deeper into cases he could truly only glimpse, Joe was suddenly reminded of the cost of his isolation. He was beyond eager to get back home.
The feeling was all the sharper because of his mother’s recent improvement. From very little change, day to day, in the beginning, she had hit her stride, and by now was virtually her old reliable self, making wry comments and suggestions, and increasingly asking when she might be allowed to return to the farm.
This had been the stimulus for Leo’s appearance—the near guarantee of an official discharge within the next day, pending a couple of final, almost pro forma tests. He had overruled Joe’s halfhearted objection, readied his staff to take the shop’s reins for a couple of days, and flown out here to help Joe pack up the Old Lady, as he called her, and bring her back to where she belonged.
Joe crossed the lobby and greeted Leo with an unaccustomed bear hug. Leo, who was far more given to such gestures, burst out laughing and pounded his older brother on the back. “My God, Joey, you must be feeling like Robinson Crusoe.”
“Close,” Joe conceded. “Damn close. You had a good flight?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t believe it. No delays, no screaming babies, no computer glitches. People were walking around in shock. How’s Mom doin’? She really on the mend?”
“See for yourself.” Joe grabbed his elbow and steered him toward the all-too-familiar inner workings of the FREE.
* * *
Two thousand miles to the east, Lester was pulling into the parking lot of the state police barracks near St. Johnsbury, in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom—a large, minimally populated, heavily forested section of the state, famous among law enforcement agencies for its isolation, occasionally peculiar residents, and slow backup response times. When a cop pulled over a car up here in the middle of the ni
ght, he or she was best advised to be prepared and fully focused.
It also had the reputation—deserved or not—of being a good place to put the odd, errant trooper out to pasture, either permanently or for a cooling off. Personally, Lester had enjoyed working there, back in his VSP days, even though he’d done so only as a plainclothes investigator, and not a road guy.
He was not looking forward to this interview. While he’d never met Dylan Collier and was hoping to be pleasantly surprised, he was familiar with the phenomenon of the on-the-job retiree, which is in part what he’d gathered about the man. In all walks of life, you got the same few folks—making police work no different—people who put in the bare minimum, never volunteered, always just squeaked by, and, for paradoxical reasons, bitched the most about the very work they were shirking.
Lester was also uncomfortable because, before his last tense conversation with Sturdy, he’d been hoping the veteran detective would be along for the trip. It was no stretch to imagine that having one of Collier’s own in the room might make for an easier time. On the other hand, Les now rationalized, better to have no one along than a man harboring bruised feelings about what was being investigated.
One possible advantage to today’s arrangement was that Lester had timed the interview for when Collier was off duty. He was hoping it would make the conversation more informal, less interrupted, and—most important—less encumbered by the trappings of duty. Police officers in uniform were more than just imposing in appearance; they could absorb the implied authority of their office into their personalities, becoming harder, less flexible, and more prone to combat—none of which was remotely appealing to the easygoing Spinney.
He was deep in such thoughts and approaching the building’s front door, when he sensed a movement off to one side and turned to see a large man getting out of his pickup truck. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, like a hundred thousand other men across the state at that same moment, but there was no mistaking this one’s profession—he had the haircut, the eyes, and the cautious but powerful carriage of a cop.
Spinney smiled and stuck his hand out. “Dylan? Les. Thanks for agreeing to this.”
Collier shook hands, his watchfulness unchanged. “Sure.”
Lester looked around. “You want to go in, or drive someplace to talk? What’s your pleasure? I’m happy to front you a cup of coffee.”
But Collier was having none of such pleasantries. He pointed to a wooden picnic table on the grass bordering the parking lot, presumably there for lunch breaks. “That’s good.”
Lester led the way. “Sure. Okay by me.”
Collier took the bench facing the lot and the feeder road beyond, forcing Les to expose his back by sitting opposite. This was also typical of the profession—not only did it allow Collier to see any and all potential oncoming threats, but it also placed Spinney at a disadvantage for the same reasons.
Except that Lester played along for exactly that reason. He wanted his subject to feel in control, especially as he recalled Sturdy’s comments about Collier’s irrationality.
“What’s this about?” Collier began without preamble, seemingly used to being called to account by superiors.
“Ryan Paine,” Lester said.
The effect was satisfying. Collier scowled, his remote detachment shaken. “What the fuck you want with him?”
“I’m taking another look at the case,” Spinney told him, putting aside his earlier delicacy on the subject.
“The hell you are. Why?”
“It’s a good idea. High-level case. Lots of distractions at the time. Everybody sticking their nose in, including the press and the politicians. The brass pushing to get it closed. It pays to let a little time go by and go over it again, just to make sure all the t’s were crossed.”
“You guys aren’t busy enough?” Collier asked scornfully. “That’s a total crock. You’re up to something, and you’re not gonna tell me what.” He spread his large hands on the tabletop, as if preparing to leave.
“I do have some questions,” Lester said. “But I’m looking for your help, not to screw you over. Why would I think you had anything to do with Paine’s death?”
Collier’s mouth opened. “What? Is that what’s goin’ on? You think I was involved?”
“I think you were never properly interviewed at the time. I think you were blown off as Paine’s best buddy and that whatever opinions you might’ve had got derailed by other priorities. I also think you’ve had enough time to do some serious thinking about it and that you may be none too comfortable about what’s rattling around inside your head.”
In fact, Lester was sure of none of those things. The worn adage has it that you shouldn’t ask suspects questions to which you don’t already know the answers. But that’s crap. There are no hard rules, and every once in while, it pays to take a flier into the unknown.
In this case, if nothing else, it got Dylan Collier to settle back into his seat. “What do you want, then?”
“I want to know what happened.”
“It was a traffic stop, like we all been warned about from the first day at the academy. It went bad.”
“’Cept you never believed it.”
Collier hesitated a long time before saying, “No.”
“Why not?”
The big man sighed. “It’s not that I disagree about how things ended up. It’s how they got that way that everybody missed.”
Lester filled in the only option he could imagine. “The two men knew each other?”
Collier shook his head. “Don’t know ’bout that. They each knew Dee.”
Lester kept his voice calm despite a sudden leap in heart rate. In a single short sentence, Collier had revealed the secret cause behind the fulminating outrage that had caught Sturdy so off guard—there was a link between the two dead men. “Ryan Paine’s wife?”
“Yeah.”
“She was Kennedy’s lover?”
“Yup.”
“How do you know this?”
Collier straightened, hitched one shoulder, and stared out into the distance momentarily, apparently working his way toward a decision.
“I knew her, too.”
Damn, Lester thought. Wait till Sturdy hears about this. “Okay,” he said conversationally. “That had to’ve been a lot to sit on these last few years.”
Collier dropped his gaze to his hands, still curled on the tabletop. “Yeah—hasn’t been fun.”
“You and Dee still an item?” Lester asked, knowing Collier was unmarried.
“Nah. That sorta messed everything up. She’s with somebody else now—a cop, of course. Pat Hartnett, out of Wilmington. Plus, I got transferred up here, which put another strain on getting together.”
“So,” Lester said, his tone carefully offhand. “Tell me what happened.”
“It was a setup,” Collier said simply. “Kennedy knew Ryan’s schedule, got himself pulled over for some bogus infraction, and then popped him—’cept it didn’t work as planned.”
Lester frowned. “That seems awfully easy. How’d he know Paine wouldn’t be on another call? Or grabbing a coffee somewhere?”
“He kept doin’ it till it worked.”
“How do you know this?”
“Dee told me. Kennedy was pissed she wasn’t gonna dump Ryan for him, so he said he’d help make up her mind.”
“And nobody said anything after?”
Collier looked at him directly. “Why would we? It was over and done with. Dee didn’t know exactly what that peckerhead had planned. She thought it was mostly hot air till the news came Ryan was dead. She called me that night. You wanna blame somebody, be my guest, but I didn’t see how any of it would change anything. Ryan and Kennedy were still dead, Dee was still a widow. What was the point? Make a good man look like a fool and maybe fuck up Dee’s survivor benefits somehow? That’s one reason I went a little nuts at the time, accusing the bosses of throwing troopers under the bus. Ryan had died in the line of duty. More import
ant, he still managed to take out the son of a bitch who killed him. Why tarnish all that by airing his dirty laundry? Who cares if some of the players knew each other?”
Lester challenged him, “So why tell me now?”
Collier paused again, once more scanning the distance for inspiration or solace. “Hell,” he eventually said, “here you are. It’s like you said, you’re lookin’ into it. It’s clearly never goin’ away, like I was hoping. How long would it be before you figured it out?”
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “These dumb bastards are achin’ to find a way to kick my ass outta here before I reach full retirement. That’s one of the reasons they moved me up here. They’re not real subtle. I tell you this now, maybe it does go away. I’m cooperating, aren’t I? But if I sit on it and make you work for it, whaddya think they’ll say? Obstruction.” He snapped his thick fingers. “Boom, I’d be history.”
His shoulders slumped as he added, “Either way, I’m screwed. I’m just hopin’ I’m less screwed this way.”
Lester stared at him, once more recalling Sturdy’s warning about Collier’s mental health. Right now, he was looking like the most clear-sighted among them.
“For what it’s worth,” he told him, “I think you’re doing the right thing. I’ll make sure people know that when the time comes.”
“Thanks, man,” Collier muttered.
“I’ll be talking to Dee soon,” Lester continued. “But since I have you right here, you mind if I ask you a few questions of a personal nature?”
“Not gonna hold back now.”
“I appreciate it. How sure’re you that Ryan didn’t know what was going on with Dee? Not to be judgmental, but she was cheating on him with two different guys.” He stopped and added, “Or was it more? What about her current guy? When did he appear?”