Scent of evil, p.37
Scent of Evil, page 37
part #3 of Joe Gunther Series
“Pierre and I’ll be wearing armor, and we’ll be wired for sound. But the whole thing hangs on all of us working within very close tolerances. I also want to pull in the chief on this—give him a little street exercise—so we’ll have one extra body to put in place.”
I had an additional card to play, but I didn’t show it here, no more than I had since I’d first thought it up. Willy Kunkle, as irascible, deformed, and illegal as he was on paper for an operation like this, was the ace up my sleeve. Not to share my thoughts with my colleagues was a flagrant breach of faith and probably good grounds, if I was caught, for my dismissal. The risk of being caught and fired, however, was secondary to the shocked response I knew I’d get from my own squad. Pulling in Kunkle without telling them, especially after the stunt I’d pulled with Woll early on, would prove I didn’t trust them. And that would mean the end of my effectiveness as their lieutenant, now and forever.
Yet I was still going to attempt it, to try to entice Kunkle to join the operation. An obsessed and devil-driven paranoid, he had always been a trustworthy cop. I wanted him as my hidden floater in this game plan, the guy whose training and outlook wouldn’t allow for a last-minute screwup.
I’d tried to tell myself at first that I was keeping Kunkle to myself because he was an illegal in this, a handicapped civilian involved in an undercover police operation. But in my heart, I knew that, especially with John Woll’s death, I wasn’t sure I trusted my own people anymore. I didn’t want to believe that, but I had to consider it, and I wasn’t about to risk Pierre’s life and mine just to spare a few hurt feelings.
For now, Willy Kunkle would remain my little secret, one I planned to share only with Brandt. I did my best to shove the moral debate to the back of my mind as I spent the next ninety minutes going over our plan of attack again and again until everyone knew their roles by heart.
· · ·
I was able to secure a warrant for Fred McDermott’s bank records, much to Sammie’s delight. The evidence against him had built up like the incoming tide, gradually, with little fanfare. It hadn’t been at all like the case against John Woll, complete with footprints, cigarette butts, incriminating personal ties, and a shiny gold watch in a sock drawer. McDermott was being painted into a corner almost by innuendo. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time; he wasn’t around when he needed an alibi the most; his office held the transmitter but not the receiver of a listening device; he had an unexplained bank account.
Cumulatively, it satisfied Judge Harrowsmith, especially when given the proper slant in the affidavit, but I was not as sanguine as Sammie Martens. I couldn’t overlook how many times we’d been led down the wrong path in this case, nor could I ignore the price John Woll had finally paid for that. I didn’t want another falsely accused man on my conscience—nor did I want a guilty one to get away because of my timidity.
I was about to invite Brandt out into the Municipal Building’s parking lot to discuss some of this, when Dispatch buzzed me on the intercom to inform me the state police had dug something up they thought we’d find interesting.
Their meaning was quite literal. With J.P. in tow, I followed directions to West Brattleboro, to a lonely field off Ames Hill Road, and to a well-dug grave containing the decomposing body of Tobias A. “Toby” Huntington. He had been shot in the head.
A good half of Brattleboro’s legally defined geography is unadulterated countryside: verdant hills, small lonely streams, and meadows grazed by horses and cows, all looking as remotely pastoral as their country cousins one hundred miles into the boondocks.
Toby’s last home emphasized that fact, tucked as it was under the shade of the first row of trees bordering the lower edge of a field. As a young and proper Vermont State Trooper explained that the body had been uncovered by a local farmer’s overly curious dog, I was intensely aware of the silent shimmering heat radiating off the burnt-blond grass beyond the shade. I could hear, above the insects and birds, the sound I’d been hearing all too often as of late: the squawk of walkie-talkies and the distant wail of sirens signaling yet another homicide. I began wondering what it was that had prompted me as a young man to pursue a line of business so dedicated to exposing society’s least attractive habits.
Tyler conferred with the trooper on how his own evidence gathering should coordinate with that of the state’s mobile crime lab. I moved to the edge of the scene and leaned against the burning metal of a parked patrol car.
“So this is the guy you’ve been looking for.” Tony Brandt had quietly crossed the field and stood before me.
“Yeah.” The enthusiasm I’d felt at my meeting this morning had evaporated with this latest discovery. Watching homicide-scene technicians yet again at work, measuring, photographing, collecting, I began to question whether we’d made any progress at all.
Although I’d never met him, Toby’s death hit me as hard as John Woll’s. I had been concerned for his safety, had considered the darker possibilities for his disappearance, but I had always hoped he’d be able to avoid the man stalking him as well as he had us. Four people were now dead, and I had no idea who might be next. That thought depressed me as few things had before.
Brandt seemed to know what was going on inside me. He, more than anyone on the force, had traveled the same path for as long as I had. And he, more than I, had done battle with politicians, press, and public, all opponents who were never easily satisfied. Who better could recognize in a fellow cop the telltale warnings of impending burnout?
He asked me the kind of deductive question that could bring me back to the scene before us: “Why was he buried here?”
It was said casually, and it took a few seconds to sink in, like a rock seeking the bottom of a well. But when it touched home, I began to play back the events leading to this grave, as well as to another I’d stood over just days before.
“Because he—unlike Charlie Jardine—wasn’t meant to be found.”
Charlie’s burial had been an arrogant challenge, put forth by a mind that believed itself in control. It had been the first overt move in a carefully thought-out campaign. Toby Huntington had been killed by a man scrambling to cover his tracks, just as when he’d attacked Ron and me in the parking lot, and even earlier, when he’d shot Milly Crawford. With Milly he had taken the time to salt the trail with red herrings. Lately, however, that subtlety had begun to evaporate, replaced, I realized, with a propensity to make mistakes.
As a living potential witness, Toby had been an elusive, uncooperative failure. Now, I became increasingly convinced, he might help us far more from his burial place.
I walked to the roped-off edge of the scene. “J.P.” Tyler, on his knees, his evidence kit beside him, looked up at me. “It’s just a feeling, but don’t get too lost in the details here. I think our man is running for cover, and I don’t think he’s taking time to be overly neat and tidy.”
“You mean, look for the killer’s wallet under the body?”
“You can dream if you want, but make sure you tell Hillstrom to compare any bullet fragments recovered here to what she dug out of John Woll.”
Tyler sat back on his heels and flashed a smile. “Wouldn’t that be sweet?”
I walked back to Tony Brandt, my earlier depression blown away as by the wind, the smell of the scent again fresh in my nostrils. I took him by the elbow and steered him away from the small crowd, out into the privacy of the open field. “I’ve got something cooking that should scare the hell out of whatever political ninth life you have left.”
· · ·
Willy Kunkle had apparently organized the local-history room until it could stand no more. We were now on the first floor, in the back corner of the research section, in a twenty-by-five-foot room filled with racked back issues of magazines like Consumer Reports and Road & Track.
Kunkle was savagely jamming weatherworn issues back into their proper places after a day in which the periodicals had seen more than their fair share of use.
I was patiently waiting for his reaction to my invitation.
“Why the fuck should I help you guys?”
“You have so far.”
“I was curious; it was total self-interest.”
“It was also useful, and it’s beginning to flush this guy out.”
“You could’ve fooled Toby.”
“Toby may yet tell us things.”
He didn’t answer, and I watched him for several minutes at work, his muscular right hand working as fast and sure as a hawk talon. After he’d left the department, I’d heard he’d begun lifting weights and exercising with his usual obsessive drive. Indeed, aside from the withered arm, I’d never seen him fitter.
“I found out a little more on the drug angle.”
I went with his change of topic. “Oh yeah?”
“Turns out the guy I told you about, the one in Boston who had Hanson and Cappelli on the payroll, he’s been approached by someone else.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know; real secretive, but the base is supposed to be here in Bratt.”
“Same action, new players?”
“Looks that way. I’d say whoever you’re up against has both scores to settle and big ambitions.”
I watched him work some more in silence. “How much longer do you see yourself filing books?”
He stopped in mid-motion and glared at me, his face twisted. “Fuck you, Joey-boy. I want career counseling, I’ll hire it.”
“We might be able to get you back on the force.”
He became very angry, very suddenly. “Look, you bastard, you want me to cover your ass in some bullshit commando crock tonight, that’s fine with me. I’ll do it. With any luck, I’ll get a little action, and you and Brandt’ll get your asses handed to you on a platter—good for everybody. But don’t blow in my ear, okay? Don’t pretend you give a good goddamn what happens to me. I’m the biggest pain in the ass you ever had in the department, and it’s goddamn insulting that you think I’ll swallow your wanting me back.”
“I didn’t say I liked you, Willy—but you were the best at what you did. My only problem was I wished I could keep you under a rock until I needed you.”
He smiled slightly, perhaps with perverse pride. “So what the hell are you saying?”
“There’s a new federal handicap law, one of those anti-discrimination acts. You could use it to get back on, whether you help me tonight or not. It would be better than this, and you’d get the pleasure of making my life miserable again.”
He shook his head and turned away. But he didn’t resume filing magazines. Instead, he just stared at the shelves, lost in thought. Finally, he looked back at me and scratched his head. I thought for a split moment that he seemed faintly embarrassed. His voice, however, remained predictably hard-bitten. “I’ll think about it.”
He stuck his hand out. “You said you had some blueprints for tonight’s dog-and-pony show.”
I shook my head, doubting my own sanity, and pulled them out of my pocket.
34
THE HIGH-SCHOOL CAFETERIA was a sterile place at the best of times: linoleum floor, pale cinder block walls, fluorescent strip lighting. The only colorful spots were the dispensing machines along one wall, a few socially conscious posters across from them, and a bolted-to-the-floor army of garish blue-and-red, picnic-style tables and benches in between. Now, however, late at night, with only maintenance lighting leaking in from down a distant hallway, the illuminated soda and snack machines dominated the place, glowing as from some inner life-force, spreading the hues of their chaotically clashing logos across the huge, ghostly quiet room.
Pierre Lavoie and I sat facing each other at one of the picnic tables, I with a legal pad before me, he with a small knapsack. The pad was for show only, the sack to hide his portable radio. Our budget did not allow for the fancy hands-off communications systems the Secret Service seems to favor. We made do with standard patrolman radios, tucked out of sight and hooked to a small earphone and a somewhat larger clip-on lapel mike whose side button had to be manually depressed for the user to transmit his message. The gloominess hid most of the extraneous wires from sight, as did the long-haired wig I’d forced Pierre to wear. The mikes were clipped to the armored vests inside our shirts.
Pierre, his voice disguised, had placed the rendezvous telephone call to my office thirty minutes ago, giving the high school as the meeting place. He’d then gone straight there to wait for me. Around us, out of sight and in place for an hour already, were Sammie and J.P. along the “open” corridors; Dennis and Tony Brandt outside the building; and, his exact location unknown even to me, Willy Kunkle.
The cafeteria was right off the building’s main southern entrance, which Pierre had unlocked with his passkey, and which I’d walked through to join him two minutes earlier. Three hallways radiated out from this general area: One continued north from the entrance into the heart of the building; the second took off at a ninety-degree angle to service the east side; and the third, far shorter and narrower, almost inconsequential, led from the back of the cafeteria around a corner to the west, to a few isolated rooms, two staircases leading up, and a side door to the outside.
“Where do you think he’ll come from?” Pierre muttered.
I arranged the pad before me and began to write, pretending to take notes. Most of the room was windowless, but one wall of it was made of glass and looked onto another, equally large dining area which often doubled as classroom space. On its far wall, along with one of the doors I’d chosen to jam shut, there were windows. If this guy was going to come for us, I wanted to make damn sure he believed what he saw until it was too late.
“He’s got three obvious choices. The way we came in, the door at the far end of the east hall, and the one out the side, around the corner. If it were me, I’d take that one; it’d allow me to sneak up on us the best. The other two are too wide-open.”
“Shit. That’s what I feel, wide-goddamn-open.”
He was sweating badly, but then so was I. Armored vests are cool-weather defenses; plus he had the wig on.
I surreptitiously reached under my jacket and keyed the radio mike. “Hi, boys and girls. Everybody in place?”
Over the earpiece, I heard a tinny chorus of acknowledgments.
“You see anyone when you came in?” I asked Pierre, more to keep him occupied than anything else.
He was about to answer when he stiffened suddenly. It was Brandt’s voice on the earphone, reporting from outside. “Someone driving up to the front door.”
“Christ, so much for subtlety.” Pierre let his hand drop casually off the table near his waist, where his gun was hidden.
I stayed the way I was, pretending to take notes.
“One occupant; short-haired male.” Brandt’s voice was calm and detached, reminding me of those jet jockeys who announce they’ve taken a missile and are corkscrewing in.
“He’s parked. Getting out. Pale striped golf shirt, dark slacks, no visible weapons.” There was a pause. “It looks like Fred McDermott.”
I keyed my mike. “Everybody stay put. Let’s see what he does.”
Sammie Martens, who was behind a door in the hallway leading away from the main door, peeked out. “He’s approaching the south entrance.”
We both heard one of the large glass doors rattle as someone tugged at it.
Sammie’s voice again. “Trying to get in locked half of the door.”
The rattling stopped and was followed by a door swishing open. Footsteps sounded in the lobby, slapping against the linoleum. Pierre dropped his hand entirely into his lap, and I heard a small click as he snapped the safety off his automatic.
The dark outline of a man appeared at the corner where the lobby expanded into the cafeteria. “Hello? Is anyone here?” McDermott’s voice was absurdly loud, ringing off the cement walls.
“What the hell?” Pierre whispered.
I spoke into the mike. “I’ll deal with it. Keep sharp; it may be a setup.”
I rose from the table. McDermott whirled at the movement, surprised, and Pierre pulled his gun, slid off his bench, and took aim at McDermott’s chest.
“Put it away,” I snapped at Lavoie, “and sit back down.”
“What’s going on, Joe?” Fred asked anxiously.
I walked over to him, watching his hands, which stayed open and still by his sides. “What’re you doing here, Fred?”
His brow furrowed. “You asked me here.”
Suddenly, the radio interrupted over the earpiece. “Someone at the—” It had been Dennis’s voice, abruptly interrupted.
“Dennis? Dennis, come in.”
“I’m checking on him now,” reported Brandt.
McDermott, who could hear none of this, was looking more and more confused.
Pierre Lavoie, his nerves stretched as far as they would go, stood near the table, his gun still out, his wig torn off, swinging his body back and forth, trying to cover all possible avenues at once.
“Pierre,” I shouted at him, “cover the—”
The words “back hallway” were still in my mouth when another figure appeared at the entrance to the corridor. Pierre brought his gun to bear, there was a blinding flash and a terrific explosion, and Lavoie went flying backwards like a puppet pulled by a string. He sailed across the table and crumpled into the gap between tabletop and bench, his legs sticking awkwardly in the air.
I grabbed McDermott by the neck and threw him down to the floor. “Stay low.” I tore off my jacket and pulled my gun, keying the mike with the other hand. “We have a man down. Shooter’s in back hallway behind kitchen.”
As I ran toward Pierre, I could already hear Sammie throwing open her door and the pounding of feet as J.P. ran down the east hall to join us.
Pierre’s eyes were closed, but he was breathing. There was a bullet hole in the middle of his shirt. I tore it open and checked for blood. Apparently, while the armored vest had done its job, the flight across the table and into the bench had knocked him cold. I quickly straightened him out so his airway would stay open.
