Bellows Falls Read online

  Latour, by contrast, wasn’t happy at all. “Bad enough I had Padget fooling around with a married woman. Now we’ll be the center of a statewide drug investigation. Just what Bellows Falls needs. Every newspaperman who knows how to dial will be ringing my phone.”

  I patted him on the back. “Maybe not.” But I had a feeling he was right. “If it all comes together, you can just forward the calls to the AG.”

  He shrugged and we dispersed, Tony and Emile heading for their respective offices, and I returning down the hallway to give Gail a quick visit. As I crossed her threshold, she was only half visible behind a row of paper columns, stacked side by side across her desk.

  “You look like you’re preparing for an assault.”

  She peered over the top and gave me a weary smile. “Or being buried alive. How’d things go with Jack?”

  I didn’t bother asking how she knew about the meeting. In the essentially rural world of Vermont, you got used to people knowing what you were doing even before you did it. “Surprisingly well. He bought my proposal to turn a single cop’s positive urine test into an AG-sanctioned, statewide investigation, with me on board.”

  She rolled her eyes. “God—has he got a lot to learn.”

  I sat on her windowsill, enjoying the contrast of the sun on my back and the central air-conditioning on my face. “I thought maybe he’d grab this for himself.”

  “Crooked cop cases are usually political land mines, and our boy is new yet,” she said, still sorting through her files. “He just needs to be consistent right now. Not that I’m complaining. The whole staff would’ve been sucked into this if it got messy.” She waved a hand at her workload. “This would’ve looked like peanuts in comparison.”

  She sat back suddenly and looked at me thoughtfully. “I am curious, though. Why step over the drug task force, the Vermont State Police, and the Association of State’s Attorneys to go to the AG?”

  For the next ten minutes, I repeated the pitch I’d just delivered up the hall.

  She smiled at the end of it. “Nice snow job. It still doesn’t answer the real question.”

  She didn’t elaborate, or need to. “Why me?”

  I hesitated before continuing. It was a good point, one I’d rationalized to Derby in procedural terms, but which I hadn’t owned up to emotionally.

  “I’m not exactly sure yet,” I answered slowly. “Something clicked when I saw Jan Bouch surrounded by those kids in their kitchen. It was cute on the face of it—all of them clamoring for doughnuts she was holding up high. But she wasn’t having fun. She was at a loss. She couldn’t sort out how to handle it. And then Norm came in, and grabbed the box and threw it outside like he was distracting a pack of dogs.”

  I paused again, trying to string thoughts together so they made sense. “Jasper Morgan plays into this, too. When he escaped, raising all that ruckus for no apparent reason, it bugged the hell out of me. Now that he’s resurfaced, and in connection to Bouch, and there’s a cop in the middle who may or may not be dirty… I just don’t want to walk away from it. I want to find out what’s going on. There’s something inside me that needs this settled.”

  I’d been staring at the carpet through all this, speaking as much to myself as to Gail, and now shook my head and looked up at her. “You glad you asked?”

  Her answer surprised me. “You really think Bouch’s network extends that far?” she asked.

  “Yes, but I better come up with some proof. The AG’ll take a couple of days making a decision—listening to Derby, reading through the files, brainstorming with his Criminal Division people. It would help if I dug up a small nugget in the meantime.”

  I could tell I’d triggered some underlying notion with my ramblings, but apparently she wasn’t ready to share it. She leaned forward instead, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “We better get cracking, then.”

  I didn’t ask, but I wondered what she meant by “we.”

  Chapter 9

  BRIAN PADGET’S HOUSE LOOKED DIFFERENT to me on my second visit. The concern for appearances that had struck me the first time now seemed violated by the official vehicles parked in his yard. I had asked Latour to be on hand to keep me company, and his car combined with mine threw suspicions on the house’s seeming propriety.

  I had also brought two of my own squad to help me. J.P. Tyler, our thin, diminutive forensics expert, and Willy Kunkle, whose withered left arm and infamous bad attitude had made him a statewide law enforcement legend.

  Disabled by a sniper years ago, Kunkle had been let go, to much shared relief. But in a move most of my friends, including Gail, had considered a clear sign of dementia, I’d encouraged him to sue the department under the disabilities act and get his job back. He’d never thanked me for that show of faith, and he’d been no easier to work with afterwards, but I’d never rued the decision. For all his temperamental, unorthodox, insubordinate ways, Willy Kunkle was driven to be a cop, and while there were times everyone felt like strangling him, I knew he would get me results regardless of challenge or sacrifice. Unlike any of my other officers, Kunkle came from that slice of society that gave us most of our business—a fact that fueled him with a passion the rest of us would never share.

  Tyler, by contrast, fit the scientific stereotype—scholarly, quiet, self-effacing, but also highly efficient. He alone from my squad seemed unaffected by Kunkle’s manner, and perhaps for that reason Kunkle rarely gave him a hard time.

  We’d all arrived without fanfare. Nevertheless, the house’s front door opened before I was halfway across the lawn, revealing a broad-shouldered, medium-built young man with the short buzz cut so popular among younger male officers—an affectation I personally believed served no other function than to further alienate us from the public we were supposed to assist.

  The look on his face was hard to read. In its various parts I could see surprise, anger, defeat, even disappointment. Overall, however, I was struck by a sense of fatalism, as if our arrival had been anticipated for a long time.

  “Brian Padget?” I said as I approached, followed by the others. “I’m Lieutenant Joe Gunther, of the Brattleboro Police Department. I have a warrant to search your home for illicit drugs.”

  A small crease appeared in the middle of his forehead as he stepped to one side of the open door. “I heard you were doing the internal.”

  “That’s right. This is different.” I turned to introduce Kunkle and Tyler. Everyone nodded awkwardly in greeting. Emile Latour hovered in the background, waiting until we’d actually entered the building.

  “It’s okay,” Latour said from where he stood. No one looked at him, and the meaninglessness of his words floated in the air like a pall.

  We crossed the threshold and split up. The warrant specified the toilet tank, or any other likely hiding place, so I went to the bathroom first, hoping to settle the issue quickly. The search would be thorough in any case, but at least the suspense would end if I found what we were after. Latour kept Padget company in the living room.

  The discovery was anticlimactic. I found the bathroom between the one bedroom and the central hall, went straight to the tank, lifted its lid, and immediately saw the plastic bag in its depths, weighted down by a stone.

  Tyler appeared with a small evidence kit and, wearing gloves, extracted the bag, opened it, tested its powdery contents in a small vial, and quietly announced them to contain cocaine.

  “How much, do you think?” I asked him.

  He knew what I was after. “It’s a felony possession, Joe. Way over two and a half grams.”

  I left him and Willy to finish the job and returned to the living room, carrying the bag in a second plastic envelope Tyler had supplied. Padget and Latour were standing awkwardly by the window, each one silently looking in opposite directions. As I approached, Latour moved off.

  I showed Padget the bag. “Recognize this?”

  “No.”

  “It was hidden in your toilet tank. It’s cocaine.”

  He p
ursed his lips. “It’s bullshit. I don’t know anything about it.”

  “We were told by a source that you’re a regular user of the stuff.”

  “He’s full of crap.”

  “I didn’t say it was a man.”

  His eyes widened slightly. “Then she’s full of crap.”

  I hefted the bag in my hand. “Listen carefully. This is a felony amount. If we stick you with it, and we’re nine-tenths there, you’re looking at the end of a career and jail time both. Your only way out is to come up with an explanation that’ll clear you. That does not include repeating that you’re innocent. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  Padget lifted both hands, palms up. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I don’t know anything about that stuff.”

  I took his elbow and sat him on the couch, perching myself on the coffee table opposite him, so our knees were almost touching. “You tested positive for coke, your polygraph came up zero, and now this. If you don’t know anything about how all that happened, you better think of someone who does.”

  Fear and longing were all I could read in his face now. He was hunched forward, his hands between his knees, the paleness of his face harshly contrasting with a mild case of acne. His forehead was damp. “There is nobody else.”

  “What about the reason I was brought up here in the first place?”

  He looked shocked at the mere suggestion. “Jan? She’d never do that.”

  “How ’bout her husband?”

  His mouth partly opened, but what he said reflected how distracted he was. “Why did I come up positive?”

  The incredulity in his voice was palpable—and believable—but I needed to keep him on track. “Who have you had over here lately? Jan?”

  He blinked a couple of times. “No. My neighbors are almost in my face they live so close. We thought it was too risky.”

  I remembered how Anne Murphy had spotted them making out in an alleyway. They could have spared themselves the discomfort. “Where did you meet, then?”

  “Cars, back streets, the woods, a motel room a couple of times. It was always real quick. We were scared we’d get caught.”

  “So you haven’t had anybody here, in this house?”

  “No, not really.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “My parents stayed over once, and Emily’s been here to pick me up when my car was in the shop.”

  “That’s Emily Doyle, from your department?”

  He nodded dumbly.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “A couple of weeks.”

  “What was wrong with the car?”

  “It was running rough. The garage guy said he found water in the gas, so he cleaned it out and tightened a hose fitting.”

  “When Emily came over, did she wait outside?”

  “Not always.”

  “Did she ever use the bathroom?”

  Padget sat back as if I’d pushed him, and stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Emily? No fucking way.”

  I answered him angrily. “Keep your eye on the ball, Padget. You’re the guy with a one-way ticket to jail right now. The more you tell me what saints all your friends are, the more you look like a total chump. If you’ve been screwed, then somebody did the screwing. Remember who filed the sexual harassment claim against you?”

  He flushed. “She was forced to by her husband.”

  “Would you let someone force you to get a friend fired from his job?”

  He shook his head as if trying to ward me off. “He’s got her under his thumb.”

  “What did she tell you about him?”

  “Just that she wanted to be free of him. That she felt she couldn’t breathe when he was around. She wanted to be with me—to run away.”

  I could almost hear the words in Jan’s own voice, and see her face as she uttered them—pleading, desperate, clinging. They were clichés common to those who knew they carried no weight. “Did she tell you he dealt drugs?”

  “Not directly. I didn’t ask and she didn’t say. She wanted our time together to be free of him. But I knew he did. Everybody knows. We were all dying for him to make a single mistake so we could nail him.”

  “Didn’t it cross your mind you were sleeping with the best witness against him?” I asked harshly.

  It was a mistake, of course. I was too far from his age to remember what that kind of love demanded of a person—how stupid it could make you.

  He gave me a pitying look. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  I’d blown it already, but I tried one last time. “Brian. Not everybody treats friendship the way you do.”

  He stood up, almost knocking me over, and retreated to the window. His frustration made him throw out his arms and shout. “I’m not a kid, okay? I know there’re assholes out there. I deal with them all the time. I’m good at my job and I know how to read people, so don’t give me a lecture. I don’t know how the fuck that shit got in here, or in me, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. Norm Bouch is who you want, not Emily or Jan. Norm Bouch has been giving us the finger since the day he hit town.”

  He stopped abruptly and looked around wildly for a moment. Latour, who’d been leaning against the open door, suddenly straightened and stated Brian’s name.

  I rose to my feet as Padget slowly settled down on his own. Both Willy and J.P. appeared from the back of the house. I glanced at them inquiringly. Both shook their heads.

  “Okay, Brian,” I said. “I’ll leave you alone. We’ll finish up here as quick as we can. You’re not under arrest, since I’m assuming you’ll stay put, but you’ll be cited to appear for arraignment on this.” I waved the bag of coke in the air. “If you can afford a lawyer, you better get one, otherwise the court will appoint a public defender. It’s up to your chief to decide whether your suspension will be with or without pay.”

  I moved toward the door, feeling a sudden need for fresh air, stifled by my own officiousness. But I paused on the threshold. “You might line up a mental health counselor, too. The shit is going to hit the fan on this—no way around it—and you’re going to feel like you’re the only guy on the face of the earth before it’s done. You better figure out how to deal with it. And for Christ’s sake, once you’ve cleared the fog from your head, think about who might’ve done this to you. I’ll do the best I can, but I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

  · · ·

  “You okay?”

  I took my eyes off the star-filled skylight over our bed and looked in Gail’s direction. Her hand appeared from under the covers and stroked my cheek. “You’ve been lying that way for over an hour.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. Can’t turn my brain off.”

  “The case?”

  “And the people in it. Along with a few thousand others I’ve dealt with over the years. Old ghosts ganging up, I guess.”

  Gail shifted around and slipped her arm across my chest. I could hear the clinical neutrality in her voice as she gently prodded. “Are they saying anything that makes sense?”

  I laughed to set her at ease. “Yes, doctor. They all agree I’m going nuts.”

  She didn’t laugh with me. “Are you?”

  I moved my own arm around to cradle her head, embarrassed at trying to put her off. We’d been through a lot together. She deserved honesty when she asked for it. “No. I’m just piling on the baggage with this one. I don’t know if it’s a critical-mass problem or just these particular people, but I’m feeling more and more weighed down by what I’m finding.”

  “Like what?”

  “Name it: teenage mothers on coke, a young boy in a ménage à trois, a cop probably being set up by his addict lover, a guy using kids to run a drug ring. Things’re looking pretty bleak… ”

  “You’ve been wading through the dregs for decades, Joe. Some of it’s got to stick.”

  She was right, of course. It began sticking the first year—but dealing with it was a rite of passage. Routine. From the angry,
out-of-town motorist cursing your small-town rules, to the fading glance of a drug-dazed, pregnant girl who’d just slashed her wrists to get some sleep, you took it in stride. It became a spectacle occurring beyond a thick pane of glass.

  In fact, I’d been noticing the accumulation of all this before I’d been asked to go to Bellows Falls. It had been catching up to me like old age itself. But it took working in that town to bring it into focus. Brattleboro was a part of me, and I’d grown to overlook what I chose to. Bellows Falls was uncharted territory, and I didn’t know the shoals well enough to avoid them. Jan Bouch, Emile Latour, Anne Murphy, Eric Shippee, Emily Doyle, and my own lamb-to-slaughter Brian Padget had all come too close, sharply revealed in their despair. I’d been caught by the exhaustion, the bitterness, and the suspicion I’d been avoiding.

  What was keeping me awake was the effort to recall something other than all that misery. Even the woman lying next to me was in this house we shared because a brutal rape had forced her to change her life. I had to reach back to my youth on a farm, halfway up the state, to recall a time when most of the faces around me were smiling and unfettered by turmoil.

  I glanced over at Gail, to see if she was still expecting me to explain what I couldn’t. Thankfully, her steady, even breathing answered for her and let me off the hook. I was once again free to peruse my catalogue of lost faces in solitude.

  Chapter 10

  SAMMIE MARTENS LOOKED UP AS I approached her desk the following morning. “You look terrible.”

  “You should be a doctor. What did you find out about the towns Amy Sorvino mentioned? Any Oliver Twist–style teenage gangs on the loose?”

  “Burlington is a definite hit, and Kunkle’s been snooping around our own backyard, trying to find out what Jasper Morgan might’ve been up to. You ought to talk to him. Barre I got a lukewarm—there’re kids into drugs, but the PD had no sense they were more organized than usual.”

  “Tell me about Burlington.”