Bellows Falls Read online

  “It’s been a few days since we found that dope in your toilet, Brian,” I began briskly. “You’ve had a lot of time to think about how it got there—and why your urine tested positive. What’ve you come up with?”

  He shook his head, staring at the floor. “I’m the last guy to ask. I don’t know shit about this whole mess.”

  “Think back to a week before it started, further if you can. What was your routine, from when you woke up to lights out?”

  “I don’t know. I’m a cop. I go out on the streets. I make enemies. I’m a sitting duck.”

  I spoke to him sharply. “That’s movie bullshit. Crooks don’t make enemies out of us. They work their side, and we try to put them in jail. It’s professional, not sandlot wrestling. You’re either in a jam because you screwed around with another man’s wife, or because you are a doper. Which is it?”

  He stood, his face flushed with anger. “I’m not dirty. No matter what everyone thinks.”

  “Fine,” I almost shouted to quiet him back down. “So what’s that leave?”

  His lips compressed into a thin, bloodless line. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes betrayed his confusion.

  “You were used,” I said gently, “by someone who went after you by turning the system against you. He knew we’d have to do what we did, and that the rest would naturally follow—the press drumming it up, the politicians covering their asses, the people you work with giving you a wide berth. You feel bad now, but it’ll get worse unless we can cut it off with the truth.”

  “I’m not dirty,” he repeated in a barely perceptible voice, sitting back down.

  “Maybe I believe that. It doesn’t make any difference. Not until you can help me find some proof. If you want a cliché that holds water, remember the one about cops being guilty until they’re proven innocent, ’cause that’s the way it is.”

  Padget cupped his face in his palms and rubbed his eyes hard with his fingertips. “This supposed to make me feel good?”

  I took hope at that glimmer of humor. “It’s supposed to get you off your ass. Right now, it looks like you committed a crime. But even though I’m the one who found the evidence, my job’s not near done. I still have to look under rocks—make sure what I got is solid. I’m hoping there’s something that proves what we have is bogus, and you’re one of the best people I know to help me with that.”

  He stood up again in a frustrated lurch and stalked over to the window. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, staring out at the street. “That’s about all I do anymore. Jan was never in this place, and I know it wasn’t Emily. You guys are definitely wrong there.”

  “Who says? You dumped her for Bouch’s wife. That’s been known to piss a few women off.”

  “God damn it,” he shouted, glaring at me. “Is that how it works? Everything gets twisted to fit the picture? I didn’t dump Emily and I didn’t go straight from her to Jan. Emily and I are friends. We went to bed a couple of times, it didn’t work out, and we called it quits—nice but no cigar. Emily’s not out to get me. That’s total bullshit.”

  “She was in this house. Was anyone else?”

  He merely rolled his eyes.

  “Did she ever use the bathroom, or have access to it when you couldn’t see her?”

  He still didn’t answer.

  “That’s how we have to think, Brian,” I said. “Not that Emily stuck it to you, but that she had the opportunity. Which means we can’t rule her out—same with Jan.”

  He returned to his chair, suddenly eager to talk. “Look, Lieutenant. I know you’re a good guy. And I know you don’t screw other cops. But this is all crazy. I’m just starting out and I got a lot to learn, but I am pretty good. Ask Sergeant Davis. I can figure out when people’re pulling my chain. Emily Doyle is a nice kid. She’s got a chip on her shoulder and she comes on too strong, but that’s because she’s scared of screwing up. She wants to make it so bad as a cop it hurts. There is no way in hell she’d go after me because we didn’t have a good time in bed. I mean, Jesus, I’m about the only one in the department who can put up with her shit half the time.”

  “Why the chip on the shoulder?”

  He shook his head impatiently. “Family junk. Her father wanted a boy, gave her shit as a kid, said she’d never measure up. She overcompensates.”

  “What about Jan Bouch?”

  He hesitated at the sudden change in direction. “That’s different.”

  I waited for more and finally had to prompt him. “Starting with the fact that you love her?”

  His discomfort came off him like smoke.

  “I love somebody, too,” I said. “It’s not something to be embarrassed about. Tell me what kind of person she is—objectively, as a cop.”

  “She has her problems,” he admitted. “Her son-of-a-bitch husband for starters. He hooked her on coke to tie her to him. But she’s working on kicking that.” His voice became wistful. “She was, at least.”

  “Is she a strong person?” I asked.

  “She’s not Emily—God knows. She’s got strong feelings, though. But she’s no fighter.”

  “What do you like about her?”

  Padget shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “She makes me feel good. The things she says are kind of dumb, but they put me right on top… I guess that sounds stupid.”

  Not stupid, I thought, but disarmingly flattering. “What kind of influence do you think Norm has on her, besides the drugs?”

  He looked at me in wonder. “I hadn’t thought about it till just now, but he reminds me of Emily’s father—the two of them are real domineering.”

  “But where Emily ended up fighting back… ” I left the thought dangling on purpose.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe Jan does kind of cave in too much.”

  “She pretty much do what you ask her to when you’re together?”

  “Yeah.”

  I let him think about the significance of that for a moment before continuing. To make him useful—to both of us—I wanted him to begin thinking analytically again. “Brian, how did you two meet?”

  He blinked a couple of times, as if clearing away a lingering doubt. “Oh, it was just an accident. I guess I got called to their house for a disturbance. Things started rolling from that.”

  “Norm was there, too?”

  “We wouldn’t’ve been called otherwise.”

  “You called her up afterwards?”

  He sensed the inappropriateness of that. “No, no. I don’t know. I guess we bumped into each other around town, got to talking… ”

  “And she started unloading her problems on you?”

  Padget began fidgeting again. “I don’t know, Lieutenant. We just started talking, you know? Like people do. We connected.”

  “Who stepped up the relationship to more than talking?”

  That seemed safer to him. “She did. I knew it was wrong, or that people would think it was, but she made things pretty hard to resist. I thought I could help her out—get rid of Norm, maybe fix things so she could get her life straight.”

  “Maybe be a part of that life?” I suggested.

  He paused for a long time. “Maybe.”

  I hesitated before asking my next question. “Remember what I said about thinking like a cop? Is it possible, putting your personal feelings aside, that Jan might’ve been manipulated by Norm, even while she was talking about a future with you?”

  I was expecting a blowup, so I was surprised by his bland response. “The way things’re going now, I guess anything’s possible.”

  It wasn’t lacking in fatalism, but at least he was open to suggestion. I rose and crossed to the front door. “I’ll get out of your hair. Did you follow my advice about seeing a counselor, by the way? I guarantee it’ll help.”

  “No.”

  I’d expected that. Cops tend to steer clear of analysts, not only because of a built-in reticence, but also out of fear their confessions will leak back to their superiors and be held against them. It had
been known to happen.

  I tried once more anyhow. “It doesn’t have to be the department-sanctioned shrink. See someone on your own.”

  But he merely shook his head. “Thanks anyway, Lieutenant. I’m feeling better, knowing you’re out there working for me. I wasn’t so sure before.”

  I kept my mouth shut. What did it hurt for him to think my job was that clear-cut? And wasn’t it to lend him support that I’d come here in the first place? What I said instead was, “Keep trying to remember what’s been going on recently. Maybe you’ll think of something helpful.”

  Unfortunately, he already had mentioned something relevant, which I didn’t think was going to help him in the least. After I pulled out of his driveway, I didn’t head for home as I’d originally planned, but north toward the Bellows Falls police station to find out if I was right.

  The evening shift was just coming on when I pulled into the parking lot. I could see their silhouettes gathered in the radio room, no doubt sampling the cookies I’d heard were regularly supplied by one of the officer’s wives. As I entered the building, however, all conversation died as if cut with an ax, and the small group filed out the door, eyes averted. Only the dispatcher remained, now buried in paperwork, and Greg Davis, looking embarrassed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said softly. “Part of the turf.”

  “Doesn’t make it any more pleasant. What’s up?”

  “I was wondering if your call log indexed responding officers.”

  He led me over to the same computer I’d used earlier. “Sure. What case?”

  “Everything involving the Bouch residence.”

  He cut me a look but remained silent, typing his instructions into the machine. Moments later, a list appeared on screen. I read it, nodded to him to scroll down, read again. I rubbed the back of my neck, disappointed.

  “Get what you wanted?” he asked.

  “That’s all of it, right? There’re no other records that might show Brian responding to at least one of those calls?” I thought further as he shook his head. “How ’bout if he was off-duty and just showed up to help?”

  “It’d still be in here.”

  So Brian had lied. I sighed with disappointment. “That’s what Emile remembered, too. First time we talked, he said he didn’t think Bouch and Padget had ever met.”

  Davis glanced back at the screen. “He was right—officially at least. Looks like Emily Doyle showed up at the Bouches more’n anyone. Luck of the draw, I suppose.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, but I didn’t believe it for a second.

  Chapter 14

  IT WAS LATE AT NIGHT when my phone buzzed me back to the present. I’d been sitting half-conscious in my office, the paperwork I’d hoped to complete still littering my desk, victim of a seriously distracted mind.

  The voice on the other end belonged to Jonathon Michael, and I could tell from its wavy clarity that he was speaking on a cell phone. “Joe, you up for a small drive? Steve Kiley would like to meet with you, me, and Kathy at the Rockingham barracks in about a half-hour.”

  I looked at my watch. It was closing in on midnight. “I take it this is not a social gathering?”

  “You got that. Turns out he just found out about our little project. Kathy left a message for him a couple of days ago but never followed up on it.”

  “Swell. I’ll be there.”

  I hung up, longing for the distracted state I’d just left. What Jonathon Michael had just reported meant that we now had the supervising officer of the drug task force worked up enough to demand a reckoning in the middle of the night.

  Kiley was a strong-willed, ambitious man, who as head of this elite team had gained a stature rare among the State Police. It hadn’t inflated his ego—he was a better cop than that—but it had given him power and independence in a system known to be tightfisted with both. The result was a man who was used to more respect than he obviously felt he’d just received from us—and respect was a touchy item for both him and his crew.

  The “drug police,” to use the vernacular of some of his colleagues, conspicuously marched to a different drummer. Casually dressed, often bearded and long-haired, task force members kept their own hours, ignored the spit-and-polish of their peers, and sometimes behaved more like the people they were after than the ones they depended upon for backup.

  This led to a good deal of ribbing, some of it ill-natured, along with a few suspicions that all that exposure to money and dope could lead to unhealthy habits. Being in the trenches of drug enforcement, far from the ranks and often away from one’s family for long stretches, Kiley and his people became hypersensitive to such innuendoes. Respect and courtesy from colleagues became unstated prerequisites for good morale, and slights were not ignored.

  I had no doubts about the nature of the conversation I’d just been invited to join. The surprise was who I met after pulling into the barracks parking lot forty-five minutes later.

  A small, compact man wearing a beard, T-shirt, and faded jeans stepped away from the shadows of a pickup truck as I emerged from my car.

  “You Gunther?” he asked.

  I kept my eyes on his hands. His tone of voice was neutral, but the time and setting were far from it. “Who’s asking?”

  “Bill Deets. I’m on assignment with the task force from Bellows Falls.”

  I stuck out my hand, which he shook after a slight hesitation. “Glad to meet you. I’m just about to have a powwow with your boss. You coming in?”

  He shook his head. “You need to know you’re barking up the wrong tree with Brian and Emily.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Padget was common knowledge, especially to someone with this man’s connections. Doyle was another matter. “I’m going after Emily?”

  His face hardened. “You looked her up in the computer a few hours ago. You think she’s tied into Norm Bouch and put the screws to Brian. All that’s so full of shit it’s not funny.”

  I remembered the quiet dispatcher hovering in the background when Davis and I had done exactly what Deets had described. Unless, of course, Davis himself had spilled the beans. The mere thought of that gave birth to a small headache. “I guess this means you’ve got a better idea about what’s going on,” I told him.

  “I know you’re about to ruin two good reputations for nothing.”

  I considered several responses to that, including trying to allay his fears. But I didn’t know the truth myself and was suspicious enough at his approach to question his motives. So far in this case, I’d found only surprises where I’d expected the mundane, and I didn’t feel like adding to the confusion by taking Bill Deets into my confidence.

  I decided instead to feed him some of his own attitude. “Ruining reputations is something I’ll leave to the rumor mill. Talk to Kiley after we’re done. If he thinks it’s appropriate, he’ll tell you what’s going on. My advice either way would be to tell your colleagues on the PD to lighten up on Padget and give him their support. Right now, they’re the ones acting like he’s already been tried and convicted.”

  I didn’t wait for him to answer but made my way quickly to the building’s front door.

  The Rockingham barracks of the Vermont State Police was the same nondescript, single-story, brick and cement design that had been used for every barracks in the state. It was, like its clones, too small, unimaginatively designed, and oppressive to work in. It fit my mood perfectly.

  I stepped into the small lobby and presented myself to the dispatcher behind the thick glass panel in the wall. A minute later, Kiley, tall and broad, in cowboy boots and a ponytail, threw open the door to the interior. His smile looked sutured in place at great cost.

  “Joe. The others just got here. Glad you could make it.”

  I bit my tongue and merely shook his hand.

  He took me down the long central hallway to an office at the far end. “I heard what you were up to,” he said without looking back, “and asked Kathy Bartlett for an update. She thought it might be helpful i
f we all got together at one meeting to sort things out.”

  Despite my irritation, I didn’t really fault his testiness. His job was among the more dangerous in law enforcement, much of it undercover, all of it dealing with people whose trustworthiness could be doubted by their own mothers. If I’d discovered that a statewide investigation involving my turf had been launched behind my back, I would’ve been irritable, too.

  “Nice of you to pick a time we were all free,” was all I said under my breath.

  Jonathon Michael and Kathy Bartlett were standing in the room we entered, Jon on his tiptoes, trying to peer out of one of those too-high windows at the gloominess beyond, Kathy in a sweatshirt and loose-fitting jeans, looking as if she’d just been tossed out of bed. Grim-faced, she merely nodded at me as I walked in.

  “Grab some seats,” Kiley said like a genial host, pulling a chair from under the large central table and making himself comfortable. “We might be here a while.”

  Bartlett gave him a deadly look. “All right. You’re pissed and I’m sorry. It’d be nice to progress beyond that.”

  Kiley leaned forward and tapped the tabletop gently with his finger. “The task force reports to your office, Kathy. Was it so goddamn difficult to drop me a line?”

  She sat, too, but in a chair against the wall, her hands buried in her pockets. “We’ve been over that. I screwed up. But we had good cause for not involving the task force in the first place, so none of what’s said tonight is going to change anything—except that I promise not to drop the ball again. I mean, Jesus, Steve, we’ve worked well together for years.”

  But his concern, as we already knew, had little to do with bureaucratic mix-ups. “We were formed by general agreement,” he said, “so local PDs and the State Police could clear their books of exactly this kind of case. I’d like to know what good cause it was that made you go behind my back.” He looked hard at me and continued, “Joe’s got a criminal case against a cop. Is there something about my own squad I should know?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Kathy cut me off. “No. Absolutely not. It was pure and simple a conflict of interest, as I already told you. Your Bill Deets is buddy-buddy with his old department, and in particular Brian Padget, and I personally didn’t want to put you in a tight spot. If things had worked out more smoothly, we would have talked about it calmly and at a more civilized hour and settled the matter then and there. I realize paranoia can be a life-saving instinct, but there is absolutely nothing else going on here.”