The Marble Mask Page 2

  Turner shook his head. “Not pseudo. We’re thinking it’s the real McCoy. Check out the rest of it.”

  We gathered around him as he displayed it all—wool pants and shirt, cashmere sweater, silk underwear. It reminded me of an old movie about a debonair city slicker going country for the weekend.

  I reached out and fingered the material. It was coarse and brittle despite its high quality, and much of it was in shreds, especially along the same side as the scratches on the body’s face. “How old is it?”

  Turner laughed. “Wild guess? Nineteen forty-five, six, or seven—in that range.”

  “You having a good time?” Sammie asked testily. “How’re you so sure?”

  He waved a hand in apology. “I’m sorry. This one’s just so far off the charts. Here.” He extended a small plastic bag to her from a sampling of similarly protected documents. Inside was a single piece of thick paper.

  Sammie studied it a moment, turned it over, and finally gave it to me. “It’s a Canadian driver’s license, expires nineteen forty-seven. Name of Jean Deschamps.”

  I glanced at it. “That’s it?”

  Ed passed the other documents around. “No, no. He had all the usual stuff—money, business cards, kids’ photos, picture of a guy in uniform, what looks like an ancient credit card for a Sherbrooke oil company, presumably for his car. There’s also an identity card with his photograph, birth date, and address. It all looks like it came straight out of a museum.”

  “Let’s see the paper money,” I requested. He handed me another envelope. “There’s about five hundred dollars, Canadian,” he said. “Good for a short vacation.”

  I didn’t need to check for dates to know the currency predated 1952. Queen Elizabeth’s profile was conspicuously absent from any of the bills, in favor of her father, King George VI.

  “Not right after the war, it wasn’t,” I countered. “Adjusting for inflation, that’s worth close to three thousand dollars, and even that’s misleading, since three thousand back then bought a lot more than it does now.” I waved my hand at the pile of clothes. “And those aren’t for hiking—they’re just dandified countrywear.”

  “I think so, too,” Beverly Hillstrom said from behind me.

  I turned to her. “So, what are we looking at? A man dead for fifty years, or something disguised to make us think so?”

  “The answer,” she said, “might lie in the depth of his refrigeration. Generally, in hypothermia cases, we can either see or regain some degree of flaccidity shortly after we take possession of the body, even with the complication of rigor mortis. Here we have a subject frozen through and through at something around twenty degrees below zero, centigrade—a unique situation in my personal experience. And I would say that what Agent Martens identified as mummification is also in part what I would call old-fashioned freezer burn.

  “Finally, add that to the equation,” she waved her hand at the clothes and documents, “along with the three amputations and the postmortem scrapes on his face, and I would venture that our friend has not only been in this state for a very long time, but that he was brutally handled recently, resulting not in the severing but the breaking off of some of his anatomy. I studied the points of separation carefully, and they show little sign of the weathering the rest of the body’s suffered, and no signs whatsoever of slicing, chopping, or sawing.”

  “Pretty unlikely Mount Mansfield had much to do with any of this,” I suggested, mostly to myself.

  Beverly Hillstrom smiled slightly. “I would agree.”

  “What about the amputations?” Sammie asked.

  “One hypothesis,” Hillstrom answered, “might involve dropping. If the frozen body hit a rocky outcropping or an icy surface at the proper angle, parts of it could have broken off or even shattered upon impact, as with a marble statue. That would also explain the lacerations and the torn clothes.”

  I looked over at Ed Turner. “Did the Stowe PD search the area?”

  He nodded. “They didn’t find anything.”

  “The body could have been dropped prior to its final delivery on the mountain,” Hillstrom suggested. “Mr. Deschamps was not a small man and in that condition must have been quite difficult to handle.”

  “So we might find an arm or a foot in a dumpster somewhere,” Sammie ventured. I glanced around the room, restless with all this abstract musing. Until I recalled a small reaction of Hillstrom’s earlier. “What do you think caused that puncture to the heart?” I asked her.

  She returned to the side of the presumed Mr. Deschamps and placed her finger gently on his chest. “It may not be possible to prove, but my suspicion is that it looks odd because it’s rare—another indicator that all this happened long ago. I think he may have been killed by an old domestic standby, both in fact and in the movies: an ice pick. You don’t see many of them nowadays. And certainly not as a lethal weapon.”

  Chapter 3

  THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY IS LOCATED in the small town of Waterbury, not far from Vermont’s capital of Montpelier, in an aging complex of state buildings, which includes the old insane asylum—now partially converted into a women’s prison. Like the others on this campus, the red-brick home of the DPS is unenlightening to look at—large, plain, and stolid—and as functionally awkward as the average crumbling high school everyone wishes they could afford to demolish.

  Bill Allard’s office, and the technical heart of the VBI, was a small cubbyhole located on the top floor, just above the headquarters of the Vermont State Police.

  Allard welcomed Sammie and me with a broad smile, handshakes, and the offer of two guest chairs, one of which had obviously been stuffed into the room especially for the occasion. We gained our seats with as much decorum as possible, trying not to make it look as though we were picking through a cluttered closet.

  “What did you find out?” he asked once we’d settled down.

  He was a thoroughly likable man, once a captain downstairs, a veteran state trooper of almost twenty years who’d done stints in every department from BCI to Internal Affairs to Intelligence, and had proven himself capable at all of them. His being chosen as bureau chief of VBI by the Commissioner of Public Safety had been at once a concession to the slighted state police and a demonstration of keen insight. I knew of no one who didn’t think highly of Bill Allard, even while I was sure that his appointment would strike other agencies as ironic proof that the VSP was in control of VBI.

  “From what we know right now,” I answered him, “this is no slam dunk. It looks like the body was a Canadian named Jean Deschamps who was killed with an ice pick around nineteen forty-six or seven and then frozen solid for fifty-plus years.”

  Allard pushed out his lower lip and stared at his desk top for a moment. “What’s your plan of attack?” he finally asked, avoiding a lot of questions he knew we couldn’t answer.

  “The address on Deschamps’s driver’s license is Sherbrooke, Québec. We probably ought to start there, running what we’ve got by the local cops. I don’t know if it’s a municipal department, the provincial police, or the Mounties covering that area, but one or all of them might have this guy on a missing persons list. Confirming his identity would be a good start. ’Course that all depends on what Stowe PD’s been up to and what they want us to do.”

  “Sherbrooke has a new joint police department including it and a bunch of its suburbs,” Allard said, pointedly ignoring my last comment. “As for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I’d check their records but rely on the Sûreté Provinciale du Québec for any help. The Sûreté is the RCMP up there—part of that Anglo/Franco battle they’re having all the time.”

  “Who actually has this case right now?” Sammie asked, stranded between the support role I was implying and Bill’s proprietary tone. Allard looked at her curiously, which didn’t strike me as a good sign.

  His answer confirmed my doubts and revealed how political expedience had invaded our own organization. “Stowe initiated the case, of course. But t
he ball’s pretty much ours. No way they’re going to be committing people to this kind of goose chase.”

  Sammie glanced at me and raised her eyebrows. I sighed inaudibly and asked, “Exactly how did that conversation go with Stowe’s chief? Frank Auerbach? He runs a pretty tight department—well equipped, well organized. A full-service outfit.”

  The pause in the conversation told me Bill got my point. “You and I have hashed this over before, Joe,” he finally said. “Our charter specifies we can initiate investigations where we see fit.” He held his hand up as I opened my mouth to respond. “Not that we’re doing that here. After the AG paved the way following the ME’s initial report this morning, I called Auerbach to introduce myself. I offered him our services in case the need should arise, nice and polite. He thanked me very much.”

  Allard sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “He hasn’t officially accepted us?” I asked, trying to keep calm. “I thought we were already on board. That’s what I told Ed Turner in Burlington, who by now has probably spread it all over downstairs, maybe even back to Auerbach.”

  He shrugged. “Look. No one’s a virgin here. The Legislature may have created us, but we’re already ancient history. It’s a brand-new session stuffed with freshmen, and so far they’ve been happy to let us hang in the wind. Every cop shop in Vermont is hoping we’ll vanish without a trace, and if the governor doesn’t hear some good news after bragging to the press this morning, that’s probably what’ll happen. We’re going to have to be a little pushy to start with, Joe, or we’re not going to survive. Auerbach’s going to need help with this. He’ll know that as soon as the ME gives him her report. All the AG and I did was make it diplomatic for him to ask for us instead of the state police. Heavy-handed, maybe—underhanded if you want—and maybe you’ll have to smooth a few feathers because of it, but at least you’ll be in business.”

  I couldn’t argue with him. He was absolutely right about our shelf life. Our coexistence with other units was going to be initially bumpy in any case—either because we were untested or because we were seen as competition. We might just as well get started, show some signs of life, and try to work out the details along the way.

  But if that was the plan, I had an additional problem. “Bill, as far as I know, you and I are the only two people on the VBI payroll with assigned responsibilities. Sammie here got a welcome aboard letter, as did a bunch of other people, but none of them have heard a word since. Now I know the Bureau’s supposed to have regional offices, and that Stowe and Brattleboro couldn’t be much farther apart, but if we’re going to play this like a pickup game, I’d like to select my own team—just this once. Given how disorganized things are, I don’t think it’ll bother anyone, especially if it leads to more cases.”

  Allard seemed relieved by my acceptance of his backdoor strategy concerning Auerbach. “Sure,” he said. “Who do you want?”

  “Sam, for one,” I told him, “and Willy Kunkle for another.”

  Allard rubbed his chin with his finger. “Name rings a bell. Doesn’t he have a little attitude problem?”

  Neither Sammie nor I said a word, but the question alone told me Kunkle’s name had come up in at least one context in this building.

  After an awkward pause, he added, “I’m not sure what the status is on his application, to be honest. And that’s one part of the process I don’t want to fool with right now—can’t be seen playing favorites.”

  I seriously doubted Willy Kunkle was anyone’s favorite, including mine, and he’d worked on my squad alongside Sammie for years. A recovering alcoholic, he’d beaten his wife before she left him over ten years ago, and he was cynical, sharp-tongued, dismissive of others, and difficult to work with. He was also smart, honest, hard-working, and an excellent cop despite his faults, which made him even harder on himself than he was on others—no small statement. No one aside from Sammie understood what I saw in Willy, or why time after time I’d gone out on a limb to save his career. There was more to it than his simply being good at his job—dozens of others were as capable, and all of them were a hell of a lot more pleasant. But I’d seen value in aiding in his redemption and been rewarded with signs of progress, not the least of which was Willie’s discreet, still largely unknown romantic pairing with Sammie. Childless and a widower, perhaps I wanted for Willy what a parent wants for a troubled but promising son. He had fought off the bottle, learned to control his physical outbursts, dealt with a bullet wound that had left him with a withered, useless left arm, and had been caught being sensitive and considerate when he thought nobody was watching.

  But my leaving the Brattleboro department had threatened that evolution. My old chief, Tony Brandt, while a supportive and considerate boss, had made it clear that without my protection, Willy was a targeted man. Anticipating that, I’d already made the consideration of his VBI application a condition of my own signing on, something the commissioner had agreed to only reluctantly. I’d stressed then that all I was requesting was that the man get the same fair scrutiny we’d all received.

  Allard’s reaction made me realize my request might not have been honored.

  I wasn’t surprised, but I hated to think that all I’d done by helping Kunkle was to perhaps set him up for the hardest fall of all.

  “Who does know what his status is?” I asked. “The commissioner?”

  “He’s head of the selection committee,” Allard answered indirectly.

  I nodded toward the phone on his desk. “Let’s give him a call, then.”

  Bill Allard frowned. He didn’t know Willy Kunkle, as did Commissioner Stanton, but this was not playing ball, as the political vernacular had it. In one stroke, I’d picked a fight and gone over his head before our very first case was a day old—all over a man of dubious pedigree.

  He made the call. Next to me, Sammie was looking as if she wanted to melt into the floor.

  David Stanton didn’t look happy, either, when the three of us filed into his office one flight down five minutes later.

  A tall, skinny man with a mop of thick, tangled hair, he was a keen organizational animal—smart, ambitious, and restless to make his mark. In the early blueprints of what VBI was to be but hadn’t become, Stanton had been slated for a cabinet secretary rating. His failure had dulled his interest in the whole experiment.

  “What’s up?” he asked without preamble, not bothering to shake hands or greet us by name.

  Allard spoke first. “Since the governor caught us flat-footed, we’re trying to cobble together a squad with minimal break-in needs.”

  It was the preferred indirect approach, but I didn’t feel like wasting time any more than Stanton did. I might also have been reacting to his perfunctory tone. “I’d like Willy Kunkle.”

  Bill tried softening the message. “I didn’t know the status of his application.”

  Stanton kept his watchful eyes on me. “He’s in the pipeline, Joe, along with several others.”

  “Maybe so, but since proper procedure’s already out the window, let’s cut corners,” I suggested, matching his stare.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea, not right out of the starting gate.”

  “Why not?” I asked, anger slowly beginning to build in my chest. “When were you going to decide about him?”

  Stanton’s mouth tightened slightly. “It’s not up to me alone. There’s a panel—”

  “Which you bypassed to hire me,” I interrupted.

  “You were a special case,” he said, giving the comment a clear double meaning. “Kunkle doesn’t fit that category.”

  I turned to the door, resting my hand on the knob. “Maybe you got me wrong.”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic, Joe,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “When you signed on, the deal was we consider Kunkle’s application along with everyone else’s. We’re doing that. You can’t force us to accept him—it wouldn’t be ethical.”

  I laughed, the frustration of waiting around for weeks
coming to a boil. “Ethical? You didn’t want him to begin with, and it’s starting to look like you’ve lost interest in VBI. If Willy really is under consideration, and not just being jerked around to keep me quiet, now would be a good time to show some good faith. Let me have him for this case on a provisional basis. Call him a consultant if you want, instead of a special agent, and make his performance a factor in his passing muster, but give the poor bastard a chance, stop treating me like some senile chump, and let the Bureau prove itself in the real world.”

  Stanton scowled at me. “I made you SAC of the whole outfit, for Christ’s sake, and I’m one of the few people who doesn’t want the Bureau chopped off at the knees. Everyone has the highest respect for you. You’re the one putting a monkey wrench into the works with your obsession with this guy.”

  I didn’t say a word, but I left my hand on the doorknob. He finally relented, which ironically highlighted his ambivalence about our fate, since if ever there was a time to call my bluff, it was now. “All right, you can have Kunkle—provisionally. He’s not to have VBI credentials, and once this case is over, whether he’s accepted or not, I don’t want to have this conversation again.

  “And,” he added, pointing his finger at Bill Allard, “I want at least two more people of your choosing assigned to this, regardless of how many break-in problems it might create. They are not to be from Brattleboro or Windham County or even from the southeast corner of the state. If Kunkle’s going to be part of the equation, I want him counterbalanced with the best you can get your hands on. In fact,” he added after a brief pause, “why don’t you pull in someone from BCI as an unofficial intern? That way, Kunkle won’t be alone, it’ll help show we’re not a closed shop, and maybe word’ll leak back to the BCI rank-and-file that we’re not the threat their brass is making us out to be.”

  He shifted his glare to me. “That better be acceptable, Joe, or you damn well can walk out that door.”

  I smiled at him instead, amazed I’d gotten away with it. “Don’t worry, Dave. This won’t bite you in the ass.”