Bellows Falls Read online

  I was too slow reacting. I didn’t like her proposal and knew it wasn’t necessary. If Lenny was stuck between us and the others, it meant time and patience were on our side. Flooding the next two floors with people as they became available was the prudent course. But fatigue had kicked in, creating a numbing submissiveness. I merely watched her trot down the hall and vanish through a fire door without saying a word.

  Once she was gone, however, doubt became apprehension. All the standard protocols had been overwhelmed by spontaneity and a crisis mentality. I knew that with extra personnel already spreading throughout the building, calm would soon be restored, probably with the arrival of a senior officer. I’d been beaned by Lenny’s spotlight barely fifteen minutes ago, after all, not long in the life of an emergency. I could even hear the music still reverberating throughout the building.

  But as I began going from door to door, my discomfort grew.

  I was pulling open the third door along the hallway when I heard a distant thump, dull enough to be barely noticeable. I stood stock-still, waiting for something more. Then I tried the radio. “Audrey? You okay?”

  The dead silence sent me running.

  I found her struggling to get to her feet in the hallway beyond the fire door. “You all right?”

  She pushed me away, already staggering toward the distant staircase. “Son of a bitch jumped me. Went up.”

  I grabbed her arm to steady her, noticing a smear of blood and a large swelling by her temple, along with a look of determined rage. It never occurred to me to try to get her to sit down. I did, however, update everyone by radio.

  The stairs led straight up to stage level, dark, grandiose, and reverberating with music. After the bright, bland corridors below, the contrast was disorienting. Stepping onto the stage itself, I saw people with flashlights running down the aisles from the front of the theater and heard, for the first time, the orchestra begin to falter.

  A sonorous crash indicated why. Springing from beneath the scaffold-like risers on which the rearmost musicians were seated, Lenny Markham made a dash for the opposite side of the stage, using the middle tier of the orchestra as a shortcut. Like a football player with the crowd cheering him on, he pushed and shoved his way along, scattering bodies and instruments to an accompaniment of shouts and curses, with Audrey and me in close pursuit.

  But Lenny had the advantage. Following in his destructive wake proved slow going, and by the time we reached the other side, he’d disappeared into the wings.

  By now, people were converging from every corner. Audrey ignored them all. With her knowledge of the building’s details and her passion to nail the man who’d made her look bad, she steamrolled her way past everybody and disappeared through a door in the far wall. The most I could do was ride shotgun.

  We descended another set of stairs to a hallway like the one we’d just left—well lit, empty, and utterly quiet. “You sure he came down here?” I asked. “He didn’t have a choice,” she answered, checking the first door. It led to a large, dark, ghostly room with two oversized furnaces squatting in its middle like prehistoric monsters. We walked around them, sweeping the corners with my small light.

  I was headed back out when Audrey stopped me. “Hang on. There’s one other place.”

  She stepped up to a door I hadn’t noticed, about three feet tall, mounted flush to the building’s exterior wall. “It’s the old coal bin,” she explained. “Used to feed the furnaces before they converted to oil.”

  She crouched and grabbed the door’s handle. At that moment, it flew back and smacked her in the forehead, sending her spreadeagled to the floor. I glanced at her quickly as I stepped past and saw her weakly reach for her head. I huddled by the side of the door and pushed it wide open with my foot, gun in hand. “Lenny, this is the police. Come out with your hands up.”

  I heard a frantic scrambling, as from a huge rodent struggling to run up a gravel hill. Gun and penlight held as a unit, I swung around the corner to look inside.

  What confronted me was a room so vast and dark, and so filled with cloying dust, it virtually swallowed what little glimmer my small light could put out. I could barely discern, as if through a fog, a slight, pale, distant blur, at which I shouted, “Stop,” to predictable results.

  I stepped inside the room, aiming to give chase.

  It was then the meaning of the strange noise I’d heard became clear. My ankles disappeared into a crunchy quicksand of loose coal, throwing me off balance and pitching me forward. The bin, long abandoned, still housed a half load of fuel, probably dating back decades, and it was through this that I had to pursue the pale figure up ahead, stumbling, slipping, and choking on a cloud undisturbed for years.

  Halfway across the bin, a sudden flash of light made me instinctively leap to one side. The acrid, dust-choked tomb was abruptly filled with diffused sunshine, sparkling off millions of dark airborne particles like a perverse parody of a religious revelation. I squinted at its source and briefly saw the haloed outline of Lenny Markham as he scrambled into the light and escaped to freedom.

  My headache returning with a vengeance, I slowly reholstered my gun.

  Chapter 19

  TIM GIORDI LOOKED AT US WITH open contempt. It was an hour after Lenny Markham had made good his escape from the Flynn Theatre, during which time Giordi had pieced together the string of poor decisions that had aided Lenny’s escape. My sole comfort was that in that same period of time, I’d been able to take a shower and an aspirin and beg a change of clothes.

  Filling Giordi’s office were Audrey McGowen, a bandage around her head, Duncan Fasca, Jonathon Michael, and myself.

  “I won’t go into details now,” Giordi began. “I still have more to investigate, and more apologies to make to a lot of pissed-off people. I did want it known, however, that this is not being considered a minor lapse of protocol. What happened out there was human, but it was not forgivable. You turned the routine stakeout of a nonviolent suspect into a circus by ignoring the precise procedures created to avoid just such an escalation. You people are goddamn lucky Lenny Markham wasn’t armed or didn’t choose to use his weapon. And you, Joe,” he added, pointing at me, “it’s a miracle you’re not dead.”

  “For which I’d like Duncan officially commended,” I said. “Nothing would have altered that part of this fiasco. Neither one of us had any reason to think Lenny would turn violent. I know things could’ve been done better later on, but I’d like his quick thinking reflected on the record.”

  Giordi sighed softly. “So noted. You did all right, Duncan. Which,” and here he stared at Audrey, “is more than I can say for others.”

  Audrey didn’t react, so I opened my mouth to fend for her, too.

  Giordi stopped me with an upheld hand. “I know, I know. Officer McGowen is a monument of rectitude, decisiveness, and honor. And I am keeping in mind her obvious perseverance. But we all know there was a major screw-up here, and I am not going to let a bunch of smokescreen testimonials disguise that fact. From what I’ve gathered so far, nobody’s job is threatened, but this will be dealt with in such a fashion that you’ll never pull a similar stunt again. Is that clear?”

  He wasn’t looking for an answer, so we all filed out without comment. In the hallway, Duncan Fasca, whom I’d written off earlier as a throwback to the hardheaded cops of yore, shook my hand. “Thanks.”

  “It was the truth. You saved my butt.”

  He shook his head. “I was scared shitless.”

  Audrey was looking at the ground. “I’m sorry I let you down.”

  I started to say something soothing, but Duncan surprised me again. “You did what you thought was right, and we all went along with it. You’re not alone on this, even if they single you out—don’t worry about that. There’s not one of them that hasn’t screwed up one time or another in their career, and they’re the head guys. This’ll pass. What pisses me off is that Lenny’s not getting nailed for it.”

  “You have any idea where he
is?” I asked.

  Fasca shrugged without comment.

  Jonathon, having weathered the storm without a scratch, suggested, “Maybe we could go over his files again—check his habits.”

  We headed toward the detective bureau and Fasca’s desk. “Why do you think he ran for it?” I asked no one in particular.

  “You told him his life was being threatened,” Duncan said.

  “I said Bouch was threatening it,” I corrected.

  “But you didn’t say how or why,” Jonathon joined in, having been briefed on the conversation earlier.

  “Implying he already knew,” I said.

  Fasca sat at his desk and began rummaging through its drawers. “Which brings us back to nowhere.”

  I gently fingered the bruise on my temple. “Maybe not. It could be my showing up with Duncan was what pushed him over the edge. Lenny plays both ends against the middle. Talking to you is one thing—predictable, safe, mutually beneficial, as is working with Bouch on the other side. But bringing me in implied the cat had been let out of the bag, just like you feared. He had to have heard we’d discovered Jasper’s body—and assumed that Bouch had killed him. Seeing me was proof it was time to jump ship. He didn’t want to be grabbed by us as some sort of co-conspirator, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be whacked by Norm Bouch.”

  “Which means he’s probably running around now tying up loose ends, if he hasn’t already left town,” Jonathon said.

  Fasca was poring over the contents of one of his files. “Duncan,” I asked him, “if Jon’s right, Lenny’s meeting with people. Not at his apartment or the local bar or wherever else you and he used to meet—he’d figure all those are covered—but someplace where he feels in control. You got any suggestions?”

  Fasca began flipping through pages as I spoke, searching for something in particular. A minute later, he looked up, a small smile on his face. “It sounds a little nuts, but I think we ought to stake out the ferry. He and I never met there, but he mentioned it once a couple of years ago as the best place to meet if you’re in a jam. You can check out everybody on board, it’s hard to be bugged or photographed, and you got all the time in the world to conduct business.”

  A dead silence settled between us. “I like it,” Jonathon finally said. Sharing no small amount of dread, we rose to our feet and filed back into Tim Giordi’s office.

  · · ·

  “What’s he doing now?” I asked.

  Audrey’s voice came over the earpiece in a whisper, making her hard to hear over the throaty rumbling below decks. “They’re both at the bow, looking at the water, still talking.”

  “You there, Jon?” I asked.

  There was a brief pause, I imagined so Jonathon could casually turn his back and speak into the mike hidden under his jacket. “I’m here. They’re not looking too happy with each other.”

  “All set down there, Duncan?”

  “All set,” Fasca replied, the huge diesels bellowing behind him.

  I put the radio back on the pilothouse map table and stared out at the horizon, as I imagined the two below were doing on the car ramp. Between the low clouds and the vast gray expanse of the lake before us, I might as well have been looking at a huge pool of cement. The Adirondack Mountains of New York, usually Lake Champlain’s most dominant feature, were barely a smudge beyond the murkiness.

  We were on board The Champlain, a double-ended, 148-foot-long, 725-ton ferry, built the same year as the Flynn Theatre—1930. This I’d learned from the captain, who now stood glumly beside me, having run out of conversation in the face of my distracted silence.

  I was dressed in khakis and a work shirt, wearing a watch cap of vaguely nautical appearance. Jonathon was part of the deck crew, openly walking around the boat, tending lines and looking innocuous. Audrey, with bandaged head, was wrapped in a blanket, confined to a rented wheelchair near the stern ramp, accompanied by the oldest police officer Giordi could supply, big-bellied, white-haired, and avuncular, who was making a great show of being the doting nurse. Duncan and three others were confined to the engine room, since one glimpse of him would tip Lenny to our presence.

  Lenny Markham, in the meantime, having appeared as we’d hoped at the ferry that same afternoon, was keeping company with the nervous boy who’d escorted Duncan and me to the grid at the Flynn. Neither one had showed up in a vehicle, but Lenny—significantly, I thought—was carrying a heavy-looking duffel bag.

  I leaned forward and tried unsuccessfully to see the leading edge of the bow ramp beyond the upper-deck railing—as I had ten times before. I was in Duncan’s predicament in a sense, having met Lenny face-to-face, but we’d all agreed the lighting had been too poor to make it count, and that standing in the pilothouse I’d be virtually invisible—a member of the crew people noticed but did not see.

  Frustrated, I switched my gaze to the starboard window and looked back toward the Vermont shore, now barely visible. A mere dot in the distance, the Burlington PD’s boat ran a parallel course, waiting to be called in if needed.

  “They’re on the move,” Audrey reported at last. “Coming toward me through the central parking area. I can’t see them too well with all the cars in between.”

  “Jon. Got ’em?” I asked.

  “Getting there,” he answered. “I’m opposite the stairwell to the engine room. I don’t have them in sight yet.”

  “Don’t rush,” I cautioned, instinctively moving to the side I knew Lenny and the boy were on, one level below.

  “I just caught a glimpse of them,” Audrey came back on. “They’re moving toward one of the openings on the side of the boat, where all the smaller cars are parked.”

  I left the confining pilothouse, crossed the deck, and looked over the rail. Flush with the ferry’s exterior steel hull were the large oval holes supplying fresh air and a view to those below. Skirting the length of the boat, just under these windows, was a continuous, foot-wide fender of steel pipe, attached to the hull by angle irons. For an instant, I considered lowering myself to it, just above the rushing water, so I could crouch beneath the opening and eavesdrop on Lenny’s conversation.

  “Okay, I see them now,” Jonathon reported. “They’re between two cars, still talking.”

  “Anyone in the cars?” I asked, stepping back from the rail.

  “As far as I can see, they’re empty. And there’s nobody nearby. Oh, oh… ” There was a pause. “Sorry. Had to duck. Lenny was looking around.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Keep a close—”

  But I was cut off. Jonathon suddenly started shouting, “Go, go, go. Man overboard. Lenny just knifed the other guy.”

  The radio exploded with voices, each drowning the other. As I turned back to the pilothouse, I heard shouts of, “Freeze. Police,” echoing out over the water. I tore open the door and shouted to the captain, “Man overboard, this side.”

  My ear still ringing with disembodied chaos, I ran to the stern and began scanning the water, searching for anything bobbing on the surface. What with the gray, choppy surface and the ferry’s own wake, I couldn’t see a thing. All too slowly, I felt the boat shifting underfoot and saw the previously straight line of froth behind us begin to twist into a curve. I changed channels on my radio and called on the Burlington PD boat to swing in behind our original course and see if they could find the young boy’s body.

  By that time, I was heading toward the stairs to confront Lenny in cuffs. I was stopped by Audrey’s voice. “Joe?”

  “On my way.”

  “You might not want to do that. Lenny’s grabbed a hostage. Some old lady was asleep in one of the cars he was near. Jon didn’t see her.”

  I froze in place. “What’s the layout?”

  “Lenny’s where he was, near one of those window-type things. We’re fanned out in a semicircle behind all the cars. He’s got a knife to her throat.”

  “No gun?”

  “None visible. What’s your location?”

  “Still up
top. Keep him talking. I might be able to flank him.”

  I looked over the railing again at the narrow steel fender fifteen feet below. I checked the bulkhead nearby and found a traditional orange life ring on a hook with a coil of rope attached.

  Unraveling the rope, I quickly tied it to the railing, threw the rest overboard so it trailed in our wake, and returned to the pilothouse. “Got a pair of gloves?”

  The captain, still in the midst of making his circle, merely pointed to a pair by the window. I grabbed them and ran back to my rope, putting them on while I swung one leg over the side.

  My toes parked on the outer edge of the deck, I looped the rope across my shoulders and brought my gloved hands together in front of me. Slowly, I paid out line until my body was parallel with the blur of water. Ignoring the pain that leapt back to life in my damaged right arm, I began stepping backwards down the hull.

  I’d positioned myself well aft of where Lenny was holding the others at bay, but as I worked my way between two of the window openings, I came into full view of some two dozen people. Nobody commented or pointed, either riveted by the action or cognizant of my intentions. Still, it was with a sigh of relief that I reached the fender, ducked out of sight, and let go of the rope.

  Now I was on the equivalent of a narrow ledge at the foot of a sheer cliff, with water rushing by so close I could almost touch it. As long as I was under one of the large windows, this wasn’t a problem, since I could hook my fingertips onto the bottom edge for stability. But moving from opening to opening was something else. The dividers were five to six feet wide—enough to force me to take at least two long side steps without any handhold at all. In addition, the closer I got to Lenny, the more likely it was he would hear me. Any noise on my part and he’d be able to lean outside, still holding his hostage, and merely pitch me into the water. Too late I remembered Tim Giordi’s admonition against yielding to impulse and thought of how much easier it would have been to wait for the police boat to come alongside and show Lenny he was surrounded. On the other hand, I told myself, with one murder to his credit, he was possibly no longer in the mood for debate.